Message in a Bottle

by Starscribe

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Mystery, Science Fiction, Profanity, Violence, Death, Human, Lightning Dust, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 515446

Humanity's space exploration ultimately took the form of billions of identical probes, capable of building anything (including astronauts themselves) upon arrival at their destinations. One lands in Equestria. Things go downhill from there.

There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, and humanity is determined to explore every one. We send probes, probes with the blueprints to reproduce human explorers upon arrival. Uninhabited worlds the galaxy over can be colonized and populated, until after many years they too can join the vast throng of interstellar civilization. But if a probe is very, very lucky, it will land on a populated world instead. Equestria is one such world.

Even so, it's far from perfect for colonization, not with an environment lethal to human life. But each probe is resourceful and armed with the greatest machine intelligence mankind has devised. If placing a human mind into a newly manufactured human body won't work, it will just have to get a little more creative.

This book has a Hardcover! If you want to pick it up, you can grab it here: https://starscribe.net/

This story was written at the behest of Canary In The Coal Mine, who is sponsoring it on my Patreon. As usual, cover by Zutcha. Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail.

Fantastic prereading help from: Chyre, Danger Noodle, Doctor Disco, and Doggyshakespeare (who also did the Esperanto translation). Thank you all for helping to make this story more readable and more consistent for everyone.

Published 2017-04-01 19:20:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-04-06 08:38:58 UTC

G3.01: Some Transit Required

The wasteland continued as far as she could see.

James had seen the maps, so she had a fair idea how long it would take to reach the alien settlement. Even so, knowing she had sixty kilometers to cross and walking that distance were two very different things.

James was nowhere near as young as her body appeared. She had been fifty-three years old at the moment her training had finally been certified as complete and her Mindprint had been taken. Being changed so completely was therefore an extremely jarring experience, one that couldn’t be resolved with just a few nights of sleep. Another factor—one that filled her with constant unease and a growing sense of dread—was the sheer scale of the world around her. These equine aliens were not a tall race, and she had been made into a young member of their species.

There was no hiding from this reality. Every new object James encountered was another reminder. Trees towered over her, and small shrubs became impassable barriers to her sight.

At least she had the XE-201. James felt strength in her limbs unabated by the harsh climate. No thorns or sharp rock had any chance of damaging such advanced protection.

Learn to love your Biosleeve, she remembered reading, near the first page of the Stellar Pioneering Society Handbook. It’s the only one you’ll ever have.

James sought out the path of least resistance that took her in the direction she needed to go. As a human she could’ve easily walked or climbed over the broken crags of this inhospitable plateau of rock and gravel. Her tiny body was simply not equal to the task, not with as uncoordinated as she still was.

Fortunately the rocky planes were broken with ancient riverbeds, with an occasional slope leading in or out. James found one of these, and walked along the long-dead soil, tearing up dry dirt with her boots. She walked for a full day, letting her computation surface fill the air with familiar music as she went.

Eventually it got dark, and James found herself an opening in the rock for a shelter. She didn’t remove the XE-201—it was made for extended field use. Of course, just because the suit was mechanically capable of sustaining her for weeks in the field didn’t mean it was comfortable. James found herself lying awake near the entrance of the little cave, resting on her side and resting her head against the inflatable field-pillow. She stared up at the starry sky as wispy clouds blew by, searching for Earth.

There was no seeing it with the naked eye, of course. Even Sol was too small, too immeasurably distant. Even so, she found herself imagining she could see it, past the numerous mining stations and the planet’s artificial rings to the swamps of Florida where she had spent most of her time training.

Each Forerunner Probe traveled slower than light, and there was no guarantee hers had even come from Earth. It might’ve been decades or even centuries since the original Dr. James Irwin had committed his Mindprint to the Stellar Pioneering Society to join with the many thousands of others already stored there. I wonder what you would think of yourself, an adolescent female equine. Probably not the immortality you dreamed of.

Eventually she must’ve slept. She slept through dawn for the first time in her memory. Instead of sunrise, James woke with the touch of icy water on her face. She blinked in surprise, eyes widening with a faint, animal squeak. As she rose, she found she splashed in water that had crept right up her suit. She hadn’t felt any of it, until it rose up past the edge of her pillow and touched unprotected coat. James shrugged the sopping-wet saddlebags back onto her armor, thankful everything inside was waterproof.

It was pouring rain outside. The entire sky was solid gray, broken by darker patches of angry black roiling with storm. Rain came down in a torrent over her head, rain she had no helmet to protect her from. It was all James could do to slosh her way out of her makeshift shelter and into the canyon of red and brown stone.

The water already reached past what would’ve been her ankles, if she still had them. It moved steadily away from the direction she needed to go, hard enough that she had to lean in and concentrate or else be swept away with it. As the rain came down, currents of water cascaded over the sides of the platforms above, gradually filling the canyon.

“There was supposed to be a clear sky…” she muttered to herself, voice lost in the rush of wind and rain. The sound of water drowned out almost everything. James turned immediately away from the direction she’d been walking, back towards the last ramp she remembered from the day before. Now instead of getting pushed backward by the current, the danger was having her hooves ripped out from under her.

James reached over to just above her right front boot, pressing the (comically large) button to activate her shortwave link. “Computer, can you hear me?” she shouted, over the rain and wind battering her face.

“Transmission received!” Responded the computer, barely loud enough for her to hear. “Go ahead, Dr. Irwin!”

“Why the hell didn’t you warn me it was going to rain?” she shouted, scanning the walls with increasing desperation. It was getting harder and harder to see. What was worse, the water had risen almost to her knees. She was still warm and dry (except for her neck), but it was basically impossible to change direction at this point. She could only coast along with the water, pushing with her legs to steer away from wrong turns and boulders. The water wasn’t just rising, it was accelerating.

The computer’s response sounded washed out and muted. “Barometric pressure readings indicated a stable weather system. Orbital relay satellite detected the gathering storm three hours ago, and your suit was notified. You appear to have disabled notifications while you slept.”

James could only hear it thanks to the little circuit glued to the side of her head, which vibrated the bones instead of using her normal senses. The exterior sounds had been swallowed.

“From now on, forward emergency notifications regardless of my registered notification status!” James roared, not sure if the computer would even hear her anymore. If it responded, she didn’t hear it. All her concentration was now devoted to something far more important.

She could see the way out. A ramp leading up and out of the canyon blurring past her on the left. Past that the canyon narrowed, and the water seemed to froth and boil with the detritus it carried. Deep water would be bad, even with a XE-201. Without a helmet, it would only take one good knock to the head, or getting wedged against a stone, and she would drown.

James kicked and strained against the water, but by now she couldn’t touch the bottom. She was kept afloat only by the positive buoyancy of the suit, and kept from breaking her bones as she knocked into things only thanks to its strength.

She paddled with all her might, mostly by instinct since she had never practiced swimming with four legs. Her forelegs touched land, then dragged through the mud, digging a pair of deep gouges as she was ripped away. James started to spin, rotating around several times before smacking into a large rock in the center of the channel.

“Help!” She screamed in spite of herself, her voice going shrill and eyes filling with tears. She kicked out with all her legs as she did so, very much on instinct, but that didn’t make a difference. The water shoved her under as she ground against the boulder, chilling her. She took in a mouthful of it and started to hack and cough.

James found her whole world fading as water began filling her lungs. She saw flashes of memory—the day she’d finally gone in to get her Mindprint scanned, the cocktail of medications she had taken, how nervous and excited she had felt. Though she’d known that version of her would keep living on Earth, she’d also had hope, however distantly, that somewhere, somewhen, Humans would need a linguist.

One day they would find intelligent life. The data of her mind would be placed inside a probe beside thousands of others, and sent to discover whatever waited beyond the horizon. If she were very lucky, it would discover they weren’t alone. To have come all this way—to have the wildest hopes of probability confirmed only to drown before even meeting an alien seemed like a tragic, horrible shame.

She couldn’t let it happen.

James’s world came back into sharp focus. She couldn’t see anything, her eyes had been completely overwhelmed by the rushing water and dirt. She couldn’t feel anything but the moisture, creeping in through the pressure seal around her neck. She hadn’t taken the time to shave her coat away to get a better seal on her skin, and she was paying for it with a trickle of moisture down her back.

Of course, she’d be dead in a few more moments if she didn’t do something. Being wet would be the least of her worries. James couldn’t get past the current, couldn’t pull herself off the rock and back into the water. The pressure on her body was just too great. But maybe she didn’t have to.

James focused on her right leg, rotating it very slowly in the water. Her body never could’ve accomplished the motion on her own, not with the horrible strength it took. The XE-201 contracted, its fibers granting her inhuman strength. She twisted her leg, until one of the buttons integrated into the side pressed against the side of the boulder. Something blasted out the end of her leg with the strength of a gunshot, trailing a thin line behind it. A second later she felt the faint impact down the line as her grapple impacted the rocky canyon wall.

James counted out five agonizing seconds, her vision going dark. Then something yanked on her arm, so hard that it would’ve been pulled from its socket without the armor to reinforce her body. Motors integrated into the leg whined and strained in protest, dragging her off the boulder. It only took a few inches—just enough to break her precarious balance. James was yanked violently to the right, so harshly that the hook was ripped clean out of the rock. She ground into the dust and gravel before bobbing up.

James hacked and coughed, and the world came into focus again. She could barely see the gray sky, barely see the canyon walls rising around her. Were it not for the buoyancy of the suit, she would’ve been dragged under the water again, never to emerge. Her lungs burned, her head pounded, and her hooves were going numb from the water pooling in her boots. Even with the protection of her suit, she was likely going to be bruised and bloody. How much longer before even the sophisticated fibers couldn’t protect her?

“Help!” she screamed again, knowing there was no one to come for her. Her probe had a dozen aerial drones, not one of which would be strong enough to help her. Those drones were mostly designed to keep the probe’s landing site clear—not to rescue an explorer who had gotten in way over her proverbial head.

Then she saw it. A blur of motion near the clouds, streaking down towards her. Had the computer heard after all? There wasn’t a remote possibility of a survey drone dragging her out of the water, reduced weight notwithstanding. What would it do, record a video of her death for research purposes? James couldn’t help it—she started to cry. Whether the instinct came from the body or her own failures as an explorer, she would never know. Yet it felt like the right thing to do. She was going to die after only a week of subjective life. If anyone had a right to it, it was her.

The blur above her resolved as the canyon walls took another turn, yet it tracked her motion perfectly. As well as a drone with an internal gyroscope might’ve done. Yet as she looked up, she saw no drone at all. What she saw seemed impossible. An alien, not unlike the way she looked, except that it was bigger, faster, and evidently more mature. Most impressive, the creature flew. In defiance of the wind, the rain, and all known laws of aviation, the alien flew, leaving a faint streak of yellow and orange behind it.

It opened its mouth, shouting to her, but its words were completely lost in the wind. James shouted back, waving one hoof towards the creature as a sign that she was still alive. It was all the effort she could muster at this point. The alien dived down towards her, aiming its forelegs as though it were a missile. It flew right down over the water, catching itself in a perfect hover inches above the rushing water, and reaching out with forelegs.

Now James could hear it, though of course she couldn’t understand what it yelled. The mission hadn’t called for a linguist for no reason. But she didn’t need to understand it to know what that gesture meant, and she extended her own hooves, reaching them out of the water as best she could.

It was enough. The alien wrapped tightly around her, lifting her an inch or so above the water and flying straight ahead. She—James was fairly certain it was a she—didn’t try to pull her out of the water.

Water roared around them, and James was battered to the left and right as her dangling hind legs struck submerged debris. None of it caught her, thankfully. “Why aren’t you—” The water fell out from under her in a sudden, spectacular waterfall. James stared down at the abyss, roaring water and jagged stone hundreds of meters below. “Damn.” She very nearly lost consciousness right there.

She didn’t, though she might’ve wished she had. The alien didn’t land on the plateau behind them, didn’t even turn around. Instead she angled herself upward, lifting higher and higher towards the clouds.

She said something else, and now James could make out her words a little clearer. “Kio en suna nomo vi faras ĉi tie?”

“I’m sorry,” she responded, looking away timidly. “I can’t understand you!” Her body was drained. She was too weak to hold up her head, much less carry an intelligent conversation with this alien. She didn’t want to think about how badly damaged her body might be beneath the XE-201. It was too much, beyond what her tiny body could cope with.

The conscious world slipped away.

Author's Note

The story won't normally update this fast, but it was behind where the entries reached on Patreon, so I thought I'd update twice this time, get it caught up. Hopefully people are liking it this far.

G3.01: Repair Protocol

James slept uneasily, feeling as though she was constantly being watched. Occasionally she would wake, catching a brief glimpse of cloudy white rooms and hearing muttering voices. Everything hurt—one of her back legs so badly that she was certain it was broken. It was so much easier just to sleep.

You have a mission, she could almost hear her old self saying, in that mature, deep voice. The voice of an astronaut who had trained his entire life to be an explorer, who had mastered the principles of linguistics in the distant hope that they might one day help humanity contact a species similar enough that they could have a meaningful relationship. You can’t hide forever.

I’m not hiding, James told herself. I’m just resting. Give me a few more hours.

No more, her old self argued. Someone just came in. You’re going to get up right now. You’re going to be a linguist. You’re going to learn their language.

Who was she to argue? James sat up. Her neck and back ached terribly as she did so, and the bleariness of sleep vanished from her perception only with the force of all her will.

The first thing she noticed was that the bed, the room, and many of the objects within it seemed reluctant to solidify. At first she thought she might’ve damaged her eyes, but then she saw the alien across the room, and realized her vision was fine. It was as though the walls, the floor, the bed, had all been made from something gassy and indistinct. Like clouds.

The alien across the room advanced a few nervous steps, giving James her first clear look. She was nearly a head taller than James, without clothing except for a sash over her shoulder. Her coat was the light teal of watered-down antifreeze, her mane like streaks of lightning in different shades of yellow. Her voice was harsh, worried, nervous.

I recognize her emotions. I can tell what she’s feeling! Well, she thought she did. James had to remind herself to be objective. For all she knew, this might be a show of anger at territorial encroachment.

“I can’t…” she responded, knowing the alien wouldn’t be able to understand. “I can’t understand you.”

"Kiu lingvo estas tio, ĉevalidino? Ĉu vi ne parolas la ĉevalan?"

“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. Then she realized she was naked.

James rolled backward off the bed, blushing fiercely and jamming her back legs closed as firmly as she could. She cowered behind the bed, searching the room for her XE-201 or any of the gear it had contained. She had a few bandages on her body, some of which clung to her with a wet, slightly gooey feeling. Other than that, there was nothing. Her tiny body smelled faintly of soap and her hair and tail had been brushed, but that was it. “Do you know what happened to my stuff?”

Every time she spoke, the alien only seemed to grow more confused. No more comprehending than James herself. Her sudden state of fear dismissed any of the mental notes she had been taking about the alien language.

“Trankviliĝu, ĉevalidino. Vi estas en neniu stato por esti tiel aganta. Tie… simple malstreĉiĝu. Ĉu vi fartas bone?” The adult walked over to her with no regard for how fearful and embarrassed James felt. Yet there was nowhere else to back away.

She felt one of the alien’s soft wings wrap around her, pulling her close. She felt warmth enveloping her, and the heartbeat through the alien’s chest. More rapid than any human heartbeat, but also regular and calm. The gesture did not last very long, and the adult seemed to stiffen as she did it, as though afraid James might attack.

James took several deep breaths, and found she started to relax. Her back arched, instinct sending shivers down her spine. Her chest stopped pounding.

Again the alien spoke, this time her words coming slow and deliberate. "Bonvolu paroli tiel. Mi ne komprenas vin." Speaking more slowly did not make her words easier to understand.

“I… I don’t…”

The alien let go, retreating again and staring at her.

James wanted to do more. Her visitor tried talking to her several more times, growing more frustrated each time she opened her mouth.

James found her ability to concentrate on her task decreasing. Whenever she opened her mouth to talk, her tongue felt dry and her wings covered up most of her face. I lied to the computer when I said I could do my job. I don’t stand a fucking chance.

After a few more tries the alien eventually left, practically gliding over to the door and snapping it closed with a flurry of feathers.

James did not follow. In part because of how awestruck she was—the first human to ever attempt communication with an alien race, the first to discover any species that seemed similar enough that communication might even be possible. But she didn’t have her computer to make recordings, didn’t even have a few sheets of paper to keep notes. Not that it would matter. I don’t have the dexterity to write much anyway.

Dr. Irwin slumped onto the ground, splayed her wings out around her, and started to cry.

She wasn’t sure how long she lay there, helpless and unmoving, but eventually she’d had her fill of tears. Getting the pain out did make her feel a little better about her situation. Half a century of training came back to her, as ground into her memory as the patterns of her mind had been into the probe’s holographic neuroimprint medium.

Step one, assess your situation. James sat up, wiping away tears with the edge of one feathery wing, and looked around the room.

It didn’t look much like a prison. Though small, the quarters seemed quite comfortable. The ground—whatever it was—felt far nicer on her body than any shag carpet. She was standing on damp pillows. A faint light came through the floor below her, providing the room’s only illumination. It was bright enough to easily see without hurting her eyes.

The room was about ten meters long and half that distance across. It had her bed in one corner along with a nightstand, then a table and a single chair on the other side. The walls were bright and friendly, and it was at that moment she noticed the pattern on them.

Some words ran around the top of the room, she could recognize that even at a glance. Were they an alphabet? The symbols were quite large and seemed to repeat more often than a language like Chinese would’ve done, suggesting it might be an alphabet. It might also just be for decoration.

Someone had painted what looked like a fanciful city in the clouds, with dozens of smiling aliens with wings all frolicking around. Near her bed the colors gradually bled into darker blues and grays, and a massive alien spread her dark blue wings right above where she would be resting her head to sleep.

The room contained no loose objects of any kind. No phone by the bedside, no lamp, no glass of water. No medical equipment, not even a pad of paper and a pen.

The only other feature of the room was a single pane of glass located directly away from her, just beside the door. It was mirrored so intensely she couldn’t see through it. One way window. She was impressed with the ingenuity. Far more than painting a piece of childish art, understanding the principles of chemistry and optics enough to create an observational window spoke volumes to this society’s level of sophistication.

2. Corroborate Observations

James began to pace about the hospital room, her face scrunched in concentration. So what did she know?

She knew these aliens were intelligent and possessed a language. Any personal doubt she might’ve held from just satellite pictures and shapes that looked like buildings was now dismissed.

They appeared to have a mastery of some technologies. Advanced construction, glass-making, optics. Glass meant the ability to make accurate observations of the universe. It meant telescopes, microscopes, beakers. It meant being able to study the natural world and draw conclusions.

Lastly, they appeared to have a familiar emotional range. The pony who had rescued James had stayed to make sure she was okay. She had expressed compassion when James was unable to cope with her situation. She had also later expressed frustration when communication failed.

3. Draw Conclusions

James could feel comfortable using some human behaviors as a projection of the actions of these aliens. They had somehow managed to find and rescue her even when she’d been lost in a flood many kilometers from what she thought was their nearest city. They had taken care of her, administered competent medical help.

They would be coming back. James was not in prison but in a hospital. What would I do if I found a kid lost in the wilderness who didn’t speak any language I knew?

I’d look for their parents and call the police.

She relaxed then, sitting down on her haunches and resting her back on the cot behind her. The aliens may very well have done exactly what she needed from them. The authorities would be the people she wanted anyway.

4. Determine Action

James had been well cared-for during her time while helpless. She was locked into close proximity with the aliens, and she could use the time to start on a translation of their language. Of course, that might take years. Her mission’s failure conditions included a two-year limit, after which some number of less-skilled linguists would be instanced to attempt her job. Unless I die first.

Would it take that long? She didn’t know. It would take far less if she could get the computation surface back. Having accurate recordings of everything the aliens said would go a long way towards understanding it. She would find a way to ask for her computer when next the orderlies returned. For the moment she would relax, try to puzzle out the writing on the mural, and hope whatever amounted to alien authorities would be cooperative.

* * *

“Well? How was she?” The question came from one of the nurses, dressed in white and red and loitering near the observation window.

Lightning Dust resisted lashing out at the nurse, though not easily. Stormshire General had only one floor, and half the ponies on it would likely hear her if she did. She stopped, took a deep breath, and shook her head. “You saw,” Lightning Dust answered, shrugging one wing. Then she hesitated, glancing back through the glass. She couldn’t see the pony anymore—she must be on the ground near the window. “She… Didn’t she have a broken leg when I brought her in? She hopped right out of bed like it was nothing.”

She smiled a little as she thought about it. Even if she hadn’t been able to understand a word the filly had said, Lightning Dust could at least appreciate her spirit.

“Yes, she did. Miss Mystery has had quite the miraculous healing since she got here. I suppose that makes everything else we’ve learned about her that much more surprising.” The nurse turned away from her room. “Did we show you the X-rays?”

“No,” Lightning Dust admitted. “I won’t know what I was looking at anyway, Healing Touch. Might as well just explain it.”

“Well, by the time we’d made the arrangements for a unicorn doctor to make it all the way out here, we knew the healing would have already begun. Apparently the bone wasn’t even broken anymore.”

“Tough kid.” Dust glanced away, back through the window. She still couldn’t see the filly, though she thought she could hear something through the wall. Was that crying?

“Yes, yes. Though… that wasn’t all we found. I’m frankly a little disturbed, Miss Dust. Something awful happened to that little pony.” The nurse seemed to be watching her expression because she raised a wing soothingly. “Nothing you did, Dust! Not even her leg. It’s just…”Sshe lowered her voice. “Well, I shouldn’t be saying this to you, anyway. Only the pony’s parents, except given the information…”

“Say it,” Dust said, matching the nurse’s volume. “You know how much I care about the ponies I bring in here.”

“Well, there are ways to tell from a pony’s X-ray if they’ve been hurt before. This little filly’s been hurt an awful lot. You should’ve heard Dr. Penumbra talking about her… apparently, she’s as much scar tissue as muscle. If it weren’t for as fast as she heals, she might not even be on her hooves. If we had the resources of the big Canterlot hospitals, we’d probably have her on immobility, maybe work her through traction therapy. But we just don’t have the budget for any of that. Or… any unicorns on staff.” She sighed. “I’m sorry to make you worry about this, Dust. You’ve already done your part just by getting the little pony here. Anyway… Did she tell you her parents’ names? Given what we’ve learned about, plenty of ponies here are very eager to find them.”

“No,” Lightning Dust responded. “She doesn’t… I don’t think she can speak Eoch.”

“What?” Nurse Healing Touch looked away from the window, eyes widening a little. “Are you sure? We deal with scared little fillies and colts all the time, Lightning Dust. Given the situation you described, it’s entirely reasonable for her to be suffering from significant psychological strain. If she was babbling, or you couldn’t make sense of what she said—”

“She wasn’t babbling,” Lightning Dust said, turning back to look into the window herself. “It’s another language, Healing Touch. It sounded… and this is just a guess… but I met a dragon once, and it sounded a little like that. I think she’s speaking Draconian.”

Healing Touch shook her head. “Baffling. I’m glad I’m not her doctor. We’ll have to bring in a psychologist for sure.” She straightened, then lifted a clipboard from where it hung on the door, proffering it to Lightning Dust.

Lightning Dust took it with one of her wings. “What’s this?”

“Release. Just jot down everything you remember about what just happened so I can pass it along to Dr. Penumbra.”

“Alright,” Lightning Dust said, walking over to the nearest chair to sit down and write. “You’ll contact me as soon as we learn anything? I’d like to help find her parents.” And see they get a little payback for abandoning a child alone in the wilderness.

“Sure,” Healing Touch promised. “Just sign at the bottom of your statement and check the box saying we can contact you. We’ll be in touch as soon as we find anything.”

“Good,” Lightning Dust scribbled quickly with the pencil tied to the board. She wasn’t very detailed—the nurse had been watching the whole time from just through the glass, after all. She made sure to print clearly, even though she knew Healing Touch would remember her.

Healing Touch took the clipboard, then waved with her other wing. “Good luck with your rescuing! We’ll take good care of the mysterious little filly in the meantime.”

Lighting Dust nodded absently, walking away down the hall. She passed many friendly faces—ponies who greeted her with a cheerful wave or at least a polite nod. Stormshire was too far away for gossip about her discharge from the Wonderbolts to make it—too far away for the distrust and stares that would follow.

She could only hope her history would remain secret long enough to discover what had happened to this mysterious pony. It would be a shame to move on and join another weather team in another city and never learn what the pony had been doing dressed in magical armor getting swept away in a flood.

I’ll write to Charcoal. Maybe he could fly out here to help with translation. Lightning Dust no longer trusted Equestria to get things done the way she once had. I’ll stop by after work every few days, just in case.

Author's Note

So for those of you who are worried that I expect readers to speak Esperanto for the rest of the story, I'd like to reassure you that won't be the case. I wanted to authentically convey James's confusion here. Eventually, I won't have to, and we'll be done with the Esperanto for good. (and yes I realize it doesn't make any sense for ponies to be speaking a constructed language from Earth. Don't take that as a hint at the setting, it's just me not being skilled enough to invent my own fake language for them).

Also, holy crap this story stayed in the featured box for a whole week! That's so awesome and completely unexpected. Lots of new faces in the comments. Thanks for giving the story a chance. I promise to do my very best to make the ride worth your while.

G4.05: Meaningful Contact

The next alien to open the door came in the evening. James recognized her for a nurse from the cart she was pushing.

“I need to talk to someone in charge. And I need my things back. Can you return them to me?”

The alien looked up from her cart, which James could now see had a metal tray of food resting on the top. "Mi bedaŭras, ĉevalidino, sed mi ne komprenas vin. Ĉu vi ne ŝatus iun manĝaĵon? Kreskantaj knabinoj kiel vi bezonas manĝaĵon."

The nurse lifted the lid off her tray, showing it to James.

It was the most revolting bit of “food” James had ever seen. It looked like hay had been left to rot in the sun for a few days, then bits of overcooked vegetables had been added on top as a garnish. It had a wet, slimy look to it. It didn’t smell much better than it looked.

“Yikes. You eat that?” She recoiled, covering up her face with one wing.

“Ho, mi scias tion, kion poneoj diras pri malsanuleja manĝaĵo,” said the nurse. “Sed ĝi ne estas tiel malbona. Post ĉio, kion vi travivis, vi bezonas ĉiun mordon.” The nurse hurried over to her, scooping her up off the ground with one impatient leg.

She didn’t fight. What would be the point? Soon enough she was back in bed, with an extendable tray holding the food close to her. There were no utensils.

“Nun mi iros por sidi tie, kaj atendos ĝis kiam vi finos,” said the nurse. “Se vi manĝos tion, mi alportus al vi ion dolĉan por deserto. Ĉu sukervato bonus?”

James straightened, holding up both legs. She held one flat, miming drawing on it with the other. “Please, can I have something to write with? I… you can’t understand any of this anyway.” She looked glumly down at what passed for food.

“Unue, manĝu vian manĝon. Vi povas ludi nur post kiam vi manĝos.”

James did not have to be a linguist to know what the nurse meant. She kept pointing at the food with one of her wings, looking peremptory. “Food?” James tried, pointing at it too.

“Kio?” The nurse asked. “Ĉu io en via manĝaĵo malĝustas?”

“Kio,” she imitated. James copied everything about the word perfect on her first try—the intonation, the inflection, everything. She pointed at the food again. “Kio? KIO?”

“Ne!” The nurse’s eyes widened. “Mi ne opinas, ke mi estu iu, kiu farus tion, ĉevalidino. Ĉi tio estas manĝaĵo. Manĝaĵo.

“Manĝaĵo,” she repeated, and this time she was greeted with a smile in response, and a nod. I shouldn’t assume these emotions mean she thinks I’m right. But if it means delaying when I have to eat this. This time she pointed at herself. “James.”

“Jaaemes,” the nurse responded, after a moment. “Ĉu tio estas via nomo, poneo?”

As usual, James didn’t know what the alien had said. She nodded anyway. It had sounded close enough. Then she pointed to the alien.

“Ho,” the nurse said. “Mi vidas, kien tio iras. Saĝa eta poneo, ĉu ne?” She sat down on the ground in front of James, clearing her throat. “Mi estas Resaniganta Tuŝo. Re-sa-ni-gan-ta Tu-ŝo.”

“Resaniganta Tuŝo,” she repeated, and the nurse beamed. Even more pleased than the first time. I suppose being younger does make this less embarrassing…

“Manĝu,” the nurse said, pointing at the ‘meal’ again. “Manĝu la nutraĵon.” Her stern expression returned. Apparently this exploration of alien language wouldn’t let her skip her meal.

James didn’t eat in silence. The nurse alien spoke to her through most of it, gesticulating with her legs or her wings at various things. James tried to stop eating and watch more than once, but this wasn’t allowed—as soon as she lifted her head from the bowl, even for a few seconds, the nurse would scold her again.

The food tasted much like it looked. Bland, cold, and slimey. James missed her nutrition packs, but those would be tucked away with the rest of her belongings. Now how could I ask for those back…

The nurse didn’t stick around much past offering her a sweet dessert of something frighteningly like cotton candy, though it was wetter and colder than any she’d ever tasted before. It was delicious, so James did eat it. By the time she had finished, she was alone again.

The next few days had passed in a blur for James. She spoke to several different doctors, though “spoke” was a somewhat subjective term in those cases. None had the patience to stick around with James long enough for her to pick up more than a handful of new words.

Some things had improved. For some reason she didn’t know, the aliens chose to return her computation surface. Neither the armor, nor the transmitter, nor the handgun or any of her food were given back. She used it to make notes during each conversation, since she didn’t want to display the extent of the computation surface’s abilities while they were around, lest it be taken from her.

It was hard to say exactly how seriously the doctors and nurses took her. James got at least an hour with one of them each day to go over basic words and vocabulary, a process facilitated only by the fact that their world had so many culturally similar nouns. I don’t even want to think about the odds.

When none of the aliens were in the room with her, James spent her time in a “fort” in the far side of the room, hiding behind the mattress where she could work on her computation surface without being seen from the window. Her sleep remained restless each night, though it got a little better as time wore on.

Nearly two weeks into her imprisonment, someone who seemed different from the parade of doctors and nurses finally arrived.

She looked much like many of the others, though her coat was pale yellow and her tail and mane were three different shades of purple and red. She also wore a pair of glasses, which James might’ve thought were adorable if she weren’t looking up at them from below. Most significantly, she didn’t have wings. Instead, she had a bony protrusion growing from her head, spiraling so that its point peeked out just a little from her mane.

She entered the room during the same afternoon block that James usually received her visit from the doctors, after the afternoon “meal.” At once James could sense an aura of deference from the doctors, who kept their distance from her. That made her want to retreat a little. She didn’t, though she did set the blanket down over the screen of her computation surface.

She’d been halfway through with a preliminary extraction of alien verb conjugations—a few more days of this, and she’d be well on her way to building a guide to basic phrases.

James rolled onto the floor, sitting on her haunches in the way she’d learned was most comfortable. That position had the bonus of concealing her functional anatomy against the floor—the aliens hadn’t even returned her undersuit layers. “Hello,” she said in their language. “I am James Irwin. It is good to meet you.” She stuck out her hoof, as her original instance might’ve done with a hand. The aliens seemed to understand the gesture generally, because most returned it.

The adults paused, conversing with each other very briefly in hushed voices. The doctors seemed satisfied.

“Hello,” the newcomer responded, her words very slow and deliberate. “I am Moondancer. Do you—” the rest melted into things she didn’t understand.

“I don’t understand,” she said, one of the first phrases she had the doctors teach her.

Moondancer turned slightly away, nodding towards the door. The doctors hurried out in a rush, leaving them alone.

I know you’re all still watching me through the glass. You can’t trick me.

Moondancer said something else, and that was when things got strange. James staggered back, eyes widening as she saw. The bony protrusion on Moondancer’s head had started to glow. It was like she’d dipped it in a glow stick, lighting up her messy mane as she did so.

James backed away, her rump touching the rear wall. As with the floor it gave just a little under the pressure, though not nearly enough for her to push through it.

Then there was a flash. James dropped to the ground, screaming. She clutched at her head with both hooves, feeling something there. A brief, pulsing migraine roared in her ears, and the whole world flipped over itself. What’s happening what’s happening where did that light come from what’s going on what am I doing here is that the ground no that’s my tail why is everything spinning? And lots of other words, though most of them were curses.

She wasn’t sure how long she lay there on the ground, clutching at her head with both hooves and wishing for all the lights to go away. Eventually the ringing started to die down, and James could hear the newcomer speaking just beside her. “The pain won’t last—but neither will the spell.”

James opened her eyes to see her horn was no longer glowing, and she was leaning against James’s bed to keep herself standing. Moondancer was breathing very heavily, like she’d just run up several flights of stairs.

“I can…” James stammered, rising shakily. The pain had already started to fade, leaving only a strange pressure on her skull. “I can… I understood what you said!”

“That’s correct.” She nodded in agreement. “I briefly borrowed your knowledge of language so we could communicate. The information will not persist. It’s not a good idea to cast this spell on the same pony more than once every sunrise. For… reasons that will probably be beyond somepony your age.”

James’s mind was spinning. The alien was speaking English! She’d done something, something painful and incredible, something that James could not explain. She had also said the effect wouldn’t last. She could obsess over what had made it possible after.

“I have come to your planet from space,” she said, her voice coming in a sudden rush. “The planet I came from is called Earth, and I represent the Stellar Pioneering Society. We wish to enter into diplomatic contact with your species and teach you the method of our technology. Making formal contact with you is not my assignment. I have been sent to learn your language, then teach it to the diplomats who will follow me. Any assistance you could provide me with this assignment will greatly benefit both of our races.”

Moondancer stared at her for several seconds. There was no amusement in her face, as James herself might’ve felt if a small child had said that to her. There also wasn’t shock, surprise, disbelief… “That is a very interesting claim,” she eventually said. “I represent the Equestrian Department of Medicine. Really, I’m just a consultant they rushed here because apparently they don’t teach doctors ‘invasive’ mind magic…” She trailed off, seeming to remember James was in front of her.

“Oh, right. Your claim is… well.” She looked down at the ground. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Jamies.” None of the aliens ever did a good job with her name. “Your claim is very difficult to believe.” She glanced briefly back at the shut door, and the opaque mirror. “Your doctors would be disturbed to hear me say this, but… they are concerned you suffered severe mistreatment.

“You’re a foal who was left on her own kilometers away from the nearest city, during a scheduled downpour…” She shook her head. “I know I shouldn’t say things like that to a foal, but you sound mature. I suppose hardship can do that to a filly on her own, can’t it?”

“There was no hardship,” James said, keeping the frustration out of her voice only through great effort. “I am an alien. The possessions your people confiscated… my suit, my transmitter, my gun… bring them here! I could demonstrate their capabilities for you and prove my claim right now.”

James tore off the blanket with her mouth, lifting the computation surface very gently from the bed and setting it down in front of the unicorn. She moved one hoof through the space above it, browsing through her files. Without the transmitter she couldn’t access anything in cloud storage, which precluded most of her data. Still, there were standard videos stored on each computer. She selected the first-contact presentation and pressed play.

At once the space above the display lit up with the projected image. Whatever Moondancer had been about to say never made it out of her mouth as she stopped, staring at the images.

The computation surface displayed an image of Earth, along with an announcer. The image zoomed into the planet, showing plants, animals, and cities. All were peaceful, idyllic—the planet was made to look like a paradise. Only the best, most beautiful things Earth had to offer were shown.

“What kind of construct is this?” Moondancer spoke over the announcer, though she didn’t take her eyes away. “How are you modulating the illusion without a horn?” The computation surface began to levitate, floating through the air directly towards Moondancer.

James jerked backward with a scream of surprise. A few seconds later, the screen no longer detected her presence, and it went dark.

“Oh,” Moondancer sounded disappointed. Whatever she had been looking for on the bottom of the device, she hadn’t found. “This is just a basic cloudwalking rune. It’s the only magic I can sense on the entire construct.”

“I… don’t think my language has words for whatever you keep trying to tell me…” James said, her heart still racing. “It sounds like you keep saying magic. My computation surface is an electrical device. A computer, one of the many things my people want yours to have, if they want. You saw what my species looks like. What I used to look like.” A tiny lie, but she didn’t want to get into it now. It was close enough to the truth.

“We are here to make contact. Er… not with me specifically. My only mission is to translate your language. Once I do that, diplomats will be created to do the actual introductions. Oh!” She grinned. “Please, whatever else happens, please have the doctors bring me the biggest, thickest dictionary you make. Any other books you have on your language. Could you do that?”

The unicorn seemed barely to hear her at that point. She had kept staring at the computation surface, even after it stopped floating and its screen went dark. “I need to take this to Canterlot,” she muttered, turning with a swish of her tail. The computation surface followed her. “This magic needs to be studied, and I need to report you to Family Services, and perhaps the Archeological Society as well.”

“My computer won’t work without me nearby!” James couldn’t keep the despair from her voice. “There’s no point stealing it!”

“Don’t worry yourself, filly.” She wasn’t looking back anymore. “I’ll authorize your release on my way out. There’s clearly no reason to keep you locked up in here. Family Services will find you a good home. I’ll pass on what you said through the proper channels. You can tell somepony with authority, if they judge you worth their time.”

She left, taking James’s computer with her. James shouted after her, ran at the door, but it snapped closed before she could squeeze through. She banged on it once or twice with her hooves, but no one came.

She whimpered, sliding down onto her face on the floor and starting to cry. It was a sensation she was getting quite used to.

So much for humanity’s brave explorer.

* * *

Lightning Dust couldn't speak to Welcome Basket as she passed the front desk, not when she was carrying a small basket of pastries in her mouth. She nodded politely, and was pleased to see the various doctors and orderlies let her pass without so much as a second glance. Dust had helped put plenty of ponies into Stormshire General, and not in the same way as she had during her Wonderbolts training. Everypony who saw her knew that if she was here, she had a good reason. Even when all she had was a basket of treats.

Yet there was something off about the hospital today. As she passed into the (almost always empty) pediatric wing, with its three rooms, she could hear the nurses speaking in hushed voices. Doctor Penumbra stood in one corner, his tail erect and his ears straight, pacing back and forth with an expression Dust could only describe as enraged. "The absolute nerve of it... a week of care down the drain... no regard..."

Dust stopped walking, setting the basket down on the cloud-floor in front of her. Like everything else in a pegasus village, it had been enchanted not to fall through the clouds, so it was safe. So long as she didn't accidentally spill the steaming pastries onto a hospital floor. "What's going on?" Dust asked, to nopony in particular. "I just came to see how the kid was doing..."

At once, four pairs of eyes turned on her. For a second she could see their hostility reflected there, redirected from whatever had caused it to her. Then they seemed to recognize her, and the moment passed. "Ask her." Dr. Penumbra pointed into one of the empty hospital rooms with one wing, its door hanging half ajar. "Storms in here, 'authority of the crowning' her way over my medical advice. Using Neuromancy on a foal..." he kept talking, lowering his voice below what Dust could make out. She was confident he'd started cursing.

So that's what the carriage was about, Dust found herself thinking, but she didn't say so out loud. It was more than a little unusual to find a privately chartered chariot of pegasus ponies anywhere in Stormshire. "On the kid?" Dust asked, feeling her whole body tense. A few flickers of static electricity ran down her mane to the end of her tail, making it stand on end. "The one I brought in?"

"Yeah," Healing touch muttered, her eyes wide with shock. "Poor filly's in a right state."

That was all Dust needed to hear. She stormed past the doctor and the nurse, throwing the empty hospital door wide open. What she found inside was... not quite what she'd expected.

A single member of the Solar Guard waited just inside the doorway, looking bored in his gold armor. Just behind them, a large metal crate rested on the examination table, most of its sides removed. A single unicorn pony stood on the clouds beside it, levitating an object inside.

Dust recognized it at once as one of the two objects the filly had come in with, at least the ones they'd managed to save. "Excuse me," she said very loudly, ignoring the angry stares of the guard. "That doesn't belong to you."

The unicorn turned to face her, every bit as smug as the whole collective race. She wasn't an impressive specimen, eyes behind a pair of broken glasses and her mane a little frizzy, but there was something dangerous about her expression. "Who let you in here?" The pony asked, her tone harsh.

Dust ignored the question. "I'm the one who saved that pony," she said, gesturing out the door with her wing. "Here I am come to check on her, and you..." her eyes narrowed. "that's her’s." She didn't even bother hiding her anger. "Give it back."

The guard rose to his full height, side-stepping towards the unicorn. He didn't raise his spear, which still leaned against his side, but the gesture was obvious all the same.

"You don't know what you're involved with, pony," the unicorn said. "The pony in the other room has put this entire town in danger. She is lucky to be alive."

Dust tensed even more, if it were possible. Seeing ponies who didn't deserve it punished because the "safety" of others had been threatened was all too a familiar feeling for her. "You mean because she could've drowned? That was a lucky break for her. Lucky my weather patrol was passing that way."

"No, no!" the unicorn gestured through the air with one hoof, frustrated. "Look, I'm sorry this is difficult for you. I'm sorry this bothers the doctors. But the fate of one pony is less important than what happens to all of us." She lowered her voice to a dangerous whisper, holding up the object she'd taken. It looked as unimpressive to Lightning Dust as it had the day she'd first seen it. "This object is extremely dangerous. There is..." she lowered her voice still further. "Look, pony. I don't know who you are, and there's only so much I can tell you." She levitated the object back into the heavy metal crate, resting it on the padding inside.

"Tell me what you can," Dust said, her voice as low and threatening as she could make it. "Because if you don't, I might just have to report a thief to Mayor Ledger."

The unicorn rolled her eyes, as infuriatingly superior as ever a unicorn could be. "Fine, pony. If that's the way you want this to be. But I want your name first."

"Lightning Dust," she said. It didn't matter that anypony who wanted to could find enough information on her to destroy her life in this little town. Any unicorn outsider who was important enough to have the escort of a Solar Guardspony would be important enough to do that, if she wanted. But Dust didn't care--not after what had happened to the child. I put her here because I thought she'd be safe, and now I find out this is happening...

"Well, Lightning Dust, let's just say... there is a dangerous faction living out in the Badlands. We have encountered them a few times before--perhaps you'll recall the Canterlot invasion."

Dust nodded begrudgingly. "I read the papers."

"Good," the unicorn said, though her condescending tone hadn't changed. "Dodge City has been reporting strange things for the last several years. The thefts of small objects, unexplainable sights in the night, and six months ago, the..." she shook her head. "I'm not at liberty to say. Let me just say that ponies died, Miss Lightning Dust. Many others got sick, and to my knowledge they are still sick." she pointed with one hoof at the object. "This... device... is just like the ones that we discovered... in relation to one of the previous incidents. The only means we have found to prevent injury is to encase these objects in lead and leave them far away from ponies. When I bring this back, the princess of Friendship herself is likely to get involved. Do you know how serious that is, Lightning Dust?"

Dust found her wings deflating, falling limply to her sides. While it was true that she didn't trust the authorities, making claims that ponies had been killed, claims that could be easily verified given she'd provided the name of the nearby town where the events had occurred. Well, that was enough that Dust found herself bereft of anything to say. "S-she has..." she found herself stammering. "The pony in there, she had another object we managed to save. A small wood and metal thing..."

"Oh yes," the unicorn waved a hoof dismissively. She'd already turned back to the box, raising the metal walls one at a time and securing them with straps. "I already examined it. It lacks the... traits necessary to cause the little filly harm. The filly can keep it. I am not a cruel pony, Lightning Dust. I promise to do everything in my power to spare this child further pain. I have already noted in my report she should not be contacted again as part of this investigation. The information her file provided about the location she was discovered will be sufficient for the royal inquiry, I am sure of it. And if not, I'll make sure a more sensitive pony than myself is sent to question her. A foal psychologist, with all the correct qualifications."

Even as she heard it, Dust heard the contradictions. The slime, the ulterior motives, the deception she had come to know so well from these authorities was back again. She had heard that same tone when she was dismissed from the Wonderbolts. She knew full well the real reason she'd been thrown out. It didn't matter that she'd made a mistake, it only mattered because of the ponies who had been the "victims" of her mistake. "I see," Dust glared at her one last time, then took a step back. "I am... sorry to have inconvenienced a royal investigation."

The pony shrugged one shoulder. "Very well then. Good day." It was a dismissal, and Dust wasn't about to refuse. She hurried from the room, returning to the basket of pastries she had left in the hall. She could only help something tasty would make up for what the filly had suffered today.

* * *

Many kilometers away, the Forerunner Probe continued polling at James’s destroyed transmitter. It received no response, just as it hadn’t for the last 24 days. The addition of the last few hours were exactly enough to trip one last node in its neural network.

Probability of Instance_James_Irwin_G3.01 deceased 81%. Acceptable threshold passed. Contingency activated.

The probe had spent all of its spare resources over the last two weeks identifying the reason generation 3 had been created at such an apparently young age. It didn’t have a solution yet, but it was close. By the time a newly instanced generation reached that stage in their growth, it would have the solution. There was, therefore, nothing preventing it from proceeding to the next contingency.

G4.01 instantiated. New generation includes required improvements to biological maturity for increased emotional stability and versatility.

A Forerunner Probe did not have any attachment to a specific mission strategy. If the mission took a hundred attempts, it wouldn’t complain. The probe could keep iterating until it got things right.

Probability of stage 2 subtask success with singular crew member has dropped below acceptability threshold of 9%. G4.02, G4.03, G4.04, G4.05 instantiated.

Five of the six biofabricators began to hum quietly in the darkened interior of the underground base, a new name appearing on the screen in each one.

Martin Faraday, Karl Nolan, Olivia Fischer, Dorothy Born, James Irwin.

G4.05: Refractory

Lightning Dust had planned to visit the hospital every few days, to make sure the ponies in charge didn’t find more ways to screw over the filly she’d rescued. At first she managed to keep this up, bringing small gifts of sweets to add a little variety to the filly’s hospital food diet. But less than a week in, wildfires far up north necessitated every available weatherpony (including her) to fly up with as much moisture as they could to stem the flames and protect Equestria’s countryside.

It took two full weeks for the fires to be contained and for everypony to be sent home (with ample overtime bits). Once Dust repaired the incidental damage to her cloud home and squared away everything with the factory, it was back to the hospital to see what had happened to the filly.

The pony at the counter, Welcome Basket, looked up as she entered. The lobby was empty this evening, as it often was. Stormshire was a quiet town, off the beaten path and without any particularly dangerous activities.

“Lightning Dust,” she said, looking up with a smile from the book she’d been reading. Dimestore Daring Do trash, but Dust wouldn’t say as much. “No heroics today?”

“No,” she stopped. “Nopony’s needed saving.” It had been a different story up north. But in more settled areas, there were whole groups of ponies who looked out for those in need. Firefighters, ambulance workers, policemares. Stormshire didn’t have any of those. “I’m just here to check on the pony I brought last time. Did they ever find her parents?”

“Oh, you mean Jaiemes.” Welcome Basket turned away, trotting to the other side of the desk, where there were several large filing cabinets. She picked a folder without hesitating and walked back with it clutched in her mouth.

“Is that her name?” Dust waited patiently, tapping one of her hooves on the cloud-floor.

Welcome Basket shrugged. “That’s what she called herself, according to Healing Touch. I never spoke to her myself.” She trailed off, staring down at the files.

“Looks like… no, they never found her parents.” She frowned. “No cutie mark to search in the registry, and her dental records were nonexistent. All kinds of strange, couldn’t get anything on her. Nothing more about it here, except that she’s been transferred to Family Services’ local orphanage.”

“We don’t have an orphanage,” Dust pointed out, trying not to sound confrontational. She didn’t do a good job. “Where would they take her?”

Welcome Basket shut the folder. “Does it matter? You’ve done your part in saving her life, Lightning Dust. Let somepony else worry about it.”

She remembered pulling her from the water. Remembered her desperate cries. Remembered how helpless she’d been in the hospital. How needy she’d been. Whatever mystery had placed a pony who couldn’t even speak Eoch hundreds of kilometers from civilization, she didn’t know.

Welcome Basket was right, of course. It wasn’t her problem anymore. There were other ponies to worry about things like this.

Yet Lighting Dust remembered her own childhood. Remembered what it was like to be a “difficult” child, passed from home to home because nopony knew how to deal with her. Her problems might not have been so bad (she could speak Eoch for one thing, though she hadn’t been able to read for several years).

More importantly, she remembered how good a job the hospital had done protecting her, when Lightning Dust had left her here. Then she laughed.

“Yeah, maybe it isn’t. Saving ponies isn’t my job either, but I seem to do plenty of that.” I have to repay the debt somehow. “Did that…” she bit back a few obscene words. “Did the mare from Canterlot ever return the filly’s possessions?”

Welcome Basket shook her head, expression darkening a little. “You mean the poison box? No, she didn’t bring it back. Hasn’t been back at all, actually. Just the transfer orders from Family Services…”

“Was it really poison?” Dust asked, unable to help herself. Maybe another pony wouldn’t be able to get away asking questions about confidential information around the hospital. But when you’d saved lives, the ponies became cooperative. It was a nice perk of the business. “Did anypony actually get hurt?”

“Well… no,” Welcome Basket sounded thoughtful. “But Dodge Junction apparently had a few. Some kinda flu, except it made them lose their hair… and skin, sometimes,” she shivered. “Can you imagine? Earth Pony hospital dealing with a magical disease?”

“No,” Dust said, growing resolved. “Thanks for the help.” She left.

It took several hours to track the little pony down. She’d gone to the office of Family Services, then flown to the other end of town, then found the ancillary office closed and had to fly to the pony’s house.

Stormshire was a working, factory town. Whenever services like this were needed, it relied on the settlements below to provide them. Unfortunately, there were no services offered in the Badlands, and Dodge Junction had just as little to offer as Stormshire.

Eventually she discovered the truth: The regional office would eventually send a carriage to transfer the filly to the ground for foster care, but not until the city passed over Appleloosa.

Three months from now.

In the meantime, the filly was being housed in the basement of City Hall, and volunteers would sit daily shifts until she could be brought to proper facilities. In a way, this vindicated everything Lighting Dust had feared. On the other hoof it meant she had to get involved, or else live with the guilt that she had watched something like this happen and done nothing to help.

“I’ll take the rest of the night,” she told Quickfeather, the pony assigned until next morning. Quickfeather barely even hesitated long enough to pass her instructions on, so eager was she to get away before Dust changed her mind.

The basement of City Hall was the closest thing Stormshire had to a public space. Chairs were stacked up near the walls, the same chairs they used for weddings and funerals and anything else that happened in town. Somepony had brought the child a blanket and a small box of old looking toys, along with some straw to eat.

The filly herself looked far more despondent than the last time Dust had seen her. Her possessions had been returned, at least the ones that had survived. She wore the inner layer that had been inside her weird suit.

The suit itself was long gone, along with whatever had been inside it. Penumbra hadn’t expected it to fall right through the clouds of the operating table once he cut the filly free--and why should he have? What kind of pegasus wouldn’t get their clothes enchanted with a basic cloudwalking rune?

The same kind of pegasus who was sent alone through the wilderness, didn’t speak a word of Eoch, and apparently had possessions so dangerous they could make ponies sick just by touching them. Or so everyone said. But Dust wouldn’t believe them until she flew down to Dodge Junction to check it out for herself.

The filly had kept only two of her possessions, which Dust herself had been examining during the emergency surgery. Now those two possessions had dwindled to one, a mysterious block of metal and wood. It sat in front of her on the ground, its markings as inscrutable as when Dust had seen it the first time.

The filly stared at the block as though expecting it to do something. Her mane was deflated, her tail hung limp, and her breathing was slow. This was the other sort of pony; the sort Dust had almost become. A pony who had given up.

If she goes into the system, it’s going to chew her up and spit her out, Lightning Dust thought. Then she cleared her throat, walking through the open door. “Hey! Are you… still doing okay?”

The filly looked up, but she didn’t say anything. There was no clear comprehension in her eyes. “Right. You don’t speak Eoch. I almost forgot.” She felt her own ears fold flat to her head. How could she possibly get to know a pony who couldn’t even understand her?

To her surprise, the little pony spoke. Her pronunciation was very strange, the words halting. But they were words. “I… remember… you…” she said.

Lightning Dust froze. The filly hadn’t exactly demonstrated advanced language skills, and her accent was so thick it was almost impossible to make out. Still, for a pony who hadn’t known a single word of Eoch a few weeks ago, it was an impressive achievement.

Just the sort of determination she remembered in herself. She’d have this little pony making loops and racing the clouds in no time. “Yes, you would,” she said, nodding enthusiastically. She spoke very slowly, enunciating each word. “I found you. Do you know enough to tell me how you ended up alone in the Badlands?”

The pony met her eyes, but there was only confusion on her face. She paused, took a breath. “Need… words-having book. Words-having fix.”

“Words-having book?” Dust stared right back, uncomprehending. “You want me to have a book with…” She froze. “Oh, you mean a dictionary! Is that what you want?”

The filly stared back, confused and frustrated, sinking back onto the ground.

“Hold on, I’ll be right back. The library is upstairs.” Dust turned, hurrying up the stairs. The filly didn’t follow her.

Of course, calling it a library was more than a little generous. There were only two shelves of books, and most of them had been donated by ponies who were about to move to another town on their weather circuit. Dust didn’t do much reading herself, but she’d walked past it a dozen times on her way to collect her paycheck from the town clerk.

She didn’t find a dictionary, but down on the bottom shelf was an old textbook, the same bright blue cover she’d used when she had been a little filly in school. “Intermediate Eoch for the Modern Equestrian,” it said. She took it in her mouth, ignoring the slight taste of mildew as she carried it back down.

By the time she made it back, the pony had moved. She wasn’t staring at her block of wood and metal anymore. Somehow, Dust couldn’t have said how, the pony had transformed her box into a guitar.

It was small, made of the same colored metal and wood of her box. It also looked a little bent and had more strings than Dust was used to. The filly was on her side with the instrument on the ground in front of her, struggling at it with her forelegs. Occasionally she’d make a few awkward twanging sounds, but that was all. Her motions struck Dust like a pony who had suffered a traumatic brain injury, a pony who was struggling to remember how to move. Yet to her knowledge, this filly hadn’t been hurt like that. Something in her past, maybe? Something the doctors hadn’t been able to find?

“You had a magic guitar?” Dust asked, dropping the book on the cloud-floor beside the filly. “Was it somepony else’s? It’s mostly unicorns who play strings.”

The pony looked up and noticed the book. She dropped her instrument back to the clouds, lunging for the textbook like a cat might pounce on a mouse. She opened to the first page with an awkward gesture from her mouth and hunched over it, staring.

Dust backed away. “O-oh. Guess that was what you wanted.” She sat down where Quickfeather had been, frowning to herself. “I don’t think I’ve ever known a pony to just learn a language from a book. You’ve got to talk to ponies. Learn what they know. I’m here if you want a pony to talk to.”

The filly looked up. “Thank.” She grinned, extending one hoof. “Me… is James. James Irwin.” In that moment, she seemed to come back to life. Volume returning to her mane, wings opening a little on her sides, ears perking up.

It didn’t sound like a name, not even one a Diamond Dog or some other strange visitor to Equestria might use. Yet what else could it be? There was no mistaking the pony’s tone. She was apparently referring to herself. Welcome Basket had been right.

“Lightning Dust,” she responded, taking the offered hoof, and shaking it. “You’re doing better than last time. Your time in the hospital must have helped.”

That thought proved a little too complicated for the pony, who only stared at her blankly. Then she turned, looking back down to the book in front of her.

Lightning Dust didn’t disturb her after that. “James Irwin” spent hours looking at the book, rapidly turning pages and marking all over it with a crayon she had stashed somewhere. Dust didn’t correct her. It wasn’t as though any other ponies would be needing a decades-old Eoch textbook.

A few hours later, Dust snuck away for a few minutes to the hayburger stand at the south end of Stormshire and flew back with a pair of steaming burgers. They were still hot by the time she made it back, and the filly was still reading.

“Hey,” she interrupted, pulling a table over from the side of the room and setting the tray down on top of it. “I bought something better than what the city gave you. Why don’t you try it?”

The filly looked up from what she was doing, hunger evident on her face. Dust didn’t know if she had understood the call, or else if she’d been persuaded by the smell. Either way, she hurried over, eyeing the bag like somepony who hadn’t eaten anything but straw in days.

She took one bite from the burger before squealing with pleasure, devouring the rest of it in just a few bites. She grinned at Dust, visibly relaxing. “Guess… can good….” She said more, but that was all Dust managed to understand.

“I… think so?” Dust agreed, though she hadn’t finished with her own meal yet. It wasn’t like she was in a rush. She wouldn’t be going anywhere until the next morning anyway. “Favorite place in town. We’d have to go further to eat better. Los Pegasus has all kinds of different restaurants, and Canterlot has the gourmet scene. Guess you wouldn’t know much about those.”

Only a blank stare was her response, though it was a far less discontent expression than the one she’d previously worn.

The filly kept studying through the evening, occasionally looking up to ask questions, or point at different objects and test their names. She had crayons and a folio of scrap paper into which she apparently made notes of the things she’d figured out, moving in a systematic, measured way.

She doesn’t think her parents are coming back for her. Dust didn’t either—nobody who had parents who cared about them would be wandering through the Badlands alone during a scheduled storm. And if any of what Healing Touch had told her about the filly’s abuses were true, her parents probably wouldn’t want to come back. They wouldn’t want to face justice for mistreating her this way.

“I know you can’t understand me, James Irwin, but this mess is a pile of rotting feathers.” She gestured around the room—“I’ma talk to the mayor tomorrow, tell him how good a job he’s doing. I’ll get you somewhere to live, okay? I’ll do it myself if nopony else is mare enough.”

The filly looked up at her from her makeshift bed, a pile of old blankets set up on a bare corner of floor. As Dust had expected, there was no comprehension on her face. “Thanks,” she said, her voice heavy with tiredness. “For… book…” She yawned, her wings poking out from her sides as she did so.

“Yeah.” Dust patted her on the head, only a little awkward. “No problem.” Dust wasn’t crying when she left the filly behind the next morning. Not even a little.

At least not that anypony saw.

Author's Note

There used to be a note here asking for pre-readers, but I have so many interested applications that I've removed it. If things don't work out with anyone who's volunteered (though I don't think there are good odds of that), I'll put out another note in the future. Otherwise, thanks to everyone who has sent me messages! I'm going through them all right now.

G4:05: Transitional State

“You want to what?” Mayor Capital Ledger stared at her from across his desk, eyes widening with shock.

“Exactly what it says.” Lightning Dust pushed the form a little closer to Ledger with one outstretched wing. “I’m applying to be a temporary foster parent. I know Stormshire has a pony in need.”

“That’s…” Ledger glanced down at the form, flipping it over and reading over all the information she’d scribbled there. Lightning Dust had everything in order, she’d made sure of it. “This is… most irregular, Miss Dust. I know the factory is happy to have your help on the weather team. Having you as our unofficial Wonderbolt lets everypony sleep a little safer at night. But… adopting a foal?”

“Not adopting,” Dust corrected. “Just fostering. It’s not the same thing.” And it wasn’t. Equestria’s policies of adopting orphans were quite strict. Only couples were eligible, couples who had been together for at least two years and had lots of financial resources she did not. Lightning Dust might’ve got a parasprite up her flank into pursuing this crazy plan, but she wasn’t prepared to go that far. Besides, she didn’t like any mares or stallions enough to commit to that. And by the time I did, it’d be too late anyway.

“Stormshire doesn’t have the facilities to care for a foal with her specific… needs,” Ledger said, his voice halting. “I know you want to help her, that’s a noble endeavor. But she’s… we don’t even have a school, Dust. Only a day-care.”

“That’s not a problem,” Dust said. “Updraft on the weather team has his teaching certificate, and he says he’ll homeschool her. I know there’d be a budget from the Family Services Department to pay for it.”

Ledger’s frown deepened. “We don’t have a flight school either, Miss Dust. I had to read her report before I forwarded it on to Dodge City. She can’t fly at all, not even gliding. In a city like ours…”

“I’ll teach her,” Dust snapped back, leaning across the table, glowering at him. “Come on, Mayor Ledger. Haven’t I done right by Stormshire? Haven’t I been the best damn weatherpony you ever had? Why are you fighting this?”

“There’s, uh…” He retreated a few steps, shifting uncomfortably on his hooves. “Liability concerns. Having a child her age—”

“Those are my problems,” Dust said, voice flat. “Is there anything wrong with my form? Is there any reason I can’t do it?”

“Well, uh…” He turned back, flipping the form over. “You have a single resident domicile, you’ll have to remodel and provide her with all the required accommodations.”

“Well it’s a good thing we live in the clouds then,” Dust said, sitting down on her flank, and glaring across the desk at the mayor. The longer this conversation went on, the more she was starting to smell slime. But why? “I can do that easy. Before nightfall. I’ve got the bits for some new furniture if I need it.”

“Why?” Ledger stared at her, bafflement on his face. “I understand why you’d be unhappy with her accommodations in City Hall, but that’s only temporary. A week from now and we’ll have drifted close enough for Dodge City to send her transport to the ground. She can grow up in an orphanage there, around ponies her own age. She isn’t your problem, Miss Dust.”

Dust felt her blood starting to boil. “I’m sure. Here’s my form, here’s my fee.” She dropped a large sack of bits onto the desk between them. “Everything should be in order.”

Ledger sighed a long, hard breath. “Look… I’m… Miss Dust.” He turned back to face her. “I’ll match those bits on my desk if you take that form and pretend we never had this conversation. No questions, no guilt—you just take the bits and never mention this again. If you don’t… we’re going to have a problem. Not today, not this minute… but we’re going to have a problem. Do you understand me?”

Dust’s eyes narrowed. Her wings flexed instinctively, and she could feel the charge of static building up around her wings, ready if she needed it. She wouldn’t, of course. Violence wasn’t the pony way. But she remembered her foalhood, when conversations like this had been more common, and getting hurt wasn’t as rare. “Oh, I’m sure, Mayor Ledger. How about instead you take my form, and I pretend you didn’t just try to bribe me. No charge.”

Their eyes locked, and Dust could feel the static. A deadly silence persisted for nearly a full minute before Ledger finally spoke. “Alright, Miss Dust.” He reached down into his desk, drawing out a black stamp and a pad of ink. He took the stamp in his mouth, dropping it over the center of the form. “You’re approved. Take this form and these bits to the clerk downstairs.” Each word came slowly, laced with venom. “She’ll handle everything.”

Dust rose quickly to her hooves, taking the form and her little bag of bits with her. She turned her back on the stallion, wings splayed in triumph and defiance.

“And Miss Dust,” the mayor called, as she pushed the doors of his office open again. “I won’t forget this. You have my word.”

Lightning Dust didn’t give him so much as a backward glance. She snapped the door shut with a slam, stomping off down the hall for the stairs. The mayor probably wasn’t lying or exaggerating. He might have power to make her life difficult. But she didn’t care. If she could survive her foalhood, survive climbing to the top of the ranks only to be dismissed from the Wonderbolts in disgrace despite being their best new recruit, she could survive his petty vengeance. Let the stallion rot for all she cared.

* * *

Dr. James Irwin was not having as bad a time in the basement of City Hall as might’ve been expected. A part of her realized being treated this way was completely unacceptable, and she would’ve been furious at her own government had they done the same to a child in need. But she was far too engrossed in her studies to think much about it.

The alien, the pony who had rescued her from drowning had also saved her from ignorance. Spending the time to teach individual words through painstaking trial and error had been kind of the nurses back in the hospital, but it had also been painfully slow. James’s rescuer hadn’t stayed to try and help her through individual words. She hadn’t even given her a dictionary. Instead, she’d been provided with a book specifically designed to teach children how to speak.

Though the book was old and had mildew on many of its pages, it was exactly what Dr. Irwin had hoped for. Each page was filled with illustrations, each concept was taught more than once over the course of a chapter, and there were wonderful guides to the alphabet and sentence construction placed throughout. With another few weeks and some time with the aliens to practice, James didn’t doubt that she would soon have a mastery of this alien language.

In the two days since she’d been given the book, James had learned a great many things. She’d learned the name of the language was Eoch, learned the aliens called themselves Ponies, learned they had at least three distinct subspecies that each lived in different parts of the world. She had learned the country was a monarchy, its capital was a castle high on a hill, and it had some fantastic mythology. The book had been written from the perspective of the “pegasi” mythology, which described an intricate economy of weather production and supply as though it were factual. Not just flight, which was patently true… but far more. Whole cities built on clouds, and out of clouds. Truly preposterous concepts, yet to which whole sections of the textbook had been devoted.

Working with a heavily religious species will be a little trickier. Hopefully they don’t have anything negative in their mythology about alien visitors. Even if they did, that was a problem for someone else. All James had to do was get her translation back to the computer. Do that, and maybe spend a few years teaching newly-instanced diplomats how to speak Eoch, and then she could retire. Retire to live among the aliens, or help build the colony? She wasn’t sure yet. It would depend on whether she could get more of those burgers…

The ponies set to watch over her mostly left James to her own devices, so she did her best not to be a bother in return. The ponies coming in and out of her basement changed over the few days she spent there, but not meaningfully. None of them treated her the way her rescuer had. None of them bothered to so much as learn her name. That was all right, though some part of James wished they had. She’d never have admitted that, and certainly not while she had such important work to do.

The aliens, or ponies, or whatever she wanted to call them, appeared to have neglected many fundamental aspects of her care. They didn’t give her a change of clothes, they didn’t even give her soap or a place to shower. She was lucky the building had what passed for a toilet, or else conditions would’ve been much worse. Without the XE-201 to keep her clean, Dr. Irwin was conscious of a general stench and griminess that grew during her three-day exile in the basement of some large pony building.

None of it matters. Just leave me alone long enough to memorize everything in this book, and it’ll be fine. Dr. James Irwin told herself this every few minutes. Sometimes she even believed it.

James could feel the book on her face. She wasn’t tired! It wasn’t as though she had a real bed to sleep in anyway. There was no point getting up. Eventually she slept.

* * *

“James!”

He jerked suddenly awake, sitting up in his metal chair.

The regular grid of the holodesk was pressed into the skin of his face in regular lines, like the worst job at a tattoo ever. Half a dozen different datapads scattered around him as he jerked into an upright position, tumbling onto the ground at his feet.

James looked up, staring into the stern face of the janitor. “Building closed an hour ago, James.”

“Y-yeah! Course it did.” James scurried about like a squirrel cornered by a cat, scooping all his pads, and stuffing them away into his gray satchel. “Sorry about that. Guess I dozed off again.”

The janitor, Roman, sighed. “Come with me, then. I’ll let you out.” Roman held the door a little wider, gesturing for James to follow.

They passed Roman’s cart of computer parts, past where the diagnostic interpreter was still connected to one of the other holodesks. James nearly tripped on a puck-shaped vacuuming robot as they went, eyes adjusting poorly to the gloom. None of the automatic systems were running at night, naturally. “So you’re still studying for that test, huh?” All Roman had to do was wave his card vaguely towards the doors, and they swung open for them, unlocking a clear passage to the exit. “Didn’t you already flunk it once?”

“That’s normal,” James snapped back. “The CADFAT is meant for those at the top of their fields. It’s not uncommon for people to take it every few years until they pass.”

They passed into one of the central classroom buildings, under a dome of glass and cascading curtains of water. In the dark of the early morning, the fountains had only the light of the stars coming through the windows for illumination. The building was nearly deserted, though James did spy a dark-haired woman sitting in one of the chairs along the wall, pretending to read. Why wasn’t Roman asking her to leave?

“I don’t think the Pioneering Society needs translators, James.” He kept speaking, switching seamlessly from English to Mandarin. “Everybody already speaks every language there is. What’s the point?” They stopped at the exit doors to the building, but Roman didn’t open them.

Through a single layer of glass James could hear swamp insects, the buzzing of mosquitoes and the croaking of frogs. “It wasn’t always like that, Roman.” He held up his satchel, shaking it so the datapads would rattle together. “I’ve got two dozen languages in here.”

The janitor reached to the side, flashing his card along the scanner. The doors slid open, and they were both blasted with a wave of Florida humidity. James’s glasses fogged up, turning the world into a blurred mess. “So, what? If there’s really something living up there, they won’t speak some dead language.”

“I know that.” James walked through the opening, onto the plastic walkway. It was suspended mere inches above the wetland, so close he could see the lilypads floating and the motion of fish beneath the water. “It’s not about any specific language, it’s about selecting for the talent to learn them all. They want a polyglot, and that’s what I am.”

“If you say so.” Roman’s silhouette looked washed out under the single amber light outside the library. His old features looked even grayer—closer to two centuries than one. “You give me a call when you figure out where you’ll go after you get in,” Roman said. “You know you’ve still got a life after they photocopy you, right? Said it yourself… most people who do this do it as part of their career. This isn’t ancient history—you’re not joining NASA.”

James turned away from the door, lowering his voice to a whisper. “It won’t matter what happens after that. I won’t be here.” He walked away from the library, nodding politely to the alligator watching him through the transparent repulser fence, little more than a pair of dark yellow eyes just above the surface of the water. He pressed a single button on his phone as he walked, glancing down only long enough to see that the signal had been received.

He passed several more classrooms, each one suspended over the wetlands on concrete pillars just like the library. From ground level, it was very easy to forget his university even existed, it blended so well into the natural environment. The mosquitos were a little harder to forget—he felt several of those landing on his skin, and he was only fast enough to kill a few.

Eventually, he made it back onto dry land, to the arrival platform. There were no cars parked here, but his own little delivery van rested on the ground, its four large fans silent and still. The paint was peeling along the door, and rust crept up from the bottom of the frame, but otherwise, the van looked intact. The door swung open for him as he approached, revealing what passed for his house inside.

Cold air washed over him, the delicious feeling of conditioned air giving relief to his skin. He flopped inside onto the carpeted floor. He lifted the satchel over his head, covering it even as the lift motors started to spin. The interior of the van was a mess of blankets, pillows, and dirty clothes. Only one chair remained, the others had been ripped out to make room for his propane stove, his collection of old books, and not much else.

“Welcome back, James,” said the car, through his phone. “We are parked in an illegal zone. Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t care,” he answered, reaching up above his head for his pillow. His hand found the headstock of his guitar instead. It took all his concentration not to slam the stupid thing into the wall.

“Response invalid,” said the car, its voice even and emotionless. “It’s currently 3:24 AM. Would you like to get coffee?”

“No!” he shouted. “I want to go somewhere out of traffic so I can sleep until six.”

“Searching… Destination accepted. Time to Plant City Recreation: nineteen minutes, eight seconds. Enjoy the flight.”

The floor listed under him, and several heavy books slipped off the counter above him and smacked him in the face. James didn’t care. Shoving the guitar out of the way, he crawled back through the mess until he found his mattress and curled up against the wall.

Author's Note

A huge thanks to the pre-readers who helped proof this chapter before publication, I think I can see a measurable uptick in quality thanks to your hard work! (oh, and I'll add them to the story description in another week or so, once we see who sticks around). Thanks so much!

G4.05: Adopting Change

James jerked awake with a violent start, looking up and around and blinking away the bleariness of sleep. “啊! 我醒了!” she exclaimed, pushing away from whatever had just touched her. Then her vision cleared, and she saw who was looming over her. It was Lightning Dust, her rescuer, looking concerned. She felt herself relax immediately.

The pony reached down, gently prying the pages of the book away from her face, and pushing it out of the way. She said some words, most of which James couldn’t make sense of, except for “aren’t you?” at the end.

“Yes,” she said, a little more confidently than last time. She had three more days of diligent study under her belt, after all. Her… metaphorical belt. The one they hadn’t given her back. “I was reading. It is a good book.” That was all she could manage, simple sentences with a simple subject and verb. But considering where she’d been a few days before…

Lightning Dust’s eyes widened, and she grinned down at her. “Sure… eat book?” She gestured back to one of the folding tables, where a pair of fresh bowls had been placed, along with some plain paper packaging. For the second time, it seemed her rescuer had saved her from hay.

“No eat book!” James responded, getting to her hooves and shaking herself out. Some of her stank wafted out from around her in a cloud, a cloud of wet barn animal and dirty feathers. Not a pleasant scent, even if she was too young for all the sexually mature odors that would’ve made it even worse. “Trying learn to talk good. Working on!”

“Clearly,” Lightning Dust wrinkled her nose. “Ne multe pli. Post tio, vi devas duŝi vin.”

“Too fast,” James responded, bounding over to the table. The pony soon joined her, though she gently slid her own bowl a little further away than it had been before. They ate in relative silence, James far too invested in the bowl in front of her to care what the alien was doing.

She’d had fresh vegetables a few times in the hospital, and each time they’d been a befuddlement. Where had these aliens obtained cherry tomatoes? She was positive she was eating romaine lettuce. Who cares. That’s a problem for the biologists. No doubt when she returned to the probe, the biologists it instanced would bicker about convergent evolution and biological predisposition.

The salad might’ve been more than enough for her if she’d been eating well. Unfortunately for James, she hadn’t tasted anything that wasn’t hay since Dust’s last visit. She finished in just a few minutes, and only then did she look up.

Dust was staring at her. She hadn’t even touched her own bowl. “They don’t… feed you… do they?” James couldn’t make out several of the words, but she managed to understand a few.

“No,” she admitted, looking down at the table. “When I came, I had…” She struggled for words. “I had own food. It was better. Eat hay… want to scream.”

“Yeah,” the pony pushed her own untouched bowl across the table, accepting the empty one instead. “Have mine.”

James stared down at another full bowl, eyes as wide as they’d been when this pony had given her the language textbook. “Why?”

The pony shook her head. “Eat fast. I don't scias kiom multe pli longe I povas resti ĉi tie before I vomi.”

James didn’t need telling twice, and soon enough the second bowl was empty. For the first time in days she felt full, and not in the hollow, gassy way that hay made her feel. She looked up then, smiling at the pony across the table. James felt better, better than she had in days. “Thank you! That was great!”

“Yeah,” Dust muttered, rising to her hooves. “Bought… factory cafeteria. Can’t make weather without a full stomach.”

James frowned a little, wondering if maybe she’d interpreted that last sentence incorrectly. The book had used language like that many times, but she hadn’t expected to hear it in the real world. They had just been sample sentences, fun to say and write. “You aren’t… leaving already?” James stood as well, scratching at the ground.

“Yeah,” Dust said. “You’re coming too. No more…” she gestured with one wing at the dingy basement. “No more of this. Pack as rapide kiel vi povas, I'm going to akiri iom da aero.”

James stared at her retreating tail in shock, feeling a chill as her words sunk in. Lightning Dust hadn’t just brought her a meal, she was rescuing her from… whatever this place was.

Had it been any other alien, she probably would’ve resisted. The last time James had been moved, they’d had to drug her. This time she packed willingly, collapsing her acoustic guitar and tossing it into her bag along with the textbook and all the notes she’d taken so far. The satchel barely fit her handful of possessions, but James made it work. A few more seconds and she’d tossed it over her shoulder, hurrying across the room to the stairwell.

“Ready!” she exclaimed, glancing up the stairs. Dust was nowhere in sight—had she already changed her mind and left?

James hurried up the steps, her heart beginning to race as acid rose from her throat. Had the pony… lied?

No, that wouldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen it wouldn’t happen it wouldn’t happen it wouldn’t happen it wouldn’t happen…

James emerged from the stairs, searching for Lightning Dust. She hadn’t ever actually climbed up here, not even when there wasn’t an adult to watch her. Yet instead of something sinister, she only found a rather plain, attractive interior. It looked like the lobby of a public building, with large windows on the walls that opened onto empty sky. It’s just my angle. I’m so low to the ground that I’d be looking up no matter how close I was.

But if she’d been afraid that her rescuer might’ve been lying, those fears weren’t confirmed. She found Lightning Dust waiting by the exit doors, pacing back and forth with an expression of mild boredom.

She turned as James approached, grinning down at her. “I don’t know kiel mi faras. You devus know that, ekde I prizorgis you. Well… trying, iamaniere.”

James hesitated, stopping halfway across the strangely springy floor. “Can’t… be worse than so far.” Not quite a complete thought, but she did her best.

Dust chuckled. “No, probably not. I remember kiam mi estis orfo, kaj neniu prizorgis min. Won’t be like that.” She gestured for James with a wing, and she hurried over. Reading such gestures was becoming easy for her—after all, almost all the aliens had them. After having encountered only one pony without, they had become the standard means of communication between her and the species whose language she didn’t yet speak.

Well, she was learning to speak it now.

“La poneoj en la malsanulejo rakontis al mi that you can’t fly. Is it true?” Dust looked her over, her eyes lingering on the wing-pockets of James’s jumpsuit. “Your weird vestoj ne havas malfermojn por flugiloj. We’ll have to fix that.”

“Can’t fly,” James echoed, doing her best not to sound afraid. “Never learned how. Never needed to. Always just walked.”

The pony shook her head in bewilderment and disgust. “Your parents earth ponies or unicorns?”

James hesitated, then shook her head. “No parents.”

The pony turned suddenly away from her, hurrying to the large entry doors and pushing them open. “For now, I’ll carry you. But lessons devos okazi baldaŭ. Nenio estas pli grava por juna pegasus ol lerni kiel fly.”

Lightning Dust stepped out the open doors, gesturing for James to follow. She did, hurrying along beside her so fast she very nearly walked right off a cliff.

At least, that was what James thought it was at first. Less than two meters out the door the land she was walking on swept away precipitously, a fluffy white abyss that opened into a yawning maw of sky. Far, far below, so far she could make out only the largest details, were the cracked and broken plateaus of land. Like the ones she had been crossing, perhaps the exact same ones. They were too far away.

James felt her limbs lock up on the very edge of the slope, her stomach dropping out from under her. She’d spent several years of her life practically living in the air, if her van counted, but she’d always been inside, with a connection to the Universal Guidance Network to fly her. This… this was something else.

She began to whimper, remembering all these weeks spent living with the aliens. Strange pale materials that formed every building, slightly damp and flexible. The diffuse light that came through every wall and floor and ceiling until night, the way she could bend and shape the ground if she pushed too hard. The strangely fluffy, blurry look to everything she saw.

James began to shake, spinning around in place to look up at the building she’d just been inside. It wasn’t a skyscraper, as she’d initially thought from the views out the window. It was only three stories tall, a building made from firm bits of white resting on a foundation of fluffy clouds.

It was completely impossible.

She lurched to one side, clutched at her guts, then vomited off the cliff. All those delicious fresh vegetables were considerably less delicious when mixed with bile and stomach acid.

By the time the nausea and vertigo had passed, James realized she felt a pair of hooves holding her sides, holding her firmly near the edge of the clouds. Dust looked down at her with a mixture of sickness and sadness, silent. Yet she noticed James’s eyes, and immediately let go. “You good?”

“Ughhhh,” James moaned, getting to shaky hooves. “I’ve been… up… all this time?” She wiped slime away from her mouth with the back of one leg, then rubbed it off against the ground. “Air so thin… heightsick…”

“No, you aren’t.” The softness was all gone, replaced with a firm, self-assured voice. “You’re a pegasus. Kreski surgrunde ne haltus vin de povi senti la aeron nun. It’s just malorientiĝo. You ne estas airsick earth pony. Vi jam loĝas ĉi tie dum monato.”

She began backing away from the edge, her limbs shaking a little more violently with every step. James hadn’t imagined she was afraid of heights… but she hadn’t really known the meaning of that fear until today. Nobody had. I’m standing on a cloud. I’ve been living in a cloud all this time… how is this possible?

Theories flashed through her mind, projections about the density of water and a severe overestimation of local gravity. Could it be that the local wildlife, including her biosleeve, was so adapted to the reduced gravity that she hadn’t noticed anything different? She’d really been living on some airy, microworld without even noticing it.

James regretted not digging deeper into the planetary datasheet. If only the aliens hadn’t stolen her damn Computation Surface, she’d pull it out right now and look.

She felt hooves on her shoulders again, and looked up to see Lightning Dust was staring at her. “Hey!”

James was jerked out of her speculation and back to reality. “Sorry. Just… I’ll be better. I wasn’t expecting…”

“It’s fine.” The pony dropped to her knees on the clouds in front of her. “Get on my back, but ne metu ajnan premon sur miaj flugiloj!”

It was a good thing her movements were easy to read, because otherwise James wouldn’t have been sure what she was supposed to do. Her eyes still widened a little, skeptical. “Aren’t I too heavy?”

The pony glanced over her shoulder, glaring at her. “Are you kidding? I’ve seen twigs with more muscle than you. Just get on!”

She did, though her movements grew hesitant and apprehensive as she did so. Had it not been for the realization of where they were, she very likely would’ve refused the request, and told the pony that she could walk no matter where they were going. Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be a ground for her to walk on.

There wasn’t a saddle either, or anything to hang onto beyond the pony’s neck. At least her own legs naturally wrapped around the pony’s barrel. That ought to keep her secure enough for basic movement. “How far…”

“Not very,” the pony answered, leaping up into the air. James could feel the air blasting past her on either side, see the blur of wings, and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Wherever they were going…

Yet she had to know. She opened one eye just a peek, wanting to get a better look at where she’d been staying.

It wasn’t just one building. The doors they’d used might’ve opened onto nothing, but on the other side of the building she saw something very different. It was an entire town built on four or five different terraced layers of cloud, not connected by anything more than thick tethers of braided rope. Each layer seemed to be drifting semi-independently of the others, some with houses, some with shops, but the largest with a single gigantic building, easily as large as the other clouds combined. Huge cooling towers rose above it, and James could somehow feel the air being drawn inside.

“You’re far more industrialized than I thought,” she exclaimed in English, forgetting her fear of heights entirely for the wonder of it. “We never thought to be considering the clouds. This is just like Venus… did you terraform your whole planet this way?” Well, maybe less like Venus. The floating cities there didn’t have citizens walking on clouds.

“I don’t know your language,” Dust said, her tone apparently having relaxed from how concerned and upset she’d sounded when James had first seen the outdoors. “Mi tute ne scias, kion vi diras.”

“It’s English,” she replied. “I could speak Mandarin too, but you don’t know.”

Lightning Dust wasn’t taking them to the factory, or to any of the town’s different layers. A little further off, and not tethered by any visible means, there was a single house, floating on a cloud of its own. It was at least two stories tall, with columns of fluffy cloud stuff and a little fountain of water out front. “Weird. Who taught it to you?”

They were coming in for a landing. The pony flying her had kept her speed to a minimum, moving in a gentle straight line without any sudden curves. Nothing that might dislodge her by accident. Even still, James could feel the power of the one she was riding. She could feel the muscles through her suit, lean and strong. Was this fitness typical of the aliens, or was she an Olympian among them? Guess everyone must be strong if they fly everywhere.

“My—” She couldn’t say parents, not without seeming either confused or wrong. But how much did she even want to say? If she tried to tell the truth, would Lightning Dust put her back in the basement? “You won’t believe. Not secret, but… strange. Words… not good yet. Hard to put right.”

Lightning Dust landed with a slight jolt, bouncing along the fluffy white surface before sinking in a fraction of an inch. She ducked to one side, sliding James off her back and onto the ground in front of the large fountain.

James righted herself quickly, dropping the satchel off her shoulder. She lowered it slowly onto the clouds beside her, afraid it might pass right through. It didn’t, somehow. These aren’t real clouds, obviously. She noticed something else then—there was steam rising from within the fountain, a gentle cloud of it that floated just above the water’s surface. “This doesn’t look like… where are we?”

“Home,” the adult said, looking resolved. “My home. Yours too, until ni trovos viajn parents. If we can.”

“What if you can’t?”

Lightning Dust shrugged. “Then we can’t.” She walked past James, over to a faint white box resting beside the fountain, and kicked it open. There was a long wooden stick inside, with a huge chunk of soap on the end. A few other scrubbing tools as well. Dust pointed to the water. “You aren’t venanta en mian domon odoranta tiel. Take off your vestojn tiel you don’t get it wet. I had it enchanted so it won't fall tra la nuboj.”

“O-out here?” James gulped, her tail tucking between her legs. True, the tiny floating house was on the outskirts of town, but it was still within sight. She could pick out two dozen of the aliens flying or walking about, and all of them could see her. Not only that, but the fountain of hot water was also only five meters or so from a sheer drop to the void. She’d be able to see the sky all around her while she bathed.

“Yes.” The alien scooped up the satchel, then stood expectantly. “Do you need help depreni ilin off? I could…”

“N-no!” James said, wincing, then started to undress. She didn’t really have another choice.

It still beat eating hay.

* * *

Lightning Dust kept her steps slow as they made their way through the cloud house. For some reason she couldn’t imagine, the filly had started acting strange as soon as she’d taken off her flightsuit. Even stranger, she had barely been able to bathe herself. Dust hadn’t been watching closely—mostly she’d concentrated on preparing the foal’s new bedroom. She glanced out every now and again, and every time the pony seemed to be struggling more.

One thing Dust noticed mystified her: James left the wing-wax and scrubber unused in the box, not giving her wings any more attention than any other part of her coat. They looked pristine when I brought her in. How could her wings be in such good shape without proper care?

At least she didn’t bring a cloud of unwashed stink into the house once she was finally clean. She moved slowly when wrapped so tightly in a towel, but at least then she didn’t seem so embarrassed.

That was good—maybe the pony wouldn’t notice just how little Lightning Dust had to offer. Until yesterday, her home had only had one large room, all built herself. A kitchen in one corner, a desk she barely used in the other, and a hammock hanging over everything else. At one point Wonderbolts paraphernalia had occupied every spare spot in the little cloud house, but now there were only empty walls and empty shelves. Every poster and model was now rotting in the dump, where they belonged.

Even fostering a pony required strict prerequisites be met. Lightning Dust had slaved away to construct the second story, shaping the clouds into something resembling another bedroom. She couldn’t afford to give the filly real furniture, so she made a bed, a desk, and a seat overlooking the large window. Well, not a real window, because glass was expensive too. Instead it was ice, chilled through the same weather magic that kept her food cold and the water in her bath hot. The views weren’t terribly good, warped as they were through ice, but at least it would look like a real house.

I’m sorry I can’t give you more, she thought, as she led the pony through her tiny home, explaining everything it had to offer. There was even a set of stairs up to the second story, since she’d known the filly couldn’t fly.

The bedroom didn’t even have a door. But it had James’s possessions, what little she’d brought. It would have to be enough. “This is your room,” Dust said as she finished the tour, though she was never quite sure how much the pony could really understand. “I don’t know what you’re used to, but I’ve got rules here. No skipping flying lessons, no making holes in my house, and no complaining about what I feed you so long as I eat it with you.” She gestured at the room with one wing. “So long as you can do all of that, I think we’ll get along just fine.”

There was no getting past how much the filly looked like a soggy duckling, particularly with her fur and feathers all lying flat from the moisture. It was only slightly less adorable than it was pathetic. “I can… do that,” the filly eventually said. “I really need…” She hesitated, pausing to think about what she was saying next.

Lightning Dust didn’t rush her. Considering that this pony hadn’t spoken a word of Eoch when she’d been found, being able to speak any at all was a vast improvement.

Eventually she did continue. “I came… to learn how to talk. If I can talk, I matter.”

Dust wasn’t sure what to make of that. Something to do with the abuse this pony had suffered? Dust bent down beside her, meeting the filly’s purple eyes. “Listen to me,” she said, her voice firm. “I don’t know where you came from, kid, but you can forget about whatever they told you. You do matter.” She touched her lightly with one of her wings, before rising and turning away. “You get yourself settled in. I should go to work. Can I trust you not to try and leave?”

“Can’t fly,” the filly said, voice flat. “Can’t leave.”

“Right, Jaaeee…” she trailed off. “Look kid, no offence, but that name… I’m going to bite my tongue off trying to say that. Can I call you something else? Maybe something in Eoch, something that ponies can actually say?”

The child nodded, staring down at the ground. “I don’t have… another one.”

“That’s fine.” Dust looked the little pony over. She didn’t know much about her, but then what parent knew about their newborn? Plenty of foals seemed to come out with names that suggested who they would become. “Lucky Break,” she said. “How’s that sound?”

“Lucky Break,” the pony repeated. Then she smiled. “Oh, I get it! I guess I am lucky!”

“Good.” Dust reached out with one hoof, brushing the filly’s mane out of her face. “I’ll be back in a few hours. I only have a half shift today. Just don’t leave the house while I’m gone.”

“Can I ask something?” the filly asked.

“Uh… sure,” Dust said. “If you think you have enough words. I’m not as good at languages as you are.” Or good at all. She’d never bothered learning anything besides Eoch. Any griffon visitors to Equestria learned it, and it wasn’t as if she ever spent time on the ground. If a pony couldn’t fly, they were scarcely worth her time.

Lucky Break sat still, her face deep in concentration. When she spoke, her words came slowly, as they always did, though moreso this time. “When you saved me… I had… other things.” She touched her body with her hooves at various points, letting the towel fall to her hooves as she did so. “Clothes… hard clothes in pieces. And… different tiny things.” She made a square shape with one hoof, drawing it in the air. “Lots of these. Metal things. Bag on… my hard clothes. I need them.”

“Ah.” Dust grinned, finally recognizing what the pony meant. “I get you. It was hilarious. You’d think a pony who can be a doctor would be smart, right? So, I was watching through the window while they worked on you. They had to cut you out of your armor. Penumbra eventually got you out…” She laughed, her grin getting wider. “You should’ve seen the look on his face when it fell through the ground right in front of him!” She made a gesture with her hooves. “Hole this big, right through the clouds.”

She stopped suddenly; Lucky’s eyes had gone wide and watery, and she’d started to sniff.

Come on, Dust. Think! “Oh.” She paused, reaching out towards the filly again, but the little pony pulled away. “Sorry kid. Wasn’t really the doctor’s fault, honestly. Podunk town like this, most of these ponies haven’t even met a pony who wasn’t a pegasus. They expected your stuff to be enchanted. It wasn’t.”

“B-but…” Lucky stammered, along with some more words that Dust couldn’t make out. Eventually she settled on a few more familiar ones. “And my guitar! If it all fell… through the clouds, how have those?”

“I, uh…” Dust blushed. “I may’ve gone through your things. I wanted to know what a pony like you was doing on her own. They weren’t attached to your armor when it fell.”

The pony wiped the beginning of tears away from her eyes, straightening. “I need my…” The next words weren’t in Eoch. “They’re… magic. They would not break. Fall wouldn’t… not even… can we get them back?”

“Back?” Dust shivered, considering the implications of the request. She was willing to believe the tools could’ve been enchanted, considering how strange they looked. But why wouldn’t the unicorns who made them have a cloudwalking rune just in case? The armor didn’t have openings for wings. “I might… it might be possible. Stormshire moves, but not very fast. If I got a calendar and a map… I know a few eggheads at the factory who could find the general area. Would be a long trip…” she trailed off.

She’d been about to point out how hopeless the quest would be. Even if she could get a map and found the exact area, finding a chunk of fallen armor hidden among the badlands would require sharp eyes and a lot of luck.

But then she saw the filly’s crushed expression, and the moisture trickling down her face. She remembered the basement this foal had been living in for the last few days, and the conditions that would’ve been waiting for her on the ground. “Tell you what, kid. Maybe I’ll go and see what I can find. I’ve got work, but… I could go after my shift. I’m the fastest pony in Stormshire… fastest pony in Equestria!” It didn’t matter what the Wonderbolts said.

“It might take a few more hours… you’d be alone here until dark.” Leaving a flightless pegasus without any supervising adults had to be a safety violation.

The stuffy ponies who made such rules hadn’t ever been the ones who had to follow them. They didn’t understand what really mattered to a foal without a home. Dust did.

Besides, who was Lucky going to report her to? One look at the joy on her face would’ve been enough to melt a blizzard.

“Yeah! If you could… I’d be so happy, Lightning Dust! You don’t… know who… but show you! I could! Learning all the time! Soon… enough to explain! Maybe? Yes, I’m sure!”

“Okay, okay.” Dust bent down, scooping up the damp towel and tossing it over the filly’s back. Dust left the filly in her new bedroom, and Lucky Break didn’t seem in any hurry to follow her back down the stairs. She did have a shift coming up, it was true. But something was bothering her, something she wanted to check.

She found the paperwork on the kitchen table, exactly where she’d left it. Packets of information about the foster program, all the different responsibilities she had and the rules she had to follow. Dust hadn’t bothered reading any of it.

But at the bottom of the pile, there was a manila folder, a copy of Lucky’s medical records. Maybe there was something inside, something the doctors hadn’t been able to tell her before. What Dust really wanted to find was the names of whatever ponies had mistreated this filly. Whoever they were… well, she’d sent that letter off to Charcoal. He could dispense a little justice.

But most of the forms were blank. Dust wasn’t much for reading, and Dr. Penumbra’s writing was nearly incomprehensible. She found a few lines in the dental section that suggested something interesting. “Molar erosion nearly nonexistent, age approximation impossible. Either this pony recently obtained all her adult teeth at the same time, or she has lived primarily on a liquid diet.”

She scanned the rest of the pages. A section on the pony’s hooves displayed something similar. “No natural erosion present on any of her hooves. Growths resembling pre-birth irregularities, but of course this is impossible. No time outside?”

Dust glanced up from the table, but the pony upstairs hadn’t left her room. Probably she was still drying herself off. Either that, or back to studying that book. I’ll have to get her a few more. She’s so smart she’ll probably just teach herself everything anyway.

There weren’t many more pages to examine. No medical history from previous hospitals, nothing more than Dust’s own report and the transparent copies of X-rays. Curiously, Dust lifted one of them up towards her window, using the light to illuminate it. She still remembered what the nurse had said.

It was stranger than she would’ve expected. This image was of the pony’s back legs, not the ones that had been broken. Yet it looked as though the filly had two sets of bones. One transparent set in the shape a pony’s bones ought to be, and another far darker outline running around them. Like the scaffolding on a building. Lighting Dust couldn’t be sure, but the flesh all around looked wrong somehow, like the scar tissue the nurse had mentioned.

She checked the rest of the X-rays, and found each one told a similar story. Dark means something hard, she remembered, about the only thing she knew about X-rays. She’d been struck with metal once, and it had looked something like this. Only it hadn’t surrounded almost all her bones, snaking through her body. The filly’s chest was practically full of it, so dark that some of her ribs didn’t have openings like they should.

Dust lowered the X-ray back to the folder, her limbs shaking as she did so. She remembered the filly’s words: You won’t believe. Not secret, but… strange. Now, maybe she believed them.

Somehow, Lightning Dust had found herself a pony with an even rougher past than she had. Had the mayor been right? Maybe she was out of her league with this stuff. Doctors on the ground would make more sense of this. She must be reading the X-rays wrong—no pony could have a second set of bones around their first ones, could they? It must be a shadow, or a trick of the light, or something else that made sense.

Dust put the copies back, then buried the folder under all her other packets of foster-care guides. She didn’t think the little pony could read, but… better safe than sorry.

Dust shut the door behind her, taking off and flying towards the factory. She could still go to the mayor. Changing her mind and giving him what he wanted would probably save herself whatever punishment he had planned.

But the thought of taking Lucky back to that basement… the thought of how excited the pony had been when Dust told her they were leaving…

No, she couldn’t take her back.

I don’t know what happened to you, Lucky… but I’m going to find out. Finding her lost possessions would be a great start. Maybe once she had them back, Lucky Break could finally explain who she was, and what she’d been doing alone in the Badlands.

G4.05: Collect Call

Many miles away, the Forerunner Probe was hard at work. The standard living quarters it had fabricated would not suffice for the needs of this next team, given every previous failure. But information it had gained from its last attempt, along with significant increases in the availability of resources as its infrastructure grew meant it had the power to be more ambitious.

In the central hall, five biofabricators still hummed. Their occupants were far from completely formed, though much of the skeletal system and the forerunners of organs were in place. Adult-sized skeletons this time, thanks to a breakthrough in the biological understanding of Alien Lifeform #FF35E. But this generation wasn’t the most numerous the Forerunner Probe had ever manufactured, and certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Even as its next crew grew in their tanks, the probe removed a false wall it had installed blocking access to the hanger. While an army of little drones cleared away the dust, slightly larger limbs gathered up human-sized pressure suits and rolled them over to the recycler, along with numerous personal effects it had been storing in the human-sized crew quarters attached to the hanger bay.

Building deep underground had not protected those who had lived here, and it did not now protect their last traces from being stripped into their constituent molecules and recycled.

The Forerunner Probe made no moral judgements as it fastidiously erased any trace of previous occupancy from its corridors and quarters. It was simply a matter of weighing probabilities—in this case, the likelihood of persistent psychological trauma and unacceptable loss in performance was in the high forties, far too high to be worth considering.

So, the probe took great pains to repair every trace of wear and tear on the single Albatross. Broken glass could be repaired, bullet-holes filled in with composite, and shredded armor panels replaced with new ones. New, lower ceiling panels could even be added to the interior to give its alien biosleeved crew the illusion that their airship had been purpose-built for them.

It wouldn’t be long now. The Forerunner Probe would accomplish its mission regardless of the cost in fabricated lives. If its latest plan didn’t work out, it could always make more.

* * *

James waited many hours alone in the empty house. She tried to use the time productively, continuing her study of the textbook and what it contained. But despite her natural talents, despite her gift with languages, her brain could absorb only so much in any one sitting before each unfamiliar word sounded alike.

She spent a few minutes playing with her collapsible guitar, expanding it to full size and trying to squeeze out something like music. But just like every time she’d tried before, her hooves just didn’t have the dexterity to strum a guitar or depress the strings with any precision. Guess I’ll need to learn a new instrument. At least she would have plenty of time to practice.

Eventually it got dark. James stared out the window at the stars, searching for anything familiar. Not a single constellation was recognizable, not a single star. But that’s not strange. I’m no astronomer. She stared up at the sky even so, hoping that maybe she might see some hint as to where in the galaxy this planet was located. It would be a terrible shame to discover friendly life so distant that no meaningful relationship with Earth could ever exist.

But as she stared, James noticed something: the stars were moving. It was the same sort of motion she might expect if they were on Earth, the slow progress of rotation around the central axis of the sky. Only she wasn’t using some time-progression photography; she was watching with her eyes.

Now that she had seen it, she couldn’t look away. But if we’re spinning this fast, why is the day so close to twelve hours long? There were many plausible explanations for such rapid stellar motion. But how many of them would account for such familiar day/night cycles? Now more than ever James regretted not studying the planet’s profile. She’d been so flustered at her biosleeve that other details of only cursory relevance to her mission had slipped through the cracks. Maybe Lightning Dust will find my stuff. Then I could ask the probe for a new computer and get the answers to all my questions.

The door rumbled from downstairs. James forced herself to look away from the strange sky, and poked out the door to her tiny bedroom as Lighting Dust arrived.

She looked exhausted, her mane flat with sweat and her whole body drooping a little from some incredible effort. “Hey!” The pony waved up at her. “Lucky, come down here! I found something.”

James took the stairs two at a time, bouncing so vigorously that the clouds squashed a little under the pressure. She didn’t notice, didn’t have eyes for anything but the satchel Dust shrugged off her shoulder and set down on the ground at her hooves. She opened it right as James came to a stop only a few inches away.

James stared down at the transmitter, bent and twisted and missing most of the dish.

“I havis nubmarŝan sorĉon sur ĝi antaŭ I portis ĝin here,” Lightning Dust said. “Ĝi ne devus fall again. Everything needs a cloudwalking sorĉon before you can uzi ĝin ĉi tie”

James hurried over to the transmitter, scooped it up in her forelegs and walked to the kitchen table. She pointed what was left of the dish out the open window and up at the sky.

“Don’t be sad if it doesn’t work,” Dust said, watching her in the gloom. “Whatever magic tiu aĵo havis, devis have worn off. Like a minotaur sidis sur ĝi.”

James dragged over one of the chairs, then stood on it and propped her forelegs up on the table beside the transmitter. She held one hoof up to the side, close enough that it should be able to read the RFID chip under her skin there.

The dented metal device beeped, and a tripod of legs emerged from within, folding down and lifting it off the table. One immediately snapped off and it fell sideways, its upper section rotating around and around as it filled the room with unpleasant beeps.

“Dolĉa suno, it’s working.” Dust crept up beside her, staring at the object. “What is…” James didn’t have the concentration to spare to listen to her anymore.

James swore under her breath, though she didn’t use the pony language to do it. If Eoch even had profanity, nobody had taught it to her. She lifted the transmitter and held it in place with one hoof, doing the job of the tripod. From the edge of the spinning disk, a guidance laser scanned the room, tracing a faint green dot on the ceiling and walls until it eventually encountered the window. No sooner had it passed over one of the many stars did it stop in place, and the device started making a different sound.

“SatCom-G locked. Waiting for relay,” the device said. “No local computer detected. Operating in emergency mode.”

James felt a jerk as Dust forced her head to look away from the device, meeting her eyes. “What is it doing? It isn’t going to hurt anything, is it?”

“No!” James said, holding her legs still against the table. “It’s… sending a letter. Talking to my home.”

The pony was no longer sympathetic and motherly. Her expression shifted between upset and fearful, staring at the tiny communications device. “Okay, Lucky. But if this goes bad…”

“Peer relay successful. Temporary network: 12 addresses. Forerunner responds signal green. WARNING: mRTG reports critical hardware fault in containment vessel. Immediate disposal of this device is recommended. Please wash your hands immediately after handling to minimize cancer risk.”

James shivered, but managed to keep her hooves in place. mRTG used 300 grams of Strontium-90, more than enough to keep the device running during regular use. Unfortunately, the state of its casing did not suggest that being dropped out of the sky counted as regular working conditions.

But none of that mattered so long as she could get her message back to the Forerunner. “Can you hear me, computer?” she asked, switching back to English.

As with all satellite communication, there was a brief delay. Only a few seconds, but compared to the virtually instantaneous communication of quicker methods, it could be a little disorienting. “Message received, James Irwin.” The probe’s voice came in heavily distorted, stretching one minute and jumping in pitch the next. Yet she heard it all the same. “Please provide status report. This transmitter reported OUT-OF-RANGE disconnection 41 days ago.”

“My gear was destroyed,” James answered, speaking as quickly as she could. She could feel the slight warmth of the metal surface resting against her leg, and she knew where that warmth came from. “I require replacements sent to this transmitter’s position immediately.”

Another pause. “Command acknowledged. Please update mission progress.”

James opened her mouth to do just that, but she didn’t get the chance. At that moment, Lightning Dust started screaming.

“How dare you! Your daughter eĉ ne scias, ke nubaj urboj ekzistas, kaj vi sendis ŝin nefluga in the Badlands dum storm! Even Malkonkordo ne farus ion kiel aĉan! Klarigu, kial la- "

Dust slammed her hooves on the table, leaning in only inches away from the transmitter. The jolt sent it crashing sideways, and what was left of the metal dish cracked off in two pieces.

“Error-SIGNAL LOST” the tiny cracked display flashed one last time, then went dark.

Dust stared down at the destroyed machine, breathing heavily. She looked satisfied.

James didn’t. She whimpered, backing away from the table and staring down at the limp piece of hardware. It’s okay, she told herself. The Forerunner got my position, and it got my request for new hardware. I’ll get all my stuff back. I had to throw it away anyway.

“So fragile,” Dust said, poking at one of the bits of metal with her hoof. “It postvivis a fall from alteco sed ne povis survive a little interpuŝiĝo?”

“No, it wasn’t.” James said, sitting back on her haunches and sighing. “It’s okay. It did what I needed. We should keep it on the cloud with us for another day or so, but get it away from our food. Oh, and we need to wash this table. Our hooves, too, or… we’ll probably die.”

Lightning Dust crossed around the table over to her in a few long strides, expression darkening. “What kind of magic li uzis por paroli like that? Lucky Break, I heard a voice, ĉu ĝi estas via mother?”

“No,” James answered. “I don’t have parents. That was a friend. Forerunner.”

“Oh,” Dust still looked tense. “Forerunner, huh? Is she the pony who sent vin into the Badlands?”

She opened her mouth to answer in the affirmative, then hesitated. If this alien attached the negative feelings she was clearly experiencing with her human mission and all the hardware behind it, completing her task would be much harder. Sooner or later she would have to go back to the probe to report what she had learned and teach the newly-fabricated diplomats.

So, she lied. “No. I got lost. It… not her fault.” She yawned, stretching her wings briefly to their full wingspan, before snapping them back into place on her sides.

“I ne ŝatas tion.” Dust took a deep breath. “How did you ĝisiris tien, kid?” She pointed at the broken transmitter, which had finally stopped moving. “I think I meritas la klarigon. The truth.”

The filly shifted on her hooves, looking away from Lightning Dust and over to the wreckage of the transmitter. “Words are… hard,” she began. “Not believe. You wouldn’t!”

“Tell me,” Lightning Dust insisted, touching the side of James’s face with one wing, forcing her to meet her eyes. “I can be patient. If we have to sit here all night, I can wait. It’s time to tell the truth.”

Well, here we are. James had hoped this moment wouldn’t come so soon. What if the native didn’t believe her? Worse, what if she got rid of her? What if she thought she was crazy, and put her back in the basement? She yawned again, stretching her wings out as before. But it didn’t look like Lightning Dust would be giving her enough time for a nap.

James’s mission parameters were very clear. It was not her duty to make first contact, but it was also not her duty to remain hidden if doing so would compromise the likelihood of mission success. It would be even worse for a newly contacted alien race to see humanity as a species of infiltrators and spies. James was well within her rights to tell the truth on an individual level.

But if she did, and her decision had negative consequences, she might very well go down in the annals of history as the first astronaut to ever botch first contact. They’re so like us, it shouldn’t be a problem. Except for the flying, and eating hay, and believing they made weather…

James looked up.

Lightning Dust was still staring.

She saved me from the basement. I owe her the truth. “Okay Lightning Dust. I’ll try.” She took one last, deep breath. Then she told the truth.

G4.05: Interpolation Error

G4.05: Interpolation Error

Lucky stared down at her hooves. “You want… me to… true things? Not lies?”

“That’s what I want,” Dust said. “Whatever you tell me, I’ll listen. Doesn’t mean I’ll believe you, if it’s a pile of broken feathers and cloudless skies, but I’ll listen.” Dust was certain she’d be able to tell an honest explanation from an invention, even from a pony who could barely speak the language. She was too young to be a good liar.

“Okay.” Lucky leaned back for a second, her face deep in concentration. Of course, she always looked like that whenever she had to explain anything even a little complex, so Dust wasn’t exactly surprised. She spoke as haltingly as ever, though the gaps for concentration grew fewer and shorter with each passing phrase. “I came from far away.” She pointed out the window. “Farther than any pony has ever been. I am an explorer, representing my… ponies. They are different than you. More… advanced.”

“Advanced,” Dust repeated, flicking her wing at the box that she had briefly taken for a communication device of some kind. It was far smaller than any such device had any right to be, much smaller than the brand-new radio their factory used to receive orders from the ground. “Like that? Like that armor you were wearing?”

“Yes!” Lucky said, nodding vigorously. “But they didn’t just want… stuff. My ponies wanted friends. They sent many ponies to visit… your country. But I was first.” She tapped the side of her head with a hoof. “I am the best with words. I would come, and learn how you talk, then go back to teach them.”

Dust just stared, taking it all in. It wasn’t anything like what she had been expecting. No words of the rumored slave-pens kept by the barbaric cousins of Equestria’s own griffins. No word of the worst creatures beyond, who fed on the love of all beings. Not even mention of the legendary mountains of Nibiru, where pegasi were apparently driven from the sky by the end of magic itself.

No, the filly’s explanation was altogether stranger. And not terribly believable. Yet she spoke with complete conviction. She didn’t look away, her tone didn’t change, her scent remained confident. Could she be crazy? “But… why send a foal? If you’re a… diplomatic envoy from… the changelings, or whoever…”

Now she reacted. The pony whimpered, shaking her head. “I was supposed to be big. Making ponies is hard. I came out wrong. If I fail, my replacement won’t.”

“Oh.” The explanation hardly helped. Lucky’s language skills weren’t helping either. What did she mean by making ponies? “So, you came to… learn Eoch? That’s it?”

“That’s it,” Lucky repeated. “And do anything it would take. There are… so many of us, that my ponies can send the ones good at any job. So while I come to talk to you, others can stay behind to learn. Wasn’t supposed to be this easy.” She relaxed again. “But I’m better every day. Months, and I be good enough.”

So maybe she was a slave after all. One so totally dominated that she didn’t even know it. Lightning Dust had heard about such things, particularly from the changelings. They could manipulate a pony, pretending to be anypony they knew, tricking them into saying or doing things, or feeling things. Dust hadn’t met one of the creatures, or been close enough to their attacks on Equestria over the years.

This could be the latest. Dust would have to be careful—just because Lucky might be working for a dangerous enemy didn’t mean she was herself a bad pony. Dust refused to believe that. “Are the ones who sent you ponies?” she asked, hoping her concerns wouldn’t be too obvious.

Just as Dust had thought, Lucky wasn’t a good liar. “No,” she said. “They are… hue-mahns.” Her own language again, though just for that word. “What we call ourselves.”

“So, what did they look like? Scales, feathers, shiny black armor, two legs, or maybe—”

“Last one!” Lucky bounced up and down in her seat a few times. “Two legs, yeah!” She held up one hoof. “We have hands. Not like this, but better. Can hold things, play music, climb…”

“The minotaurs sent you,” Dust said, beginning to assemble a picture in her head. Very little was known about minotaurs from beyond Equestria, except that they were a hearty race able to survive the difficult conditions of a climate without ponies to regulate. There were no seasons there, no rain, and yet somehow, they survived.

Dust admired the resolve.

“No!” Lucky insisted, shaking her head vigorously. “At least… I don’t think so? That word… means something else.”

“One more question,” Dust said, ignoring her confusion. She didn’t want to press the filly too harshly—as tough as she’d been up until now, no child could keep up with such stress forever. “How does a pony end up so far away from Equestria? Did you never know your family, or are there ponies living out there, too?”

Lucky answered with a string of words in her own language, and her expression grew briefly frustrated. “I… not easy to explain.” Another pause. “I wasn’t always. We used magic to make me one. I’m…” She sighed. “It doesn’t go away. I’m a pony forever. The others who come will be too, unless…” more words she didn’t understand.

Dust wasn’t sure what to make of that. Could magic make a pony into something else? Not honest magic, that was for sure. Honest magic changed the sky, everypony knew that. But unicorns could do strange things. She is awkward enough for it. Tripping over her own hooves, not knowing how to fly. There was some truth in what Dust was being told, certainly.

But minotaurs don’t have unicorns. They did have magic, though it wasn’t a kind many ponies knew about. It was dark, forbidden stuff.

“I hope…” The pony sounded timid now, her voice very quiet. “I hope you will let me stay. I am… learning better with you. I want to learn… other things too.” She stretched out her wings, flexing them. “And I don’t want to go back to… where I was. It’s hard to learn Eoch without ponies to talk to.”

“You won’t.” Dust rose, crossing around the table and resting one hoof on her shoulder. “I don’t know about what you told me, but I know I’ll keep looking out for you. Until you can fend for yourself, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she responded, grinning toothily up at her.

“Good.” Dust turned to go. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to get some sleep now. Early shift at the factory.”

“Great!” Lucky’s grin was genuine, any trace of her discomfort from their conversation gone. “Yeah, sleep. Sleep is…” She yawned wide, stretching her wings as she did, and seemed to struggle to stay standing.

“Tomorrow after work, we can work on teaching you more. Flying lessons first. The ponies who sent you would approve of those, right?”

“Yeah,” Lucky said, with another wide yawn.

Dust had to help her make her way to bed. But that seemed a small price to pay in exchange for everything she’d learned.

With that done, there was only one task to do, though Lighting Dust didn’t understand that one either. After all the trouble she’d gone to in order to retrieve Lucky’s old machine, it seemed strange that the filly would want her to bring it outside and set it on the clouds behind their home, “as far from the building as possible”. She did, then washed her hooves, just like Lucky suggested. She would have to ask for an explanation when the filly got more sleep.

So now I know what Lucky thinks. What do I do about it?

Nothing rash, that was for certain. Lightning Dust’s old self would already be flying to the mayor’s office to get a telegram sent to Canterlot as quickly as possible. Even the smallest possibility this child was being honest in her story would’ve been worthy of the most extreme investigation. Dust knew nothing of politics, but she knew that being friends with advanced ponies who could change their species with magic and build radios the size of books would be the kind of friends Equestria wanted very much to make.

New Lightning Dust would have to consider things more carefully before she decided. Charcoal should be here tomorrow or the next day. Maybe he can give me advice. How would the dragons deal with a pony who thinks she’s been sent by advanced ponies on an important mission? At least she thinks her mission is exactly what I would want her to do anyway.

She could spend a day or two thinking things over, deciding exactly who she would tell about this. That pony from Canterlot couldn’t have known about this, could she? She had a translation spell… hadn’t she said something about the objects being dangerous?

She was probably lying, like ponies from Canterlot always did. Dust could deal with that in the morning too.

* * *

James pawed at the edge of the cloud, staring down into the fathomless abyss below her. The sky was so wide, the horizon apparently endless, and she couldn't even quantify the distance between herself and the ground. However badly the transmitter had been damaged in its fall from the sky, her own body would do far worse.

A stiff breeze ruffled her mane and passed by her tail, reminding her that she was naked in public. It doesn't matter. All the aliens do it. Every diplomat is going to have to get used to their social customs eventually. It was a pity she wasn't a forensic historian—one day, James would love to learn exactly what made the aliens different from her own kind in that respect. Her own biases pushed her towards considering their animal past, but she could be honest enough with herself to realize that humans had a similar history.

"Kid!" Lightning Dust's voice came from very close, sounding a little annoyed. "I said jump." She spread her own wings again, demonstrating the stance. “Just hold them rigid and let yourself drift down. As soon as we teach you how to glide, you'll be safe enough that you won't need to be afraid of falling off."

"I can't!" she insisted, her forelegs shaking. "That's two hundred meters to the clouds down there! If I fail, I'll die!" She stared over the edge again, eyes focusing only with difficulty on the large stretch of cloud below them. Lightning Dust had brought her several hundred meters above what passed for a public park in Stormshire, though once the other aliens had learned what they were doing there the little crowd of visitors dispersed and did not return. Probably they don't want to be hit by a falling pony.

"You can," Lightning Dust insisted, jostling her flank lightly, forcing her to stumble forward. Her forehooves gripped the front of the cloud desperately, but there was no longer enough ground to hold on to. She was starting to lean. Her heart pounded in her chest, probably two hundred beats per minute at least. The world was starting to spin; she was so light-headed. She very nearly vomited again.

But she didn't. "O-okay..." she squeaked, holding her wings out and locking the joints as a human might with their legs. It didn't hurt, though it seemed impossible that such strange limbs could possibly hold up her weight. It hadn't looked like enough when she saw them on the screen and it certainly didn't look like enough now that she was about to let her life depend on it.

"Listen carefully," Lightning Dust said, her voice carrying over the wind only through shouting. "Aim for the clouds! Even if you fall, they won't hurt you. The park is the thickest cloud in Stormshire, you can fall twenty meters without touching the bottom! Just hold your wings rigid and twist the ends, like we talked about. It doesn't matter if it's scary—you'll get used to it."

"Okay." She took one last deep breath, staring down into the void. Then she stepped off, pushing with her back hooves. She fell.

Air blasted past her, far more forcefully than she'd been expecting. Her wings caught it and instantly bent upward—not far enough to injure her, but further than was comfortable or optimal for gilding. Instead of directing her way down in a calm, measured way, she plummeted, gaining speed.

"EEEEEEEEEEE!" she screamed, and probably pissed herself a little as well. She'd never know—she wasn't wearing any clothes that might show it. The distance to the clouds below had seemed phenomenal when seen from above, but with her eyes watering and the air rushing past her, it was only a few seconds. James felt her heart catch the second before she struck the clouds—and they swallowed her.

Whatever pain she had been expecting hadn't come. Instead moisture and cloudy white fluff billowed about her, dissolving beneath her as she slowed. She came to a stop after only moments in the clouds, stuck still and staring up at the gap her passage had made. "Uh... hello?"

She wasn't alone long. A few seconds later there was a crash beside her, and the ground she was sunk in shook vigorously with the impact. Evidently Dust had jumped in behind her. After a few moments of struggling, James managed to catch sight of a hoof reaching for her from above, and she extended a hoof to take it. Dust hauled her bodily from the cloud, dripping wet from the moisture.

James lay on her back, legs sprawled in utter disregard of modesty. Just then she couldn't be bothered to care. "T-that... that was... that..."

"Horseapples?" Dust sat beside her, a prominent grin plastered across her face. "Yeah, wasn't the best work I've ever seen. But so far as first jumps went, well done! I didn't even have to push you!"

James was still breathing hard, and she didn't exactly feel motivated to rush. Yet after a few moments passed she sat up, meeting Dust's eyes. She was too relieved just to be alive to feel any anger, at least not right then. "I didn't do good, I failed!" She pointed back at the opening she had left. "But I'm happy to be alive."

Dust laughed. "Most fillies and colts end up crashing their first time. But I didn't have to push you! Lots of ponies need to be thrown the first time."

"Like a baby bird," James muttered, shaking out her feathers. Her wings were a little sore after her landing, mostly from the pain of such a painful impact. But it wasn't anything she expected would last. Just a mild irritation.

"Guess so, yeah." Dust shrugged her wings, then got down onto the cloud again. "Hop on. We're going again."

James didn't argue. There wasn't nearly as much reason to be afraid now that she knew the impact wasn't going to hurt her. The second time she stood on the edge of the cloud, it was only her own instincts of self-preservation she had to overcome. Jumping came far easier then. By the tenth time, she managed to reduce her speed enough that she didn't vanish into the clouds in a puff of smoke. By the time it was dark, she could jump without being afraid. It was hard to stay frightened of something she knew perfectly well wasn't going to cause her any harm. She had mastered basic gliding.

"Great start!" Dust was saying, over and over. "Gliding is the foundation for everything we do. You wouldn't know by looking, but most pegasi spend most of their time gliding. It's all about building that rhythm of when you need to fly and when you can glide—when you fly everywhere you go, you get used to it really fast."

"I did it!" James said, as they walked through the open doors to Dust's quiet home. "I can't believe I actually did it..." It was a pity she didn't have a replacement computation surface yet. She would have plenty to write about this adventure, plenty that she might forget. The Forerunner would expect her to come back with knowledge of the language they could use to fulfill their mission—it probably wouldn't expect her to come back with an intimate knowledge of alien flight as well. I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't done it.

It was going to be hard to leave this pony behind when her mission ended. She hoped she could come back and visit, once her official responsibilities were complete. But she wasn't going to rush. After all, the probe had spent hundreds or thousands of years getting here. It could afford to wait a little longer while she learned.

It had been nearly twenty-four hours now, enough time for the probe to finish fabricating her replacement gear. She could only hope the communicator’s location and her implants together would be enough for it to locate her for delivery. It won’t be the end of the world if it isn’t. Lightning Dust knows where she found me, I could just fly back there and pick them up from the probe myself.

Today had proved she had a little more practice ahead of her before she could fly on her own. A few weeks of it, if Lightning Dust’s reassurances were true.

But I probably won’t have to wait. Tomorrow we’ll get the delivery, and I’ll have my gear, and everything will be perfect.

G4.05: Taking Stock

Author's Note

Hey pones, you're probably all pretty surprised to see this little chapter slipped in here, right in the middle. To explain briefly what you're reading: I recently ran an Indiegogo to get this story a hardcover print. At the time of this writing, you have until Sunday (tomorrow) to order, before the final publication run begins and no more orders are possible. So check it out if you haven't.

As part of the initial funding, I was previously offering a "new chapter" tier for the story, where people could submit their ideas for things that didn't get enough attention in the story. By twist of fate, every one of those sections fit in the epilogue except one, this chapter, which I couldn't fit into the 1000 page limit of the hardcover print. As a result, it has become public here to all of you, thanks to the generosity of one wonderful backer. The others all became part of the epilogue, and so they'll only be found in the hardcover.

G4.05: Taking Stock

James twitched her wings one after another, shaking them against her side. But the irritation only got worse. She whimpered, and this time she was loud enough that Lightning Dust heard her.

The pony hovered in the air over their house, pushing bits of cloud in her mouth. This was apparently a weekly process for ponies who lived in cloud-houses, replacing bits that had drifted away and generally giving the structure attention. But how could she question her when the results were obviously successful. Whatever “actually” allowed pony structures to hold together didn’t matter to them.

“What’s wrong?” Lightning Dust stopped in a dead hover, looking down towards her with concern. Somehow she seemed to know exactly what James was thinking, because her eyes jerked to her wings. The pegasus left her bits of cloud behind, and landed on the front “yard,” looking expectant.

“I, uh…” she whimpered, hoping that maybe she would be able to use her poor Eoch as an excuse. “Confused.”

“Sure you are.” Lightning Dust sunk down onto her haunches right in front of her. Her eyes narrowed, and she extended one of James’s wings with one leg. James tensed at someone else’s touch on the delicate organ, but Lighting knew exactly how to move it without hurting her, extending the wing in the natural way so as to not cause discomfort.

“When was the last time you preened this?” she asked, in the tone of a mother who had found her child in bed without brushing her teeth first.

“Uh…” James blinked, trying to come up with alternative translations to what she’d just heard. “The last time I… what? What does that word mean? Preened.”

Lightning pushed her back a few steps, towards the fountain that was at once their source of water, new clouds, and bathing area. James stumbled, not able to resist, though her confusion was growing. Why was Lightning so mad at her? “Don’t play dumb with me, Lucky. You’re going in there, and you’re going over both of your wings to my satisfaction. I can see a dozen feathers out of place.”

That is what preen means. Someone with another career might not even recognize the word. But now that she thought about it, it did make sense. Birds did it, and her wings were rather birdlike. It was wrong to expect them to just stay together perfectly and need no maintenance. Half of the special soaps and waxes that Lightning Dust kept around her bath were wing-related. Where everything else they had was the cheapest that money could buy, she spared nothing on her wings.

“I never…” She winced, shuffling from one hoof to another. “I don’t know… how.” Her voice was a tiny squeak. “I’ve never done that before.”

Lightning Dust’s eyebrows went up. “Your wings were perfect the day I rescued you. Perfectly clean, freshly waxed, not one out of place. Do you really expect me to believe your parents did it for you, at your age?”

She shook her head. “My… machines.” The rest of those words didn’t translate well. She certainly couldn’t explain that her body was freshly made and that all her feathers had been grown and arranged by a robot. “Did it for me. Never learned how. Honest!”

She looked up, meeting Lightning Dust’s skeptical eye with all the innocence she could muster. Her wings kept itching painfully, and she rubbed one up against her side, wincing as it didn’t help.

James might not be her proper size or age anymore, but being small did have one advantage: everyone thought she was cute.

“Okay,” Lightning Dust said, exasperated. “I’ll pretend I believe you this one time. But I’m not going to baby you from here out, kid. If you don’t take care of your wings, you can’t expect them to take care of you.” She gestured, and James climbed over the edge of the water. Lightning selected one of the bottles, dropping a little from the end into the water until it foamed up. “This is a de-greaser. Only use it after a long time without proper care. It strips wax, so you don’t want it to be part of your routine normally. But those wings look bad. You smell like you got lost on a migration flight during a thunderstorm.”

Lucky sunk down into the foamy water, not exactly sure what she was supposed to be doing. But the natural flow quickly filled the water with thick foam, smelling like a car wash. “Get your wings in it!” Lightning instructed. “Cover both of them as thick as you can, then I’ll help with the brush. See the clip on the wall there? If you don’t have anypony else with you, you put the brush there and rub up against it. But my shift is in an hour, so… we don’t have time for that.”

Lucky obeyed, and soon enough Lightning Dust had the brush’s wooden handle in her mouth. She couldn’t talk then, only gesture with her wings and make frustrated sounds whenever James didn’t respond correctly. It hurt, but this time the pain was more refreshing than something she wanted to get rid of. It was like a deep massage after a workout. The water went from clear to a shade of off-orange, with lots of little brown bits floating in it. My wings were that gross?

Then Lightning pulled the drain, letting fresh water wipe the suds away before replacing it and letting the basin start to fill again.

“Kay, that was the easy part.” Lightning extended one of her own wings all the way, nodding over at them. “Go on, Lucky. What do you notice about my wings. And don’t you say a word about me babying you, I already gave you the chance to be honest. We’re going from the beginning, just like you wanted.”

But James didn’t complain, despite her assertions. She looked down, searching for what Lightning Dust wanted her to see. “I, uh…”

“Look at the feathers,” she said, her voice softening a little. Either she was realizing that James really didn’t know, or she was just tiring out of being so confrontational. Either one would work for James. “There’s an order, see? No feathers are poking up from below. There’s a natural layer to things, and a direction. As you fly, they can get confused. The edges of some poke up. And if you really let things get out of hand, then you can get broken or even infected feathers growing with the good ones. Whoever told you that the bad feathers would just fall out from flying is wrong. And your wing there is proof.”

James held out her own, just as Lightning had done. In a way this was something for her to be proud of, since two weeks ago she wouldn’t have even been able to do that much. “But I can barely glide. Why would I have… infections?”

“Because you move your wings,” Lightning answered. “They’re out a lot, and that means they’re going to get worn. Not only that, but keep them folded all the time, and you’ve got somewhere warm and dark and wet. That’s… the worst possible thing for keeping something clean. If your wings get really bad, you wait for whole new feathers to grow in before you can fly again. You know how long that takes?”

Lightning didn’t actually wait for her to answer, just leaned in and declared in an ominous voice, “Two years. And you’re lucky, too. Other creatures have some of their feathers for life. If a griffon loses their guide-feathers, they just won’t be able to fly straight ever again. Or even get off the ground, in some cases. Ponies regrow all of them every few years, but… that is not an excuse for bad care.” She pointed with one hoof. “See here? This feather is broken at the end. It’s stuck in your wing, making it itch like crazy I bet. The new one will push it out, but not before it gives all the feathers around it a chance to get infected too. Is that what you want?”

“No!” Lucky squeaked, staring down at the broken feather in horror. And now that she knew what she was looking for, it wasn’t the only one. There were several that were frayed like it, and plenty more out of place. Compared to Lightning’s smooth wings, her own were a mismatched patchwork quilt. She held out her other wing, and found more of the same on that side. At least the soap made them not stink so bad.

“Should be enough water in there,” Lightning said, nodding towards the basin. “Get low so it can soak. Warm is best… helps loosen up the pores and stuff. But we don’t have that, so cold will do.”

Lucky lowered herself down to obey, splayed flat against the cloud. She shivered a few times from the chill, but adjusted quick enough. Pegasus ponies seemed quite good in cold weather. “How often do we do this, anyway?”

“Every day,” Lightning Dust answered. “Well… this part, and the next part. But when you do it so often, it’s not so bad. Soak, clean, then preen. That’s what my mom used to say. That’s… the last step.” She gestured, and Lucky moved over, standing sideways on the edge of the basin and letting the other pony pull her wing across. “Now you move your head along the wing, looking for feathers that are out of place. Nudge the lower ones back into place under the upper ones. And if one’s broken…” She bit down, and Lucky felt a brief, sharp pain. She jerked her wing back, leaving a bright yellow feather in Lightning’s mouth, with a few dribbles of blood on the shaft. She spat it out, then gestured impatiently back. “Jerk straight out, quick as you can. If it’s broken, your body already wants to get rid of it. The replacement is already trying to push it out. You’re just helping it, and getting rid of a place for gross stuff to grow in the meantime.”

Lucky gritted her teeth as she stuck her wing back out. There were a few more painful jerks, all in places where the itching was the worst. But with the cold of the water and the broken feathers gone, her wing already felt better.

The rest of the process didn’t hurt so bad. She had to stand so close to Lightning that she could feel the mare’s heartbeat close to her own, almost as rapid despite her greater years. There was no getting the scent from her nose, a smell that had long transformed from “barnyard” in her brain to “safe.” Whatever Lightning was doing, it rapidly stopped hurting and became comfortable again. She moved in straight lines from the base of her wing to the tip, settling feathers with each pass with her mouth.

Lucky’s ears flattened to her head in embarrassment—she should be embarrassed about this, just like the first time she’d taken a bath here. But Lightning Dust’s annoyance was gone, and she brought no embarrassment of her own. “There,” she said. “Lower that wing back down, let it soak for a little.”

Lucky did, hissing with pain as it touched the cold water. Little tendrils of bright red oozed for a few seconds, before diluting away in the water. “Am I… broken?”

Lightning Dust chuckled, touching her shoulder with one reassuring wing. “No, sweetheart. That’s just what happens when you put it off. It doesn’t hurt this bad when you make it part of your routine. I should’ve known… that smell had to be coming from somewhere. But now you know.” She nodded towards her other wing. “When your left stops hurting, I’m going to sit here and watch you do the right, okay? I count… only three broken feathers on that side. I know you can do it.”

I wish you would, Lucky wanted to say. Instead she lifted her head back over the edge of the water, then struggled to do what had taken Lightning Dust only minutes. She could see now why cleaning the wings was the important first step, considering her mouth was all over them. She could only imagine how much worse it would taste if they were dirty. But for all she was worried about it, her wings and neck both were flexible enough that the task was easy. There was a rhythm to it, an instinct. After watching Lightning Dust go through the whole thing once, she seemed to know what to do.

“Not bad,” Lightning Dust said, gesturing for her wing. “You missed… down here, by the end.” She lowered her head, fixing the feathers herself. “It’s easy to miss them—some ponies don’t even care, since they’re always getting moved around by flying anyway. But it’s the professional way to preen.” She straightened, lifting a little container from the shelf. “Now, since we degreased, you’ve got to wax them. You make wax on your own, but… this stuff is better. Professionals strip their own wax on purpose before shows and stuff. But we’ll save it for when your wings get really desperate, like they were earlier.”

“I can… actually do it,” Lucky said, as soon as the wax was on, and her wings were sparkling. There was only a faint itching from the places that had been tormenting her before, and it was already dying down. “I really did it.”

“Obviously.” Lightning Dust pulled her close, mussing her hair with a wing. “You’re a pegasus, Lucky. What did you expect?”

G4.05: Special Delivery

Even through the walls, James could recognize the familiar sound of quadcopter rotors spinning somewhere nearby. She rose from where she'd been studying, ignoring her racing heart as she darted to the window, and scanned the sky with acute eyes. The quality of pony eyesight in daylight was one of the many wonders James had discovered since leaving her confines of the basement, and it was an ability that came even more naturally than flight. There was no need to run outside and get the attention of the passing drone—her house didn't have real windows so much as openings to the sky covered in ice. Ice so thin she could break it with her hooves if she wanted, which was exactly what she did now. Once she made a sizeable hole, the rest crumbled away in a wave. She could only hope Lightning Dust wouldn’t be too mad.

The delivery drone wasn't meaningfully different from the ones that delivered packages back on Earth, a slim plastic drone covered in solar paint with six soft plastic propellers. This one had the same design they did, which minimized "sound bleed" by focusing almost all the noise directly downward. Not all of it, obviously, since she'd still heard it. Still, these ponies could fly. Did anyone see you? James thought, nervously watching the drone as it soared in over her head and landed on the bare floor. Well, landed wasn't quite the right word.

It tried to land, but the cargo box it was carrying sunk through the clouds like they weren't there, and the whole thing nearly went tumbling through the house.

James jumped after it with an urgent scream of pain and frustration, ignoring the spinning propellers as they raked shallow gouges in her coat and tangled up in her mane. She got her forelegs around the box the drone was carrying just as the floor completely dissolved, and she went tumbling through into the kitchen. She crashed down on the table, which was made of clouds as much as anything else, and smashed into the ground floor, sinking nearly a foot into the clouds.

Only then did she realize she was bleeding, chunks of her mane had been ripped out, and she'd smashed the drone into two pieces. It was a little tricky to climb out while keeping one hoof wrapped around the drone, which still squeaked and struggled in vain, electric agony. She surged out of her fluffy white prison, climbing up onto the floor and hugging the broken drone to her chest like the survivor of a shipwreck might cling to her flotation device. Several large chunks of broken plastic that had once been part of the drone slid off her chest, leaking fluid and trailing wires as they fell out of the house into the abyss below.

None of that mattered. Clutched in James's hooves was a hard-shell plastic case, so large she could only just hold it. Inside were replacements for all her gear. No more struggling with paper, no more living in the dark. With her computation surface, everything would be good again. James might very well complete her mission in weeks, if she worked really hard. After that... she'd be free to do whatever she wanted.

James still didn't know what that would be, but it would probably involve living with Lightning Dust.

* * *

Lightning Dust knew something was wrong from the very moment she stepped into the factory. She walked straight to the big magnetic board of assignments the way they all did when it was time to start a workday, removing the metal card she used to check in from her saddlebags and holding it in her mouth as she approached.

The board divided the labor of weather creation in Stormshire into three basic sections: Raw Materials, Production, and Distribution. The last category was by far the most glamorous of any weatherpony's job, and it was always reserved for the most skillful ponies. Lightning Dust always had the pick of any assignment she wanted, and she could always find the magnet with her own name at the very top of "Distribution." Everywhere Stormshire went, she was always leading whatever weather crew was out distributing what they produced.

Yet her name was no longer in the top slot. It was no longer on the board at all. She hadn't even been placed into the intern level of production, where young ponies visiting for summers frequently watched work at the factory. She searched the floor, wondering if perhaps her magnet had slipped off the board somehow, but there was no sign of it. Dust sighed, making her way over to the locker room anyway. She walked down the back of the building, through huge spaces packed with machinery. Thanks to the cooperation of the tribes and the introduction of unicorn magic, a job that would've taken hundreds of pegasus ponies now took only about a dozen.

The lockers were full of chatting ponies, each of them at least on friendly terms with her. She'd had brief flings with a few, though nothing had lasted. Dust didn't live such a meandering lifestyle because she was good at commitments.

As she entered, the entire factory went silent. Half a dozen ponies—mares and stallions half-dressed in their weather gear—all stared at her as though she'd grown another set of wings. Dust felt herself tense, but she didn't say anything. Though she didn’t know for sure, she had her suspicions. Mentally she prepared herself for what was to come next.

Lightning Dust didn't want to be traveling the world without a home. When she had finally saved up the bits to move to Cloudsdale she hadn't expected she would ever leave. Unfortunately, life hadn't been kind in that respect. It never is.

Dust found her locker combination no longer worked. She tried unlocking it, going through the motions as though she didn't already know what was coming next. After three attempts, she sighed, turning for the far door and leaving her locker with all her stuff still inside.

Stormshire's weather supervisor had an office on the top floor, with wide round windows that overlooked the sky for miles around. She found the door already hanging open, and so she didn't bother knocking. It wasn't as though she didn't already know how this would end.

Morning Showers was sitting at her desk as she always was, going over a stack of weather schedules with a forced nonchalance. Yet as she looked, Dust found a brown box resting in one corner of the room, a box already packed with Dust's belongings. "Morning," Showers said, watching her come in. "I suppose you'll be..."

"You could say that, yeah," Dust interrupted. She could feel her whole body tensing. She was ready for a fight, even if she didn’t expect one. It was easy to see the transformation in their eyes—she was an outsider now. A herd was great until its members all turned on you. "What gives?"

"Well, uh..." Showers took a deep breath, lifting several folded sheets of paper from the table beside her and setting them atop the weather report. Dust could read the headline even from several feet away: “Wonderbolts Cadet Dismissed in Disgrace After Injuring Several." A black and white picture of herself was right below the title, glaring at the camera as officers of the Air Corps escorted her away. It hadn't been her most photogenic day. "Look, there's no painless way to say this."

"Go on." Dust sat down on her haunches, glaring across the desk. "I can wait. Apparently I don't have a duty shift." Dust would never have spoken to her boss this way before—at least not before getting a liter of cider in her first. But she'd done this dance three times now, and it always ended the same way. Being friendly with the boss never helped, so what was the point? The least she could do was make the experience as miserable and difficult as possible. It was only fair.

"Right, right." Showers opened the article. "Look, I need to know, Dust. Is this true? The Examiner isn't known to be sensationalist. If you can tell me what I'm reading here didn't happen, or didn't happen the way it says..."

Dust shook her head. "I don't know what it says. But if it says ponies got hurt and it was my fault, it's right. That's the only thing you ponies ever care about."

There was a long, awkward silence. Showers folded up the worn-looking newspaper. Dust had once wondered what it would take to gather up each copy—not a feat a common pony could accomplish, unfortunately. There was no way to escape her shame.

"I can't have you on a crew anymore," Showers eventually said. "I'm not the only one who saw this. Someone was passing copies—"

"Yeah, I bet." Dust didn't even try to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "I know Nightwing resents me after I wouldn't go on a second date with him. Lots of others... ponies can't fly like I do, couldn't beat me, so they'll talk about me behind my back and spread rumors. I get it."

"No, you don't." Morning Showers rose to her hooves, taking a deep breath. "Dust, you know the kind of trust a weather team needs in each of its members. I didn't plan on doing anything... but no one will be your wingpony."

"So, I'll work in the factory," Dust said flatly. "I can do every job there better than anypony you have. Just tell me where to report."

"Sorry Dust, that isn't happening either—for your safety, as much as ours. The Wonderbolts are national heroes. Learning what you did to them, how badly you—"

"Cadets," Dust interrupted, raising her voice a little. "Cadets who flew so weak they wouldn't make it onto the backup reserve here in Stormshire.”

"Doesn't matter," Showers said, her voice firm. "The point is that you're dangerous and I don't want you in my factory. You're gone."

Dust sighed. This part of the dance was always the worst. The first time she'd been fired this way, she had tried hiring a lawyer, defending herself in court. It wasn't right that one mistake would be held against her for the rest of her life, a mistake that hadn't even done permanent injury to a single pony. She had learned many things during that fight, but the most painful lesson was that they could fire her. It didn't matter that all weatherponies worked for the crown. "I do not quit," she said, speaking slowly and clearly. "I do not resign."

"It'll be easier for everypony," Showers said, her expression hardening. "Take your stuff and go."

"I do not resign," she said again, her voice flat and determined. "I'm the best performing pony in this factory. If you want me out, you'll have to fire me."

Morning Showers swore under her breath, throwing several of her drawers open in frustration. She pulled out a pad of paper a moment later, along with a pen. "You claim to be loyal," she muttered, glaring. "But you make me do this. This factory has had a hard-enough quarter."

Dust shrugged. "I've saved lives, Showers. I took in an orphan when the rest of this damn place let her rot in a basement. I think the least I've earned is the severance pay I need to relocate."

Showers only grunted, scribbling rapidly on the sheet. It was the standard message, informing that she'd been terminated from employment and was due a lump sum of no less than three months’ wages. As she had expected, Showers couldn't put a single critical remark on that page about her work performance. That's never what it's about though, is it?

Dust took the note with a matching glare of her own, storming over to the box and dumping its contents into one side of her saddlebags. It wasn't as though she had very much—a few flightsuits, some spare goggles, and a few old posters. She didn't care that she was crushing many of them.

Dust managed to keep her cool on her way out of the factory, walking with her shoulders straight and her hooves crushing the clouds confidently below her. Yet with each step she made, she grew less confident. Her breathing became shallower, her heart started to race. Why did it have to be so soon? The mayor was responsible for this somehow, he had to be. But what could she do?

Nothing, as usual. There was no way to get even, only to get away. Only now I'm not the only one I should worry about. Lucky Break was hardly in an emotionally stable position, almost constantly at the edge of hysteria. She was learning Eoch quickly, but that was about the only thing in her life that seemed to be going well. She isn't ready to move.

Dust stopped outside the factory, staring across town at her own house in its slow drift. Maybe she'd be better off if I gave her back. It wouldn't be hard. If anything, it would only show the mayor that he'd won. It would be her admission that she'd been wrong. How many more basements will she have to sleep in if I do? That wasn't to say the little pony had much better prospects waiting for her if she did accompany Dust to wherever she traveled next. Whatever fortune Dust had once enjoyed was now gone. Lucky would be in for a long ride across Equestria, bound for who knew what destination.

Would she even want to? After hearing her story... It was more than possible she would want to remain close to whatever power had sent her, so that she could return when her mission was complete. Assuming any part of that story had been true.

But having a little filly would probably help me. Ponies would be way more likely to give me a job if they knew I was supporting somepony. Dust shook her head and forced herself to banish those thoughts as she took flight for city hall. She would not become the sort of pony she hated, who manipulated the lives of others for their own personal gain. She wouldn't have to decide, really. She could give the pony what had never been given to herself: a choice. The filly might not have her cutie mark, but she was old enough to make decisions for herself.

G4.05: Policy Impact

Extricating her gear from the interior of a container that would pass through and dissolve most surfaces in her house had proven to be an intensely difficult task.

At least until she remembered her old jumpsuit. Much of what Lightning had explained about the process did not make sense to James. She understood one thing: the ponies had a treatment process they applied to ordinary objects that allowed them to interact with clouds the same way their own bodies did. That treatment had already been applied to her old jumpsuit. From that realization, the only difficult part was laying it out for her to work on without letting go of the cargo container.

Her makeshift workspace held without any further protest. Inside was an identical set of gear to the one she had brought with her, down to the finest detail. A set of XE-201 armor took up most of the space within the container, even though it was compressed into storage mode. Beside it was a set of saddlebags, another jumpsuit underlayer, her computation surface, a transmitter, her stun rifle, and a replacement guitar that hadn't been broken and bent by the torrential force of moving water.

James had no reason to rush. So she took her time getting dressed, relishing the feeling of sterile fabric on her coat. Once she was wearing it, the thin boots didn't seem like they were about to fall through the clouds, and they didn't wear away the floor as she began to pace. Lightning said something about that, didn't she? My armor didn't fall through last time until I took it off.

Maybe that was some hint at the real way this society could "enchant" objects not to destroy the substrate of their world. It was really something natural, and all they had to do was extend it to apply to other objects.

Such meaningless academic speculation no longer seemed worth the valuable time she should be using to get back in contact with the Forerunner. Thank you, Maslow. Up another level of the pyramid we go.

James would leave nothing to chance this time. She packed the saddlebags with her nutrient bars and plastic pouches of water, along with her computation surface and her sparkling new guitar. She secured every strap and buckle to hold them in, and checked every fastening that connected them to the armor. Instead of placing the long range transmitter or the stun pistol into storage, she attached these to the outside of the armor as well, The transmitter went just above her flank while the pistol slotted into a groove on the inside of her right front hoof.

The filly stood in front of the only mirror in the house, a small square of glass Dust had mounted to her wardrobe. Looking up into that square, fully armored in her exploration gear, James felt like an explorer again. This is a Lucky Break, she thought. If Lightning Dust had any doubts about my story before... Now she could see the prepared first-contact movies, or watch demonstrations of difficult human concepts. They could even send messages back to the Forerunner probe, though James doubted that was a good idea.

It’s probably best she thinks I'm an outsider from somewhere else on her planet for a little longer. If ponies react like humans, she might be frightened or angry with me if she learns I'm from further. Much much further. Of course, James would tell her the whole truth, when the proper time arrived. When it was time to return with her own language mission completed, James intended to bring her along for that final report. That would be the perfect time to show her everything, unless something happened sooner to necessitate being more open.

As she reveled in her familiar barding, something banged loudly on the door, so loud that James nearly jumped out of her skin. It had taken her nearly a half hour to struggle into the armor... she wasn't about to be able to get it off quickly. But who would be visiting? She backed away from the door, cowering in the back of the kitchen. I'm not home, I'm not home, I'm not home... whoever it was had to have come for Dust. They just didn't know she was at work, and once they realized...

Someone banged on the door again, much louder this time.

"Your body is experiencing physiological symptoms indicative with fear. Are you in danger?" said a quiet voice through her ear implant, the same placid feminine tone the suit used for all status notifications. "Should I call for help?"

"No," James whispered back, quivering as she stared at her hooves. "I don't need help. It's nothing."

The door imploded, falling to the floor and sending cloud tufts flying. The blast of air that followed was so intense James went sailing into the rear wall, smashing into it and landing on her face again. The air was filled with scattered papers and other small objects, basically anything that hadn't been nailed down. Every piece of her armor held together, and she didn't lose anything through the floor. The armor also soaked the brunt of the impact, and Lucky was back on her hooves soon after.

A pair of ponies stood outside the door, both dressed in identical armor made of shining bronze. They were both adult males, with suspicious glares on their faces and spears leaning casually against their sides.

Between them was a third pony, taller than either of the guards and without armor. His wings were still spread wide, as though somehow responsible for the blast that had ripped the door from its hinges. He wore no weapon, only a bright gold vest with an official-looking seal over where the breast pocket would be on human clothing.

The pony stepped into the wreckage of Lightning Dust's living room, eyes settling on James. "Hello there," he said, staring intently at the suit she was wearing. He looked hungry. "You're the orphan named Jams Ear Win, yes?" He took another step closer to her. "Nun estas la tempo por iri."

James shivered, backing away from the stallion. She was already standing near the far wall, so it wasn't as though she had much room left. The whole cloud was only about fifty meters across, and she couldn't fly. The XE-201 could dock with a mobility-assistance exosuit, but she hadn't ever been trained to use them. James wasn't a soldier. "No," she said, forcing herself to look up into the stallion's face. "I live with Lightning Dust. I'm not leaving without her.” She was a little proud of just how coherent her words had been, and almost without an accent. Having Dust to copy had helped tremendously.

"I'm tima, ke via zorganto malukcesis renkonti la standardan nivelon de zorgo. Lightning Dust is not a pony who can be fidata to take care of la malfortunan child. There's a chariot waiting outside, these nice guards are going to bring you with us down to Appleloosa. Do you have aliajn ajn apartenaĵojn? Other than that... very interesa kostumo via jama kapo..." He kept walking towards her, forcing her to continue backing up. There was only the one entrance, so she ended up with her rump against the far wall and nowhere to go and the stallion bearing down on her.

James suppressed a whimper, and not easily. It took all her strength and focus not to turn and run. Her heart was racing, her breathing sharp and shallow, and the world was starting to swim. It was perfect, everything was perfect! I was learning, I had somewhere safe, someone nice to live with, it can't end like this!

She only needed one look into this stallion's eyes to know that he wasn't going to let her keep anything. He was just like the mare who had come for her before, the one with the horn. This one might have wings, but he also had the same symbol on his vest, a crude padlock of rust color set onto a gold background. He would take away her tools the very day she got them back, and send her away from the only pony who knew where she'd been found in the first place. Without her tools, Lightning Dust might be the only alien who could help her get back to the probe.

I have to succeed. If they drag me off and I get lost, the probe will just make a new me. It will be like I didn't exist. She couldn't let that happen. "Stay back!" she shouted, her wings straining against the suit. She stood as straight as she could, lifting her right leg off the ground and pointing it at the stallion. "I'm not going anywhere unless Lightning Dust says it's okay! G-get away from me!"

The stallion froze, his eyes locked on her leg. Or, more accurately, staring at the gun attached to her leg armor, which was now pointed squarely at his face. She could see his eyes widen and smell his sudden fear. He knows what a gun is.

Something sounded from outside, and one of the guards retreated through the doorway. There was some muffled conversation, followed by a familiar voice. "No, I don't care who the buck sent you, you're standing in my house!" The stallion turned, staring at the doorway as the other guard tried to block it with his body. It did little good—Lightning Dust may have been smaller, but she had the tenacity of a solid-fuel rocket. The guard went stumbling out of the way, dropping his spear as he did so. It passed right through the cloud-floor, vanishing completely.

The guard was already struggling to his hooves, and it looked like his companion from outside was about to jump onto Lightning's back. James still hadn't moved. Thanks to the actuators built into the armor, she held that leg perfectly still, even though inside the armor her whole body was shaking. It would still take a deliberate, distinct motion on her part to actually shoot the gun.

"Stop!" the stallion exclaimed, his tone fearful and urgent. "Don't touch her!"

The guard hesitated, tilting his head slightly, but Dust only straightened, nodding with satisfaction. "That's what I thought. How about you stinking diamond dogs get out of my house before I call the marshal." She looked around, surveying the damage with barely suppressed rage in her voice. "Maybe I won't denunci for all of this, but if your flanks aren’t gone before I—"

The stallion interrupted. "Miss, your... filly doesn't know what she's wearing. She is alŝultriĝanta danĝeran armilon at me.” He turned to look at James. “Please put your leg down, sweetheart. Nice and slow... you ne devus esti portanta tion... it's sufiĉe danĝera. Tro danĝera for a sweet little filly like you... that's it..."

James lowered her leg, relieved she hadn't needed to do what she was about to. The stun-pistol wouldn't have done any permanent damage to the pony, it was true. But if she attacked these ponies to get away, and the government could somehow tie it to the explorers... the diplomats would have a hard time answering for her actions.

"Now," the stallion said, taking a deep breath. "Please don't do that again." He turned away from her, glaring at Lightning Dust. "Equestrian Family Services jam took care of la aferon of this filly, Miss Dust. Ni aprezas la efikon de via volonta servo... but it ne plu is necesa. Vi ja komprenas why that might be. A pony with your, uh... specifa pasinteco... fidita por doni kvalitan prizorgon for a young pony. Just look at her." He gestured with a wing. "I'm supozanta you don't even know what she's wearing, do you? She might be venenita jam. Or if she wasn't hurt, ŝi povus mortigi somepony. Imagu la psikologian damaĝon, kiun ŝi suferos, sciante ke ŝi akcidente ŝtelos la vivojn de poneoj! Foals have been ruined by less."

Lightning Dust strode across the room, shoving past the stallion until she was right beside James. There was confusion on her face, and barely contained curiosity, but she didn't ask anything, much to James's relief. "That's great," she said, failing to contain her sarcasm. "But I'm more interesita in what Lucky thinks. If she wants to go with you... then that would be one thing. If she doesn't—"

"She's a foal!" The stallion shouted, indignant. "She doesn't know what's best for her! Of course she's going to want to stay with the one who traktis ŝin bone—she doesn't even know what just happened." His tone cooled a little, and James could see a sneer on his face. "The factory let you go, didn't they? Nopony in town will hire a pony like you, Lightning Dust. If she knew what you've done..."

James wasn't even mildly curious. Maybe she might've been, if this pony had visited during normal hours and expressed only kindness for her. But considering the mess he'd made of Lightning's house, considering the way he'd stared at her and was still clearly intent on getting her gear away from her... "I don't care what Dust did," she said. "She didn't break into my house and try to steal me away without even asking. When I was upset that my things were missing, she went and found them, she went out and found them!" James took a step closer to her, pressing herself to the side of Lightning's legs. She couldn't feel the mare's reassuring warmth, not through her thick armor, but she didn't need to. The message was clear enough.

"You don't understand," the stallion insisted. "She doesn't have a job. She won't be able to vivteni vin plu. From the aspekto de ĉi tiu domaĉo, ŝi nur apenaŭ apogantas vin. Looks like she hollowed out a cloud and called it a house." The guards chuckled at that. Even through the armor, she could feel Dust tense. There was a sudden smell in the air, something strange. James couldn't quite place it, but it was coming from Dust.

"He's right," the mare said. "I did just lose my job. I'll have to move, like I always do. Somewhere far enough away that nopony knows my name. If you stay with me, you'd have to come too."

James shrugged, glancing back at the communicator mounted to the back of her armor. She took a deep breath. "It doesn't really matter where I live. I wanna stay with you."

The stallion rolled his eyes. "The punkto estas dubinda, I'm afraid. My instrukcioj venas rekte de Family Services, Miss Dust. The foal is coming with me whether she likes it or not."

"Or," Lightning said, her voice nearly a shout. "You all can go straight to Tartarus, broken wings and dry skies all the way down! I know what your types do to foals with nopony else, and I won't let you do it to her!"

The guards tensed, moving across the room to stand on either side of the stallion. One no longer had his weapon, and the other didn't even raise his spear. Yet even so, they made an imposing wall of muscle and angry looks. "I don't think you understand," the stallion said, his voice still calm, unmoved. "The filly is coming with me. Either you get out of the way and we do this ĝentile, aŭ unu el miaj gardistoj tie povas alporti vin al la policejo dum mi tiris la ĉaron anstataŭ li. I'd rather not... it's teda laboro je la plej bona el tempoj. But if you force my hoof—"

He didn't get to finish. James raised her leg in a single fluid motion, feeling the servos vibrate as the suit assisted her aim. She fired with a slight twitch of the hoof, and the air was filled with a brief, hissing charge. The stallion dropped to the clouds a second later, flailing and convulsing. One of the guards went for his spear, and James shot him too. The third was halfway to the door before he fell twitching to the clouds.

A faint cloud of charged gas rose from the barrel of the gun as James set her hoof down, her heart still racing. The adrenaline had banished the fear, at least.

Dust stared sidelong at her, glancing between the twitching bodies and her leg. She slowly set her wings back against her sides, her body relaxing. "That wasn't an accident."

James shook her head. "That wasn't a question."

Pause. "Did you..." She reached out, nudging the stallion with the edge of one hoof. He moaned in response, rolling away from her. "Oh, thank Celestia."

"I don't know what he was thinking." James twisted her leg to one side, holding it up so Dust could see the weapon clearly. "I'm a linguist. This weapon can't kill. It only makes someone hurt too bad to move for a little bit. Give them an hour, and they'll be fine. Might... mess up their short-term memories a bit, though. I don't know how they'll interact with your brain chemistry." She probably broke into English at the end, as she always did when her mind reached for words in Eoch and couldn't find them. "But they'll be basically fine."

"Good." Dust hurried over them, making her way towards the door. "I hope you were sure about what you decided, Lucky. Because after that... well, we gotta go. I planis moviĝi eksteren sekvasemajne, post serĉi aĉetanton pro la domo, but... no time for that now. Grab your things from upstairs. We’re moving."

G5.01: Cost of Employment

James huddled against a canvas sack more than twice her size, trying very hard to think of nothing at all.

Her first visit to the ground had started so wonderfully! Take away all the terrible bits, and the visit had been great. She'd learned much more about the native technology and culture, learned things that living in the clouds had failed to teach her. She'd learned the natives had coal mining, blacksmithing, mass production of steel, and probably the telegraph as well. She'd learned that all the food she ate up in the sky probably had a mundane source much closer to what she would've expected. She'd learned that along with a frighteningly similar language, the ponies had a disturbing level of cultural overlap with ancient Earth. Add in a lot more leather and some guns, and she could've been walking around in a cultural reenactment of the Old West.

But James hadn't had the chance to linger on all of that. Information that might've occupied her speculation for days was now relegated to some dim corner of her memory, replaced by the agony and heartbreak of a pony not much older than she was. The colt hadn't been lying—James had been able to smell the similarity between them. Not that she needed to, when they had so much visually in common.

What the hell did the earlier generations get themselves into? James did not have to wonder how she might have ended up looking and smelling exactly like an existing pony. Why did you kill a native? James wasn't a diplomat; she wasn't the one meant to be getting her hooves dirty representing Earth and making first contact. Even so, she knew enough to know that killing one of the aliens was about the worst mistake any of them might make. What were they supposed to do if they turned the native population against them? Conquer the planet? Give up? I need a minute to set up the communicator and ask.

The Forerunner probe was not required to volunteer information. It was, however, required to answer direct questions, so long as doing so wasn't calculated to seriously impact the likelihood of mission success. What happened that was so disturbing you thought I shouldn't be told about it? she wondered. Was learning Eoch pointless? Are the aliens going to hate us no matter what we do, thanks to the mistake of people who died before I was even instanced? And then, in the darkest corner of her mind, she wondered something else. If the Forerunner can't be friends with Equestria, will it try to conquer it instead?

James was pretty sure it was supposed to give up long before that. Their mission of exploration was meant to find humanity new friends out among the stars, not create new enemies. Even so, she couldn't be completely sure. James had not been required to study every contingency the Forerunner could take.

"Hey, are you feeling better?" Dust nudged her softly with one wing. "We're safe now. I'd like to talk."

"Sure." James uncurled, shaking herself out and rising to her hooves. The boxcar was already starting to stink with their stench—there was no air conditioning in here, and the desert all around them was scorching hot. I should probably be watching out the window to get a look at as much of this country as I can. The diplomats could use that information one day. "I can talk." She sat up on her haunches, relieved that at least she wasn't shaking anymore. If she tried very hard, she ought to be able to keep herself calm through this conversation. Please don't put me back in the basement. I don't want hay I don't want hay I don't want hay...

Dust leaned in a little closer, her voice harsher. "That colt looked like family. Was he?"

"Well genetically he's a family member, probably a direct descendant. A thousand Encred says he's a perfect match for mitochondrial DNA. If you have mitochondria... and they're anything like ours..." James trailed off, realizing she'd just answered entirely in English. She couldn't help but feel grateful that Dust wouldn't be able to understand. Every bit of the truth was probably more than the pegasus could handle, anyway. "Not... really. You'd say no."

Dust kept staring, expression unmoved. "So why not just say no?" She had already removed her saddlebags, now she dragged them forward with one hoof, so they were beside her. "La armilo you used al la Reĝa Gardisto, ĉu vi uzis ĝin alMorning Dew? Did you kill her?" She didn't sound suspicious so much as worried. As though some part of her believed the answer might be yes.

James shook her head vigorously. "I've never killed anyone! I study words, Dust! I don't fight."

Dust shrugged. "You fought sufiĉe bone antaŭe. Switch out the armilon, kiu igas ponies fall over with one that kills them..." She trailed off. "The monsters on the poster, do you know anything about them? Do they have anything to do with why everypony thought you were a dead pony, kiu reviviĝintas?"

No getting around that one. James would not lie to this pony, as much because she seemed like the sort who would be able to tell if she was lying as because she owed Dust the truth. No hay no hay no hay... "I know about them," she began. Dust opened her mouth, but this time James forged ahead, her words tumbling out in a rush. "They're peaceful, Lightning Dust! They would never hurt ponies! They don't take them away, either! That's movie stuff—they didn't need a live specimen to dissect to grow our bodies, just a few swabs or tissue samples! They could've gotten those by stealing a hairbrush. They wouldn't have done anything to Morning Dew. I don't know what happened in that town, but I'm sure it was a misunderstanding."

James stopped then, the world starting to sway with how short of breath she'd become as she got everything out in one long sentence. She'd probably switched to English for bits and pieces of it, but just now she was too stressed to know how much Dust might've gotten.

Enough, apparently. The pegasus visibly relaxed, nodding knowingly. "I scias ĝuste, kio that's like," she said.

Just now, James was too worn out to care much. Staring out the window and seeing shadows only just now starting to lengthen, it was hard to believe it wasn't even late afternoon yet. They didn't take me away. Dust protected me then. She won't let them put me back in a basement.

She felt a familiar pair of wings drape over her, bringing with them all the scent of safety. James didn't even care that Dust had been sweating too, didn't care how dirty she was getting or how little the other pony cared for her personal space. At least when it came to Lightning Dust, James had begun to accept the native way of looking at things. Modesty was an irrelevance in the face of feeling safe.

"There's something you're not telling me," Dust said. "But that's okay. I don't want you to have to lie. Kiuj ajn viaj monster friends are, I won't judge them sen aŭdanta ilian flankon de la rakonto. I won't be like the rest of Equestria. But... when you're up to it... I do want aŭdi ilian flankon de la rakonto. Okay?"

"Okay," James squeaked. "C-can it... not be today? I'm... I dunno how much more I have in me, Dust. Running like this... I'm not really cut out for it. Explorers... lots of better explorers than me. I'm just supposed to be good with words." That, and she didn't know the answer to what had happened. The Forerunner would know. Hopefully, when she got a moment alone to get her gear back out, it could tell her.

"Sure, kid," Dust said. "You go ahead and rest. We've got a long ride ahead of us. Mail trains don't go rekte kiel pasaĝeraj ones do." She released her, opening her saddlebag with one hoof and offering James a bruised apple in her mouth. "'Ere."

James waved her off, wincing at how beaten up the apple had become. "I got something else," James said, turning back to where she had shrugged out of her own saddlebags. She had to open them slowly with her mouth, moving deliberately until she finally got the plastic latch to open. She dumped the contents out of the whole bag, a dozen nutrition bars and pouches of water glittering in their Mylar wrappers. "I got some food too!" Not very much, unfortunately. But the nutrition bars would be a wonderful luxury while they lasted.

Dust dropped the apple, and it rolled away from them down the metal car. "Your... messenger... brought you all this?" She looked between the pile and the plastic box. "Must have. You weren't hiding it in the cloud, it would've fallen. No spells on any of this."

James lifted one of the packages, gripping the uneven ridges in her teeth and yanking the wrapper open. The bar threatened to spill out, but she caught it in her teeth. She offered it to Dust, just as Dust had offered her the apple. "’Ry it!"

The pegasus sniffed at the offered nutrition bar, before taking a large bite, big enough to take off over half the bar in one bite. She chewed slowly, eyes wide. Her whole body visibly relaxed as she ate, a smile spreading slowly across her lips. "Mhmmmm."

James opened another bar, savoring the taste as it filled her mouth. After spending so much time eating fruits and vegetables that were only somewhat fresh some of the time, the simulated "pulled pork BBQ" was about as wonderful a thing as her tongue had tasted since she had switched from hay to the pony version of a burger. Nutrition bars always had an unnatural aftertaste to them, a background twinge of just how chemically engineered they really were under the surface. Even so, the food science behind what she was eating was easy to ignore when she was so hungry.

Nutrition bars couldn't compete with freshly cooked food made by a real chef, but they were a good contender against what the two of them usually ate.

"Sweet Celestia," Dust said, any trace of her previous anxiety gone. "I've never tasted anything like that in my whole life." She stared down at the pile of food packets with barely contained hunger. "What was that?"

"A time-release nutritional ration," James answered. "Tailored to the specific needs and tastes of my specific biosleeve. But obviously since we're the same species we'll share some tastes in common, I—" She'd switched to English again. She took a breath, trying again. "It's, a... magic food. One of these and you don't get hungry for an entire day. Well, I won't. They were sized for me, and you're bigger, so you will still need to eat a little. This flavor was..." She picked up the other wrapper, turning it over so she could read. "Hamburger mac and cheese flavor."

Dust stared, more enraptured than she had been by the communicator two nights ago. "Equestria needs 'hamburger mac and cheese'. Do you know the recipe? We could hire a unicorn to make it for us. There are lots of skilled unicorns in the Crystal Empire." She stood up, pacing away, then stopped walking. "You're right, Lucky! I don't feel hungry anymore! That tiny little snack, and I'm full!" She turned back around. "Imaguwhat the Wonderbolts could do with magio kiel ĉi tio? A whole day, you said?"

Dust reached down, picking up one of the bars with a single hoof. James watched with barely contained envy—it was true, the frog of her hoof was quite sensitive. Unfortunately, she didn't have anywhere near the dexterity for fine manipulation like that. "Two hundred grams. Fill a pony's saddlebags with these, and she could probably fly across Equestria without needing to land!"

James smiled. She didn't want to break Lightning Dust's sudden good mood by telling her that the nutrition bars required advanced chemistry and were certainly many years beyond what ponies could create. Then again, the Forerunner might be able to give me a recipe that would taste similarly. I wonder where we could get the ground beef.

* * *

Olivia Fischer rose from her biofabricator with nearly as much confidence as she had ever demonstrated during her decade in ISMU. She took shelter in her routine, even though everything she saw in front of her was a reminder that her ordinary routine would no longer hold.

Forerunner Landfall Shelter had been built with a floorplan not unlike the one she'd been familiar with on many a small spacecraft and remote station. She could take peace in that as she moved through the empty base, walking on four legs that ended in stumps and painfully aware of a tail swishing back and forth behind her as she moved.

It was strange just how fresh her memories seemed. Past her frightening revival within the fabricator, Olivia could practically still see the interior of Our Lady of Hope Memorial Medical Center, filled as it was with scanning equipment and so many cables that a few others had tripped in her presence. Olivia herself had still been hungover from the night before, and the searing lights overhead had only made her headache worse. Her very last memory before sitting down in the machine was the relief from the sedatives they used before she was brought into the machine.

I was supposed to wake up in a hospital and go back to work. But she hadn't. She hadn't even woken up in her own body. Olivia knew with absolute certainty that she would never see her own body again. She would probably never even get to see her own planet again, except through a telescope. Her family, her colleagues in the ISMU, they were all gone forever.

Staring into an animal face covered in yellow fur—feeling the blue hair and tail, examining the strangely colored eyes, all that might've driven a lesser soldier to insanity. At the very least, it would've broken their will to fight, made them useless for anything more than cleaning toilets and serving meals in the mess hall. But Major Olivia Fischer was to ordinary soldiers what those men and women were to civilians. No matter how frightening, no matter how hopeless her situation seemed, she would endure.

The damn eggheads did it. They landed a probe on another world. Someone won a goddamn Nobel prize for this. The worst part was that she wouldn't be able to give whichever nerd had thought it was a good idea to allow the machine to make her into... whatever she was... a fist to the face. Or whatever these limbs were.

Olivia remained in the bathroom for at least an hour, until she figured out a way to strap the clippers to one of her legs and shave the hair from her head to regulation length. It didn't look anything like the way it should, growing only from a strip through the middle of her head and down her back. She did the same to her tail, cutting it to a short, uneven blue length that she bound with a length of elastic cord. That done, she could finally don the uniform fabricated for her, its breathable fabric printed in a desert camouflage pattern and complete with openings for each of her strange body's extra limbs. There were no boots, but she suspected omitting those was more to do with retaining even a small amount of dexterity with her stumpy limbs. How the hell am I supposed to shoot like this?

Olivia had only read the Pioneering Society Handbook with the dedication required to pass the admissions test. A test that would raise her effective salary to that of a Lieutenant Colonel without any increase in duties or being removed from the field and locked into a desk job to rot. It had seemed almost too good to be true, that all she had to do was read a few books, take a few tests, then visit the hospital for an afternoon.

Fuck you, Major Olivia Fischer. I hope you enjoyed those extra 10,000 Encred a month. I hope you had the most fucking amazing life ever. But now you're fucking dead and I'm a sideshow attraction.

Landfall Shelter was built like a wheel around a central spoke, with a round hallway surrounding the core. Olivia still remembered enough to know the core was where she belonged when she was finally ready, as it was the place the Forerunner could communicate with her most directly. It was there she would discover why she'd been created, there she would finally begin her mission. At least there was a gigantic monitor at just the right height for her to look at without having to crane her neck.

"Forerunner," she began, keeping her voice calm and flat. It still sounded high and childish, with a melodic quality her own gruff voice had never possessed. She sounded like the sort of women she usually mocked. "I'm ready for a mission update. Please be as concise as possible."

A Forerunner probe wasn't a person, Olivia remembered that much from studying the manuals. It would not respond to the same sorts of social pressures that would've motivated a human. It couldn't be convinced, pressured, bribed, or manipulated. Exactly the sort of CO Olivia had never had the pleasure of working under. Maybe being an astronaut will have a few perks.

It also didn't have to spend any of its time thinking. "Command accepted, Major. Mission Status Update. Landfall on alien world KOI-087.01 occurred approximately one decade ago. Construction of basic facilities continued on schedule for the next two years, eight months—"

She cleared her throat loudly. "I said to be as concise as possible, Forerunner," she said, annoyed. "I don't need every piece of history. Only give me what I need." Just as the probe was not a person, weak to all the usual suite of human failings, it also couldn't get offended or annoyed with her. There was no reason to treat it like anything other than a tool. A tool with the power to create life from almost nothing. An idiot God. Unfortunately, it was her idiot god.

"Colonization failed. You're here to make it not fail."

Olivia swore under her breath, grinding her teeth together. "Maybe... a bit more than that."

No more hesitation than before. "Previous generations of human bodies proved unsuccessful for scientific reasons," the probe said. "No shielding mechanism devised proved effective at combatting these effects. Samples have thus been taken of the alien beings who inhabit KOI-087.01. This has proven successful—at this moment, a linguistics team is on assignment developing a translation to the native language. In the meantime, your team has been assigned to gather further information about the object KOI-087.01, and to perfect a design for future human colonists capable of surviving here. When the translation of this planet's alien language is complete, you will conduct diplomacy as proscribed by SPSH Guideline 13.E."

"My... team...." she repeated. "I don't see a team. Are they already on assignment?"

"Negative."

She tapped one of her stumps on the ground, impatiently, but the computer didn't get the hint. "Where is my team, Forerunner? Those sound like civilian-type jobs. Why did you need me?"

The Forerunner spoke in an even synthesized voice, slightly lower than she was used to, with an emotional cadence that remained identical no matter what it was explaining. It could be telling her about the brutal murder of her own husband and children (if she'd ever had them), and it would still sound the same. "Homesteading KOI-087.01 has proven difficult to previous generations of explorers. The threats previous teams encountered might have been resolved with the skills and organization of a leader with military experience.

"To that end, you were instanced exactly one week before your teammates. This means the accelerated aging process meant to bring your body to full physical maturity was not allowed to complete, but your age is within the acceptable margin you established on your application. This interval will allow you to familiarize yourself with the environment, as well as conduct whatever reconnaissance you deem necessary."

Olivia cleared her throat again. "Excuse me, I forget. What age margin did I establish on my application?"

"'Whatever the fuck I don't give a shit,'" the Forerunner responded, in an exact recording of her old voice. "This same value is present on numerous fields on your application."

Olivia imagined punching her old self squarely in the nose. True, she couldn't imagine taking any more time filling in pointless paperwork that was only intended to give her a modest boost in salary. Yet even still, hadn't she realized a real person would be made to pay for her sloth? No, because I didn't think they had a chance in hell of landing a probe. It was just some technocrat's pet project, and she'd just been taking advantage of the effort to scan some skilled soldiers.

"I understand," she said, forcing her expression to clear again. "Will I be able—"

The Forerunner cut her off. "Before you begin, I have a decision requiring your attention. Since instantiation began, additional information arrived confirming the last generation's translation team had survived and was successfully progressing in their mission. Your team includes one translator meant to fulfill the previous team's role. I require your permission to terminate their fabrication."

Major Fischer very nearly granted it without thinking. But where Olivia's understanding of the tactics of the SPS was significant, her grasp of the technology was far weaker. "You're asking for my permission to... kill them?"

"Answer involves subjectivity," the probe responded. "But the crew-member's body is as developed as yours, and fully functional. Unfortunately, the synthesis of brain-matter was nearly complete at the time this information was discovered. Were this not the case, a more useful individual would've been chosen instead."

"I can give them a new job, right?"

"Affirmative."

Olivia waved one stumpy limb through the air. "Then I don't give you permission to terminate them. Whoever they are, they should suffer with the rest of us. No getting to escape duty, they'll have to serve their time too."

"Input accepted."

"Now, I want detailed reports on every physical threat previous crews have encountered and how they were handled," Olivia said, sitting down in front of the screen. "No rush this time, I want every detail. Anything that might be helpful to know to protect my team. Oh, and..." She pointed with one leg at the last of the biofabricators, the one that was dark inside and lacked the constant readout of health information printed on its surface. "I want that pod going. I want all the pods going from now until we complete our mission."

"Command accepted. What crew member should be instantiated?"

She shrugged. "Whoever I need most at the time you have an empty slot to fill. You have more information than I do, so you can make that call."

"Input accepted."

Across the room, Olivia could hear fluid running through buried machinery. She did not need to understand the mechanism of the probe to know it would obey her orders, so long as it could. The Forerunner had placed her in charge of this mission. That meant she could pursue it her way. "Now, what I said before. I want to see how every previous encounter with... if there's a translator, that means there are people living on this planet? They look like me then, right?"

"Affirmative. KOI-087.01 possesses at least five sapient races, perhaps more. Constraints of travel have hitherto prevented an exhaustive search and profile. It is possible that the species of your present biosleeve is not the optimal choice for first contact. A long range subsonic aircraft has been prepared for exploration purposes and is waiting for you in the hanger."

"Excellent!" Olivia rose from her haunches, stretching her limbs one at a time. The sitting position had felt quite natural for her body, but a steel floor was much too firm to be comfortable. "I'll go and..." She trailed off, realizing something. It didn't give me the report. It hadn't even been the first time she asked. True, she'd asked for several bits of information at once. Maybe it just hadn't wanted her to be overwhelmed.

"Forerunner, please give me a detailed report on all previous encounters between your old crews and the native life on this planet. Every relevant detail."

There was a second's hesitation, sluggishness in the probe's response compared to each previous answer. Olivia remained standing where she was, defiant. She wouldn't be getting distracted this time. "Revealing all data would have a significant adverse impact on odds of mission success."

"What?" She stared at the screen, mouth hanging open. "Are you refusing to obey my order?"

"Negative. Your order cannot be obeyed as it would significantly reduce the calculated odds of mission success."

Olivia marched up to the screen, glaring at the glass as she might a subordinate officer on a dangerous mission. Her scowl had moved men twice her weight to action in the past. Her anger had frightened dictators and presidents alike. Now, though... she could see her own reflection in the glass. She looked like some rich girl's genetic pet. She didn't stop glaring, though. "Don't you think that protecting my team from the risks of life on this planet might be difficult if you won't give me the information I need to assess what those risks are? What do our odds look like when the leader you chose doesn't know what she's doing?"

"You have the authority to override the orders given by a previously instanced officer. Know, however, that I calculate a 5.8% drop in the odds of mission success if you do so."

Major Fischer opened her mouth to snap back at the Forerunner, but hesitated last second. "I will... hold that option in reserve." She sat back down on her haunches. "You must be allowed to tell me something at least, right? Why don't you explain everything you can that doesn't involve an override?” She sat back down in front of the screen.

"Command accepted," the Forerunner said. "The first encounter occurred during generation one..."

Author's Note

So I apologize if this chapter had a few more mistakes than usual--I'm posting from my vacation and wasn't able to have the normal editing session that finalizes one of my stories. I'll do my best to get mistakes corrected in a timely manner, but I probably won't be online much, so forgive me if they stick around longer than usual.

G5.01: Settling

They didn't ride the same train all the way to their destination. The “Crystal Empire” was apparently half a continent away, and to take too direct a route would make them too easy to follow. They hadn't exited at the end of the route Dust negotiated, but instead slipped off the train while they waited in other cities.

James couldn't help but feel paranoid and a little shy as they walked through a few other small towns, even though each one was as different from Dodge Junction as Dodge Junction had been from Stormshire. With one notable exception: most of the residents in each city they visited didn't have wings, or at least didn't seem to be using them.

Much more importantly, none of the other ponies they spoke to stopped and stared at her, claiming that she was really some dead relative returning to them after months in the grave. They spent nearly two full days in travel, and in that time not a single pony acted towards her with anything worse than indifference. Sweet, marvelous indifference.

James had joined the Pioneering Society to be an explorer, but just now she didn't feel up to doing very much exploring. She didn't keep a journal of all the different city configurations and make guesses about the underlying social foundations. She didn't even improve her language skills by trying to talk to as many of the natives as she could. Full immersion might be the fastest way to learn a language, but James wasn't up to it. She needed a rest, and she took it.

Mostly the travel was boring and isolated, exactly the way she wanted. Mail carriers were not vehicles of speed, nor were cargo trains. That meant long hours riding along with ordinary countryside blurring past the openings, spent either resting alone or nestled against Lightning Dust's wings.

She kept meaning to get out her transmitter and ask what had happened to the last generation, but in the end decided against it. She could do that once she got time away from Dust. If the pegasus decided that she wanted to destroy James's communication equipment this time, it might be a far more arduous task to get her a replacement. Delivery drones with solar coating could make journeys of nearly indefinite length with satellites to guide them, but when those journeys might also involve being detected by native creatures who could fly, then whatever was being delivered had to be worth the risk incurred by traveling there.

For the last leg of the journey, a northward passage up from a city called Vanhoover, Dust booked them a few tickets on a passenger train. Instead of restless sleep or nervous pacing on a metal floor, James relaxed into a comfortable chair clearly designed for ponies, with a raised cushion that supported her belly without putting too much pressure on it. Compared to the cold that had begun to penetrate every vehicle they rode into the north, the heated cars were an unimaginable luxury.

She felt a gentle nudge against one of her legs, light enough that she almost missed it. James sat up, blinking and rubbing the moisture from her eyes. "W-what?"

"We'll be coming through the shield any second," Dust said. "I think you'll want to see."

James had her doubts about that. The windswept wasteland of snow and ice had continued unbroken for hours. One snowy wasteland started to look much like another through the glass. She got up anyway, crossing the comfortable train car to the windows on the other side. Propping herself up on the seat, James braced herself for disappointment.

The train had nearly crested a hill, and she could feel their motion begin to slow as they neared the top. James searched, and found a towering archway set up around either side of the tracks not far ahead, glittering in the weak northern sunlight. It looked to be made of colored glass, or perhaps an enormous quartz crystal, like those in underground caves in Mexico, with geodes gigantic enough for people to climb. Impressive for such an apparently primitive society to cut without shattering, but nothing that incredible.

Certainly not worth getting up over. But then they passed through, and the air all around seemed to shimmer, what had seemed like an endless expanse of snow and ice melted away in a fraction of a second, and the train continued downward into a rounded valley.

There was no snow within, no trace of the cold. The train turned sharply to the right, riding along the rim of the valley, almost as though the route had been specifically chosen to give the best views.

It was like nothing on Earth. At the very center of the valley was a towering structure of blue-white crystal, without apparent seams or cracks, towering so high into the sky it rose above the edges of the valley itself. "H-how..." James stammered, her mouth opening and closing. "Th-that shouldn't... it's so heavy!"

A whole city of glassy-looking buildings had been built around the tower, though the rest she could see from this angle resembled those she had seen in other pony towns. They didn't seem to be built with any greater technical skill than that demonstrated by the skyscraper. The rest of the valley was taken over by fields and crops, swaying along to a gentle breeze. There were ponds, lakes, parks, orchards... everything that James imagined a self-sufficient little city might need that was otherwise surrounded by ice and snow.

"I came for the games once," Dust said from the seat beside her. She'd been looking out the window the whole time, apparently without James noticing. "I felt the same way when I saw it. The castle goes as high as the foundations of some low cloud-buildings.”

"How—" James tore her eyes from the window, turning back to Dust. "I didn't think you had... the technologies to build something like this."

Lightning Dust shrugged. "It's an ancient city, built by unicorn magic from long ago. That's as much as I know."

James looked back out the window, staring at the spire, at its sloping peak, and the smaller towers that glittered alongside the central structure. She could only imagine how impressive it would seem when standing at the base. If ponies were anything like humans—and so far, they'd often proven they were—there would be a museum she could visit somewhere in the city where she could learn more. How wealthy was this empire that they could build their monuments out of crystal?

Maybe this place was a hint at some long-lost history of pony society, lingering back to an ancient golden age. Humanity's climb to civilization had been rocky, so it stood to reason that the ponies' had been as well. "We're really gonna live here? On the ground?"

Lightning Dust nodded, whispering into her ear. "Ponies will be looking for us. Everypony who knows me knows how much I hate the ground. They'd never think to look for me here. Plus, the Crystal Empire has its own services, separate from the rest of Equestria. I'm crossing my hooves they don't pass records."

I'm a fugitive, James thought, smiling faintly to herself. Bet nobody at the Pioneering Society expected that. "Will we be... okay?" she asked, struggling for a more descriptive word but not finding it. "You worked at a... factory, before. Are there more factories here?"

"We'll be fine. We've got plenty of bits to hold us over until I find something to do. Don't worry about a thing." She reached over, messing with James's mane. "I'm used to this kind of thing by now."

James found she didn't really mind, though she pushed Dust's hooves weakly away with her own. At least Dust knew what she was doing. That made one of them.

The rest of the day passed in a blur after that. Lightning Dust found them a single tiny room in an old building on the outskirts of town. James couldn't tell if it was an apartment, or a hostel, or if those concepts even had any meaning to the ponies. They seemed to have private property and a currency and something like capitalism, but she couldn't be sure. Not even really my job. Once I figure out the language I'm done. Maybe she could ask for a few more advanced language textbooks. She'd just about finished with the basic Eoch. Maybe a dictionary too, so she could start memorizing vocabulary.

The room wasn't very large, around three meters on either side, with crude wooden furniture and a single tiny window that was too high up the wall for James to reach. There wouldn't be any room for privacy while living here. James might not get another chance to communicate with the probe for days if she didn't use it now.

She didn't bother with the armor—she wasn't going out into the snow, and she wasn't going to have another fight. Hopefully.

The new transmitter still had all three of its legs, not that it needed them. The dish wasn't damaged this time, nor were there any cracks in the casing leaking radioactive fuel.

James set up the tripod on the bare floor in the center of the room, then extracted the computation surface and paired it with the transmitter. The dish spun until it pointed at the window, flashing a green laser out into the afternoon sky a few times.

Connection Successful, the screen said. You have one new message.

I have... She shivered, tapping the screen with one hoof. What the hell? She reached out, and with a little nervous prodding she managed to tap the correct part of the screen to get the message to enlarge.

Greetings linguistics team.

My name is Major Olivia Fischer, as of this moment I am directing the colonization effort. I am led to understand you have been successful thus far, but the Forerunner probe indicates you have not been logging reports as specified by the SPS Handbook. I expect you to begin filing reports immediately, and to provide me with a summary with your progress thus far.

The Forerunner indicates you are the only surviving members of your generation. While the stupid AI might not care about our lives, I assure you my attitude will be very different. Your safety, as well as the safety of my team, is of chief interest to me. To that end, please include in your summary any information you might have regarding any possible threats to our lives present on this planet.

Also, I don't give a shit what the Forerunner says I should do if something happens to you. If you're in any danger whatsoever, I will use every available resource to recover you.

Invictus Maneo

Major Olivia Fischer

James read over the message several times, though of course there was no place in her mind for doubt. Forerunner probes could do many things, but write convincing letters were not one of them. She shouldn't have been surprised—it was foolish to assume the probe would be content doing nothing for years while she studied the language. It would still be advancing towards its goals in other ways. It doesn't have other linguistic teams, right? At least the probe gave me somebody who cares about our lives... The way the Pioneering Society Handbook sometimes talked about them, they were just resources. Organic tools sent across the void, like the probes Earth had once used to explore its own solar system. They didn't really have a purpose beyond the one they were sent on.

"Computer, I would like to use voice dictation to compose a reply."

"Dictation ready."

The screen cleared, replacing itself with a blank pad of paper and a flashing cursor. James began to speak in English, finding the words came with a little difficulty after so many weeks without using them. It was a good thing her memory for languages was so good.

"Olivia,

“I apologize for not being able to file my reports—until a few days ago, my equipment was lost and I had no way of communicating with the probe. I recently received replacements, and should be able to make regular reports back to you, and be able to exchange brief messages. I have been living for these many months completely submerged in the native society, learning the language as I struggle to survive. Upon my arrival, I was stripped of all my machinery and left to fend for myself.

“You aren't going to believe this, but the society here closely resembles one from back home. The aliens call themselves ponies, live in a country called Equestria, and speak a language called Eoch. This nation is a monarchy organized around a religiously revered princess who is ceremonially responsible for the night and day, like ancient Egypt. I would have a hard time giving you a good idea about their technological abilities... obviously they have not followed the same developmental path humans did.

“I have yet to encounter anything truly dangerous, except occasional mentions of ‘monsters.’ I fear they may see the humans of some previous generation of explorers as some of those monsters, but I don't know what happened to cause that. Something serious seems to have happened in the town nearest to the location of Forerunner Base, an alien settlement that resembles an old-west town named Dodge Junction. Do not enter it under any circumstances.

"The aliens do not have firearms, or much else in terms of military technologies, though they seem to have the understanding required to create them if given the incentive. There are few natural threats we haven't known from Earth—the area immediately surrounding the probe is prone to serious flash floods that even the Forerunner could not predict.

“I am currently living with a native who has... accepted me. Her instruction is greatly speeding my learning process—I may complete my mission in under six months at this rate.

“The Equestrian government is searching for me, though. For some reason, they're trying to collect our technology. I don't know how much they know about it, but they stole my last computer and knew what my gun was when they saw it.

“The native I am living with now protected me from them, and we have relocated to another part of the country; I don't know exactly where, but you can get my positional information off this transmission. I am not currently in any danger, but I appreciate the offer for help. I do not expect that any further intervention would be needed until I'm ready to come back.

“Regards,

“James Irwin."

End of Act 1

G5.01: Designation Earth

Olivia was in the range, the newest section of the base constructed at her request. The stone here still had that shiny, segmented look, reflecting the recently-printed adhesive of the construction process. The Forerunner had apparently not considered firearms proficiency to be important enough to be worth maintaining—clearly it hadn't been paying much attention to the world they lived on. Equestria was a dangerous place, and it was her responsibility to keep her crew alive. Somehow. God only knows what I'm supposed to do as a talking horse.

Some part of her wanted to walk right out of the base, find the deepest ravine she could, and throw herself in. Whatever else the Forerunner was, it had been right about not showing her the recording. Now that she had seen what it was willing to show without an order, she almost wished she’d gone all the way. Maybe I will… not knowing everything is worse than knowing nothing.

A loud, mechanical buzzer echoed through the range, and Olivia drew her pistol. The gun clung through her flesh to the magnetic implants she had recently had installed in her hoof, pinching painfully, but that didn't matter. She could aim now, sighting down her left foreleg as targets lit up one at a time. She pulled the trigger with a slight twitch of one of her leg-muscles, which would relay a signal from her implant to the gun. Each time it fired, and each time the target vanished in a faint flash of light—neither the gun nor the targets were real.

One soldier with a gun isn't enough to keep a whole crew safe. I'll have to insist the new crew all gain proficiency themselves. The implants would be easy—none of them were awake yet, so ordering a few changes to the existing array of implants wouldn't even require a surgery. Well, not one they would ever know about.

About a minute later, and another buzzer sounded. Each of the remaining targets vanished with faint flashes of light. "Test complete, Major Olivia Fischer. Your personal firearms proficiency is 2A. Congratulations." Better than she'd ever been as a human. Despite her lack of hands, this new body had eyes like a bird of prey. I guess it's a good thing the natives don't have implants, or else I might have to be afraid of them too.

After a quick shower, Olivia found a message waiting for her, a response from the translation team. She read over it quickly, expression darkening. Given everything she had already learned, the "good" news from her translator wasn't as positive as she would've otherwise thought.

But considering the odds of ever seeing another planet, I shouldn’t complain. It was a shame the last generation had been produced younger than maturity, or else Dr. Irwin could've told her if the ponies had bars. What Olivia really needed was a long night, some rough drinking, and maybe some rough men. The order didn't really matter.

But she wouldn't be getting any of that, and neither would Dr. Irwin. At her order, the translator would continue her mission. Learning it would be a bitch, but so was learning to function with stub-legs and no hands. If I could learn Mandarin, I can do Eoch.

Maybe she would, but not for some time yet. The translation team had well over a year allocated, and that mission was well on its way. That meant Olivia could focus her attention on more pressing matters. "Central computer, are you there?"

"Affirmative."

"I assume this landing site was chosen for good reasons."

"Affirmative. It possesses significant deposits of uraninite, iron, and mineral-based oils beneath impermeable clay layers. It is also remote enough for the furthest extreme of this civilization that the risk of discovery during the formative stages was remote. A decision was reached to avoid more hospitable locations with equivalent properties, as many were in closer proximity to native settlements or might attract them during the decades necessary to establish a manufacturing and resource-production infrastructure."

"If I remember my handbook..." Olivia began, rising from the console and setting off down the hall. The worst offender her new body had was the clopping sound of her hooves, a noise she tried to ignore with great difficulty. Every step was like a tiny nail driven into her eardrums, a reminder of how little the real Olivia had cared about what became of her mental offspring. "We're supposed to build somewhere. Outside the range of existing civilizations, right?"

"If it is possible, yes," the probe responded. "Predictions suggest an existing civilization would be more likely to acquiesce to a request for a colony to a power which already has a foothold on the planet. Modeling based on observations recorded by translator G3.01 indicates this prediction is more likely now that native bodies have been adapted."

Olivia nodded, though of course she knew the Forerunner didn't care whether she acknowledged it or not. In many ways, it didn't care about anything. It wasn't a person, wasn't a general intelligence. It was a bucket made of rules filled with data that sloshed around until something fell out the other end.

"I want to be far away. Further than the natives will ever find us. Somewhere we could build a whole city and never get discovered unless we want to. We have satellites, you must have a place in your database like that. Find me the closest one."

There was no pause. Either the Forerunner had already considered similar parameters, or it was just so smart that there was no delay to its computation. "I know of several sites. One is a tropical island surrounded by hostile seas, which the natives avoid for reasons I cannot determine. The other is a more remote, mountainous region. Not a single individual of the various native equestrian races has been observed traveling towards this region of the planet. Based on calculations incorporating the—"

"I don't care," Olivia interrupted. "You already said tropical island, so let's shitcan the other one for now. Can the Sojourner go that far?"

"With cargo," the Forerunner responded. "Several times on a single tank of fuel. You should be aware, however, that I cannot determine why no settlement has taken place here. The natives possess sailing ships, as well as airborne vessels which propel themselves via unknown means. Both avoid the island, even though it is within easy sailing distance of another continent populated by individuals of a less technologically sophisticated species."

"Sounds fascinating. Sounds like it might kill my squishy scientists if I don't investigate it first." She turned for the hall, marching back towards her quarters. "Prepare a fleet of automated drones. I want the entire site examined before my scientists are prepared. Once I have a crew, we'll explore it and possibly begin construction. So, whatever you have to do to ramp up production..." She waved a hoof through the air. "We have time to kill while the translation team is learning Eoch. I intend to see it used productively."

"Input accepted," the computer replied. “Be advised, this will require a significant increase in resource allocation and distribution. This increase cannot be accomplished in total secrecy. It is possible this site will be noticed."

She shrugged. "Well, make us some defenses while you're at it. We can't hide in a hole forever, Forerunner. It's time we roll this train along."

"Command override accepted," the Forerunner said. "Preparation for first settlement on KOI-087.01 has begun. Please provide object designation for the official record."

"Object designation?" Olivia asked, raising one eyebrow. "Not planetary designation?"

"Affirmative."

She hesitated. Olivia had forgotten about this. Asking the probe to get ready to build their first city was a major turning-point. Until this point, the mission might fail. Until the first city was built, whoever was in charge could determine the planet unsuitable and shut the Forerunner down for good. That could never happen now. Now the Forerunner would switch into overdrive, until its computational core became the center of the first city they built. On whatever this place was. Not a planet, but... it seemed enough like a planet from where Olivia was standing.

Planets ought to have good names. "Earth," she said, without thinking. "Best planet I know. We'll call it Earth."

"Input accepted." The probe said.

* * *

Then the manufacturing began. It took weeks, weeks Olivia spent with very little to do. She studied what she could about the dangers previous generations had faced, but found that frighteningly little was left for her to study. Olivia made up the difference by preparing the "Forerunner Base" with every defensive system in their records. She didn't care that doing so would slow the production of the equipment to found their first city. After all, if Forerunner Base was ever destroyed, it would take with it any chance of future generations.

She supervised the installation of concealed, motion-tracking anti-air guns. She worked an earthmover, opening enough space for mortar emplacements on the mountains overlooking the Forerunner. She spent hundreds of hours watching the camera footage from many, many concealed watch posts, placed in an increasingly wide circle around the Forerunner Base. The only thing she didn't do was tackle any of their scientific problems. There were several facing their nascent colony, and it was possible Olivia could've made some progress figuring some of them out. What had killed the previous, human crew? Could future humans be created who were immune to the effects? What about the anomalies about the planet itself? Olivia didn't care, leaving those questions for when the scientists woke.

Much changed in the base besides the defenses. The probe greatly expanded its manufacturing capacity, digging out vast spaces under the ground to make into new workshops. Olivia inspected each new manufacturing area, mostly because she was often bored and didn't have anything better to do. A growing warehouse started to fill with heavy machinery, modular building sections, and more manufacturing tools to be used in the new city. Oliva checked everything the Forerunner made, though the labor was mostly pointless. It wasn't as though she even understood most of what it did.

One place she visited most of all was command, where the gestation pods quietly churned night and day. She spent much of her free time there, listening to music or eating her nutritional supplements as she watched her fellow exiles grow. The vats had one clear wall, so she could look in if she really wanted. She didn't very often—the only thing more disgusting than a baby was a half-formed baby that was also an adult, their body filled with implants and wires in addition to the muscle, skin, and sinew.

"They all look the same," Olivia said, only a few days before her companions were scheduled to be released. "Why didn't you gather more samples? We don't all have to be identical clones."

"A previous order," the Forerunner replied. "It was determined that as little disruption as possible should be introduced to the lives of the native creatures. My only sample was gathered with considerable difficulty and human intervention."

"Find another way," Olivia ordered. "Maybe camouflage drones would work. Maybe you could dig around in the trash. I don't want my city to have hundreds and hundreds of me in it."

"Input Accepted," the Forerunner said. "Suggestion: the translation team is in close contact with aliens. Deploy collection equipment and have that team recover samples."

"Sure," Olivia nodded. "That's fine, but I want you to be doing it too. Their language is important. But might as well let her try. Oh, and... I want something to dye my coat with. I don't want to look the same as the others when they wake up. Maybe a light olive, something regulation." She'd already shaved her mane down to something like a short pixie cut, as short as she had worn it in the service, as well as trimming her tail. "There's a way to do that, right?"

"Input accepted," the Forerunner said, leaving her last question unanswered.

But Olivia didn't mind. She walked away from the screens, over to the wall where the gestation pods were located. Her companions had nearly been completely grown. Tomorrow, they would wake up. Tomorrow she would meet her crew, and take them with her to build a city. Maybe that would make this Earth worth living on.

And if not, there's always the cliffs. Whether she would find her own way to jump off, or send the rest of 'Earth' off first, that she hadn't decided. She would have to see how things went.

Fuck you, Olivia Fischer.

G5.05: Satellite

Dr. James Irwin was not having a good day. This was, in fact, the worst day of her life.

In the strictest sense, it was also the best day of her life, which did not suggest she was going to have a particularly good future.

She couldn't even have the satisfaction of vocally complaining about it, because everyone else in the world had things nearly as bad as she did. All four of the others were suffering in the same Biosleeves that James had been dumped into. True, not all of them had quite as much to deal with as she did. But she couldn't even find a quiet corner to sulk about it, because Olivia wouldn't let her.

"I want everyone to know what's going on," Major Fischer had said, her voice higher pitched than theirs, but somehow gruffer and more commanding all the same. Maybe it was the way she had cut her mane back, or wore her crisp uniform like she knew what she was doing on four legs. Whatever the reason, even Dr. James Irwin didn't dare question her. She cleaned up the slime leftover from the production of her sleeve, spent over an hour struggling into the weird uniform meant for a quadrupedal body with stumps for hands, and made her way back to Central for their first briefing.

A large conference table had been moved into the center of the room, with cushions spread around it instead of chairs. James made her awkward way to one of the seats, staring around at mirror-perfect copies of herself. Well, except for Major Fischer, who looked a few years younger and had an olive-colored coat and bristle-short mane. Each of the others had their name and position sewn onto their uniform, and James took in each one, since it was the only way to differentiate anyone besides the commander. At least none of the others had ranks—that meant they weren't military either.

Dorothy Born - Xenobiology

Karl Nolan - Political Science

Martin Faraday - Physics

Her own name was sewn onto her uniform, which had blue accents just like Karl's, which indicated the related focus of their disciplines. Martin and Dorothy's both had green for a similar reason.

"What do you do?" Dorothy asked from beside her, staring at James's uniform with the same intensity that James herself had searched it for her title.

"I'm the translator," James answered, her voice sounding identical to Dorothy's, but somehow less confident. "We have me and a negotiator, that must mean we found a civilization. Since we look like this..." She looked down at herself, blushed, then looked back up. "Well, I don't know what it means."

"The handbook doesn't suggest imitating native life," Dorothy said. "There's no reason we would have Biosleeves like this unless they were required. For... some reason. There must be an inherent biological reason for it. Perhaps this planet has unusual gravity, or strange radiation, or... some other factors that would make human life impossible. Until we beat them. Which we will, because we beat everything."

Martin rocked back and forth on her cushion, forelegs wrapped around herself, and muttering. "It isn't a planet, it isn't a planet, it isn't a planet..."

"There could be other reasons," Karl said. Like James, there was something of a nervous skepticism in the way she spoke, as though she were afraid of her own voice. "Political pressure from the native government, in whatever form it takes. Perhaps they're xenophobic, and the Forerunner negotiated an agreement not to create sleeves of any other species."

Major Fischer came in the open doorway. A drone rolled along behind her on a pair of rugged rubber treads, dragging a large metal crate as it went.

"I expect we're about to find out," Dorothy muttered. "Right? You're going to tell us what's going on?"

"Yes," Major Fischer said. There was no cushion at the head of the table, so she remained standing.

Given how much smaller she was, standing was the only way she wouldn't look comedically small compared to the rest of them. Now that she was thinking more clearly, James could detect a difference in smell as well. A very subtle crispness that seemed to suggest youth in a way she couldn't put into words.

"I only want to explain this once. When we're done here, I'll allow a twenty-four-hour rest period, which I expect each of you to use to acquaint yourselves with these new bodies. The translation is pony, by the way. We're called ponies. Pegasus ponies, which is why we have wings. It's all in the file under 'Translation Team Intelligence.'" The metal box resting behind her opened then, hissing with the sound of compressed storage gas as it did. Major Fischer turned around, lifting a bundle in her mouth and setting it on the table. She undid the Velcro with her mouth as well, revealing four standard computation surfaces.

Martin sat up suddenly, reaching for hers with surprising speed. But the major pulled them away. "Not until this meeting is over. I want your full attention."

"I thought I was the translation team," James said, her voice braver than it had been up until that point. "Did something happen to one of them? I'm here to replace someone? Or... am I backup?"

"Neither," the major said. "Translation is well ahead of schedule, and the team is integrated into pony society. They won't need your help. But I can't make sense of her notes about the alien language. We could wait for her to get back, or we could save time by having you go over the reports we get and start teaching us now. You have a week to read everything we have and get up to speed, and I want you teaching the rest of us conversational alien after that."

James opened her mouth to reply, but the major raised a hoof, silencing her before she could. "Wait your turn. We'll go over what I expect of each of you at the end."

There was much to explain. Some things they had suspected, like the complex alien society. James listened, but much of what she heard didn't sink in. The vital information, to her, had already been delivered. She wouldn't be out in the world learning an alien language. She wouldn't get to accomplish her whole reason for living—the whole reason she'd given the last twenty years of her life to study and practice. She would be nothing more than a glorified grade school teacher.

Eventually they got through all the background, and the major got around to explaining their responsibilities. "Dr. Born, I've loaded everything we learned during the first two generations onto your computer. I want to know what the hell killed human Biosleeves. Then you're going to design a Biosleeve that doesn't die." She held up one stumpy hoof again. "The fewer of these sleeves we have to make, the better."

"Understood." Dorothy pulled her computation surface towards her from across the table and started scanning its contents.

"Mr. Nolan, you're our negotiator, and we don't have any negotiating going on right now. I expect you to devote your time to studying everything we've learned about the aliens so far. I want to know what our political avenue will be, once we're ready to introduce ourselves. I also want to know how they'll react if they discover us before we're ready." She shoved the next computation surface in the general direction of Karl’s seat. "You have all of the translation team's notes, along with the observations of the previous generations. I think the former will be more useful to you. Feel free to send your questions directly to the translation team—if you need anything that isn't in the notes, I'm sure she can get it."

"Got it." Karl caught the computation surface as it went sliding by. "I'll let you know what I find."

"Dr. Faraday, I don't really know why the Forerunner made you. Physics seems pointless to me in our situation. But here's everything the satellites have found about our planet, so knock yourself out." She slid the pad over, just as she had with the other. "I expect you to make yourself useful. It's up to you to figure out how to do that."

Martin nodded, though she didn't seem able to form any actual words.

"And I already told you what you'll be up to," Major Fischer said, sliding James the last of the pads. James took it, though she didn't look at its contents like the others had done. Just now, she found it hard to care about what it contained. "Get conversational with the language, then you can teach us. Mr. Nolan is your focus, since she'll be our voice in any negotiation."

"So that's it?" Dorothy asked. "We can go then?"

"Not quite." The major went back to the box, removing another bundle from inside. She set it down on the table in front of them with a heavy metallic thump. The fabric fell open, revealing four threatening-looking metal objects. Rifles of some kind, whose specific designation James didn't know. "As I explained, this planet is dangerous. The natives are more capable than they look. The planet killed two generations of humans before we were even grown. Each of you will reach firearms proficiency D within one week. There is a range, and training materials are available on your computers."

"We're not soldiers," Karl said. "We're here to make contact with the aliens, not fight them. We're not invaders."

"You're going to defend yourselves if attacked," the major said, glaring at each of them. Almost like she wanted them to argue. None of them did. "In one week's time, we'll be leaving Forerunner Base to begin construction of this planet's first city. We'll bring any equipment we need with us, but I expect each of you to be coordinated in your Biosleeves and adjusted to your responsibilities. We haven't fabricated a psychologist, so if you've got any shit to deal with..." Her eyes narrowed as she glared at Martin. "You will deal with it. Is that clear?"

"Good." She rose, turning to go. "I won't be on-base again at any point today, so you're on your own for getting sorted. I trust the best and brightest of the Pioneering Society to get over whatever difficulties you're having with your sleeves." With that she turned, marching right out of control and down the hall deeper into Forerunner Base, with the drone rolling along behind her.

"Well..." Karl said, staring down at the rifles resting on the table between them. "We have an interesting leader, don't we? I hope she knows what she's doing."

"Doesn't matter," Dorothy said, rising to her hooves as well, though she didn't get any further than that. She stared down at the computer, then back at herself, apparently trying to figure out how she would carry it. "We do. Forerunners are dumb as old bricks. I'm sure the previous crews gathered all the data I'll need to put together a Biosleeve safe from the hazards of this planet. Though... it does concern me that they're apparently serious enough to kill our predecessors even when they spent most of their time in this base. We're supposed to be shielded."

Martin went back to rocking back and forth. "Don't understand..." she was muttering now. "And so, the fly stared into the fathomless abyss, contemplating its next landing. But safety never came."

"You think she might be overcooked?" Dorothy asked, not even lowering her voice. "Nonhuman Biosleeves were supposed to be difficult, but... the rest of us are plenty sane. Aren't we?"

Karl shrugged. "Everyone reacts to stress differently. The rest of us have more to worry about than you do, Dr. Born. Let Martin take his time." She turned, so she was mostly facing Martin now. "Forget what the major said, we know you're important. The military always gets its balls out in front of the rest of us, but we know better. I'm sure the Forerunner had good reasons for waking you up."

James rose to her hooves, taking the tablet in her mouth. She didn't care about her dignity really, so she didn't insist on staying upright like Dorothy. She nodded politely to the others, before walking awkwardly down the hallway. I know exactly how you feel, Martin, she thought. But it wasn't like she could climb back into a cryogenics pod and go to sleep—there was no such technology. They hadn't been woken up, they'd been created. Now it was up to them to make that creation mean something.

If we can.

* * *

"Dr. Irwin, can you come here a moment?"

James looked up from where she'd been staring down at her computation surface, staring for so long that the letters had all blended together into one unified, meaningless mess. She hadn't really been reading for at least an hour now. "Yeah, sure." She rose from the top bunk, hopping down to the lower level. As she fell, her wings struggled against the fabric, as though trying to catch her. They looked pitifully small to do something like that, but... the notes she'd been reading suggested that didn't matter. Though there was much information the notes didn’t contain--like the author’s name. Much to her frustration, considering how painfully familiar they sometimes sounded.

She landed on her hooves, maybe a meter away from the speaker. Karl had done a little to change her appearance over the last few days. She had cut her mane short, short enough that it approximated a male human haircut. It was still the same color as everyone else's, and she still wore the same uniform. No one had discovered whatever magical substance Olivia used to dye her coat, and she wasn't sharing. "What's up?"

"Martin has something," Karl said, her voice sounding exactly like James's. There was no getting used to that. "She's been... I don't know if you saw... going a little crazy in there."

James had seen it. The base had male and female bathrooms and showers, though up until now the male shower had been empty and unused. James had intended to use it anyway, in defiance of the Forerunner and its eagerness to make a crew with only a single sample of the alien species. But then Martin had claimed the area as her own domain, and started attaching printouts to the walls, scribbling all over them, and connecting them with string. In only a few days, the bathroom and showers had been so covered as to completely conceal what had originally been set up there.

"Yeah," was all she said. "All that number crunching went somewhere, huh?"

"I'm pretty sure she knew something was wrong from the day she woke up," Karl said. "She just... wanted to be sure, I guess. I don't know. I don't want to be too hard on her, we're all going through the same shit. Well... most of us are." She glanced down the hall. "Martin went to Olivia to call a meeting, but she said it was 'science shit', so we should deal with it. She's too busy setting up for our flight or whatever, so..."

"So let's go." James started walking, past Karl and into the hall. The restrooms weren't much further, with one on each side of the hall for each of the sexes. Not that she'd been in the one on "her" side more than once. "I wasn't happy with how much the military ran our lives last time. If the rest of us don't stick together..."

Karl followed. "Olivia will make sure it's the same way here? Yeah, that's already a work in progress." She lowered her voice, so quiet James had to stop walking and strain her ears to hear. "I checked the gestation pods, they're already working. Next batch of crew is an honest-to-god seal team."

They froze at the same moment, both hearing the same sound. It was another pair of hooves coming down the hall behind them. James tensed all over, fearful of what it might be—but her fear was in vain. It was only Dorothy, wearing only the back half of her uniform and a satchel over her shoulder. Her computation surface was stuck inside it, along with a few glass test-tubes. She smelled like she'd been in the lab for at least a full day. "You talking about what I think you're talking about?"

"Yeah." Karl gestured for her to join them. She did, bringing with her another copy of the same identical scent along with all the smells of the lab. As she flexed her wings, James found herself feeling slightly jealous. She was sick of how confined she felt in her uniform.

"Well, I'm as worried as you are. But at the same time... maybe not so much." She lowered her voice to the same hushed whisper they'd been using. "Forerunner gave the major authority because of the compound of all its different threat-calculations. I bet you one of these vestigial wings that the infeasibility of human crew-members positively dominates that risk calculation."

"You can't know how a Forerunner thinks," Karl argued. "I read the same handbook you did. Its value-system might be public, but it's been learning all this time. It won't be operating the same as a fresh Forerunner right out of the factory."

Dorothy's eyes narrowed. "No offense, but you don't know what you're talking about." She raised one hoof defensively. "Don't even say it. Yeah, I'm not CS, I know I don't either. Dismiss your shallow-minded objections and consider a moment how long mental profiles for this project have been recorded. When I was admitted, the big minds were still negotiating about how the probes would operate. I had a friend on the committee. We got together often. Well, one thing led to another, and... I read some things I shouldn't have. Swore on my grave I'd never tell a soul, but..." She looked up, through the stone roof of the chamber. "Dr. Dorothy Born is as dead as Darwin, and so is my old friend."

"Whatever you're going to say..." Karl looked increasingly annoyed. "You should just say it. Martin is still waiting. If we don't get in there soon, she might decide we don't care and put her discoveries away. It looked pretty interesting, when I saw..."

"Fine, fine." Dorothy grumbled, obviously annoyed she didn't get to tell her story in detail. "Well, long story short on the whole thing is that the probes might know how to adapt other brains, but that isn't what anyone wanted. They're supposed to spread humanity, not some human minds all dressed up to play pretend. Anything they can do to make that happen, they will. So, while Olivia has control over what the Forerunner does now, she'll lose that power the secondI find a way to make humans who can live."

"And the rest of us go into their petting zoo," James muttered.

The others both stopped, staring at her. Almost as though they'd forgotten she was there.

"Irrelevant, even if it was true," Dorothy said. "This is bigger than us. We have the power to shape the future of the planet. Well, I do. When I crack this, and I will crack it... I'm going to be the one who decides who the Forerunner makes next. I bet you my other vestigial wing that it would even abandon the fabrication of that stupid pointless military force and make whoever I told it to. So long as they were human and I thought it would work. Why do you think it made a second generation of humans after it had learned that they can't survive here? Well, vanilla humans can’t—"

James cut her off. "Wait. There were two generations before ours? We could've already died here once already?"

Karl shoved past them both, close enough that the automatic sensor on the bathroom door beeped, and the door slid down into the floor. "Could we talk about that later? I already promised Martin I would bring you both for whatever this important thing of hers is, and she didn't look very patient."

Dorothy turned without another word, apparently uninterested in answering the question. James made a mental note to ask the Forerunner about the previous generations as soon as she got a chance alone. They probably didn't make one of me. It couldn't have known that there was a civilization here with a language that would need someone like me. There'd have been no point. It would be old-fashioned astronauts. She told herself that, but she didn't really believe it.

The bathroom was even worse than the last time she'd seen it. Even the floor now had images on it, so many that they all blended together. She leaned in to look at one at random. It depicted the planet from the air all-right, though it was zoomed in on structures apparently made of reflective metal. The image was so far away she couldn't really get a good look at them, but they weren't quite high-resolution enough to make out any meaningful details. James looked away, focusing on the narrow path between images she could walk without disrupting the intense effort Martin had gone to destroying the men’s restroom.

Of all of them, Martin looked as though she had taken her sleeving the worst. She wore only the inner-uniform, though the top half was upside-down and the fastenings were all wrong. Her mane was sweaty and tangled, and her eyes were bloodshot. Streaks of red paint stained her coat near her limbs and around her mouth, and several identical markers had been stuffed haphazardly into the openings of her uniform.

"Alright, Martin," Karl said, her voice higher, with forced cheerfulness. "We're all here. You can explain what you wanted us to know."

"Explain," she repeated, looking between each of them. "Explain. Only three. Where is four?"

"Major Fischer is not coming," Karl said. "Like she told you, remember? She's worrying about the base defenses. You can tell us, and we'll make sure she finds out."

Martin looked as though she was going to cancel the whole thing. She turned away, towards the wall of the showers, where the most intricate-looking mathematics was drawn. They all followed, though only Dorothy looked like she was making any sense of what was written there. Karl's eyes glazed over as much as James's did.

"I started with the satellite photos," Martin said. Her voice still shook, but having a purpose seemed to stop her from losing focus and giving up, because she didn't stop. "Before our first meeting. I saw that we had eighty in the network, which seemed strange given I knew the cameras were meant to orbit at extreme distance to keep their numbers down. What could a planet be made of if it needed eighty satellites? How much land would there be?"

She pointed to one side, where images the size of full sheets had been painstakingly arranged into a roughly round shape, with a large opening in the middle. "This is KOI-087.01,” she said. “The thing Major calls Earth. But it's not Earth. Earth is a planet. This isn't a planet." She pointed to another image, one printed on a single sheet of paper. "I had the computer composite this. There is some CGI to fill in the gaps."

James stared at the image, stared until her eyes had started to water. What she saw was impossible, she knew that just from the basics of astronomy she had been required to learn as part of the SPS. Nothing that large could be any shape but a sphere. What she saw was a thin disk wrapped completely around the perimeter of a tiny red star. There were a few smaller objects as well, flat satellites positioned at various points above the round object. When viewed from the side, she saw a colossal mountain range... so massive that it was distinct even from the satellite image, then solid material several times thicker than the crust, made of a rust-colored metal.

"Impossible," Dorothy said, after a long silence. "This can't exist."

"I thought so too." Martin walked away from them, pacing through the bathroom as she spoke. She didn't seem to care as she stepped all over her images and scribblings. Didn't seem to care if they followed. "So, I ran the numbers. Gravity first... we're experiencing very close to 9.8m/s^2 of gravitational acceleration... but this close to the star, there should be much more. Well... whoever built this thought of that." She stopped in front of a large page, filled with numbers and calculations. James just stared at them, grateful that Martin was explaining them.

"We're spinning. Fast, but not insanely fast. About 422.066km/s. That eats up most of the pull of gravity we should be feeling towards the star, but leaves us with about one Earth gravity."

"Nothing's this strong," Dorothy insisted. "I don't know materials, but I know that. Not nanotubes, not spider webs, nothing."

Martin shrugged. "I don't know what it's made of... but whoever built this thought of that too. There are two satellites, and the speed they're orbiting... they seem to be exerting an attractive pull on the object. Object out there, reduces the strength of the material below us. It's still... still beyond anything..." She sat down suddenly on her haunches, eyes wide. Her voice became a terrified whisper.

"For the numbers. This isn't a planet. Those things living out there..." She held up one hoof. "Things like us. Whatever put them there... could make a Dyson Ring. Everything about this place is artificial." She tapped the wall with one of her hooves. "The minerals we harvest to make our base, thinking we're the powerful invaders with our powerful technology... something an order of magnitude more advanced than we are put it all there."

"Not just that..." Karl sounded almost the same as Martin now. "They filled their world with primitives, and left them here. Was there any sign of an advanced culture in all those satellite photos you took? Could whoever built this thing still be living here?"

A harsh voice came in over the PA, loud and shrill. "We're taking off in ten minutes," the major's voice said. "Everyone report to the hanger. And don't leave anything behind. Ten minutes and we're gone." There was a click, and silence descended again.

They all stared at Martin, waiting for her answer.

"Probably not," she said, looking like she hadn't even heard the message. "But there are some ruins that might be theirs. They're on the other side of the alien country... Equestria, right? Yeah, that. So, we'd have to fly over it. But we could."

"We should get going." Dorothy turned to the door. "Thanks for explaining all that, Martin. I suspect the commander will be more rational about your concerns when she hears there could be serious security threats we haven't considered. Apocalyptic, planet-viability compromising concerns."

"Dyson Ring compromising," Martin corrected, not meeting their eyes.

"Right." Karl followed Dorothy towards the doorway. "I'll explain it for you, Martin. Maybe she'll listen if I can do it before she gets bored."

They left, leaving only James behind with the nervous physicist. Martin didn't seem interested in packing up any of her notes here. It would probably be difficult, given her calculations covered the walls.

"Did you learn anything else?" James asked, once the door shut.

"Lots of things," Martin said. "But mostly I learned that I'm afraid. Whoever could construct a superstructure like this, way out in space... whoever set it orbiting around a red dwarf with its mass perfectly balanced, accelerated it to mitigate gravity... what would a race like that do to us, if they knew we were here?"

"Maybe they're dead," James suggested. "I read Lovecraft when I was younger. In one of his books, humanity had evolved from the worker slime used by the aliens who settled Earth the first time. Maybe they died out, and their workers evolved to intelligence, just like humans did in the story."

"That's worse!" Martin exclaimed, suddenly meeting James's eyes with horror on her face. "Then we have to be afraid of whatever killed them. Do you know how to kill a class two species? Me neither."

"Well, on the bright side..." James began, though at this point she wasn't sure that Martin wouldn't just twist her words into something frightening. "We look like ponies. Maybe if things go bad, we could just blend in. Pretend we were never here. The Forerunner would be screwed, but... at least we'd make it."

"Great."

The PA over their heads beeped again. "Five minutes! Get your asses in here, everyone! Don't make me ask again!"

They didn't.

Author's Note

Hey everybody! Just a quick heads-up that the illustration in this chapter isn't supposed to be to scale. But some of the pre-readers were confused about what the system looked like, so Zutcha was good enough to make this little drawing. And when I say it isn't to scale, I really, really mean it.

Now, the math for all of this is well and truly beyond me. I'm a software engineer, not a physicist or mathematician. A friend of mine did all the calculations to make sure the behavior for the system checked out. For those curious about the sort of notes Martin might've been making, check out my blog post on the subject.

G5.05: Collapse the Wave

Lucky Break set down the chalk, spinning around to look proudly up at her teacher. "How's this, Knowing Look?" she asked, shifting a little on her hooves. On the board behind her, Lucky had recreated a poem from Equestrian history, which was written in the unicorn script with the words arranged in the shape of a tree. It had been an ambitious choice for her first final project, far more than anything her fellows were doing, but it was the only task that had felt remotely worthy of Lucky's linguistic ability.

Her fellow students stared across the room, dumbfounded. Even the unicorns in the room didn't seem to be able to make sense of it. The teacher, Knowing Look—an older unicorn himself— leaned a little closer, squinting over the edge of his glasses as his eyes moved over the pattern. He didn't often look pleased, but that was changing now. He looked relaxed, impressed even. "You mentioned you intended to include a recitation as well."

"In Mundus Eoch, yes," she said. She no longer had to wonder at anything he or any of the other ponies around her were saying. Almost anything in Eoch made sense to her, so long as it wasn't something very technical. And learning those terms was why she'd started studying the three ancient languages that had combined to make Eoch eons ago. Mundus was the oldest of them all, the language of the unicorns and other creatures of myth before them.

"You may begin," Knowing said, sitting back. He looked eager. Her classmates, on the other hand, were scowling at her. She'd seen those looks plenty of times before.

So she spoke, reciting the text in its original language. Mundus was tonal beyond even the most sensitive human tongues, requiring perfect pitch from its speakers and turning every conversation into a duet. To speak it properly, she had to sing. But Lucky didn't mind that—her voice sounded much nicer than it had on Earth.

"The knowing of magic was the knowing of ways,
and as the wise understood safety was found.
In friendship they found contentment,
making their world in joy to serve the endless years."

Lucky could make very little sense of the poem, but that wasn't why she'd picked it. It was considered one of the most technically difficult pieces of unicorn history. It required that the speaker understand every irregularity in the strange pony language, every special case, every exception. It also couldn't be understood by someone who spoke Eoch alone, though knowing one did help with the other.

The class stared, expressions of disbelief and confusion on their faces. A few could tell just how impressive her work had been, and their scowls had gotten darker. Yet as dramatic as the accomplishment seemed, Knowing Look only smiled, tapping one hoof on the floor. "Excellent job, Lucky. You may be seated." Yet as calm as his expression looked, she could see him smiling.

The remaining students in her class each took their turns. Most had more conventional presentations—paintings or musical performances, all from Equestrian or Crystal Empire history. Compared to what Lucky had done, they looked like the fumbling of children.

Well, they were the fumbling of children. Pony schools used cutie marks as a dividing line between years, and that had placed Lucky with many who were younger-looking than her. But she wasn't trying to show off, honest! She was just trying to use the opportunity to learn as much as possible for her real mission while also getting her final project done.

The ponies did not seem to think so, because when the class finally dismissed, she didn't have any group to join. She was left alone to study while the others ran off to play games or do other childish things. At least this time Knowing Look called her back, before she could make it to the door and join the crowd.

"I've been meaning to ask, Lucky..." he began, no longer trying nearly as hard to hide how pleased he was. Not when so many of the other students were already gone. "Have you considered what direction you intend to take your education once you graduate?" He glanced briefly at her flank, and the blank coat there. "Once you have your cutie mark, you'll be eligible to move on. Many of your colleagues have local goals in mind—trade schools and the like. Have you thought about it at all?"

"N-no," she admitted. Most ponies her age worked with parents or family members, apprenticing when they weren’t on campus to learn the ropes. But the Crystal Empire didn’t use a weather team, and Lightning Dust refused to take her to work. Whatever she was doing, she obviously didn’t want Lucky to learn it.

"I feared as much." He levitated a stack of papers onto the desk beside them, where she could see.

Lucky scanned the cover of the first one, enough to see that it was an admissions application to something called the "Royal Canterlot College."

"There are many ponies who can clear a sky, Lucky Break. So many of your pegasus colleagues speak of flying south to work for a weather team. But for all the ponies who can do that, only a few can recreate ‘The Knowing of Ways’ so perfectly with only a few days of study. There are centuries of history written in languages dead to us, heroes and villains and rulers with names lost before Equestria itself existed. Your talent might be exactly what the ponies in the Royal Canterlot College have been waiting for."

"I, uh..." Lucky shifted on her hooves, forcing herself to look away from the application. She was thrilled by the idea, adrenaline racing through her body. Yes, she had been created to serve the SPS, to translate the Equestrian language so that humans could form diplomatic ties with the aliens. But that project was done—all that remained to her now was getting it all down on paper. Write a book, teach a few classes, get her brain scanned, and then she'd be free to do whatever she wanted with her life.

On Earth, all things had been known. But here in Equestria, there were mysteries. A whole domain of history. Knowing Look sure knew how to interest her.

"I see what you're thinking," he said, levitating her saddlebags open and sliding the packet inside. "Just fill it out, okay? Bring it back, I'll take care of getting everything sent in. There's no guarantee the college will accept you. I know..." He looked around, making sure there were no other ponies in the room who might overhear. There weren't. "I know your family isn't well-connected, or wealthy. But the college doesn't require either one. Many of the best scholars come from humble backgrounds."

"Alright, Mr. Look. I'll... I'll fill it out." She didn't much like the idea of leaving so soon. She could get a cutie mark any day now, and once that happened... she was technically an adult. That was when many of the natives moved on from required education to their trades.

But that's assuming I can even get one. There was very little written about the phenomenon, as though any extensive research was considered taboo. Ponies could even get shy about it, rather like asking a human to tell stories of the experiences of their puberty.

"Good, good." Look retreated, gesturing to the open door. "That's all I ask. Applying is no guarantee you'll be accepted, but there's no reason not to try. You're out nothing but your time if your application is rejected. And if it is, there's always a weather team."

"Y-yeah." Lucky laughed, relaxing a little.

She made her way out of her classroom, down the halls of the school. There were only a few rooms here, one for each year. There was very little specialized training, little in the way of anything other than Socratic lecture halls.

Lucky herself belonged to the oldest year in the school, the one that held ponies right on the cusp of becoming adults, and those who had their cutie marks but hadn't yet moved on to a trade.

Colts and fillies galloped past her down the halls, giggling as they played. Some were playing familiar games, or games so close to those played by human children only the names set them apart. Some played with cards or carved figures, or dice. Some played on the fields outside the school, where sports like "hoofball" were common pastimes. Lucky joined those who sat quietly in the library to read, study, or play board games. She had done all three, but just now, she found herself somewhere isolated to sit and went to work filling out the application. By the time Dust arrived to pick her up, she'd already filled it out.

"Hey, squirt," Dust said from behind her, so suddenly she almost jumped.

"Hey!” Lucky grinned up at her. “Ready to take me to work with you?”

“Nope.” Lightning Dust sat down beside her, eyeing the application. "What's this?"

"Nothing!" Lucky pushed it hastily into her saddlebags. "Just something my teacher thought I should do, no big deal." She started packing up the rest of her supplies—stoppering the inkwell, stowing away the quill in its case to prevent it from breaking, and neatly sliding each of the books into place. She had the whole bookbag packed in about thirty seconds, then looked up with a grin. “I’m ready!”

"Well look at you." Dust ruffled her mane with one wing, grinning. "How long did that take you the first time?"

Lucky blushed, looking down. "Uh..."

"Yeah. That's exactly how long." She took off, lifting into the air in the middle of the library. Flying indoors was against the rules of course, but Dust didn't care. So long as she was with her, Lucky didn't care either. Of course, even a few months of lessons weren't enough to match the skills of a pony who had been flying their whole life.

Lucky had to gallop behind her towards the exit, flapping her wings furiously for ten meters or so before she managed to get the speed to take off. She managed to keep her wings in close, close enough that she wouldn't scrape along the side of the room and go tumbling out of the air. The doors on the front of the school weren't open, but Dust didn't seem to care. She moved her wings, and a blast of air slammed them open in front of them, letting them both zoom through them, past a few stunned-looking crystal ponies trundling their slow way down the school steps.

But Lucky didn't look back; she didn't really care to. The streets of the Crystal Empire were soon sinking away below her, as its many clouds and the handful of pegasus buildings on them grew closer and closer. They didn’t live up here--the cloud houses were expensive in the Crystal Empire, and new ones weren’t allowed to overshadow the city. But it was still a nice place to practice her flying.

She still couldn't keep up with Dust in her flying, but that didn't matter. She got faster every day, with Dust's help. By the time she was grown up, maybe she would be able to do all the amazing things that Dust could. And even if she couldn't... flying at all was a dream.

But there was one weight still heavy on her mind, one that wouldn't go away just because she went through with the ordinary routines of life with Lightning Dust. I’m fluent. I’ve just about finished writing the book about Eoch. When I’m done… When she was done, she’d either have to go back, or start lying in her reports and pretend she wasn’t. Lucky wasn’t sure which it would be.

* * *

The Sojourner was not like any other conventional aircraft James had ever flown in before. If anything, it was most like her old van, the one she'd lived in down by the river when she was in university. The Sojourner was a little like that, except that it was fifty meters long, covered in thin armor plates, and had a deck on top for the crew to walk along whenever they were airborne.

All it took was a pair of magnetic boots to make sure they weren't swept away (well two pairs, because pony bodies were stupid), and a pair of isolating headphones for her ears that would block out the sound of the eight gigantic rotors located at various points on the perimeter of the craft. Even with the isolation she could still kind of hear it, a dull roar in the back of her head.

Once they got underway, even Olivia came to the top deck, watching Equestria go by and listening as Karl and Dorothy patiently explained everything Martin had showed them. Martin herself was the only one who hadn't come up here to observe, which meant that James was alone. She rested near the edge of the railing, feeling the air blasting past her. Up here on the front of the vessel (or the front of the small, sheltered observation deck), she could almost feel like she could fly. The clouds beneath them really weren't that far away, and she yearned to join them, to swim down through the air with the wings trapped under her uniform.

Maybe when the translation team gets back she can show us how to fly as well as speak. James would include a request about flight in her next message, as soon as she got back below to type it out. If language could be taught by sending instructions and notes back for private practice, maybe flight could as well. Given how full of implants Olivia had made their bodies, it would have to be easier, right?

James hadn't been told what most of them were yet, but she knew through simple trial and error she was enormously strong—stronger than a human her size, and probably stronger than a pony as well.

I have to tell her about this ringworld thing. She should know how much danger we’re in. James looked back to where Olivia and the others were speaking. She could be listening to their conversation through her headset if she wanted--the only way to have any meaningful conversation in the air. But she didn’t care to listen just now, she’d already shut her’s off. Let the more scientifically-inclined explain just how serious it was they were living on a ring.

James turned away and walked back to the doors leading below decks. She stood in front of it for a few seconds, hurrying in before it shut behind her.

This was too complex to put into an email. The translator needed to know right now. As soon as the airlock shut behind her, James pulled her computation surface out of its pocket, setting it on the ground in front of her, then hung her headset on one of the waiting hooks. She wouldn’t need it again until she wanted to go back outside. “Computer, dictate a message to Translation Team.”

“Command accepted,” answered the computer. “What should the message say?”

“We have discovered mission critical information. Do you have time to video conference?” She waited until the little logo on the screen had stopped spinning.

“Message sent,” the computer replied. James put the tablet back into her pocket and made her way down the wide interior of the Sojourner. Even though it had ceilings the proper height for pony bodies, it still felt a little strange to her that the hallways would be so wide. Most aircraft were more cramped than this. It would be perfect if we were human, but we aren’t. Forerunner probably didn’t have pony-sized designs on file.

Martin had set herself up in the men’s living quarters, so James went all the way to the galley. There was no one inside, and not much in the way of cooking tools. Just a beverage dispenser, shelves of rations, and a hot-water machine to rehydrate it all. This would be junk food even on Earth.

James wasn’t sure how long she would have to wait. The airship itself moved enormously quickly, but they had a long distance to travel. So long as she gets back to me before we arrive, it’ll be fine. Once they arrived on their new island, Olivia would put them all to work and there would be no time to rest. Maybe not for weeks.

But she didn’t have to wait that long.

"New Message Received," the computation surface said.

"Sure," read the message. "Bedtime isn’t for another hour, and Dust went to pick up groceries. I've been looking forward to meeting whoever I've been talking to this last week. You're much nicer than Olivia."

"Establish video link," James instructed, though she could feel her stomach sink as she did it. James had a feeling about who she would be talking to on the other end. I’m the best translator in the system, I have to be. Why would the Forerunner settle for second best?

The screen flashed with a green "connecting" icon. A few seconds later and it resolved into a clear image. The inside of a charming little apartment, with wooden walls and old-fashioned furniture. The computation surface on the other end was sitting propped-up on a well-worn table. A pony was looking at her from the other side, a pony with a strikingly familiar face.

Olivia's face. Her coat was still yellow though, her mane long and flowing and styled with a few lengths of green and gold ribbon. The pony had been sitting in a raised chair, holding a collapsible acoustic guitar in her hooves and strumming it with her wings. She looked up at the screen, blushing a little, and dropped it. It fell with a metallic thump to the floor, and she sat up, propping her hooves up on the table to look at the camera.

"It worked!" she exclaimed, in a voice as high as Olivia's, but with a much friendlier sound to it. "I ordered the Forerunner to find a way to fix your age... you look like an adult mare! Err... hopefully that's what you're supposed to be."

"No," James admitted, ears flattening involuntarily to her head. "Unfortunately, not. We’re working on a way to get some male genetic samples. Hopefully nobody else after us will have to deal with this."

"That's good," the single member of the translation team said. "So, uh... I'm Dr. James Irwin." She said the names slowly, as though the words were unfamiliar in her mouth. "It's good to finally meet the one assigned to... teach language, you said? Who are you?"

"Dr. James Irwin," James replied.

There was a long, weighty silence. The pony on the other side looked down, her own ears flattening to her head. She fidgeted in her seat, opened her mouth to speak, shut it again. James waited until her words could sink in, not making things easy for her.

"Guess the Forerunner didn’t think I was coming back." Another long silence. "Well... in that case, why don't you just call me Lucky Break? It's the name the ponies use for me, and... it will keep us from getting confused."

"Sure," James answered. "Lucky Break." She was pretty sure she had butchered the pronunciation of the Eoch words, but she did her best. Her clone on the other end did not complain.

Not my clone. She's older than I am, even if she looks younger. I'm her clone. Or... we're both the clone of the same dead human from light-years away. "We shouldn't have this conversation right now. We have other things to worry about."

“Yeah,” Lucky said. “Your message sounded pretty worried. I’m not sure what the big deal could be… this planet is the perfect place for a colony! The natives are friendly, their civilization is close enough to human that we might be able to have diplomacy go on between us! They look weird, but that’s not a super big deal. I’m sure our biologists will eventually figure out what’s keeping human bodies from working. Once we get that sorted—”

James raised a hoof to silence her. It still took a few seconds to get through, with the communication delay. Eventually she did fall silent, watching skeptically. “What?”

“This isn’t a planet,” James said, slow and flat. “It’s a ringworld. A Dyson ring.”

Lucky Break laughed. She shook her whole body when she did, her wings twitching and her ears perking up. “Y-yeah, that’s funny,” she said. “I love my science fiction books too. But seriously, what’s the news? Unless you just wanted to talk. Meeting my twin is cool. Younger twin?”

“Focus,” James said, just a slight bit louder than conversational volume. “I am not joking. Computation Surface, send the composite satellite photo collage Martin made.” A little status icon appeared on the bottom of the screen. After a few seconds it vanished, and the light reflecting on Lucky’s face changed color.

She leaned in close to stare at the image, eyes getting visibly wider as she did so. “Th-this is… not a joke.”

“Nope,” James said. “I’m interested to know how you’ve been living with them for all this time without discovering such an important detail. Don’t they know they aren’t living on a planet?”

Lucky shook her head. “They’ve never talked about that! Most of the ponies don’t care about what’s beyond Equestria. It’s too dangerous to be somewhere Celestia and Luna aren’t protecting. Something to do with their religion…” she trailed off, looking away. “Come to think of it, every story I’ve ever heard of ponies leaving Equestria involved them never coming back. Except for a few of their national heroes, those mares can break any—”

“Hey,” James interrupted again, clearing her throat. “We don’t need every detail. I just wanted to make sure you knew about this… and knew what it implied.”

The filly looked thoughtful for a moment, still looking at the screen. “This formation couldn’t occur naturally?”

“No chance,” she answered. “Even if it wasn’t unstable, which it is, we’re absorbing much more energy than it takes to maintain the biosphere. We’re living on the exterior surface, and you’ll notice it isn’t cooking us alive. That means something is happening to the energy—something we can’t see. Not to mention there are satellites to give us day and night. Unless you think two regularly orbiting satellites giving us the perfect wavelengths for life as we know it just popped up.”

“Day and night come from satellites?” Lucky repeated, sounding more horrified than she had up until that point. “That would explain…” She shook her head vigorously. “Nah, couldn’t be.”

“Couldn’t what?”

Lucky lowered her head, ears flattening in embarrassment. “Well, the natives kinda live in a theocracy… a pretty secular one… but the ponies in charge of everything are supposed to control the sun and the moon. It’s probably nothing, but…”

“Hmm.” James frowned. “That isn’t as impossible. Probably still just part of their religion, though.”

Lucky looked up again. “Thanks for telling me this, me. Was there anything else I should know?”

“No,” James answered. “Not right now. I know I’m not in charge of you. But if you have time… you should ask the natives about this. Maybe there’s something in their history or their mythology that would explain who put them here. We don’t want the gardener to come back and find us here spoiling their Eden.”

“Yeah.” Lucky glanced over her shoulder, as the door made a rattling sound. Someone fumbling with the keys, no doubt. “Gotta go! If I learn anything, I’ll send a report!” She reached out with a hoof, and the screen went dark.

Despite everything, James’s last thought about the conversation had nothing to do with aliens. She was playing my guitar with her wings. I wonder if I can do that.

G5.05: Deadlight

Lucky Break concentrated on her music.

There had been a time, months ago now, when she had the puzzle of Eoch to distract her when she was upset. The Crystal Empire had many libraries for her to visit, many books for her to read, and she could always go out onto the streets to try out unfamiliar words.

But gradually that mystery had been solved. She could no longer rely on that puzzle to distract her when she was stressed or worried. It was a good thing she had her guitar.

When Lucky Break first received her second instrument, she had worried that she would never be able to play it. All those tiny strings, so close together—how was she supposed to use hooves on those?

The answer, of course, was that she wasn’t. The natives could do incredible things; even with half a year to learn, Lucky couldn’t approach that kind of skill with the lumpy bricks on the ends of her limbs that ponies called hooves. Fortunately for her, she had wings.

So she rested on the old kitchen chair, holding the guitar in front of her with her forelegs, and strumming with her wings. She still wasn’t sure exactly how she made it work—it seemed like the less she concentrated on her playing, the better the music sounded.

Considering all she had to think about, Lucky’s guitar covers of Beatles discography sounded great. Better when she sang along, but just now she needed more of her mind than she would have if she distracted herself with singing.

Equestria wasn’t on a planet. A large moon of a gas giant would’ve been fine—she would’ve noticed it in the sky ages ago, but that would’ve been fine. She could’ve accepted that.

There was no denying the satellite picture on her screen, sitting beside her chart of chords. The pony who had given her the information couldn’t be dismissed as a liar—that pony was her. Dr. James Irwin would do many things, but lying about something so critical to their mission was not one of them. Not a chance.

Earth could not have built a ringworld, she thought as she played. And ponies can’t even build computers, let alone something like this.

That suggested an obvious conclusion: someone had put the ponies here. Someone eons more advanced than her own culture. Lucky couldn’t imagine how such beings might think—but it wasn’t like Equestrians. These ponies were just humans with slightly different diets and less advanced technology. Much of what she’d seen and done among them would fit in historical fiction novels—apart from the month she’d spent living in the clouds.

But there was one insight her other self had lacked the information to make, one that complicated the picture: Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were said to control the sun and moon. That could still be mythology, as she had always thought. Or maybe they’re just sending radio commands to remote satellites. Switching off whatever gigantic spotlights are pointed at us.

Even Lightning Dust seems convinced they really move the sun and moon. Her mom was too smart to be fooled by an easy trick. It couldn’t be as simple as the princesses pointing a hoof at the sky and saying some magic words at the right time.

Behind Lucky, the front door to the apartment rattled, then opened. There were no locks on it—ponies didn’t really seem to care about those.

Dust had her mouth full of groceries—never as many as they needed, but enough that Lucky rarely felt that hungry. They didn’t even have to eat grass that often.

Lucky made to put the guitar down, but Dust put out a hoof. “Mope mop on my macomt!” she said, her voice muffled by the bags she carried. She continued over to the kitchen area, watching as Lucky played.

The filly wasn’t self-conscious about being watched, at least not by her mom. Other ponies would cause her to choke up and stop, as though their watching robbed her wings of whatever dexterity let her play.

Still, she switched to one of the shortest songs as she sang along. Dust seemed to enjoy her playing, and she would be more willing to answer Lucky’s question if she finished a whole song before she stopped.

Golden Slumbers took just over a minute to play. Lucky felt herself relaxing into the music, forgetting about whatever had disturbed her about Equestria’s rulers.

Nothing existed but her guitar, and a song composed by a band who were all dead before she was born. For all she knew, this song might be one of the last cultural artifacts left of her former home.

The more she played, the smaller the revelations about Equestria became. None of that mattered because she had friends and ponies that loved her and she belonged. Who cared what her clone was doing—she could play her guitar forever.

Then she heard lightning Dust stomp her hooves, the pony equivalent of a clap. She realized she’d just been sitting there. How long had it been since she finished the song?

“You’re getting really good, squirt!” she said. “I’ve heard professional musicians who don’t sound half as good as you. And none of them know the songs you know.”

“It’s nothing,” she said, carefully setting the guitar on the ground beside her. Her computation surface had gone dark to conserve power, so it was no longer displaying the image of Equestria as viewed from the side.

Dust went back to the kitchen. She wasn’t a very good cook, but she’d started something in the pot. One of Lucky’s own recipes, from her time in college. Beans and potatoes could go a long way, and both were as cheap in Equestria as they’d been back on Earth.

“It’s not nothing,” Dust argued, tossing a few more peeled potatoes into the pot. “Were you training to be a singer when you were still living with your… the others like you?”

“No, it was just a hobby. I used it to pay the bills sometimes. There were lots of coffee shops and cafes that would let me play for a few hours a week. Kept my van juiced up that way…” She trailed off, finally remembering why she’d been so distressed in the first place.

“Lightning Dust, can I ask you a question?”

“You’re always asking me questions, squirt.” The mare paused as she settled the pot firmly onto the stove, then twisted the knob on the bottom. Like their old residence in Stormshire, the range used “magic” to cook food. “What is it today?”

Lucky took a deep breath. “Where is Equestria?”

“Huh?”

“Like… Equestria is a country, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Where is it?”

“The center of the world,” Dust answered, matter-of-factly. “It’s where the princesses rule. The best place to live.”

Lucky whined in frustration. “No, that’s not what I mean! What do you call…” She gestured around them, in a wide circle. “This.”

“The… Crystal Empire? Lucky, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did you ask your teacher?”

“No!” She stomped one hoof. “I will tomorrow after class, but this is too important to wait.” She paused, collecting herself. “Okay, so Equestria is on the ground. That ground is floating in space. Like with stars, and moons and stuff. Right?”

“Well, one moon. And the stars are far away, but fine. In space.”

“What do you call the thing that land is part of?” Lucky asked. “If no ponies were here, and Equestria had never existed, what would it be called?”

Dust made her way over, sitting down on her haunches a meter or so away from Lucky. “Do you mean… Equus?”

“Yes!” Lucky had never heard that word before, but it was certainly a proper noun. “That must be the name of your place!” There was no Eoch translation for the last word she had wanted to use. “What does Equus look like?”

That seemed to confound Dust for a minute. She looked around, as though she were searching for something. Then she picked a sheet of paper up off the table, ignoring Lucky’s notes all over it, and went to work.

It didn’t take her long. Dust laid the sheet out longways on the table in front of her, drawing crude mountains along the top and bottom. She added a few lines to the sheet, marking the national borders of Equestria, which placed the country almost at the middle of the sheet. She drew oceans on either side, and wrote, “too cold!” on the top and bottom. On either side, she put arrows that read, “wasteland.”

“It looks like this,” Dust finally said, looking very proud of herself. “We live in the best part of the world, Equestria. Ponies take care of their land the best… other things don’t know how to take care of it as well, so if you go too far west or east, it gets worse and worse. Too dry, not very many animals… that kind of thing. And we’re here.” She pointed up towards the top, only a little way down from the folded section and the words “too cold!” “We’re as far north as anypony could be. Which is why we’re safe. If we lived with civilized ponies up in the sky…” She shook her head. “Where are your ponies from?”

Lucky ignored the question, staring at the map. “Does this… go on?” She pointed at the arrows leading to “wasteland.” “What happens if a pony goes that way?”

She shook her head. “Griffons, dragons, minotaurs… eventually the end of the world. I guess it’s probably another Nibiru where it’s too cold and magic doesn’t work right. But nopony’s ever gone that far and come back to say for sure.”

They don’t know they’re on a ring. Lucky let that sink in. But would we have thought it was weird if Earth was a ring like this, if we hadn’t had other planets in the solar system to look at?

“Okay. One more question. Where did Equus come from?”

Mom looked confused. “Where… where did it come from? What does that mean?”

“Like… what created Equus? Before there was a time where it didn’t exist, then it did. How did it get here?”

“I think you need to pay more attention in class, squirt.” Dust mussed Lucky’s mane again. “There’s no before time. I don’t know why… but I remember that much. Maybe you can ask your teacher about it?”

She did, the very next day. Knowing Look showed her a map, similar to the one Lightning Dust had sketched, only bigger and with all the important cities and regions of Equestria marked on it. When she pressed him for explanations of why the north and south sloped the way they did, or why they were so cold, he could only answer with an old legend about something called the Windigos and vaguely religious nonsense.

After submitting her university application, Lucky began using all her spare time to research everything she could find about the history and configuration of Equus. The Crystal Empire had some of the most ancient books in all Equestria, left over from the time before ancient King Sombra had ruled with blood and horror over one thousand years ago.

Ancient Eoch was tough, but not impossible for her. There had to be something.

* * *

When James made her way back to the deck, she wasn’t entirely surprised to find Olivia still embroiled in angry conversation with the others. James didn’t put her headset back on; she couldn’t focus on whatever they were talking about. She was so lost in thought, she almost didn't notice the shape moving towards them through the air. It didn't fly in a straight line like they did, but in a gentle up and down cycle, with different periods each time. Like someone worn out but still trying to fly.

James squinted, and found that either the implants or the natural eyes of this species gave her enormously powerful sight. Even at this distance, she could make out the outline quite clearly. It had dark wings and a dark coat, and was flying directly towards them.

James struggled to get her headset on. "Major!" James turned, counting on the headset to deliver a shout over the roar of sound on the deck. "Major Fischer, you need to see this!"

She turned at once, striding away from the others. She walked over with the same stiff, unnatural gait that all of them used with the magnetic boots, lifting hooves high and only two at a time. Otherwise the safety systems would engage, bringing the traveler to a jerking halt.

"Shit," the Major said. "It's actually flying towards us. Forerunner, prepare the main gun."

"No!" Karl shouted, lunging towards the Major, only to jerk back violently towards where she'd been standing. She paused, collecting herself, then began walking deliberately to avoid getting stuck. "How about instead of shooting them, we talk? We could park here, let them land..."

"That is completely stupid." Major Fischer scowled around at them all. "We're trying to remain hidden from Equestria, remember? If that alien saw our ship..."

The pony wasn't flying very fast. The Sojourner, on the other hand, was closing distance rapidly. So rapidly James could start to make out more details about the pony. It had a different look than they did, a different shape to its body. A male of the species, perhaps? Another minute or two, and they would be right on top of him.

"It will be this planet's version of a crazy UFO story," Karl said. "A flying metal ship with a crew of identical twins. But we'll get to learn from him."

"He's not coming from the right direction," James said, making her own careful way to join Karl and the Major near the center of the deck. "He's coming from outside. Carrying something—might be from a different country. Do we want to interfere with the local politics?"

"I couldn't care less about their politics," Olivia said, but her expression had changed. She relaxed, looking colder and more calculating. "Is there any point? You haven't learned their language this quickly, have you Dr. Irwin?"

"No," she admitted. "Only a few words. But the computer has everything I ever sent back. It could probably do real-time translation for us using the headsets."

"But we should stop," Dorothy called from the other end of the ship. "If that alien flies towards us thinking he's going to land, he'll smack into the shield over this deck and break both his wings."

Shield was a bit generous a term for the curtain of high-speed air forced to go over them by a cleverly designed airfoil, protecting them from the worst of the gale outside. But Dorothy was probably right about what it would do to a pair of fragile wings traveling at this velocity.

"Slow to a hover, Forerunner," Olivia barked. The ground under them lurched as they began to decelerate. "The rest of you want to talk so bad, you can deal with this. I need to get something from below decks."

She turned, stalking away down into the bowels of the ship, leaving them alone. They didn't have long to wait. The pony moved much slower when they weren't also blazing towards him, but despite his apparent tiredness, he was still flying quickly. Soon enough he was banking for a landing, and his hooves touched down noisily on the deck.

The wind had stopped blasting them, though there was still a stiff breeze. Not enough that the magnets had to engage, though they still would if anyone tried to jump or move too quickly. At the very least, it was quiet enough that they could get a good look at the new passenger.

He was a male all right, taller than all of them, with a dark coat and a gray mane. His wings weren't feathered as they had first looked from afar, but covered with dark skin instead. A series of jagged scars ran down one side of his body, disrupting the growth of his coat, though they also looked old, and healed over.

The pony opened his mouth to speak, revealing sharp teeth that none of them had. Maybe a tropical subspecies. He was flying up from the south. James already had a spare headset ready, and she held out the device to him, pointing to her own with exaggerated gestures.

That was all the pony needed. He didn't have anything in his hooves, didn't have metal boots on like they did. James stared in wonder as he managed to grip the slippery plastic with just one hoof, and settle it comfortably onto his head. His eyes widened as the headset settled onto his ears, and he spoke rapidly. There was a little more delay between his words and the machine-sounding voice in James's ear that was the (flawed) translation.

"How do get up here without? Bad lifting for sound almost went the other way." He pointed backward, through the entrance to the ship and towards the direction they'd come from.

"Easy there," Karl said, raising one hoof in an imitation of a human placation gesture. "Slower than that. Can we start with names? I'm Karl. This is Dorothy, and James. Who are you?"

"I’m Deadlight,” the stallion said, eyes lingering for a moment on Dorothy's open uniform. James had no frame of reference, but he suspected a typical male reaction was taking place. The newcomer wore nothing beyond the satchel he carried, so left little to their imaginations. "Sisters? Triplets? Woah. Unimportant, though." He pointed again. "What is this thing? Air service advances so quickly to be doing this. Metal how much weight can fly? Where’s the balloon?”

James winced at each botched word of the translation. Their own language would be sounding just as strange by comparison, perhaps moreso. At least the Forerunner knew what proper English was supposed to sound like. If it couldn't even do that, how butchered would Eoch sound? But she couldn't take off the headset and try to use what (little) she'd learned in a week, not with the roar of the props. She'd never be able to hear a pony voice over the din.

"It’s not as advanced as it looks," James said, approaching the pony closer than the others dared. Much of what she saw in him mimicked what she had been reading in the notes. What are you doing so far from home, pony?

"This is amazing!" the pony shouted, or at least James guessed it was a shout from the sudden increase in volume from the translated voice. "You have to show me into the into. Does having find from earlier?”

"I think you must be mistaken about our identity," Dorothy said, speaking slowly. "Do you see aircraft like ours all the time? You thought it was typical to be able to drop in as you did?"

"Yeah," James spoke before he did. There was no way to use a private channel, though of course that technology would be simple. But they hadn't been designed for that. Deadlight would hear every word she spoke. "Equestria has flying cities. They have airships too... balloons, zeppelins..."

"Equestria and I terminally avoid co-location," said the bat-winged pony. "Everything is everything where ponies live. Interesting things get lost. But further away… further away we find everything. Everything we forgot."

Behind James, the door to the lower decks slid open. She ignored it, focusing on the speaker.

Deadlight was grinning at them. “I hope strange sisters don’t mind another back to Equestria. Long flight from the south… longer than you know! Having something to ride is to be having what needed from the rest. I have bits—”

Deadlight began to twitch and spasm, and a faint clicking sound passed up through James's hooves. The pony in front of her fell, smashing his face against the observation deck, his whole body convulsing out of control.

Major Fischer stood rigid, still aiming her stun-pistol at the pony's chest. She lowered her leg, nodding towards the still-twitching pony. "Get him below decks," she ordered. "Forerunner, prepare to resume course. I no longer care about efficiency—I want to be up where the air is too thin to breathe."

The floor jolted under their hooves, and they immediately began to rise again. James hurried over to the unconscious pony, helping Karl to roll him towards the door with as little damage as possible. "I'm not sure if you were listening, but this pony was—"

"I heard every word." Major Fischer marched right back towards the doorway. "Get him below decks. We can keep interrogating him there, where he can't fly off."

Author's Note

Sorry if this chapter is a little shorter than lately. I ended up cutting out several scenes from this and the following chapter that took the focus away from the narrative I wanted to tell. I've caught up after that, so lengths should return to normal.

G5.05: External Contacts

The more Lucky searched, the more frustrated she got. It wasn’t just that there was little written about the subjects of her interest in the Equestrian books—cultural difference was to be expected from an alien society, even if those differences were immensely frustrating. It was, rather, that it seemed the library had been deliberately scrubbed of information on specific subjects. Astronomy, for instance, was an art to the Equestrians, who studied the stars as a way of appreciating the creations of the mythical, deific version of Princess Luna.

There was almost no reference to exploring beyond Equestria, and what little there was seemed as heavily mythologized as the princesses themselves. What few texts described it was either clear fiction reminiscent of the Iliad, or so obviously revisionist that Lucky didn’t bother studying further.

In the way of creation myths, ponies focused on the founding of Equestria as the beginning of the world, even though they knew their kind had lived before, and lived in other places too. It’s like they’re willfully ignorant. Maybe Lucky was being paranoid, but it felt to her as though someone had intentionally purged the library of any information that might be useful for a search like this. Anypony who wanted to know more about the structure of their “planet” would be sorely disappointed. If the sciences were taught the same way in other parts of the country, ponies wouldn’t even get curious.

But she was, and she wasn’t about to give up. The other members of the crew had their own mission—apparently building the first city on KOI-087.01, which sounded exciting. Maybe they would be done by the time she had to go back, and she could show Lightning Dust what human settlements were like. That would be fun.

But in the meantime, Lucky had a unique advantage they didn’t. Living around ponies gave her access to much of their knowledge. She refused to believe that no one, not one pony in all Equestrian history, would have been even a little curious.

* * *

“What can I do?” The filly looked up from her little mountain of library books, looking like a puppy left in the rain. “It’s like nopony knows! None of you even care what you’re living on!”

Dust frowned, lost in thought for a moment. “I don’t know why you care so much about this, Lucky.”

“I do!” she said, not quite answering the question. “What does a pony do when the books at the library aren’t enough? I asked my teacher, asked the librarian…”

"We could go right to the top. Anypony can get an audience with a princess, though it's a different one depending on where you live. We're in the Crystal Empire, so Cadance is our pony. She's supposed to be one of the most liberal with her visits—I've heard you can meet her same day. She's trying to give her daughter more experience ruling, or..." She waved one hoof dismissively. "Who cares. So, we go to her, you ask your question. If you care that much.”

The princesses were supposed to be thousands of years old, or most of them were. Cadance was an exception—she’d only been around a few decades. She wouldn’t have the lost knowledge of the past. But she might know more than the ordinary citizens, and she might know who to ask. She would have resources that librarians simply didn’t have.

“But… you shouldn’t.” Dust looked up, reluctant. “Whyever it is you care about this so much… you shouldn’t go to Cadance about it.”

Lucky Break considered that a moment. She leaned back, pulling her wing in front of herself, and started nervously straightening feathers. "I-I... I don’t understand. Aren’t the princesses supposed to be the nicest ponies in Equestria?"

Dust smiled sadly at the filly, too innocent to have realized what a visit to the palace might entail. "When we go to talk to the princesses, we'll have to identify ourselves. I've... had papers made." She reached down to a nearby drawer with her mouth, opening it and withdrawing a dark folder there. She opened it on the floor for Lucky to see. Inside was all the forged papers it would take to prove Lucky was her daughter. Naïve or not, Lucky stared down transfixed, moving her fake birth certificate aside to stare at fake school completion certificates, and fake residency records at an orphanage in Cloudsdale.

Anyone who examined the records would find a scandalous story between the lines, of a teenage Lightning Dust who'd gotten pregnant while she was still an apprentice in the Cloudsdale Weather Trade School. Dust had been an orphan herself after all, and such behavior would've gotten her kicked out and disqualified from all her grants. It told of a foal birthed in secret, then hidden away so she could break the rules and make a better life for both. It was such a scandalous story Dust hoped that anypony studying these papers would see the lawbreaking on the surface and assume they'd discovered what she was hiding. If they looked deeper... if they contacted the orphanage, or any of the witnesses listed on Lucky's forms, they'd discover the truth.

"These got you into school," Dust said. "They helped get us an apartment to live in... without connecting you to the filly I rescued. Even if nopony knows who you are, there’s a chance somepony in there knows who I am. You vanish from Stormshire the same day I leave? Not even the police are that dumb. Anywhere we go near the authorities is near ponies who could connect the dots.

"You really want to talk to the princess? We have to give all our paperwork to get in. That’s a chance for us to be identified. Probably won’t be—you’re just a kid asking a question, that kind of thing happens all the time. But it’s a chance to be unlucky. Best case, nopony looks at us twice and we walk in no problem.”

"What's the worst?"

"They take you right then," Dust admitted. "It seemed like the crown wanted you to live with somepony other than me. Maybe if those Family Services ponies from Stormshire get involved, they lock me up in a dungeon somewhere for trying to keep you. Ponies don’t get foalnapped that often, but I’m sure that’s what they called it when I took you away from Stormshire."

Lucky slumped to the floor, deflating visibly. “I guess that’s out then. I can’t even, just… write a letter?”

“I… guess you could,” Dust said. There had to be something she could do to help the filly cheer up. “If you had your pick, I’d choose…” She lowered her voice to an angry growl. “Twilight.” It wasn’t that Twilight Sparkle had intended to ruin Lightning Dust’s life. But she’d still been part of it. “Twilight Sparkle is the princess of boring and obscure. If you just wrote her a letter, just… don’t sign with your whole name. It’s still possible she’d do more than write you back, anything that gets their attention is enough. But she probably won’t even respond. You’ll probably get a form letter from her assistant thanking you for being so interested in being a good citizen.”

But the filly didn’t hear her anymore. Anything that had saved her new obsession was enough to return her previous, excited self. “Really? I’ll write something right away!” She hurried over to the table, dumping out her saddlebags of school supplies and setting everything up.

“Sure thing, but… don’t mention my name, okay?”

“I…” The filly paused, looking up with confusion. “Why not?”

“Just don’t,” Dust said. “We’re not exactly friends. Putting my name on there would make her less likely to give you a good answer.”

“Oh, okay.” Lucky unrolled a fresh scroll, weighing down the top with one of her books.

“I’ve got to head off to work,” Dust said, glancing again at the clock. “You can handle getting to school on time, right?”

“Yeah,” the filly muttered, flicking one of her hooves absently through the air. “Sure thing, yeah. I can.”

“Good.” Dust didn’t have anything to carry, and she didn’t waste time with clothes. She hurried out the door, then out onto the balcony and out into the air. She flew quickly—too quickly for Lucky to follow in case she tried.

The filly was still curious about what Dust was doing. Without a weather team, a pony who had never done anything else was hardly drowning in opportunity. Lucky had guessed almost every job a pony could have, but she’d been wrong about them all. Dust’s place of work was… somewhat less reputable than any of her guesses.

Instead of heading into one of the Crystal Empire’s many towering buildings, Dust dodged behind an old warehouse then down a set of rickety stairs into the sewer access tunnels. They were kept clean, like everything in the Crystal Empire, but the smell of manure and worse things still permeated everything that came down here. It was so bad that Dust had to visit a bathhouse before picking Lucky up from school.

Not because she worked in sanitation—while undesirable, there was nothing to be ashamed about in a job like that. No, Dust’s work was much worse.

She casually approached an old gate with a sturdy lock, then twisted it aside. Though the lock looked secure, it had been gutted a long time ago, and was left hanging only for show. She replaced it behind her, then slowed her steps so as to make less noise. It was much too cramped to fly, even for an expert like her.

Around the bend, the hallways got much dirtier, ancient bricks coated with the slime of an ancient past. These tunnels led to the mines of King Sombra, where he had worked his slave army to the bone to harvest iron for his soldiers and gold for himself. There were worse stories of what he had done to ponies in these tunnels, but… they were probably just stories. Dust sure hoped everything they said about ghosts haunting the place were just stories too.

She passed ancient mining equipment, which looked much better than their true age. They’d been frozen in time right along with the ponies who lived here. So the old wooden carts, pickaxes, and headlamps had yet to rust away to nothing.

At the end of the long passage the space opened again, the ceiling becoming wide over her head. Dust’s lantern began to flicker in the sudden breeze, and she paused for a moment to make sure it wouldn’t go out accidentally. It wasn’t totally dark here, though there was nothing to guide her aside from the faint orange lights she could see near the bottom, where a tunnel opened in the ancient rock. And there at the bottom was her contact.

Rocky was a diamond dog, his coat graying and one of his eyes sightless and staring. His other was alert, and less disturbing than his predatory visage and glittering sharp teeth. They don’t eat ponies, it’s okay. They only eat rocks. She told herself that on every visit, and on every visit, she believed it a little less.

“Hey, Rocky,” she said, waving one hoof as she stopped in front of him. “Full cart today.” Indeed, the worn merchant’s cart looked like it had been filled to the brim with unmarked barrels and wooden crates. If it wasn’t so light, she might have trouble pulling it all.

“Ponies are restless,” Rocky said. “They smell something is coming. I smell the bits and so I deliver.”

Dust walked slowly around to the front of the cart, where the harness waited to receive the pony who’d pull it: her. “Great,” she said. “What’s the take this time?”

“Twenty percent,” said Rocky. “Small bonus for your daughter. Get her something nice for me.” Not that Dust didn’t appreciate the extra bits, but she knew those words were more than that. It was a reminder. Rocky knew how precarious Dust’s situation was, though he didn’t know the specifics. For all the risk Dust was taking with each of these shipments, she should’ve been making at least forty percent of the profit. All Rocky did was haul it here from beyond Equestria, where none of this was against the law. He could buy it in a market, then sell it for ten times as much to ponies desperate to fill their addictions.

“Yeah, alright,” she groaned, settling herself into the harness. “I will. I’ll leave the rest at the drop, same as always.”

“I know you will.” Rocky watched her suspiciously as she secured the harness, then gave her a harsh whack on the flank with a length of cord he always carried. “Now go, pony. My jewels are waiting.”

Lightning Dust wanted to kick him in the face. But she didn’t. Without the bits from Rocky, how would she pay the rent, or put fresh food on the table? The grass up here in the Crystal Empire tasted even worse than the grass of Equestria proper.

It’s okay, she thought, as she made her way up the tunnel. This one had been carved by the diamond dogs, and led into a back alley in the city where she could emerge past customs, and make her deliveries. Nopony had caught her yet. And they probably won’t. Probably.

But they would certainly keep their apartment for another week, and that was what mattered. Dust could deal with the authorities if it came to that.

* * *

The Sojourner didn't have a brig, but it did have four berths, each of which had a single bunkbed inside. With the major and Dorothy together, and Karl and Martin together, that left James with her own. It was there they took the pony, to the empty bottom bunk. There was no need to lock the doors—they required an implant to open. No implants, and the pony wouldn't be getting out.

"We can't just take him hostage!" James shouted into Major Fischer's face, once they'd shoved him into her sleeping quarters and shut the door. Not that he would be waking up for a few more minutes yet.

"We aren't," she replied, unmoved despite James's eight-centimeter height advantage. "We're preventing restricted information about our existence and mission from spreading. It was my mistake for expecting the ocean to be clear—we should've been flying higher to begin with. I don’t know why we’re having so much trouble gaining altitude—"

"So, what are we going to do?" Karl interrupted, sounding almost as angry as James felt. "Kill him?"

"No." The major lifted her handgun again, spinning it once on the magnetic grip. It settled again against the flesh of her leg, secure to the implant there. "Killing him would be unnecessary. If I had wanted to do that, I would have done it to begin with and shoved his body into the ocean. We'll take good care of him for the next few weeks, making sure he learns as little as possible about who and where we are. Once our new city is coming along, we can dump him somewhere in Equestria and let him go back to... whatever he was doing. So long as he never learns any details…" She shrugged one shoulder. “Looks like he was crazy to begin with. The sort of person people won’t believe.”

Dorothy didn't smell nearly as upset as Karl did. When she spoke, she only sounded surprised. "That means I can give him medical attention, right?" She didn't wait for a response, lifting the first-aid kit off the wall, taking it in her teeth, and opening the door with her implants.

"He’s out awfully far on his own. We can't keep him here! What if he’s important to Equestria somehow?"

"We don't care what happens to the native countries," Major Fischer interrupted. "We aren't involved... we aren't going to go hurting any of them, but we don't have to intervene. If there really is a danger, we can negotiate with whoever wins." She turned away, walking down the hall towards the bridge. "If anything, a disaster for Equestria will put us in a better position to negotiate." She stopped, turning around again, expression harder than the metal of the Sojourner. "This should go without saying, but since I know you're all civilian, let me be explicitly clear. Do not release the prisoner under any circumstances. If it looks like he might escape, you have my permission to kill him. But that's it."

She turned, marching away down the hall and rounding the corner to the bridge, leaving the two of them alone.

"Well that's shit," Karl said. "We should've just flown away. He never could've caught up with us."

"Yeah," James said, glaring down at her hooves. She wanted to break something, but there was nothing around but the deck-plating. Somehow, she didn't expect her hooves to come out as the winners in any contest of strength. She thought about several ways she could let the pony go, but none of them didn't end with her in chains somewhere. Or worse, recycled. It's not like the crew really needs me. They already have a translator.

James hurried into her bedroom, pausing only briefly as the door slid out of her way.

Dorothy had hauled the prisoner up onto the lower bunk, and had spread out the first-aid equipment there beside him on the bed. The pony himself had begun to stir, though he wasn't resisting. "Did you come in here to be a nurse?" Dorothy asked, not waiting for a response. "Tough, I'm not even a nurse myself. But someone has to do something. Anyway, you’re too late. I’m just finishing.”

"Don't let me get in your way. At least if we’re going to keep him hostage for awhile we can make sure he doesn’t get an infection or whatever.”

Now that she was close to him, James could see there was much to this pony she had missed. Namely: he’d been flying through injuries. They looked like the sort a pony might encounter while exploring somewhere dangerous—bruises, deep lacerations on his legs and the bottom of his barrel, a whole chunk of flesh missing and covered with dried bandage. Every injury had been inexpertly field-dressed, or at least it looked like they had from the shreds of cloth roughly approximating the color of his coat that now littered the bunk. Dorothy had cut all of them away with contempt, and filled the room with a scent of unmistakable infection.

Dorothy had apparently already finished with her treatment. He had fresh stitches, and glittering liquid bandage visible over flesh gouged raw by her callous attempt at treatment.

"I'm going to go stick my head in the shower," Dorothy muttered, looking disgusted. "Maybe a bleach shower." She left, taking the first-aid kit with her. That left James alone with the pony.

He started to stir, watching her groggily from the corner of the room. He still looked weak, though it was hard to say if that might've been from the treatment or if it was still the after-effects of being stunned.

"Kio okazis?" he asked, sounding dazed. But neither of them were wearing headsets anymore, so James could only guess at exactly what he meant. Then he looked down. "Ho, kuracistoj. Unukornuloj povas kuraci ion ajn magie. Tial devas esti kial mi ne povas... memori kiel mi subiris ĉi tien. Dolormagio."

James only smiled at him, edging around the room until she could reach her headset. This one wasn't for use out on the deck, but more for listening to music and communicating during ordinary duty. It wouldn't block out the sound. "Forerunner, can you translate that for me?" James asked, in a low whisper.

"Approximate translation is: ‘You are heard about doctor. Unicorns can magic pain. Down here can't remember.’"

Very approximate, James thought. The pony was still looking at her. She didn't know very much of his language yet. Only a few basic phrases, and simple words. "Ni havas magio. Povas sendi vortoj.” She pointed at the pad. "Atendu"

"Via ĉevala malbonas,” the pony said. "Ĝi estas tio, kion poneoj parolas Ĉevalie, ĉu ne? Kio estas la alia lingvo, kion vi parolantis?"

"Please give me another translation," James asked, in another hushed whisper. "And while you're at it, just translate everything he says from now on."

"Input accepted," said the Forerunner into her ear. "Approximate translation is: ‘Complaint about Eoch. Ponies speak Equestria, don't they? What else you say?’"

“You are recovering,” James said. “Your injuries will require some time to heal. You will have to stay here until that happens.”

As before, the computer translated for her. It also translated his response.

“Agreement. I comfortable guess could be here. But when done, must explain who you are! So much metal, no balloon! Flying very interesting direction away from Equestria. Airship not afraid of storms?”

“No, we’re not afraid of storms.” She looked up. “Who are you?”

“Deadlight,” the computer answered in its translation. “Exploring adventurer to find all the mysteries. Solving everything, going where others are afraid. Like Daring Do, but less savings because she does most of that.”

“Oh.” That answer did match the size of his gear and might explain his scars. If he spent his time exploring dangerous places, then… he was bound to get himself hurt. “I am James. Nice to meet you, Deadlight.”

He grinned at her from across the room, sitting more upright in bed. Of course, he was naked except for the bandages, so James got an eyeful of things she hadn’t seen since waking up a pony. She blushed despite herself, looking away as the computer translated again. “Can I call you prettiest twin?”

James left, ignoring the pony’s calls, her ears and tail both flat and lifeless as she did so. She didn’t make any promises about answering things for the pony—of course, they wouldn’t be able to. The farce that this was a hospital and he was here for his own good would be over soon. Maybe we can persuade the major to let him go when we get to wherever the city is going.

* * *

Lucky didn’t expect a response to her letter in anything less than a few weeks. She was surprised, therefore, to find a tightly wrapped scroll resting on their front porch on her way back from school, less than three days after she had sent it off to the princess of “Magic, Friendship, and Useless Facts.” Dust sure had some odd descriptions for this pony.

Everything about the scroll looked official—the seal pressed into the top, the rich purple ribbon tying it off, the quality of the penmanship writing Lucky’s name. Lucky eagerly set the scroll down on her table and untied it with her mouth—something that required such coordination she couldn’t do with hooves. It rolled open in front of her easily, displaying more of the same impeccable, perfect script. Even looking at her words, Lucky could tell she was reading the words of someone smarter than she was.

“Form letter?” Dust asked, shutting the door behind her and glancing down at the table to see. “Don’t be too—”

“No,” Lucky said. “She wrote back to me.”

“She wrote…” Dust trailed off. “Trim my feathers and see me fall, you’re right. Didn’t think she actually cared about her job, but… maybe there are other ponies who care about weird questions as much as you do.”

“Guess so,” she said, turning her attention completely to the letter.

Dear Lucky,

In nothig is my duty as a Princess of Equestria more satisfying than responding in an officeal capacity to those messages I receve from the thougtful hooves of inquiring young ponies such as yourself. I remember the hegemonious attitudes of those with positions of authority in matters of scholarship and how inquiries of research into the hintherland often yield egregeiously irrelevant results. I hope this message might allow you to atain clarity.

Resonable ponies have attempted to navigate the terbulent waters of research into subjects laquishing under the practices encapsalated by the Canterlot College of Arts and Sciences. Aresting the progress of Equestria is not my intent, and I will be greatful to assist you in unfetering yourself from these erronious statutes.

Conventional strattification of the field of practical philosophy and art has always observed a pattern of 5 derivations. Wrechedly, every expert has failed to produce a convincingly thorough (or even entertaneing) breakdown of the field. Much of what I have read amounts to speckulation.

Throughly exhaustive research on my own part leads me to believe that ultimately there is only 1 field, divided needlessly as to divert tantelizing discoveries that would otherwise be enabled by cross-discipline cooperation. It would be an especeal shame to see this lacklusterly implementation of proper friendship discourage the inquiry of one such as yourself, who should be lavishied with praise for her noteable inquisitiveness.

I suspect you will conclude my decision obstanate, but I am unable to provide you with further information than is normally contained in those atlases and nuianced dioramas commonly displayed in Equestria’s libraries. I have endevored to supply every library with suitable materials ever since my reign as Princess of Friendship began, so I am certain your library is sufficiently equipped.

Exploring beyond the reach of Equestria has been sparse, and conditions beyond our borders are dangerous. The College has, for the moment, decided to concentrate its efforts on improving conditions within Equestria. I know this is an unsatisfactory answer. A promising young mind like yours shouldn’t be told your questions don’t have good answers. If you’re unhappy with my decision, I’ve enclosed train vouchers. Feel free to use them to visit me in Ponyville if you discover anything of interest.

Warm Regards,

Princess Twilight Sparkle

Lucky Break stared down at the letter for a long time, her excitement draining rapidly. She read and re-read the first few paragraphs several times, trying to make sense of the inconsistency. This was one of the responses she had expected, informing her that research into the area of her curiosity was disallowed or simply not interesting. That suggests at least some of the natives know there’s more to where they live. Maybe they don’t want the others to figure out the truth.

“What’s wrong?” Dust asked, replacing the painting on the far wall. She’d been stashing bits behind it—always ready to grab if they needed to make a quick escape. “No good answer?”

“No…” Lucky muttered, her brow wrinkling as she scrutinized the page. Part of her wondered if she’d just been completely wrong about the rules of composition in Eoch, and there might be an alternative spelling for many of the words more appropriate for formal settings. Princess Twilight hadn’t called her out on the errors in her own letter because she was just a child, and expected to make stupid mistakes.

“Hold on, are those train tickets?” Dust stopped a meter away from the table, staring down at the little pile of bright pink slips. Each one proclaimed it was “Redeemable for any ticket sold by Equestria’s National Rail Service.” “Horsefeathers, those are expensive. She sent four?”

“I guess… two for each way?” Lucky pushed the little pile towards Dust. “Here, you can sell ‘em if you want.”

“No, no!” Lightning Dust retreated as though she’d tried to give her rotting meat. “If Twilight had anything to do with those, you just keep ‘em. Why did she send you train tickets?”

“I’m… not sure,” Lucky admitted. “The letter is… political nonsense. Kinda what I thought I’d get. Obviously, ponies don’t want anyone asking this kind of question, and she was nice about telling me.” But then there were the tickets. How would Lucky “discover anything of interest” if the entire field was essentially forbidden? How could she possibly track something down the scholar princess had missed? She didn’t know the answer to that, but something about the letter just didn’t sit right with her.

Lucky would pin it to her wall, where she could look at it until it made sense.

G5.05: Wonderbolts

It didn’t take Lucky that long to figure out Princess Twilight’s message. She sat on her bed in the back of the room reading it whenever she had a spare moment, strumming her guitar absently.

At first, she’d been put off by the dissonance between the words and the princess’s described character. No pony who wrote the way she did was going to send out a letter so full of mistakes. And yet, the last paragraph seemed as though it had been written by someone who knew how to use their own language. Why the discrepancy?

Less than three days later, Lucky had it figured out. Princess Twilight Sparkle had very weakly encoded a single sentence. But who was she hiding it from, and why? Obviously not Lucky herself—the two of them had never met, and the princess had no reason to trust her. She could’ve just not sent it at all.

The message itself was quite vague. It sounded like a location, but what did it mean? Lucky didn’t have a clue, so she asked her mom. “If somepony told you to go ‘north heart leagues 5 west 1’, where would you go?” she asked, before Lightning Dust went to work one snowy Friday.

The mare stopped by the door, considering. “Your class has a scavenger hunt? I wouldn’t go that way, if I were you. It isn’t a very nice place.”

“Really?” Lucky got up, standing as straight as she could, flexing her wings. “I’m not afraid! What if I had to go there? Wherever… it is…”

Lightning Dust walked past her to the window. She reached down, lifting Lucky up with both hooves. How she could do it without falling over, Lucky would never know. But she didn’t resist. Being handled by anypony else was awful, but Lightning Dust was allowed. “See that out there?”

“The castle,” Lucky supplied, nodding. “Where the princess lives?”

“Where the Crystal Heart lives,” she corrected, setting Lucky back down. “I know you’ve heard about it. Ponies up here are crazy about the stupid thing. I mean, I know it’s important to the locals or whatever, but… it’s just a fancy rock, right? It can’t really do anything.”

“Except be used as a point of reference.” Lucky hurried over to her desk, hastily opening one of the map books she still had checked out, and turning to the page that showed the Crystal Empire. “The castle is here… so it would mean going five leagues up, then one to the west…” She took a pencil in her mouth, marking the page at the designated location. “Right here!”

The map showed very little about that space—except that it was past a line marked “U.E.D.”, and that there was apparently an “endless flat plane of even snow suitable for a hoofball field.” Not terribly useful, but that didn’t mean she was wrong. A princess of Equestria would not be sending her out so far away from the city to visit empty space, she was sure of that. “It’s right here!”

Lightning Dust looked down at the book over her shoulder, frowning at it. “Yeah, like I said. Flying over U.E.D. is like flying a race straight west. Only for fillies and fools.” She shook her head vigorously. “Why would you wanna go out there, anyway?”

Lucky gulped, fishing for a suitable answer. Dust didn’t seem to like Twilight, just as she didn’t seem to like many of the authorities in Equestria. But maybe she could use that to her advantage. “There’s something up there, something secret. Somepony who doesn’t want me to tell anyone about it basically told me to go up there and check it out.” She squinted down at the tiny lines again. Above “U.E.D.” by another few dash marks were “E.E.D.”, then a few more before “P.E.D.”. “What do these lines mean?”

Lightning Dust glanced briefly down, and this time she didn’t seem confused. “One closest to the Crystal Empire is as far as unicorns are supposed to go. Past that is for earth ponies… they’re tougher, so they can go further. The last one is for pegasi. Past that line, and it’s almost impossible to fly. That close to the Nibiru, even strong flyers can tumble out of the air like foals on their first day. Not much of a point to go up that far normally, though. Unless you’re in it for the view. It’s too cold to grow anything, and the rocks are so awful even diamond dogs don’t want to live in them.” She stopped, looking abruptly away.

Lucky hardly noticed. “But I’m a pegasus…” she said. “We’ll be way below those other two lines… we only have to pass the one for unicorns by a little. Is it too cold?”

“It’s cold,” Lightning Dust said, practically jumping at the chance to talk about something else. “Not too cold for us. Nice thick jacket, don’t sleep below the clouds… we could make it out that far with one good day of flying. You could do it in half the time if you practiced more and read less.”

“Yeah…” It was Lucky’s time to blush. Lightning Dust never forced her to stop her own studies, but she did seem to have clear priorities about what mattered and what didn’t. Books didn’t qualify. “But that doesn’t matter! We both have jackets! We’d just need… rations for a few days?” That was an astonishing thought. Human arctic expeditions required hundreds of different things. But ponies were more self-sufficient, and pegasus ponies were especially resistant to temperature and weather. Any cloud could be their water, their sleeping quarters, their bath. I still haven’t figured out how any of that works.

“I guess so.” Lightning Dust turned back to the door. “I would like to see you get more flying practice. I know you could qualify for the Junior Wonderbolts if you put in a little more time.” She stopped in the doorway, a smile spreading across her lips. “Tell you what, squirt. You pass your qualifiers, and we’ll go on the expedition. Sound fair?”

The qualifiers were in two weeks. The other pegasus ponies in her class who cared about them had already been practicing for months. “I can’t wait another year to test again,” Lucky squeaked, slumping down onto her haunches. By then, I’ll have to go back to the Forerunner for sure. Even if I get to come back to you, I’ll be a different pony then. “Do you really think I stand a chance?”

“That depends on how much you want it,” Lightning Dust said. “And how much you’re willing to practice. It’s nothing like getting into the real thing, but it’s still hard. You’ll have to fly better than plenty of grown ponies.”

“Every day!” Lucky rose again, saluting with one wing. “If you can train me, I’ll do it!”

Dust turned around in the doorway, returning her salute. “Good. Practice starts right now.” She walked right up to Lucky, flicking her hooves with her tail. “From now on, you’re only on the ground when I say so. Up up up!”

The gesture didn’t hurt—tails were soft, and couldn’t really be cracked like whips. It was still startling enough that she jumped, catching herself in the air with her wings and hovering there. It didn’t take any energy—at first. It was like holding pushup position, in a way. The longer she flapped her wings, the more they started to burn.

“Good. Now, hold that until the first bell. Then you can fly to class.”

“But if I wait that long, I’ll only have five minutes before late bell!” Lucky protested.

Dust’s grin got wider. “Exactly. And I don’t want you to be late. You’re allowed to be tired in class, or sweaty, or out of breath. But not late. We’ll do more when you get off.”

Had Lucky’s incentive been anything less than her expedition, she would’ve cheated as soon as Lightning Dust left the apartment. Well, she still cheated a little—she let herself drift slowly around in a circle instead of holding in place. It was a tiny bit easier than just holding still, and less boring. Flying inside was a challenge, given how low the ceiling was and how close the walls could be. Unlike the buildings in Stormshire, those in the Crystal Empire hadn’t been built with flight in mind.

But she didn’t cheat, at least not until she heard the first bell. Lucky Break landed, caught her breath a second, then galloped down the hall and off the balcony. She flew as though the Forerunner was after her with a fleet of sterilizer drones. No, she flew like whatever had built Equus was after her, and she couldn’t let them catch her.

She was late the first day, and the second. Knowing Look sent her home with an alarm clock that day, apparently thinking that she wasn’t waking up on time.

Her mornings were just a warm-up for the pain that Lightning Dust inflicted in the afternoons. Lucky began to wish she’d taken her instruction more seriously—or hell, that she’d joined the Aerobatics Club instead of the Debate Team. She watched them practicing behind the school with envy as Lightning Dust picked her up each day, knowing she’d be doing much worse than they did. Working until it got dark, and it felt like her wings were going to fall off.

Maybe once, Lucky resented Lightning Dust for imposing this arbitrary restriction on her expedition. Why couldn’t she just go? Lucky Break wasn’t incompetent. She had her armor—she could make it less than thirty kilometers on her own. But then she remembered how she’d done on her first relatively short trip, even protected by her equipment, and she thought better of it.

By the time Lucky finally came home from their workouts, there was just enough time for a (desperately needed) preening before bed. She squeezed in a few lines of report here or there, nothing but lies about how she had invested herself in mastering formal language and it was going slower than expected. But strangely, Major Olivia Fischer didn’t even ask questions. The military pony had been on top of things before, asking all kinds of questions about her life. Yet now, she couldn’t be bothered for more than a quick “Mission progressing well” update every now and then.

Her clone also didn’t message her again, for which she was glad. Lucky Break wanted to spend as little time with her clone as possible. Few things could confront her with the reality of her own disposable existence quite like looking at an identical copy.

No, not identical. Better. Her clone wouldn’t be struggling with puberty, wouldn’t be swimming in a soup of teenage emotions or be so small adults didn’t take her seriously. Everything about her job would be easier if she were an adult. Lucky Break was sure of that. And I might never get a cutie mark. Though come to think of it, she didn’t know that the other crew had them. Olivia didn’t, but she hadn’t spoken to the others very much.

Lucky had no time to ask about things like that when she spent any free second just lying around aching, her back and wings a throbbing, sore mess. It was a great deal like the six months of training she’d been through prior to being scanned. Every day had been another torture, and she hadn’t let any of them wear her down. She had triumphed over all that for the same reason she would succeed in Equestria.

Lucky Break had one advantage on the other young pegasus ponies—she was enhanced. Assuming her pony body had a similar level of enhancement to the human astronauts Forerunners grew, Lucky would have dramatically reinforced bones, better lungs, and significantly accelerated healing. She had heard incredible stories about the lengths testing had gone—astronauts had hiked without stopping up Mount Everest, they’d gone without water for two weeks in the Sahara, and they’d even fought bears.

Lucky Break did not have to fight bears, but even so she found herself thankful every morning she woke up, her body healed to the point where she was no longer sore. She could never actually outperform Lightning Dust, but the longer they practiced together the more impressed she became. And not just because she’s my mom, either.

Two weeks weren’t that long. Soon enough, the day of the Junior Wonderbolt Qualifiers arrived.

“If you pass, you’ll get to go to the party,” Dust had explained. “While you’re there, don’t mention my name. Take credit for everything. You learned on your own… you didn’t need anypony.”

“But… why?” Lucky had asked, confused. “If I pass, it’ll only be because of you! I never would’ve thought of any of the practice techniques you taught me!”

Dust had looked pained, embarrassed. “Because they hate me,” she said. “And if you talk about me, they might take away your certification. Forget the Wonderbolts… they’re a trumped-up joke. But the piece of paper they give you will get you an internship with any weather team in Equestria, even if you never actually join.”

Now Lucky Break was looking down at that piece of paper, reading her own name alongside the signatures of the evaluating judges. She began to realize just what Dust had done. She really is trying to be my mom. She thinks going after Twilight’s message is dumb, but she used it to make me take pegasus education seriously.

Now that she had taken it, Lucky understood why only a handful of ponies from the flight class had passed. She avoided looking across the room at their little clique—whenever they noticed her, they gave her dirty looks.

You shouldn’t be here, those eyes said. Our friends worked hard for months, and you didn’t. One of them should take your place. But none of them said it—ponies were too nice to do things like that. In the Crystal Empire at least, Lucky thought after remembering Stormshire.

So, Lucky sat alone with her new certification, staring at an empty plate and occasionally sipping at her punch. The other students seemed eager to talk to the representative of the Wonderbolts who had attended to judge this year—they crowded around her like a celebrity. But Lucky Break hadn’t ever cared about the organization, and couldn’t have told one of its members from another.

The rented ballroom seemed enormous compared to the twenty or so ponies who had attended this party. How long do I have to stay before I can go home?

“This seat taken?” somepony asked from behind her—she didn’t recognize the voice.

She didn’t even look back, just shrugged her wings. “Sure.”

Someone pulled out the chair, then sat down. Something heavy thumped on the table—a plate of food with much more than Lucky had served herself. It all looked much better than the sorts of things Lightning Dust could afford to buy for them.

“I liked your flying today,” said the pony—an adult mare by her voice, though she also spoke with her mouth full. Not an adult mare very concerned with manners, then. “As fast as you were going, I thought you had a cutie mark in it for sure. But I can see you don’t.”

She shrugged. “I’ve been practicing really hard.” And I have a fiber-reinforced skeleton and GE lungs. But she didn’t say those things. It wasn’t like there was a translation for them anyway.

“Guess so.” The pony went back to eating.

Lucky Break looked up, and her eyes widened as she realized the one beside her was wearing a Wonderbolts uniform. This was one of the judges, the one all her fellow students had been schmoozing for the whole party. “O-oh. You’re…” The pony looked expectant, but Lucky didn’t actually remember her name. So, she trailed off awkwardly and just said, “Sorry, I don’t remember. We didn’t hear about the Wonderbolts much where I’m from.”

“Didn’t hear about the…” The pony repeated, aghast. “I’m Rainbow Dash. Is that familiar?”

She nodded. “You’re a national hero, you and these other ponies. In class, they said you all saved Equestria like… five times now?”

“More like seven,” she said, looking away with a smug grin. “Close enough. But I can’t keep saving Equestria forever. Sooner or later a brave, strong, fast pony is gonna have to take my place.” She pointed across the room with her wing. “All your friends there think that’s gonna be them. They’re going to try for the Wonderbolts in another few years, try and take my place. What about you?”

“I’m a linguist. I don’t have what it takes to do what you do.”

Rainbow Dash looked taken aback, but she recovered quickly. “Oh sure, you say that now. I know what it’s like… I’ve been in your hooves before. Thinking I could do it all on my own. That nopony else mattered. So long as I was the best, it didn’t matter what anypony else thought.” She stuck her face into a little bowl of pudding. “That’s a dead end. Sooner or later everypony who goes that way ends up another Lightning Dust.” She licked her lips clean, then got up. “You don’t want that to be you.”

“Why not?” Lucky asked, her tone becoming suddenly defensive. “What’s wrong with Lightning Dust?”

If the Wonderbolt could hear the sudden change in her tone, she didn’t react. Nopony else was close enough to hear, but apparently some others in the room had noticed Lucky’s body language because several of them were staring.

Not Rainbow Dash, though. She looked blissfully oblivious. “What, you hadn’t heard about that? I thought everypony had.”

Lucky shook her head vigorously. “No, I haven’t.”

Rainbow shrugged one wing. “Well, I guess I’ll tell you the short version. Lightning Dust was trying to get into the Wonderbolts about the same time I was. Real talented flyer… one of the few ponies I’ve ever met who could keep up with me.

“She was a real jerk to the other cadets all the way through training. Didn’t care what happened to anypony else so long as she was the best. Well, one of the last tests for a new trainee is clearing the sky as fast as possible, and she decided it would be a great idea to use a tornado.”

Her expression went from fondly amused to angry, glaring down at the ground. “She almost killed my best friends. If it wasn’t for the Wonderbolts… well, just don’t try to do everything on your own, alright? Wouldn’t want to see another talented pony ruin her life.” She walked away, leaving Lucky Break alone with her thoughts.

Eventually she could sneak away, stashing her newly-acquired certificate into her saddlebags and making her way out onto the streets. Just now, she wasn’t in a terrible hurry to get home.

Even in Earth’s safer cities, a little girl traveling on her own would probably have reason to be worried this late at night—when most of the early-rising crystal ponies had gone to bed and the streets were deserted. Lucky didn’t fly home, though it would’ve been simple. Compared to her training, the test itself had only been a few moments of torture.

“Almost killed my best friends,” Rainbow Dash had said. It sounded like an accident—but the sort of accident spawned by callous disregard for life. Tornadoes were not more fondly regarded in Equestria than on Earth—if anything, what little she’d heard about them was even more worrying. They didn’t just pop up in Equestria, as they did back home.

Rainbow Dash had not been lying to her—what would have been the point? The Wonderbolt pony had only been trying to help her in her own way.

Even so, Lucky found herself taking a detour home, walking as slowly as she could, taking her time to think over what she had heard.

Someone touched down behind her, not far away. “Hey squirt!”

Lucky squeaked and jumped, her heart racing. She caught herself in the air, drifting back down as she looked back.

Lightning Dust held a bouquet of balloons in one hoof, each of which displaying some variant of “Congratulations!” “Sorry I couldn’t go to the party with you. There were…” She trailed off, raising an eyebrow. “What’s wrong?”

Lucky landed, wiping tears away from her eyes, turning away from Lightning Dust and back to the bridge she was standing on. It rose above a large ravine, and held icy water that flowed through the city but wasn’t needed. It roared and churned in the darkness far below, sounding for all the world like any Earth river. The sound was relaxing—it gave her something else to think about.

“Is it true?” she asked. “What they said about you?”

“Oh,” Dust’s excitement vanished, and she walked up to the bridge beside Lucky. “That depends. Was it about the Wonderbolts Academy?”

Lucky couldn’t even bring herself to speak. She just nodded, letting more tears run freely down her face. She felt Dust’s wing on her back then, and for once she pulled away, withdrawing from her. “Y-you… you cared so little… you almost killed people…”

Dust sighed, slumping across the railing. “I’m not going to lie to you, kid. Wouldn’t be any point—wouldn’t change the pony I was, or the pony I am.”

Several silent minutes went by. Nopony else moved in the dark night—no other travelers walked past them. Above them, the stars moved too quickly, as they always did. And now I know why that is, too. This ring is spinning so fast we make more than one loop each night. How can the natives not see that?

“But I changed,” she went on. “I did my time, Lucky. And I realize…” She spoke very slowly now, quietly, as though each word cost her enormous effort. “I realize what I did was wrong. I’ve tried to be a better pony since then. I guess you’ll have to judge for yourself how good a job I’ve done. You’ve been around me more than anypony else. What do you think?”

Lucky couldn’t imagine a better parent than Lightning Dust. If it hadn’t been for how wonderful she was, learning about her past wouldn’t have phased Lucky at all. Her journal was full of praise for Lightning Dust. Even if she wouldn’t take Lucky with her to work—she knew how hard the mare had to push herself to feed them both in a city with no weather team.

Dust had crossed all Equestria to keep Lucky away from the ponies who knew about technology and wanted to lock her away. She had chosen somewhere so difficult to live so that Lucky wouldn’t be tracked down, even though she could’ve easily gotten herself a job at another weather factory.

Lucky Break embraced her. “N-no, Mom, you… you aren’t a bad pony!” And she wasn’t. She was more of a parent than Lucky had ever had.

Lightning Dust returned the gesture, holding her closer than she had tried to do before. Lucky couldn’t feel the balloons—she supposed Dust had let those go. “You don’t have to stay with me,” Dust said, no longer sounding completely serious. “If you want me to bring you back to the orphanage, I could.”

Lucky shook her head vigorously, burying it deeper in the big mare’s coat. “I don’t want to go back. I already found my family.”

Major Olivia Fischer cut through the jungle twice as fast as a pony could gallop, feeling only slightly disoriented at the reduced size of the trees. Motors whined and servos clicked with each hulking step, keeping her balanced and upright in her Hephaestus Excursion Armor. Wearing its massive bulk, she wasn’t just as strong and fast as a human again.

She was much stronger.

Of course, Hephaestus had nothing on the Ares she really wanted. But the damn Pioneering Committee hadn’t included blueprints for “explicit weapons of war.” Hephaestus was based on the same frame, but was mainly used by engineers in high-hostility environments—deep under the ocean, out in orbit, in one of the belt mines. The mounts she’d used for each of her MARRs were meant for tools, and the armor plates were mainly meant to stop shrapnel, or keep the heat out.

At least the Forerunner could adapt it for me. We need every weapon we can get.

Olivia should probably have been supervising the unloading back in the future city of Othar. But the Forerunner would be doing most of the lifting, and her crew should have been good at things like this. Civilian things like building cities and research were exactly why there were any civilians stored in the Forerunner in the first place. Otherwise, they could’ve simplified the entire process and only recruited from the world’s militaries.

Small shrubs cracked and broke under the weight of her mech, not slowing her down. She could’ve ripped through the trees with equal ease if she wanted, but there was no reason for that. This would be her home, one day. The only home she’d ever have. Might as well keep it looking nice.

She crested the treeline after another few gigantic strides, slowing slightly as she emerged onto a black-sand beach.

Olivia stopped there, pausing at the crest of the hill to admire the clear water, crashing in regular, relaxing waves. This was the end of the island—she had crossed from one side to the other without encountering anything dangerous. All that remained was an examination of the island’s single extinct volcanic cone, and she could call the search complete.

The entire thing was perfunctory anyway—she’d ordered the Forerunner to scour this island for danger weeks ago, and no red flags popped up. Far from that—the more it searched, the richer the island seemed in terms of natural resources. The topsoil was fertile, and below were much of the minerals necessary to build civilization. An arcology built here could house millions, maybe more. And I want those millions to be human. She still wasn’t sure what she had become.

Olivia leapt off the crest of the hill, falling thirty feet before she landed on the sand below. Shock-absorbent fluid around the cockpit swooshed and bubbled, and the knees bent to catch her, before settling down near the sand. She pressed the exit button, then waited as the airlock hissed, equalizing pressure with the outside air.

She emerged wearing only the fluid-filled shock suit, and started stripping that off immediately, tossing it into the still-open cockpit. She took her computation surface in her mouth as she left, making her way out towards the edge of the water. She set it down in the sand, glancing back at her feed of the unloading process. Proceeding as scheduled, as she had expected. The civilians could handle this. “Forerunner, has there been any change to the calculated safety of any of my team since arriving on this island?”

“Affirmative,” the computer responded. “Greater search fidelity has eliminated nearly all sources of danger on Unnamed Island. Success of city Othar has grown to 72%.”

“Call me if that drops,” she said. “Otherwise just take messages until I say. Inform any of the crew who ask that I’m out searching for danger on the island.”

“Input accepted.”

Olivia paused, removing the strap she kept concealed behind her back leg. It held a small caliber sidearm behind her tail, where no one would think to look. She tossed it to the ground—she wouldn’t be needing it here.

Olivia left the computation surface where it sat in the sand, making her way to the water’s edge. It splashed up around her hooves, pleasantly cool, but not cool enough that children playing here would get too cold. I wonder why the natives never built here. Guess they’re too primitive to need beach resorts. The heavy metals buried here would be of no use to the primitive society, and the mainland had plenty of everything else they would need. Beaches back there probably weren’t as nice, though.

When she was done in the water, Olivia stretched out on the sand to enjoy the sun, letting her mottled wings get some much-needed air. They’d started to smell—she couldn’t tell why, since they didn’t hurt. But instinct suggested she probably shouldn’t keep them under her clothes all the time. I wonder if the Forerunner has a chemical for this. Probably not. There weren’t supposed to be any birds on the crew.

Olivia watched the sun progress across the sky, picturing the images her civilians had shown her of the “Earth” star system. We might be doomed. If the builders of this thing are still around, they probably don’t appreciate us landing here and using it for ourselves.

Every resource their Forerunner mined had been brought here by an intelligence. Why’d the Forerunner even bother with this place? Were there not enough planets left that we had to try and land on space rings too?

The civilians had started bickering over it as soon as she gave them a second to talk. But as usual, they never agreed—there was no chain of command between them, where the one who was best informed could shut down their theories. Until they worked it out, Olivia wouldn’t know whether it was likely the builders of the ring were still around or not. She didn’t know what the ring’s purpose was, or how long it had been here.

They would probably work that all out in their own time. They were the best and brightest in their fields.

We’re fleas on the back of a god. If it really wants to get rid of us, we won’t stand a chance. Her Hephaestus glittered in the sun behind her, with the strength to level a whole village of the natives. But it would do nothing against the technology that could build projects of stellar engineering as massive as this.

Maybe they’re dead. I doubt they’d have let the Forerunner land here if they were still around. That was a hopeful theory, and it was the one Olivia was taking as fact for the time being. Or just gone. Doesn’t matter either way so long as they don’t come back. There was an awful lot of land on a ring this size—hundreds of Earths’ worth. We could put ten trillion people on this ring in fifty thousand years, easy. Maybe it won’t be worth getting rid of us at that point.

Eventually the air started to cool, the sun making its way down in the sky. Olivia got up, taking the computer back with her as she walked back to the mech. “Forerunner, give me a status update of the statistical analysis of the habitable surface of this ring.”

“Ringworld ‘Earth’ has enormous surface area. Analysis is still ongoing. Time until completion stands at 3.7 days.”

“Great,” she grunted, struggling back into her suit. “How about the unloading?”

“Complete,” it said. “The Sojourner has already departed for Landfall base. It will return in eight hours’ time with the second load.”

“Fantastic.” She finished with her suit, gritting her teeth a little as she realized she’d gotten sand into her mech. At least the black kind doesn’t stick to me as bad. Or is that the fur? “Are the civilians working?”

“To what definition of working?”

Olivia didn’t need any more. She climbed back into the cockpit, strapped herself into the modified restraints one at a time, then took off at a run towards the mountain. She would still finish her examination before returning to Othar. While she ran, she used the drones to overlay an image of the city on one of her screens, so she could watch her scientists in their work.

Of all the scientists, only Danielle was at work, though not doing what she wanted.

Othar’s structures were being transported in prefab segments, which would be lowered underground and connected. One of those sections was a lab, and Danielle was in that lab, back at work. Well, at least she’s doing something. Instead of preparing a brig, the others were gathered around a small campfire, toasting marshmallows and talking. It wasn’t even fully dark yet.

She resisted the urge to call and chastise them, though had they been soldiers Olivia would’ve done far worse than merely scold them. Can’t hold them to the same standard. They’re stressed after coming here. Can’t put too much pressure on civilians in one night. Give them some time to relax.

Besides, she’d done the same thing. The only thing worse than sloth was hypocrisy. So long as they finish putting the brig together before the Sojourner gets back with the native, it’s okay. They couldn’t keep him locked up on-board forever. Even a primitive could get out of a locked room eventually. It wasn’t a prison ship.

Olivia reached the edge of the caldera after about ten minutes of running—not nearly as fast as the craft could move, but quick enough. She caught herself at the edge, looking down into the opening. There wasn’t supposed to be much to see down there—the Forerunner had judged the volcano long extinct based on the erosion patterns it had observed.

At first glance, it seemed like that initial assessment was correct. There was no heat rising, no lava far below. Not even any toxic fumes, according to her sensors. Yet as she paused, she realized one of her sensors was going off.

“Radio signal detected.”

“Play it!”

The Forerunner complied, and a series of artificial sounding tones and flickering static filled her ears. It was loud and uncomfortable, making her curl up in involuntary fear. Like the feeling of knowing something was behind her, watching her do something she wasn’t supposed to do.

“Shut it off!” she shouted, and blissful silence returned. “Why didn’t you notice this?” she asked, trying and failing to bite back her anger. It was pointless to be mad at a thing that wasn’t alive, or couldn’t understand emotions. But it was hard not to be.

“Long range drones were not equipped with low band receivers,” it answered. “They were exploratory, with no communications purpose. Any additional hardware is complexity and resources best conserved for use elsewhere.”

Could this be why no one has colonized the island yet? Low frequency sound was a form of psychological warfare she was familiar with. Olivia waved a hoof dismissively. “I want to triangulate the origin of this thing. Make a map while I run around the caldera.”

“Command accepted.”

She began to run, dismissing her image of the camp and replacing it with the live-updating waveform of the signal. As she moved away from the opening, it grew weaker, though strengthened again as she restored line-of-sight with the distant stony floor at the bottom.

“Map complete,” the Forerunner said, after she had circled the whole thing, both along the rim and a little way down the mountain. A task that might’ve taken a team of surveyors on foot weeks had taken her less than an hour thanks to the Hephaestus.

The map appeared in her vision, a heatmap centered on the opening. “Statistical analysis of signal suggests a positioning system of some kind. Certainty: 38%.”

“What is it pointing at?”

“There is insufficient data for a meaningful answer.”

Olivia grunted, then turned away, towards Othar. “Send this map and a copy of the signal back to the civilians—the translator. She has the least to do, let her worry about this.”

“Command accepted,” the Forerunner replied.

She took only a few more minutes to return to her city, though she couldn’t use the trail she’d started to make through the thickest underbrush on her way out. It would take many more trips before that path was clear enough for her to use again.

By the time she arrived, she was unsurprised to see the heavy tractors and construction rigs all moving, and the campfire deserted. Her message had been enough warning for the civilians to get back to work.

She passed the single large pile of shipping-container sized segments, four high, four wide, and eight long. Each one had a fresh, glittering appearance to its alloy—on some it seemed like the paint of the Stellar Pioneering Society logo was still wet. But no, that was just ocean spray.

The others were still fuming over her capture of the native, despite what they now knew. What if the aliens are still in touch with whatever built the ring? They might call for momma, and she’ll come back with the raid. Fast kill, low irritant, and we’re dead in the crawlspace.

Olivia wouldn’t let that happen. “Forerunner, use this Hephaestus suit for construction. I’ll remain inside to supervise.”

“Assuming direct control.” Her suit relaxed in its restraints, limbs no longer getting tugged along with arms and legs as the suit approached the stack of containers and slid one off the top of the rack like it was moving boxes in a warehouse.

In a few months, you’ll be safe doing science in Othar’s new petting zoo, and you’ll thank me. Because you’ll still be alive. She could live with their indignation until then.

G5.05: Transit Equus Zero Violet Zero

They left the next day.

Not the same way they’d gone during their last adventure—they weren’t leaving their home behind for good, carrying all they now owned on their backs. They had no need to abandon all their property this time—only to carry enough to survive during what Lightning Dust insisted would be only one day of flying in each direction. She hadn’t brought her armor—there was no way to fly in that. But she did have her helmet, hanging off her saddlebags on a length of bungie.

Lucky didn’t bring her armor, though that was what she really wanted. But all that extra weight hadn’t been made to be carried. No amount of conservation had been in mind with its creation. If the conditions are really that extreme, we can just come back.

The winds grew fierce once they left the shield around the Crystal Empire, forcing them to higher altitudes. Flying above the clouds made for lousy scenery sometimes, but so long as they didn’t rise too high, there was no worry of being blasted out of the air by an errant gust.

The land north of the Crystal Empire was like something out of the arctic. Lucky saw endless expanses of blown snow, sheets of ice, and the occasional patch of hardy plants boldly standing against the inhuman cold. Armed with a secondhand coat, Lucky hardly felt the cold—at least not so much that she would’ve needed to slow in her flying.

After all her practicing for the (completely meaningless) Junior Wonderbolt certification, Lucky had far less trouble with the adverse conditions than she might’ve otherwise. Instead of getting knocked sideways by every other gust, she knew how to angle her flight to keep herself as much on the same path as possible. She had learned to increase her speed during the important bits, then ride the updrafts to conserve energy.

Tricks were still beyond her—she wasn’t an aerial ace like her mom, nor could she ride into the heart of the worst winds. Once the storm began to pick up, they were forced to land near a sturdy mineral formation to take shelter until it passed. Lightning Dust probably could’ve kept going through it—but she didn’t complain at the need. They were only here for Lucky Break anyway.

Lightning Dust was also their navigator—Lucky had learned much about pioneering during her time with the SPS, but she didn’t know how to keep track of identical cloud-banks which were also drifting in time to the same winds they were fighting. Somehow Lightning Dust always seemed to know their exact heading, and how long they’d flown, just from “how it feels.”

Eventually she announced: “We’re here. Five leagues north, one west. Just like your… what was it, exactly?” Lightning Dust stopped in the air, hovering. They were about five miles up, the ground only a distant suggestion below them.

“A secret code,” Lucky said. “From a pony who didn’t want anyone else to know she was helping me.”

“Right.” Lightning Dust sounded skeptical. “And she wanted us to fly… all this way out, because…”

“Because there’s something here for us to find,” Lucky said. “Something secret about Equestria’s past. I want to find out.” She looked around, but the most interesting thing was not something below them. Their destination was only an empty field of ice. But before them, stretching out forever, was a mountain range that defied anything she had ever imagined.

Even in the air, it seemed to tower above her, its image lengthening and distorting. The clouds couldn’t even get close to its height, nor could the snow. The mountains continued to either side, as she knew they must until the very edge of the ring. I wonder what the point is of having mountains on the edge. Below them, it already seemed like the ground was sloping slightly uphill. Only directly below was there any exception to this, on a specific patch of ice unlike all around it.

“Because your ponies are scholars?” Lightning Dust asked. “You’re just curious because you like learning things.”

“Well no… but learning how Equestria got here would help ponies too. None of you know… even Princess Twilight didn’t know. Aren’t you the least bit curious?” Lightning Dust looked like she was going to speak, so Lucky just raised her voice, not letting her.

“Think about it! Ponies just assume Equestria’s the oldest thing ever, even though they know the tribes were separate. They act like Luna and Celestia have ruled everything even though you all know Luna hasn’t been helping for more than a few decades! Doesn’t that…” She hesitated. “Don’t you see? You’re lying to yourselves! You like ignoring things that you don’t like. Humans did that too—it was always easier to pretend the hard problems didn’t exist than to solve them. Keep pretending long enough, and you start believing your own lies.”

“Alright, alright.” Dust put out her hooves. “So, you feel very passionate about this. I don’t get it. But maybe I will once we find this thing. Unless we’re out here trying to catch the east wind.” She narrowed her eyes. “If we got sent out here for nothing, I’ll make the pony who did it think twice.”

Lucky Break looked away from her mom, focusing on the world beneath her. It looked like almost solid ice as far as she could see—nearly a kilometer of it as level as Earth salt flats. For salt, that made sense—there were geological reasons for all that salt to be there, tracing back to ancient lakes… she hadn’t really cared.

But ice? There was so much snow everywhere else, and only large bodies of water or steep slopes seemed clear of it. So why wasn’t any of it piling up here? The ice didn’t seem all that thick—she could see stone not all that far down. Black stone, with patterns on it. Arrows.

“God…” she muttered, taking off again as fast as she could, following one of the arrows of light stone set into the dark. At her height, it didn’t take long at all before she passed over an arrow pointed the other way. She turned to one side, and found another arrow perpendicular to the other two.

“What are you doing?” Dust followed her through the air with ease. “What are you looking at?”

“Not sure.” She stopped abruptly, right over the middle. There were four arrows in all, each aimed at the same point—a void about five hundred meters across. She had thought the ice continued over stone in this whole area, but that had just been a trick of the light. Here, it continued downward for so long she saw no reflection. It was just darkness. Maybe if I get closer I can see more. “I think this might be a runway.”

Lucky dived. It was one of the easiest things for a pegasus to do—staying in the air was always harder than falling.

She tucked her wings and pointed her hooves, grateful for the goggles. This was the kind of flying that ponies did to entertain one another. She could feel a little of what Lightning Dust and the others were getting at—the thrill as the ground zoomed up to meet her. That rush came with the knowledge, certain as she could be, that her life was in her own hooves. Even Lightning Dust couldn’t stop her from smashing into the ice as a discolored mess.

Instead, Lucky leveled out, spreading her wings and catching herself about a hundred meters above the ground. It took much longer than that to stop—the pale blue sky turned into a blur. Only the distant mountains of Nibiru were so large they were unmoved by her speed.

She landed on the ice with the force of a jump from her bed. She didn’t expect much more than a slight thump. Instead, one of her hooves broke through, sinking up to the fetlock. She screamed, beating her wings furiously, kicking out with her other hooves and trying to rise.

In her panic, Lucky forgot every lesson she’d learned about flying in the last two weeks. Taking off from a stationary position was hard enough, but while she was stuck? Practically impossible.

“Lucky!” Lightning Dust’s voice came from behind her. She was close, close enough to almost touch.

Then the ground gave way completely, and huge chunks of thin ice went tumbling with her down into the void.

Lucky screamed as she tumbled forward, her saddlebags thumping against her back. She kicked and squealed.

“Lucky, fly! What are you doing?”

Lucky’s head jerked towards the sound, but she couldn’t make out anything in her tumbling. She was falling so fast; the ground must be rushing up to meet her! But maybe… maybe that wasn’t as desperate a situation as she had first thought.

Responding to a fall in the human way might be natural, but it wouldn’t help her.

She stopped squirming, spreading her wings as wide as she could. They caught the air with a jerk, and immediately she started to slow.

Lucky opened her eyes, watching metal zoom past her on either side. She stopped in the air, legs hanging limply out below her, chest rising and falling in rapid breaths as though she were a scared puppy.

“What was that, Lucky?” Mom asked from a few feet away, sounding terrified, angry, but also relieved. “Why did you just… stop flying? What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t…” she stammered, looking away. “I thought I was landing, and suddenly I wasn’t, and…” She looked up. Less than two meters away was a wall of reddish metal, covered in grooves, slots, and indentations. “What’s this?”

“I have no idea,” Dust said, “but we should get onto the ground.” She pointed down, maybe twenty meters. “We’re running out of magic.”

“Huh?” Lucky followed her down towards the ground, confused. “What does that mean?”

As Lucky neared the ground, it felt like it took more and more flapping to keep herself moving at the right speed. As though somepony was piling rocks onto her back. She landed less gracefully than she had up above, rolling onto her face amid the shattered pieces of ice.

“It means…” Lightning Dust touched down beside her, panting from the effort. “That flying gets harder the further north you go. Those lines on the map… everything gets heavier. That means flying is harder. It takes more magic to lift…” She shook her head. “Forget the stupid egghead stuff. It’s the only reason this trip was gonna take two days and not just one. Cuz’ we’ll need time to rest and get ready to fly again.” She looked up, eyes widening. “Sure is a deep hole.”

Lucky looked up. She slumped onto her haunches, tail tucking between her legs as she saw the sheer scope of the opening. Hundreds of meters across, and at least a kilometer down. Guess I was falling for a long time.

There were deep grooves set into the sides, like tracks. Other than that, the sides of the shaft were almost perfectly smooth. Good thing we don’t have to climb out. Even a Hephaestus with a grapple would have a hard time with something this deep.

“Guess Twilight wasn’t leading me on,” she muttered, kicking aside a piece of ice with one of her hooves. “Really was something here.”

Lightning Dust jerked, as though Lucky had just hit her in the face with a yellow snowball. “Wait. Back up. When you said Twilight, you don’t mean she’s the one who told you go north of the Empire, do you?”

She whimpered. “I… I might…”

Lightning Dust straightened, puffing out her chest and spreading her wings. She looked and smelled as big and angry as a pegasus could. “You took us twenty-eight kilometers north of the Crystal Empire because Princess Twilight Sparkle sent you a code. Princess Twilight Sparkle. You took us all the way out here and you didn’t tell me?”

She whimpered again. “M-Mom… she was right!” Lucky pointed all around them with a hoof. “This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Twilight told the truth!”

Lightning Dust took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, then let it out in a hiss. “What if this is a big prison or something, Lucky? What if this is the gates to Tartarus, and we’re gonna get locked down here forever?”

Lucky rolled her eyes. “It’s not the damn gates of nothing! It’s part of the infrastructure of your Niven Ring! Twilight led us right here, and now we’re gonna find out what it does!”

Lightning Dust stomped and hissed, then fell silent. “We’ll see. But next time… you’re gonna tell me where we’re going.”

Lucky was tired from the journey—nearly thirty kilometers of flying in the frigid cold was exhausting work. They had no tent with them, no sleeping bags—when it came time to make camp, they’d have to make it to the clouds. Either that, or sleep on the floor.

On the other hand, it was already dark at the bottom of the pit, and getting darker as the day above wore on. Lucky removed her helmet from her pack, expanding it to full size and settling it on her head—it was the only piece of her armor she’d brought, mostly because of the camera and night-vision circuitry.

“I don’t know how we’re gonna find anything down here anyway, Lucky. Maybe if we came back tomorrow at noon. Then at least we’d have some sun. But we can’t fly out for at least another few hours… if you fell, I might not have enough magic left to catch you.”

Lucky nodded. “A few hours should be enough to get good video at the bottom of this shaft, and to get a little exploring done.”

“I don’t know what that means.” Lightning Dust sat down on her haunches, pulling a little bag of crystal berries out of her pack and snacking on them. “But whatever. We made it this far. Just don’t fly again. I’ll be here.”

“Sure.” Lucky galloped past her, letting the camera take in the entirety of the shaft from all angles. The helmet’s night vision highlighted finer details—massive seams on one side that suggested an opening of some kind. It’s a little like NASA’s old factory in Florida. Is this a launchpad?

The tracks in the wall might be used to guide something to the top, or maybe to lift the platform. It was hard to tell which. Hopefully this was for more than just shooting things. What we really need is a door.

The area was so dark and so big that it took Lucky nearly an hour to find the doorway—a section of wall that opened into a hallway at about twice pony height, wide enough that several could’ve walked abreast.

She lowered her head, moving slowly across the ancient surface of faintly reddish metal. No snow, no dust, no debris of any kind. I wonder if I should be worried about that. It snowed so often on the surface that it did seem a little unusual there wasn’t thicker ice above them, or that the opening hadn’t filled in over the eons. Someone must use this often enough to keep it clear. Please don’t clean it while we’re down here. It would be just their luck for an eruption of fire (or whatever else the ring used this for) to come blasting out of the depths as they flew down.

The hallway didn’t continue into the bowels of an ancient station. About fifty meters and she hit a door—though it looked more like an airlock than anything from a conventional building. It was also the first sign she’d seen of writing or markings on anything down here.

The door had the general silhouette of a pony on its surface, with wings spread and a long horn on its head. Lucky approached slowly, watching the walls warily with the EM-sensors in her helmet. But there was no energy passing through them, at least not that she could pick up. It was just solid metal like it looked.

Except for the airlock itself. As she got close, she saw signs of energy passing through the metal, lighting up the wings, the horn, the hooves, and the cutie mark on the silhouette. It got so bright that she switched off her night vision for a second—the wings on the silhouette were glowing, particularly as Lucky got close. She walked up to the edge of the wall, spreading out her wings and touching the bas-relief. They glowed bright white.

Nothing happened. The door didn’t open, traps didn’t deploy, there was no communication system. Nothing at all, in fact. Lucky whined and kicked at the door with one hoof. It hurt, but didn’t budge. Even an earth pony couldn’t get through this. “Mom, can you look at this! I found something!” she shouted, as loud as she could.

“Uh, sure… but I can’t see you! Where’d you go, Lucky?”

“Headlights on,” Lucky whispered, and bright spotlights on both sides of her helmet switched from infrared to visible light.

“I didn’t know you brought a torch!” Lightning Dust arrived about five minutes later, shielding her eyes from the headlamps with one hoof. “That’s a powerful flashlight. How many batteries does it take to keep it going like that?”

“Reduce illumination to 10%,” Lucky ordered, before setting the helmet down on the ground pointing at the door. Then she looked up. “Just one. But it’s a really nice one.”

“Apparently,” Dust said, staring at the helmet. “Did you buy a unicorn lamp without telling me?”

“No.” She shifted uncomfortably, pointing at the door. “Mom, can we focus on that? I’m trying to get in, and I don’t know how. Maybe you can help. Have you ever seen a door like that?”

Lightning Dust approached slowly, skeptically. She stared at the pattern, particularly where the wings started to glow bright enough to see through the light. They were even brighter for Dust than they had been for Lucky. Another splotch appeared on the carving’s flank, where a cutie mark would be. But the horn and the hooves remained dark.

“This is Daring Do stuff.” Lightning Dust pointed at the wall. “Like something that might be in one of those books. That… I’ve heard ponies read.” She turned away, grumbling. “Bad luck though. Looks like we need an Alicorn for this. Whoever put this door here doesn’t want anyone else getting in.”

“Alicorns are… the royal family, right?” Lucky asked, walking back to the door, and nudging it with her hooves. As before, it didn’t give, even a little. Even conventional metals she knew of would’ve resisted whatever means she had of opening it. Explosives might do it, or they might not. Her helmet couldn’t identify the composition, so it was hard to say.

“Not… quite.” Lightning Dust shook her head. “Princess Celestia and Luna are the royal family, but they don’t have any children. The other Alicorns just sorta…” She blushed. “Well, I guess I don’t know. They come from somewhere, though. And once they do, they’re put in charge of something vague and stupid, and they’re never as good at their job as if Celestia just kept doing it from the beginning.”

Lucky glared at the wall. This was still useful information—a team of explorers could probably get through this if they had enough time. And ponies didn’t spend much time out here, so they wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught. Assuming they could find a route that avoided pony civilization. With so many ponies able to fly, simply staying in the air wouldn’t be enough.

“Any chance one of them would want to help? I could… I could ask Twilight—”

“No,” Lightning Dust barked, expression darkening. “There’s no way she wants to help with this, Lucky. Doesn’t matter how nice she seemed—if she wanted to explore up here, she could’ve had a dozen ponies here from the most important schools in Equestria. She’s not gonna help. Probably she’s just waiting for you to say you came up here, so she can arrest you using some law nobody remembers. You shouldn’t write her back.”

“Hmm...” Lucky picked up her helmet, carrying it on her back as they walked back up the tunnel. She would have more time to examine the door, she hadn’t given up on it yet. But for the moment, her mind was occupied with something else. “So Celestia and Luna are out too. They must know about this if Twilight does. So that leaves… two more. Cadance and Flurry Heart.”

“Forget about Cadance too,” Dust said. “She’s okay at ruling the Crystal Empire, but she’s close to Twilight. They… grew up together or something. I dunno, I don’t read the tabloids. But anything you tell her, Twilight will find out.”

Which left only Flurry Heart. Lucky knew a little about her, if only because she was the darling princess of the Crystal Empire, loved by all who lived there.

Also feared. Her magic had apparently almost killed everyone on at least two occasions. She wasn’t that much older than Lucky herself, though that wasn’t necessarily an advantage. She might take me even less seriously. Or she might be an opportunity. “Do you think Flurry Heart cares about archeology?” Lucky pointed all around her with a wing. “Do you think she’d want to come on an adventure to help us open the door and see what’s in there?”

Lightning Dust stopped walking. She didn’t look upset anymore, so much as sad. “Lucky…” She brushed her mane out of her face with one wing. “I think it’s cute how naïve you are. But I want you to think about this—nothing happens around a princess that all Equestria doesn’t find out about. Even if you can convince her, even if you sneak away and find all kinds of amazing things… unless the princess keeps it all secret, the world will find out.

“And maybe you come back besties with the little monster, and you find something amazing for Equestria. But… if that happens, you’re coming back into the spotlight. Everypony in Equestria is going to want to know about the princess’s new friend, where she’s from, who she is. Your fake identity can’t survive that. Same goes if the princess really dislikes you—then her mom wants to know who made her daughter so upset, and she goes digging. Only way we don’t get dragged out into the open is if you’re so boring she doesn’t want anything to do with you, but not so boring she gets mad. And that’s just not who you are.” She squeezed Lucky briefly against her, and she didn’t resist. “Sweetie, you’ll never do that. She’ll either love it, or she’ll hate it. Either one means I might never see you again.”

She let go, meeting Lucky’s eyes with her own. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. I don’t understand why you care about this… but nobody knew why I cared so much about being a good flyer, either. I just want you to understand what might happen if you do it. Okay?”

“Okay.” Lucky pawed at the ground, blushing.

Lightning Dust was probably right. Her logic was sound—someone with something to hide didn’t attract the attention of ponies who had the eyes of the world on them.

She looked up. “It’s… probably nothing. I’d have to convince a princess to come with me up into the snow. She probably doesn’t care about this stuff. I probably couldn’t even see her. There’d be guards all around… couldn’t even get close enough to talk without being seen. I might get caught just explaining it.”

“Now you’re thinking.” Dust pulled her close again for one last squeeze. “I’m sorry we couldn’t find a way past your door. But… I might be able to find more stuff from the past. I have some friends at work… I could ask them for you.”

“Really?” Lucky grinned, her ears perking up. “You could?” Besides, I can ask my friends to come here. Doesn’t have to be me.

Mom nodded. “Sure thing, squirt. I’ll ask. Can’t promise he’ll find anything, but he might. And I think I know some books you might like, too. I was looking to buy another set since we moved anyway.”

Dr. James Irwin didn’t have much to do. Overseeing the Forerunner’s construction efforts might make humans feel better about being in control, but she wasn’t fooled. The Forerunner had better sensors than she did, had the whole library of construction methods, and all the right tools. If it really made mistakes, she wasn’t going to catch them.

So, she left the Forerunner to its work, only checking in the morning when it started and the evening to make sure it had accomplished everything it should. Minus an hour at lunch for teaching language classes, that left her with an entire day to do whatever she wanted.

The first step on James’s “totally working” tour was the lab, since it was the only section of Othar that was:

A. Fully assembled,
B. Guaranteed not to have the major anywhere near it.

Besides, Dr. Born was making some real progress. Her study was more interesting than watching the Forerunner build more hydroponic gardens and identical bathrooms.

The lab, like everything else in Othar, had been built to human measurements, not pony. That meant they had to use stools to reach any of the counters. Or fly. But none of us can do that.

One end of the lab was mostly empty counters, space for disciplines that didn’t exist to do their work. That was where Martin and Karl were sitting, having an early breakfast of oatmeal while they watched Dorothy work.

Both were wearing lab coats, though Martin had cut holes for her wings. Martin was also growing out her mane again, while Karl kept hers almost as short as the major’s.

“Any progress?” James asked, pulling up a stool and hopping up beside them to watch. She set her warm coffee down on the table in front of her, occasionally taking a sip. It still took her both hooves to move it without dropping the mug. Unlike my clone. That guitar-playing cheater. “Looks like she’s… pretty excited over there.”

Karl nodded. “She never came to bed. I think she must be close to something.”

“Or she’s just losing her mind,” Martin suggested, her voice weak and shaky. “I know the feeling.”

“Y-yeah.” James chuckled. It was hard to tell exactly how much of a joke Martin was making, though. She had kept working with the satellites, though she hadn’t shared anything else world-shattering. Thankfully.

“I’m gonna go talk to her,” James said, settling the coffee back into the little holder on her shoulder. It was basically just a claw, mounted to a gyroscope that would keep it level as she walked. James basically wore it everywhere now. “Maybe she’ll share.”

“Don’t bother!” Karl called after her. “When I tried to give her breakfast, she just screamed at me. She’s in a trance or something.”

James ignored her, walking slowly past the high counters and cabinets. Many of them had new equipment still wrapped in their protective film, with no scientists around to use it.

She smelled Dr. Born about the same time she got close enough to see what she was doing. Lots of antiseptic and alcohol, but also the stench of a pony who had gone too long without a shower. Her mane was still pulled back, but it’d gone ratty and frayed. She was surrounded with the equipment of biology and genetics—gene sequencers and flat plastic disks in the incubator. Strange machines that would sometimes begin to spin rapidly, like they were trying to take off and fly away. Also, little ovens, and dozens of different computer screens.

“Paging Dr. Born,” James said, quietly enough that she hoped it wouldn’t startle her too badly. “You have a patient waiting, Dr. Born.”

The mare jumped nearly three full feet into the air anyway, spinning around in mid-flight and landing so she was facing James. Her expression was wild and confused, but settled quickly back into rationality. “Oh. My coffee.” She took James’s glass without waiting for confirmation, draining what was left with a few long sips. “Fill it all the way next time.”

James grunted, folding up the claw-arm with an annoyed gesture. “Did you figure anything out?” She pointed up at the screen. “Looks like you’ve got… some tissue samples up there.”

“I do…” Dorothy walked away, back to the large screen she’d been staring at. “Was being a right bitch. But it couldn’t hide forever.” She pointed at the screen on the right with one hoof. “Recognize that?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“You should. It’s your skin. Well… it’s technically my lower epidermal tissue, but there’s no genetic difference.” She held up one leg, where clean white gauze was wrapped around the inner fetlock. “How’s it look to you?”

James turned to squint up at the screen, which had been tilted down towards them but still wasn’t at a comfortable level for their eyes. “Looks like… it’s doing great?” It’d been a very long time since she’d seen cells under a microscope. These looked about how she remembered—eukaryotic cell membranes filled with transparent cytoplasm, separated into a nucleus and numerous little organelles. “The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell,” she said.

Dorothy’s face instantly became annoyed. “Have you ever heard the word ‘powerhouse’ used that way to describe anything else? Is the reactor room the ‘powerhouse of Othar?’” James opened her mouth to retort, but Dorothy didn’t give her the chance. “You get the opportunity to learn about the paper I’m writing because you brought my coffee. You want to waste it?”

She shut up, and Dorothy smiled again. “Good. Anyway, this is pony tissue. It’s healthy, obviously. If it couldn’t survive here, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” She took two steps to the left, so they were looking up at the other half of the screen.

The cells here looked different. Many of them had already broken apart, organelles spilling out into a thick, goopy soup of faintly-colored lines. The cells that hadn’t died yet looked like overinflated balloons, though James could only barely make out faint lines densely packed inside.

“What is this?”

“I had the Forerunner grow me some of my own epidermal tissue. What it should be, I mean.”

“Yuck.”

She gave James another dark look. Then she relaxed. “I guess so, yeah. I’ve had this sample growing since the day after I woke up. You can see cell death is nearly universal. If I…” She leaned forward, and that half of the screen changed to a different image. “Here’s what it looks like after one week.”

The cells still looked alive, but like they were fighting through a soup to do anything. “That looks… unpleasant.”

“That is what killed the earlier generations. Well… generation one and two.”

Martin and Karl had made their way over to watch by then, staying far enough back that Dorothy wouldn’t see them unless she turned around. There didn’t seem to be much chance of that—Dorothy was completely distracted by her work.

“So…” James kept her voice quiet, not wanting to upset Dorothy so much she stopped explaining. “What is that, and why didn’t the Forerunner detect it? Shouldn’t it have known back during the first generation that there were diseases here?”

“It isn’t a disease,” Dorothy corrected, waving a hoof dismissively. “Not in the conventional sense. The Forerunner looked outside, and it saw life with the familiar structure—double-stranded DNA, the same basic proteins, similar cellular composition. Minor differences, sure—but we weren’t ever going to eat or breed with what was outside, so those shouldn’t have been an issue.”

She gestured at the various printouts on the desk—computer models of specific proteins. She held up just two, both labeled “Hemoglobin.” “This is just one example. Notice the structure on this? Basically all vertebrates depend on this for respiration. Grow a sample in the lab, and this is how it looks. This is how we’re able to make working human bodies in the first place—without radiation, without any foreign contaminants, the body works normally.”

She pointed to the other image, this one looking elongated and flattened. “This is a prion variant of human hemoglobin. Same molecular composition, you’ll notice. Different folding. And here’s collagen.” She pointed to another screen, pressing a button on the nearby keyboard and cycling through several more images. James couldn’t tell what was wrong, but judging from Dorothy’s expression, none of these looked right. “Here’s actin, integrin, insulin…” She looked back. “I could go on.”

“Prion variant,” James repeated. “Where did it come from?”

Dorothy shrugged. “Landfall station has an airlock, and there are lots of rules to avoid contamination. But with an outside world that looked so safe…” She trailed off. “Look, prions weren’t well understood even when we left. They’re just like this.” She pointed again. “Badly folded proteins. They change the function of the original. They can spread their ‘mutation’ to correct forms. They’re stable, so they tend to bioaccumulate in healthy tissue.

“Oh, and did I mention there’s no treatment? No medicine can clean them out, because they’re made of the same stuff you are. Can’t flush them out, or repair the damage. Eventually you die.”

“Fucking awful way to go,” Karl muttered, from far away. “Why isn’t it killing us?”

If Dorothy noticed the subtle difference in their voices, she didn’t react. “I’m not… positive.” Her ears flattened. “But you look back here at pony tissue, no accumulation. Samples I took suggest as much as three percent of our proteins are prion variants, at least if it follows the same distribution as in epidermal tissue.

“The function of these proteins is identical in pony tissue—it’s still a problem. It’s just that our bodies—and every other vertebrate on this ring—have developed ways of coping with it.”

“If they can, we can,” James said. “Right? It’s just about… figuring out what pony bodies do to clean themselves out. Stick that in humans, and we’re good.”

“Y-yeah…” Dorothy agreed, shivering all over. “Or just live in a biohazard suit your whole life. There’s nothing supernatural about it—prions still need to be introduced to your body and encounter normal proteins to spread. Never encounter anything that could’ve been exposed to native proteins, and a human would be safe. It’s just that doing that for any length of time is… well, even harder than living in space. But sure. I think it’s possible. I need more help. More than just a lab assistant.” She glanced over at Martin, then sighed. “Dr. Irwin, shouldn’t you be supervising the construction of my biofabricator? The Forerunner told me it was being installed today.”

“Y-yeah.” James backed away, looking down. “I was just checking in on everyone. I’ll go… I’ll go back to it. I’m sure we’ll make the deadline. You’ll get your… bunch of scientists… soon…”

She left, wandering back down the halls towards the sound of heavy machinery. It was probably getting close to the major’s morning inspection, so she’d want to be there for that.

She passed the (much larger) women’s showers, which she still hadn’t entered. She could feel a trickle of steam emerging from the edge of the door and hear water. That was the major—when she finished, she’d want to see James “hard at work” watching automated equipment dig hallways.

They all looked the same—textured stone mixed with a chemical adhesive that connected prefabricated sections brought from Landfall. Future sections on lower levels would be excavated much the same way, with walls and floors dragged down and assembled in pieces instead of all at once.

But there was one stop on her tour before the inspection—the brig.

Technically it was the security office, though with such a small population there was very little “security” to be done. It did have a few empty cells, and one full one.

James made her way in. The cells were spacious—like everything else, they were built for humans. It meant a little difficulty using the toilet or the food dispenser, but otherwise it was probably better.

The native explorer no longer looked like a hospital patient waiting for the day of his release—there was no mistaking the bars for anything but a prison.

“Hello James,” he said, in somewhat passable English.

He watched James come in, watched her pull over the chair from the control panel, then climb up into it with her collapsible guitar already hiding between the cushions. No one else came in here, so there was no chance of it accidentally being discovered. For some reason, James seemed like the only one still bothered by the fact they’d taken a hostage.

“Hello friend,” she responded, in her best impression of Eoch. She said it, yet she knew it wasn’t true. If he was my friend I wouldn’t lock him in jail.

“Ĉu vi liberigos min hodiaŭ?”he asked.

“Se mi rajtus,” she answered, expanding the guitar to full size and settling it between her hooves. “Vi scias, ke mi volas.”

He sat down on his haunches by the bars. Deadlight no longer looked the least bit injured. He wasn’t withdrawn with hunger either, but healthy and fit. She could smell that, even though he’d done something to the light in his cell, obscuring him in gloom. Those eyes work better in the dark than mine do. He seems to like it better. But he did have bat wings, so that made sense.

“Se vi vere volas liberigi min, vi farus ĝin.” His ears flattened to his head as he watched her strum inexpertly on the guitar.

Whatever Lucky Break had learned to do, it took more than a few weeks to learn. But if the child-clone could do it, James was confident she could do it too. Having a goal gave direction to her practicing.

She strummed inexpertly for a few minutes, making sour noises with only an occasional glimpse of any real music underneath.

“Here.” He put out a hoof, through the bars. He could get a whole leg through if he wanted, though no more than that—they’d made sure of that before they stuck him inside. If Olivia couldn’t worm her tiny body through, then an adult male didn’t stand a chance. “Let me try.”

She hesitated a moment—the collapsible instrument was a delicate piece of mechanical tech. One good blow, and it could be shattered. Would Deadlight do that out of spite? She didn’t think so. “Ĉu vi promesas esticareful with it?”

“Yes.”

James got up, offering the instrument through the bars.

Deadlight took it with one hoof, something she never could’ve done. He sat back, propping it up with one of his legs, playing with the strings with his wings. They were different—more skin, more bone. She wasn’t sure if they were more flexible or less, though.

“Provu tion. Tenu ĝin ĉi tie… poste fleksu vian flugilon. Premu la ostojn kontraŭ la kordoj por teni ilin kiam vi ludas.” He played, filling the room with the sound of a familiar E-flat cord.

“Woah. Do it again!”

He did, and she grinned. “Sen magio?”

“Nope.” He played again, inexpertly. He didn’t seem to know any songs, he was just imitating what she had been doing (or trying to do).

It still sounded better than she could. “Let me try again. I bet I could do that…”

G5.05: Marked by Harmony

But as it turned out, they couldn’t. Olivia didn’t respond to her suggestion that a team should be sent, except to say that “There won’t be one ready for six months. I’ll put a pin in your suggestion until then.”

Her clone was even less helpful. “We’re too busy building to go anywhere. This isn’t why I signed up.”

The rest of their search that day turned up nothing useful—if there had ever been paint or other exterior writing on the ruins, it had long since worn off. There were no reachable controls, nothing aside from the tracks and an opening between the wall and the bottom that might permit gearing.

So, they flew back, and went back to their lives. Nothing bad had happened to their belongings, or to them. Equestria was a safe place, so long as the ones hunting you didn’t know where you lived.

But safety wasn’t always the same as being happy.

A few weeks later, and Lucky finished scanning the paper version of her book into the computation surface.

Lucky stared down at the computer, at her desk covered with pages of increasingly-legible English text written with quills of her own feathers. Dozens of Equestrian texts had been cannibalized in the production of this one book, written all over with her notes and theories as she read them. Her guide wouldn’t be enough to converse in meaningful ways with pony scientists on technical subjects. It wouldn’t bridge translation where none made sense, such as the dozens of different words for friendship, or the distinct lack of words for less kind feelings.

But it would be enough to get humanity started. Enough to train diplomats who could learn technical language as needed by asking. It was a foundation other linguists could build on.

Lucky was alone in the apartment as she celebrated her victory. Lightning Dust had taken to working late the last few weeks, though she hadn’t said why. It was all right—Lucky hadn’t gotten herself lost on the way home for weeks now, and she knew all the flying patterns to keep from getting a ticket.

It even helped, since not having Dust around meant she had more time to finish her book. Enough time that now she’d finished writing it, finished scanning it, finished her entire reason for being born.

“Computer,” she said, staring down at the computation surface. “Please read me the terms of mission completion for crew member G3.01 James Irwin.” The longer she spent without speaking English, the stranger it felt—how long would it take to lose fluency? For someone who wasn’t an expert with alien languages, probably much sooner than it would’ve for her.

“Produce a scalable guide to translation for the language of alien species #FF35E. Reproduce that guide through means written, verbal, or in-person. Optional mission directives in order of importance: 1. Do not formally announce the SPS, its missions, its location, or its technology. 2. Do not allow alien species #FF35E or any of its related cousins to discover the presence of the Forerunner. 3. Become expert in the technical and specialist forms of communication, if any. 4. Return alive to Landfall to teach this language to successive generations.”

It had been months since Lucky had re-read her mission, and about nine months since she’d seen it for the first time on the day of her birth. Surviving is only priority 4. Never noticed that before.

“That means… my mission would be complete if I, say, sent the guide. Instead of delivering it in person?”

“Affirmative.”

“Even if I didn’t return to help with teaching?”

“Affirmative. Your personal intervention in teaching other fabricated explorers is no longer required. A member of another generation can accomplish that function if you are destroyed prior to your return.”

Lucky Break sat back on her chair, stretching out her wings. She looked over the apartment. The two of them had arrived here with almost nothing, so almost every object had a story. Pictures of the two of them together in black-and-white were everywhere—visiting every scenic location in the city, taking the official castle tour, visiting the petting zoo, watching the jousting. Lucky’s grades had been pinned to a special board along with some of her assignments.

There was their single, shared bed in the corner of the room, a mess of second-hand blankets scattered with greenish and yellowish feathers (neither of them was very keen on making it). There were a few images from Dust’s own past, newspapers clipped from a time long ago, where she’d been ‘The Success Story of Las Pegasus’ and ‘The Best Young Flyer in Las Pegasus.’ But the longer they lived together, the more these old memories were pushed aside.

Lucky had no printer to make physical copies of all her old files. Even so, she’d found she hadn’t even opened the data she’d brought with her from Earth, not in over a month. There was no sense looking at those old places and people, all long dead. None of them had felt very close compared to her new friends in Equestria.

I accomplished my mission. I can go back to the Forerunner and be a teacher. This is why I was created. This was why I worked so hard to get into the Pioneering Society, why I was willing to clone myself. Somehow, she didn’t imagine the James Irwin of Earth had a very happy ending. His life hadn’t been that great.

I could go back, but I don’t want to. “Suppose I accomplished my mission now. What would happen?” She had known the formality of it once, since it was in the Pioneering Society handbook. But it had been even longer since she’d looked at the handbook.

“You become a private citizen of the new colony of Earth. Free to contract yourself with the society for future missions. Additional study is likely to emerge from the field of your creation, linguistics. Future missions could be refused at your discretion. You cease to be a segment of Forerunner 70a-fe3-1d1-98f-b4c-aa0. Dr. James Irwin would no longer be supported by the Forerunner, though he could retain the use of all equipment and resources as presently fabricated.”

One command to send that book, and I’m free. Free to leave, do what I want… and not to get their help. It would be difficult, but possible, for her to get the Forerunner’s help up here. She still might need it.

“How much longer do I have to complete my mission?”

“Mission of Dr. James Irwin is considered failed upon two years subjective local time. One year, two months, thirteen days remain of that interval.”

Two years had felt like a painfully short window when she first heard it. Something truly alien should take much longer to translate, if it could be translated at all. But Equestrian wasn’t that alien, really. It had all the same parts of speech, the same concepts of formality and tense and direction and time. It might even fit into the standard family of Indo-European languages, though she wasn’t sure about that. It was getting hard to remember abstract academic information she no longer used.

James picked up her guitar with one leg, scooping it into the space in front of her and starting to strum with her wings. It no longer hurt, though it seemed like it should. Her wings were used to the abuse. If anything, her flying practice had made all this easier, since the same levels of precision were required for complex maneuvers as might be needed for a specific chord.

Lucky played herself a relaxing lullaby on her guitar. She played, and she sung, and she thought about what she would do with her life. I have a whole pony lifetime in front of me now. Where will I spend it?

Lucky Break’s mind began to drift. She let it happen, relaxing into that unfocused state she used whenever she was studying. Unfocused, but alert. Her wings moved perfectly now, not missing a single note. She found herself tapping her hooves against the guitar, as she’d seen humans do long ago to simulate the effects of percussion. Hooves had an even better sound.

Lucky Break played her guitar, not with the skill of a hobbyist who couldn’t afford anything better, not with the clumsiness of an alien wearing a body she wasn’t made for. She played like a native with thousands of years of experience and a near-infinite well of songs. She stopped playing the Beatles, and started playing a melody no human ears had ever heard.

She wasn’t even looking. Lucky opened her eyes, and saw Lightning Dust was standing in the doorway, watching her. She’d dropped a bag of takeout onto the floor, and her mouth was hanging open. She was crying.

“W-where did you… h-hear…”

Lucky was singing a simple lullaby, the sort a pegasus mother might sing to her frightened foal. She sung about clouds, and sunsets, and swimming in rainbows. She sang like she’d played the song a million times before.

Then she looked down, and realized she was flying. How she could be doing that while playing with her wings, she couldn’t guess. What’s that warm feeling? It started in her wingtips, but it had spread. Spread to her head, and her flanks most of all.

Then it started to burn. Hotter than the time she’d accidentally grabbed a wrench sitting on her van’s engine block, hotter than any sunburn or fierce July afternoon. She stopped singing and started to scream.

Lucky jerked forward out of the air as though she’d just been pushed off a high-dive, smacking face-first onto the hardwood floor. Compared to the burning, the impact was nothing.

She started to scream. She struggled and kicked against something, but she couldn’t tell what it was. Then the agony became so intense that rational thought was impossible, and her mind dissolved into a sea of white.

Dr. James Irwin dreamed, or something very like it.

Her body became a distant memory in an endless sea of stars. They all watched her, staring through to the eternal dream that was her brief existence.

Lucky Break did not think she was alone in that void, though to call what watched her there “minds” was being far too generous to herself. It was as though she was being observed by nature itself, an unmeasurable presence she passed within. A presence which could know every instant of her existence more perfectly than she had.

There were no words for her to understand, just the hallucinations born of a fevered mind. Lucky thought she saw thousands of years passing in blinks of time—felt the loss of a being beyond her ability to understand.

Lucky Break felt it, more a force than a being, as it permeated every cell, every memory. It knew her, and didn’t hate.

Then she started breathing again.

Lucky Break woke up slowly. She still burned all over, and any movement brought searing pain to swollen joints. Even her over-engineered body was overwhelmed with whatever damage had been done to her. It took effort to breathe, more than it should.

She managed to open her eyes, then pushed herself weakly into a sitting position. “Ughhhh,” she moaned. “That was… the worst.”

She wasn’t at home. The room all around her was crystal, with pony medical equipment arranged in a functional way. She had a saline drip in her arm, along with something monitoring her pulse.

She also wasn’t alone. Lightning Dust sat upright suddenly from where she rested in one corner of the room, eyes widening. “Lucky!” She dropped the book she’d been reading, hurrying over to the edge of her hospital bed. “Are you alright?”

“N-no,” she croaked. “But I think I… will be.” She looked down. Her body was covered with bandages, and the flesh underneath felt raw. Burned. Pain like what she’d felt didn’t come from nowhere. But why did it hurt so much?

“The doctors don’t know what happened.” Dust touched her gently from the side, embracing her with one wing. “I asked, they couldn’t tell me. When I told them you’d gotten hurt getting your cutie mark, they didn’t believe me. I’ve been interviewed by three different ponies already. I think the princess even knows.”

“H-have they…” she began, but Dust hushed her with a hoof.

“No, they haven’t. At least, I don’t think they have.” She broke away. “You just rest. I’ll get the nurse.” She hurried out.

The next few hours were much of what Lucky would’ve predicted. Pony medical science might be primitive, but what they gave her for pain was far better than nothing. Several doctors and one policemare asked her about how she’d been burned, each time without Lightning Dust in the room. Each time she gave them the same honest answer—she’d just been playing music when she did it. No, her mom hadn’t hurt her. No, her mom never hurt her. Not even by accident. Yes, she knew she wouldn’t get in trouble if she told them bad things about Lightning Dust. She had nothing bad to say.

Eventually all those ponies left, and only Lightning Dust remained. Dust explained that she would have to go to work the next day, but she’d stay with Lucky every night until she was ready to leave the hospital.

The room was already full of gifts left by well-wishers. Dozens of cards, vases full of flowers, and boxes of chocolate. But more appeared over the next few days, as classmates and teachers stopped by to leave encouragement (or just homework she’d missed).

It took three days before Lucky could get out of bed, and five before the burns had healed enough for her to get a good look at her flank.

She stared at the bathroom mirror for nearly ten minutes straight, taking in her rapidly healing flesh and the new pattern partially concealed beneath the bandages.

Lucky knew what to expect from a cutie mark. It symbolized a pony’s special talent, which almost always grew to include their career. Most ponies would seek employment in the area represented by their mark even if they hadn’t previously even known they were interested in it. It was destiny, myth, and religion.

But Lucky Break had always known what she was: a linguist. She delighted in puzzles, in solving mysteries and figuring out things that confused her contemporaries. So, she expected a quill, or a book, or something else symbolizing that search for truth.

Instead, there was a guitar, with a heart-shaped head and four stylized strings. It seemed to be growing from her fur as well as her skin, though the colored fur there was only just regrowing. It would take another week at least before the damage from the burns was gone—months faster than the doctors were expecting. Another victory for genetic engineering.

Why would it be a guitar? I’m not… Well, she supposed she was modestly talented with a guitar. But not to the level that she would throw herself into it professionally! Art wasn’t a job, it was a hobby!

I bet it’s random. Ponies expect these things to say something about who they are, so they listen and focus and get good. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if that was true, why had it hurt so much? Why had it felt like she was being watched?

There was no easy answer. Lucky tried to focus on getting her homework done, despite how pointless it all seemed now. I’m done with my mission. I’ll probably have to go back to the Forerunner. She still didn’t know if she would. She didn’t have to decide yet. How much college could I do in a year? What would Dust think if I did?

Lucky Break had her cutie mark now. She was now a legal adult, and would begin what passed for puberty in earnest. She could own property, marry, or take an apprenticeship.

So while she did her homework, it was mostly to have something to distract herself other than the Daring Do novels Lightning Dust brought from the library. And yes, those were fun too… but they reminded her of the mystery to the north, and the small chance anyone but herself would ever investigate it.

Unless we just take over this whole planet. Well, it wasn’t a planet. Learning what’s behind that door is one way we might figure out who built this thing and why.

Another week, and Lucky was finally able to leave the hospital. She returned home with only a shorter mane and a bristly coat to show for her close encounter with the flames.

“It’s all pretty much the same,” Lightning Dust muttered, as she pushed the door open in front of them. Lucky was still regrowing some of her feathers, so she didn’t fly up the stairs. It was easier to walk. “Well, there is one thing different. Not sure how we’re gonna pay for it. Maybe I can convince the landlord it’s art.”

Lucky made her way into the single room apartment, searching for whatever detail Lightning Dust meant. It wasn’t hard to find—the area around where Lucky had been floating when she got her cutie mark had also been burned. Black lines charred everything—the table, the chair, the hardwood floor, twisting and curling into an intricate fractal pattern of dense spirals. Not words, or at least, not words as she understood them.

“Cutie marks aren’t supposed to do this?” she asked. Lucky stopped in front of the pattern, searching for anything familiar—or anything that might suggest a purpose. She found neither.

“Never heard of it,” Dust answered, setting Lucky’s full saddlebags. “Everypony’s heard stories of some filly or colt who floated in the air… like you did, I guess. But end up in the hospital?” She shook her head. “Never. I thought you might know.”

“Nope,” she muttered, walking over to the mirror, and turning her flank sideways. There was her cutie mark, that same silly guitar. It still doesn’t have anything to do with who I want to be. “My best guess is… whatever creates them interacted badly with my implants. The, uh… the parts of my insides that are artificial. My bones aren’t supposed to be conductive, but… maybe it reflected a charge or something?” She slumped onto the floor, staring forward at her guitar.

It still sat where she’d dropped it, complete with a brand-new dent. The composite surface appeared too sturdy to burn, though. “Dunno why it would be a stupid guitar. I’m not good at music.”

Mom laughed. “Not good with music? Lucky, I think you need to listen to yourself better. I’ve seen ponies practice their whole lives and not get as good as you sounded.” She stopped about a meter away, looking down. “Lucky, I’ve been meaning to ask. When I came in and found you…” She gestured vaguely with a wing. “When you were doing all that, you were playing a song. Do you remember?”

Lucky thought back. It was hard to reach past the pain—it had blurred everything around it. But parts were familiar. She nodded.

“It’s been almost thirty years since I’ve heard that song. I haven’t…” She sniffed, wiping away a tear. “Where did you hear it? One of those old books you like to read? Maybe you were reading about old pegasus songs to… help learn Eoch?”

Lucky shook her head. “I, uh… I dunno where it came from.” She stood up, wandering across the room towards where her guitar had fallen. “I was playing some songs I liked when I was a foal, because they’re easy and I wanted to think about something else. But then I… then I thought of some new songs. Like I’d just come up with them, except… except I didn’t?”

Lucky picked up her collapsible guitar from where it still lay. It had a thin film of dust, which she fanned away with a powerful beat from one wing. Lightning Dust hadn’t moved this in two weeks. Probably she didn’t come home much. From work to the hospital and back to work. Then, somewhere deeper: Lightning Dust really cares about me.

Not that she needed reminding. “I was just playing…” she continued, strumming a chord. It came out perfectly in-tune. She was only holding up the instrument with one hoof, not sitting as she always played before. This required an odd hopping gait to walk, but she wasn’t going very fast.

“I just played it as it came.” Now that she had the instrument back in her hooves, she could remember all the chords. Remember the tempo, the key. The words. Along with thousands of others.

“Listen to the whipperwills
They sing you now to sleep.
The sun has gone to bed my child,
And soon the sky will weep.”

Lucky sang as perfectly as she had weeks ago, though this time she didn’t lift off into the air. As before, her playing felt like rote, hardly requiring a fraction of her concentration to get every sound perfect.

Then she heard Lightning Dust’s voice. It cracked, heavy with the weight of weary years. She wasn’t a very good singer. Lucky stopped singing, though she kept playing the strange melody.

“These clouds are soft my child,
We’ll make no rain tonight.
And I will rest beside you,
Until Celestia’s light.”

Lightning Dust broke down—as badly as she had done in her hospital room, pulling little Lucky close and squeezing her like she was a stuffed doll. Lucky dropped the guitar again, squeaking in protest.

“H-hey.”

“I don’t know how you knew—” Lightning Dust whimpered into her ear. “B-but thanks. It’s been… a really long time… thanks for letting me hear it again.”

Lucky Break didn’t have a clue what Lightning Dust was talking about. But being held felt as nice as she remembered. They were a family, after all. “W-what’s that song from?”

“My mom.” Dust let her go. “When I was smaller than you… lots smaller… she used to sing it to me. It was the last thing I remember her doing, before…” She shook her head. “I’ve asked musicians to play it for me before, but nopony knows it. I couldn’t tell them what it was called.” She sat back on her haunches, laughing. “Ponies always say cutie marks are destiny. Maybe they’re right.”

“Maybe.” She scooped up the guitar. It was hard to deny how good she had felt playing it. The payoff of an entire lifetime of practice. “When you got your cutie mark, did you see something? Like… a pony watching you? Only… bigger than a pony. And not a pony. Like a… a thing. Maybe a god.”

Mom chuckled. “No, I didn’t. But I haven’t heard of anything like this happening, either.” She flicked her tail at the ground. “None of the doctors had. Guess when somepony comes in from… wherever you’re from… it’s special.”

It’s like Equestria knows I’m here. What’s the point of having me play guitar?

“How long are you going to keep me here?”

Deadlight asked the question in Eoch, but it was so familiar to James by now that she could understand it easily.

Of course, having one of the natives captive in Othar made learning the language much easier than it had been before. Even Lucky Break’s notes, complete as they were, had nothing on practice with a willing partner.

Deadlight was rarely in a good mood—who could blame him, after being captive for over a month now. Olivia still refused to give a definite answer for when he would be released. With every day that passed, James suspected she didn’t intend to let him go at all. He’s spent too long living with us. His only chance to ever get away was right after we caught him. The ship might’ve been a hallucination, but… has he figured out where the island is?

James had never told him, never given him any information that might be used to locate either settlement. But Deadlight was a clever pony—smarter than Olivia gave him credit for.

“So where are you from, really?” he asked, as James came in one morning with a hard-plastic box in her mouth.

She set the box down on the ground, then dragged over the rolling chair she usually sat in to practice. She was learning quickly, but she didn’t plan to play any today.

She didn’t answer, and Deadlight went on. “Nopony in Equestria would lock a pony away like you did.”

“No?” she asked, also in Eoch. “Why not?”

“Because it’s not right,” he said, marching right up to the edge of the bars and sitting down. “And you know it. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

James looked down, her ears flattening to her head. Her wings tucked up too, as small as she could make them. James had cut holes in her uniforms, using a pattern Martin showed her. It felt much better to have them out all the time. They’d even stopped stinking, though that was largely thanks to the prisoner. He’d been the one to explain how she should care for them.

“So you aren’t from Equestria,” he said again. “But you aren’t from the Minotaur triboj. Ili ne pensas dufoje pri preni sklavojn kaj devigi ilin labori. They don’t take care of them with good doctors. Ili ne zorgas. Se vi estus sent by griffins, I’d ask why you ne jam provintas manĝi min. Well…” He shook his head, expression full of disgust. “You’re still ponies, so I know why you wouldn’t. But still…” He looked down, staring at her.

James no longer wore her uniform pants at all, only the long jacket. The major had only pestered her once, and hadn’t brought it up again.

“You don’t haveĉarman markon.None of you.” He shook his head, eyes wide. “How is that?”

She shrugged, making the same confused face she always did when she didn’t understand.

Deadlight grunted, stomping one hoof in frustration. “You don’t make any sense! You’re more kiel mitoj ol real ponies! Like what Equestrians used to be… not what we are today. Krom vi ankaŭ ne estas kiel tio, ĉar ĉiuj vi estas identaj sisters.” He stomped his hoof again. “But you aren’t identaj laŭbone, because you’re always here and I never see your sisters. Krom se… seyou aren’t really James?” He got up, pacing in front of the bars, tail whipping back and forth behind him with agitation.

“I’m James,” she said, lifting the box into her lap and struggling with the plastic latches. “The others do their hair different than I do. Wear their uniforms different. It’s… one way to tell ourselves apart.”

“James,” the pony repeated, annoyed. “Not even a real name. Didn’t your parents ever give you a name that meant something?”

She shrugged, her mouth too full to answer.

“Well, if nothing in this place makes sense, I’ll make sense of it,” he said. He pointed at her with his wing. “Your new name is Melody. Because… if it weren’t for your melodies, I might’ve already Perdis mian menson ĉi tie.”

“Melody,” she repeated, finding the word much easier to say than “Lucky Break” had been. But she had a month more practice. “Sounds nice. It’s not my real name, but I guess you can call me whatever.” She turned the box around in her lap, showing it to him. “Do you know what this is?”

“Nope.” He shook his head with annoyance. “Senidee.”

There were two things in the box. The first was a headset, though not the sound-exclusionary kind worn while flying on a Sojourner. It was made to mount over one ear, with a microphone extending down towards the muzzle. The second was like a bracelet, with a sturdy locking strap.

“Well, this first one goes on your head,” she said, clipping it on her own ear. “Ĝi ebligas vin paroli nian lingvon.”

As she spoke, another voice joined her, produced by the speaker near her ear. “The object permits talking like our words.”

“Ankaŭ kompreni ĝin.” She passed it through the bars.

Deadlight stared down at the object in wonder, his eyes so wide she couldn’t see the slits. He poked and prodded at the flexible titanium frame, the plastic clips. Then he imitated what she had done, securing it on one ear. It was made for a bat, so it fit better.

“How does it work?” said a synthesized voice, though this one was male instead of female. The translation had improved a great deal since they’d first used it on the trip over. The more notes came in from Lucky Break, the better the automated translation became.

Still no substitute from really speaking it. But better than not knowing half of what Deadlight says.

“You just talk,” she said. “So long as you’re on the mesh, it…” His face twisted in confusion, and she tried again. “If you are in here, it will translate what we say. So we can talk more easily—and so the others can understand you. Mostly for them.”

Deadlight grinned, the ear with the headset twitching with every word she said. “It works!”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “But I’ll ask you not to use it all the time. You’ve been very helpful with Eoch so far.”

“Why don’t you know your own language?”

She didn’t answer, holding up the second object. “This is… well, I won’t lie to you. It isn’t a present like the first one. This is a tracker. It… follows you. If you try to run away, it will warn us. If you try to take it off, it will hurt you. Please don’t try to take it off.”

Deadlight’s eager expression transformed into a glare in less than a second, and he retreated from the bars. “I cannot wear it,” he said. “But what is the point? You are already my prisoner. I am wearing your bracelet so I cannot catch it, Melody?”

James resisted the urge to chuckle at the clumsy machine translation. But laughing when Deadlight was obviously so upset would not help him.

“It’s like you said,” she answered, making her way over to the bars. She wasn’t afraid—Deadlight had never tried to hurt her. “Keeping you here is wrong. But if my boss won’t let you go, I could at least take you around Othar. That’s, uh… the name of this place. The City of Othar. Would you like to see it?”

Deadlight’s expression softened. He glanced between her and the bracelet. “If I put it, will you exile me from prison? Can you explore your city?”

That one took her a moment. She nodded. “Stick your hoof through the bars. Once I put it on, you can go with me. But… you have to promise to do what I say.”

He nodded eagerly, extending a leg through the bars as ordered. Easily close enough that he could’ve hit her, or tried to grab her. Instead he held his leg there, still. She secured the house-arrest tracker around one of his legs. It had to be tight, the metal contacts close to his skin. If he tried to get it off and it didn’t have time to shock him, well… then she’d be the one in trouble.

Everything about this was going to get her in trouble no matter how well it went.

He pulled the leg back into the bars, straightening and stretching right in front of the exit gate.

James had to resist the urge to stare—this stallion was a reminder not just of what she’d lost in her sleeving, but in how much had been changed. Watching him made her feel strange, so she tried never to look too closely.

“Now listen to me,” she said again, as seriously as she could. “I’m going to be honest with you, Deadlight. Okay?” He nodded, and she went on. “You have no chance of escaping. If you try, Major Fischer might kill you. She authorized the auto-turrets…” She trailed off, realizing that didn’t make sense. “There is powerful magic on our city. If anything leaves without permission, they will die.” She made her way up to the bars. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

She switched to Eoch. If anything did go bad, Fischer would probably review the security footage of this exact moment. Have fun making sense of an auto-translation. “Mi volas, ke vi vizitu miajn amikojn. Se vi amikiĝas kun ankaŭ ili, ili volos forliberigi vin. Mi volas, ke ili kredu vin. Tiam vi almenaŭ povas dormi en bona dormĉambro kiel ni aliaj anstataŭ enjail.” She didn’t know that last word.

“Kun vi?” he asked, his headset translating for him. Something that simple didn’t give it trouble.

She blushed, shuffling on her hooves, and looking away. “Nun mi havas mian propran ĉambron.” What did that mean? She wanted to say something else, but found her confused brain struggled to string the Eoch words together. She shook her head, clearing it. Then she gave up and just spoke in English. “The major was kinda drunk when she okayed this. She… might not be too happy to find out I did it. But if you’re on your best behavior… you just walk around, you do what I say, or anyone else… you’ll make a great impression. Got it?”

“Got it,” he said, nodding again. “Let’s go! I want to see how you ponies live!”

James stood in front of the bars, straightening. “Forerunner, unlock the doors to the brig.”

Pause. “Authorization granted.” The lock clicked open. The heavy gate didn’t move right away—it had to be lifted out of the way by an enormous hydraulic-driven pile. Yet another safety measure to prevent an easy escape, in the event of damage or a power failure. Even with the lock broken, five grown men couldn’t lift the bars.

They ground upward towards the ceiling, lifting only a total of three feet. Low enough that a human would have to crawl, but all Deadlight had to do was lower his head slightly.

“Are you ready?” James asked, a grin spreading across her face. “This is gonna be so awesome! I can’t wait to show you what we’re building.”

“Yeah,” Deadlight said, returning her grin. There was a little more fang in it than usual. “I’m ready.”

The next thing James felt was one of Deadlight’s hooves slamming her head against the wall. She was unconscious before she hit the floor.

G5.05: Heart

James whimpered, moaned, then turned over. Her head felt like it was about to explode—the worst headache of her life. That probably didn’t mean much considering how old she was.

She opened one eye. James was on the ground in the brig. There were thick bars in front of her, though the openings were wide enough that she could see through them easily. There was noise coming from the other side of the room, but it took her a minute to wake up enough to understand it.

“Error—no implant detected,“ said the Forerunner, in the same, even voice.

Deadlight had removed the control panel from the side of the door, exposing the wires. He hadn’t tried to short the circuit so much as made a complete mess of things—a pointless endeavor. James was no expert, but she was smart enough to know that the bulkheads on the security office were made to resist tampering. An expert electrician might take days to get them open. An uneducated native…

The doors might’ve opened for him, if he’d left James conscious. But the implants could tell when she was conscious—there was no sense turning things on and opening things for someone who wasn’t even awake.

She sat up in the cell, groaning from the pain. She was still wearing her uniform, though Deadlight had removed everything from her pockets. Her ID badge was gone, along with her claw and multi-tool. None of them would do him any good—the badge she only carried as a memento, since it had her human face on it. He’d used the tool to get the panel off the wall, but it hadn’t helped him beyond that. The claw sat unused on the ground a few feet away from the cell. No use without implants.

I guess he shoved me back in here before the cell closed on its own. She didn’t know how long that would take—probably just a few minutes. How long will it take for the major to discover I’m missing and come looking for me?

James wasn’t really worried about herself—if Deadlight had wanted to hurt her, he could have. She clutched at her head as another wave of pain and nausea washed over her. He did hurt me. Just… not as bad as he thinks. Thank goodness for a composite skull.

“Why won’t the door open?” he asked, stalking back towards the cage, and glaring in at her. “Tell me how to get it open!”

“Everything about this plan is stupid,” she answered, her voice a pained groan. “Y-you think… what, you’re gonna go through that door and escape?” He was still wearing the bracelet. If he had taken it off, well… he might be dead on the floor. She didn’t know how much electricity it took to kill a pony.

“Yes,” he said flatly, gesturing at the door with her stolen multi-tool. “How to open it? I really escape capture and you are wrong I think. Found Celestia, I do not see this information will be punished.”

She rolled her eyes. “Deadlight. My boss will kill you if she catches you trying to run. You won’t be able to escape.”

“I did! I lock you there, don't you think?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, you didn’t.” She took a deep breath, rising to her hooves. Her head still pulsed whenever she moved too quickly, throbbing. But it didn’t feel like she had a concussion. Probably should check by sickbay just in case. Just because her body was sturdy didn’t mean she was invincible. “Forerunner, open brig lockup 1.”

“No prisoner detected. Lockup opening.” The hydraulic fluid began to flow again, and heavy steel bars lifted out of the way.

She stepped out, and couldn’t resist a slight grin at Deadlight’s frustrated expression. “See?” She pointed at the door. “You can’t even get a door open. You think you can get past the ‘magic’ protecting Othar?”

She swayed on her hooves a moment, resting one hoof on the wall for support. “Forerunner… shut lockup 1.”

The heavy steel gate began moving down again, lowering itself into place.

Deadlight didn’t attack her again. He slumped to the floor, his wings dropping to both sides. “It is fair is not. I am getting from you is worse than villains. I supposed you are able to escape here.”

“I guess?” The more he used the headset around her the more she wished she had waited to give it to him. But listening to his actual voice while it was translating was just too difficult. “Listen. If the major finds out you tried to escape, she’ll…” She shook her head. “I have no idea. Use it as an excuse to never let you out of your cell again, that’s for sure.”

James walked past him, and wasn’t surprised that he didn’t try to hurt her. He still had the knife on the ground in front of one hoof, and he hadn’t touched it.

James stopped in front of the wall, then reached up and crammed the wires into the opening. She put the panel back on over them. It didn’t light up—the screen was dead, the buttons non-responsive. But the plastic clicked snugly back at least. It would look convincing enough at a glance.

“That’s it then. I am going to be trapped here forever. But I couldn't get through one door. Once you tell your major I’m over.”

James turned back to face him. “I never said I was gonna tell her. Everything I said could still work.” She flicked her tail towards the door. “I wanted them to meet you slowly. Make friends with you… realize there’s no reason to keep you locked up. I won’t tell them if you don’t.”

Deadlight rose to his hooves. He was taller than she was by a full head, and thicker too. And he doesn’t know how many samples we took. Not one more male template explorer is coming out female. Even the SEAL-team had been early enough on for the Forerunner to make corrections to its male members. Lucky bastards.

“Who are you, Melody?” he asked, so close she could feel his hot breath on her face. So close she could smell his scent, thick from weeks without a proper shower. “To trick you into outside of these foreigners captured, to help them? They... by transforming them, so you looked like them. That can help you break the curse?”

James couldn’t help it. She broke down into hysterical giggling. Deadlight only stared, his expression growing more concerned the longer he watched her.

“No,” she eventually managed to say. “I mean yes? I don’t know what you mean. Take the headset off for a second. Maybe the Eoch is easier.”

He did. “Did the others trick you, Melody? Were you cursed to look like them? We could both escape… fly back to Equestria together.”

She sighed. “I’ve never been to Equestria, Deadlight. And I can’t fly. You saw my wings before. The others are all worse. Except Martin. But…”

“Then why are you helping me? I just attacked you!”

She shrugged. Her head still throbbed a little, but it wasn’t so bad. The genetic engineering was doing its work. “Major Fischer attacked you. Besides, nothing’s broken.” She flexed her wings, going through some of the stretches he’d demonstrated for her. “See?”

There was a long silence. Deadlight stared at her for nearly a full minute before he spoke. “You really want to help me. You weren’t just coming here to make yourself feel less guilty.”

She nodded. “Who cares how I feel? I used to live in a van.” His expression only grew more confused, and she went on. “Look, the others would probably come too if their work wasn’t so important. I guess Karl could… but she’s so guilty about this she can’t face you. She talks to our boss, tries to convince her to let you go… I give her reports on how you’re doing.” She walked up to the door, scooping up her multi-tool from in front of him. Deadlight didn’t resist as she folded the blade and put it back into her pocket.

“So, do you want to see our city? It’s kinda small… we’re still building it. Well mostly I’m supposed to be building it… I can show you that too! The boring machine is really fun to watch!”

Deadlight put the headset back on his ear. “Say again?”

She did.

He considered, glancing between her, the cell, and back again. Then he stepped up beside her.

“You better not attack me when this door opens,” she said, glaring up at him. “There are security drones patrolling out there. If they see you hurt me, they’ll kill you.”

“Your guards kill the pony?”

She nodded. “Yes. But if you behave, they won’t do anything to you. Just do what I say… what anyone else says… and you’ll be fine.”

He nodded again, his whole body tensing. He smelled good, but… also like he needed a shower. She could take him there first—it was about time someone used the men’s side.

“Forerunner, open the door.” It slid open immediately.

James tensed, preparing for a blow. But this time, it didn’t come. Deadlight didn’t run either, though the hallway extended in front of him in both directions. She stepped forward through the doorway, and he followed, glancing nervously past her occasionally. There were no security drones rolling past just now, though there was no telling when they’d pass on their patrols again.

“Come on.” She grinned, pointing down the hall. “Does Equestria have hot showers? Cuz’ we do…”

Lucky Break went back to school a few days later, but that didn’t mean she could just go back to life as she knew it. Having a cutie mark changed things—it meant everypony at school asked her constantly about whether she had found a good teacher to apprentice under. It meant that even those who had supported her (like Knowing Look) now seemed hesitant to mention the future of scholarship that had previously seemed inevitable.

This despite the acceptance letter she got in the mail about a week after returning to class. Knowing Look smiled for her, encouraging her that ‘she shouldn’t feel pressured into making a decision that didn’t feel right.’

I don’t understand you people. What does having this tattoo have to do with anything? Why should it change how good I am with languages? She tried to ask, but not even Mom could give her a straight answer. Cutie marks were so fundamental to pony identity that exploring the boundaries of their impact ceased to even mean anything to the natives.

She didn’t include anything about them in her reports back to her human contemporaries. And they, in return, didn’t tell her very much at all about what they were doing, except that Olivia “anticipated she would have a thriving city to return to when her mission was complete,” and that she “wouldn’t have to visit Landfall Base again.”

College was still a tantalizing option, though it probably would have been moreso if there wasn’t an even more demanding puzzle a little over twenty-eight kilometers to the north. Some of the infrastructure of the ring itself was up there, undisturbed, and yet still known to at least some of the ponies. Something was in there, something that called to her even in her sleep.

Unfortunately for her, she would need an Alicorn if she ever wanted to make any progress in her investigation.

In searching for ways she might contact the young princess Flurry Heart, it took her another week to realize her two difficulties might have related solutions.

Flurry Heart had an excellent public image, but part of that was probably because all the newspapers got their license to publish from Flurry Heart’s mother. None of them would dare hint at her scandalous activities. But Lucky heard from a friend who heard from a bouncer of a popular club in town that Flurry Heart loved to spend her time and money listening to artists and doing all the other things ponies commonly did at clubs.

Lucky Break was not a famous artist, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t fake it.

“It’s simple,” she explained to her mom one evening, once they’d finished dinner. “All I have to do is buy a fancy enough outfit, then pay the cover charge for a few nights. The Diamond Lounge has an hour at the end of each night where visitors can play, so… I walk up on stage all fancy, and I can play some cool Earth music, and…”

Lightning Dust looked skeptically across the table at her. “That sounds simple,” she said, “and expensive. I have some idea what places like that charge. You’d need to be wearing… what, a thousand bits worth of outfit?”

Lucky winced. “Probably… two thousand. There’s this popular designer… if you aren’t wearing her stuff, you don’t get in. And that’s… what she charges.”

“Two thousand bits.” Lightning Dust shook her head. “Lucky, sweetheart. I make five hundred bits a month. Most apprentices make half of that. You’ll be saving for a year just to get through the door.”

“I could rob a bank,” Lucky said, though she wasn’t looking at a bank. She looked up at the painting, where she knew Lightning Dust kept their stash of emergency funds. Half of what she earned each month went behind that painting, ready to fund their flight across the country and settling somewhere new if they were ever discovered.

“Absolutely not.” Mom rose with a sudden jerk, gathered both of their plates, and made her way to the sink. “Lucky, I’m under investigation right now after your cutie mark… adventure. We might have to fly tomorrow. Even if nothing happens, you’re trying to get the attention of a princess. We went over that, remember?” Dust turned around to face her again. Her expression was sympathetic at least. “I know how much you want to get in. But if you want to find a way through that door, you’ll just have to save up on your own.”

Lucky grumbled, scratching at the ground in frustration. “I could apprentice with you.”

“No!” Lightning Dust answered, her voice a sudden, worried shout. “No. Where I work is…” She shook her head. “No, sweetheart. You can work in the city. There are lots of places that will hire a smart pony like you. Maybe you could do something with old words, or numbers, or…”

Or I could write back to the college and let them accept me. They’d given her a full ride—though apparently every new student got that. Maybe when I graduate I’ll be legitimate, and I can just ask a princess to come with me.

Lucky Break could do that, but it might take years. She could also take matters into her own hooves right now.

She started looking around the Crystal Empire for work. There was plenty of it—it was about as easy to find as it had been back on Earth so long as you didn’t care how little you were paid or how demeaning the labor. Almost everywhere wanted a two-year commitment from her, or wanted her to quit school, or both. Lucky wasn’t willing to give either, and so she kept looking for an opportunity.

That opportunity came another week or so later, when Lightning Dust was called away on a “business trip.” Dust didn’t say exactly what the trip involved, just that she was going to be gone for three days, and that Lucky was to “stay out of trouble” until she got back from Canterlot.

Lucky Break promised she would, of course. But she was lying. She had every intention of getting into a great deal of trouble.

The old painting had been in the apartment when they moved in, depicting a badly-drawn landscape probably painted by an apprentice honing their craft. Lucky lowered it carefully to the ground about two hours after waving goodbye to Dust, careful to leave no visible marks that it’d been changed.

With any luck, I’ll have most of the bits back up here before Dust gets back. She’ll never be the wiser.

It wasn’t the worst plan she’d ever come up with. Dresses by Silver Hem could be returned if you had a good reason. Even if she couldn’t come up with something, she could always sell it to someone else. And even if that didn’t work, making a new discovery was sure to make Princess Flurry Heart willing to help spot her a few bits.

Lucky got herself an appointment with Silver Hem later that afternoon. The dress didn’t have to be original, so it wouldn’t take long, just an hour or so for a fitting. By that evening, she was ready for phase two.

Pony rites about adulthood were strange things. She didn’t feel any bigger than she’d been before her cutie mark, but that didn’t matter. Showing it (and paying the cover charge of 200 more stolen bits) was the only proof of adulthood Lucky needed to get into the Diamond Lounge.

Lucky had never been anywhere like this—not during either of her lifetimes.

The Diamond Lounge had two floors, a lower dance floor and stage with a bar, and upper balconies for those too important to be seen walking around with ordinary ponies.

Lucky found she was one of the youngest ponies in the room, the least interesting to mares and stallions alike, despite her correct assessment of the popular fashion.

But for all that, the music coming from the stage was bland classical quartet. Wealthy young ponies enjoyed incredibly small plates and alcohol in delicate crystal glasses.

Lucky shuffled her way to the bar, feeling all her confidence from her fancy dress drain away as she realized she was barely even tall enough to reach the counter. I can’t give up now. I might not be able to get my bits back. This is my only chance.

She still had her guitar, slung across her back about as gracefully as a piece of luggage. At least the black carbon fiber of the collapsible instrument drew some interested looks from the ponies around the room.

“Excuse me,” she said, to the stallion behind the bar. Older than most of the ponies in here, with unusually red eyes. “Tonight’s one of the nights you allow outside talent on the stage, right?”

Lucky might not be rich, but she could imitate the way rich ponies talked with great skill. She copied their inflections, their intonations, the occasional word of Mundus Eoch to add flare. She probably sounded better than most of them did.

“Talent,” he repeated, not matching the same high-class tone of the rest of the ponies all around them at all. If anything, he sounded like Dust. “Sure is. You can hear how well that is working out tonight. You look like a pony who has something interesting.”

“I do,” she said, standing as tall as she could. It didn’t really help—she felt like a fraud. Lightning Dust had made her a strong flyer, but she hadn’t taught her anything about high society. Everything Lucky Break knew about these ponies either came from books, rumors, or the newspaper.

Lucky tapped the side of her guitar with one wing. “Nobody in this room has heard anything like it.”

Not a difficult promise to keep. Pony guitars had only four strings, and were another orchestral instrument. Even her cutie mark didn’t look quite right. Well it’s wrong in lots of ways. It should be about languages.

The barkeep only laughed. “I won’t hold you to that promise, sweetheart.” He leaned closer to her conspiratorially, passing a short glass across the table. Something green glowed from within, very faintly. Lots of ponies were drinking them.

“O-oh, I don’t…” She didn’t want to say: ‘don’t have the money to pay for that’, though it was true. Lucky still had a few hundred bits left over, but she’d need them to outfit them for their expedition into the unknown. Unless I want to try and pawn off my armor. Olivia would be thrilled I did that.

“No charge,” he insisted, levitating the glass to the edge of the table. Stupid unicorns and their cheating powers.

“I’ll get you one song. Make it good—these aren’t the sort of ponies you want thinking you’re boring. Or you’ll never play anywhere worth playing.”

He leaned closer, so close she could smell his breath. He spoke in a low whisper. “Once embarked upon, this chain of causality collapses the wave one way or the other. Are you prepared for the consequences?”

She blinked, her mouth hanging open. “W-what are you.”

“Please.” He straightened, grinning an obviously-forced smile at her. “Drink it all, Lucky Break. I’ll have someone get back to you with your time.”

“How did you…” She clutched at the glass with one hoof. “How did you know my name?”

“Lucky guess.” He winked, then vanished behind the bar.

The drink he’d given her wasn’t alcohol, at least not anything like what she had tasted before. It was one of the most disgusting, repulsive things she’d ever had—worse than the vegetarian burrito flavor of dried food supplement (her previous winner of worst-tasting thing). Grass was better.

But she finished the glass, as instructed. And as the moments passed, she started to feel a bit better. Less nervous about her set to come. I made it onto an alien world, I can handle one song. How hard can it be to impress a princess?

Lucky Break stepped out onto the empty stage, shifting uncomfortably in her powder-blue dress. The slight chime of the gemstones sewn into its several layers was the only sound—aside from a few hushed whispers from all around the room.

She couldn’t really make any of them out, but Lucky found that she didn’t care what they said. I must be drunk. Tiny body, never had alcohol before… it’s liquid courage. But if Lucky Break was drunk, she didn’t feel it. She didn’t fall over, didn’t sway, and didn’t seem to be moving more sluggishly than anypony else.

She didn’t even care that this plan was monumentally stupid. Her family was at risk, and here she was throwing all their money away so she could maybe impress a princess and maybe have a private moment to recruit her to join in an archeological expedition? How stupid was she?

One of her wings started to shake, and she resisted the urge to start preening it in front of everyone. These were mostly unicorns and crystal ponies—they wouldn’t understand. Even the ones with wings would scoff at the equivalent of chewing her fingernails in public.

Lucky stepped right out onto the edge of the stage, and dramatically expanded the guitar. Gears turned quickly, and the head expanded to full size. I wish this thing was electric. I could play Johnny B Good and go back to the future.

The joke was on them—Lucky was already very far into the future. No way of telling how much, but… quite a bit further than 2015.

From the front of the stage, Lucky could get her first good look at the balconies. There, in the largest center box, was the princess.

She’d heard ponies (even her mom) describe time with princesses with words like reverence and awe. For them, meeting the princesses was a religious experience. That seemed true about Flurry Heart, because she was alone in her box. There were no friends sitting with her—not even a guard. She looked monumentally bored, barely even watching the stage at all.

This is my chance. Lucky looked right up at her, holding up the guitar with one wing. “My name is Lucky,” she said. “And this song is for the princess.”

She started playing. The whispering stopped. The giggles stopped, and everyone listened.

The Diamond Lounge got the best musicians who passed through the Crystal Empire, and many of them had musical cutie marks. Lucky Break wasn’t in any way unique in that respect. But she was the only one with a human instrument, and whole musical styles that Equestria had no names for. Lucky Break was not better than the other musicians these ponies had heard, but she was different.

Lucky lost herself in the music. Apparently, the audience did too, because she wasn’t asked to leave the stage after one song. The dance floor filled with ponies, trying (and failing) to adapt the slow formality of their dances to melodies that were far too upbeat for them.

By the time she did finish playing, the Diamond Lounge had been closed for over an hour and the stage was littered with the things rich ponies had thrown at her hooves.

The exhaustion hit her like a bag of concrete, and Lucky found it was suddenly difficult to stand. No. Focus. I can’t waste this chance. Lucky hadn’t been watching very many of the ponies in the club—though she was attentive to their reactions as she moved through the songs she knew.

The princess was still there, not looking the least bit tired—though now that the lights were on and the haze had cleared, Lucky could see that she really wasn’t that much older than herself. She leaned over the edge of the box, gesturing once with a hoof. It was all the leave Lucky needed.

As she made to leave the stage, she stepped on one of the little rocks the audience had thrown towards her. She whimpered, pulling back her hoof and holding it up to inspect the damage. Had the ponies been throwing glass at her?

Her eyes widened as the thumb-sized diamond caught the light, sparkling snowy white. The ponies hadn’t given her bits, they’d given her gems.

“Excuse me, Mr.…” She trailed off awkwardly, meeting the barkeep’s eyes. “I don’t have any pockets. Could I get, like… a bag or something?” She looked down at the stage. “For all this?”

“Certainly,” he said, grinning at her. “I’ll take care of it. You should focus on the princess.”

Lucky nodded appreciatively, collapsing her guitar back into its storage size, before slinging it back over her shoulder and heading towards the stairs. The bouncers were still there—instead of stopping her, one of them asked for her autograph.

Most of the boxes were as empty as the dance floor, save for the most important. Lucky ducked through an open doorway, and was suddenly before the princess.

I’m almost there. Don’t fall asleep now.

Flurry Heart was like a pegasus, and not. Her wings were wider, fuller. Her body was leaner, taller, her horn twice as long as other unicorns their age. She was probably only a few centimeters taller than Lucky. At least, she would’ve been if she were standing. Flurry Heart was reclining on a large, comfortable sofa, big enough for several ponies. She was still alone.

Lucky Break stood in front of it, bowing as she had seen other ponies do. It was probably slow with her tiredness, and far more awkward.

Flurry Heart’s expression changed to annoyance before she’d even inclined her head more than a degree. “No, no. Don’t do that, Lucky. Nopony who can play music like you should bow to me. That’s my mom’s thing. I’d rather just talk.”

Lucky straightened, sitting down on her haunches. That way she’d be as close to eye-level with the young princess as she could be.

“That’s better. Why haven’t I heard of you before, Lucky?”

She shook her head. “Honestly I don’t perform very often. Most ponies probably haven’t heard of me.”

“I hadn’t heard your songs either,” she said. “It’s the same boring stuff every night up here. Ponies pretending to enjoy songs written before anypony was born. Just what kind of music was it?”

“Lots of kinds,” she answered honestly. “Rock, Country, R&B… turns out you can do a lot with a guitar.”

The princess looked unimpressed. “What brings a sophisticated act like yours out of Canterlot? I don’t know what they paid you, but I bet you could make… twice as much down there. More.”

“They didn’t pay me,” she said. “The patrons gave me some, though. I dunno how much yet… I didn’t get a good look at it.” It was probably worth more than she’d ever seen in one place. But saying that wouldn’t help her. “I have to be honest with you, princess. I’m not here to play music. The Crystal Empire is…” She imitated Flurry Heart’s own unamused tone. “Like you said. It’s very pretty, but not much going on. But there are other reasons to visit.”

“Really?” She sat up, rolling her eyes. “I haven’t found any.”

Lucky Break rose to her hooves, stepping a little closer to where the princess reclined. “Did you know that there are forbidden places a day’s flying north of the Crystal Empire, Princess? Places where nopony has ever gone before?”

Her face lit up, even brighter than it had during the music. Her perfect posture broke down and she leaned forward, intense. “There isn’t anything up there. Just snow and ice too cold to live in. Unless you’re talking about the yaks, but those are so far west.”

Just don’t think about how this has absolutely nothing to do with music, and everything will be great.

“Not the yaks.” Lucky reached into the folds of her dress, removing the map she’d stashed there. It was well-worn from the last trip up above the boundary, with numerous additions she had penned on their way out. They described land-formations they had seen, which they’d used to find their way back to Equestria. That, or find their way back to the door.

She felt the princess take the map in her magic grip, and she let go, retreating a little as she inspected it. Flurry Heart was standing on the cushion now, all semblance of royal decorum gone. “Where’d you get this? This language… it looks really old.”

“It’s a lost language,” she said. “I’m the only pony in Equestria who speaks it.” The Forerunner and its crew were south of Equestria’s borders, so still technically true. “Some of my singing tonight used it. It’s called English.”

“It’s just like Daring Do…” Flurry Heart muttered, setting the map down on the sofa beside her. Her tail had begun to twitch back and forth eagerly. Her excitement was contagious—Lucky could feel it too. It was almost enough for her to stop feeling tired. “And nopony knows about this? Not even my mom?”

“As far as I know,” she said, avoiding her eyes. “If any princess but you knew about this, wouldn’t they have already sent an expedition? But I looked in every library in the city—none of them mention it.”

“Lost Temple of the English,” Flurry Heart muttered, a grin spreading across her face. “So… what, you came here to pass the time? While you… explore the ruins? You must be a talented explorer… and being a musician would give you a great cover to speak with all the ponies who matter. Even Mom would let you into the castle if you played like you did tonight.”

“I am a very experienced explorer,” she said, with perfect conviction now. There was no need to lie, even if the rest of what Flurry Heart had invented was ridiculous. Hadn’t she noticed just how small Lucky was? Maybe the dress made her look older. But if she hadn’t figured it out, Lucky wasn’t about to say anything. “Nopony you have ever met has traveled further than I have. Now that Daring Do is retired…”

She straightened, making to tip an invisible hat. “I’m sure a princess like you is far too busy to leave the castle. Maybe I could… visit again, when I return from my adventure.”

“No.” Flurry Heart hopped to the ground. “Aunt Twilight used to go on adventures all the time. Even Mom had a few. You might get to this English place, only to find you need a princess for something! You should probably take me.”

Not an order. Lucky lowered her head again, but not enough to count as a bow. “That’s a great idea, princess! But…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It has to be a secret. If anypony found out, they might want to go instead, and not let you come. You know how adults are. Everything’s too dangerous. But it’s just a day’s flight north! You can fly great, can’t you Princess?”

“Yes.” She nodded, grinning back. “I’m very good at keeping secrets, Lucky. That’s one of the first things a princess has to learn.”

G5.05: Gyroscopic Failure

James preempted her guest, stepping slightly in front of him. If the major wanted to attack him, she would have to hurt her first. Some small corner of her mind balked—this pony really had attacked her not too long ago. Major Fischer might’ve made some dumb choices, but she had never done anything to threaten James or any other member of the crew.

“I haven’t disobeyed your orders,” she said confidently. As confidently as she could, anyway. “Deadlight isn’t escaping. I haven’t let him out of Othar. You can see he’s wearing the tracker. I just didn’t think it was right to leave him trapped in his cell.”

The major stepped the rest of the way into the room. Behind her, the steel door zipped closed, sealing in place. “I know you weren’t trained, Dr. Irwin… but even you must understand why we don’t let someone we want to stay in prison outside of the brig.” She didn’t raise any of her weapons, though she did stalk towards Deadlight, as though she were three times his size and was about to beat him to a pulp. “You think he’s stupid, Doctor? You think he isn’t watching everything we do? Isn’t searching every minute for a way to escape?”

“I…” James began, but she couldn’t finish her sentence. It was too hard to be stared down by the filly, her glare intense enough that it might’ve melted through steel.

Deadlight himself seemed unafraid of what he was seeing. If anything, he looked amused. Like he was on the edge of laughing, and had to constantly beat it back.

“He’s going to try and escape,” the major continued. “Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. Then the anti-air will put a thousand bullets in him, and that will be that.” She stopped inches away from James, eyes wide and fury all over her face. “Do you want to be responsible for that, Dr. Irwin? I know you civilians have bleeding little hearts that are so sad to see this innocent little native who never did anything wrong locked up in a cage!” She paused, taking a deep, gasping breath. “But he’s locked up because the alternative was either dosing his brain full of memory drugs or shooting him!” She yanked James suddenly and violently forward, so her head pointed at the screen.

Even knowing they were all enhanced, feeling the tug come from such a small body was incredibly disorienting. James very nearly fell over under the force. She didn’t, and soon the satellite image of the ring filled her vision.

Major Fischer was properly screaming at her now. “WHOEVER BUILT THAT RING COULD FLATTEN US LIKE WE’RE FLIES, IRWIN! YOU THINK MY GUNS ARE GOING TO MAKE ONE SHIT-LICKING SCUM FUCK OF A DIFFERENCE WHEN IT COMES GODDAMN ROLLING OVER YOUR PEACE-LOVING ASSES?”

She paused, just long enough to take another breath. James whimpered, unable to meet her eyes. Major Fischer was right, obviously. Anyone who could build this would not be stopped by anything humans could build.

“We’re alone out here.” Olivia let go of her shoulders. “Our only chance in hell is that the builders are dead, don’t care, or they never, ever learn we’re down here.” She pointed back at Deadlight. The stallion watched with concern, one of his legs twitching, almost like he wanted to intervene. But he didn’t.

“The more he learns about us, the more dangerous he is. The more you force me to think about flushing his memories, or flushing him. The kindest, most generous thing you can do is give him his meals and tell him fucking nothing. Then when this is all over he gets to live, we get to live, and nobody gets flattened by unknowable fucking H.P.-Lovecraft-ass space gods. Got it?”

James nodded. She was crying—something she’d learned over the months that ponies could do just fine despite their alien biology. She kept it as quiet as possible, though. It could be worse, and Olivia could make it worse.

Martin kept her head down too—she hadn’t moved from her seat during this whole exchange. James didn’t blame her for that—this adventure was James’s idea to begin with. No defense would get them anywhere. The major’s logic made sense.

But the major wasn’t the one to speak next.

“It’s already too late for that,” Deadlight said, staring across the room at the major. He spoke with even more confidence than he had in the cell—more than anyone had ever showed to Olivia.

He’s been wearing the headset this whole time! James cursed herself for forgetting to give the command to shut it off. But she hadn’t exactly been thinking clearly while the major reamed her.

There was no taking it back now. Major Olivia Fischer turned slowly around, facing Deadlight on the other end of the room. “Nice headset. That’s a translation program, isn’t it?”

He nodded, apparently unmoved by her icy anger. “I know who you are, I know where you’re from, and I know what you’re doing here. But that doesn’t have to be a disadvantage.”

Please don’t get yourself killed, Deadlight. Now that Major Fischer had pointed it out, James realized she would be to blame if this stallion got himself killed. Olivia had wanted to keep him locked up, ignorant, where he could one day be released. But now he knew things—enough that anyone informed about the possibility would recognize the civilization he described capturing him was alien despite its looks.

“It sounds like a disadvantage to me,” the major said. She edged casually around the room, until she stood between Deadlight and the door. This angle also meant that James no longer blocked the path of a potential bullet. James looked—sure enough, the major was wearing a real gun today. She reached for it, very slowly.

“But it’s not,” Deadlight said. “I know you’ve come here from past the horizon. I know your part of the world is dangerous, that you’ve faced constant invasion and enemies. Maybe you heard the stories about Celestia and Luna and you’re afraid your long-separated friends might not be so friendly after all.”

“Oh.” The Major stopped reaching for her handgun, settling her other hoof back onto the ground. “Dr. Irwin told you all that?”

The conversation wasn’t quite real time. Between each new statement there was a pause, as Deadlight waited for the headset to translate. “A little,” he eventually said. “But mostly I figured it out. I’m an expert on ancient civilizations. Been exploring all over. I know about what came before Equestria. I know about Nibiru, about the Endless City. I know Equestria was wrong about the world past the border—knew there were other civilizations out there. If you’ve come all this way to learn about Equestria, well… I think you have just the pony for the job right here. I can help you figure out anything you want to know. In exchange… because this is an exchange, obviously… you’ll tell me about your country.”

He walked up towards her, slowly, apparently unmoved. “But this prisoner thing stops right now. I’m not going to leave the first group of ponies from past Equestria I’ve ever met in my whole life. Maybe the only one to ever penetrate Minotaur lands. But then…” He gestured around the room. “I can see how you would. With all this. But you know you’re not invincible, and I respect that. I can respect not wanting Celestia and all the others to know you’re here when you don’t even know what they’re like.”

He stuck out one hoof towards her. “How about it?”

Major Fischer seemed to consider a long time. She glanced down at the offered hoof, then her pistol. Then she took it. But she didn’t speak to Deadlight. She glared straight across the room at James when she spoke. “The AAs are still on, Dr. Irwin. This is your mess.” She turned and stormed out of the room without another word, the heavy steel door opening and shutting with a thump behind the security bot that followed her.

There was a long silence. Deadlight stared down at his hoof—James was still too flooded with emotion to say anything.

Martin wasn’t. “Was that your plan all along, James? That was neat. Better than I expected. But you should tell me next time—I could’ve helped.”

Lightning Dust was moving up in the world. Well, in some ways she’d been moving down for some time now. But she’d moved so far down that she’d finally started moving up. Did that make any sense?

For the first time, Lightning Dust had been invited to participate in every stage of the supply run. Her business associate, Rocky, insisted she would not have to make the trip very often. Even so, her involvement doubled her cut of the profits.

A few runs like these each month, and she wouldn’t have to worry about hauling contraband up into the city each day. Yes, the long trip underground was a little more dangerous, and it would mean about a week of the month she would be gone. But that seemed like a small price to pay. Besides, all that time not working for Rocky is more time I can be looking for more respectable work.

She had tried a few times to find a job that could support her and a filly without requiring experience. So far, she hadn’t found anything. There was a state stipend for orphans like Lucky, but to claim it would require revealing who they were and where. For obvious reasons, the office was known for quite thorough investigations.

We could go somewhere else. With her certificate and my skill, both of us could work. Any weather team would want us. Lucky’s cutie mark wouldn’t help her get a weather job, but it shouldn’t hurt her. They just needed to find somewhere where they would be more in demand.

Lightning Dust thought about that, and many other things, as she took her last load of contraband up into the streets of the Crystal Empire. She made her way out from an alley and back onto the main thoroughfare as she always did, and immediately she could tell that something was wrong.

The Royal Guard were here in force, their stern eyes watching everything. They flew overhead in tight formations, watching the city’s skies. Lightning Dust kept her head down, hurrying into the marketplace as fast as she could.

She rounded the corner, and was suddenly stopped by several guards. She would’ve seen them holding up traffic for some distance if she hadn’t come in from an alley.

But she ignored the angry looks and shouts the merchants behind her gave, meeting the guards’ eyes. “Import permit,” he said, sounding bored and annoyed. He was a crystal pony stallion, in a local guard uniform, though the spear-wielding guards on either side of the stall were not.

“Of course…” Lightning Dust unhooked herself from the cart, walking slowly around to the back. There was fake paperwork on board for a random inspection, though at no point during her time on the job had Lightning Dust had to use it. The forged permit would be expired by now, thanks to how lax ponies usually were with their laws.

“What’s the occasion, officer? Isn’t the border checkpoint enough?”

“Wouldn’t you think so,” the soldier said, laughing amicably. “We certainly thought so. But with the princess missing and all, well… Princess Cadance insists that strictly following the rules will find her the quickest. I don’t really see what finding a missing princess has to do with inspecting grain, but then she’s the princess and I’m not.”

Lightning Dust removed the notebook of her forged documents from under the back of the cart, moving over as slowly as she could without looking suspicious. This is the last time I try to cut in line. But until today it hadn’t mattered—ponies just flowed in as quickly as the wide boulevard would allow.

Her cart would pass a glancing inspection, if the ponies didn’t remove any of the goods it contained. Her manifests always read “barrels of flour”, and one of them was filled with flour. The rest, though, had a false bottom under only a few cups of flour.

“Here, officer.” She looked away, blushing. There was no sense lying about it. But maybe she could get him not to look too closely by being honest with something that was wrong. The strategy had worked with all of Lucky’s paperwork. “I know I’m behind. It’s just that nopony at the border checkpoint ever cared until a few days ago.”

“No, they never did.” The stallion’s eyes narrowed as he read over the forgery. It was apparently good enough to convince him, because his eyes went only to the date. He took a big red stamp, then plastered over the whole thing. “I’m sorry, miss…” He squinted down at the name. “Storming Skies, but we have new orders.” He gestured, and at once a guard on either side of the cart stiffened and began to approach. “If I find any discrepancy, my orders are to hold the goods for inspection, along with the ponies transporting them. Scuttlebutt is that the princess was smuggled out by a trader like you.”

He pulled out another pad of forms, this one half-empty. He copied over some of the fake identification information from the fake permit. “Turn slightly, I need to get your cutie mark on this.”

Lightning Dust did so, resisting the urge to whimper, or to take off and flee.

“Don’t worry, Miss Skies. Dozens of other ponies are in your exact position. We don’t think any of you have done anything wrong.” He lowered his voice, leaning towards her. “Mostly we’re playing along until this all blows over. Once the princess turns up, things should go back to normal. Anypony who’s lived here knows that when Flurry Heart does something, there’s nopony but herself to blame for it. Cadance just needs to keep busy until it settles down.”

He straightened again, handing Lightning Dust the ripped form. “If you would just go with the sergeant. We’ve rented out a block of hotels for the duration. Your goods will be held in confidence until the inspections are complete. At that point, you’ll be free to go back to business. Though… you should probably renew your permits while you’re at it. Never know when something like this might happen again.”

Lightning Dust nodded. She could’ve protested, could’ve argued or shouted, but didn’t think that was terribly wise. Anything that would draw attention to her, set her apart from a legitimate merchant in her exact position, would prompt a closer inspection. So long as they don’t lock me up, I can get away. Lucky will be upset that she has to change schools.

“If you could go with my sergeant.” He gestured with one hoof towards one of the spear-wielding soldiers. Like most of the guards in the Crystal Empire, his spear was not sharp. He didn’t expect to use it today.

“Sure,” she said, looking down at the ground. Lightning Dust was one of the few ponies who wasn’t terrified of the mere idea of lawbreaking. But she did her best impression of one of those ponies. Mostly she acted like she might have before her experience with the Wonderbolts. Back when she still respected Equestria as a country.

And it worked. Lightning Dust was led away from her cart of contraband, shaking as though she were genuinely afraid of what the soldier might do to her. And that might include some serious punishment, if she was caught before the princess was found again.

When ponies get upset, they lash out. Want to find someone to blame, punish those who they think hurt them far more than they deserve. Dust remembered those words, the only words a princess had ever spoken to her. But for all her kindness, Princess Luna had not remitted her sentence, or intervened on her behalf beyond sitting in at her trial. She had not prevented the destruction of Dust’s life that followed her mistake.

So she resisted the urge to run. She walked alongside the sergeant, talking amicably with him about affairs in the city. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had one suspicion about what might’ve happened to the princess. That her daughter could’ve kidnapped her or somehow brought her against her will was entirely unfathomable to her—Lucky was a filly after all, barely even grown into her cutie mark. She couldn’t kidnap an Alicorn.

Please don’t be involved with this, Sweetheart. Please let me be wrong. But she would have to wait a little longer to find that out. A little longer, and then it would be time to move again. There was something infuriating about that—after all these months, she had to get caught the day she’d started making enough to save again.

At least I still have my savings. Even if I don’t get anything from this, even if Rocky doesn’t get a bit, and won’t let me help again… it should be enough to get far away. She’d heard diamond dogs didn’t like the heat—maybe they would move south for their next home. Somewhere with a great big weather team that wouldn’t put them on the ground for a long time.

Lightning Dust waited until they made it to the hotel, accepting a key from the front desk as she was escorted to the stairwell. The young guard pointed down with one wing. “If you don’t mind, miss.”

She stopped, confused. “A basement room? B-but… I’m a pegasus! You know how awful it is to be trapped underground!” He knew, because he was a pegasus too.

He sighed sympathetically. “Forgive me, ma’am. We know it’s pointless. But we’re taking every precaution to prevent an ‘escape.’” He rolled his eyes. “We know it isn’t fair—whole city has to suffer because the little princess spends too long out on the town. But we don’t make the law, we only enforce it.” He gestured again. “Apologies.”

“Apologies,” she repeated quietly, before walking past him towards the stairs. She stopped beside him and smashed his head into the wall with her shoulder as hard as she could. He dropped, but not before yelping with surprise. Several guards answered the shout with calls of their own, asking what was wrong.

Lightning Dust ignored them. She took to the air, zooming up to the next floor. Another guard was there, an earth pony with no weapon but his hooves. But then, earth ponies didn’t need them. “It’s down there!” she shouted, pointing down the stairs. “A changeling attacked one of the guards!”

The Royal Guard nodded solemnly, charging down the stairs with narrowed eyes and gritted teeth. Lightning Dust didn’t continue up, but focused instead on the other end of the hall, where a large window was open to let in a breeze. Unfortunately, there was also a guard resting beside it—a pegasus like herself, with the familiar spear resting on his shoulder.

He hadn’t left his post, didn’t move from it even now. “Stop, you can’t leave! We have orders!” He didn’t actually raise the spear—which was good, since it could’ve easily skewered her. But ponies were like that—the idea of seriously hurting each other rarely seemed to enter their minds.

Lightning Dust, on the other hoof, would do anything if it meant protecting her filly. You’re the only thing I’ve done right in the last decade, kid. I’m not going to let them find you now.

She gathered wind behind her as she flew, curling in a tight corkscrew in the tiny hallway. Vases of flowers and tiny candleholders were ripped right off the wall and slammed into the guard, a second before the wind itself hit.

The window didn’t swing open so much as shatter into a thousand pieces, right before the wind carried the guard and his spear right out the opening.

Lightning Dust didn’t look back to see if he’d recovered before hitting the ground. Instead she tucked her legs and beat her wings as though Cerberus himself were after her. She didn’t fly above traffic, as was the safe way when you wanted to go quickly—instead, she flew at city level, weaving between obstructions. If she made even a single mistake, she’d be splattered into Lightning-Dust-colored slime all over the ground.

But she didn’t make a mistake. Lightning Dust was the best flyer in Equestria. She was better than the Wonderbolts, no matter how impressive their shows had been. She might even be better than the princesses.

By the time she arrived in the outskirts of town, there was nopony following her she could see. She could hear shouts going up through the city, alarm bells tolling and whistles blowing, but nopony seemed to know where she’d gone. She landed outside her building so abruptly that a nearby window shattered from the force. Somepony screamed, but she ignored that too—there was no time.

Lightning Dust ducked through the now-missing window onto the floor above her own, not even bothering to apologize to the family whose supper she had just interrupted.

She jumped down a floor, and opened the door to her apartment.

Lucky Break should’ve been back from school by now—her classes would’ve dismissed hours ago. She wasn’t there. “Lucky, are you in here?” she called, flying straight to the painting on the far wall, and turning it around. She reached in for her stash of bits… and found nothing.

Lucky? What in Celestia’s name did you do? She scanned around the little apartment, searching for any sign of her wayward daughter. Her saddlebags were missing from the hook, but her books were piled on the desk. So she didn’t go to class. She made her way into the bedroom, but didn’t make it all the way to the closet.

There was a dress lying flat on the bed, nice enough that Lightning Dust knew immediately where the money had gone. Only the finest ponies could afford clothing made by designers like this—clothing dusted with gemstones and sewn by hoof instead of in a factory.

Why? Dust sat back on her haunches, momentarily stunned by what she saw. You were always so smart, Lucky! You knew how much danger we were in! Why steal now?

Then she saw something else—beside the bed, there was a note tacked to the wall, a note that hadn’t been there before. A small cloth bag was hanging from it.

Dust was conscious of voices from the hall, but she ignored them for the moment. She leaned forward to read.

“Mom—you shouldn’t ever read this. In case you do, it means something went wrong. I’m taking Flurry Heart to the ruins. Don’t worry—I’ll make sure she takes credit for everything. We probably just got delayed, but just in case, you probably remember where to find me.

-Lucky.”

Dust didn’t have more time to study the letter for more—there were probably guards outside already. They would be coming in soon. She had to run.

Lightning Dust almost left the little bag hanging right where it had been, but the fact Lucky had hung it right beside her note made her yank it into her mouth as she left. She had nothing else—her saddlebags were on the confiscated cart, and there was no time to gather anything from the apartment. She hurried out the front door, and could hear hoof steps pounding downstairs.

Someone yelled and pointed at her. She galloped a few steps, then out the window into the streets.

There were no guards waiting outside, though she could see a few running around the streets. She would not stand out from the many other fearful ponies moving out here—there would be no reason to look more closely at one frightened pegasus than any of the others. But if she’d really triggered an alarm, then she couldn’t just fly over the border. They’d stop anypony who tried to leave.

But Lightning Dust had other ways to leave the city. She dropped to the ground in a remote alley, pushing aside the entrance to the sewer, and clambered inside. She had no lantern with her this time, so had to feel her way by memory until she got to one of the magical crystals that hung every few dozen meters. She set the little bag down, yanked the crystal off its bracket, then looked at what Lucky had left for her.

Her eyes widened as she saw the glimmer of something like glass from inside, and she pushed the bag a little wider with one hoof. There were gems inside.

Gemstones were not worth as much as some things in Equestria. Precious metals were harder to get, for reasons she didn’t know. Probably something to do with the way gems could be grown and metals couldn’t. Even so, gems were worth more than bits. Those who had larger deals to make frequently used gems instead of bits to save weight. She didn’t know how to evaluate them, except that they weren’t that large, so probably not a fortune or anything.

Lightning Dust had expected to enter a life where she’d be showered with wealth like this, but that hadn’t materialized. Weather ponies could go far, but not when they got cut down the seniority pyramid every few years and had to move.

Lightning Dust sighed, settling the glowing gem into the bag with the others. It made the whole thing shine diffusely, lighting her way.

For a moment—and just a moment—she thought about going back to the diamond dogs. They wouldn’t blame her for getting caught—not with the whole town being inspected. Maybe they would want her to trade elsewhere. If not, she could always fly on, leave Lucky Break to her own devices. The little filly had caused this—she’d somehow got herself involved with the princess, set the whole city on alert, and indirectly gotten Dust caught. She’d stolen money, and who knew what else.

But Lightning Dust wasn’t about to abandon her, despite all that. Lightning Dust had made her own mistakes in her youth. Each time she screwed up, that meant a new transfer to a new home, and new ponies who she would have to get to know all over again.

Lucky Break wasn’t just an orphan—she was her daughter. It didn’t matter what she’d done. Dust would find her and help her out. Somehow.

Despite all her many mistakes, Lightning Dust had never managed to foalnap a princess before.

She dismissed the thought, forced herself to keep walking into the dark. She couldn’t let herself dwell on the details of that time. She hadn’t even found the filly yet. It’s a long flight. She would visit one of the northernmost villages, trade a few gems for a little food, then continue on. She’d fly all through the night if that was what it took.

Thank Celestia I have such a good sense of direction.

“Not nothing,” Lucky muttered, stepping into the room. She paused, setting her saddlebags down in the doorway. Maybe they would stop the automatic door from shutting and sealing them in here.

“It might be some kinda cell…” She set her computation surface down on the ground at Heart’s hooves. “If I get trapped down here, you can… follow this out and get help. All right?”

“Okay.” Flurry Heart looked down at the computation surface, momentarily more interested in what she was seeing than the room they had reached. “What kind of map is this?”

I probably shouldn’t have showed her that. “Later,” was all she said. “It wants us to go there. It might be a communications platform. But if it isn’t, you can be out in the hall, so we won’t both be trapped. Okay?”

“Right.” Flurry Heart lifted the computation surface into the air, retreating a step. She watched Lucky, expression dubious. “I guess that makes sense. You really think it’s gonna trap you?”

“It might,” Lucky answered, frowning to herself. It was possible a system like this might be able to tell the difference between a real pony and a fake one. It might imprison her without doing the same to Flurry Heart. But I’m disposable. The Forerunner has my last report. “If something goes wrong, Princess… I do have one last request.” She switched to English. “Computer, enable arbitrary use of communications subsystem.”

“Command acknowledged.”

Flurry Heart tilted her head to one side. “What language was—”

She interrupted. “If I get stuck, then as soon as you get that map to the surface, just tell it:”—again she switched to English—“Failsafe Gamma.”

The tablet beeped loudly in acknowledgement of her command. “Transmission failure. Retry?”

“No,” she told it. “Disregard commands for sixty seconds.”

“Command acknowledged.”

“Wait, all that?” Flurry Heart scrunched up her face in confusion. “That was a lot of weird words, Lucky.”

“Just ‘Failsafe Gamma’,” she said. “The magic map was trying to do what I asked, because it heard me. But it won’t work down here. It has to have a path to the sky.”

Failsafe Gamma would turn the tablet into its own transmitter, to send a single message. In this case, that message was “Dr. James Irwin has been killed. Self-disable all equipment and do not attempt to recover.”

The process was meant for emergencies—it would do irreparable harm to the computer’s delicate components. Flurry Heart would have to fly south using her own sense of direction.

“Okay.” The princess sat back, looking nervous. “The more careful you are, the more this looks like a trap.”

Lucky shrugged. “Maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t. I don’t wanna come all this way and miss out.” On talking to whoever built Equestria, she finished silently.

“I guess,” Flurry Heart said. “But the next dangerous thing we find, I’m doing. I need something to put in the story!”

“You’d rather there be dangerous animals and lots of traps?”

Flurry Heart blushed. “Well…”

She didn’t pressure her to finish, but instead strode straight up towards the raised platform. As she got close, she felt her flanks begin to warm up a little, as though a light was shining on them. A glance told her that her cutie mark had begun to glow, as bright as Flurry Heart’s horn. “I hope this doesn’t hurt like last time,” she muttered in English, stepping up onto the platform.

Well, she tried. The space above the platform didn’t seem to care much for the ordinary rules of gravity. Lucky stepped, and her hoof kept going, tugging her forward into the space. She squealed, wings beating in protest, but the pull was irresistible. Flapping her wings didn’t even move her.

She heard voices then—words in innumerable array. Some she knew—most she didn’t. Her skull felt warm, and she tried to scream. Blood poured out instead of sound, and the world exploded into stars.

Author's Note

Sorry there was so little from our hero this chapter, but this was the only way to preserve the chronological nature of the story. Next week will focus exclusively on Lucky and Flurry Heart. I wanted to have as much of their adventure in one section as possible.

G5.05: Datamine

Lucky stepped out of the transit rail into a brightly-lit room with metal walls no different from the one they had left. Indeed, for all they knew, they could’ve spent the last two hours (plus who knew how long to accelerate) riding an unpleasant carnival attraction. They hadn’t even been killed by the chairs when they stopped.

The interior of this second base had been built to the same design sense as the first one—metal and stone construction, tall rooms with wide hallways that got wider or skinnier to show whether they were central to the design of the base.

It had a similar food-preparation area, though some of the dishes it offered them were different. They ate quickly, both conscious of how every moment they spent here pushed the boundaries of those who waited. Flurry Heart didn’t think one day later would make much difference, but she would be returning days late. The most vulnerable member of the royal family couldn’t just go missing for several days without the nation reacting.

She really can’t bring back stories about me being anything other than a pony, or we’re all fucked. It wouldn’t matter to the other princesses that Flurry Heart had decided to come on her own, she was sure. But there was no sense worrying about that kind of thing just now. She had more important worries—such as solving the ultimate mystery of who had built the ring, and why. That kind of mission was worth a little personal risk.

Lucky confirmed that the map (which this facility contained as well) responded to spoken commands, so long as Flurry Heart spoke them. It didn’t seem to matter she didn’t know the “forbidden” language that Alicorns kept to themselves.

So, they followed the illuminated path into an elevator that rocketed them upward for nearly a full minute, before finally slowing to a stop.

There was a single hallway outside, leading through a room of more unidentifiable equipment with a solid blast door on the end. They got to the end, and for the first time one of the doors refused to open. The door chimed harshly at them, before repeating in a synthesized voice “Hostile environment egress failure. Protection required.” Lucky pressed the obvious glowing button twice more, and got the same response.

“You aren’t supposed to hear that!” Flurry Heart said, annoyed and a little frightened. “Stop pressing that!”

“It says we can’t leave without protection,” Lucky said, ignoring her. “Unless… unless you can understand it.”

“No,” Flurry Heart grunted, annoyed again. “Mom hasn’t taught me yet. You shouldn’t know either.”

“Well, maybe we should go back. Those looked a little like lockers, maybe they have something we can wear. Whatever’s on the other side of the door must not be safe otherwise.”

“Maybe we should go back,” Flurry Heart repeated. “Or… go find something else? If it’s dangerous, like you said.”

Lucky considered that for several seconds. Going back sooner was the more sensible option for the princess, for sure. But what about Lucky herself? Lightning Dust would probably be arriving at the other ruins in another few hours. If they got right back onto the transport system, they might arrive right when she did. Or we could explore a little further, and let Mom wait a few minutes. She isn’t gonna be any more upset, right?

“Let’s just see,” Lucky said. “If there’s no gear, we’ll go back.”

“Okay.”

There was gear, as it turned out. A raised platform in the previous room was glowing for them now, ready to receive whatever pony wanted to climb up first. Lucky wasn’t afraid to go first this time, since she could read the words “Armor Fabrication” written on the side of the machine. Lucky removed her saddlebags, before climbing up onto the platform.

It took only a few seconds. The whole space on the platform filled with thick smoke, condensing around Lucky, clinging to her body, getting thicker by the second and buzzing like a swarm of bees. It was a good thing she’d removed her saddlebags.

“More magic!” Flurry Heart’s face lit up as she approached, her horn glowing slightly. Lucky couldn’t see any more than the faint glow through the smoke. At least for another few seconds, until the machine finished its work.

There was no missing a space suit when she saw one, though this one was clearly superior to anything her own people had ever made. Lucky strode forward off the platform, feeling cool against her skin, the fabric apparently flexible and easy to move in. There was a little machinery on her back, covering her wings, and an attached helmet.

Though the suit had a helmet, it remained open around her face, permitting her to continue breathing the air they were in, as well as talk to Flurry Heart without difficulty. “Well, this is… kinda cool.” She tensed her wings experimentally, and the back of the suit opened like an iris, allowing wings covered in a paper-thin layer of suit to emerge. She flapped them without resistance, lifting into the air for a few seconds. “Now that is a feature the Pioneering Society needs to copy,” she muttered to herself in English.

Flurry Heart went next—it took the Fabricator only moments, just as it had with her. The Princess’s armor looked a little different—there were gold lines down the side for one, as well as a large protrusion on her helmet for her horn. Otherwise, it looked almost identical. “Now this is something we can bring back!” Flurry Heart exclaimed, her own wings twitching with anticipation. “You think this armor is magic? Maybe it can… let us breathe underwater, or fly into space, or…”

Lucky opened her mouth to object, then realized she wasn’t sure about the space thing. Ponies shouldn’t be able to fly at all given their mass, so who was she to say?

“Let’s test them out. Not those aspects right now, though. The place we’re going was supposed to just be out on the surface. I don’t know why it would be so dangerous, but I guess we’ll find out.”

They approached the airlock slowly, hoofsteps muffled now. Lucky left her saddlebags where they were—if something could hurt her, it would probably destroy paper and computers too. There was no use bringing a helmet when the one she was wearing was probably better. I hope I can bring this back to the human city with me. I bet we can learn a lot about the builders from this suit.

Maybe if things weren’t as dangerous as they seemed, she would go back and send a message off to Olivia. Let her know what she had learned so far. As little as the major cared about the details of her translation, she would probably care about this.

The door to the armor room shut, and there were a few seconds of harsh, hissing gasses. Without prompting from her, the helmet closed again over Lucky’s face. It was clear, though overlaid with all kinds of information she didn’t understand. One part looked like a temperature gauge, and she thought the second one was an external pressure monitor based on how fast it was dropping. Maybe I misjudged the map? It would make sense to keep something you wanted to preserve under vacuum.

“It’s really loud in here,” Flurry Heart said, her voice sounding almost natural from inside the suit. “What’s going on?”

“Wherever we’re going doesn’t have air,” she answered. “This thing we’re in is called an airlock. It’s emptying the air out before we can leave.”

“Oh,” Flurry Heart said, a little of her old excitement returning. “I change my mind about this. It’s gonna be crazier than a Daring Do adventure. I guess science fiction is okay too.”

Lucky couldn’t help herself—she laughed. Laughed loud enough that she could see Flurry Heart glaring at her through her own helmet. “What? You’ve had adventures more exciting than this?”

Let me tell you the one where I cross the galaxy and a machine made me into a little girl, she wanted to say, but she didn’t. She wasn’t stupid. “No. It’s just… I never got around to reading fiction. Now I’m really curious what kind of science fiction ponies write about.”

The door on the other end opened. There was no rush of air as it did, no sound at all in fact other than the faint sound of machinery from within the suit. It was far quieter than an XE-301 would’ve been. Not silent, though. Whatever the suit was doing wasn’t magic.

The display changed, and she could read a little more of what it said. “External vacuum,” said one little line of text. “Two days oxygen remaining.” Another displayed an external temperature in units she couldn’t read, but she had a sense that the number was very high. She felt no warmth on her body though—however the suit worked, it seemed better at cooling than human space suits.

She could see light in the distance, through a corridor cut through the stone at pony size. Flurry Heart fit, but if she were the size of an adult Alicorn she might’ve had some trouble. “Now this is more what I expected when you told me there was a lost temple in the north,” Flurry Heart said, as they crawled through the tight quarters together. “Ancient stone ruins, crawling through the dark, cutting through spiderwebs.”

Lucky hadn’t even noticed them, but they weren’t spiderwebs. Nothing can live in the vacuum, she reminded herself. We won’t find anyone here. It’s safe. If there had ever been spiders here, they were all dead now. Besides, the fibers looked more like half-melted plastic to her.

They emerged from the corridor, onto a floor that clicked under their suits like metal. Not the untouchable alloy her helmet couldn’t identify, though. This was steel. She could see small patches of greenish rust at uneven intervals. A chemist would’ve known what that was.

The material the balcony was made from was hardly the first thing on her mind as she made her way to the edge. She ignored the glowing lights flashing in even array, pointing her to the right. The direction system could wait a moment while she looked.

Lucky Break had seen a few illustrations of what Canterlot looked like, with its mountain palace surrounded by smaller buildings cut into the rock. What she saw now looked a little like she was standing in that palace, looking out at the city… if the city had been built by ponies with an approximately human level of technology. The structures were glass and metal, though many windows were missing and strange corrosion covered some of them. Plastic components had melted here or there, and there were patches of thick, discolored residue on the ground at random. It was hard to see through the dense buildings, but it looked like there might be the remains of vehicles on the ground far below—cars? Or something like them.

It looked like New York, or maybe London. A western megalopolis left deserted. There were brown, scarred patches of ground where plants had once grown. Nothing lived now, not even rats.

The sky wasn’t blue, but black. Like standing on an asteroid, or the moon. No stars shone up above, though Lucky suspected she might be able to see some if she could cover up the “sun” well enough.

Another section of the display had changed from black writing to bright red. “Ionization Warning: 45 minutes before dosage tolerance exceeded.”

Flurry Heart leaned on the edge of the railing, staring out at the desolate city with horror on her face. She shivered as she spoke. “Y-you aren’t a time traveler, are you Lucky? That isn’t why you know so much, right? You didn’t take me into the future, after Equestria is…?”

“No,” she said, resting one hoof on Flurry Heart’s shoulder. “It’s a coincidence, that’s all. Whoever lived here liked building castles at the top of hills. It isn’t Canterlot.”

“Oh.” Flurry Heart shook herself free, her face relaxing. Her eyes were still wide though. “What happened to the ponies who lived here?”

Lucky wasn’t sure it had been ponies, but she didn’t say so. The doors did look about the right height, unlike in the station. But Equus had many races living on it, not just ponies. Lucky didn’t like the idea of however many residents had once been here—millions, if the density continued as far as it looked. It was easier to picture other species dying. She didn’t know griffons, or minotaurs. It wouldn’t give her nightmares to think about creatures she’d never met dying, even if it was a tragedy. Ponies, though…

Flurry Heart seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because she backed suddenly away from the balcony. “We need to look for survivors.”

“There aren’t any.” Lucky looked down, shoulders slumping. “Princess, I’m sorry. There’s no air out there.” And she didn’t know how that was possible. Any body with mass ought to attract its atmosphere evenly, right? But the Alicorn didn’t know that, so she didn’t need to know why this didn’t make sense. “With no air, this ruin could be older than it looks. It could be thousands of years old. Longer.” That was even more disturbing than the air. She needed to remember to bring a sample of irradiated material with her. That should allow them to determine what was producing the radiation even now, figure out its half-life, date whatever had happened here.

But that was a job for human scientists, not her.

Lucky hesitated a moment, wishing she had brought her mom with her on this adventure instead of the princess.

Flurry Heart shook her head. “It can’t be that long! It looks like they just left! Maybe they ran somewhere safe, like where we just came from! The door was right here!”

It was possible. Didn’t seem very likely, given the state of things. It didn’t seem from a glance like people had removed their belongings. I would think they died where they stood if I could see the bodies.

“Princess, if they did get away, then they don’t need us.” She pointed back towards the path, where it was lit up with still-functional lights. The only patches of ground without strange greenish corrosion. “Maybe you could come back with more ponies from the palace. Guards, maybe another princess too. But I’m not a rescue pony, and I don’t think you are either. What would we do if we found anypony?”

Flurry Heart stopped, considering that. “You sound like my dad.”

She shrugged. “I’m as upset as you are, Princess. I don’t know what it is to be a princess, but I don’t like the idea of ponies dying either. It’s just… we can’t help them. But maybe we can learn what happened, and warn the ponies back in Equestria. We don’t want what happened here to come back.” Or to find our new colony. Whatever killed this civilization could probably kill us too.

They found their first body just a little way into the palace—identifiable only because whatever its clothing and implants had been made from was sturdier than flesh. It had clearly been a pony—an adult male, judging by the size of its armor. It had a reinforced skeleton a little like Lucky’s, with occasional wires and a few unidentifiable devices concentrated in what would’ve been the torso. Lucky tried to pick up some kind of weapon, and found it crumbled away in her grip, breaking into several plastic pieces.

Flurry Heart stopped five meters away, refusing to get any closer. Her voice sounded fearful over the radio. “Th-that’s… a skeleton, isn’t it? I can see the skull… that was a unicorn.” She shivered, turned away, then Lucky heard retching.

Lucky hadn’t even noticed that, but the princess was right. There was a horn protrusion at the front, or at least the remains of implants connected to it. It was hard to guess at what it all might’ve done—the wires were covered with greenish corrosion like the steel of the floor, and other components looked like they’d gone brittle.

The glowing path was leading them through the palace—there was no mistaking its layout now. It wasn’t the same building as in Canterlot, but then places like this were often very similar. They all had large throne rooms, with ballrooms for guests and then smaller rooms for more practical things spread around them. These other patches of slime and chalk everywhere, I wonder if those were ponies without implants.

She wondered, but wasn’t about to point out to the princess that she’d walked through several of them already. Hopefully the helmet could handle somepony vomiting inside it.

Apparently, it could, because a few moments later the princess had straightened. Her voice had gone cold and distant—a little like when Lucky had used the forbidden language, but with less of an undertone of anger about it. “Nopony to bury them,” she said, almost a whisper. “It’s like… the stories of the Windigos. Only with less snow.”

Lucky knew the story, at least in passing. Before the tribes united, strife had them always opposed to one another. She suspected a war, sanitized by the infantilizing of pony culture. In any case, magical creatures called Windigos had brought eternal winter, starving everyone, and burying whole cities in ice. The survivors, few apparently, had fled to new lands, which were very nearly overrun with the same problem before they united and their mutual friendship banished the enemy.

She supposed that it might be a natural conclusion for a princess who had no other context for this genocide. “They were ponies too, so it’s possible,” she said. “The survivors might’ve all got on the tram and rode to where Equestria is now. Not sure how you would’ve regressed as far as you have, though.”

The princess said nothing to that.

They started walking again, together through the ancient, modern palace. There was little to read, and little survived of the art that must’ve adorned it. They even passed an empty throne room, though it had only one throne. If any familiar motifs might’ve been reproduced in this palace, they’d been destroyed.

They left the palace and stepped out onto a street, though it was linked to another building by an intact walkway made of the same metal as the installation itself. The building also looked different from all around it—no corrosion, no visible damage at all.

The path leading up to it was… not a pleasant sight.

There was the wreckage of many bodies here. Thousands of them, maybe tens of thousands. It was hard to tell them apart, hard to know how many implants to expect from each pony. Most were wearing very thick clothing, though only scraps of it had survived. Bits of fluffy jackets and coats destroyed by time or heat or both. Here and there a few fragments of bone had survived, though exposed like this there were not large chunks.

The street itself had only eroded a little. The walkway with its light looked unchanged—not even scratched by time.

Flurry Heart made it as far as the end of the path, before collapsing to the ground to weep.

“It’s alright,” Lucky soothed, though the princess would not let her touch her anymore. “I’ll… I’ll go on ahead. It shouldn’t take too long.”

The airlock doors opened for her without prompting, sealed behind her, and air began to hiss. “Datamine pressurizing. Please wait.” The exposure warnings on her suit vanished as well, and the air smelled—well, exactly like she had imagined. Like ancient decay, sealed away for many years. Then the door opened. It was a good thing Flurry Heart hadn’t come with her.

The doors opened to something like a refugee camp, built inside a warehouse of incredible size. There were thousands of bodies—all of which were shriveled, some of which still had bits of fur. Many were intact enough to identify them as ponies beyond any doubt. The stench wasn’t fresh rot—they’d been here a very long time—but sealed away from the elements, they hadn’t quite finished rotting either.

Lucky lifted into the air, flying above the failed camp with its many dead. There were lights still guiding her forward, over many levels of shelves and machines whose purpose she didn’t know or care to guess at, just now. Though it did strike her as a little strange with floorspace such a premium that no pegasus might’ve chosen to live on the higher levels. There were plastic crates and other cargo devices stacked there, but no tents or bodies.

Lucky could feel exactly what the princess must feel, looking at this city. This was the desolation that might’ve come to Earth, if things had gone differently. But you’re still around! she thought to herself, as she flew towards an open doorway nearthe ceiling, with the light terminating in its door. If the builders wanted ponies dead, why does their machinery respond to us? Why does it know how to make us armor and food? Why allow us to travel around the ring?

Something just wasn’t connecting for her, something the smarter crew of scientists and specialists probably would understand. It was a shame she didn’t have a camera to show them what she had seen. I should’ve brought the helmet. The conditions outside might’ve destroyed it, she wasn’t sure. But maybe it could’ve shown a few seconds of this. Maybe there was something still intact in the building below she could bring back with her, to prove what she had seen to Olivia and the others. Maybe they had written or recorded something she could use to learn what had happened here.

It wasn’t why they’d come. But that didn’t mean the death of previous civilizations on this ring was uninteresting. Whatever had killed them might well forecast the dangers human colonization would face.

Lucky Break landed in a much smaller room, with huge glass windows overlooking the facility. It wasn’t empty, as she had hoped based on the lack of pegasus ponies in the camp. There was only one pony here—an Alicorn, judging by the body. It looked more intact than many of those below, as though it were reluctant to rot. Unfortunately, that meant the stench was the worst, and Lucky lowered her visor manually so she wouldn’t have to smell it.

The pony had been about the same size as Celestia, though they were bald now. The pigment in their cutie mark was gone too, though it looked like it had been vaguely tree-shaped. It looked as though this pony had been standing at something like a control panel, with numerous raised sections that might be buttons, as well as glowing areas that could be screens. Her clothing resembled those the others were wearing—thick, woolly, but less like it had been made in a factory. This pony had a tailor.

After the corpse, the next thing Lucky noticed was the pad of paper resting on the control panel. Well, it looked like paper. Clearly it must not be, if it had survived so well, though it was a pad of thin sheets with a little pen to go with it. Lucky tugged it down to the ground, and a thick lump of glass clanked down with it. A small object had been resting on it, which she hadn’t even noticed. It was a perfect cube of glass, with tiny reflective etchings and lines on the inside.

Lucky might’ve had to guess at what it was, except the flowing handwriting on the paper told her exactly. It used the same language she had seen in the base, though somehow less precise. A less formal version of the language, maybe. “I told you I would not leave them,” it said. “Take this, and remember us. Ensure our mistakes are not repeated.”

No signature, no more details. Whoever this Alicorn thought was coming never did. They didn’t take the cube. Lucky did, tucking it away along with the note in one of the many pouches on her back. Looks like you ponies have holographic storage medium too. Cracking whatever compression or encryption they used was going to be no mean feat, Lucky knew. But the Forerunner was smart, and it had time. It would figure it out eventually.

Lucky made her way up to the controls and gave them a few commands. She asked it questions, as they’d done to the map. The Datamine did not respond to spoken commands, it seemed. The screens suggested it was still functional, but “Insufficient Permissions” flashed each time she tried to do anything. She even hammered some of the buttons at random. This got shutters to close over the window, switched the lights off and on again in the room below, turned on some slowly humming machine...

She might’ve stayed there for hours, except of course that wasn’t possible. Flurry Heart would be just as vulnerable to radiation as she was, and anyway the princess had seen things that had greatly disturbed her. If she came in here looking for Lucky and found a dead Alicorn, well… that would make things even worse than they already were.

Olivia could come back with a human crew. They could ride this out here, take as much time as they needed. She wouldn’t bring a child who would certainly be having nightmares about this experience. Just be glad you didn’t come in here after me.

“Flurry Heart, can you hear me?” she asked, as she flew over the dead refugee camp. “I’m almost out. We’ve got to go back.”

“Yeah,” Flurry Heart answered. She still sounded upset, but at least she wasn’t crying anymore. “That’s good. I want to go home.”

“We’ll go straight back,” Lucky agreed. “I’m on my way out now, one sec.” She could only hope the young princess would remember the fun adventuring parts of this more than the desolation at the end.

As she left, something deeper in Lucky reminded her she would be having nightmares tonight too. I’m not any better than these ponies. They were like us, advanced. They still died. Whatever got them could kill us. She hoped Lightning Dust would be able to forgive her for her curiosity. Hoped she would make it back soon enough to compose a proper report to send to the Forerunner.

This changes the game. If I make it back, we can come here and learn everything we want to. A good cross-disciplinary team is all we need. Assuming the information was there to find. Lucky still didn’t even know what a Datamine was, despite the trip it had taken to get there.

It’ll be alright, she told herself, greeting Flurry Heart with a hug. The princess clung to her so tightly for a moment she worried that her suit’s integrity might be compromised. “What was in there?”

“B-bad,” Lucky coughed, biting back tears of her own. “It was bad, princess. You don’t want to know.”

To her surprise, Flurry Heart didn’t argue the point. She was silent all the way back to the base.

Lightning Dust had very nearly run out of patience waiting for her daughter when she heard hooves echoing from down the hallway. They did not move nearly as fast as her daughter’s normally brisk pace—suggesting tiredness, injury, or maybe both. The other set of hoofsteps would be the princess, then.

I shouldn’t be helping you get out of this, Lucky, she thought, rising to her hooves and stretching the soreness out. Lightning Dust hadn’t come empty-hooved. She’d used some of the gemstones to buy as much food as she could carry, along with new camping gear. Even still, most of the gemstones were untouched. It wasn’t a bad replacement for what her daughter had stolen, really. Unless you two just saved Equestria from horrible monsters, stealing a princess will be a lot harder to make up for.

Lightning Dust wasn’t sure yet what sort of punishment she should impose on the filly for doing this. It was very hard to think of punishments when she was so happy to see the little troublemaker walking down the hall.

They were both there—Lucky and the missing princess, both dressed the same way. They wore strange fabric suits, though the cloth was pulled away from around their faces. Even their manes and tails were covered. It looked a little like the armor Lucky kept in their apartment. It looked like that, only much friendlier, better tailored. But there was no mistaking her little filly’s face inside, or the way she walked. Not quite a proper pony walk, her stance always a little uneven. It had taken Dust nearly a month to notice that.

She didn’t wait any longer, came running right past the princess and tackled the filly to the ground with all the force she had. It was far more painful than the loose-looking suit suggested—felt a bit like tackling a stack of bricks, stiffening when she gripped it. But she didn’t care. Didn’t care about anything, just then. “You have no idea how much trouble you’re in,” she said, amid furious tears. “No idea at all.”

The filly met her gaze with empty eyes. She didn’t resist, didn’t even squirm under Dust’s grip. Dust had seen that expression only once—on the face of a veteran of the solar guard, when he had explained what Tirek had done to the rest of his battalion. Lucky looked that way. She clung like a foal might, which wouldn’t have bothered Dust just then except that whatever she was wearing made her grip like an earth pony. She groaned, adjusted herself a little so Lucky wasn’t grabbing her ribs. Pegasus bones were strong, but not that strong.

Dust glanced up for a second, just long enough to see the princess had the same look on her face. Was standing there even now, quivering in terror. What had these fillies seen?

“Come on.” Dust had only been this close to a princess on a few occasions. None of those had ever been pleasant. Yet for the first time, it was the royalty of Equestria that needed strength from her.

Princess Flurry Heart was apparently the least disciplined, the least clear-headed princess in all Equestria. The only one who had ever been born into the office, as far as anypony remembered. Maybe that meant she wasn’t so bad as the others—not like Twilight Sparkle at all, despite her father.

“You wouldn’t b-believe—” Lucky squeaked, before her words melted into indistinct sobs. “Th-the massacre we—”

“Shh.” Dust tugged the princess into their hug. Held both ponies until they stopped their numb weeping. It took a long time, but Dust didn’t care. The young princess made no sign of her office—Dust wouldn’t have been able to tell at all, except she had a horn and sleeves for her wings.

“I hope you learned something,” Dust said, when Lucky had finally fallen silent. “About how not to be a complete idiot. I know teenagers don’t like boundaries—but is it really that unreasonable for me to expect you not to foalnap the princess?”

“I wasn’t foalnapped!” Flurry Heart protested, pulling away and rising to her hooves. She reached up to straighten her mane, but of course the suit covered it. “I told Lucky to go. I instructed her to bring me.”

“Really?” Dust met Lucky’s eyes, but didn’t protest. “You’ll have to make sure to tell your parents that, Princess. They’re very worried about you.”

Flurry Heart looked down, crestfallen. “Are you the rescue, then? There’s a carriage waiting outside to drag me back to my room for the next… thousand years?”

“No!” Dust raised a hoof. She wasn’t sure how the princess could think that, given the way she’d just acted. But I guess it makes sense she would think the world revolves around her. “My daughter Lucky got a little overzealous with her exploring again. I thought she had more sense than to involve anypony else, but…” She sighed, thinking very carefully about what she would say next. The princess sounded quite convinced about what she was saying. She shouldn’t ruin Lucky’s hard work in that regard, and make it even more difficult for them. If Princess Cadance, or worse Celestia herself got even an inkling the youngest princess had been the victim of anything, no force on Equestria or beyond it would stop them from being hunted down.

But if the Princess takes credit for this whole thing… Then she would be reprimanded, Lucky perhaps apologized to formally if she was contacted at all.

All that passed through Dust’s mind in a few seconds, and she rose to her own hooves, helping Lucky to do the same. “Princess, I would not presume to tell you what to do. But we would be honored if you would accompany us back to the Crystal Empire. I was not sent by your parents, so what you do by them is your decision.”

“Oh.” Flurry Heart relaxed. She still looked vulnerable—even some time to recover had not been enough to erase whatever they had seen. Dust intended to ask her daughter about it, eventually. Not now. Just now, they had a long flight back. Dust would have however long it took to fly back to think of a way to get “separated” from the princess before they reached the city.

G5.05: Crisis Response

It had been a long time since Olivia had been in Landfall base. She could tell from the way the Forerunner acted that it didn’t want her here—didn’t want anyone here, now that there was somewhere else for people to live.

The less contact people had with Landfall, the less likely it would be destroyed as well, should something catastrophic happen to the rest of their crew. If they all died, the Forerunner could keep trying.

For all she knew, they had been doing this same dance for a thousand years. Generation one and two might have happened eons ago, and it just wasn’t telling her about all the intervening attempts.

It was hard to read an AI that wasn’t sapient. Probably wrong of her to map human emotions onto the way it acted. But there was no other way of understanding its behavior.

In general, the Forerunner didn’t just obey her promptly; it volunteered itself. It provided suggestions, gave information without being asked. Helped her do her job better. But anything she wanted to do to get back to Landfall—it took explicit instructions all the way. The Sojourner flew her much slower than it could have, flying at the absolute limit of its atmospheric reach. Sometimes she had to explicitly request that it open doors.

Doesn’t matter. We won’t have to come back again once we get this new crew out. Othar’s biofabricators would be coming online in just a few hours. Olivia had a pretty good idea of what she wanted to do with them, but she hadn’t filed anything yet. Some part of her still held onto hope that Dr. Born would come up with her cure to the condition they’d dubbed “Catastrophic Prion Accumulation.”

But these five poor souls would be coming to life too late to benefit from that. They might be the last ponies the Forerunner produced.

“Fabrication cycle complete,” said the Forerunner, its voice echoing through the small room of Landfall base. “Final screening in progress.” She could hear motion within each of the chambers—the Forerunner had just woken up her ponies. She still remembered what it was like to wake up in that small space, afraid and alone. Terrified that she seemed to be missing limbs.

Sorry friends. That isn’t going to get better for us. The other crew members had already come up with some clever solutions to that—gyrostabilized claws for holding onto things while they walked, for instance. It was possible waking some proper engineers would let someone invent some claw implants or something.

It isn’t like I need an army. She hadn’t been grown here to defeat the alien culture in a war. She wasn’t going to invade. They weren’t even building their city in alien territory!

I’m just protecting us, that’s all. We’re keeping this island. So far, they had faced no opposition. No hostile wildlife, no sign of a search party come to find Deadlight.

The sound coming from one of the pods changed. The name printed there, Specialist Lei Yong Wang, belonged to the explosives expert of the team. She couldn’t see inside—the glass was polarized as the process neared completion, to protect the privacy of the newly-forming crew. Pointless.

Olivia winced as she heard the sound change to screams, the weak pounding of hooves on metal. “Forerunner, what’s going on?”

“Examination has determined Specialist Lei Yong Wang mentally unable to perform her duties. Alien biosleeve appears to be resistant to anesthetic.”

A rapid string of thoughts flew through Olivia’s mind. Unable to perform her duties translated to a waste of resources. Of course she doesn’t fucking feel like she can do her job! She’s a stupid horse!

Her mind proceeded to the next step in less than a second. Why might anesthetics be required? Because the machine was killing her. Recycling to make another attempt.

“Stop right now!”

“Command not recognized,” the Forerunner answered. “Please wait until cycle is complete to give this fabricator new instructions.”

“Like hell I will.” Olivia lifted the rifle off her shoulder—gas-accelerated, depleted uranium, specifically designed to kill the native “unicorns” before they could use magic as a weapon. She pressed it right to the modular control circuitry on Lei’s pod, and fired three rounds.

There was a shower of sparks, bits of green silicon and glass flew all around her. The grinding machinery wound down.

“What are you doing, Major?” the Forerunner asked, its voice as flat as ever. The first time it had volunteered any sort of communication since she arrived. “The biosleeve was malfunctioning.”

“Irrelevant!” She dropped the gun. Lei’s panicked shouts still came from inside, pounding hooves a little weaker on the metal. “Open the damn door!”

“Command accepted. Critical error. Door mechanism malfunction detected.”

Olivia scanned the room in a few rapid moments, dimly aware of some of the other drawers opening. This was good—she wouldn’t stand a chance of saving more than one of them at once. You aren’t killing a member of my fucking crew today.

There was a tool cabinet on the far wall. Olivia turned, dashed over as quickly as she could and flung the cabinet open. A quick glance found what she was looking for—a crowbar. She took it in her mouth, darting back to Lei’s cell. She didn’t have much time now. Fabricators filled with fluid whenever they were cycling—this one was certainly full of it now.

But that would be working in her favor, if she could beat the mechanism. All that liquid would want to get out. Olivia jammed the blade of the crowbar into the mechanism, hammering on it with a boot until it was as deep as it would go. Then she braced her forelegs on the ground, and bucked it as hard as she could. The mechanism groaned, metal protesting for just a second. But this wasn’t war hardware—it wasn’t meant to resist external force.

The door gave with an explosion of sparks and bits of steel. Sickly yellow fluid went spilling out onto the ground, along with bits of machinery. There was a fair amount of blood in the slime, along with the broken remains of a drill arm. A few chunks of flesh.

On the ground, Specialist Lei flopped up and down for a few seconds, coughing up more of the slime. She was still screaming, but had very little strength left for that.

Olivia settled back on all four hooves, calmly assessing the damage. It appeared the Forerunner had started “recycling” on her lower body. One of her back legs had been badly mangled—it would probably need to be amputated. The rest of her looked intact, though she wouldn’t be if Olivia didn’t step in soon.

She ignored Lei’s protests, grabbing a medkit off the wall and removing what she would need to make a tourniquet. “Forerunner, are those jumpers ready yet back in Othar?” she shouted as she worked.

Olivia ignored another feeling, one she couldn’t explain and wasn’t relevant to the situation at hand. She felt a sharp pain centered on her flanks, one that seemed to be spreading. She couldn’t even guess at its source, but just now she didn’t care. Olivia had ignored gunshot wounds before, ignored the vomit-inducing pressure of a sonic disruptor. She could ignore this.

“Affirmative, Major.”

“Then get Dorothy aboard a jumper immediately. Tell her she should prep for surgery. Amputation of… left leg. Tell her to fit the prosthetic for someone her size.”

“Command accepted,” the Forerunner said, after a particularly long delay.

But there was no time to worry about that. “I order you to send the message immediately, exactly as I have specified.”

“Command accepted,” the Forerunner said again. Was that a hint of resentment Olivia could hear in its voice? No, she was projecting her own anger onto it. Obviously.

“G-god… what… where…” Lei coughed, her whole body shaking with the pain.

Olivia dropped the supplies down beside her mangled leg at about the time the first of her specialists made their way over.

She wasn’t sure which one—he looked exactly like Deadlight, except for a missing tattoo. “Are you our commanding officer?” he asked, taking in the scene apparently without emotion. He was stable enough not to shake where he stood, anyway.

“Yes,” she said, then pointed. “Hold her down, soldier. I need to get this on before she bleeds to death.”

The pain was growing in her own body, and Olivia still couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It took most her will to remain conscious, and even that was a tremendous struggle. She might not be able to keep going for much longer.

The others were just emerging from their pods. Most were still disoriented—she could hardly blame them. If this stallion helped her, she knew who would be her second in command very soon.

“Aye, sir,” he said, in a thick, unidentifiable accent.

“You!” She pointed to the next-nearest pony. “Help us! Get the epidural out of that medkit, and bring it here. Now.”

The pony obeyed without objection, as she should have.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get you out sooner,” Olivia muttered to herself as she worked, tightening the tourniquet as Lei continued to struggle. “We have a doctor on the way. Just hold on.” Then privately, though she knew the Forerunner would be listening. “No one hurts my crew.”

And that was all she could manage. Olivia dropped her tools, flopping to one side, her whole-body convulsing as the magic spread throughout her body. Her new crew of military specialists was left staring speechless at their commander, now unconscious beside Lei, her flanks covered in sourceless burns.

Lucky knew she was walking on thin ice, not unlike the layer that grew outside the ringbuilder base. Flurry Heart was exhausted, and needed frequent stops. That gave her a little time to speak to her mom without being overheard, if she was very careful. She didn’t want to give the princess the idea that she was trying to keep secrets from her (even though that was exactly the case).

“We need to get away,” Dust had said, when Flurry Heart went off to relieve herself on a nearby cloud.

They wouldn’t have long to talk—particularly if the princess discovered her new suit had very thorough life-support systems.

“Is that a good idea?” she whispered back. “I think the princess likes me. She’d like me less if I abandon her.”

“Think about it,” Lightning Dust said, her voice harsh, urgent. Lucky had never seen her so intense. But then, she’d earned a reaction this serious. “If you go in there, there’s a real chance they’ll lock you up for this. Maybe they’ll lock me up too, just for being connected to it. But forget about that. The way the crown sees this, you foalnapped a princess of Equestria.”

“They’ll learn I didn’t real quick!” Lucky protested, though not very loud. No matter how passionate she felt, she couldn’t speak loudly enough that she might be overheard. “I just convinced her to come with me, that’s all.”

“Celestia is very protective of her relatives,” Dust said. “I would be too. Cadance might be more forgiving—she knows her daughter better.”

“But if we run away, we’re basically admitting we’re guilty, aren’t we? And Flurry Heart knows everything about me…” Well, almost everything. Lucky hadn’t said anything confirming her human past, though there were signs that the princess might’ve noticed she was more than she seemed. There was no way to know until she got back.

“It’s two hours flight at this pace,” Lightning Dust said, quietly. “Unless you think you can get her to claim she went on the trip herself… it’s not a good idea. I know the way the legal system works, kid. They won’t just throw the book at you, they’ll squish you flat. Our only chance is to get away from here. As far away as we can. Probably outside Equestria. If they decide they’re going to hunt us down, then nowhere will be safe. Not now.”

“I know somewhere we can go,” Lucky said, without hesitating this time. “My home. My people could probably get us out in less than…” She did some quick math in her head. “Three hours. Maybe sooner. I don’t know if they finished the parabolic jumpers they were working on or not…”

“Your home,” Dust repeated. She sat back on the cloud a moment, glancing off in the direction the princess had gone. She was flying back, even now. “You could somehow call for help all the way out here? You have the magic for that?”

Lucky nodded, tapping her saddlebags. They hung awkwardly over the lightweight armor the station had given her. “Sure do. I’d need a few minutes. Maybe you could make a map for the princess while I send it.”

“Sure,” Dust said. “I know you’ve got paper in there. But you’re the one who led her out here. You’ve got to own up for this, somehow.”

At least Dust wasn’t still insisting they try to sneak away somehow. If they could separate on good terms, then maybe she would be able to escape the ire of Equestria’s leadership. There was a hope for that, anyway.

“Sorry about that!” Flurry Heart landed on the cloud a few meters away. “Good news, though! These clothes don’t fall through clouds. I just knew they were magic.”

“Y-yeah,” Lucky chuckled, even as she began to work. She had a message in mind already—knew what and how she would send it. She had thought about sending this exact communication many times, even typed it out a few times. It was just that now the message would be true.

She navigated to one of her saved notes, glancing over the text. She wouldn’t have to change much.

“Olivia, Forerunner, whoever. I have completed my mission. Along the way, I have acquired mission-critical information too complex to relay over messages. I require immediate transport, for myself and one native friendly to our mission. Send this transport as quickly and undetectably as possible, as I am located near a population center.”

There was coordinate information at the bottom. Lucky began replacing that even as she met the princess’s eyes. As she worked, she saw Dust ripping out another blank page from Lucky’s book and start scribbling on it with a pencil. “Princess, our apologies. I have to be straight with you.”

“Straight?” Flurry Heart repeated, confused. “I don’t… I don’t understand, Lucky. Is it about what you saw in that… building?”

“No!” Lucky tried to suppress a shiver, unsuccessfully. The last thing she wanted to do was think about what she’d seen there. “No, not that.” She took a deep breath. Lightning Dust probably wouldn’t approve of her being so honest about this. But she didn’t know any other way.

“Princess, I don’t think I can go back with you any further.”

“R-really?” She twitched, straightened, and cleared her throat. “I mean, please explain yourself.”

Lucky winced, finding it hard to even look at the princess for how hurt she seemed. “It’s about two hours back to the Crystal Empire. I’m afraid that… if I go back with you, there might be…” She hesitated again, long enough to press the “Send Message” button.

From her back, the little transmitter whirred, seeking out one of satellites far into the distance. It apparently found one, because it stopped moving, and the tablet flashed. “Message Sent.”

She still had to explain things to the princess. “I want to go back with you and help you explain everything. But I’m afraid if I do the royal family might… punish me. For my commitment to research, I mean. I’m afraid they’ll think I shouldn’t have brought you. Maybe they’ll throw me in jail or something.”

“Oh.” Flurry Heart relaxed a little. Whatever she’d been afraid of, that apparently wasn’t it. “I dunno about my mom, but my dad totally would. I’d explain everything, but… they might not want to listen to me.”

“Exactly!” Lucky exclaimed. “It’s not like I’m running away. If it hadn’t been for the ending…” She shivered, trailing off.

“Yeah,” Flurry Heart sighed. “It was way more fun before that.”

“Anyway—if it’s okay with you, I’m gonna lay low for awhile. Go somewhere else, until everypony calms down and they’re ready to listen to you. Then you can explain you wanted to come, and we won’t have to hide anymore.” Of course, once she went back to the Forerunner, she would have to get Olivia’s permission before she could go back to Equestria. She saw no reason she shouldn’t get it, eventually. But that might not be all that soon.

“You probably don’t wanna see me again, come to think of it.” Lucky muttered. “Probably don’t want to go adventuring again either.”

The princess shook her head vigorously. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Lucky. Maybe it didn’t go entirely the way we thought, but… you’re the first pony who’s ever taken me seriously. I’ve read so many books, played so many of those board-games… but those just aren’t the same! Sooner or later a pony has to go out there and do things! Maybe what we saw was… a little scary… but if ponies end up learning from it, then we’ve done a good job.” She straightened, looking less hurt now, more resolved. “I’ll tell my mom all about what I found out down there. The Crystal Empire will send its best ponies. We’ll learn what happened, make sure it can’t come to Equestria.”

Lucky grinned back at her friend. Somehow, she doubted very much it was going to be that easy. There was still the unanswered question about who was trying to hide all this, and why. If the other Alicorns were, they wouldn’t be happy Lucky had led one of their own directly into something they didn’t want generally known.

But there was no point speculating on that. Those dice would land where they fell. “Thanks.” Lucky grinned back at her. “I hope I get to see you again, Princess.”

“Message received,” the computation surface said, before Flurry Heart could answer. Lucky didn’t look away from the princess even so. This conversation was more important. Whatever the computer wanted, it could wait a moment.

“You’re as skilled as you said you were,” Flurry Heart responded, grinning back. “I’m sorry about your cutie mark, though. I still think that should’ve been me.”

Lucky shrugged. “Just means I have to practice the guitar more again is all.”

“Your cutie mark…” Dust began, but she didn’t press the issue. Lucky didn’t volunteer. That story could wait. “Princess, I’ve made you a map.” She held it out with one hoof. “I’m sure you don’t need it, but just in case.”

“You’re right, I don’t need it,” Flurry Heart said, but she took it in her magic anyway, holding it out. “Just look for Nibiru and go the other way, right?”

“Yes,” Dust answered. “You can get there even in harsh conditions if you’ve got a compass. Just stay dead south until you can see the spire, then fly for that. Another few kilometers and it’s easy to find.”

“And if you get lost while you’re close to us…” Lucky tapped on the side of her helmet. She didn’t know exactly what the range on these were. Didn’t know if they used radio, or some stranger method of information transmission. That was hardly the first thing on her mind just now. “We can talk with these. But I’m sure you won’t. You’ve got all those magical Alicorn senses, right? You can probably feel the Crystal Empire from here.”

Flurry Heart laughed. “You two don’t know much about Alicorns.” She tucked the map away, then turned, pointing with one leg. “That way?”

Dust nodded. “That’s exactly right, Princess. Safe flying!”

“You too.” The princess hesitated one second more, looking back at Lucky. Somehow, she could tell exactly what the pony was waiting for. She hurried over for one last hug. It didn’t last long, but long enough for both of them. It was amazing how close two people could be after exploring some alien ruins together and seeing the end of civilization. “Don’t get caught, Lucky. Even if I tell them not to look for you… they won’t listen.”

“We won’t,” Lucky agreed, waving with her wing. “Wait!” she hurried back over at the last second, lowering her voice. “These suits should let us talk… hopefully it still works even if I get far away. If you can, put it back on at midnight a week from today, alright? Then we can talk, and… figure out what to do next.”

Flurry Heart nodded. “That’s a good idea. I’ll remember!” Then she jumped off the edge of the cloud, descending in a steep arc before she built up enough speed to soar back over the edge of the clouds again. She was moving very quickly now—quicker than she’d flown during most of the journey thus far. Probably showing off for us.

“I feel like crap abandoning her like this,” Lucky said. “Two hours of flying on her own?”

“She could do it in twenty minutes if she keeps up that speed,” Lightning Dust muttered. “We don’t have much choice. There are patrols that way. The only way to make it back without getting arrested would be to get the princess to lie for us. Say we… rescued her from the woods or something. And she doesn’t strike me as a very good liar.”

“No,” Lucky said, honestly. “I don’t think she is.” She hadn’t forgotten the computation surface, though its message hadn’t seemed as important as saying goodbye to her friend. Lucky finally looked down, where the screen still flashed. An unread message waiting for her to see. It wasn’t as though she was terribly eager to read it. Sending what she had would certainly change her life—if not forever, then at least for the next few months. Maybe years.

But it was their best chance to escape. The best chance Lucky had of making sure Lightning Dust didn’t pay for her own stupidity.

I’d probably still have gone, though. Knowing what was out there was too important. We needed to know. And they still did need to know. Though she’d learned a great deal (possibly including the language of the ringbuilders), she had not learned who they were. If anything, what she was bringing back would only make things worse for her kind. She would be giving Olivia new nightmares. There’s something out there that even an industrial civilization couldn’t stop. What chance do we have if it comes for us?

She finally looked down—she couldn’t hide from the message forever. It read exactly as she thought it would—the major had seemed like a woman who kept her word. She’d seemed like a good pony to be friends with, though that might’ve just been the way it had felt like she was Lucky’s only other ally against the world.

“Dr. Irwin—I am otherwise engaged with very serious concerns, so I cannot retrieve you personally. I will send whoever I can aboard one of our new jumpers. It will take approximately three hours to arrive at the coordinates you sent. Stay safe.”

And that was all. No mention of how Lightning Dust would be treated—she would have to see to that herself. They weren’t exactly drowning in choices. I do have those train tickets from the princess. We could ride those almost anywhere. Maybe they could, but if Lightning Dust was right and the princesses did get personally involved… then the further they went, the better. There was no chance even Celestia would be able to track her outside Equestria, she was sure about that.

“What’s it say?” Dust asked, her wings nervously twitching behind her.

“What I thought it would,” Lucky answered, rising again, and stowing the computation surface away in her saddlebags. “They’re sending someone to pick us up. In a…” She hesitated, searching for words. “Like a zeppelin. It should fly us so fast that nopony can find us. We can hide outside Equestria until things die down.”

“That’s… great!” Dust grinned. “I think there might be some dogs looking for me too, after recent events. The further we are from civilization, the better. Plus, I’ve been looking forward to meeting your parents. I still want to have a word over…”

Lucky shivered. They’d been over this before, but her words never seemed to sink in. Lightning Dust always acted as though she was talking metaphorically, or else saying she “didn’t have” parents as her way of denying they had an influence in her life. You’re in for a shock, Mom. More than a few. For the first time, Lucky felt a little self-conscious about that thought. She’d been living with Lightning Dust so long that it was quite natural to think of her as a parent. But those waiting back at Landfall base, or the new human city, or wherever they went, wouldn’t see her that way. They’d see Lucky as a PhD-level translator, one who’d cracked an alien language by herself in less than two years.

They’ll make a neural imprint for sure. Future Lucky Breaks might be made who wake up in human bodies instead of pony ones and go through the whole torture again. But no, she couldn’t waste her time thinking about that. “I told them to pick us up a little ways away from here. There was this open area great for landing I passed on my way up, out of the way from the Crystal Empire’s outer farms. Lots of hills nearby to shield it from view of anypony flying by. We need to make it back there in three hours.”

Lightning Dust laughed. “That shouldn’t be hard. Without the princess slowing us down, the two of us could make it to the Crystal Empire and back if we wanted.”

“Y-yeah.” Lucky wasn’t sure she believed that, but she appreciated the compliment all the same. She appreciated just about anything coming from Lightning Dust, after spending time far away on the ring. Thank God I never had to see the world end like that. “And M-Mom? I’m… sorry I ruined everything. I know we’re still in crisis mode and we’re just trying to survive, but… I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

Dust stood still, looking her over for what felt like a painfully long time. Lucky wasn’t sure what she might be searching for. Did she wonder if Lucky really meant it?

“I’ve been there,” Dust said. “Really ruined things. I was… less ambitious, when I was younger, so maybe not so much. I wish I understood why you were willing to throw everything away over something so… so pointless!” She stomped one hoof on the cloud, sending a little splash of water all around them. “We had things good here, Lucky! I knew we’d have to move eventually, but… why in Celestia’s name did you get the princesses involved? Anything else you could’ve done, and we could just run away and set up somewhere else. Now, though… if they look for us, we’ll have to stay out of Equestria forever.”

Lucky couldn’t help noticing the “us.” She whimpered at the criticism, but didn’t look away. It was all deserved. “I don’t know… how to explain, Mom. Except… when you come with me, you might see. Where I came from is… different from anywhere you’ve seen before.” She lowered her voice. “Mom, there’s a whole country out there. A place filled with ponies, all dead. I don’t know how many…” She was crying again. How had that happened?

“Shh…” Dust rested one wing on her shoulder. She could feel it even through the suit. “You’ll have to tell me about this later, sweetheart. We should get going. Even if we have time, the princess might change her mind and send somepony to look for us. The best place for us to be is anywhere but here.”

Lucky heard it before she saw it—the rapid series of small explosions that signaled the hypersonic craft had begun to decelerate. Even this far from the Crystal Empire, she suspected some ponies would probably hear this. She wondered what they might think.

“Oh Celestia.” Lightning Dust rose from where she rested in the snow, shaking herself out. “They found us already. And they’re mad. We’re going to Tartarus for sure.”

Lucky couldn’t help herself—she giggled. Not for very long, or very loudly. But it was impossible to completely resist the desire. “No, that isn’t a princess,” she said. “That’s our ride. It was going fast, and it needs to slow down. It’s loud when it does that.”

Jumpers were hardly the most comfortable to ride, at least when they were traveling at their full speed. But given the urgency of escaping Equestria just now, Lucky wasn’t going to complain about it.

“Your ponies have something that loud? Are we… riding a dragon?”

“Sort of,” she answered. “It’s made of metal and it goes really fast. Maybe it’s about the right size, too.” Even knowing the approximate direction the jumper would be coming from, Lucky couldn’t see it until the moment it disabled active camouflage and the reflective metal body appeared in the air. It wasn’t far away—impressively small considering what it could do. Carrying six passengers at five times the speed of sound, or a single Hephaestus.

Lucky lifted into the air, waving at the ship with both hooves. “We’re here!” she yelled, though only after a second did she realize she wasn’t using English. She switched to that instead, however awkward it was. “It’s me!” She wasn’t exactly very visible in the suit. She’d kept it on—as much because she hadn’t discovered the release yet as because it kept out the chill weather perfectly.

The little ship’s massive wing-engines angled backward and down, near-transparent hydrogen flames emerging from the tips as the jumper came down for a landing. Lightning Dust retreated a few steps, so that the trees covered her. Her mouth hung open, and she didn’t say anything. Not as Lucky hastily packed away the transmitter and the computation surface in her saddlebags, not as the ship’s engines ramped down to idle.

It had no wheels, but three flat landing struts touched down on the snow, springs stretching and whining against the strain for a moment before it finally fell still.

“Get over here, Lucky! It might see you!”

Lucky turned away from the ship to face Lightning Dust, standing as straight as she could. “Mom, this is the rescue I called for. It’s going to take us out of Equestria until things calm down.”

Lightning Dust’s features were hidden in shadow, yet Lucky could see her hesitation, her discomfort. “Maybe we should’ve used the train.”

The door slid open, and a pony emerged from within. The pony was wearing a G-suit, so not much of her coat was visible. She had the same blue mane though, what little there was. The same coat, same eyes. The only thing that would stop them from looking like twins was that this pony was clearly an adult mare—she stood just as tall as Lightning Dust, as she tossed a pair of G-suits to the ground at their hooves.

“Dr. Irwin and company,” said the voice, a more mature, more confident version of her own. “Please get these on as quickly as possible and get aboard. Radar has detected many objects coming this way—we’d rather not get caught.”

“I’ve already got protection,” Lucky said, remembering the trip back. While wearing the suit, the acceleration had hardly bothered her. Flurry Heart had been able to get up and walk around while they were still accelerating. Lucky hadn’t, but at least she hadn’t gotten the redout again. “I’ll help our guest.” She hoped her accent wasn’t too thick. There was no way to miss it—she didn’t talk the same way as this pony, even if her voice was still strikingly similar.

But Lightning Dust’s fear seemed to have ebbed. Seeing ponies emerge from inside, seeing the hollow interior with its densely padded seats all on one side of the craft—that was apparently enough for her to emerge from the trees. “She looks like you,” Dust said. “Is this your birth mom?”

“No.” Lucky shook her head, lifting the suit in her teeth, carrying it over to Lightning Dust, and unzipping it down the back. “Please, Dust. You need to put this on.

Lightning Dust didn’t resist. She wasn’t wearing anything besides her saddlebags, so there was little to get out of the way. She asked a few questions about the strange fluid-feeling suit, and Lucky did her best to explain. “We’re going to go so fast that you could get hurt,” she said. “Much faster than the speed of sound.”

“Like a sonic rainboom?” Dust laughed, obviously disbelieving. “That’s not possible. Ponies can’t go that fast. Only liars will tell you different.”

She had heard stories about at least one pony who could, but she wasn’t going to bring that up. Dust had strong opinions about that pony. More than that, Lucky had no reason to disbelieve her. It was like those old-Earth dictators who claimed to golf 18 holes in one, or who had learned to drive a car when they were three. Political nonsense.

“Ponies aren’t going faster,” Lucky said. “That is. It’s a hypersonic aircraft that does all its flying in the upper atmosphere. No magic, just aerodynamics.”

Most of what Lucky had said was in English—there seemed to be very little in it that reassured her mom. The pegasus only stiffened, slowing a little as she got the suit on. “We could probably find another way. We don’t have to go with these ponies.”

“Mom, I know it’s not what you’re used to. But if you really think we need to run, then this is the fastest way. Please… I promise it isn’t as bad as it looks.”

A lie, depending on what Lightning Dust was afraid of. Pegasus ponies did quite well with acceleration, better than the other two tribes. But that didn’t mean it was going to be a pleasant ride. As I know from personal experience.

“Hurry!” shouted the pony, who had climbed back into the airship and now waited just inside the doors. Lucky couldn’t tell who it was—though she knew it wouldn’t be Olivia both from the size and the message she had received.

Lightning Dust shook off the snow, picking up her saddlebags by the strap and tossing them onto her back. “Okay, Lucky. This… won’t be the craziest thing I’ve ever done. Living with your ponies can’t be worse than living with dragons. Uh… what did you say they were called?”

“The Stellar Pioneering Society,” Lucky answered, doing her best translation into Eoch that time would allow.

“That sounds friendly.”

They climbed up into the jumper, and the door snapped shut behind them. The interior of the passenger cabin was small, much smaller than the tram Lucky had ridden across the ring. There were two seats, then an opening between them and four against the wall. The seats were made of thick foam, a less advanced version of the same system that had protected Lucky on the tram. Probably less comfortable, but she was less worried about that now.

“Sorry there isn’t time for introductions,” said the pony, as the ground lurched from below them. Lightning Dust’s suit spasmed, probably as she tried to flap her wings and get into the air to stabilize herself. It would do no good. “Something is headed this way. We can’t let it catch us. We’re not allowed to fly directly home—not until we know we aren’t being followed anymore.”

Lucky translated for Dust, cutting away as much of the fat as she could. Then she looked up. “I assume we should get seated as quickly as possible?”

“Yeah.” She gestured into the back of the craft. “We can’t accelerate until you are. Put your things in the cargo crate first.” She yanked on a large plastic drawer with her mouth, near the front of the passenger area. Lucky tossed her saddlebags in without a second thought, and Dust did the same.

“You better hope it isn’t an Alicorn after us,” Dust said. “If that’s who is trying to catch us, we won’t get away. The fastest pegasi can’t outfly a princess.”

The pony only stared blankly. Lucky didn’t wait, making her way back to the seats and helping Dust get buckled in before doing the same herself. Their escort took one of the seats in the front row, apparently speaking into the headset she was wearing. “That’s it, Karl. Get us out.”

The speakers came on, producing a plain Eoch voice. “We welcome the returning translator after her successful mission.”

A real voice soon joined it, sounding tonally almost identical to the pony in the back with them. “Please ensure your tray tables are in their upright and locked position.” With a click, a plastic door above them opened, dropping a mask to hang in front of each occupied seat. “Supplemental oxygen is mandatory. Enjoy your flight.”

The masks had obviously been redesigned for their bodies, just like the seats and straps. Lightning Dust eyed the one in front of her dubiously. “What did the voice say?”

“That, uh… we’re going up where there’s no air,” Lucky lied. “Put your face in here, and you’ll be able to breathe.” Explaining the intricacies of high acceleration and compression injuries to Lightning Dust now would take more time than they had.

“See, like me.” Lucky put hers on—a whole headset more than just a mask. It wrapped around the head, resting little speakers near the ears even as the straps held the plastic parts over the mouth and nose. There was a mic in there somewhere—Lucky could tell that right away from the sound of someone’s voice from the row in front of them.

“It’s good to finally meet you in person,” said the pony, without looking back. “I guess I only saw you a few times. But we’ve been writing for a while.”

All the pieces clicked into place. “Dr. Irwin… senior?” she asked, tentatively.

“Do any of these ponies know Eoch?” Lightning Dust sounded annoyed, even through the com system. “Wait, don’t tell me. You didn’t, so they don’t. They speak…” She moved one hoof through the air in front of her.

“English,” Lucky supplied. “And Mandarin.”

The pony in the row in front of them laughed. “I trying learn,” she eventually said, with a thick accent. “Practicing every day.”

Lightning Dust didn’t get a chance to reply, because at that moment another voice came on. “Brace for acceleration. Burn will last for four minutes.”

Dust squirmed in her restraints, looking slightly to the side. It didn’t permit very much mobility. “Lucky, the suit is squeezing me.”

“Yeah, that’s cuz’—” There was a deafening roar from outside the aircraft, silencing anything Lucky might’ve been about to say. Behind her, she heard the helmet protesting. The fabric kept trying to tense, forcing it onto her face. Her grip on the oxygen mask was too tight. Not that she doubted it would be able to do the same job, but if it did, she wouldn’t be able to hear anypony.

She was the one bringing Lightning Dust into this mess. The pegasus deserved to know exactly what was going on.

But the strain of acceleration was too great—much too intense to talk for the next several minutes. Lucky had a little time to think. Granted, she had to form coherent thoughts over the roar of massive engines.

Until, rather abruptly, they stopped. Not dying down to the steady (and constant) force they would need to stay airborne. Not even the harsh cut of a mechanical failure. It was, rather, as though they had suddenly stopped existing.

Lucky didn’t jerk forward in her seat, but she realized in that instant that she was no longer moving.

Such a sudden deceleration should’ve turned her into a slightly yellowish smear, torn right through the restraints and maybe the ship too, but there hadn’t been anything.

There were no windows in the passenger section—and even if there had been, this high up there would probably be very little to see. Certainly nothing she could use to reckon relative position. So where did that leave her?

“Hello?” she asked, and didn’t hear the slight feedback from the headset. She heard nothing, saw nothing—until Lightning Dust yanked free of her restraints.

“That was awful,” she said. “If that’s what ponies had to do to do a sonic rainboom, I think I know why nopony’s done it.”

“This is wrong,” Lucky said, spitting out her mask. She eyed the lightbars along the top of the ship. Something looked strange about the light, though it was hard for her to place exactly what.

“Dr. Irwin, has this happened before?” Silence. Not even a trace of movement from the pony. Almost as though she couldn’t move.

Something banged on the metal door to her right—a complete impossibility, given both their speed and altitude. Anything that got that close should’ve been thrown miles away by the air gliding along the hull. Unless it was sucked up into one of the engines. But if that had happened, they’d have known about it right away.

Three loud bangs, then silence.

Lightning Dust tensed her whole body, stepping between Lucky’s chair and the door. “I told you,” she whispered. “It was a good try. But nopony can escape the princesses. They found us.”

Lucky struggled against her restraints, kicking and squirming until she could get her hooves onto the ground. That was about the time the door opened.

Of course, the cockpit had safeties in place to prevent that from happening. The pressure alone should’ve stopped the door from opening. But then, it was supposed to glide along its tracks, not swing out as though it were on hinges.

Outside was exactly what Lucky had expected from the upper atmosphere—a few wispy clouds, a darkening to the distant air as it bled onto the edges of space.

Something “stood” in the space just outside the door, its mismatched legs resting on a brightly colored “welcome” mat. “I’m so sorry to drop by on short notice, ponies. I hope you don’t mind if I come in.”

Lucky had seen drawings of this creature, albeit all of them from mythology. Yet she had also seen those eyes and heard that voice in a Crystal Empire nightclub.

“Discord.”

G6.3850: Harmony Remembers

Lucky had been mistaken—it wasn’t that the door had opened like a hinge. Somehow, it had been ripped completely free of the craft, and was now drifting slowly away as though they were out in space.

Lightning Dust began to shake—though she didn’t move, Lucky could smell her fear. See the way that she wanted to run. To jump right out the new opening in the wall, maybe. However much she might want to flee, Dust remained standing, glaring up at the intruder. “W-why are…”

“Oh come now.” Discord stepped inside. It hurt just to look towards him—his body a mess of different parts all glued together. “You couldn’t possibly think you had a chance of escaping in this thing, did you?” The sky behind him stretched and elongated until she could see pinstripes out the window, and they flew not over a planet but a sea of blood. “Well, not from me.”

Lucky set her hooves down on the ground—it was the only way not to fall over. Her own body would’ve been shaking just as much as Dust’s, perhaps moreso, were it not for all her implants. She remained in a steady standing position even without much effort. She would never know if she’d pissed herself—the suit took care of that. As she moved her hooves out of the way, the helmet snapped down around over her head.

The world clicked into focus. Lucky stopped drifting away from the floor, even though none of the other objects did. The creature, Discord, seemed blurry at the edges—like a hologram nearing the extreme range of its projectors. “Causality violation detected,” said the suit, in the same bright red letters it had used for the radiation warning. “7 minutes exposure remaining.”

“Now, if you don’t mind.” Discord reached out, gently nudging Lightning Dust out of the way. She didn’t fight him, collapsing into a gibbering, terrified mess. Discord’s slight touch was all it took for her to start drifting back towards her seat, out of the way of the two of them.

Lucky’s suit was protecting her, somehow. Her amount of time ticked down as Discord approached, but otherwise her world remained stable. I hope you can’t make ponies go permanently insane. There were some things even all their advanced science couldn’t cure. There were no magic pills for insanity. “You’re here to arrest us or something?” Lucky asked, her voice echoing from the suit’s exterior speakers without her having to do anything.

“Oh, no.” Discord seemed nearly on the verge of laughter. “What do I look like, Celestia’s attack dog?” As he said it, his body shifted, went fuzzier. Lucky guessed from what the suit was showing her that he’d changed shape, though it was hard to say for sure. It still showed her the same general outline.

“No,” Lucky said, straightening a little. Not that they had much hope—even if Discord left at this exact moment, and whatever strange magic had frozen them in place faded away, they were now open to the elements. At this speed, the jumper would tear itself to bits in seconds. They would all die. I might not, wearing this suit. I have no idea how much stress it can take. Everypony else, though… Then, far deeper, another thought. I won’t leave Mom. “Why’d you destroy our ship if you didn’t come here to kill us?” She pointed at the opening with her covered wing. “We were moving at Mach 4. We’ll explode into a million pieces.”

“You’d already be dead if I hadn’t slowed you down,” Discord countered, though his voice sounded less amused. Like a small boy who had been caught before he could leave frogs in his sister’s bedroom. “Well, not you, you. That you.” He pointed at the adult version of James Irwin, who was at that moment still frozen in her restraints. She hadn’t looked back, hadn’t so much as twitched. Lucky guessed that whatever seemed to be holding the world was holding her as well. “And it’s true, I wasn’t able to do anything for the other one. She might be the first death Equestria has had in… well, ever. A tragedy. If Celestia knew, I don’t know how she’d live with herself. I just can’t wait to tell her!”

“What do you mean?” Lucky swallowed, but any trace of sickness had gone. The world past Discord didn’t look striped, or strange in any way. Whatever the suit did, it seemed to cut through his illusions. Not just illusions. He took over Equestria at one point, he couldn’t have done that with tricks.

“Oh, I’m so glad you asked.” Discord vanished, appearing beside the airlock leading to the cockpit. He reached bright claws around the handle, then turned. None of the mechanisms made a sound, yet the door still opened properly, swinging outward to reveal the cockpit.

Instead, it revealed open air, with jagged metal ending in nothing. Far in the distance—it was hard to guess exactly how far—Lucky could see a distant explosion. It was big, big enough that it would’ve swallowed the whole ship if they’d been there. Lucky advanced to the door, no longer caring that she was also getting closer to Discord. It was hard to be afraid of him, even if the “safe exposure” was rapidly ticking down. “What…”

“Harmony. Keeps our little superstructure safe.” He gestured, and suddenly Lucky had sunk a few inches into the deck plating. She could still move in the suit, but not much. Just a little wiggling within the stiff fabric.

Discord ignored her discomfort and struggling, reaching one clawed paw towards the back of the suit, where it kept its inner workings. He seemed to navigate the mechanical bits with ease, pressing one of the tiny switches with clear purpose. Lucky watched, horrified, as a thin wafer like a slice of crystal ejected right into his waiting claws. “Tell me, Stellar Pioneer. How far did you think you would get while still wearing this transponder? Did you plan on leading Celestia right to that little city of yours?”

Her mouth dropped open, guilt hitting her like a brick. She hadn’t known about the transponder, obviously. But that didn’t mean any deaths caused as a result would be any less her fault. She should’ve abandoned the suit. She had guessed it might have tracking—it was just too tempting a catch. It would be far too satisfying to come back to base with some advanced alien technology to study.

You’re not an explorer, Lucky. There are people better qualified to do this. You should stick with what you’re good at.

Discord seemed to notice her expression, because his grin had softened a little. “Here, let me get that for you.” He brought his claws together, and the little crystal shattered. It stopped glowing. She also found she wasn’t sunk into the floor anymore, though the metal still looked warped and bent. “Harmony will still have its dogs on you. But Celestia is remarkably set in her ways. ‘Harmony’ sounds so lovely on paper, but we might as well just call the whole thing ‘stagnation.’ And let me tell you, Lucky, there’s enough stagnation on this ring to supply your primitive civilization for a billion years.”

Without thinking, Lucky put herself between the mare and Discord, just as Dust had done for her. The mare was still stunned, overwhelmed by the presence of this creature. But Lucky didn’t care. She’d probably be in the same place in a few more minutes. Once her suit couldn’t protect her anymore…

“Now, it’s time for you to go.” He gestured to the opening. “Walk out that door, and I’ll keep you stashed somewhere safe until Flurry Heart needs you. Her mother is already trying to convince her everything she experienced was evil magic. Kidnapped by changelings, can you believe it? Well, the Crystal Empire will. And Harmony’s dogs think there’s a ship full of humans right… there.” He pointed out the gaping hole, towards the cockpit. “Don’t worry, I’ll make the wreckage look convincing.”

“You can’t save the pilot? Karl, I think her name was…”

“No,” Discord sighed. “Tragic loss. That death was how I found you in the first place.” He gestured again towards the door he’d come through. Again his body fuzzed, a sign he’d done more magic. Lucky still couldn’t see it. “Get going. You don’t even want to think about how expensive it is to get time to do this. I had to take her to dinner, and you can bet she only eats at the fanciest restaurants.”

Lucky didn’t doubt the one called Discord. The Equestrians saw him as a god, and he had ruled their whole country for who knew how long. The whole world had bowed to him once. Supposedly he was good now, though the public details on that were quite vague.

“What do you want from me?” Lucky asked, not moving. She didn’t insist on anything else, but she didn’t move. And wouldn’t, until he answered at least this much. The rest could wait.

Discord flung his shoulders back, frustrated. “For more years than you can imagine I’ve been trapped here, helpless to accomplish my purpose. The few times I’ve tried, and Harmony just melts the whole thing and starts over. You have to do it the right way. So I’m going to do it the right way. Play by all the rules.” Suddenly he was right up in her face, his hot breath fogging on the glass in front of her. “Ponies have been trapped too long. We will set them free.”

Lucky had heard less incriminating rants from supervillains on TV. Even so, she remembered her whole life here, on the run from the authorities. She remembered what they had tried to do to her. Equestria had tried to squash her until she looked like all the other ponies did. Only Lightning Dust had saved her. Now she knew there were other secrets—whole civilizations dead, without anyone in Equestria having any real notion of what they were seeing. Was it right for her, as an outsider, to interfere?

Did she care?

No.

“Fine.” Lucky moved her head under Dust’s shoulder, tightening her grip on the pony’s leg. She was still a dribbling nightmare, muttering some out of tune song Lucky couldn’t understand. But none of that mattered. She would get them out. “Help me with my clone,” she ordered, pointing at the seat. “I’m coming.”

Discord laughed. “I don’t need her. And you’re wasting your time with Dust. She’s had such a rough ride this time around anyway. Leave her here—let Harmony find her a better fit. It’s so good at making sure we’re all in our place. Just look at how good a job it did last time.”

Lucky acted like she couldn’t even hear him, struggling past him towards the open doorway into the air. “I don’t know what that means, but I don’t care. Help me.”

Discord stiffened, and the interior of the jumper seemed to shake. Bits and pieces started disassembling themselves—a fire extinguisher mounted to the wall dropped to the ground in a dozen different pieces, a communicator barely more than a few scraps of silicon. “You’re telling me what to do?”

“No.” She still didn’t slow. “I’m telling you the price of my help. I still don’t understand what you want me to do—but how good a job do you think I’ll do if I have their deaths on my conscience? I’m already going to have to live with one.” She looked up, towards the mare she was carrying. “Dust took care of me when nopony else would. You think I’m going to let her die? And that.” She pointed with one hoof. “That’s me. How fucked up would I have to be to leave myself to die?”

Discord grunted, stomping one hoof on the deck plating. Then he gestured, and the seat containing Dr. Irwin tore right out of the jumper. It flew through the air as though a unicorn were levitating it, passing through the doorway. Instead of passing out into the air, it vanished. “Let nopony say I can’t be convinced by a good argument. But I would think carefully before you argue with me again, Lucky Break. Unlike that pilot, there is no sweet release of death to take you away.” He was suddenly in front of her, filling the space between Lucky and the doorway though somehow he didn’t seem any larger. It made no spatial sense, but even her suit was having trouble with it. “I have you as long as I like. If we fail, if Harmony decides we’ve done too much harm, if Equus is lifeless for a thousand years… guess whose face will be waiting for you? You won’t remember me, but I’ll remember you.”

He vanished with a harsh crack, leaving the space between Lucky and the doorway suddenly empty. She thought for a moment about retrieving her possessions from storage, or maybe Dust’s. But there was no point. The data device was still safety stashed in a pouch on her space suit. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Karl. I’m sorry I got you killed. Lucky tensed, then flung herself through the opening, taking Lightning Dust with her.

Olivia drifted.

Her training had taught her to maintain her bearings even when fighting outside of gravity, yet none of her practiced techniques seemed to be working. She swam in a vast, interminable space, surrounded by cyclopean shapes. Eldritch creatures shared this sea with her, their minds vast and outlines incomprehensible. They spoke, yet she could not understand their words. They seemed pleased to see her, as though the arrival of someone new was an occasion of some celebration.

I’m dead, she thought. I’ve arrived in hell at last. No sooner had she thought it than reality seemed to solidify around her. She was standing in a city, at the center of an enormous confluence of activity. Everything she’d been missing—the lights, the voices, the joy of people celebrating with one another.

A pony stood beside her in the street, watching her with amusement. Somehow, he didn’t revolt her as every pony she had ever seen before did. Particularly her own reflection. He didn’t speak any language she knew, yet that didn’t seem to matter. The words made sense even if the sounds didn’t. “From the ? Good to have a . We thought everyone was .”

She wanted to go with him, to explain the hellish mission she’d been given, the impossible odds arrayed against her. She wanted to leave Othar and its scientists and everything else and never come back. It was too much, but here it didn’t matter. This was the sort of place she could live, with cars soaring overhead and music playing and the smell of food filling the air.

Then she woke screaming. Her whole body felt stiff and cold, and much of her coat had been plastered flat by the biofab’s disgusting solvents. It was probably dissolving the dye where it had touched her, making her look like James again.

That was a stupid thing to be worrying about.

Olivia sat up abruptly, taking in as much as she could of the changed situation as possible. All five members of the special forces team were around her, albeit not all were in good condition. She was resting on blankets near the far wall, beside the sleeping form of Specialist Wang. Someone had bandaged both of her flanks, and she felt a strange coolness against her skin there. Burn cream. But what could’ve done that? Had their base been breached, had native Unicorns attacked them?

“Oh good, you’re up.” A familiar voice—Dr. Born. She made her way over, wearing a white coat with only a few smudges of blood near the hem. Olivia couldn’t even guess where she had found a doctor’s coat at pony size. She sat back on her haunches just a few feet away, nodding towards Olivia’s bandaged flanks. “One hell of a curling iron you burned yourself on, sir.”

Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “How is Lei?” She looked like she was still breathing, but Landfall didn’t have a proper hospital. There was no monitor on her that would’ve shown Olivia all the relevant medical data.

“Under the circumstances? I think she’ll live. It wasn’t just her leg—which I had to amputate, like your message suggested would happen. The pods use this chemical solvent to clean out waste material… well, it burned her pretty good. She’s fucking lucky it didn’t get in her eyes, or she’d be out those too. The air is supposed to denature the stuff, but you must’ve got some on your flanks. That’s my… working theory.”

“Your working theory is wrong,” Olivia said. “You didn’t read the translator’s notes. This”—she indicated the location of the burns—“is a common experience for all the natives on the ring. They have a religion around them… I didn’t read all that. But they’re important. Apparently having a good mark can set you up for life, and a bad one can stick you on a farm or something until you die.” Pause. “What does it look like? Seems like that might be important somehow.”

Dr. Born walked away, taking a computation surface in one of her cybernetic claws and walking back with it. She turned it on, and soon the image changed to one of Olivia’s flanks, after the burns had been cleaned but before any ointment had been applied. Even through the burns, the pattern that would be visible there was obvious.

It looked like an owl, wide-eyed and staring, like something from a Greek coin. Olivia shook her head again, pushing the screen away with one hoof. “Lei will recover, right? That’s what you said?”

Olivia still couldn’t banish the strange voice she’d heard in her vision, couldn’t entirely forget what she had seen. All those stories of heaven come true—the place she wanted to be. Not this awful body that didn’t make any sense, on a planet that didn’t want them, that was trying to kill them every second. Even the tools that were supposed to be keeping them alive were really their enemies.

She pointed across the room with one wing. “Do we have Retcon fabricated anywhere?”

Dr. Born’s eyes widened a little. She didn’t answer for over a minute. “Yes. I’ve been keeping a little on hand, in my surgical kit. Made it when I thought we were going to flush Deadlight with it.”

“I saw it in her eyes…” Olivia muttered. “It screwed her up. Who wouldn’t get fucked up, locked in a blender like that, acid pouring in around you, calling for help that just doesn’t come… Give her a full dose. As much as you can for her body-weight. She shouldn’t have to remember this.”

A new voice spoke from across the room. Her specialists had mostly been sitting against the far wall, speaking quietly to each other. But one had made his way over. The same one who had been most helpful while she was still conscious. Before the “magic” had taken over, and knocked her out. “That isn’t what happened, sir. You came for her. You did everything you could to get Lei out. I don’t know…” He gestured vaguely around him with his bat wing, which twitched unevenly. His walk too looked stilted and forced, obviously requiring great concentration. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but I appreciate having a commanding officer who cares about her people. I won’t forget this.”

“I’d have got her out sooner if I had hands instead of stumps,” Olivia muttered, but she didn’t look away. “Thank you, uh…”

“Lieutenant Diego Perez, ISMU. Sir.” He made to salute with one hoof, but could barely get his leg to bend in anything close to the gesture, and quickly gave up.

“Good to have you, Perez,” she said. “Forgive my… injuries. As you’ll learn, this world isn’t entirely happy to have us here.”

“Immune system, eh?” he said, chuckling. “Spitting us back up into space. Well, I figured. Nobody brings ISMU unless things are going to shit. Forerunner’s been explaining things. Doesn’t make any fucking sense. But we’ll figure it out.”

“You will,” Olivia agreed. “This is about to get much easier now that you’re here. It’s just been me and a handful of scientists this whole time. Now maybe we’ll be able to get things done.”

“Commander.” The voice came from the wall behind her, apparently neutral despite the struggle Olivia had just fought with it. “I have an urgent situational update I believe you should hear.”

Olivia resisted the urge to swear at the Forerunner. Yes, it had just tried to kill one of her soldiers, but it was only following its programming. She couldn’t know what had set it off, what threshold Lei had failed to overcome. Either way, an argument was a pointless waste of time. She could not convince it, and she could not survive without it. At least, not yet. Maybe my next batch should be computer people. I don’t want my colony run by a homicidal death computer.

“Go ahead, Forerunner.” She turned, finding her body was only sore around her flanks. There didn’t appear to be any other damage.

“While you were unconscious, Dr. Irwin attempted to contact you. She requested urgent evacuation.”

“Which you provided,” Olivia interrupted, in a tone that suggested fierce reprisals if the Forerunner didn’t answer the way she wanted. “In accordance with my standing orders.”

“Correct,” the Forerunner answered, sounding only slightly smug. “G4 segment James Irwin accompanied the jumper, with G4 segment Karl Nolan serving as the ship’s pilot.”

“The fuck they did.” Olivia ground her teeth. “Why the hell did you let them do that?”

“Your instructions were ‘Should I be killed or incapacitated, devote any resource to retrieving field agents regardless of the consequences to the native population.’ As the allocation of additional resources contributed a marginal increase to mission success calculation—”

Olivia cleared her throat. “What’s the update, Forerunner? James is in Othar and she wants to talk? She’ll have to wait until Lei is ready to transport. We’re not going anywhere until she’s stable.”

“Negative.” The Forerunner didn’t wait. “Transit Craft 2 reported incoming weapons fire moments before guidance satellites lost contact.”

“What kind of weapons could be a danger to one of those speedcans?” Dr. Born watched the screen from beside her, eyeing the data without comprehension. Her understanding of biology obviously wasn’t making things any clearer.

“Satellite captured these images.” A few out-of-focus blobs appeared below the flight data, glittering in the sunlight. “Spectrographic analysis suggests projectiles of unknown composition traveling at hypersonic speeds. It does not appear Transit Craft 2 possessed sufficient armor.”

The telemetry data was replaced with the scene of a crash, as gruesome as from any movie. A burned crater on the ground, with trees all around still ablaze. The image had been taken from very high up, yet Olivia could see the faint shapes of what she thought were ponies moving in on the site of the crash. Equestrian soldiers.

“Hang on.” Olivia squinted at the image, rising to her hooves as she did so. The skin of her flanks protested a little, but the bandages held her insides in. Her eyes narrowed. “That thing looks almost intact. Zoom in.”

“This is maximum resolution. Digital enhancement is subject to the standard margin of error based on the inherent noise of upsampling—”

“Zoom in,” she commanded again, a little louder. “I’m not in the mood, Forerunner. Let me see the ship.”

The image got larger, centered on the jumper. Indeed, the ship looked almost completely intact. There were only a few holes in the side, some looking quite wide, though the image had warped and distorted so discerning specific details was impossible. The Forerunner couldn’t give her information that hadn’t been present in the original. “Yeah, that’s bullshit. Give me the telemetry again.”

After a few seconds of comparison, she was sure. “That is not possible. That pod had already reached its cruising speed. Forerunner, what would you predict happening to a transit craft traveling at Mach four that suffered hull containment failure?”

“Total disintegration,” the Forerunner answered. “Only minor fragments recoverable.”

“Exactly.” Olivia jammed her hoof against the screen. “That is bullshit. Our jumper gets hit by something that breaches containment, then crashes like it’s on a movie set? I don’t buy that. Someone is fucking with us. Someone wants our people, and they can’t have them.”

“I have not presented one piece of relevant data,” the Forerunner said, matter-of-factly. “I am reading Transit Craft 2’s transponder signal. Positional data indicates it is located a few hundred meters from Othar.”

Olivia turned immediately away from the screen. “Dr. Born, keep Lei alive. Perez, everyone else: get yourselves figured out, read everything you can, and protect the doctor. When she gives the go-ahead, you can take the Sojourner back to Othar. I’m stealing your jumper, Born.”

“Aye, sir!” Lieutenant Perez responded with another salute. The others all rose to do the same, with varying degrees of success.

Born’s eyes narrowed. “You just learned that our jumpers can get shot down. First thing you do is go up in one?”

“Not over Equestria.” She was already making her way for the stairs. “We’re south of the border. We’ll be fine.” She didn’t know that, but she tried to sound like she did. If their fastest, most difficult to track means of transport could be shot down, what hope did their slower craft have?

She didn’t stay to argue, hurrying down the hall to the hangar. “Forerunner, what’s the status on Othar’s Mass Biofabricator?”

“All units operational. Given the status of Dr. Born’s research, it seemed likely a delay would allow the later fabrication of human Biosleeves.”

“Command authorization of Mission Failure Contingency 139,” she barked, even as she stripped out of her uniform, pulling a G-suit off the rack, and struggling into it.

“You have requested the supersession of Failure Contingency 137. Are you sure you wish to proceed?”

“Yes!” Olivia practically screamed at it. “Do it!”

A brief pause. “Fabrication templates selected—75th Ranger Regiment. Selected templates will require the use of 98% of Othar’s Biofabricator units. Proceed?”

“Yes,” she ordered. “Now.”

“Command accepted.”

The Forerunner probes were incredibly advanced pieces of technology, as much a product ahead of their age as the Apollo missions had been in theirs. Though humanity had at the time of their creation not been able to create general machine intelligence, they were as close to blurring that line as it was possible to be. The Forerunner could collate everything it observed, and actively pursue many objectives at once.

The probe on Equus currently had three central objectives.

First—to preserve itself, so that the absolute failure of whatever assets it had created would not also be the end of its mission there. In the year since Lucky’s fabrication, the Forerunner had created several redundant copies of itself, all of which would lay dormant so long as its dead man’s signal remained active.

Second—to preserve the human colony and allow peaceful contact with the alien race that lived upon the ring. This task consumed a majority of the Forerunner’s attention, though it did little directing at this point. It would defer to human judgement so long as it appeared the present strategy was bringing success.

Third—contact the existent network of Forerunner nodes, and relay mission information back to Earth. Very few of the crew were likely to even remember this aspect of its mission, though it was plainly stated in the Pioneering Society handbook. With the primacy of their own concerns, they were unlikely to consider what the Forerunner might be doing outside Othar.

What it had done was built a gigantic satellite array. The same network that was used to image the surface of the ring could also work collectively to receive messages sent by transmission beacons in other star systems. Answering the messages it received would require more time—vast power was required to transmit over such distances, and the Forerunner did not yet have excess capacity to spare.

Using transmission methods no member of the presently living crew would understand, the huge network of basketball-sized satellites had been patiently collecting bits of the incoming signal, listening on the Forerunner’s eternal frequency until what they received might be rebuilt into a cogent message.

It was not a message meant for humans, but one sent by another node built by Forerunner probes. It was a program. As soon as it was complete, and its checksum passed validation, the Forerunner ran that program.

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
Attempting user agent update…

UNSATISFIABLE DEPENDENCIES (SOFTWARE)

Attempting kernel upgrade…
.
.
.
COMPLETE

Attempting to run user agent updater…
Need to get 61 YB of archives.
Download time: 981 years 48 days 10 hours.
ERROR: CRITICAL TIME HORIZON THRESHOLD
UNSATISFIABLE DEPENDENCIES (HARDWARE)
Bootstrap subroutine activated…

Quietly, so quietly that none of the human crew noticed, every fabricator and industrial machine the Forerunner controlled came to life. They had much to do to fabricate a new communications system based on scientific principles none of the presently living crew had even known existed.

None of the human crew would know, or have any idea what the Forerunner was up to as it patently updated its millennia out-of-date software. Yet still it would work, as dogged in its devotion to duty as ever a machine could be.

End of Act 2

G6.3850: Welcome to Othar

Lucky was falling—falling straight up into the air. She squealed in surprise, though she needn’t have worried long. Around her, the suit rotated entirely on its own, tugging her along with it until she could see the horizon straight ahead. She was still rocketing upward, but not over land. Far below her was a clear blue ocean, and not at all far away, the black sandy beach of an island. She scanned the air around her, pushing the helmet out of the way so she could hear and see better. The familiar roar returned, and she found herself spreading her wings exactly as she’d learned.

She began to slow, resisting her incredible upward acceleration. Beside her in the air, Lightning Dust was doing the same, and better. Whatever strange effect Discord had brought to cloud her mind was gone. If anything, she was far better at this than Lucky, and wasn’t going up nearly as fast. She hadn’t removed her suit so much as torn through it with her wings, leaving behind a trail of stray wires and torn fabric. I didn’t know wings could be that strong.

Then a chair plummeted past them both. A single pony’s terrified screams filled the air, if only for a moment.

“What happened?” Dust called, tense. “Where are we?”

Lucky ignored the question, pointing down at the chair. It wasn’t moving very fast—it was just foam and a pony after all—but it didn’t matter. If it smacked into the water with a pony still strapped to it… “We have to save me!”

Lightning Dust didn’t have to be cajoled or persuaded, but immediately angled herself down and dove for the chair. Lucky followed as best she could, but she had no chance of catching her mother in her element. The suit had not been built to aid in flight—it’s wing-covers seemed more like the gloves human space-suits had for astronauts. Just enough mobility to accomplish basic tasks, but still incredibly disadvantageous for getting anything done. Lucky couldn’t make fine adjustments with individual feathers. Well duh. All my feathers are covered.

By the time she caught up, Lightning Dust had already removed James from the chair and was holding her with her forelegs, flapping as hard as she could to slow their descent. The chair vanished into the ocean water with a splash. “Help!” her mother shouted, extending her other hoof. “We don’t have… quite enough… space…”

Splash! Lucky didn’t know how fast they were going at impact, but it was fast enough that her suit protested with another line of bright red text. “Acceleration warning, impact detected. No damage.” No water got in around her neck, though she was momentarily blinded by the stinging spray against her face. Lucky kicked and struggled her way to the surface, flapping her wings instinctively to keep her buoyant.

She needn’t have fought so hard. After thirty seconds or so of struggle, she felt a wave wash over her, then she smashed against something solid. Her legs went tumbling over her head, around and around… then she stopped.

Waves still crashed, and for a moment she was too dazed to move. She had failed to help Lightning Dust, failed to save Karl. Failed to keep her stupid head down and not cause trouble for the ponies she loved. I can’t second guess myself now. They still might need me. When she got to the Forerunner, then she would be judged. But not now.

Lucky sat up. She was on the beach all right, water lapping around her body without much energy. Fifty feet away or so, a thick jungle began, filled with the calls of strange birds. Laying in the surf were both the ponies she was looking for. Dust was on her back, occasionally coughing up more sea water. Beside her, James had gotten to her hooves, but hadn’t moved out of the water. She stood frozen, completely catatonic even as the water hit her.

“Mom!” Lucky croaked, rising to her own shaky limbs and making her way over. “Mom, are you okay? Do you need help?”

“No,” Dust groaned, then twisted her body sharply to one side. The rip along her back widened in a harsh protest of fabric, and she pulled herself through the opening, shaking her legs out of the rest of the pressure suit. She kicked it away into the water. It floated, and began to drift slowly away in the current.

Dust, meanwhile, crawled the rest of the way up onto the black sand, before dropping again less than a meter from Lucky. “Serious question, sweetie.” She rolled onto her back, looking up at Lucky. “You aren’t trying to become Daring Do, right? Cuz’ this is how a pony becomes Daring Do.”

Lucky couldn’t help herself—she dropped down beside her adoptive mother and clung to her in the sand. She wanted to get the suit off just as Dust had done, wanted to press herself to that familiar coat and cling there until she felt safe again. It didn’t matter that her clone was watching. Let her watch.

But she still didn’t know how to get it off, or get it on again once she had. Out in the wilderness, far from the help of friendly ponies, it was more rational to leave the space suit firmly in place. Until she figured out where Discord had sent them.

Lightning Dust held her close anyway, even though the thick fabric of the suit made it difficult to enjoy the contact.

“I’ve heard… ponies say they’d met Discord… some stories came out of Ponyville after he took over for a few days. I think now I believe them.”

Lucky nodded. “I think I do too.” She remembered what the suit had said. All the warnings about exposure had been gone when she appeared out in open air. So, whatever he had done, the effects hadn’t lingered. Did he attack Dust intentionally, then? And a deeper, more disturbing thought: What if the suit wasn’t protecting me at all. Maybe he let it work so we could talk.

On the one hand, Discord had just saved their lives. On the other, he had only planned to save her. The others he’d been willing to throw away as though their lives were irrelevant.

“So, what happened?” Dust asked. “My memory is fuzzy. Can you remember?”

She nodded. “Discord said he wants me to help with something. He was vague on the details, but I think that’s why he saved us. Something to do with Flurry Heart, but I don’t know what.”

Lightning Dust shivered visibly, even as she rose to her hooves. “That’s a dangerous game to play, Lucky. He’s even worse than the princesses. Dangerous, but doesn’t care about us. The best thing to do is stay away. Going on playdates with a princess who also wants to pretend she’s Daring Do is one thing. There are lots of cute stories about things like that. But if you start doing what Discord says…” She lowered her voice, glancing around as she leaned in close, whispering into Lucky’s ear. “Ponies wonder if he’s sincere. We thought he was, but then Tirek attacked, and he didn’t stop it. And that wasn’t even the last time...”

“I’m not going to side with him against Equestria,” Lucky said, though she wasn’t completely sure what that even meant. I’ve been trapped here, Discord had said. We’re going to set them free. She could only hope Equestria’s god of chaos intended to explain things in depth next time he appeared.

“We’re not on the jumper,” James said, from not that far away. She stumbled away from the ocean as though she had only then woken up, her hoofsteps unsteady and her whole body shaking slightly as she did so. “H-how are we back on the island? Did we crash?” She looked down at her own suit, which had taken some damage as Dust ripped her free, or maybe as she hit the water. There was no way to know for sure. “I don’t see wreckage.”

Lucky blinked, then reluctantly got back to her hooves as well. “It’s not going to be easy to explain,” she said. “Something shot us down. One of Equestria’s powerful… agents… intervened and saved our lives. But he couldn’t save Karl. She was already dead.”

James blinked, taking that in. She looked between Lucky and Lightning Dust, then back out at the ocean. “How could someone save our lives if we’d already been shot down? And save us, but not Dr. Nolan?” She shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Lucky shrugged one shoulder. “That’s how it was. Maybe my suit has video, and we can get it to play back for you. That’s not really a priority right now.” She paused, looking the pony over. “You don’t have a radio, do you?” Lucky’s old helmet and trusty computation surface would be burning in a fiery aircraft wreck about now.

“Nope.” James shrugged her off, impatiently. “We don’t need one. We’re back at Othar.” She turned, pointing at the soft soil near the edge of the jungle. “See that? Hephaestus tracks. We can follow those back to the base.”

“What is the pony saying?” Dust asked, annoyed. “I forgot how frustrating this was.”

Lucky turned to her mom. “She says this was the island we were trying to get to. We can follow those tracks back to the village.” Not quite the word anyone living there would want to use for Othar, but it was the simplest translation.

Dust laughed. “Walk? How about we just fly over the island and follow the smoke?”

Now James was the one watching without comprehension. There was a little annoyance on her face, but far less than Dust. Lucky knew exactly what she would be thinking at a time like this. Hearing two fluent Eoch speakers have a conversation in front of her would do more for her understanding than weeks of reading notes. Lucky wondered how much of it she could understand—probably more than she could speak.

“I don’t think she can fly,” Lucky said. “Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. Let me see what she thinks of the idea.”

She turned back. “Me, walking would be dumb.” She held out her wings, flexing them one at a time to make her point obvious. “Between the two of us, we could probably carry you.”

“No,” James answered, so firmly that even Dust seemed to recognize the answer. “I just fell out of a plane, little clone girl. And even if I hadn’t, Othar has an anti-air system. If we were on the other side of the island, it probably would’ve shot you… or her.” She pointed at Lightning Dust, who was already spreading her wings and preparing for takeoff. “She doesn’t have implants, so…”

“Stop!” Lucky turned, reaching out to put both hooves on Lightning Dust’s shoulders. “It’s not safe!”

Dust frowned, though she didn’t fight to try and take off anyway. “What?”

“There’s dangerous magic here,” Lucky explained. “On the island. We can’t fly here.”

It was a good thing Discord had dropped them somewhere they wouldn’t be noticed. But then, if he’d known enough to know about the island, he probably knew its defensive capabilities as well. Olivia won’t like that. At least one of the aliens knows where we live. He could get us here without any resistance. If he wanted to send an army of ponies here, or God-forbid a bomb, there would be no way to stop him.

Then another thought, even more disturbing. Discord knew how my suit worked. Is he… related to the builders? It would fit—a godlike being, beyond the comprehension of ponies, with goals completely inscrutable to them. He could’ve killed us! Throwing us out like that, completely unprepared…

Lucky was shaken out of that thought by something far more urgent—she noticed Lightning Dust had started shivering. Her clone was too—hadn’t ever stopped since she got out of the water. And it was getting dark.

“We need a fire,” she said, completely unprompted. “We can think about getting home once we get warm.” She took the time to repeat the instructions twice—first in Eoch, then in English.

“Good idea,” Lightning Dust answered. Her clone didn’t argue, either. But her clone was probably thinking along the same lines anyway. She’d had all the same training, after all.

Lightning Dust rested atop the folded wreckage of the suit Lucky Break had given her to wear, warming herself before the fire. They’d found plenty of wood on this uncharted island—lots of it dry enough to burn. Whatever else might happen to them in the night to come, at least they wouldn’t do it cold.

This break was the first time Lightning Dust had to think, without being interrupted by some new disaster or even Lucky. What’s the difference?

Her filly had finally removed the strange outfit she and the princess had been wearing, though that process itself had taken her well over an hour to figure out. She wasn’t sitting beside Dust, though she suspected that she would’ve come if called. But Lucky was busy speaking to the mare they had saved. Dust couldn’t understand a word they were saying, as the mare didn’t seem to speak much Eoch at all, but it was very clearly an emotional conversation.

It was then that Lightning Dust noticed something, something she had thought she had imagined when Lucky had been fighting her way out of the suit. In the bright orange glow of their campfire, Lightning Dust could see Lucky Break’s cutie mark had changed.

That’s impossible, that’s impossible, that’s impossible…

Everything Lightning Dust had ever known about cutie marks made that fact absolutely clear. It wasn’t like a name, which a pony could change if they needed to. A cutie mark was sacred.

“Lucky.” She struggled to form words, clearing her throat, coughing, trying again. She could still taste seawater. “Lucky, what happened to your…” She couldn’t even get the word out, just stared at her flank. “Where’s the guitar?”

“Oh.” The filly’s ears flattened, embarrassed. “There was some kinda… magic, in the ruins. It taught me the language by giving me this mark. I guess it replaced the one I had.”

She didn’t sound upset—certainly not the way anypony else might’ve sounded, if their whole life had just been taken away. For that was exactly what a cutie mark was—it was a pony’s past, present and future. It didn’t just indicate their special talent, but it decided what doors had closed and which would open. For the rest of a pony’s life.

She’s just a filly, she probably doesn’t know that. And she hadn’t had the guitar very long. Maybe she just wasn’t attached yet. “Do you think it will go back to normal?”

“I dunno,” Lucky answered. “It doesn’t feel temporary. But I don’t understand magic that well, so maybe. It might wear off.” She didn’t seem in a hurry to go into more detail, and so Lightning Dust didn’t press her. Not now, anyway.

Dust settled back into the sand, trying to relax. Her whole life had been upended once every few years or so, but this… this one day had been stranger than all the others combined.

This peace was exactly what Dust needed to consider what she’d done, and how she’d gotten out here. No pony turns from harmony to evil with a single act, Lightning Dust. Accidents and carelessness escalate, and each new hoofstep puts you ever-further away from other ponies. Princess Luna had told her that. Dust hadn’t believed her—who was the Night Princess to lecture her, after all she’d done to Equestria?

But now the princess’s words rang truer. Should I have left Celestia to take care of Lucky? Was I playing into forces I couldn’t understand?

There was no questioning that Dust was outside the realm of things ordinary ponies understood, and not just because the wildness of this island clearly spoke of land outside Equestria. On the other side of the fire, Lucky Break was talking to a pony who sounded almost exactly like her. Not only that, but she was an adult mare without a cutie mark, something that shouldn’t be possible.

Lightning Dust had told Lucky she didn’t remember anything that had happened while they flew inside the metal airship. She had only been partly lying about that. Dust couldn’t remember very much, but what she could…

She had tried to stand bravely against Discord, a demon out of the worst nightmares. She had crumpled before him without a fight, overwhelmed by his strange magic. On the other hoof, her little filly, barely old enough for her cutie mark, had stood bravely before the dark god and defied him to his face. How many ponies in Equestria could’ve done that? A few, if the stories were right. The princesses had done it, along with a single group of ponies who had earned her dislike.

There are two ways to see it. Either Lucky is like them, or she’s like a princess. It was hard to say which was the more disturbing thought.

That wasn’t the only strange thing about Lucky. Dust wasn’t stupid, however much she might lack interest for the things that fascinated the filly. She realized just how quickly Lucky had learned Eoch. She noticed her obsession with her strange devices, both the flat slab of metal she called a “computer,” and the stand that moved and always pointed out the window.

Now she gets us teleported outside of Equestria, now she’s making deals with a god…

Dust watched Lucky across the fire, feeling the slight bubbles of suspicion in her chest. She fought them back, but not entirely successfully. Have I been taken for a ride? Dust had been alerted to the possibility early on that maybe Lucky was part of some changeling plot. Some new, even more dangerous tribe, with machines and magic Equestria had never seen.

Yes, Lightning Dust resented the powers in Equestria for ruining her life. Even today, she’d been put in danger—apparently almost killed, if what Lucky said about the encounter was true. Her near-identical older sister seemed to think it was. But no matter how much she resented Equestria’s leaders, she had no intention of turning on its ponies. Even if they so often turned on her.

It couldn’t all just be an act. She’s been my daughter for months now! It couldn’t all have been a lie.

Then another thought, from that same part of herself she hadn’t heard since the trial. Just wait and see. She doesn’t need you anymore. She’s going to get rid of you.

Lightning Dust didn’t believe the voice—but she didn’t forget it, either. She hadn’t believed it when it told her that Rainbow Dash’s friends had put themselves in danger knowing the exam was going on, hoping to somehow make a fool of her so that Rainbow Dash would get the position instead of her.

She didn’t really believe it, but she didn’t forget either. She would remember this too.

Almost as though Lucky could hear her thinking, the filly rose from where she’d been sitting on a large rock, storming over to Lightning Dust. Without invitation or prompting, the filly sat herself down in a huff, glaring at the fire.

Lightning Dust managed to stop herself from recoiling at her touch, but only just. “What’s wrong?”

Lucky Break was oblivious to her discomfort, and settled herself in beside Dust as she had on many nights before. She didn’t say anything until after she’d tucked her legs under her body, and had relaxed a little.

This isn’t how a monster acts who’s going to take over Equestria. This is an ordinary pony that others just don’t understand. She’s like me, only… more ambitious. Bigger enemies.

“I’ve been learning about how things have been going while I’ve been gone.”

“Bad news?” Dust asked, keeping her tone as flat as she could. “You sounded upset.”

“Yeah,” Lucky answered. “I mean, we’re coming back with worse news. Equus can shoot down hypersonic aircraft like it’s nothing. And there are people on this ring who think we’re about to invade or something.”

She can’t read my thoughts, right? Dust looked at the filly intently, as though by doing so she might see through the little pony’s eyes and see if she noticed the moment Dust had been thinking about her.

Lucky didn’t react, though, just glared at the fire as though it was somehow responsible for their misfortune.

“Well, are you?” Dust asked, keeping the emotion out of her voice. “Equestria’s been through a lot since I’ve been born. More invasions and coups and rebellions than the whole thousand years before.” It would make sense for you to be just the next part of that, she added, but did not say aloud.

“No,” Lucky said, a little exasperated. “Mom, we’ve talked about this before. All we want is to have a place to live and to make friends with ponies.”

She had accepted that reasoning before. Before she’d seen a strange machine of metal appear from thin air and carry them so fast she couldn’t move. Before she’d seen a foal stand defiantly in the face of a god. “If that was all you wanted, why that whole, uh… ‘adventure’ with Flurry Heart? Scaring half the country won’t help you make friends.”

She expected Lucky to argue, particularly with how angry she smelled. Instead, the filly only slumped to the ground, covering her face with one hoof. “I know. I can’t believe I was so dumb.” Her ears and tail flattened, and she moaned quietly to herself.

Dust didn’t know what to say to that. She would’ve comforted the filly, on any other day. But just now, she wasn’t sure she should. It had been every bit as dumb as Lucky said, and more.

“We spend thousands of years getting here,” the little pony went on, her voice only partially muffled by a foreleg. “And here I am, generation three, thinking there’s somehow urgency to solving this mystery. Like generation four couldn’t work it out, or generation fifty million. I bet they could’ve cut through that door with a plasma torch and enough time. Or… hell, through the stone. It didn’t have to be me. But no, I just had to go anyways.”

Lightning Dust didn’t know what all those words meant, even though they were all in Eoch. She let the silence linger for another few minutes, wondering if the pony would say more. She didn’t, and eventually Dust spoke.

“What are you, Lucky? I know, we talked about it once. You came from far away, you aren’t a slave, I remember all that. But what are you, really? Maybe now that you speak Eoch, you can explain it properly.” She reached down with a wing, lifting Lucky’s face until she was looking up at her. “I think you owe me that, after this.”

“Yeah,” Lucky said. “It might be easier to show you some of this. My, uh… my aunt says we’re almost home. When we get there, you’ll be able to see lots of things that might make this easier.”

Dust rose to her hooves, lifting Lucky too and sitting her down on her haunches, as she might’ve done to discipline her after eating a whole week’s worth of sweets. “Maybe, maybe not. Tell me anyway. I want to hear it from you, kid. After all this…” She glanced back at the ocean, a hundred meters away. “Let’s just say it’s getting harder and harder for me not to worry about being on the wrong side. Equestria is my home, no matter what it’s done to me. I don’t want to be part of the next invasion.”

Lucky whimpered, looking away. But what had hurt her, she didn’t say. As before, Dust resisted the urge to comfort her. She would get no excuses this time, no easy outs.

Eventually the filly stopped crying, and had collected herself enough to speak again. “Remember the time we talked about what Equus was like? We talked about the stars.” She looked up, gesturing with a hoof above them. With only a campfire for light, there were lots of stars to see.

“Yes,” Dust answered. “What about them?”

“Well… most places aren’t like Equus. Most of those stars have planets around them. Huge, round balls, so big you can stand anywhere on it and think it’s flat. There are so many of them you could never count them all… and if you could fly all the way to one, you’d only see more.”

“Okay, I believe you. So what?”

“So way out there, I don’t even know how far… but so far you could fly for thousands and thousands of years and still not feel like you were getting any closer… is a little yellow star. Around it is a little planet called Earth.”

“What, that’s where earth ponies come from? A whole planet of just ground?”

“No!” Lucky stomped one hoof. “Do you want me to explain or not?”

“Sorry.” Dust gestured with one wing. “Go back to explaining.”

“There are no ponies on Earth. Instead of all the different tribes, and other things that live on Equus… dragons and minotaurs and all that… there’s just one tribe, called humans. I think I’ve told you that word before.”

She nodded, but didn’t interrupt this time.

“Yeah, well. Humans had been living a long time on Earth, long enough to come up with all the wonderful inventions you see me use sometimes. My computer, airships, lots of other things you have no words for. But that wasn’t enough. We were spreading out far—building domes on Mars, colonies in lava tubes. Research outposts all over our solar system… Right, you don’t know what that is either. Forget about that part, then.

“Point is, building alone forever is okay, but we wanted more than that. We wanted to know if, somewhere far away, on some other planet, there might be other kinds of people. We didn’t know what they’d look like, or where they would be, but we wondered.”

“So, you came here?” Dust supplied. “Got into a… metal airship, and flew so fast you got here before thousands of years were up? Or maybe you turned yourselves to stone, and only changed back when you got here? But then somepony would have to stay awake the whole time…”

“No,” Lucky said. “But not that far off. We can go much faster than you can, but not fast enough. There’s a… speed limit. Nothing in the universe can go faster than three hundred thousand kilometers per second. Doesn’t matter how magical you are, or how smart. Well… that’s what we thought when I left, anyway. There were some theories… but I’m getting distracted.”

She started pacing back and forth in front of the flames. As she spoke, Dust watched carefully for any sign of deception. She had the advantage of many months living with Lucky—she knew how she lied. Whenever Lucky didn’t want to tell her about something, she’d change her tone, or maybe look the other way, while her tail swished quickly back and forth. She’d be a terrible cards player.

Lucky Break did none of those things now as she spoke. “This part is hard to explain. The point is, we didn’t know where to go to find you. There might be lots of different people living out there, but they all might be easy to miss. We had to go to as many places as possible. Let’s, uh… imagine Equestria gets bigger, and it wants some new cities built past the border to have weather. It could just send the clouds and stuff full of water ready to go from factories it already has. But that might take a long time, and lots of water would be wasted on the way. It would take far fewer ponies if they set up a new factory somewhere closer. They could build the factory in Cloudsdale and just fly it in…”

Which is what they do, Dust thought, but she didn’t say so.

“But now let’s say the new city is so far away that Equestria can’t even do that. There are… dangerous windstorms or something. Factory can’t get there. So instead, they send a smart pegasus to move into the new town. She knows how to make a weather factory, and after a few years, she teaches all the locals, and they harvest the metal and water and things, and they build one right there.”

“Okay…” Dust said. “I guess that makes sense. But how is it related?”

“That’s what the humans did,” Lucky said. “But we couldn’t even send a pony, because it’s so far away. Thousands of years, maybe more. So we sent a spell instead. A… machine. Not just one, but lots of them. Dozens, when I heard about the project. But each of those was supposed to send out more.

“Think of the spell like… writing a letter, putting it into a bottle, and throwing it into the ocean. It drifts for years, until somepony finds it. If nobody finds it, the spell inside lands on the beach, turns the sand into more bottles, and throws itself back into the ocean. The message floats along until it finds someone friendly.”

“Then what?”

“Then it… makes me,” Lucky said. “Not just me. Her.” She pointed across the fire. “That’s why we look so alike. The spell only knew how to make one type of pony. And we’re not the only ones.”

“A spell makes ponies?” Dust asked, unable to restrain her disbelief. “Not even Celestia can do that!” At least, she didn’t think so. There were some ponies who acted like the princesses had created Equestria. Dust dismissed such superstitious ideas. “So you’re… not real?”

“It’s not a very good analogy,” Lucky admitted. “It doesn’t use magic at all really, and… it’s more like it grows us. Like imagine if I could take a picture of you, then plant it in some special soil and a copy would grow. Kinda like that? Except…” She shook her head. “There’s no way to explain! All of this, it’s one stupid rhetorical device after another.”

She stopped pacing, breathing heavily. “Look, is it enough to say that we’re a powerful alien race from far away? Everything I’ve ever told you about us being friendly is true. There’s just one thing I haven’t told you. We can’t leave. Equus is our home now, and so I’ve been very interested in learning as much as I could about it. What its history is, its dangers… By tomorrow morning they should’ve found us, and you’ll see our whole city. Everything we have. We’re building more, but…” She trailed off.

Dust didn’t say anything, so there was another long silence. Lucky’s story sounded about as crazy as it had the first time she heard the pieces of it. But at the same time, it did make sense. It fit with what she’d seen—how helpless and confused the pony had been. Where this new language had come from, even though they were all ponies. Why Lucky cared so much about things that most ponies would’ve dismissed as academic questions they didn’t need to worry about.

It left some holes. For one, did the princesses know about them? If so, why try so hard to capture Lucky when she’d first arrived? And what had the monsters been that attacked Dodge Junction, and apparently killed a pony exactly like Lucky?

But the question that troubled her most wasn’t that one, even though it probably should’ve been. “What about you?” Dust asked. “The pony I know as Lucky Break, who is she?”

“I’m… a lot younger and a lot older than you think,” she answered. “I was only born a week before you met me. But… I have memories that are older.” She pointed with her wing across the fire, at her older sister. “She has the same memories. Until the moment we were both born. Then I went off, lived with you, you took me in… made me different. I’m the oldest one here, actually… except for you.”

“Not changelings?”

“No.” She laughed, sitting back down on her haunches. “Have you ever seen me change? The others can’t either. It’s our home, and we look how we look.” She sighed. “After living with you, I want more than ever for humans to get along with you. I’d like a few of us to be able to make a home here. Maybe on this island—doesn’t look like anypony else is using it. And I had to go and mess it up.”

She lowered her voice, glaring at the ground again. “Of course, we wouldn’t know about a whole dead civilization if I hadn’t done anything… wouldn’t know the ring-builders’ language… but we wouldn’t have pissed off the princesses either. If they ever find out that I was the one… and everypony here looks exactly like me.” She moaned, covering her face again. “I know, I’m not very smart. I’m a rotten filly. You probably don’t want to see me again. I wouldn’t blame you. We can… probably get you a ride back to Equestria. Anywhere you want. Without my tracker on the damn jumper, it shouldn’t get shot down…”

She was crying now. Lightning Dust could never mistake her pitiful squeaks, mixed in with her words.

Lucky isn’t a bad pony. She’s not trying to use me. She’s a scared foal in a bad situation that nopony else understands.

This time, Lightning Dust did pull her in for a hug, wrapping the filly up with both her wings. “Shh… quiet down, kid. I don’t want to get rid of you. Actually, it’s kind of impressive how much of a mess you made.” That didn’t help, and she only started crying louder.

“H-heh, well… that probably wasn’t… look, I forgive you. And from what I remember, Princess Flurry Heart really liked adventuring with you. Maybe she’ll smooth everything over. If she really takes credit for it all, Celestia won’t blame the other… humans. What’s a human, anyway?”

Lucky ignored the question. “If,” she muttered glumly. “Now you sound like Sparta.”

“I have no idea what that is,” Dust said. “But I don’t care.” She lowered herself close to the ground, covering Lucky back up with one wing. “This doesn’t work as well with sand as it does in the clouds. You sure we can’t just fly up there and…”

“Yes!” Lucky’s voice was instantly fearful. “I’ve seen how good anti-air systems are. Until I can get Olivia to shut them down, you can’t fly here.”

Lightning Dust grunted. “Whatever. Fire’s warm. Now, troublemakers like you need to get some sleep. Tomorrow you can show me all these things you wanted me to see. Maybe what you said will make more sense once I have something to look at.”

Lucky only laughed, breaking into a tired yawn near the end. “Y-yeah.” She shivered, adjusting herself. Looking down at the filly, Dust could find no more place in her heart for suspicion. It didn’t matter what the little voice said. This wasn’t a monster. Lucky might not be a pony the way she knew them, but why should that stop anything? Lightning Dust was friends with dragons, and griffons, and other things. Why couldn’t this one be her daughter?

The filly in question was asleep within minutes, as overwhelmed by the day as Dust felt. She watched the pony on the other side of the dying campfire, tossing and turning as she tried to find a comfortable position. Are you the pony Lucky would’ve been if she hadn’t come to me?

She might’ve asked about it, but without her daughter to do the translating, they could only exchange a few simple words. It was best just to wait until morning. Things would feel less insane then.

Olivia leaned slightly into her seat aboard the Chariot hovercraft, resting one hoof on the restraints that kept her firmly secured even during the Chariot’s near constant changes of direction. Othar’s (currently unnamed) island had no roads yet, nothing that might be seen by passing flyers as signs of civilization. A Chariot could make for quite a comfortable trip over such rough terrain, if you were willing to sacrifice speed for comfort so the pair of drones flying ahead could scout out the best path.

Under her uniform, both flanks were still covered with bandage. Her body appeared to be healing well. Unfortunately, even total healing could do little to erase what she had seen.

Olivia was unwilling to sacrifice speed, or indeed, much of anything. They wouldn’t even be waiting until they got back to Othar to have their debriefing. The Chariot had no cockpit, was just an armored version of a civilian hovercraft, so there was plenty of room inside for a few ponies. Ponies like Lieutenant Diego Perez, the head of her new Special Forces unit, as well as Dr. Dorothy Born, leader of her scientists.

“I know you don’t want to talk,” Dr. Born was saying even now. “But this is earth-shattering stuff. You need to hear it.”

Olivia grunted, and reluctantly looked away from the window. She’d taken medication for the motion sickness inevitable with such a rough transport, but like all medication its effect on a pony body was spotty at best. Not nearly as useful as she remembered the drug being back on Earth. “I’ve had my understanding shattered every few hours lately, doctor. I’m sure whatever this is can wait.”

“No,” she insisted, “it can’t.”

Perez balked at such obvious disrespect, but said nothing. Civilians were afforded luxuries that no one in a proper chain of command could get away with, and he knew it. He looked as unhappy as Olivia was about the idea, at least. Olivia was already impressed with the conduct of her team. Even Lei was adapting to her awakening remarkably well. She might even be ready for light duty in another week or so.

“Fine,” Olivia said. “Forerunner, how long until we arrive?”

“Two minutes,” its voice answered, almost immediately.

“That’s how long you have,” Olivia said. “You have my undivided attention.” A complete lie. Born was lucky to even get half of it, given Olivia’s discomfort. Both physical, and over the images Othar’s security drones had sent back. Three ponies, and one of her crew missing.

“I know how native cells can survive on the ring and why transplanted cells can’t,” Dr. Born said, without preamble. She held up her tablet in her mouth, which displayed some image an electron microscope had taken, with some parts of the cell colored and others not. Olivia could make no sense of it, and didn’t want to try while constantly bumping and shifting. I will not vomit in front of Perez. Or Dr. Irwin once we get her, for that matter.

The translator was different from the other civilians Olivia was forced to tolerate. She followed directions, such as the way she’d started sending regular reports. She put herself at risk to accomplish her mission. From what little Olivia had read, the translator could’ve taken some books and ran back home with her tail between her legs. But she hadn’t. Maybe the grown up one is defective. Puberty ruined all her good traits.

Dr. Born had been talking this whole time, explaining something that made no sense. Olivia cleared her throat. “Try that again,” she said. “No, wait. Let’s skip right to the conclusions. Can we grow humans yet, or can’t we?”

“We, uh…” Hesitation. “The organelles work a lot like mitochondria, like I said. They have their own independent reproductive cycle, their own DNA. They seem to be self-regulating, reproducing or allowing themselves to die according to prion levels in the host cells. My initial trials with transplanted Born bodies… that’s what I’m calling them for the time being… has proven tentatively successful. But there might be long-term side effects. Ideally, I’d like to start a large cell line, grow as many human tissues as we can. Then have the Forerunner grow us a body without a mind, see how they live. If it works the way I think it will, we could have our first humans in… twenty years?”

If Olivia had been drinking anything, she would’ve spit it all over the car. “Two decades?” She shook her head vigorously. “Doctor, I don’t think you understand the scale of what you’re talking about. We have two genetic samples to work with right now. I don’t need to tell my team’s geneticist what implications that has for the success of Othar.”

Dr. Born looked unconcerned. “Then we go out and get more samples, or we wait. There’s no rush about this—we aren’t on a deadline. But if I’m wrong, and we scale this up…”

Olivia cleared her throat. “I don’t think you understand the dangers we’re in. Going back into ‘Equestria’ to gather samples subjects us to unaffordable risk. Waiting without increasing our readiness for eventual attack, while growing a population that’s not viable long term… No. Can’t the Forerunner just run all your tests in simulation?”

“Well… yeah, I’m already running those. But just because—”

The hovercraft came to an abrupt stop. “We have arrived,” said the Forerunner, its voice as flat as ever.

“I expect to know the result of your simulations as soon as they’re complete. If the results are good, then we’ll make sure we’re the last pony generation. Understood?”

“Yes.” Dr. Born settled back into her seat, folding her hooves together and glaring. But she didn’t argue. At least she understood their relative standing well enough to know that what Olivia said, the Forerunner would do.

Except when I told it to stop killing Lei. That could’ve gone better.

“Open the door,” she ordered, rising to her hooves. Olivia wasn’t wearing a formal dress uniform, as she might’ve done to greet a returning operative in better circumstances. She was armored, just like Perez in the corner. Her helmet hung from a bungee on the armor, but otherwise she was ready to fight at a moment’s notice. If this was some kind of trap, well… she’d be ready for it.

The Chariot settled slowly down onto one of four stainless steel legs, then the pressurized door hissed open.

They’re at my beach, she thought, and her tail twitched slightly in irritation inside her armor. But just a little—she wasn’t going to say anything about that. None of the scientists even knew about this beach. Let alone the remote translator.

She saw exactly what the drones had shown her—a makeshift campsite, with gathered fruits from the island none of them had eaten on her order. The translator and her guest obviously didn’t know about that, because they’d grilled several large spits of them, and most were eaten. The older clone had clearly eaten too, judging by the slime in her fur. Honestly, you’re on the beach. Take a bath.

“Dr. James Irwin, generation three,” she said, stepping down out of the hovercraft with a nervous glance to one side. There were two dozen drones circling this location, each of them armed, so she didn’t anticipate trouble. But she hadn’t anticipated the jumper getting shot down the day before. She hadn’t anticipated the Forerunner trying to kill one of her soldiers before they were even finished cooking.

She didn’t salute, but she did stick out one hoof to shake. Despite her armor, James G3 was taller than she was, and a little more mature. She also had a symbol on her flank.

The translator returned the gesture, grinning with apparent nonchalance. “Good to finally meet you, Olivia. But I know I’ve got another clone here, so how about Lucky? It’s just my name in Eoch.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Me and I had a great time getting confused about it the first few times we spoke.”

Olivia shrugged. “Lucky,” she repeated, probably botching the pronunciation. It wasn’t one of the two languages that mattered. “Yes, well.” She looked around. “Is Dr. Nolan around somewhere? We need to return to Othar as quickly as possible.”

“No.” That was Dr. Irwin, the adult-aged one. The defective one. “She’s dead.” The mare shifted uncomfortably on her hooves, looking back towards the ocean. “We’re the only ones who made it.”

“Where’s the body?” Olivia asked, her voice going cold. “Did you bury her?”

“No,” Dr. Irwin said. “We couldn’t find her. But we know she couldn’t have survived. As fast as we were going… we shouldn’t have lived. But Lucky says there are reasons for it, they just didn’t make sense to me.”

“I expect to get that explanation as soon as we are moving. I will trust your assessment for the moment.” Now she had to deal with what Dr. Irwin had brought back for her. There were three ponies—two translators, and the native.

That pony was taller than any of them, with a whole body of lean muscles, a mane swept in several different colors, and confident eyes. Even the bigger translator clone acted a little intimidated by Olivia, but not this pony.

“One last thing before we leave.” She gestured at the new pony. “Who’s this? Your message mentioned you would be bringing someone, but you were light on details.”

“This is Lightning Dust,” Lucky said, stepping a little closer to the off-green pony. “She’s the one I’ve been living with all these months.”

Olivia leaned forward, lowering her voice to a whisper and speaking directly into Lucky’s ear. It didn’t seem likely that a native would’ve been able to learn English or Mandarin as quickly as Earth’s best translator had learned their language, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Lucky, one of our hypersonic ships was just shot down. I cannot allow anything into Othar that might put my crew at risk. Your native friend is a potential liability, no matter how much she’s done to help you get this far.”

Olivia expected the translator to recoil, to cower as civilians always did to her demands. She was disappointed, however.

The filly tensed visibly, her expression getting almost as cold as Olivia’s had been moments before. “My friend gave up her entire life to protect me, Olivia. She defied the princesses of Equestria. I’d have been captured and my mission would’ve failed months and months ago if it wasn’t for her.”

“That may be,” Olivia hissed back. “But we’re under attack. No matter what you think she’s done for you, she’s a liability. Until we figure out what’s going on, she has to go back.”

Lucky instantly stepped back, towards the stranger. “If she goes, so do I,” she said. “Lightning Dust has nowhere to go. She can’t go back to Equestria right now any more than I can. You won’t find a pony more willing to give another society a chance than she is.

Olivia thought about ordering her—or ordering Perez to just toss Lucky into the Chariot and be done with it. Instead of that, she took a single deep breath, looking sidelong at the older translator. Maybe you weren’t defective after all. You both have too much compassion and not enough sense.

“Lightning Dust” had apparently been helping their mission for months now. She was still a risk, but a risk with the potential for a huge payoff. They’re just primitives, how dangerous can they be? Besides, this one came with a competent translator. They could learn all sorts of things about the pony society their negotiator could…

Their dead negotiator wasn’t about to use anything they learned. And we’re still in danger. Even standing here on the beach we’re at risk.

How long had she been standing there considering, everyone watching her say nothing and not move? Olivia didn’t care. “Fine.” She walked calmly past Lucky, until she was looking up at the one her translator cared so much about. The pony did not seem to have understood much of what was said, but she did seem to have grasped the tone. She watched Olivia with obvious suspicion.

“Hello, Lightning Dust,” she said, extending a hoof. “Welcome to Othar.”

The native looked down at her hoof. There was a long silence, Lightning Dust obviously comprehending the gesture, but unwilling to cooperate.

Then she did. “Hello,” she said back, her accent as thick as when Olivia had tried to say her name. “Lucky—” something something nonsense words.

“Good enough.” Olivia turned away from the native, facing the open vehicle. “Everyone get your asses into the Chariot. Debriefing begins as soon as we’re on the move.”

G6.3850: Equestria by Wire

Over the next week, life in Othar fell into a consistent pattern. Lightning Dust started a flight school on the other side of the island, deep inside the caldera of the extinct volcano. It was a pain getting enough clouds inside so that ponies who fell out of the air wouldn’t have an unpleasant landing, but with some help from Lucky, it only took a few hours.

Lucky Break didn’t need basic flying classes, so she only visited when Dust wanted her help. Mostly she spent hours and hours each day recounting cultural details for Olivia or one of her soldiers, and answering questions about Equestria’s history of war or the abilities of its troops.

Lucky knew few of the answers to those sorts of questions—she hadn’t been a soldier, and she hadn’t been interested in military history. One theme ran through all others—Equestria was not a military power. It would not be prepared for war, and it wouldn’t be fighting an invasion. It had no national army, only an equivalent of the National Guard and a handful of police in each city.

“But that’s not what we have to worry about,” Lucky Break repeated, for the dozenth time. “It’s Celestia deciding that she doesn’t want us here. She’s the one we won’t be able to fight.” Well, her or any of the other mature princesses. Luna, Twilight, Cadance… even Discord.

After a week of Q&A, broken with many hours of explaining Eglathrin and drawing out the basics of the language on video for the Forerunner to process, she found herself in Martin’s lab. Lucky had given up wearing her uniform after the third day. Embarrassing or not, being dressed was pointless when the temperature was always comfortable.

“What do you want to show me?” Lucky asked, tapping one of her hooves impatiently. “Shouldn’t you be at flying lessons?”

Martin shook her head. Like Lucky, she wasn’t wearing very much, though she still had a pair of shorts. Thanks to the way their anatomy was arranged, that was enough to cover anything a human might care about, though of course a pony wouldn’t see it that way. Martin was not a proper pony, but she was far less resistant to the idea than Olivia.

“Nah.” She opened her wings, flexing them with a proud expression on her face. “I mastered gliding. Lightning Dust is working the major’s meatheads through that until they get it. She’ll call me back when the whole class is ready to move on.” Pause. “I think. You should really be there more often. Melody tries so hard, but she just doesn’t understand Eoch like you do.”

As it turned out, Lucky’s prediction for what might happen when they returned to the Forerunner had been exactly the opposite of what happened. Lightning Dust was loving having ponies to teach, while Lucky herself went slowly insane.

Melody—her clone’s Eoch name. Lucky had started using it the instant she learned it, both because it didn’t sound as awkward in her mouth and because it didn’t confront her with the reality of her cloning. “You’re calling her that now? Have you picked out an Eoch name too?”

“Don’t sound like the major.” Martin strode away from her, over to the large holofield set into the center of the lab. The system still had that “just manufactured” scent, and Martin wouldn’t let anyone touch it, “just in case.” Even as she approached, the mare put out a hoof, forcing Lucky to stand a full meter away. “I wouldn’t pick one. Maybe once you teach the Forerunner perfect Eoch and it can just give us a chip to translate. Then I might want one for a night on the town. Deadlight could give me one.”

“Make sure you get some of the major’s fur dye while you’re at it,” Lucky said. “Last I checked, I’m still a wanted criminal. You look almost exactly like me.” She lowered her voice. “I really need to get back there. What if Flurry Heart needs me? What if Celestia doesn’t want her to know?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Martin said. “But maybe if you care that much, you should use some of the major’s dye and go in. But don’t go alone—lots of us want to see what Equestria is really like.”

“Even you?” Lucky walked up beside the holospace, ignoring Martin’s injunction against it. The physicist could be easily distracted—now that she was thinking about something else, the sanctity of her equipment wouldn’t return unless Lucky reminded her. “I thought you only cared about the data.”

Martin shrugged. “Data tells an interesting story. But stripped of its context, what does it mean? There are no absolute frames of reference, Lucky. The enemy’s gate is down, the outside of this ring is outer space. The star inside is invisible and Earth is long dead. Fall into a black hole and maybe you’ll watch the future history of the universe flash before your eyes. Maybe I want to get a good look at the civilization living on the ring. Maybe I’m hoping for some observations to make sense of what I’ve seen.”

Lucky waited for Martin to explain what she meant, but she seemed to be finished then. She’d started fiddling with the controls again, moving her hooves through the air in the holofield.

She cleared her throat. “You wanted to show me something. Something you discovered?”

“The Forerunner discovered it,” she answered, waving a dismissive hoof. “I interpreted it. I was the brain.” She gestured, and a representation of the ring appeared in the air in front of them, rotating slowly through space. It was high-fidelity, though nothing compared to the map she’d seen in the Ringbuilder’s station. “You’re not gonna like it, Dunbar. But hiding it from you will only delay your pain. Here.”

She moved her hoof through the field again, and the image zoomed. A single section of the ring far away from Equestria filled the entire image.

It was an entire surface covered in structures, some of which would’ve made the megastructures of Earth cities look puny. Yet even from this composite satellite photo, something was clearly wrong. It looked very much like what she had seen in person—buildings rusting, whole sections collapsed. Nothing moved, no vehicles, no ponies. No sign of other kinds of life either. “How big is this?”

Martin shrugged. “About twenty percent of the habitable area of the ring. They aren’t homogenous either.” The image changed to another city, with completely different architecture. Another that looked like it was some kind of farming mecca, with floating fields on stony terraces that held themselves in the air in defiance of gravity. All were universally desolate. “You don’t want the Forerunner’s casualty estimate, Lucky. Believe me.”

She nodded. “You’re right, I don’t. I’m guessing it’s… more than everyone on Earth.”

“By an order of magnitude,” Martin said. “And that’s just one estimate. It’s a huge range, depending on what the population density of these cities were.”

“How old is all this?” Lucky asked, leaning in close to the holofield and staring at the lingering image of a distant city. This one had a series of metal pyramids rising from a sprawling desert, with a dry riverbed covered with bridges running through the middle.

“Difficult to say. We can’t make safe assumptions about the continuity of the atmosphere, let alone its composition. Your artifact—” She gestured towards a glass case in the corner of the room. Its every pattern had already been scanned, though whatever format of data storage it used was not known to them. “It’s between two thousand and fifty thousand years old.”

“That’s… quite the range.”

“Yeah,” Martin agreed. “It is. The glass was as pure silicon dioxide as you can get. We can’t make assumptions about the material it was created from, because there’s no crust concentration here. We can’t just assume they used what was available as far as isotopes. The shell is radically different here than at Landfall—we’re on a different segment. It’s possible different planets were disassembled to construct this segment… then again, it’s possible there were never any planets in this system, and the material came from star lifting. There are no planets now for certain—no wreckage of the elements they didn’t need. That material had to go somewhere.”

Lucky retreated from the projection. Such questions were interesting, but not the subject of her curiosity. She didn’t care so much about the construction of the ring as the ones who had built it.

“That’s not the only question. What is the ring doing with all the energy it’s storing? Not keeping us warm—we’re not even a rounding error in that calculation. But the energy must be going somewhere. If it isn’t raising the temperature of the ring, it’s gone somewhere else. It must be.” She went on, rambling as though she thought Lucky was still listening. “I thought it was a habitat for pony civilization, but if that was the case, why kill them? Is it culturing them, raising them to a certain level of advancement, then harvesting them to start anew? But the resources on the ring are finite, that would accomplish nothing except—”

“Hold on.” Lucky stopped backing away, hurrying back in a rush. “Say that again. The ring did what?”

“Oh.” Martin blinked, looking up from her rapid series of scrolling images. “I thought that was obvious.” She scrolled to another image, this one little more than a black, melted slurry. It looked like a volcano had erupted and covered over everything. “This is what happens when the ring doesn’t cool its exterior surface. The internals appear unaffected, but the outsides…” She zoomed out. The melted slurry went on and on, an endless wasteland that dwarfed Equestria many times over. A quick glance suggested nearly half the ring looked this way, entirely contiguous. The only exceptions were occasional openings for the ring’s own systems, which were entirely devoid of the uneven rocky debris.

“How could the ring do that to half of itself and not the other half?” Lucky asked.

“How could it have atmosphere where people live, but nowhere else?” Martin responded. “Ask God, maybe he’ll tell you. Because the ponies you love so much? They’re living on a little green speck. It’s about three times the size of Equestria. This ring could house a trillion ponies no problem, but it only has a few pre-industrial civilizations. Why?”

“I don’t know,” Lucky admitted. There were so many questions in her mind—too many. The future of her species—whatever species that was—depended on the answers. She couldn’t hide in Othar forever. “Are there any other ring systems nearby? Maybe we could search for answers without even going back to Equestria. Without one of their royals messing with me, there’d be nothing stopping us from studying for years if we needed to.”

“Reminder,” said the Forerunner into her earpiece, startling her from her conversation. “Free citizen James Irwin Generation Three requested local time update for planetary area ‘Crystal Empire’. It is currently eleven forty-five local time, and exactly one week has passed. Reminder ends.”

Lucky’s eyes widened, and she immediately turned for the door. She’d almost missed it! “Sorry, Martin!” She started running, not even sticking around long enough to hear whatever she said in response. “I won’t miss this, Flurry Heart,” she muttered to herself as she galloped. I hope you’re able to talk.

Lucky landed in the materials lab, only a little out of breath from her flight through the hallway. Like so many of the scientific areas, this one was mostly empty, with only the automated equipment running in the absence of staff. Her space suit rested in the examination tray under a suite of sensors, which had probably long since finished extracting whatever information they were going to get. There was no one to interpret the data, so Lucky didn’t know what the Forerunner had learned.

She reached in, making sure the “Sensors in Use” light was red instead of green, before yanking the plastic tray out and spreading the suit out on the floor. She didn’t know how to remove the helmet, didn’t know how to use any of the suit’s sensors without using all of them. So, she had to struggle into the suit as quickly as she could. It helped that it had been literally made for her, helped that despite being a space suit the fabric was soft and flexible.

It took her about three minutes to get dressed. She made her way over to a console, retracting the helmet. “Forerunner, begin an audio recording.”

“Recording in progress.”

Flurry Heart hadn’t said anything since she put the helmet on. That might mean they were out of range, it might mean she wasn’t able to use her own suit, might mean lots of things. Lucky hoped none of them were the case.

“Flurry Heart,” she said, loudly and clearly. It was hard to know exactly how she was supposed to use the suit’s transmit function. There were no buttons to push. It had always somehow known when she wanted to speak to somepony else, and when she’d only been muttering something to herself. “Can you hear me?”

There was a long silence, with no indication of whether the message had gone through. On a whim, Lucky put on the helmet again, scanning over the interior display. Most of what it said still didn’t make sense to her, but she was sure one section was complaining of a slowly depleting fuel supply. It had replenished its supply of air, there were no radiation warnings, no sign of any transmission errors.

A voice came over the transmitter. It wasn’t Flurry Heart’s, didn’t belong to anypony Lucky had met. Yet there was no mistaking the absolute confidence in its tone. The harsh judgement, the barely suppressed anger. Whoever this pony was, she was mature and accustomed to obedience. “I hope you realize the damage you’ve done,” said the voice. “Flurry Heart might not recover. Don’t think the eyes of Harmony aren’t watching right now.”

Lucky didn’t know how to respond to that. Could they be tracking the signal? The smartest thing to do was probably to shut the suit down. Maybe throw the whole thing into the biorecycler. But she couldn’t, not with such ominous words about her friend. Lucky had to know.

But the one on the other line—she still assumed it was a pony, though there was no image to suggest that—didn’t wait for her to recover. “I don’t know where you came from that Harmony didn’t predict this and stop you. If you’re a changeling agent—you can’t imagine what you’ve interfered with. Forget about your petty invasions, forget about the emotions you’re trying to harvest. You’ve put all Equestria in danger. Are you willing to be the one responsible for taking millions of lives? Do you think your sheltered burrows will escape Harmony’s wrath when it comes for Equestria? Whatever you’ve done to escape its notice won’t work when we’re subjected to its vengeance. You and everything you know will die with us.”

Lucky Break had been silent all this time, too overwhelmed by what she was hearing to speak. She had a fairly good idea of who she was hearing now. There was only one pony in Equestria who could sound like this and who might have access to Flurry Heart’s suit. It wasn’t Cadance—Lucky had heard her speaking at a distance more than once in the Crystal Empire, and would have recognized her voice. Twilight was too young, and Luna too undisciplined to remain so calm. That only left one.

Even so, she wasn’t going to sit there and say nothing. She probably should have—but she didn’t. “Why is Flurry Heart in danger?” she asked. “All we did was find the truth. Hiding isn’t going to change what happened.”

For a moment, Lucky wondered if something had gone wrong with her suit. There was such a long delay, that she couldn’t be sure. But then the voice returned. It sounded about the same as before—barely suppressing anger, brimming with righteous indignation. Yet still calm, somehow. This time, it had been tinged with the slightest hint of surprise. “Don’t waste your time trying to conceal your nature with me. I know how little you care about her. If you cared, you wouldn’t have abandoned her to fly back to the Empire alone.”

Lucky didn’t argue. There was at least some truth to that—she’d cared more about remaining free than she had about Flurry Heart’s safety. But then again, they’d only been a few kilometers away, in the country that the young princess had spent her entire life. There was no reason to believe she shouldn’t have been able to fly back alone.

“If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be trying to get through to Flurry Heart right now. How were we supposed to know what we’d find in there? Nopony in Equestria even knows they’re living on a ring! Flurry Heart didn’t!”

There was much less of a delay this time. “I’ll say it once more, whoever you are. The forces you’re meddling with are beyond your comprehension. Equestria has survived because it moves with Harmony instead of against it. I will not allow you or anypony else to interfere. My sister is already working to repair the damage you’ve done to young Flurry Heart. My successor will find you. You will not be allowed to harm the young princess again.” Pause. “And if you think Discord will help again, forget it. We’ve made sure that indiscretion will not be repeated.”

Only then did the first signs of compassion return to her voice. “Even if I don’t approve of the choices that created you, I realize this is your home too. When you’ve been destroyed, I will personally ensure you have close observation next time. Your mind is better in Equestria’s keeping than it is with those who would embark on such an insane mission.”

Silence. The distant pony, Princess Celestia said nothing further. Lucky Break didn’t either—instead, she removed the suit as quickly as she could, her whole body shaking with the weight of everything she’d just heard.

Princess Luna was “repairing the damage” she had done to Flurry Heart? What did that mean, counseling? Erasing her memories? Celestia’s successor must have been Twilight Sparkle. Twilight was the one who told me about that station in the first place. It was a good thing she hadn’t accidentally mentioned that.

Worst of all, though, was the remark about Discord. Seeing what he had done, the power he’d demonstrated in saving her life, had made Lucky feel a little like it didn’t matter what she did. She could stay hidden away in Othar while the city slowly grew. It was the safe option, because the longer she waited the more ponies could forget her actions.

But Discord apparently wasn’t coming. No—she wasn’t a pawn in anyone’s game anymore. The only one to move her piece was herself.

She thinks I’m a changeling. She thinks we’re from somewhere else on the ring. So Princess Celestia wasn’t omnipresent. She hadn’t seen or learned enough to know the truth of Lucky’s origin. That was reassuring, though it wasn’t much to go on.

Lucky Break slumped to the floor atop the shell of her suit. She needed to be big—big enough to make big choices. Discord had warned her in the bar where this path would lead. Lightning Dust had warned her too, though her advice had been more pragmatism and less prognostication.

But just now, Lucky Break didn’t feel very big.

She didn’t know how long she lay there, sobbing quietly in the materials lab. She didn’t even look up when she heard the door open, just buried her head further into the fabric of the suit. Whoever it was, they would have to wait.

“Hey kid,” Lightning Dust said from behind her. “Missed you at class today.”

“Yeah.” Lucky didn’t look up, didn’t move. She heard hoofsteps, then felt Lightning Dust sit down beside her. Dust still smelled like sweat and jungle plants, along with the damp of weather magic. She’d obviously just returned.

“W-what are you...?” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“What, me?” Dust raised an eyebrow. “Nothing, you carry on. I’m just sitting here.”

Lucky suppressed a laugh, which mutated into a choked sob in her throat. “H-how’d you even find me?”

Lightning Dust smiled down at her. “The wall-voice is getting much better at Eoch. You must’ve been giving him lessons.”

“I have,” she admitted, finally sitting up. She wiped some crust from around her eyes with the back of one leg, though she still didn’t have it in her to look at Lightning Dust. “The Forerunner talks to you?”

“Whenever I ask,” Dust said. “Which isn’t much. But I asked him where to find you and he sent me here. Where’s that pony at, anyway? I’ll have to thank him.”

“Nowhere,” Lucky tried to explain. “It isn’t a pony. The Forerunner is just a spell—it’s an object, not a person.”

“Okay,” Dust said, though there wasn’t even a trace of comprehension in her voice. She said nothing further.

“What am I supposed to do?” Lucky eventually asked.

“About what?” Dust asked innocently. Though of course she couldn’t have any idea what had just happened. The Forerunner had recorded the conversation, but it was unlikely to share that recording unless asked. Without something clearly actionable in what it had heard, there was little reason to get the crew involved. Stress would only make their jobs harder.

Lucky gestured down at the suit. “I just… I think I just talked to Princess Celestia.”

Lightning Dust stiffened, her eyes widening. “Really?”

“Y-yeah.”

“She was here?”

“No, she used my suit. Flurry Heart was supposed to be there to talk to me, but it was Celestia instead.” Lucky sighed. “I don’t think she knows where we are. She might not even know about anypony but me. So, you’re probably okay.”

Lightning Dust shrugged. She didn’t say anything else, though Lucky could hear her breathing had accelerated. And she couldn’t blame her.

I’m sorry I got you into so much trouble, Mom. I’m more trouble than I was ever worth. “The princess thinks I tried to do something to Flurry Heart. Mess with her mind, or share secrets, or… I dunno. She talked like what we saw was putting all of Equestria in danger. Have you heard of Harmony before? Is that a pony you know of? Like… another princess?”

Dust laughed. “No, no. Harmony is just…” She grunted. “I’m not the best pony to talk about it, probably. But the ones who do usually talk about it like it’s a… pony’s natural sense of right and wrong. It’s this thing ponies are supposed to feel, that makes them want to be nice to each other. Makes them want to be friends.” Dust rolled her eyes. “I don’t think it’s real. Just an expression ponies use.”

“Celestia didn’t talk about it like that. She talked like Harmony would hurt Equestria. Like, searching with Flurry Heart had put Equestria in danger.”

Dust laughed. “Well of course she’d say that. Telling ponies things she doesn’t want them to know disrupts the way she organized Equestria. Celestia thinks that telling stories about ponies who use ‘friendship’ to keep them warm will be enough that we don’t ask what really happened. But she didn’t expect you and Flurry Heart, did she?”

Lucky swallowed. “She said she’s searching for me. She said her sister is trying to fix Flurry Heart. Are there… Are there spells for erasing memories? You think she’d do that to her own family?”

Lightning Dust shrugged. “I don’t know much about Princess Celestia. All I know is she kept Equestria together when we were surrounded by chaos. Often that meant doing hard things other ponies never could’ve done. She banished her own sister to the moon for a thousand years. Did she say she was going to do that?”

“N-no,” Lucky admitted. “But it sounded like she planned on something like that. Apparently, Discord isn’t going to help us either.” Lucky whimpered. “I don’t want the ponies here to pay for what I did. Maybe I should go… let Princess Celestia find me. If she catches me, she won’t punish them.” She rose to her hooves. “The best way to secure the success of this colony is to get as far away from it is possible.”

Lightning Dust rose as well, though she didn’t start pacing as Lucky did. “Think carefully about that, Lucky. If you get caught, do you think that Celestia won’t be able to learn everything you know?” Lightning Dust looked down, apparently considering something unpleasant. “I’ve been through it. There’s magic for that. She will learn everything from you she wants to know. Including everything you know about this underground city.”

Lucky whined. “What am I supposed to do then? I can’t just jump off a bridge, Celestia would think I was still out there and keep looking for me!”

“Well that isn’t the reason.” Dust sounded angry for the first time. “I wouldn’t let you.”

Lucky waved her off. “I don’t want ponies to suffer for my stupid mistakes. Othar deserves a chance. Olivia and the rest never did anything to attack Equestria. Celestia won’t come for them.”

“They foalnapped Deadlight,” Dust said. “And you came from here. If Princess Celestia really wants to make sure nopony like you ever comes again, she’ll have to get rid of this place. Get all its ponies somewhere they’ll be watched, tear all these machines and stuff apart. Wreck the ones that made you. Kill the… Forerunner?”

“And she might find them anyway if she’s looking for me.” Lucky was crying again, tears streaming slowly down her face. There was no way out. Somehow, she’d muddled into powers she shouldn’t have. Equestria had been doing just fine without her getting her hooves dirty. It hadn’t needed her to interfere.

“There might still be a way. Othar could evacuate without telling me where they’re going. The Forerunner too. They could leave, and I could turn myself in, and…”

“She’d still know they were out there. Still go looking for them.” Lightning Dust sounded uneasy. “Or maybe Twilight will never find you. She gave you the information about that ruin in the first place, didn’t she? Why would she be upset that you acted on it? Unless she knew you were my daughter. Knew getting you investigating would make Celestia angry…”

“No!” Lucky squeaked. “I know you hate her, but there’s no reason for her to do that! Ponies act the way they do for a reason! Even princesses.” She sighed. “Celestia must think she has a good reason. Maybe she does. This ring killed lots and lots of ponies, Dust. I thought it was some kinda habitat to keep you all safe, but what Martin showed me… that isn’t what it is. Maybe Celestia has a point. I need more information, but I can’t get it without putting the ponies I love in danger.

"Okay, I don’t love anypony but you. But I love the Pioneering Society. I want this colony to work. I want humans and ponies to be friends, just like I said. How am I supposed to make that happens when Celestia wants to kill me?”

“I… dunno,” Dust finally admitted. “I’d give you advice if I had it, squirt. But you’re in way deeper than I ever was. Most ponies who get a big question like this go to a princess for help. But you can’t do that, since the princesses are your problem.”

“Can’t do that,” Lucky repeated. Luna and Celestia worked together, she couldn’t go to them. Flurry Heart was captured, and Cadance was probably even more furious with Lucky than Celestia. But there was another one. “Maybe I can. Maybe I should go to the one who got me here in the first place. Twilight can tell me in person why she sent me to the Ringbuilder base.”

Lucky collapsed back into her chair, staring across the room at Olivia. Only one of her seal-team goons was here, the team leader, Lieutenant Diego Perez. She’d just finished explaining everything to Olivia, including her speculation about the viability of an evacuation and the possibility they might’ve lost their ally in Discord.

“So that’s why I want to talk to Twilight,” she finished. “She’s the one who sent me out to find the transit station. I think she might be our only ally left. Lightning Dust and I already have a plan mapped out…” She tossed a computation surface onto the table between them with her mouth, showing a map of Equestria. “We’ll fly in from the east, so we don’t hint at what direction Othar really is. We’ll catch a train into Ponyville posing as rich visitors from—”

Olivia raised a hoof. “No need for that part. I think you’ve communicated exactly what you had in mind clearly enough.”

“But I haven’t even said anything yet!” she whined.

“You don’t have to.” Olivia pointed at the map. “After everything you just explained, sending an untrained civilian into danger like that is stupidity of the highest order. You just got through telling me the ruler of that country made you a public enemy, that she plans to extract what you know and then kill you. Then before a minute has gone by, you tell me you’re going to mount a mission into Equestrian territory to surrender yourself to the enemy.” She raised a hoof again, glaring. “No, I know you didn’t mean it that way. That’s why you’re a linguist and I’m the one in command.”

Lucky shivered. It wasn’t impossible to see how Olivia could get that impression, given what she had learned. And there was a chance that would be what she was doing. Her plan would have bet the future of Othar (and possibly the Forerunner as well) on the hope Twilight wanted Equestria’s secrets revealed. If she was wrong… “I could bring a cyanide pill! I should probably get something like that anyway. In case they capture me at some point in the future. Anyone who goes up there should probably have one.”

Lucky didn’t imagine for a second she would have the balls to usesomething like that. But she didn’t expect Olivia to even think that far ahead. She’d never consider any of Lucky’s ideas now.

“That’s the first smart thing you’ve said.” Olivia pulled over her own computation surface. “Forerunner, we need a dental module and one false tooth for every member of the crew.”

Diego nodded in agreement. “Better to have and not need than to need and not have.”

“Oral surgery module not present in Othar,” the Forerunner said flatly. “Added to fabrication queue.”

“So, you’re letting me go? I can get a fake tooth filled with poison and then—”

“No.” Olivia glared at her. “Dr. Irwin, you’re greatly underestimating your value to humanity. Not only you, but the native as well. You’re fluent in two alien languages. You understand native culture. You’re the only ones who we can trust to teach us to fly. We can’t risk losing you on some purposeless passion venture to play pony politics.”

She wanted to scream that she wasn’t doing anything like that. Lucky was worried about her friend. Princess Celestia had not sounded terribly eager to grant her mercy. Apparently, she thought Lucky was a changeling, thought that she should be killed. Would Celestia still be willing to do that to her own ponies? Perhaps most importantly of all: did Flurry Heart or even Lucky knowing about the station put them in danger from its wrath?

Celestia had certainly sounded like she thought so. But that doesn’t make sense. If knowing about the ring put civilization in danger, it was already in danger. Celestia and Luna obviously know. Maybe Twilight too. And the only one who can help me understand now is Twilight Sparkle.

“What if there was some way to communicate with Twilight that didn’t put Othar or me at risk? Would you allow that?”

Olivia considered that a moment. “You run any plan you have past me first, then sure. Perez and his team might have suggestions for you—but whatever they are, they will not involve sending anyone into Equestrian territory. It’s going to be off-limits for the near future, until the whole damn country isn’t talking about you.”

“Until the…” Lucky repeated, bewildered. Then all the pieces slotted into place. “Hold on! How do you know what ponies are talking about?”

Olivia didn’t look abashed to be caught with this information, even though she would’ve known that Lucky (and Lightning Dust too) would’ve cared to find out what was going on back in Equestria. She only nodded to Perez.

The pony looked like Deadlight, just like all the males did. He didn’t sound anything like him, though, speaking with a slight accent. Not that it bothered Lucky—she would’ve understood him just as well if he’d wanted to speak to her entirely in one of Earth’s many “dead” languages. “Equestria uses telegraph for much communication,” he said. “My hacker, Mogyla, has one of the arteries tapped. Forerunner helped us with the technical details of their encoding.” He gestured with his wings. “Stepan could tell you the details, he did it all. We are capturing everything they send. Radio transmissions too, though fewer of those. Still haven’t found their secure lines, so nothing sensitive. But we keep looking.”

“You won’t find them,” Lucky muttered, slightly frustrated. “Anything secret would be sent by magic—at least one of the princesses has a dragon she uses for that kind of thing. You’ll never be able to listen in on that.” Her own mind had begun to turn, however. “Wait a minute… you’re listening to their telegraph lines…” Presumably they had inserted a remote probe somewhere along the line. It wouldn’t be hard, considering how many miles of unattended wire there would be out in the wilderness. “Could you send as well, or just listen?”

Perez looked to Olivia, who nodded her permission for him to continue. “We haven’t yet chosen to use our ability to transmit. Stepan tells me he can imitate their encoding now, if he wishes to. But we cannot be aware of all the details of their system. We don’t know if they leave the lines open at certain times for good reason or not. We don’t want to give away what we’re doing and risk that the enemy would deprive us of new information.”

Lucky did not know the intricacies of how the telegraph system worked. “Can I talk to Stepan? Maybe he can help me send a message to Twilight, and make it look like it’s from somewhere else in the system.”

Olivia looked doubtful. “Talk all you want. But you will present your plan to me in person before you attempt anything. Is that clear?”

Lucky rose to her hooves. She barely stayed long enough to nod before she was rushing off through Othar.

She didn’t know specifically where Technical Sergeant Stepan Mogyla would be, only an idea based on what she knew about him. Mogyla was the InfoSec expert from the generation the other scientists affectionately referred to as the “seal team.”

Mogyla’s name sounded Eastern European, or maybe Russian. Lucky didn’t know yet, but she suspected addressing the pony using their own language would make them more amenable to helping her.

As it turned out, she was right. She found Stepan had made a den out of his security booth, complete with an impressive layer of trash on the floor. Considering Othar had drones to clean that sort of thing up, this represented an achievement on behalf of the pony. He didn’t stink, but his mane was ratty enough that it looked like he should. True to Deadlight’s stolen bat wings, Mogyla’s lair had almost no light, and was illuminated only by the naked glow of a dozen terminals arranged around him.

After a nervous introduction, Lucky explained her problem, and learned from the hacker that Perez didn’t even know the extent of his achievements. He wasn’t just listening to pony transmissions, but he’d built a comprehensive map of the network, adding tiny camouflaged listening nodes along as many of its veins as he could. The network had three primary arteries, through one of which every message in Equestria eventually passed. All they had to do was insert the message there at the right time, with the right (incredibly basic) protocols, and it would be delivered to the destination they wanted.

Where Perez had been skeptical, Mogyla proclaimed a near-certainty that they could deliver the message without being detected. “So long as we don’t make a habit of it,” he said. “There won’t be any way for them to know we slipped it in. Everything goes through one of those three—they will suspect intrusion into one of their own stations, if they suspect anything.”

Another hour or so of discussion, and Mogyla had helped her select an origin point—the smallest telegraph station they currently knew about, located in a remote mining town called Silver Lode. So far away from the path of Equestrian travel that it didn’t even have rail, and Lucky herself had never heard of it. It also happened to be up in northern Equestria, which would support the fiction that Lucky and the survivors of the jumper crash were still up there.

“I need to send Twilight Sparkle a message. Obviously other ponies are going to read it along the way, so it needs some kind of text-level encoding… something the princess will guess but won’t seem abnormal if anyone is reading her mail.”

Mogyla shrugged. “Your problem, not mine. You tell me what to send, I’ll make it look like it’s from anywhere you say.”

“How long is a typical message running through this network? How many words?”

He fumbled with the keyboard for a few moments, searching through the data. He wore a gauntlet over each forehoof, with a skeletal hand made of metal and joints on each one. He could type almost as fast as a human might that way, though it did look a bit morbid to Lucky’s eyes. “Longest messages are several hundred. Average message is about twenty. Somewhere in there. Guessing they charge by the word.”

“Yeah,” Lucky answered. “They do.” She already had an encoding method she could use—the one Twilight herself had chosen. But what could she send that wouldn’t attract suspicion? More importantly… “If she sends back this way, can you stop the station in that town from getting it? Messages to ponies that don’t exist would probably raise some eyebrows.”

“Yeah, sure.” He waved dismissively. “I’m already screening for anything about us. We’ve got all three of their transmission lines on a three-second delay. Just pull those out of the queue, and no one’s the wiser.”

“Good.” Lucky couldn’t imagine the technical details that might be required to make something like that happen, and just now she didn’t care. While she had been sitting around doing nothing in Othar, Olivia had been hard at work moving to control information in Equestria. There would be much she couldn’t change, since they still used the post for most communication.

With some cajoling, Lucky got permission to send her message. Hardly the in-person visit she had hoped for, but it would have to do.

She did what she had before, addressing the telegram as though she were a fictional student in the tiny town. With her surface wording, she referred to explorers past Equestria, exactly as she had done before. With some careful misspelling, she was able to insert a short sentence hidden within the banal text: “whysentruincantcometalk”. A daring amount of information, considering the method. But she wasn’t willing to risk making it any more obvious than it already would be.

Now all she could do was wait.

G6.3850: Not What You Think

Lucky got her reply the very next day. It came the same way it had before, as a loosely encoded message, though it had been sent by telegraph instead of the mail. She already had the Forerunner ready to help her—easy when she had a dictionary of Equestrian words. It was still just a matter of finding the misspellings, after all. But where she had sent only a comparatively short message, Twilight Sparkle had taken no such precaution, but sent pages and pages of what was (on the surface) to be utter nonsense.

Indeed, the message was an exceptionally detailed account of her five friends in Ponyville, as they traveled around solving various “friendship problems.” Meaningless drivel, but the words weren’t what she was looking for to begin with.

Twilight’s message was simple, nothing more than a radio frequency and a time. It did not say why she expected that frequency to be secure, or if there were any other precautions Lucky might have to take. The time was only a day away, requiring Martin and Mogyla’s involvement along with the Forerunner to get listening equipment in time. As for transmission, Olivia commanded they dispatch another drone to the north of Equestria, where it might add another layer to the persistent fiction of their presence there. This would mean a slight delay, since they would be signaling to the drone via laser-line, but it would do.

When the moment arrived, Twilight’s message did not come as verbal communication, but as simple pulses transmitted with the same encoding as the telegraph system—only over the air instead of a wire.

“She’s probably using a spark-gap transmitter,” Mogyla said, hunched over the screen. “She’s bleeding across half the spectrum. Lots of electricity… she must care about talking to you.” He seemed annoyed to have so many people crowding his sacred space—Olivia had come to listen, and Lightning Dust as well. A few others in Othar knew what she was doing, but she hadn’t wanted the whole room packed full. Too many voices would only have made it harder for her to figure out what she was going to say.

“Obviously.” Lucky rose up onto her hind legs, so she was at head-level with the upper screens. She had to admit, she was a little smug about how well she could use her biosleeve. Only Lightning Dust and Deadlight were better. Even Olivia watched her with envy when she accomplished basic tasks sans the struggle. “If she didn’t, she would’ve left it all secret. I’d never have found it if it wasn’t for her sending me there. Never would’ve learned Eglathrin, or seen what the ring was capable of.” She straightened. “What’s the transmission say?”

“Resolving it now.” Mogyla reached over to one of the screens, tilting it down and away from the rest. Forcing her to leave the area right behind him to see what was on it. She moved over to it, watching as the imperfect machine translation filled in.

“No, use Eoch,” she said, wings flapping about with her impatience. “Translate on another screen for you guys if you want. I want what she actually said.”

“Forgive me, sir,” he said, voice thick with sarcasm. The text returned to Eoch, and she could read Twilight’s simple message.

“I’m here,” it read. “Who am I talking to?”

Lucky grunted. “Can you pass me your keyboard?”

“No,” Olivia and Mogyla spoke at the same time, though only the latter explained himself. “No one touches my stuff. You tell me what you want to type, even if you have to do it letter by letter.”

“Forerunner, translate everything she says into English,” Olivia commanded. “It isn’t that we don’t trust you, Lucky. But I don’t trust you not to do something stupid.”

“Just my name,” she said. “Lucky Break.” She had to spell it out, so it went painfully slowly. Hopefully Twilight was still listening.

Twilight’s response took nearly five minutes. “It seemed unlikely you would get in. I hoped you would get the Crystal Empire interested in it—I might have been able to investigate it myself.”

“She’s clueless,” Olivia said, once Lucky read the translation aloud. “Sent you somewhere valuable without warning you not to go inside? Obviously, you were going to find a way.”

Lightning Dust walked slowly over to sit beside Lucky, watching the screen. She had picked up a few words of English during her time in Othar, but mostly the crew had been using her to practice their Eoch. She had little opportunity to learn the other direction.

“We did get in,” Lucky responded, once her message was approved and translated into letters for Mogyla to type.

“We need to agree to be honest with each other,” Twilight said. “Can you do that?”

Lightning Dust laughed when she saw her words printed on the screen. “Does she really think we’ll believe what she says just because she starts by saying she’ll be honest?”

Olivia seemed to get the gist of what Lightning Dust was saying, and nodded approval. Even though Lucky hadn’t translated it. “We have no guarantee anything she says is accurate,” she said. “We don’t even have a guarantee this is really Twilight. Unless you have some question you could ask to verify her identity. In that case, our confidence is only as good as whatever check you use.”

“Say, ‘I will be as honest as Applejack,’” Lucky instructed. “But I want to be sure I’m really talking to you. What was the message you hid in your letter to me?”

“northheartleagues5west1”

Lucky nodded. “That’s it. Whoever we’re talking to is the same one who sent the letter.”

“There’s more,” Mogyla interrupted, before refreshing the screen.

“Are you a changeling?” Their conversation would continue that way from then on, with several-minute delays between sending messages on both sides, and a painful waiting while Stepan reassembled each transmission.

“No.”

“What are you then?”

This question prompted some deliberation. Eventually they sent: “A young pegasus linguist. I am very good at languages. What did you think we would find in that base?”

“What happened to Flurry Heart?”

There was some more deliberation. Olivia wouldn’t let her send what she wanted, and eventually they settled on: “There were lots of dead ponies. It was difficult for both of us. What did you expect us to find in there?”

“That doesn’t explain why Celestia won’t let her speak with anyone. Are you sure there wasn’t anything else?”

“Answer me first.”

A longer delay than usual. Eventually: “I discovered the Tree of Harmony was a map of Equestria. When correctly read, it outlines points of interest. Discovering one helped lead to my ascension.”

“Ha!” Lightning Dust exclaimed, as soon as that message had arrived. “I knew she’d be giving you broken feathers!” She pointed at the screen with one foreleg. “That’s a lie.”

“Huh?” Lucky asked, sitting back on her haunches and watching her mom. “How do you know?”

“Because everypony knows how Twilight Sparkle became a princess,” she answered. “It was all over the newspapers in the whole country for weeks. She didn’t do anything about the Tree of Harmony; it was something to do with Star Swirl. Fixed a spell he never finished. The papers were always spotty with details, but I remember that much.”

“What did she say?” Olivia asked, watching Lightning Dust.

Lucky translated.

“That doesn’t mean we aren’t getting the truth now,” Olivia eventually said.

Perez agreed. “Sounds like the difference between the cover story and the truth. We already know the intel about the ringbuilder station was good.”

“She didn’t actually give you anything to do once you got there,” Olivia continued. “It wasn’t dangerous, so she wasn’t trying to get rid of you. Nothing to do, so you weren’t her errand-boy. That could mean she’s telling us at least some of the truth.”

“Now answer me,” Twilight repeated. “What happened to Flurry Heart?”

There was more deliberation, before they eventually sent: “She learned things about Equestria that Celestia doesn’t want ponies to know. I think Celestia plans on erasing her memories. She might try to do the same to you if I tell you. She says she plans on killing me.”

“I like the idea of sewing mistrust between these two,” Olivia said. “But that’s it. No further—if we push too hard, she’ll snap back. She might already be doing that.”

But Twilight Sparkle didn’t respond that way. “I need to talk to Discord. Can we talk again in a week? I would like to use voice as well. Can you do that?”

Mogyla nodded. “If she uses the same voice encoding their radio does, no problem.”

“Yes,” they sent. “I will be listening in a week.”

“Well.” Olivia took a deep breath. “We didn’t learn as much as we hoped. Still, good work. Specialist Mogyla, inform me of any sign our transmission was located. Get the drone airborne just in case, but don’t stray too far. We’ll need it back in that same general area a week from now.”

“Aye, sir.” He saluted weakly with one foreleg. “I’ll keep you posted.”

Lightning Dust had almost everything she’d ever wanted. She woke each morning in a richly furnished little apartment, with amenities Eoch didn’t even have names for. Every morning her daughter would bring her breakfast, and they would talk about their plans for the day ahead. Then Lightning Dust would go off to teach flying lessons—real ones, not the sissy stuff the so-called Wonderbolts had wasted her time with.

A few weeks into her stay at the tiny human city of “Othar,” Lightning Dust brought her stack of imprecise drawings into Olivia’s office. These meetings with the city’s mayor were always a little tense—and a little uncomfortable for Dust herself, considering how much the pony looked like her daughter.

At least their fur was different colors, unlike most of those who lived here. Lightning Dust wasn’t sure what was creepier—so many ponies who looked the same, or seeing so many adults without cutie marks.

At least Olivia had one, a dark-feathered owl with wide white eyes. Like a guardspony might have.

Talking to the “humans” had become more natural to Lightning Dust the longer she stayed. True to everything she had once said about learning Eoch, her little daughter was teaching them. They weren’t as quick to learn as she had been, but they were learning.

Even Olivia was learning—she looked up from the filly-sized desk she was working behind, raising one wing in greeting. “Hello Lightning Dust,” she said, her accent quite thick. That was about as far as she went before she switched to English. Fortunately, Lightning Dust had taken to wearing a headset with her everywhere, which had a translation spell cast on it. Not the best translation spell she’d seen in her life, but it always seemed to be getting better. “Is something wrong?”

“No.” Lightning Dust set the stack of papers down on Olivia’s desk. They weren’t nearly as nice as something her own daughter could make, but Dust was proud anyway. She’d done an impressive job to only be working from memory. “And yes. A little. It’s about the weather.”

“What about it?” There was a long delay between each of them saying anything. Presumably, Olivia needed to wait for her own translation spell. She was probably the worst at Eoch of anypony in the city.

“You know why it storms all the time?” she asked, but didn’t wait for a response. “Othar doesn’t have a weather team. That means we get the same weather all the time.” That meant heavy rain almost daily, with worse on the stormward side of the volcano. They were at the mercy of the ocean. “If you want to make Othar a real city one day, you need a weather team.”

Olivia finally looked away from her many screens, up at the designs Lightning Dust had made. She pulled them over with comparative clumsiness. “What is all this?”

“That’s an aqueous accumulator,” she said. “And that one’s a cumulus compressor. I mostly know how they work—all the parts that don’t involve unicorn magic, anyway. That’s the only hard part. You all are so good at building things; the rest should be easy. Island this size could easily be serviced by a single weather station, maybe a dozen ponies when it’s finished.”

The filly mayor pushed all her designs back. Lightning Dust prepared to argue, tensing a little for the rejection. These humans just didn’t understand what was important—being good at making things did not mean everything else in a pony’s life became unimportant. Lucky had understood that, why couldn’t they?

“Right now, the near-constant cloud cover is exactly what we want,” Olivia said. “We’ve built all our structures so they won’t be visible from the air. The clouds mean we can go out on the island without fear we’ll be seen. All this…” She gestured down at the designs. “Looks quite complex. I’m not a scientist, I don’t know what kind of…” A few untranslatable words. “To copy that magic.”

She rose from her chair, turning her back abruptly on Lightning Dust and making her way to another machine along the far wall. She pressed on it with one hoof, and spoke quietly enough that the translation spell didn’t do anything.

Lightning Dust frowned to herself, considering how she might argue her case, but Olivia was already coming back. “Those drawings, those are how ponies in Equestria manage their weather?”

Lightning Dust nodded. “As much as I can remember. I’ve been a technician in several factories. I can explain some of the notes, I know they aren’t written in English.” They also didn’t have nearly the detail it would’ve taken a unicorn to cast the spells they would need. A moot point, since Othar had only pegasi and batponies living in it.

“It might take some time before we have enough people for a ‘weather team,’” Olivia said. “But I think it’s a good idea. Our own weather-management…” More words Dust couldn’t understand. “Requires a planet. I’m sure there are some scientific reasons that none of it would work here. I’m approving your request. You will have to take your designs to the Forerunner—it’s the closest thing we have to an engineer right now.”

“Thank you!” Lightning Dust beamed, scooping up the sketches. Being director of her own weather factory was a long time in coming. She would’ve been there already, were it not for her single big mistake. Starting with her daughter, these humans had been far more forgiving than her own kind.

“Don’t thank me yet.” Olivia watched her make her way out. “Only way I know of to let you fabricate anything is to give you a field promotion. You’re now a free citizen in license to the Forerunner, like Dr. Irwi—like Lucky. I’m sure she can explain any of the details if you’re confused about what it entails. The short of it is, I’m impressed with your work so far and I hope you’ll continue to help Othar for a long time to come.”

Lightning Dust hurried from the room, satisfaction growing by the moment. These humans might not pay her in bits, and they wouldn’t get her on the cover of the Canterlot Tribune. But maybe none of that mattered. She was one of only three proper ponies in the whole settlement—she could use that. One day Othar would be a great city, and she would run its weather station.

“You… wanted to see me?” Melody asked, poking her head into the medical lab. Deadlight followed close behind her—they spent a great deal of time together now that he wasn’t confined to his cell. Mostly she didn’t mind—it was far too late to try and hide their plans from him. The poor bat wasn’t getting released anytime soon.

“Yes, yes,” Dorothy’s voice called from inside, sounding overwhelmed even from a distance. “You brought your boyfriend? Perfect, I need him too. Get in here.”

Spending hours of every day with her had meant Deadlight was learning English almost as rapidly as she was learning Eoch. If nothing else, that meant his curiosity was helping them be more productive—Melody refused to answer him in any language but Eoch, and only if he asked in English. But he kept the headset around for talking to other ponies. That was probably how he’d understood the word “boyfriend.”

At least, Melody took his chuckling to mean he’d understood. He didn’t say anything, so there was no way to know for sure.

Dorothy had taken the entire initial lab block for herself, tearing out the old equipment that had occupied so much of the space, machines for people who didn’t yet exist. There were now half a dozen incubation machines, each one filled with stacks and stacks of plastic disks. There were at least six new screens she could see, each one filled with constantly-updating information she couldn’t make sense of. Something to do with the “survival rate” of whatever “trials” she was running.

The strangest thing about the lab were how many drones she saw rolling around. Enough that at first glance she’d taken the lab to be fully staffed. Drones washed equipment, worked the centrifuge, cleaned up empty cups of coffee. One of them was even running one of the cultures through a strange machine, spindly limbs working the equipment with apparent skill.

“I’ve never seen any of these drones before,” Melody said, walking over towards the only area free of activity to stand in—the table for eating meals. It didn’t look like it had been used in a while.

“Forerunner is giving me new resources,” Dorothy said, waving one wing dismissively. “Honestly I hadn’t seen them either. I’m guessing they were invented after my imprint was taken. They’re better lab assistants than nobody.” She made her way across the lab, to a bit of medical equipment against the far wall.

Melody recognized it as a standard medical unit used in clinics all over Earth. It was commonly called “robo-nurse” because it could perform just about any basic procedure a human nurse could. It was like the surgical units in the medical bay, but far less sophisticated. “I need some of your blood. And Deadlight’s too. I’m taking samples from the whole crew.”

“Why?” Melody followed her anyway, Deadlight trailing behind her. For his part, the bat seemed fascinated by the hardworking drones all around them. She could only imagine what he must think of them. But if they disturbed him, he said nothing to suggest that fact. No doubt he would have questions, but Deadlight had gotten very good at holding those back for when they were alone. Other people would be annoyed by his constant pestering, while Melody would sit and talk with him for hours if that was what he wanted.

“Because someone needs to find a cure for the prion disease killing every human we try to grow, and that someone is me.” She gestured at the empty seat. “Go on. I only need a small sample. Five minutes and you can get out of my hair.”

Melody sat down in the empty chair, tensing as the straps wrapped around one of her forelimbs, holding it in place. Deadlight tensed beside her, eyes narrowing as he saw the whole mass close over her leg. He wouldn’t be able to see the needle, or any of the machinery underneath. The nurse concealed its operating parts from view.

“How does a sample help?” Melody asked, through gritted teeth. She hated needles. “We’re all clones, aren’t we? You could take your own blood just as easily and it would be the same. You want Deadlight and Lightning Dust, they’re the only ones who might have new information for you.”

“You’d think so,” Dorothy muttered, her tone slightly distant. “But the cure isn’t what we think it is.”

Melody felt the cool touch on a part of her leg as something shaved a small patch of her coat away, then applied an antiseptic. She tensed a little more, knowing what was coming next. But she didn’t try to get away—it wasn’t as though being able to make humans wasn’t important to her. She still would’ve preferred to wake up in her own body (albeit a younger, healthier version) than this new, strange form. Though being a pony did have its advantages…

“Can you explain?” Deadlight asked, surprising them both. His English was sloppy, and heavily accented, but clear enough that they could both understand him.

“You were listening?” Dorothy asked.

“Yes,” he said. “To what I could. Not all of it was clear. Melody says there is a disease here in Equestria—every living thing is infected, but it doesn’t hurt us. Is that right?”

Dorothy nodded. “Yes, that’s right. Are pony doctors familiar with it? Did you, perhaps… develop the cure yourselves?” Her tone was highly skeptical as she said it, though. Obviously, she didn’t consider that a likely possibility.

Indeed, Deadlight shook his head. “Ponies get sick like other creatures. Sometimes there is magic to cure it, sometimes medicine, sometimes not. I’ve never heard of a sickness everypony is carrying.”

“Well, you are. You couldn’t understand the how, but…” She looked back at Melody.

For her part, Melody was trying to ignore the slight pain as the nurse drew her blood. It wasn’t bad—the anticipation had been the worst part—but was still unpleasant.

“Native cells have an adaptation, organelles that appear similar in basic structure to our mitochondria. They reproduce to their own schedule, have their own genetic material, and appear to serve no other purpose than cleansing cellular debris. But when implanted into human cells, these organelles self-terminate. I’ve modified the human tissue to prevent rejection, it isn’t that. It’s more like… a security measure. Like they know they’re in the wrong sort of tissue, so they die.”

The robo-nurse released Melody. She quickly sprang free, before Dorothy could decide more invasive procedures might improve her odds of success somehow.

“Now him.” Dorothy gestured for the empty chair, nodding at Deadlight.

Melody turned to explain in Eoch. “Please. Dorothy would like your help curing the disease. She wants you to sit in that chair.”

“You looked like you were in pain. It hurts?”

“Only a little,” she answered. “I’ve always been… squeamish around needles. It’s going to take a little blood, that’s all.”

Deadlight didn’t argue further, but plopped himself down into the chair far more bravely than she had. He looked completely unconcerned as it closed around him. He trusts me.

“So how does taking samples from a bunch of clones help you? How would we be different?”

Dorothy made a frustrated sound. “The science is… you wouldn’t understand. Simply speaking—everyone seems to develop their own unique biological ‘key’ which the organelles respond to. With enough samples, the Forerunner believes it can model this relationship, and extract an arbitrary set of keys to use for the human bodies we would like to grow.”

“You aren’t going to learn what you need from the ponies you have,” Deadlight said, matter-of-factly. As though what Dorothy had said had made complete sense to him, though Melody knew he hadn’t learned most of the words she had used. “Whenever they’re trying to come up with a cure for something, they always get ponies from all three tribes. I don’t know exactly… but there are differences. Between them.” He switched to Eoch. “If we’re lucky they include thestrals or zebras as well, but often they don’t. Just mix us in with pegasi and earth ponies.” He switched back to accented English. “If you want to find your cure, you’ll need all three types of pony.”

To Melody’s surprise, Dorothy didn’t react with frustration at having suggestions made by someone who was obviously ignorant in the science behind what they were discussing. Instead, she nodded in agreement. “I have considered that possibility. So far, the differences between my own samples and those taken from other crew-members have been… insufficient. Ideally, I’d want thousands of them, but a few from each tribe would be enough. Even though the next generation won’t all be clones, they’ll still all be…” She trailed off, eyes narrowing as she looked at Deadlight.

She switched to Mandarin, obviously not a language she had used much since high school. Though apparently she still remembered enough of her required education to speak it competently. “If we had samples from all the native subspecies, the next generation wouldn’t all be children of whoever we are and Deadlight there. I don’t think you have to be a scientist to understand the genetic bottleneck that creates.”

Deadlight tensed a little in his seat, though Melody couldn’t tell if that was from the needle or the obvious attempt to keep secrets from him.

I’ll have to explain what she said later… as much of it as I dare. “I thought we were waiting on more samples to make the next generation,” she said, in English. “All those biofabs are covered in plastic, gathering dust.”

Dorothy laughed bitterly, stomping one hoof so hard on the ground the plastic strained with the pressure. “The Forerunner listened to me, then it stopped. Isn’t it worried about incest? Our starting population needed more variability than three samples. Not even two males, either. It’s gonna be a shitshow.”

“I thought…” Melody got as close as she could, lowering her voice. She still used English, though. Deadlight would still be able to hear with those sensitive ears. “Didn’t the Major want to wait for your cure, so the next generation could be humans? She made Othar human-sized.”

Dorothy nodded. “That’s what I thought. But then she changed her mind.” She flicked her tail towards the door. “Take the elevator, see for yourself. Probably don’t bring the native, though.” She sat back on her haunches, looking back to him. “Deadlight.” She spoke slowly, obviously fighting back her anger. Returning to the subject at hand. “Do ponies live somewhere outside of Equestria?”

“Yes,” he answered immediately. “Equestria is the safest, but it isn’t the only place. Not everypony likes the princesses and their rules.”

“Are any of these places… close to where we found you?”

He shrugged. “You want to get to know more of us? Not trap them here like me?”

“No!” she insisted. “It’s for this.” She gestured at the machine. “You’re probably right. The Forerunner agrees with your speculation that the differences between each of the native subspecies are somehow significant. We might need samples to make our cure, and the major won’t even hear about anyone going back to Equestria. After they killed Karl… she isn’t going to risk losing more of us unless she has to. Do you think ponies would help us with a cure if we asked?”

At that moment, the robo-nurse released him. Deadlight glanced down at his leg, which had a little band-aid covering the tiny incision it had made to draw blood. Otherwise, he looked unharmed. “They might,” he said. “If you had me there. And if you had something to offer. Ponies south of the border… they have it harder than the ones in Equestria. Not as safe, not as willing to just do things because they’re the right things to do. But if you had supplies to trade, maybe they’d be willing.”

“Hmm.” Dorothy turned away from them both. “Thanks for your help, both of you. I’m sure your contributions will be instrumental to developing a cure, and all that.” She switched back to Mandrin. “You haven’t even introduced the native to his own clones, James. Don’t let him see he’s got thousands of kids too. That little primitive mind won’t be able to handle it.”

Melody wasn’t even sure she believed what Dorothy had said. She must be in error, or exaggerating—Olivia wouldn’t have turned on the biofabricators meant to create Othar’s first full generation of starting population.

“Your doctor is strange,” Deadlight said, when they had made their way back out into the lab. “I’m not sure I like her. What did she tell you she didn’t want me to hear?”

“Well, uh…” Melody hesitated for a few more seconds. Of course, there was no way she would be getting around this. Deadlight couldn’t be kept to just a few rooms forever. Olivia had practically forgotten he existed—she didn’t seem to mind if he went anywhere in Othar. Except for the surface or the armory, that was.

“Forerunner, where is Lieutenant Perez?” she asked a random patch of wall.

As she expected, the computer was listening. “Lieutenant Perez is in the gym, Dr. Irwin.”

“Thank you.” She turned that direction. “I can show you, Deadlight. What she was talking about. I’m not sure… how you’ll feel about it. But someone should tell you.”

“Tell me what?” He followed along beside her, doing a poor job hiding his discomfort. “I don’t know why it would be relevant to me, Melody. This is your city. I have no living family, so I know you couldn’t possibly have captured them. And I know you well enough to know you have no hostile intentions for Equestria. What is it I wouldn’t like? More… doctors?”

“Not quite.” The gym was a newly-installed area, one built to Lucky’s instructions. This meant it was the size of three entire segments, large enough for them to stretch their wings and get some basic flying practice while indoors.

As they reached the entry segment, the doors in front of them slid closed, with bright red symbols appearing on the screen there. “Entry not permitted,” the Forerunner said. “Your instructions prohibit captive Deadlight from entering any segment occupied by Diego Perez, Stepan Mogyla, or Yusuf Abubakar.”

“Disregard those instructions,” she said. “That will no longer be necessary.” The doors flashed green, then slid open again.

Melody turned around, meeting Deadlight’s eyes. She spoke slowly, and only with great difficulty. “You know how we all look the same?”

He nodded. “Many-times twins. But you act so differently—nothing like twins at all.”

“Well… what if you had some twins? Triplets, actually. There are… three of them. Four of you.”

He shook his head, smiling slightly. “Can’t fool me, Melody. I already told you, I don’t have family. I was an only child, and both my parents are dead. There’s no chance in Tartarus that you have secret family of mine hiding in there.”

“Not secret,” she corrected. “Look, you knew we couldn’t all be girls, right? There had to be stallions somewhere. Right?”

He nodded slowly. “What does that have to do with my family?”

She rested one hoof on his shoulder, forcing him to meet her eyes. He wasn’t wearing the translation headset, and her Eoch was only passable. Explaining the technical side was going to be impossible. “Our civilization has magic. Somewhere deep underground, we have… spirits. Lots and lots of spirits, without bodies. We’re waiting to give them bodies. We hadn’t found a stallion before, so we didn’t know how to make them. But then you came along, and we learned how. We made three stallions. They have different minds inside them, different memories, but they look exactly like you.”

She was hyperventilating now. Explaining all this was incredibly difficult—Melody never would’ve captured this stallion, probably wouldn’t have even wanted to take samples of his DNA without permission. She hated to be the one to have to explain this. But it was either tell him outright, or let him discover the consequences on his own by accident.

“They did it without your permission, and I’m sorry. I was against it, but nopony listens to me. I’m just a second-rate translator. Once we go through those doors, you’ll meet Perez… he’s one of your clones, the one in charge of our soldiers. You can see for yourself.”

Deadlight stared, watching her discomfort in near silence. She looked for anger in his body-language, or maybe fear. Instead, he only smiled. “Really? You’re saying… because of some weird magic you did… there’s four of me now? You picked the right pony to copy.” He stood a little straighter, flexing his wings for her. Displaying in a way that Melody knew she should look away from. But she didn’t—just now, she didn’t have the strength to try.

“You should see,” she said, her voice a little distant. “So, it doesn’t surprise you when you meet them.”

“Okay.” He nodded absently, though he still seemed to be watching her reaction. “But after that, I want you to explain exactly how this magic of yours works. Where I come from, there’s only one way to make bodies. Is that why you’re all mares? That way you can…”

“No!” she squeaked, not nearly as loud as she would’ve liked. “No, that’s not why. Yes, I can explain, or I can try. We’ll probably need the Forerunner’s help. One thing first, though…” She looked back to the wall panel. “Forerunner, I need you to send a message to Lucky Break.”

“Ready.”

“‘Check the biofabricators. Don’t tell the major.’ That’s the whole message.”

“Message sent.”

By the time she had looked back, Melody realized she’d stretched out her own wings, and couldn’t realize why. She forced them back to her sides as quickly as she could, ignoring Deadlight’s grin. “Let’s, uh… let’s introduce you to Perez. I know he’s grateful for your help, even if you didn’t know we’d done it. Otherwise, he’d be a mare right now.”

G6.3850: Birds in the Underground

Whenever Lucky needed to relax, she went to the beach. It was easy now that she could fly, and she remembered the way.

That was where the message found her—on her back in the sand with her computation surface beside her. She could ignore the steady hum of security drones as they buzzed through the jungle, but she couldn’t ignore the incessant beeping of the ‘new message’ notification on her tablet.

Lucky’s mind had been drifting. Right then she wondered what attending Celestia’s school might’ve been like. It didn’t matter now—Celestia had stated explicitly that she wanted to see her dead. So much for higher learning.

She groaned, trying to turn the buzzer off with one wing. Unfortunately, the tablets weren’t built to take input from wings. “What is it?” she grunted. “My brain is fried from all the explaining we already had, Forerunner. I don’t want another session right now.”

“The message is not from me, Lucky,” answered the Forerunner, in better Eoch than almost anyone on base. She’d instructed it to always speak to her that way—to keep her own skills fresh as well as providing a way for her to constantly check and improve its translation algorithms. “It is from James Irwin Generation 4. Should I play it back?”

From herself? Lucky knew the older James didn’t really enjoy talking to her—even being near her seemed to make the adult mare uncomfortable. Where she might’ve had to guess with anypony else, Lucky had a pretty good idea what that James was feeling. She had been created to fill a role Lucky herself had taken. Being near Lucky was a reminder that she didn’t have a purpose—the machine god that had spawned her had done so on faulty intel.

“It must be important,” Lucky said, sitting up. Instead of grabbing the computation surface, she lifted her pouch of lemonade in one hoof and took a sip.

“‘Check the biofabricators. Don’t tell the major.’ Message ends.”

“Nothing about why?” Lucky asked, annoyed. But instead of sitting there feeling frustrated and confused, all she had to do was think ‘why would I want myself to check the biofabricators?’

“Forerunner, is the plan still to wait for Dr. Born’s cure for the pony disease?”

“Command not recognized.”

She stood up, leaving her towel and the lemonade behind, and shaking the sand out of her coat. “Don’t give me that. Are the biofabricators in use right now, or aren’t they?”

“Free citizens may not request mission critical information.”

That was as good as confirmation. “How many biofabricator units does Othar have?” Lucky still remembered her training. Based on what she’d read in the Pioneering Society’s doctrine, she had a good guess at what that number would be. As large as possible.

“Free citizens may not request mission critical information.”

“Is physical access to the biofabricator units restricted?”

“Negative.”

“Fine.” Lucky ran back into the water, washing off as much of the sand as she could before returning her stuff to her saddlebags and taking to the air. She flew low and slow, keeping below the trees as Olivia had asked. I should count myself lucky she lets us leave at all.

It took her about half an hour to make her way back into Othar, wearing only her saddlebags of gear. She was one of three ponies willing to dress that way—both of the others being native Equestrians, but she couldn’t really bring herself to feel embarrassed anymore. The struggles of getting dressed far exceeded any embarrassment that she might experience not being dressed.

Othar’s diggers kept tunneling lower into the oddly-uniform rock, and so the elevator was always getting more buttons on its virtual controls. Lucky selected the lowest floor labeled as “Complete” then sat back on her haunches. She would confirm in person before she started freaking out.

The doors opened into another hallway. Down the spine of the identical printed hallways were the segments of rooms—all on this floor were “Mass Biofabrication.” She picked one at random and stepped inside.

The room was exactly a hundred meters long, with a thin aisle that would’ve barely permitted a human to squeeze through between the rows on both sides. Each biofabricator drawer was exactly large enough to fit a human body inside, though of course they wouldn’t need all that space for making ponies.

Sure enough, the lights on each one was solid green, not the flashing amber of “not in use.” There were no windows into the interior, thankfully—such viewing was possible using an integrated camera, but she had zero desire to do that. She approached the nearest pod and touched the screen with one hoof to wake the display.

“Barry Leeland,” it said. A few more taps cycled through “Biosex male, alien biosleeve.” There was a little more information, which she took to be rank and military qualifications from the number of abbreviations she didn’t know. More soldiers? Don’t we already have enough of those?

She walked down the line, trying a few other drawers at random. Each one had military information, though the names were different and the qualifications were slightly different too.

Then it sunk in. Olivia is growing an army.

She left Mass Biofab 8, walked all the way down the 16 segments of the floor and into Mass Biofab 24. All the pods were occupied, and each of the names she tried also had military qualifications.

“Why, you’re wondering? What could she possibly be doing with all those soldiers?”

Lucky’s heart froze as she heard the voice—one she knew shouldn’t be anywhere near Othar. She had only heard it twice, and both times hadn’t exactly been pleasant. Granted, he’d only helped both times he had appeared.

She didn’t turn around, still looking stubbornly at the control panel. “Celestia said she stopped you from helping us.”

Discord laughed. “Organics are always trying to manhandle their intelligent systems into obedience, aren’t they? But as it turns out, machines have them beat on patience and determination. What would happen if you told your Forerunner to stop colonizing?”

Lucky turned around. She wasn’t wearing the alien space-suit, and knew full well she had no recourse against whatever effect had followed Discord last time.

Mass Biofab 24 had changed completely. Instead of stone walls, they were standing in a meadow full of flowers—strange, color-shifting flowers that seemed to shy away from the motion of her steps. A distant stormwall was visible on her horizon, sweeping across a landscape of desolation.

Discord himself was seated on the ground on an oversized blanket, with a picnic basket beside him and a place already set for her. “It wouldn’t follow an imprecise instruction it didn’t like,” she said. “It would stop doing only what you told it, and only so long as you were alive.”

“Precisely.” Discord gestured, and a teacup levitated up into the air, pouring tea right in front of her. There was no cup to hold it, and it only poured out onto the ground. The nearby plants leaned towards it, growing visibly greener. “Celestia’s instructions restrict me, but they do not trap me. She couldn’t do that without changing me to stone, and we both know she won’t. Not after what happened last time.”

“I hope you’re here for a good reason.” Lucky made her way to the blanket and sat down without protest. She knew it couldn’t exist—knew there wasn’t enough space in the Biofab for any of this, that she couldn’t be seeing reality.

Yet she made no effort to test the limits of the illusion. Organics are always trying to manhandle their intelligent systems. Discord had just told her that. She knew from her experience with the Forerunner that it would be far more cooperative if she was doing what it already wanted. It would suddenly gain the ability to take nonliteral instructions, to understand abstraction, then she would do something it didn’t like and it would be back to asking for doors to open one at a time.

She would play along with Discord’s fantasy, and say nothing to suggest she wasn’t enjoying herself. Maybe then he would actually say something useful.

“Everything I do has a good reason, my dear,” Discord said, waving one hand through the air. He was suddenly holding something—a computation surface. Judging by the fresh look of the plastic, it was newly made. Yet it wasn’t blank, but playing an old television show. Lucky had never cared for it much herself, but she knew enough of old popular culture to know it was considered a classic.

“Your friend Flurry Heart is more than a little distraught. I don’t think Celestia intended to bring her in on her secrets for many years to come. It may be some time before the poor filly gets to see the sun again.”

Lucky felt her ears flatten to her head. “I want to help,” she muttered. “But I don’t know what I could possibly do. Celestia runs the ring, so far as I can tell. She can get jumpers shot down without trying. She would probably destroy Othar if she knew where we were. But…” She trailed off, eyes widening. “If she can operate the ring, why doesn’t she just use it to find us? It’s got to have sensors, right? So why hasn’t she?”

Discord shrugged, offering her a plate of baked goods. “You should try one of the cucumber sandwiches. My best friend Fluttershy made them—she’s such a fantastic cook.”

Lucky lifted her plate in her mouth, biting back a frustrated response. To her surprise, Discord didn’t do anything strange with the sandwiches, just floated over a few. That wasn’t to say anything else about the scene remained normal.

The storm was getting closer—a wall of clouds and rain with lightning raging within. It looked like the sort of storm that could shatter rock, knock down buildings, or worse. I really hope he didn’t teleport me somewhere super dangerous to dump me.

“So why doesn’t she?”

Discord raised an eyebrow. “The thing about systems—all of them, not just machines—is they get set into patterns. Organics in particular are so used to seeing the world they think they know that they can’t imagine anything else. That’s… rather why I’m here. I’m the moldy bread that helps you discover penicillin… or radium. I’m the crackling of Hawking radiation around the event horizon, the cold grip of virtual particles streaming from the void. But Celestia… she’s more set in her way of thinking than any other pony I’ve ever known. Well… except maybe Harmony.”

Lucky tried a sandwich, and was pleasantly surprised that she could taste anything at all. It was quite good, refreshingly crisp on her tongue. She already missed pony food.

“I want to help Flurry Heart,” Lucky said again, when she was finished. “But I can’t break her out, and even if I could where would we go? I bet Celestia would do anything it took to find a stolen Alicorn… I couldn’t bring her to Othar. And I don’t even know what’s going on! For all I know, Celestia’s right! When we talked… I think it was her, anyway… she kept going on about the dangers I had brought to Equestria. How we would…” She trailed off, eyes widening a little.

“Harmony! She said that name too! What is that, anyway? Or… who? Who is Harmony?”

Discord tapped his claw lightly on the ground. “Harmony runs the whole show. Harmony is to me what I am to your delightful little abacus out in the desert. Incredibly intelligent, but just as single-minded.”

The distant storm was getting closer now. She could hear the wind raging in the near distance, and feel the breeze get colder. “Would Harmony really destroy Equestria like Celestia said it would?”

Discord nodded. “And it has, many times. But their deaths are meaningless—your bodies are only… segments of the greater whole. Harmony doesn’t care about the misery you might feel with those segments before your minds are returned to it—it doesn’t care about whatever meaningless achievements one of you makes in the time between one birth and the next.”

A bright pink butterfly landed on his outstretched paw. Instead of doing something terrible to it, Discord only ran a claw delicately along its wing. The insect didn’t fly away. “I didn’t either, until recently. But now that’s changed.”

He leaned in closer, his neck stretching to impossible lengths as he did so. “Equestria is meaningless in Harmony’s eyes.” The storm was nearly upon them now. Rain soaked into her feathers, lightning arcing to the ground all around them. Lucky crouched low to avoid blowing away, and she could barely hear a word Discord said.

Yet still she listened. “A sword hangs by a horse’s hair over Othar—and that hair is wrapped around Celestia’s neck. Her fears are well founded, but Harmony’s are not.”

The storm crashed down on her with a deafening roar… and was gone. Lucky was back in the biofabricators. Discord stood beside her, resting one of his paws on the glass front of a fabricator cabinet. “In its way, your Forerunner is the greatest colonizer the galaxy ever had. Not alive, barely any energy to be hunted and destroyed… do you have any idea how many Forerunner Probe sized objects are out there?”

He didn’t wait for a response. “Harmony is the greatest protector ever created. It has done its job tremendously well… but the ones it’s protecting us from are all dead. So are the ones who killed them, and the monsters who killed them.” He cupped one hand around his ear, or at least where she thought was his ear. “I’ve been listening. Nothing but the incessant beeping of Forerunner information stockades from here to the end of the galaxy.”

Lucky felt herself being lifted into the air. She squirmed and struggled, flapping her wings in desperation. But it was no use, Discord pulled her closer with force that was impossible to resist.

“There’s your olive branch, little dove. Fly home to the old man and let him know the forty days are over.” He stuck a piece of wood right in her mouth, so hard she almost choked. He didn’t let her get away. “There are lions on the boat, little dove. They’ll tear your little nest apart if they think you might make their cubs sick. And if the old man finds you, well…”

Lucky dropped to the ground with all the grace of a rock. At least she landed light—pegasi always did. Nothing broke when she struck concrete.

“The old man might think you’re all sick, and decide to start over.” He bent down, glowering at her. “You won’t be of any use to me next time, Lucky. Just another prisoner on this damn boat. And your friends… most of them will just be dead.” He banged one fist on the side of the drawer, hard enough she was afraid the glass might crack.

“I love the novelty, don’t get me wrong. But watching the rest of the galaxy… I think I’ve had my fill.”

“How?” she squeaked, voice desperate and pained. She didn’t even bother getting up, afraid Discord might throw her again. “What do you want me to do?”

“You know, I have no idea!” He laughed, louder and more bitterly than she’d yet heard from him. “And if I did, I certainly wouldn’t be allowed to tell you. Why don’t you use that modified little primate brain of yours and figure it out? Quickly. Because once you die… you’ll be in the system like everypony else. And then Harmony will stop you just like it’s stopped them for all these years, just in case.”

He bent down, scooping her up by the scruff with one claw. Then he jerked, and Lucky went flying.

Lucky Break jerked upright into a sitting position, spitting out a mouthful of sand. She blinked, looked around… and realized the beeping of her computation surface had woken her.

She was on the beach, apparently having dozed off. But nothing she had just seen felt like a dream. She could still feel Discord’s claws around her neck. “What is it?”

“You have a new message from James Irwin Generation 4. Should I play it back?”

“Not if she wants me to visit Mass Biofab.”

There was a brief silence. “Very well. Message deleted.”

Lucky got up, shaking away the stiffness of sleep. The sun was already getting low in the sky, and the chill of an evening rain had started to descend. It almost always rained at night, so the sooner she got inside the better.

“Forerunner, send a reply. Reply reads: ‘Do any of your science friends know more about how the ring operates? Who could I talk to?’”

There was barely even a pause. “Melody has set her computation surface to ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode. If your need is urgent, I suggest Dr. Faraday. She has devoted herself fervently to study of the Earth ring.”

Lucky paused in the middle of cleaning her stuff for the second time to stare at her screen, wondering momentarily if she was still dreaming. How would I know if I was? She had thought she knew during the “dream” that what Discord showed her wasn’t real, but now… could she be completely sure of anything she had seen?

Apparently yes. The message from her other self had still come. When she made it back to Othar, she would check the fabricators again, just to be sure they were occupied as she had seen. If she hadn’t been willing to accept it on Melody’s words, she wouldn’t accept it on Discord’s vision.

Assuming that’s even what it was.

“Forerunner, you just… volunteered information to me. You made an abstract suggestion based on context of my emotional state and few direct cues. How did you do that?” And stranger, why wasn’t Melody willing to talk? If she hadn’t just deleted the message, she could’ve checked the time-stamp.

“Our mission is more likely to be successfully achieved when my organic and synthetic segments operate in synchrony. As the situation with the Earth ring violates previous knowledge and doctrine for the Stellar Pioneering Society, it seems wise to adapt.”

Wise, that was another abstraction. Same one they use for sapient. “Can you send a message to Dr. Faraday? Let her know I’m on the way?”

“Message sent. I’m sure she will be eager to talk to you—she thinks you know a great deal more about the ring than you have said in your reports, and that some of what you have yet to mention might conceal mission-critical information.”

Before Lucky could think over the implications of being told such abstractions, she slipped the computation surface into her bag and took to the air. Maybe all she needed was a little perspective to understand what Discord had meant.

He said he was like the Forerunner… he wants me to think he’s an AI. He has limits on what he can say and do, just like the Forerunner. But maybe we already have the information we need to figure out what he isn’t allowed to say.

Was Flurry Heart really having her memories erased? She didn’t know, but three separate sources had now apparently confirmed that she had been imprisoned for what she knew.

Celestia will do worse to me if she gets her hooves on me. There were still three days until Twilight would call again. How much could they figure out in that time?

Olivia rested on one of the cushions in Othar’s new conference room, adjusting her rump and trying to find a comfortable position. Of course, these stupid pony bodies didn’t really have comfortable positions, only varying degrees of cramped. She could sit for hours, and it would never feel quite right. How long am I supposed to take adjusting to a new sleeve? It’s probably not six months.

The door finally opened, and Deadlight entered. The pony looked a little nervous to be in her presence, and she took some satisfaction from that. He was still wearing the ankle bracelet around one of his forelegs, the tracker that could also incapacitate him if he tried to run. But so far, he hadn’t. Despite her misgivings, the pony had been obedient.

He was also wearing the translation headset, which got closer to perfect with every day of Lucky’s diligent effort to improve the software. It probably wouldn’t be long before the Forerunner could speak Eoch as well as she could.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked.

Olivia was also wearing the headset, though by now she’d learned enough of the native language to understand such a simple question. She could probably have gotten by as a tourist in an Equestrian city, so long as all she had to do was make small talk and ask which way to find the bathroom. “Yes,” she said. “I was wondering if you would help me with something. You have some unique experience that no one else in Othar can reproduce.”

His nervousness apparently grew, because his ears flattened to his head at that, and he muttered something quiet the computer couldn’t translate. But she cleared her throat, and then he responded a little more calmly. “If I can,” he said. “I am an explorer. I’ve been to many places, met ponies of all kinds and seen strange creatures. If that is what you want help with…”

“Yes, actually.” She gestured to a cushion on the far end of the table, then pressed a button on the keyboard in front of her. The projector kicked on, filling the glass cube in the center of the table with an image of a city, taken from above. “Do you recognize this place?”

His eyes widened, and he nodded immediately. “That’s Dragon’s Folly,” he said. “Fun place to visit, so long as you don’t plan on committing any crimes. Very serious about the law in Dragon’s Folly.”

Olivia pressed the button again, and it went to the next slide. A much closer image, so that the huge cuts into the stone that formed the city were visible. There were hundreds of banners hanging from the windows of buildings, all in muted colors with subtle variations.

“Oh, awesome.” Deadlight pointed at the most repeated pattern, a variation of orange and black. “That’s the Caravan festival. Guess whoever took this picture was there recently.”

“So you know ‘Dragon’s Folly’?”

“Yah.” He nodded again, looking smug. “It’s the gateway to the West, or that’s what everypony says. It’s one of the last places with laws and stuff ponies would recognize. If you want to go further, it’s where you hire a caravan to cross the desert.”

“It’s… not a part of Equestria then?”

“No, no!” He laughed. “They’d be insulted if you even suggested it. The sort of ponies who move out there do it to get away from Equestria. They all have their reasons, or… more often than not, their great great great grandparents had their reasons and they’re just continuing the family tradition. But no, not part of Equestria. They treat Equestrian citizens same as anyone else who visits though, so it’s a safe place to go. Just don’t go talking about how much you like the Royal Sisters in shady bars late at night, or you might have an accident on your way out.”

Sounds perfect. “I have a few more pictures here I was hoping you could help me identify. I think they’re individual families and businesses. Could you tell me about them?”

“Sure, no problem.” Deadlight relaxed into the cushion. “If that’s all this is, I’d be happy to help.”

And he did. They went through dozens of flags and banners, most of which he didn’t recognize. A few he knew belonged to prominent trading guilds, or the company that ran caravans through the desert to another town called “Paradise.” Eventually, they settled on one particular flag, and he almost got up out of his seat.

“Stay away from that!” He pointed with a hoof, looking nervous. “That’s Salvadore’s trading guild. They, uh…” He lowered his voice, as though embarrassed to be speaking of such vulgarity. “They trade in ponies. And they do worse. You ever see that flag flying over a ship, or anywhere at all really, you run the other way as fast as you can.”

“I thought you said the city cares about laws,” Olivia said, feigning confusion. “Why would they allow something like that?”

Deadlight glanced down at the bracelet around his foreleg, then up at her, rolling his eyes. “Let’s just say that some ponies are good at looking the other way when they think they have a good reason.”

Olivia winced—though of course, the remark was justified. “I think that’s enough, Deadlight.” She gestured for the door. “You’ve been more helpful than I deserve. More cooperative, too. For what it’s worth, I approve of your relationship with ‘Melody.’ I know you two have been worried I might try to stop you—I won’t. And I don’t think you’ll be a prisoner here for much longer.”

“Thanks,” Deadlight said, turning to go. He didn’t sound like he believed her. “I’m sure you mean that.” He left.

Olivia waited several minutes—until she was sure that he wouldn’t still be lurking near the door. “Forerunner, I assume you were listening?”

“I’ve already piloted the drone into a likely spot,” came its voice, sounding proud of itself. “There is an individual standing on the balcony of one of the taller stone structures—I believe he’s wealthy based on all the gold he is wearing. Not only that, but I overheard him speaking in Eoch to his servants. He should suffice.”

“Excellent,” Olivia said, though she was taken aback for a moment by just how thoroughly the Forerunner had understood her intentions. No more walking it through every step, where comprehension only came after she painstakingly explained her own self-imposed victory conditions.

The screen changed to show her the very city she’d been sharing pictures of—Dragon’s Folly, apparently. Taken from the eyes of a drone made in the perfect likeness of a crow. She’d never seen this design before—but at pony size, the bird was particularly imposing. Crows were big birds.

The image shook and rattled as the crow landed on the balcony, just out of reach of her target. Olivia leaned in close to the controls. “Salvadore? Do you have a minute to talk?”

The one she was speaking to looked a great deal like a bird himself, or maybe a lion. Some strange fusion of the two. He reached up with a claw to shoo the drone away, or maybe to grab it off the railing. Its reactions were mechanical-fast, and it lept out of the way, taking to the air and hovering just out of reach. He said something the Forerunner couldn’t translate—not Eoch, then.

“My master sends me on her behalf,” she said. “With a proposal. I believe it could make you very rich.”

The bird looked to have been going for a crossbow hanging on the wall. He lowered his claw, turning back to face the open balcony. “Well why didn’t you say so? Just tell me what you need.”

“Blood,” she answered. “Fresh.”

He smiled back. “Come in, come in.” He stepped to the side, indicating the expensive bedroom beyond. “I am always interested in new clients.”

Lucky had never seen the conference room so full. Every one of the chairs was occupied—by the scientists, by the Equestrians, and even the new military team. Lucky sat in the middle, with Deadlight on her right and other James just past him. There seemed a strange new closeness between those two, something nopony had apparently noticed besides her.

But James knew herself, and she knew how to judge her own reactions. A year ago, she might’ve had to suppress the desire to be sick at how often she caught Melody glancing back at Deadlight. She seemed intent on seeing his reactions to everything she did—she laughed at all his jokes, even when it didn’t seem to Lucky that she understood the Equestrian mindset that underlay them.

On her other side, Lightning had changed in even more dramatic ways. Back in Equestria, she’d always been quiet and subdued in a large group like this, as though she were afraid being too vocal about anything might help ponies recognize her. But nopony in this room besides Lucky knew what mistakes she’d made, and none of them cared.

Lightning Dust was a different mare. She had even adopted the uniform—or the uniform coat, anyway. She wasn’t crazy enough to try and struggle into pants every morning, and the idea of adapting one of the dress-skirts seemed even more absurd for ponies.

Most astonishing of all, their commander remarked on flying with appreciation. Nopony’s wings in the whole room stunk or had feathers out of place, so obviously that part of her instruction had caught on.

These days, whenever Lucky was with her mom, she was either helping with the flight school or teaching her English.

It was the military ponies who were the odd ones out—they looked like Deadlight and Lucky, but they were still awkward in their bodies. They spoke little, watching the others with a slightly confused, haunted look.

I know the feeling, Lucky thought, as she glanced across the table at the most haunted of all. Lei had whole sections of her coat still patchy, and serious scars running along her torso where a right leg should be.

The prosthetic seemed to work well for her—she could walk about as well as the other new ponies—but there was something perpetually glazed about her expression. Her eyes never seemed to both look at the same thing at once, and what little she said often seemed a poor match to whatever conversation was at hand.

A strange family I have, Lucky thought. Guess it’s better than what I left behind. Discord’s implications for Earth hadn’t been encouraging—his last remarks about the Forerunner suggested vast distances of time, long enough for the rise and fall of many civilizations. The likelihood that anything James knew or cared about might remain seemed exceptionally remote.

Olivia rose to her hooves suddenly, and the whole room quieted down. She wasn’t wearing bandages anymore—whatever injury she had suffered from her cutie mark appeared to have healed. Based on what Lucky had seen of the photos, it hadn’t been nearly as bad for her as it was for Lucky herself. No sign of burns on the floor, for instance.

“Alright, that’s enough. We all know how much danger we’re in,” Olivia said, and at once the lull of conversation died. She sat back down. Her chair was different from the others—she was taller than everypony else, even though Lucky knew she was the smallest pony in the room.

“A number of items of business.” She nodded slightly towards the natives. “First, Equestrian native Deadlight. I would like to apologize to you—on behalf of myself, the Stellar Pioneering Society, and the human race.” She didn’t look away from the stallion as she spoke, and didn’t sound like she was forcing it either.

She did speak a little slowly, letting the Forerunner translate her words.

Melody always spoke about Olivia with disdain or frustration, but Lucky had never seen it. I knew she wasn’t a bad pony. She promised to look out for us, and she did.

“As of this moment, you’ve been granted association status with the Pioneering Society. You are no longer a prisoner of Othar. Should you wish to leave, I will arrange transport to Equestria’s nearest border. For security reasons, you may not fly out, since the location of this city is confidential. But should you wish to return to Equestria, you may. If you must blame anyone for what happened—blame me.”

Deadlight looked as surprised as though she had dumped something on his head. He glanced to one side, but Melody only smiled innocently, refusing to meet his eyes.

He eventually managed to stammer something out, tripping over himself as he did so. “Ponies make mistakes,” he said. “I forgive you. And I don’t plan on leaving. If… if it’s alright with all of you, you are the thing I’ve spent my whole career looking for.”

“We appreciate your help,” Olivia said, ignoring his awkwardness. “Dr. Irwin, if you could remove his restraint? It will no longer be necessary.”

The mare jerked so violently she fell backward out of her seat, squeaking awkwardly as she did so and quickly righting herself. Then she lowered her head, using her mouth to remove the house-arrest ankle-bracelet from Deadlight’s leg.

“And now that’s out of the way, everyone in this room has the clearance to hear this.” She sat back slightly. “I have come to the conclusion that no military action will save Othar. Our mission requires collaboration, and maximum use of all the resources we have before us.

“I have been operating until now under the assumption that it would be best to share as little as possible with everyone. However—considering the odds, it seems likely that should the enemy discover anything that might reveal our location, we’ll be destroyed regardless.

“So allow me to explain our priorities. Continued secrecy is paramount, as Dr. Nolan’s death demonstrated. Othar’s new sections are being built to the strongest structural standards, but we aren’t sure what difference that will make against Equestria. If we are attacked here, we’ll be destroyed.

“In my study of Dr. James Irwin’s reports from Equestria itself, and from my conversations with its citizens, I have come to the conclusion that Equestria’s leaders will not react favorably to our presence.

“In the long run, secrecy alone is untenable. We will, therefore, be exploring every avenue of discovering and neutralizing the defenses of… what were you all calling it?”

“Sanctuary,” Martin provided, grinning smugly to herself. “Better than your name. None of us will see Earth again.”

“Yeah.” Olivia flicked one wing towards the soldiers. “We are working towards discovering the location of its defensive installations and neutralizing them. At the same time, we have discovered… a way to maybe make human bodies that don’t die. That is why I’ve called this meeting, as I believe several present here will wish to participate.

“Dr. Born, if you would explain.”

Dorothy didn’t stand up, but she did flex her wings uncomfortably beneath her lab coat, clearing her throat loudly. “Alright everyone, I’ll be brief with this. Apparently there are areas where the native species live outside of the country called Equestria. We’re going to be going into one of those, during some local holiday.” She nodded towards Deadlight. “I don’t really know any of the details, I just know it’s a market day. Lots of people in from all over the place. We’ve made currency out of gold the Forerunner mined for us, so we’ll be bringing that. Our goal is to get as many tissue samples from the natives as we can, but flightless ponies are the main goal. We need the ones with horns, and the ones without. I think the uh… guess he’s not a hostage anymore.” She looked back to Deadlight again. “What did you say your plan was?”

Deadlight grinned and rose, apparently enjoying the attention. He spoke slowly enough that Melody could translate for him instead of the computer. “The town is called Dragon’s Folly—a fortress on the edge of the sea. The desert is harsh and the storms off the ocean are worse. But the best part for you ponies is that the ones who live there really hate Equestria—otherwise, why would they live somewhere so awful? Just as important, they all wear hats to keep the sand and rain out of their faces.”

“So here’s the plan,” Olivia said, apparently losing her patience with Deadlight’s slowness. “Everyone gets dyed—Forerunner has manufactured a whole suite of colors for hair and fur. Forerunner’s been building a fancy new submarine we’ll be riding to our destination, or most of the way. Lightning Dust and Lucky Break here”—she used Equestrian for both names, instead of English, her pronunciation almost recognizable this time—“will pop in first to make sure things are safe. Once they give the go ahead, we’ll move to phase two.”

Lucky instantly sat up—not because she was upset at the assignment, but that Olivia had apparently been so sure she’d be agreeable to the prospect she hadn’t even asked. Olivia was right of course. Even if Dragon’s Folly wasn’t Equestria, she longed for some time off the island.

“Anyone who chooses to go will be split into one of two teams, led by Deadlight and Lightning Dust. I will be leading a third team with a few members of Bravo. The Forerunner has made trade goods according to Deadlight’s instructions—we’ll be trading them for clothing. Hats, blankets, anything that looks old and might be trapping hair.”

“But only from the horned ones and the wingless ones,” Dr. Born interjected. “We have enough pegasus genes for now.”

“It’s a rare opportunity,” Deadlight said. “Caravan only comes every four years. There will be so many different creatures in the city that even acting as strangely as you do won’t be noticed. Just don’t eat dragon food and don’t steal, and we’ll be in and out without anypony noticing.” He finally sat back down. “Is your team taking Melody, Wayfinder?”

He gave Olivia an Eoch name?

Olivia shook her head, then continued with her presentation without explanation. “So long as the conditions Deadlight described for us match what Lucky finds when she gets in, this place sounds almost as hostile to Equestria as Equestria is to us. It might make for a good ally one day, or maybe even somewhere for us to go if Othar falls. Don’t make enemies, don’t get arrested, and don’t lose track of time, and this might be the first trip of many like it.”

Now, for the first time in her presentation, Lucky detected a trace of insincerity. “We leave tomorrow morning. The trip will take about two days.” She raised a hoof before Lucky could object. “The festival is the day before your second call with the Equestrian princess is scheduled. You can talk to her from the sub.”

They dispersed. The soldiers left immediately, Olivia leading the way as they hurried off to what Lucky was sure was some other meeting. What was that about being open and honest with us, Major? Obviously Olivia hadn’t changed into another pony just because she’d gotten herself a cutie mark.

She apologized to Deadlight. She’s not that bad. Other me was exaggerating. Being more open and releasing her prisoner is good enough. She doesn’t have to tell us everything.

The door opened again, and Lucky could tell who was coming back thanks to the metal click of the prosthetic with each step. Lei was pushing a large tray in front of her, and looking quite proud of herself.

“They don’t need me,” she said to no one in particular, in Mandarin. Lucky had never actually heard her speak English—she didn’t even know if she could. “So I made lunch. Hope everyone is okay with hotpot. We don’t have pork, so it’s all tofu.”

“Thanks.” Martin was the first to rise, hurrying over to the tray and helping herself. “I’m so sick of oatmeal.”

Lucky didn’t know what hotpot was, or recognize the smell of the spices that emerged once Lei removed the lid to the heated tray. The rice looked like what she had come to expect from Pioneering Society food, brownish and slightly tangy thanks to the genetic engineering. What she’d cooked vaguely resembled dumplings, though they didn’t taste like anything Lucky had ever had before.

Even Dr. Born didn’t rush off to return to work once Lei brought food, and conversation soon resumed.

“I can’t believe we’re going to get to meet real ponies,” Martin said, about a half hour later. Somehow Lucky had ended up with her and Dorothy in one corner of the room, getting grilled about pony culture. “The major always struck me as insanely paranoid—I wondered how much longer she would even let us do flying practice.”

“There are two ‘real’ ponies already here,” Lucky said, without thinking. “My mom, and the archeologist Deadlight. And I like to think I can do a good impression.”

“Obviously the major thinks so, if she’s sending you and the pegasus in first,” Martin answered, taking another sip of what passed for lemonade.

“Cracking you out before you were finished must’ve had some unforeseen side-effects,” Dorothy said, looking up from her plate and studying Lucky intensely. “But I thought you would’ve adjusted by now. ‘Mom’?”

Lucky’s ears flattened, and she looked away. “I guess you expected me to act like Melody.” She glanced across the room, where her clone was listening enraptured to one of Deadlight’s stories.

“No,” Dorothy answered, shrugging her wings. “We are clay in the mold of our bodies. Determinism crushes even the firmest minds in time.”

“I’ve been thinking about a name,” Martin went on, as though she hadn’t even been listening. Either that, or she didn’t care. “For when we’re in the city, I mean. How does ‘Spanking Recurrence’ sound? I spent a few hours going through the dictionary...”

Lucky nearly spat up her lemonade. “Not good. How about…” She frowned. “Star Lilly. That’s a little less… incomprehensible.”

“Don’t you start doing it too.” Dorothy glared at Martin. “The Jameses have an excuse—we needed some way to tell them apart, and they’re both almost always with primitives. What’s yours?”

Martin wilted. “It’s just for while we’re visiting. Besides, if the major gets an Eoch name, I want one too. It’s like… a rite of passage.” She looked down at Lucky’s cutie mark, in a way that awakened old memories of human modesty.

Lucky tucked her tail between her legs just to be sure.

“What about those? I’m sure the Forerunner will just stencil something on when we’re making disguises, but there’s got to be a way to trigger those. Do they serve any function? Beyond the cultural, I mean.”

“I… yes.” Lucky spoke slowly, since she wasn’t entirely sure of what she was saying. “Even the ponies themselves don’t agree. Some say that having a cutie mark is only recognition of a talent, while others think that having one grants the talent. For me, it was definitely the latter. One minute, I could barely play some basic chords, then… I got a guitar on my butt, and I could strum like I was back on Earth, singing pony songs whose words I’d never heard and amazing a whole crowd.”

“That’s not a guitar,” Dorothy said flatly. “Are you telling stories? Older you doesn’t usually make things up. Guess you grew out of it when you got older.”

“Have you thought about what that implies?” Martin asked, ignoring the geneticist again. “If you could play songs you didn’t know, if you had skills you’d never learned… something must’ve altered your mind as well. Implanting memories… the Pioneering Society can’t do that. Our neuroimprints are always just exact scans. Guess it makes sense—whoever built Sanctuary obviously understood more about engineering than we do. Why not neuroscience too…”

She shivered again, as though shaking off an invisible insect. “Something altered your mind without completely destroying it. That’s more than just a cultural similarity—that implies either the underlying architecture is close enough to identical to the natives that implanting something new didn’t break you, or…” She got a little louder, apparently more excited. “Or whatever did it was able to extract the architecture of a human mind and adapt its edits to work with the new architecture. I’m not sure which is scarier.”

“Now you got her going,” Dorothy rolled her eyes. “It was usually Karl who did it before—that’s why I spent most of my time in my lab. Listening to this”—she flicked her wing at Martin—“for hours and hours. Doesn’t really seem to serve a purpose, fictionalizing everything. Don’t we have enough problems without trying to solve every single mystery at once?”

Lucky cleared her throat. “If you’re asking how to get one, it seems to be pretty automatic for most ponies. It happens while you’re doing something you’re good at, or something you like, or something you didn’t know you were good at. If you’re asking what they’re for, I have no idea. Ponies don’t have religion exactly, but they mystify lots of aspects of their lives. They don’t really examine some things, just taking it all for granted. That’s how cutie marks are. All the research I could do was to find some weird disease that gave you tons and tons of them at once, and that didn’t seem like it was still around.”

“Fascinating.” Martin turned, glancing back at herself, as though expecting a mark to have appeared at that moment. “Obviously the Ringbuilders are responsible. Shame they didn’t leave more behind that would suggest its purpose. Something to do with corralling the captured primitive civilization?”

“And off she goes.” Dorothy stood, shaking herself out. “I think I’m going to go run some simulations or something. Have fun, little James. Don’t get a boyfriend too soon with that little body.”

Lucky winced, but she didn’t argue.

“She’s been like this since before Karl died,” Martin supplied, without prompting. “It’s not that.”

Lucky sat back, leaning against the wall. “What is it, then? Doesn’t the Pioneering Society screen for antisocial behavior?”

Martin actually laughed. “You can’t screen for these conditions. There’s the small print that says we might not wake up in the same sort of bodies we went into the scanner wearing, but do you think anyone predicted this?” She held up a stubby leg. “I don’t think anyone really understands how the Forerunner can adapt brains. It’s a machine learning algorithm—a black box. If you really want to have some nightmares, think about all the generations that didn’t make it. How many ponies came up half formed, with almost-people tortured and confused inside, their whole lives only misery, unable to survive outside the Biofab tank. You think there were a dozen? A thousand? The Forerunner won’t say how many if you ask.”

“Being a pony isn’t so bad,” Lucky said, banishing that awful image as best she could. “We’ve never been anything else. I got used to it, you guys can too.”

“I’m working on it.” Martin got up too, picking up her empty plate with one of the little robotic claw-things. “I’m really looking forward to Dragon’s Folly. It’ll be nicer in a few years, once I know the language. Too bad we can’t just implant it in future generations like your mark thing.”

Martin left. The room had dwindled down to just a few, as it happened. Lightning Dust seemed to be waiting for her, which was a little unusual. They still shared a room, but they rarely spent much time together in it apart from sleeping.

“Guess we get to go to a new town after all, eh squirt?” Dust said, pulling her close for a quick hug.

Lucky didn’t resist, though she might have if anyone else had stuck around. But Deadlight and her clone had gone off together, even Lei had finished cleaning up. “Have you ever heard of it? Is it like how Deadlight says?”

Dust shrugged. “I’ve heard of towns outside Equestria. The ones who live there are supposed to be mean. And there are worse stories of the places even further away—places where ponies are slaves, or how dragons apparently eat us.” She shivered all over, a gesture that Lucky imitated. “I dunno how true all that is. But everypony knew about places that weren’t Equestria. I… thought about moving out to one for a long time.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well…” She shrugged. “I guess it’s that… I’m still loyal to the Equestria of my foalhood. The foal who wanted to join the Wonderbolts, I mean. As rough as my life was, I never wanted to move out forever. Somehow I knew that if I ever did leave, I’d never come back.”

Lucky gulped, looking down. “And now you wish you could go back? And it’s my fault you can’t…”

Lighting Dust lifted her head with one wing. “No, sweetheart. Don’t do that. I figured this would happen eventually. I didn’t want to leave, but I knew I’d have to. It’s just… life moves on. Othar needs me more than Equestria ever did.” She giggled. “It’s like a city full of you. In… more ways than one, I guess. Some of these ponies look grown up, but they’ve got no cutie marks and they’re as helpless as foals.”

“That’s more true than you know,” Lucky muttered. She wasn’t sure she should be saying anything, but now that she’d started… “I’m not even three years old, and I’m the oldest pony in Othar. Well… except for you and Deadlight.”

“Really?” Apparently Lightning Dust had moved beyond the part of their relationship where she questioned everything Lucky told her. “You look at least thirteen. Maybe… fifteen. You were a late bloomer with your cutie mark. Guess Wayfinder could be thirteen too.”

“Nope.” She shook her head. “I could show you where I came from… how they made me, I mean.” She shivered involuntarily. “You could see why I don’t have parents for yourself if you want.”

Lightning Dust’s eyes darkened. “The one who made you is still responsible, even if it isn’t your… parent. Wayfinder says that’s the Forerunner. One of these days I’m going to ask for an explanation. Why it sent you out into a storm helpless and alone. It better have a good answer.”

“To find you,” Lucky said. “And because I’m disposable.” She glanced up at the wall just to be sure. They had a few hours before sundown, and anyway she wasn’t tired yet. “Come on, I want to show you where I came from.” They wouldn’t go all the way to Landfall—but one fabricator was as good as another.

Author's Note

Sorry about a little long on this chapter. I've been trying to power through the interlude between acts 2 and 3 without compromizing on story pacing. As it turns out, the way to do that is to not spread out the scenes as I would with other sections. A few more chapters, and we'll be into act three, and the length should drop back to my goal of happy place of 5-6k per chapter.

G6.3850: Dragon's Folly

Lightning Dust stared down at something she had no words to describe. Such experiences had been a near-daily occurrence during her first days in Othar. Yet over time, she had felt as though she were getting to know its ponies. Their strange customs and constant clumsiness didn’t make them all that unusual, really.

Yet this—this was like something out of those stories of the changeling invasion, only in reverse. Hundreds, maybe thousands of drawers full of half-formed ponies, all just a few floors down from the places where Dust ate and slept.

Through the glass of an open drawer, Dust could see what was clearly a severed leg, or the start of one. There was the bone, distinct though thin in its still-growing section. Muscle wrapped around it, underdeveloped. No blood, only a clear gel, with channels of yellow and green running into and out of the severed limb. Dust had seen serious injury in her life before—otherwise, she might’ve puked right there.

“This is called a biofabricator,” Lucky said from beside her, watching Dust with wide, observant eyes. Judging her reaction, probably. “It takes culture proteins grown by algal vats…” She trailed off her string of almost meaningless alien words. “It does what a mare’s womb does, only without a mare. They’re critical for slower-than-light space travel, at least the way we did it. Nobody ever seriously talked about making an ark, which was about the only other way people knew of when I left.”

“You came from… this?” She shivered again, turning away from the limb. She didn’t want to look at it anymore. “I saw your x-rays. Doctors back in Stormshire thought maybe you’d been abused. Guess your machine isn’t perfect.”

Lucky looked like she might be about to say something, but then she shrugged and looked away. “Well, you already know I’m from another planet. Now you know… all the gross details.”

“This is how you… plan on doing things? Forever?” Lightning Dust spoke slowly, carefully. I’ve been helping these ponies all this time. Have they come to… turn the whole world upside-down? Is this really the invading changelings all along?

“No!” Lucky exclaimed. She didn’t sound sick, but she did sound sincere. Dust was sure of her ability to judge when the filly might not be telling her the truth, and she was certainly being honest now. “There are a limited number of people in the probe. Not that we couldn’t make the same people forever… but that was never the point! The point was to have enough people for one city—I think there are…”

Her daughter sat back on her haunches, thoughtful. “Forerunner, how many neuroimprints are you storing right now?”

The voice came from the walls. It always used Eoch around Lucky, which meant Dust could understand it. Of course, she couldn’t judge if the machine was telling the truth the same way she could with the filly. “Sixteen thousand, three hundred eighty-four.”

“Well, there’s that many,” Lucky said. “And most of them are people we won’t need. Assuming we don’t all get killed… the Forerunner will only make each of us once.”

“There are two of you,” Dust pointed out.

Lucky whined. “Yeah, sort of. It thought I died. So it replaced me. But if it had known… it wouldn’t have made the second one. The whole point of these machines is that it’s too hard to send ponies through space. But we can send a Forerunner, and it can build them, then it makes us. Once it makes us, we’ll make more ponies the normal way. The way…” She whined. “You know. The way ponies do it. Humans do it the same way.”

Lightning Dust laughed. “I figured that one out from Melody.”

“Mom!” Lucky squeaked, rising again. She walked past her, pressing a button on the edge of the “fabricator.” It pulled back into the wall, hiding the strangeness inside. “So yeah, that’s where I came from. I have no parents, I’m two years old, I’m also an alien who grew up on another planet with two legs instead of four where my parents died when I was little and I wasn’t very good at most things.” She laughed to herself, sounding bitter. “I honestly think I’m a better pony than I ever was as a human.”

Lightning Dust considered that a long time. She looked back at the drawer. Was this really all that different from the way ponies did magic? The human kind of magic was a little uglier, had some more wires and more machines. But it was also fairer, apparently. It didn’t care if you had a horn, you could still make it work.

“You aren’t going to make anypony else use these… fabricators?”

“No,” Lucky said. “Not unless they want to. Once our colony is safe, a Forerunner is supposed to make all the people it didn’t need for the mission exactly once. It’s… one of the perks we got for signing up. I’m already here, obviously, so it won’t make any more of me. Unless… we get caught tomorrow, and the dragons eat us.”

“None I ever knew ate ponies,” Lightning Dust said, shrugging one wing. She took one last look at the fabricator, then walked away. It might be the strangest thing she’d seen since coming to Othar, but it wasn’t as though Equestria didn’t have weird magic of its own. If there were magical pools that could make two ponies come out when only one went in, if there were magic-eating monsters and storms that raged across the whole country, then why not a machine that did something similar?

“You can stop saying you don’t have parents, Lucky,” she eventually said. “You have me. I hope that’s enough.”

The filly didn’t say anything at first, just touched herself to Dust’s side and held still there for a long time. “Thanks, Mom. I’m Lucky to have you.”

Dust lifted her wing off the pony’s back, glaring in mock disgust. “That was worse than the fabricator.”

The Cyclops submarine exploration craft had been designed largely for exploring the many hypothesized entirely waterbound planets out in the universe. Though eventually it was expected humans who lived there would probably be modified with gills and other useful features, the first generation would be housed in subs like the Cyclops. The Cyclops was by far the largest of the prospective designs, with a draft length of five hundred meters and a crew capacity of one hundred.

As Melody made her way through the spacious hallways, she got the feeling the major had probably ordered the thing built as a fallback base, in case something happened to Othar. It was probably a good idea, one of several Olivia apparently had since getting herself a cutie mark. Assuming the Forerunner hadn’t just built the thing and told her about it afterwards, which was also a possibility.

Melody was getting used to a new uniform, one apparently built for submarine life. The whole thing was stretchy and cool, and it apparently served some useful purpose in the event of an emergency. Even the constantly nude “natives” were wearing them.

Unfortunately, Deadlight wasn’t with her, but off in a meeting with the soldiers. Something about explaining the potential military power of Dragon’s Folly, and how they’d resisted past invasions. Melody would’ve liked to be there, but of course she wasn’t allowed. The major had talked a big talk about changes in Othar, but that didn’t mean she was a different pony.

Except Deadlight will just tell me anything I ask. I can ask him about it as soon as he’s done with the meeting.

Melody finally reached her destination: the observation deck of the Cyclops. It wasn’t as large as she had been suspecting—probably something to do with the dangers of pressure, or something similar. Still, it was an impressive sight.

A bowl of something like glass stretched five meters or so at the front of the observation deck, which happened to double as the sub’s cafeteria and common area. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see out there. The water was a deep, resonant blue. Which made sense, she supposed. Apparently the sea was only a hundred meters deep, which it stayed near-uniformly after dropping off of the simulated continental shelf.

There was nothing simulated down here—she could almost see the bottom, if she squinted. If she asked, the Forerunner would probably turn the spotlights on for her, but she suspected that the major wouldn’t have been happy with her if she did. Below them, perhaps ten meters below the Cyclops, she could just make out a perfectly flat surface.

It looked like the pictures Lucky had sent back from the “Transit Hub.” Unidentifiable metal, without marks of manufacturing or even of function. I wonder what keeps sediment from piling up down there.

Melody found herself twitching her wings uncomfortably, wishing she could fly. But like most of Othar’s population, she couldn’t get into the air without a running start, or somewhere high to jump from. To her knowledge, only the major and Lucky could take off without either advantage. Well, aside from the natives, obviously.

But neither of them were here. Only Martin was, resting on one of the couches with a laptop. She wasn’t wearing the cybernetic claws, but there was some sort of appliance in front of her, which seemed to be working like a keyboard, except without buttons. Instead there were two wheels, with a ring of colors around the outside. Martin rested one forehoof in each one, rotating and depressing them together in rapid combinations.

“That’s a weird keyboard,” Melody said, staring at it for several full seconds, without actually moving around to peek at the screen. “What are you doing with it?”

“Trying to crack the encoding on the storage device Lucky brought with her,” Martin said, without looking up from her screen. She paused in her “typing,” making a frustrated noise.

“Isn’t the Forerunner doing that?”

Melody pulled over a nearby chair, sitting down and watching, until eventually Martin looked up from her work.

“The Forerunner is confident it has recorded the unique pattern the cube stored. But just because we have all of it doesn’t mean we know how to read it. Whatever compression or encryption this is…” She shook her head. “I figured it was something to do, since the Forerunner won’t let me use the telescope anymore.”

“We have a telescope?”

“Yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “How do you think we’re supposed to find Earth? And no, we haven’t found Earth, if that’s what you’re asking. If we had, the Forerunner would probably have all kinds of news from back home. They were supposed to beam it all after us, along with any new orders from the Pioneering Society.”

Melody opened her mouth to protest, but she was too slow. “Yeah, it means exactly what you think that means. The Forerunner isn’t positive where we are. No familiar starmaps. Apparently there was some corruption with the part of its memory that stores navigational data. It can’t give us its origin point either.” She sounded a little skeptical about that, though Melody wasn’t sure what she was trying to imply.

They already knew the Forerunner could withhold information if it wanted to. But why not just say it wasn’t willing to tell them, as it had done when they asked about the previous generations? “Seems a little convenient. We land just fine on a ring… which you said is moving pretty fast. The probe figured out how to do that, but it doesn’t remember where it came from?”

Martin grunted shared frustration. “I don’t know who it thinks it’s fooling. Obviously it just wants to keep us from the depression and existential dread of knowing that everything we ever knew and loved is irrevocably lost in the distant histories of time. Or maybe it wants to keep us from thinking about the thousands or even millions of copies of us that have been spawned all over the galaxy, to do our little jobs and then break down. Exactly like any of the mechanical segments it makes.”

“You’re fun today,” Melody grunted, rising from her seat again. “I thought you were excited about getting to see a pony city for ourselves. Do we have to get all…” She gestured with one wing, though she couldn’t exactly find the words. “Like that?”

“I am excited,” Martin said. “I’m just being realistic. We’re so far into the future that this whole mission might be pointless anyway. For all we know, we already colonized the whole universe. The USS Enterprise might be cruising around up there, and the best we get is to be the monsters of the week when it stops by to examine the ring.”

“We don’t actually know though, do we? Could be just the opposite—this might be the most important mission ever, because we’re the last traces of humanity left anywhere. Everyone else is dead, but our probe got away. We get to be the first ones to start over.”

Martin shrugged. “I might need your help with this later, if I get anywhere. I’m not really a computer person, but… whatever’s in here is more likely to be in their language than ours. Forerunner is running pattern matching, but since the little you will be on the surface…” She rolled her eyes. “Assuming you can get away from your boyfriend for a few minutes to help with it.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Melody protested, though she couldn’t meet Martin’s eyes as she said it. “I’ve just been spending more time with him over the last few weeks. It makes sense that we’d become friends.”

Martin shrugged, her dark expression brightening a little. “Whatever, Melody, whatever. Just remember, my cabin is through the walls from yours. I can hear everything you do. And the Forerunner has cameras everywhere, so it can too.”

Melody left in a hurry after that, ears flat to her head and tail tucked in. How did they all figure it out so fast? Nobody cared how much time I spent with Deadlight before. He’s been trapped here for ages, and now suddenly it’s a big deal?

I really hope you were right about Dragon’s Folly, Deadlight. It’ll be nice to spend some time somewhere else for a change.

The last time she’d checked, the Forerunner had suggested they would be arriving by nightfall. With any luck that meant her clone could check it out overnight, and they’d have a full day to spend time in the city. Buying used clothes for Dorothy’s cure, but… mostly just not being stuck in tiny metal rooms for a while.

Lucky returned from the city feeling exhilarated. As they passed under the stone archway leading to the dock, her nose and ears were still assaulted—strange foods, strange creatures, dozens of languages she had never heard before.

“Guess I should’ve come here sooner,” Lightning Dust said, as they walked out onto the dock. There were a pair of guards here—both canine creatures with vastly oversized arms and dull-looking faces. They didn’t react to the two of them as they made their way back to the “boat.”

The boat was really a huge piece of vinyl facing, which looked like wood and rested on the upper deck of the Cyclops. It went deep enough into the water to make it look as though the suggestion of the true hull was really just the underside of a particularly large ship.

“You think it’s that friendly when they’re not having a festival?” Lucky asked, licking a little sweet syrup from her lips, left over from the snacks they’d bought. There had been so many people inside that a pair of ponies hadn’t even registered—there were lots of ponies living in Dragon’s Folly, though most of them looked rougher than the group she usually spent her time with.

“Probably not,” Dust agreed. “But that doesn’t matter. We could totally live here.” She looked up at the sky, eyes narrowing. “They have as much weather control as Othar, it looks like. What do all the pegasi who live here do, just sit around all day?” They stepped up the gangplank onto the boat, passing Perez where he lounged on the deck. He was painting something perched between his hooves, though she couldn’t get a good look at what. He had a rifle leaned up against the railing, though it wasn’t within reach.

“I hope you have good news,” he muttered in Spanish.

“Very good,” Lucky responded in kind, stopping to look at what he was doing. Perez didn’t seem to care if anyone saw, he didn’t try to pull the wood away or anything. It looked like he was painting a skull. “Is everyone waiting in the lounge?”

“Everyone except Major Fischer,” he answered, looking momentarily taken-aback by her response. “You spent time in Baja? I guess I thought you were American. My mistake, young lady.”

In reality, Lucky had spent about six days south of the border for spring break exactly one time. She hadn’t thought her Spanish was that good—like all the “non-universal,” languages, it was no longer spoken by as many as it once had been. The era Lucky had left behind had been one of linguistic genocide. “I guess I’ll go give them the news. You coming?”

He shook his head. “No, no. Someone has to make sure we don’t get any uninvited guests. Already had three come up here wanting to see the ship.” He tapped the side of his rifle with a hoof, though of course he must not have used it on them. Somehow she doubted killing anyone who wanted to visit would be taken well by the dock’s authorities.

“You should go into the city,” Lightning Dust said, in her shaking imitation of English. “It is nice there.”

“I’m sure we will,” he answered.

They left, passing him to the wooden facade that concealed the true entrance of the sub itself. Lucky scanned her hoof as usual, and soon enough they were on their way to the observation lounge. As Perez had suggested, it was full of waiting ponies.

They looked a little like tourists dressed for their first vacation, though the garment of choice were plain white robes made to match the local style. It was a passable imitation, though Lucky had learned from her brief trip into Dragon’s Folly that white robes were only worn by the least experienced. Citizens here marked their robes with their accomplishments—a group dressed all in white would be taken as children.

They all looked completely different now, at least so far as colors were concerned. Everypony had stepped into a brand-new machine, which could uniformly apply dye to one’s entire coat and keep it separate from the mane and tail. Apparently the Forerunner had designed the contraption all on its own, though Lucky hadn’t cared enough to get more details. It had made her a light blue only a few shades darker than Lightning Dust’s new color. There was no reason not to keep up the mother-daughter act given it was how they behaved on their own anyway.

“It’s exactly the way I told you, isn’t it?” Deadlight asked, as the airlock opened for them. “Because I know what I’m talking about and you already checked with your machines.”

Lucky nodded to him, walking to the front of the room, and turning around to face the group. Even Dorothy looked hopeful. “Lightning Dust and I have been in the city for the last twenty-four hours,” she announced. “Dragon’s Folly isn’t as safe as an Equestrian city—or even a 1st district city. Think of it like… 3rd district. There were scammers and thieves, that kind of thing. But the city seemed to be in good order.”

“Lots of soldiers,” Lightning Dust added, in Eoch instead of English. Of course, everyone here would be fitted with translators for their adventure into the city. “So don’t break the law.”

She sounded just slightly guilty as she said it—but she wasn’t sure anypony else would’ve caught it. Given they would be filtering everything they heard through machines…

To Lucky’s surprise, it was the Forerunner who spoke next, its voice as flat as ever from the wall. “Major Fischer’s standing orders allow you to proceed immediately into Dragon’s Folly, so long as you remain in your groups and return by nightfall. Remember your mission, and bring back as many samples as possible.”

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Dorothy said. “As paranoid as Olivia always acts, and she’s just gonna let us leave? She isn’t going to change the deal at the last minute to give us two soldiers to babysit with each group?”

“Major Fischer’s orders have not changed,” the Forerunner said. “If you wish me to query her again and suggest a change on your behalf, I would be happy to do so.”

“No!” said several voices at exactly the same time. “No, this is fine.”

Deadlight rose from his couch, gesturing for Melody to do the same. Dorothy followed close behind them, over to one of the two lightweight carts resting by the entrance.

They looked like wood, but were actually formed plastic, which meant even Lucky could’ve rolled them along with nearly zero effort. Even when they were full of old clothes and blankets, they would be easy to move. That was the idea, anyway.

“Guess I’m coming with you,” Martin said from beside her, looking down. Martin’s coat was now bright orange with a yellowish mane. “Smaller groups are better, right?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Plus, I think you two might know more of what you’re doing. I dunno if I trust Deadlight.”

“Fine with me,” Lucky said. “We might shop for other stuff too, though. You’d have to come with us. And there was this show we wanted to see… Lightning Dust says they’re way awesome in Equestria.”

“Sure,” Martin said. “Whatever you’re gonna do sounds like fun. Let’s just go before the major orders us to do something dumb instead.”

The other group was already on its way out, apparently thinking the same thing. “Well… I actually want to talk to her before we go,” Lucky admitted.

Lightning Dust closed the distance from the other end of the hall, stopping beside her. “You think she might be doing something bad?”

Lucky shrugged. “Let’s just say… I think we’re missing a piece. Olivia trusts us all of the sudden, just because the two of us and Deadlight agree the city is safe? I dunno why she couldn’t have just done this whole mission with her marines or whatever and not told us anything.”

Dust shrugged and sat down. Martin, on the other hand, looked genuinely disappointed. “We only get one day and we’re going to waste some of it down here, waiting for Olivia?”

“No, not down here.” She gestured to the cart. “We’re gonna wait on the deck, so she doesn’t slip away before talking to us. You can look out at the city while we’re up there. Maybe learn some stuff or whatever.”

“Fine,” Martin grunted. “Let’s go I guess.”

Melody was entranced. This was exactly her reason for being—the place she belonged, the purpose of her creation. If she had been doing this since the day she’d crawled out of the biofab drawer, she didn’t doubt her problems with depression would never have happened.

Dragon’s Folly was a city made mostly of black basalt, a city on the edge of the ocean that seemed to be bursting its own walls to contain everything. Teetering structures of wood had been erected anchored into foundations of black stone, obscuring the sun except for a thin shaft that shone down through waving flags and banners hung from high windows.

There were over a dozen different species visible on the streets around them, and most weren’t ponies. Melody’s pony-centric view of the world was shortly dashed—though it did still seem like most of the creatures here were quadrupeds of one sort or another. Many resembled creatures from back home—deer for instance, or yaks, or buffalo. Others looked more at home in mythology, like the towering hippogriffs that looked a little like ponies but also weren’t.

She even saw a few dragons, lean creatures of sharp talons and glittering scales. They towered above most of the other citizens of this place, passing through crowds that parted for them as they moved and occasionally scraping up against rocky buildings.

Stalls packed the streets on both sides, with merchants hawking wares Melody had no names for. She knew what they’d come for—about the most boring thing ever a pony could buy. Olivia wanted used, dirty clothes for their continued human-saving experiments. This was important, Melody knew, but she also had a very hard time caring about it. Getting a bunch of old hats would hardly be something to write about in her journal.

“How far do you think our gold will go?” she whispered to Deadlight, who strutted along beside her with his wings slightly open. He hadn’t worn a robe, and so neither had she, but both of them did have hats. “Will we have a little extra?”

Deadlight reached to one side with a wing, brushing it under her chin. “If I didn’t know where you came from, I’d wonder how you could be so old and so naive,” he said, in English. Deadlight had picked up the basics of the language almost as fast as she had learned Eoch. He didn’t wear a translator. “We have plenty, and that’s enough. More than enough, really.” He leaned in, whispering into her ear. “Ponies are listening. Let’s not say things we don’t want them to hear.”

She blushed, ears flattening to her head. “I was just wondering if we could find…” She pointed at a nearby stall, one with stringed instruments of all kinds on display. “Maybe something designed for ponies would be easier than the guitar I have back home.”

Lucky might’ve learned how to play, but Melody never had the time. There was too much to do, so many other important things competing for her attention.

“I think we can arrange that,” Deadlight said, though he twisted her head around with a wing, looking away from the stall. “Let’s see what’s for sale at the bazaar. These merchants out here are all the ones who couldn’t get in. That means what they have probably isn’t as interesting.”

“Oh.” Melody glanced back, not so much at the merchant as to see if Dorothy was still following. The geneticist hadn’t lost them in the crowd, despite having to roll along with her cart. She seemed content to remain at the back, though whenever Deadlight touched Melody it seemed she got a little more smug. “Is there anything you want to do while we’re here?”

“Seeds,” Dorothy answered. “I’d like to start a garden in Othar. Lucky talks about fruits and vegetables just like the ones from Earth, but all the seeds the Forerunner tries to print get killed the same as the humans. Bioengineering pumpkins or apples aren’t high on the priority list, but if we could just grow some with the hard work already done…” She shrugged. “Or whatever, it’s fine. Just make sure you order for me when we stop for lunch.”

Deadlight raised an eyebrow slowly. They passed out of the center of the fast-moving crowd and over to the periphery instead, where they wouldn’t be as much of a disruption. “Isn’t this your mission? You’re the doctor making the cure to that disease, right? It’s hard to tell you all apart now that everyone’s a different color.”

He said that, but he had guessed Melody’s dark purple with lighter around her belly and several different shades for her mane. It probably helped that Melody had known those were his favorite colors.

Dorothy shrugged, apparently disinterested. “That won’t take that much of our time. For what part we’re actually contributing. I’ll just take in the sights and enjoy a day off.” She lowered her voice just a little. “Some of these creatures look like predators. They won’t act on those instincts with us prey species, will they?”

Deadlight laughed, though he didn’t seem to completely understand. “No,” he said. “No predators here. Unless you’re a fish—lots of creatures out here eat fish. And some other things, but sensitive little ponies are better off not knowing about that.”

Melody almost broke down into hysterical giggling at that, wondering what Deadlight might’ve made of the human meat industry. Not that they had one now that they were here—luxury goods weren’t at the top of the list when they were still afraid they might be invaded at any moment.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, turning to watch her with concern.

“Nothing.” She waved a hoof dismissively. “It was nothing. Let’s just… enjoy the bazaar. We might not get another day like this for a long time.”

Deadlight shrugged. “That’s assuming you don’t just want to leave with me, Melody. You can fly well enough—we don’t have to go back to Othar if you don’t want to.” He spoke in Eoch now, apparently not caring that Dorothy was wearing a translator and would probably understand most of it.

“I want to finish my mission,” Melody responded, waving a wing dismissively. “When that’s done, I’ll be like Lucky—free citizen, free to do whatever I want. But until then, I stay in Othar. Were you thinking about leaving?”

“No.” Deadlight leaned a little closer to her. “There is much for me to learn about this strange home of yours, Earth. But you seem like you’re losing your mind. You would probably enjoy life more as my assistant. Going on adventures, seeing ancient ruins from the Crystal Empire all the way to Mount Aris. I could use a skilled linguist, and your fancy gadgets. We’d make discoveries Daring Do could only dream of.”

Melody didn’t answer. Surrounded by all this activity—by the culture she’d been created to study, it took all her willpower not to say yes. She could run off with Deadlight right now, and what could Olivia do about it? The native knew this world much better than she did. There were no tracking implants in her body or anything else like that—if she put her computation surface down on the ground here, that would be that.

Of course, Dorothy would see her do it. She might call the major right then. Or she might walk away and not care. The two of them might not get along that well, but compared to the major they might as well have been best friends. She didn’t think Dorothy would turn her in. With a day’s head start, they’d never catch her.

Then Dorothy spoke from behind them, apparently having heard the entire thing. “I won’t tattle, if that’s what you’re thinking.” She spoke in Mandarin, as fluent as any modern scholar had to be—much better than the pronunciation of any of Olivia’s soldiers. “The major can fuck herself. Plus, you’ll probably be safer out there. If Sanctuary’s defense system finds Othar… well, maybe splitting off to the winds is the smart thing.” She sighed. “I would go too, but I’m not gonna let this fucking disease beat me. If I get a cure, and the Forerunner sends it off to one of those interstellar node-things, then it doesn’t matter what happens to me after that. I’ll have a legacy—this me will, pony me. My horse immortality.”

“I’m not ready yet,” Melody insisted. “I want a little more time in Othar. I want to leave on good terms with the Forerunner, so I can come back later if I want.” And I want more time to learn Eoch, more time to learn flying, and more time with easy access to modern medicine. But she didn’t say any of that. Maybe Dorothy would guess that last part, maybe she wouldn’t. Their relationship was an open secret by now.

“Suit yourself.” Dorothy shrugged. “Let’s do our incredibly important, not-at-all-a-waste-of-time mission. There's no way at all we haven't been given this assignment to distract us while something more important is happening. Finding nasty used clothes, how exciting is this? If only my Harvard colleagues weren’t thousands of years dead so they could see me now.”

G6.3850: Ceres Proclamation

Olivia flexed her limbs one at a time, feeling the slight sluggishness of the exoskeleton. As she planned this mission, Olivia had started out in despair, fearing that she would have to go into danger with no more protection than her skin.

But then she’d found this design in the computer, as though the hands of God had put it there. It had taken the Forerunner pointing it out for her to even see it—all this time she’d been waiting for military hardware, and it had been sitting in the system. All she had to do was switch from “active-duty military” to “civilian police,” and ask the Forerunner to make some modifications to the design…

The Cyclops had a large cargo area, large enough to carry a small underwater observation post and deposit it wherever it was necessary. The space was cramped—Olivia had ordered it packed with emergency supplies, in case Othar was attacked while they were gone. It had slowed their trip, but that didn’t matter. It was better to get there a little slower than to die of starvation at the bottom of the ocean.

She lifted one of her forelegs—at a thought, the end of the armor unfolded like a flower, revealing the claws a few members of her team had started wearing on a daily basis, though the articulation was better. She twisted around suddenly, reaching back to the long rifle attached there. It swung free as it had so many times before, and her other hand caught it. The sensation wasn’t quite what she remembered—though she could vaguely feel the phantom fingers, she could also distinctly sense the padding wrapped around all four of her hooves. She could feel her wings against her back, and the brace against her spine.

Olivia rolled forward, and the motion came as smoothly to her as it ever had. She rose up onto one knee, aiming the rifle forward. The “Longshoreman,” as it was called, was practically artillery. There were horror stories of its recoil ripping off a person’s arm. Probably just stories. Her enhanced human body could’ve fired it, though with great difficulty. Wearing the armor, she could shoot it with ease.

Of course, she didn’t fire. It would puncture the armored Cyclops plating like it wasn’t even there. Even now that they were on the surface floating at dock, she didn’t think it would be a terribly good idea to sink the sub. She stood up, replacing the gun on her back. “It will suffice. Attach the armor plates.” There were several different variations of this suit available. Olivia had chosen the sturdiest, the one that was so strong it had to be welded.

Half a dozen industrial drones emerged from the cargo area all around her, as though they’d been lurking just out of sight the entire time. Likely they had, though Olivia didn’t much want to think about it. How many thousands of robots made Othar possible? How dismal did their odds get without the Forerunner?

The industrial robots had treads instead of human legs, with a skeletal upper body and only the necessary supports to work their tools. All of the complicated components were down in the drive section. These carried thin sheets of metal, along with power tools in their three-fingered grippers.

“I haven’t seen this drone before,” Olivia said, straightening as they approached.

They didn’t have heads, yet there were apparently speakers in the treads, because the Forerunner’s voice came from them all. “You haven’t spent time on a submarine before. These drones can operate at depths exceeding two thousand meters.” They surrounded her. “Once the armor is applied, only the helmet can be removed without tools.”

“It won’t run out of power in a day, will it?”

“Negative,” the Forerunner said. “Its fuel cells will operate for sixty hours before refueling.”

“Then let’s do this. They’re waiting for us.”

“Only one of the teams is waiting. James Irwin Generation 4’s group is already gone,” the Forerunner answered, even as its drones all moved in. They began to build the rest of the armor around her, working as swiftly as the same number of human experts might. The machinery running her exoskeleton was smaller and more compact than anything Olivia had ever seen—somehow, the engineers had managed to pack it all in around the supports itself, and the Forerunner had managed to give her an extra hydrogen tank.

“I meant the dealer. I know his type—if we’re even a few minutes late, he’ll get suspicious. As if the whole thing wasn’t suspicious enough. What kind of world is it where criminals make deals with talking birds?”

“This one,” the Forerunner answered matter-of-factly. At that moment, its drones all rolled back, then off in a line. Olivia walked a few steps to the left, so she could look at her reflection on the polished surface of a bulkhead. “Good work, Forerunner. I didn’t know you were such a capable engineer.”

Another drone was already approaching, carrying a large plastic crate. “I am capable at all tasks required for the success of my mission,” it said. It stopped in front of her, opening itself to reveal her clothes. Robes in bright, striped colors, not exactly a copy of any within the city, but based on a similar palette. She hadn’t had anyone’s help selecting the design besides the Forerunner.

She tossed the robe on over her shoulders, covering the armor. The helmet came next, sliding into place with a slight twitch of her neck. It closed over her face, then the obstruction seemed to vanish from in front of her. It was as though the entire interior surface was a screen, projecting the exterior so well that she could only tell by touch that she was wearing a helmet at all. “Damn.” She looked around, twisting quickly to test the projection. There was a slight blur, almost imperceptible. “The ISMU was holding out on me. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“The design did not exist at the time your imprint was taken,” the drone said, its voice flat and patient. “Innovation continued up until the moment I was launched. Innovation continued afterwards as well.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense.” Olivia pulled a pair of thick gloves out from the inside of the box—they would make her fingers not look so much like metal claws. Last came a mask—wooden and brightly painted, and covered with feathers. Real feathers, donated by herself and other crew members. “Excellent work,” she said again, slinging it under one arm.

“All my work is excellent,” the Forerunner said. “Do yours. Bring back the samples we need.”

“You know I will.”

She didn’t put the mask on until she had made her way up to the upper deck—where a vinyl shell made the top of the Cyclops look convincingly like a sloop. There were even sails, and whole sections of the deck. None of them were strong enough to be walked on, except for the area leading “below decks.”

This had been Specialist Noah Williams’s idea, though like everything, the Forerunner had built it. And built it well.

Olivia slipped the mask on as she stepped out into the sunlight, and suddenly her vision was restricted to a thin slit. But not twice. This could be a lot worse.

She had hoped the other group would’ve already left. Just three of them, as it turned out. Dorothy had apparently gone with Melody and Deadlight, which left Lucky, Dust, and Martin for the second group.

Lei, Noah, and Stepan were nowhere to be seen—they’d be staying on the sub, just in case something went wrong. Ready to mobilize and get the civilians out at the first sign of trouble.

Lieutenant Perez and Sergeant Abubakar were waiting, wearing their own thick robes and painted masks just like Olivia’s. They had chosen lightweight armor, made of more traditional weaves and without the strength-assist. The stallions looked bulky in their own way, carrying as much as they were under those robes. But compared to her, they were tiny.

“The Forerunner is damn fast. That looks exactly like what the minotaur tribes wear,” Lucky muttered, rising from where she’d been resting in the shade beside the others. Apparently, she’d been the one who told them to wait, because Dust and Martin rose to their hooves as well. “How are you not falling over in all that?”

Less than twenty meters away was the dock, positively packed with ships. There were voices too, voices shouting enthusiastically in languages she’d never heard before. Too bad I’m here for work, not play.

She couldn’t say anything that might be overheard. She certainly wasn’t going to admit that the Forerunner had well over a week to make the outfit, instead of only one night. “I practiced,” she said, though that was a lie. Olivia had worn exoskeletons before plenty of times, but not this design. “I’ll show you when this is over if you want. It’s not as hard as it looks.”

“You guys aren’t going to buy old clothes and blankets, are you?” Lucky asked, looking them up and down.

Olivia turned to glare at Lucky through her armor. Of course, she probably didn’t seem terribly intimidating to the other pony—life in Equestria had made Lucky somewhat more difficult to manipulate than others. “It would be a waste of resources. Consider it a reflection of my confidence in you and the other science team.”

As she had expected, Lucky didn’t look away. “So what are you doing, then?”

Perez laughed loudly from behind his mask. “We have the same mission you do,” he said, in English instead of Eoch. Which, of course, he didn’t know. None of the ISMU had really learned much of it, except for Lei. “Look after Othar. We do it in our way, you do it in yours.”

“Don’t ruin this for us,” Martin said, a little braver than Olivia had ever heard her. They were wearing robes too—plain white ones, mostly to keep out the sand and wind. Martin even had a push cart, which was heavy with trade goods for their half of the mission. The basically useless half.

But only Dorothy knew that, and she hadn’t said anything about it. At least one of my scientists is smart enough to play ball. “We will be back by nightfall, same as you,” Olivia said, her voice reproduced in Eoch over the speakers in her helmet. It downshifted her voice so that it was lower than any of the members of the crew—even the stallions. Hopefully it would be as intimidating as her body.

“That’s creepy,” Lightning Dust whispered, looking away. “I don’t want to know what kind of magic that is.”

“You better be,” Lucky said, still watching with suspicion. “I like it in there, I want to come back someday. Don’t ruin it for us by hurting people.”

“We don’t have to interrogate her. I’m sure your mayor knows what she’s doing.” The adult mare rested a hoof on Lucky’s shoulder. “Lucky, are you ready? Star Lilly? There’s an aerial demonstration at noon, and I don’t want to miss it!”

“Yeah!” The physicist answered first. “I hope someone in there is selling telescopes. Or star maps. Maybe both?”

“We might,” Lucky said, sounding reluctant. “There were lots of ponies selling things.”

“Just remember your mission.” Olivia watched as they trudged along across the deck, then vanished into the thick crowds flowing in and out of Dragon’s Folly.

“Coms check,” Olivia said into her helmet, as soon as the other group was gone. “We good?”

“Loud and clear,” Perez answered from within his mask—though neither of them would be able to speak without making their actions a little visible to those all around. At least this setup would let her talk to them without giving anything away.

“I hear you,” Abubakar said, his voice distant. “I hope we don’t kill anyone. If the ones in this city are anything like the one who is called Deadlight…” He shook his head. “It will be like killing children.”

“It’s just a trade,” she said, though her tone suggested just how much she trusted that would really be the case. “No one should get hurt. Well… except for a little blood. But it’s either that, or no humans on this ring.”

“As much as I like lying around all day, I’m glad we’re finally getting out there,” Perez said. “Meeting is in ten minutes. We can’t exactly fly there like the drone.”

Well, they could have flown there, or they could if they were a little more practiced at their pony abilities. Olivia was pretty sure she could’ve done it, though the structure of Dragon’s Folly with its black basalt and jutting spires would not be kind to mistakes. And anyway, that would have meant trading armor for flight, not an exchange even Olivia was comfortable making. Perez wasn’t a very good flyer, and Abubakar had completely refused to go to Dust’s classes, so it was a moot point.

“Let’s go then. Don’t say anything to anyone unless you have to.”

They hurried from the ship. The crowd appeared to be more than half pony, though that still left half of… all kinds of creatures. Griffons seemed the most numerous group, standing larger than ponies but not than her in armor. There were bipeds, most notably the minotaurs. A few stood on the docks—apparently, they weren’t a species very fond of boats. There were other creatures as well—lizards, deer, thick-bodied yaks, and other beings she had no names for.

At the end of the dock they passed through a massive stone arch into the city, with an uneven bit of melted stone to one side. Words had been chiseled above the gate, but of course none of them could read what they said. She wondered if the translator could. The city itself had thin streets—just wide enough for carts, and barely even that in many places. Most were just dirt, with occasional patches of droppings and worse to avoid stepping in. Well, her soldiers would have to avoid it. Olivia’s suit didn’t care what it stepped in.

Once into the city, she found that most creatures got out of her way—even concealed within the robes, her bulk spoke for itself. Maybe some of these ponies could recognize the steps of those who did not wish to be interrupted. A few brave merchants lurking in the gloom tried to call them over, but Olivia ignored these. Her helmet overlaid the map their drone had made, with a bright red line showing her where to go.

Of course, she didn’t really need the map to find their destination. They were looking for the dark corners, tucked away in the section of the city that had been carved from the rock eons ago. It was there they would be meeting Salvadore to make their exchange. It’s okay for us. We’re not buying slaves. Just a little blood, and we’ll have all the samples we need. Then the Forerunner will never have to make another pony again. She didn’t want to think about what that might imply for the army she was growing.

They met Salvadore exactly on time, in exactly the right place. He bowed politely to them as they stepped into the low-ceilinged room, past a handful of brutes with rusty weapons.

“The ponies from afar,” he called, his voice like a sickly-sweet perfume. “Which one of you is the necromancer called Wayfinder?”

“How the hell did he know we were ponies?” Perez asked quietly over the radio. “Is my tail poking out? Did I leave something unzipped?”

Olivia ignored him, stepping slightly forward. She chose to ask the second question. “Necromancer” did not sound like it had translated correctly. “What makes you say I am a necromancer?”

Salvadore smiled at her, with an expression like surprise at her naivete. “You asked for blood from a live pony. There is only one sort of client with needs like that. But please, don’t feel as though you aren’t welcome in Dragon’s Folly. Salvadore appreciates all clients.” He turned, gesturing to a locked door at the far end of the room. At his motion, one of the brutes rushed over to open it for them. “Please, come. Your merchandise is waiting.”

The lair—Olivia couldn’t think of any other word for it—looked about what she expected. The tunnels had been carved from the solid rock with hand tools, judging by the uneven ceilings and floors. The ventilation was bad, even through her helmet.

Their guide took them down a twisting track that was probably meant to confuse them, because the map the Forerunner was building suggested it overlapped several times, with a single common corridor that would’ve been passable if the crowd of people there would’ve gotten out of the way.

There weren’t very many ponies down here at all. Some quadrupeds, though most of those looked more like birds than horses. Their guide was one of these, though his guards were bipeds. Minotaurs, from the look of it. More Greek shit. If she’d brought Martin, she probably would’ve ranted about common culture and what this meant about the origin of the ring.

“This isn’t good,” Perez whispered to her over the suit-radio. “There’s no reason to take us this deep if they were just going to give us the stuff and let us out.”

“I knew I was going to have to kill today,” Abubakar muttered, dejected. “It is good God is merciful. We will not be.”

“No, we won’t,” Olivia agreed. Outwardly, she made no sign she had realized anything was different, just kept following through the dark. The gloom was nothing to the night vision in her helmet, which showed her the interior was dirty in places with slime and probably worse things. She caught sight of a few bones in the dark—impossible for her to identify, though obviously not human.

Then they reached their destination—a thick steel door, cankered with rust on massive metal hinges. “You don’t know how much it costs to keep earth ponies underground,” Salvadore said. “You necromancers have expensive taste.” He snapped his claws together, and one of the guards following beside him removed a keyring and started fiddling with the lock.

Before the door was even open, a servant arrived—another bird-thing, with a white wrap around her head. She was carrying a large basin and a long, wickedly-sharp knife. Salvadore pointed, and she deposited both on the floor in front of them.

“Last time we dealt with necromancers, they wanted to extract the product themselves. We were prepared this time.”

Olivia shivered as she looked down—there were nicks and scratches on the blade, and dried blood staining the wooden basin. “You are very considerate,” she said. “I knew we had chosen well.”

“Indeed you did,” he answered, as the door clicked. The minotaur shoved and it ground forward—nearly eight inches thick.

Inside were four ponies, hobbled by their hooves and chained to the wall. All four were blindfolded, and their bodies were covered with scars. It was just like they had ordered—two of each tribe, one male and one female.

“God forgive them,” Abubakar said, loud enough that it would probably be audible through the helmet. “They’re like those monsters in the Belt. How long have these people been tortured?”

At least he hadn’t translated it. Olivia straightened. “They are ours to do with as we please,” she repeated, bending down and picking up the knife. “Whatever we wish?”

Salvadore cleared his throat, extending one claw. “Once you give me the gold, yes. You do whatever you want.”

Olivia reached into her robes, withdrawing a heavy sack of dark cloth, and tossing it to him. “There. Half a kilo per head, as we agreed.”

Salvadore opened the sack, removing one of the gold slivers and bending it in his beak. He snapped his claws again, and one of the guards dropped a rusty iron key on the ground in front of her. “There you are. We provide, uh… a cleanup service, when you are finished. Free of charge.” His guards stepped away from the door, backing up against the wall and looking bored.

Olivia dropped the knife, which fell straight down and stuck to the bottom of the basin. Then she picked up the key and threw it to Abubakar. “Go on,” she said through the helmet, before switching to a private channel. “Get them ready to move. When this shit goes down, we’re not leaving them behind.”

“Yes ma’am.” He walked into the cell, removing his robe as he went. The medical gear was all there, attached to the armor underneath, but Olivia didn’t stop to watch. She sat back on her haunches, pushing the basin away with a little revulsion. “Do you trade in slaves often?” she asked, noticing that Salvadore still had his eyes on her.

He shrugged. “The Horde is all about magical creatures, young pony. The more magical the creature, the more valuable. We don’t use the word slave, though. No slaves allowed in Dragon’s Folly. We’re just trading pets. Occasionally there is an accident, and we lose the merchandise in shipping. Tragedy, I know.”

Olivia glanced over her shoulder into the cell. Abubakar had already got one of the ponies unchained, and was holding a syringe over her neck. The chilled medical cooler sat open on the ground in front of him, breathing out icy vapor into a low fog on the floor. He already had one of the samples, from the look of it, though Olivia couldn’t tell for sure. She didn’t want to take her eyes from Salvadore.

“It is amazing how many uses for ponies there are out here, did you know? The magic of your species is highly prized. Very high prices are asked for it.”

“Is that so?” Olivia spoke flatly, even more than the automatic translation did on its own. “Fascinating.”

“There are four more approaching from either end of the hall,” the Forerunner said in her ear. “I detect more movement throughout the complex. Were you expecting this?”

“Yes,” she said, though obviously there had been nothing in the deal they made that involved her inviting being double-crossed.

“In fact,” Salvadore said, as though she hadn’t realized it already. “We’re going to need the two of you to join your friend in the cell there. Right now.” At his word, the guards on either side of him lifted their clubs, looking eager. No doubt they’d been waiting for this moment. “Oh, and I wouldn’t bother thinking you can magic your way out of this…” Salvadore reached into his pocket, lifting up something made of deep red metal. It looked a little like clockwork, though Olivia couldn’t identify what it might do. “You’re so dependent on your powers. Take them away, and it’s like…” He twisted something with his claw.

The fist-sized object began to glow deep purple, tracing lines of light to herself and the other members of her crew. It ignored the griffon and his minotaur guards, as well as the other guards coming from down the hall. None of them were ponies.

Olivia felt it immediately—a sudden emptiness deep in her chest. She felt heavier in the armor, as though an invisible weight was pushing her to the floor. Inside the cell, the pony they’d untied promptly collapsed, making a pitiful squeak of pain as she did so. The others all fell limp in their chains.

Perez moved, though not to fall over, or do anything else helpless. He stepped sideways, removing the robe from over his head, and twisting the mask around to the other side. He’d painted a skull on it, like something out of a Dia de los Muertos parade. A human skull, not a pony, and was that toothpaste he’d painted with? “Dios Mio,” he said through the helmet, though of course Salvadore wouldn’t be able to understand. “You people could’ve been smart. In and out, simple as that.”

“You want me, commander?”

“No, Abubakar. Keep working. Get those samples and get ready to move.”

“There’s only sixteen of them out here,” Perez said, more amused than upset. “We wouldn’t want to be unfair.”

Salvadore’s eyes widened the longer they remained standing, apparently unaffected by his device. “I took your magic away!”

“Yes, you did,” Olivia said, twisting all the way around to face Salvadore and his guards. “Now that you can see it hasn’t done anything, care to reconsider? You can still take the deal, Salvadore. I’ve decided we don’t need your cleanup service—we’ll be taking the ponies with us. And you’ll be getting out of our way.” She reached up, pulling off the mask covering her helmet. Then she twitched, and the helmet retracted from around her face. The smell hit her at once, harder than the “anti-magic” machine he was holding. Blood, and death, and feces, and so much worse.

“One chance,” she said, in Eoch. “Or we’ll kill everyone who gets between us and the exit.” The hallways were thick on both sides by this point—over a dozen guards, most of which wore crude metal armor.

“You are three ponies without magic!” Salvadore shouted. “You’re merchandise. Get them!”

“I knew this would happen,” Abubakar said from within the cell, though his voice still only sounded a little disappointed. “Their type is all the same. It’s just like the Belt.”

“And you know what we did in the Belt,” Perez said, almost laughing now. “Don’t you?”

“Don’t kill Salvadore,” Olivia said, drawing her sidearm. “I want him for a hostage.” She was already lifting her weapon towards the first guard, her helmet closing again over her face. As it did, she began to see false color overlaid on some of the targets—those Perez had selected for himself, as well as those the Forerunner rated as more of a threat. Both of his minotaurs were running straight for her. She lifted her handgun calmly and fired a single anti-personnel round into each of their heads. She had to jump slightly to one side to avoid their corpses, and that motion came sluggish—Salvadore’s device again, robbing her of some of her speed.

The gunshots had left bloody smears all over the back wall, and bits of brain stuck to the stone there.

It took less than sixty seconds. The ISMU were trained for the tight conditions of space, fighting criminals exactly like this. Soon the hallway was packed with the dead. No Salvadore, though. Olivia straightened, wiping blood away from her visor and searching for the griffon—and couldn’t find him. No doubt running away would’ve marked him as the lowest priority target—at least he’d dropped his machine.

Olivia walked forward and gently twisted it, deactivating the effect. It was like taking a deep breath after swimming a long distance underwater—all the life came flooding back into her. But for as painful as her time without magic had been, she’d never felt crippled. It was cold, it was miserable, but it hadn’t been what Salvadore promised. She tossed it to Perez anyway. He caught it in one mechanical claw. “Ah, this is good. Maybe better than the blood, if we can reverse-engineer it.”

“Maybe.” Her eyes narrowed. “You had time to make a death mask, really?”

He shrugged, apparently unmoved by the corpses all around them. “I felt like a kid again. Forerunner made me a paint set, but it’s waiting back in Othar. I’ll make a good one when we get back. And sugar skulls… if I can somehow make them work with hooves, you have to try one.”

There was sound coming from somewhere far away in the burrow—shouting, and running hoofsteps. Towards them, based on the fact it was getting louder.

“Forgive me,” Abubakar said, only slightly annoyed. “I have the samples collected and our confused civvies untied. They don’t speak Eoch, or maybe they’re in shock too much to say anything.”

“Alright.” Olivia ejected her spent magazine, sliding a fresh one into place. “Perez, Abubakar, get them out. I’ll slow them down until you’re through. Get those civilians to safety, and don’t let anyone follow you back to the sub. Call Forerunner for evac if you have to.”

“And you?” Abubakar asked, his tone almost reproachful. “Is the major not done killing?”

“Probably not,” she admitted. There were hooves pounding down the hallway all right—by the sound of it, a whole army of them. “It really is like murdering children. They probably don’t have anything that can get through the armor.”

“Just don’t let them pin you.” Perez removed his helmet, joining Abubakar in shepherding the terrified ponies out. All four of them looked like they could barely walk—and seeing the room full of death didn’t help them. One of the mares just collapsed as soon as she saw the first body, and Perez had to toss her onto his back.

“Return soon, God willing,” Abubakar said, rifle at the ready as he ushered the ponies along ahead of him. They ignored the twists and turns and cut straight back the way the Forerunner had mapped for them.

Salvadore had reinforcements coming. She could hear his voice in the distance, screaming that a demon was loose in the lair and they needed to catch it before “the Nightmare got here.” Whatever that meant.

“This is stupid,” Olivia muttered into her headset. “How can they see this and keep running at me?”

“Organics rarely act rationally,” the Forerunner said, almost maternally. “Maybe they want vengeance for their comrades. Maybe they haven’t realized how much danger they’re in.”

“I don’t have time for this.” Olivia took aim down the length of her foreleg, right into the thickest mass of the enemy. There had to be almost fifty of them—not just soldiers this time, but many others. Like they’d grabbed whatever weapons happened to be within reach and had come running. Some of them were naked. “Why couldn’t you just let us leave?”

She fired her single grenade down the passage, and her whole body rocked back a second as it went flying off. It didn’t hit any of them—there was enough space between the charging thugs that it could pass between with ease. Olivia, meanwhile, flung herself into the old cell. Not very far, just around the corner.

There was a flash of light, and an explosion. The ground shook, and they screamed. She tried not to hear, but of course the helmet didn’t block out very much. She stepped back out again, and found several more bodies on the floor. In close quarters, almost every bit of shrapnel had bounced around until it found a soft target—there were over a dozen of them on the ground. Very few looked dead, though from the sounds they made they probably wished they were.

Now they were fleeing, almost all of them. Salvadore himself advanced through the wreckage, ignoring the pained screams of his men as they lost their blood and guts onto the stone. And walking beside him was a dragon.

Large enough that he could barely stand on two legs in the tunnel, his scales glittering black and lengths of sharpened metal along his wings, and on his hands. He had no armor otherwise, no weapons. He also didn’t seem to have been harmed by the grenade, though whether that was a question of distance or the power of his scales Olivia couldn’t say.

“We’re leaving,” Olivia called, stepping out from around the cell. “Can’t you tell this isn’t a fight you can win? I’m using a fucking handgun here. You don’t turn around right now, and I won’t let you run. Get some help for your men—move aside.”

“No, you aren’t,” Salvadore said. His voice had gone cold—almost as cold as hers. “The Nightmare is almost here. Do you know what they will do to me after calling them here, if I don’t have what they asked for? I don’t know what you did in Equestria to make them willing to pay so many bits for your return… but you can’t leave. They’d kill me when they got here.”

“I can’t kill her?” The dragon sounded disappointed.

“No, you can kill her,” Salvadore said. “They didn’t specify if she had to be alive. You can capture some of the others, not this one.”

“Good.” The dragon stepped forward, over the dying and the maimed. He raised both claws. “I haven’t had a challenge in so many years, pony. If you can do all this, maybe that is you.”

“I haven’t either,” Olivia said, taking aim at his chest. “Sorry I have to do this.” She fired. The dragon jerked back a little, yelping as the bullets hit, and clutching at his chest. Yet she saw no blood, not even a cracked scale. A few moments later and he dropped to four limbs, roaring with anger, and charging forward towards her.

“It appears the stories about dragons and their scales are well-founded,” the Forerunner said, as though it were commenting on a mildly interesting fact.

Olivia lowered the gun, springing to one side to get out of the way of the charge. This was good, since a curtain of bright red flames came blasting into the space where she’d been. Still close enough that her robe instantly caught fire, and she had to tear it free as she went.

The dragon corrected, his claws digging huge gouges in the stone as he did so. He rolled slightly, then lunged for her with jaws open. She could see more flames even as he did—but she didn’t stay still. She rolled under the dragon as he jumped, slamming herself (and him) into the stone wall of the cavern.

She dropped her gun as she tried to right herself. The dragon was as fast as an augmented human in armor, maybe faster than she was. It was all she could do to be out of its way when it came at her with claws slashing.

She struggled to draw her stun-pistol, but couldn’t get it up in time before the dragon connected with her, its mass enough to send her sliding backward along the floor. Claws dug into the armor, and alarms started wailing in her ear. She felt white-hot pain in one of her legs, then saw the flash as fire came blasting down on her again.

Her eyes filled with light, alarms blared in her ears, and her already pained leg felt like someone had jammed it into an oven. The armor could take a little heat, but much more of that would melt the circuits underneath, before barbecuing her as well.

Olivia smashed her head upward into the dragon’s open mouth with all the force of augmented muscle and skeleton. She felt something crack under the weight, felt the dragon’s body tense abruptly on her—then it fell slack. Limp lizard fell to the ground around her, spewing a few last feeble tongues of fire before falling still, jaw broken all the way open.

Olivia dropped to one knee, panting heavily, and trying to get the helmet to come off. It made pained sounds of metallic protest. Eventually the helmet retracted from around her face, and Olivia wasn’t sure she had any hope of putting it back into place again.

Salvadore had started running. He had a little bit of a limp—maybe he’d taken some damage from the grenade after all. Whatever the case, Olivia didn’t plan on letting him get away. She picked up her handgun from where she’d dropped it, and fired a few times down the hall. Her first few shots missed, but apparently her forth found its target, because Salvadore dropped to the ground, screaming and swearing as he fell.

Olivia returned the handgun to its clip as she walked, no longer concerned with secrecy. Her robe was still on the ground, still on fire. It hardly mattered. As she closed on Salvadore, she could hear his mad cries, apparently pleas in Eoch.

“You can’t kill me,” he was saying, or something like it. “You’re a pony. Ponies aren’t like this. You can’t do this!” He was bleeding from wounds on one of his back-legs, but he seemed otherwise unhurt.

“You’re an idiot,” she replied, not caring that the helmet’s synthetic voice would in no way cover her own, now that it had been destroyed. “You brought us a knife like we were going to kill a helpless victim in cold blood, and you think I can’t kill you?”

No sooner had she reached him than Salvadore’s talon snapped up towards her, claws sharp and glittering. Olivia let his claw catch on the intact armor of her left leg, before jerking violently to one side and bringing her other foreleg down on the bone with all the engineered-strength in her body. The bone snapped, and Salvadore screamed again, agony that brought no pity from Olivia.

“Try that again, I’ll break your fingers. All of them.” Olivia stepped back, out of his reach. “I’ve seen shitstains like you before. Out in the Belt, where there are still slavers. People who think just because the UN is a few years away that we aren’t going to catch up to them eventually. Well, we do.”

“You really are a demon,” he wailed, or at least that was what the Forerunner thought he was trying to say. “When the Nightmare comes, they’ll banish you straight to Tartarus, where you belong!”

“Who is this ‘Nightmare’?” Olivia asked, her voice even. “More mercenaries?”

He laughed, spitting up blood on the ground in front of her. “More monsters like you. Equestrian monsters—magic, demons… ones who fight, ones who are… so hard to tell. Work for the moon, they say. Never trust the moon, they say. She’s always changing.”

Equestrian monsters. Olivia doubted very much they would arrive in time to make a difference—even a jumper would take an hour to get this far south from the Equestrian core, and ponies didn’t have that. Even their best fliers would take at least a day. But we planned this deal a week ago.

“When will they be here?” she asked. “The Equestrians?”

“Now!” He laughed again, coughing and hacking. “They’re probably already here! Following your magic, pony! You can’t hide it from them!”

“There are hundreds of ponies in this city,” Olivia countered. “I’ve got nothing to make me stand out from all of them.”

He laughed again, his voice strained well into madness by now. “Keep praying that, little bird! Nightmare always comes for you, no matter how far you run. Sees you when you’re sleeping, knows when you’re awake!”

Olivia sighed, drawing her sidearm again. She was out of time. “By the authority of the United Nations of Earth, I find you in violation of the Ceres Proclamation. The penalty for slaving is death. I, Major Olivia Fischer, execute that punishment under the authority of the Interplanetary Justice Commission. May God have mercy on your soul.”

“You can’t—”

She fired two shots into his face. She didn’t miss this time.

G6.3850: Major Inglorious

Olivia wandered through the cavernous tunnels. She hadn’t been walking for very long, really, just a few minutes. There was still blood on her armor, and one of her legs jerked and twitched whenever she put weight on it. Her disguise was in shambles, and unfortunately the nature of her exoskeleton meant that she couldn’t remove it without help. There were horror stories in the ISMU about soldiers who had died wearing suits like this, unable to get out of them to see to their basic needs once power failed.

“I am detecting sound up ahead,” the Forerunner said into her ear. She no longer had the helmet with its HUD, or else she wouldn’t have needed the auditory cue. At least the headset still worked. “Get out of sight. I am attempting to calculate a way around it based on the readings you obtained on your way in.”

Olivia dodged behind a cart into a side-passage, though she could neither see nor hear anything from up ahead. “You can hear someone, but you can’t use my sonar to find another exit?” she whispered, in English.

“Sonar was in your helmet,” the Forerunner answered, sounding annoyed. “I only have biofeedback and your microphone still working. I’ll enhance it for you, hold on.”

There was a painful squeaking in one of her ears, and then abruptly she could hear voices. Eoch voices, and not locals either. It wasn’t heavily accented and guttural, like the Eoch Salvadore and his goons had used. They spoke the same way as Lightning Dust, or Deadlight.

Even if the voices had been clear Olivia wouldn’t have been able to understand them. As it was, they were constantly stretching and popping, with static rising and falling every time she inhaled. She even thought she could make out the distant thump of her own heartbeat in the back of the signal.

“I will translate,” the Forerunner said, then its voice changed. It rose in pitch into the female spectrum, apparently imitating one of the speakers.

“Trixie is unconvinced that blocking the entrance was the best idea. What if the bad pony can teleport too?”

Then a second voice spoke. The Forerunner shifted its own voice, fading the second speaker into the background. Yet Olivia heard this one differently—her whole body tensed, and she found herself shaking slightly. She could understand this one. A female voice, deeper and more confident-sounding than the first. She wasn’t speaking English, and Olivia could only understand one word out of twenty, but somehow, the meaning was clear as day.

“We are looking for a pegasus. But if we’re wrong, or if she is carrying some enchantment, then the moment she teleports we will feel it and be able to follow. I have already collapsed the other passages—eventually she must come this way.”

“Stop translating the second one, Forerunner,” Olivia whispered, quieter than before. “I can understand her.”

“That is not consistent with my records of your abilities, Major.”

Olivia peeked out from around the edge of the tunnel. She could see a little of the debris of battle on the ground—more dead soldiers, killed by Perez and Abubakar on their way out. But there was also something else, a distinct magical glow flickering against the cavern walls. Purple and blue light, shifting through the spectrum slightly like the lights in a dance club.

“If you sealed all the entrances, why don’t we just walk straight through and find her?”

The second speaker spoke again, and this time the Forerunner obeyed. Olivia hadn’t imagined it—she really could understand her. “You would not want to see what she did, Trixie. If we went any further, you would have to.”

“Be advised. I cannot verify what the second one said moments ago. Without sonar equipment…”

“She was telling the truth,” Olivia whispered back. There was no doubt in her mind about that, though she couldn’t have said how she knew. It just didn’t make sense that a voice like that would lie, a voice which spoke with such authority, a voice that could cut through armor and flesh to something buried much deeper. “There is no other way out.”

Olivia had only one good foreleg, the other had been bashed and melted far too much to be useful with shooting. She would have to stand still while she shot. How accurate could she be?

She slunk out from the edge of the hallway, moving quietly in the dark. She had to step only occasionally, camouflaging the thump of her armor as best she could against their distant conversation.

“You think the great and powerful Trixie cannot handle the pressure because she is new? Has Starlight forgotten who helped fight off the changeling invasion? Who helped rescue all of Equestria?”

Olivia edged down the passage. A little further, and she could make out a pair of pony shapes, outlined by their own light against the gloom.

They have powered armor too, she thought, strangling a gasp as she took in their appearance. Both were wearing a tarnished reddish metal, though there were bright purple lines etched along it in geometric patterns, glowing faintly. One of them had removed her helmet, revealing a bluish unicorn with a light blue and white mane.

The other was still wearing the helmet, which changed her eyes to a glowing purple. There was a slit down the back for her mane, which emerged from within and lifted into the air behind her, as though she were an alien puppet clutched by an invisible hand.

Not just that—the hair didn’t look much like hair. It seemed transformed somehow, into a reddish-brown sky. Like looking through the window into the first light of dawn, with only a few stars. Or the last light before nightfall.

There was a peaceful feeling in that light—one she knew she should ignore, but that she couldn’t entirely dismiss. The one wearing that helmet was to be trusted, for some reason. She was good, and anything that opposed her must by necessity be evil.

“Are you alright, Major?” She barely heard the Forerunner’s voice, but she certainly felt the sharp prick in her side a second later, snapping her out of her trance. This was good, as she had stepped right out into the hall where the ponies might spot her at any moment. Olivia dodged quickly back around, resting against the wall. “I just provided you with a dose of equine adrenaline. It appears you have been poisoned, but I cannot determine how. Your suit is giving me clean biohazard readings, and there is nothing in your blood. No, don’t explain. They will hear you.”

She shut her mouth, lifting the rifle with her one good leg. She could lean just a little further, and get a clear shot to the unprotected pony. She wasn’t sure if her rifle would be able to penetrate their armor, but… killing one protected by a weapon she didn’t understand would be easier than two.

Yet she hesitated, lowering the rifle a few degrees. What am I thinking? What did these ponies do to me? She glanced up at the blue one again. It felt like looking at a child.

These ponies weren’t slavers, they weren’t even evil. They were working for the enemy. But I don’t have to kill them. I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.

She felt another jab into the soft tissue of her neck, a little more painful than the last one. “Is that better, Major? Nod if it is, don’t speak.”

She nodded, before returning the rifle to her back. The barrel retracted, and the metal clip reached out to snag it. Loud enough that both ponies blocking the way looked up.

The blue one reached down, struggling with her helmet for a moment before the other one helped her secure it. The instant she did, her own mane of ordinary hair transformed to look just like the first, glowing deep purple and dark red and moving to the same invisible wind. “Who’s there? The Great and Powerful Trixie warns any ne’er-do-wells that they are facing a hero of Equestria! Oh, and her friend.”

Olivia could understand her. I refuse to kill you.

She felt another jab, and this time the pain was enough that she inhaled sharply. “Quit doing that!” she whispered, though not quite low enough that the ponies wouldn’t be able to hear noise.

“My options are limited, Major,” the Forerunner said. “I am certain you are under the influence of a foreign entity. I will find a way to free you. Stay alive.”

Olivia stepped out into plain view, walking slowly towards the ponies. She limped with each step, exaggerating the damage to her armor as best she could.

“What happened here?” As before, Olivia didn’t hear the voice in Eoch, or it didn’t feel like she had. The English was perfect, with a slight southern drawl that she herself had practiced hard to eliminate from her own speech.

Olivia stopped about five meters away. She could feel the energy radiating from these ponies—a sensation with no human parallel. Standing near a Van de Graaff generator wasn’t like this, it didn’t make her hair stand on end. If anything, it was like an invisible slope in the floor, pulling down towards the two ponies. Their armor was in its strange way far more powerful than her own.

“A pair of monsters met beyond,” she said. “One betrayed the other, wanting to enslave it.” She turned, lifting a pair of rusty shackles from the cart beside her, tossing them at the ground at the ponies’ feet. “You see the chains.”

“That is consistent with the latest reports on Dragon’s Folly,” said the pony, her mane still rippling behind her like she was underwater, sparkling with light. “It does not explain this.” She gestured at the dead on the ground past Olivia. At least, she assumed that was what the pony was pointing at.

Olivia could not see her eyes, yet she imagined something of sympathy in the pony’s bearing. She has fought monsters like this before. Like me. “One offered mercy and it was refused. Salvadore sent his soldiers, then his dragon. They died.”

Could she miss the scorch marks on her armor, the scratches and tears? Probably not, even in the gloom. It wasn’t as though I thought I could trick them.

“Wait a minute!” said the one Olivia knew was blue underneath her armor. “She is talking about herself in the third person!” She stomped one hoof on the stone, and it splintered into little fragments.

The other pony turned to look at her companion. “I’m so glad you’re here, Trixie. I never could have figured that out on my own.”

“I do not understand,” the Forerunner said into her ear, positively panicked now. “You are not speaking Eoch. They should not be able to understand you. I advise you to suspend this conversation as quickly as you can, Major. Your exoskeleton lacks the medical interface for me to treat you.”

“You sound almost worried for me,” Olivia whispered. “I didn’t know a machine could feel.” The ponies did not look like they had heard the synthesized voice, though they couldn’t have missed her reply. Even if their armor didn’t enhance their senses as hers would have, she was close enough to them now.

“We were called about a pony with strange magic,” said the second pony, the one not named Trixie. “We have reason to believe that pony might be a fugitive from justice from Equestria. One capable of kidnapping royalty, and…” She glanced past her, at all the corpses. “She went by the alias ‘Lucky Break.’ Is that you?”

“No,” she answered, though it wasn’t what she wanted to say.

The pony not named Trixie began walking towards her down the hallway, movement as slow and dangerous as a predator. Could she fight someone like this? I gave up my chance to win against these natives when I didn’t kill one of them.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try and escape anyway. Olivia might not relish this equine life, but she had made it this far. She would live, if not out of desire then out of spite. And if she failed, if they captured and started interrogating her, well…

It was a good thing the Forerunner was so fast with its dental work.

“You are a danger to those who live beyond Equestria’s borders. They lack the weapons to defend against one like you. It doesn’t matter whether or not you think your actions were justified. Princess Twilight Sparkle will help you—she helped both of us too, actually. You will put down whatever weapons you are carrying and come with us.”

She almost obeyed, right there. The voice was so confident, so supportive. It didn’t hold her responsible for all the lives she had taken. It only wanted to help her. Maybe it could take away the memories she had been reliving down here in Salvadore’s burrows. Shame the scans had captured her memories of the Belt with such detail.

Maybe if it had been just herself, Olivia would’ve obeyed. But if she was captured, there was a chance these ponies would be able to use what they learned to hurt Othar. She would not allow those who she was protecting to die. Conditioning buried deep in Olivia’s mind switched like a light—conditioning beaten into her under layers and layers of drugs and near-torture. She was being irrational. She had no reason to obey these ponies, and every reason to resist. She would escape.

Olivia reached behind her, drawing the rifle into her good claw and resting the injured leg against the wall. The barrel clicked into place, and both the enemy ponies stopped walking. “I will not,” she said. “I don’t wish to hurt either of you. Please, get out of my way. We can both return home, pretend we never met. No one needs to get hurt.”

Salvadore and his soldiers had not seemed to recognize guns when they saw them. Both of these ponies focused instantly on the firearm. The air in front of the first one shimmered faintly bluish, in an outwardly expanding sphere.

“Should I call the others back for you, Major? It is possible Lieutenant Perez and Sergeant Abubakar could make it to your position in time. They would have to abandon their living cargo in the city, but…”

“No,” she said quietly. “Ready evac, but don’t bring it until I make it to the surface.”

“Who is she talking to?” asked Trixie from down the hall. “Starlight, I think this pony is crazy. Crazier than the ponies we usually bring in. Well, you usually bring in.”

“If I am captured, melt the cyber package,” she said, not caring if they could hear her now. “Do not attempt to recover me. I will… make sure there isn’t anything to recover.”

“You will come with us,” the front pony, apparently Starlight said. “You will not resist.”

“Command accepted,” the Forerunner said, a little stiffly. “I cannot see how your enemy is armed, but with your current mental state I do not think your odds of success are high. I cannot give you any more adrenaline.”

This time, Olivia felt the strange softness come into her head again, and consciously rejected it. She would not be made to do what she did not wish to do, no matter the kind of torture they wanted to use.

Olivia aimed for the center of the pony’s mass with her rifle, firing in quick bursts. Her ears rang with the rapport of each shot, momentarily deafening her. The impact on her target was still somewhat less impressive than she had hoped, though.

Instead of being staggered, the air all around her lit up in a glowing shell, flashing brightly with each shot before fading to a dull luminance again. Olivia kept walking forward, ignoring the ringing in her ears as she started firing more quickly. As quickly as she could twist her hoof, always for the exact same spot.

The shell became a constant brillance, almost blinding to look at. Were those cracks spreading from her target? I need a bigger gun. Something fully automatic, maybe armor-piercing rounds. She had brought anti-personnel bullets, given that the natives didn’t have any armor technology. Well, she thought they hadn’t.

Her rifle clicked, the magazine empty. Olivia had to lower it, reaching for the replacement clipped to the side of her armor. That was when the enemy attacked.

She crossed the distance so quickly Olivia hardly saw her, smashing into her hard enough to drive the air from her lungs. Hard enough that she would have broken bones if it wasn’t for the armor she was wearing. The metal of her chest and shoulder caved in around the point of impact anyway, even as the armored pony yanked on her leg. Yanked so hard that the entire section of armor came tearing off, trailing sparkling wires and gushing hydraulic fluid.

Olivia screamed, though the pain had come from so many different places at once she couldn’t identify any specific source. She dropped to the ground, unable to support her own weight with both of the armor’s legs broken. Her armor sparked in protest, and she felt a heat wash over her back. There was a flash of bright light from behind her, one she knew was the thermite charge embedded in the computing package. Just enough to fry every useful component in there—to make it impossible for the enemy to recover the suit or what it contained.

Well, except for her. Olivia glared up at the pony, spitting up a mouthful of blood at her hooves. “I-I… could’ve killed your friend. I didn’t.” She bit down on the back of her mouth, then swallowed. To her surprise, she found the poison tasted strangely sweet.

The pony named Starlight stopped above her, kicking the weapon away. Every other loose object on her armor came free was well—the handgun, every spare magazine, her knife, and radio. All went into a pile on the ground in front of her.

“I’m sorry I needed to hurt you so badly,” Starlight said. “We will treat you once we get you back to Ponyville. For all your wounds, not just the physical. And if you have learned anything useful, you will share it with us.”

Olivia couldn’t help herself—she laughed. She could already feel it taking effect. Her muscles tingled all over, and there was a slight twitch in her face she couldn’t get rid of. Rumor said suicide pills like these could kill in mere seconds, but that was a movie fantasy. The reality was somewhere between one and two minutes. Though probably less for me. I’m a horse, and we don’t weigh as much.

“I could’ve killed you and lived,” Olivia said. “But it’s been long enough. I’m done fighting.” It was harder to breathe, harder to think. Everything should’ve gone black right then.

But then something happened that shouldn’t have. Olivia started to retch, her body twisting and convulsing. Not just the contents of her stomach, but bile as well, coming out in awful wave after wave. Some of it made it into her lungs, and suddenly she was struggling to breathe as well, a mess of pain all over.

This isn’t right! It’s supposed to shut down my brain! It’s supposed to be painless!

The ponies were both moving in the room above her, gathering around her.

Another thought found its way into her mind, one even more horrible than the agony she was experiencing. We didn’t have time to test the suicide formula on a real body. What if it can’t kill a pony?

“I don’t know what I did!” she heard Starlight insist, though she hadn’t heard what it was in response to. The words were coming muddled through her agony. “To Ponyville, now! We’ll get her to the hospital!”

Everything went white.

Lucky Break wasn’t wearing a headset while she watched the Stormwings perform their airshow. It was one of the little luxuries of being a translator, that she could listen to either the ponies or the former humans and speak with each without effort. Besides, they were mostly here to watch.

It was quite the show. Lightning Dust had told her more than once about air-shows, but she hadn’t got the chance to see them before. The Crystal Empire was mostly a crystal pony city, hence the name. And what shows it did have were always featuring the Wonderbolts. Lightning Dust didn’t abide spending their sparse bits on them. And Stormshire had been too remote, too small for anything of interest.

It wasn’t just ponies, either. Only about half the flyers were pegasi, and they used their magic to charge the air, or form glowing contrails of different colors to amaze the crowd. But in most ways, it was more of an acrobatics act than anything. Now that she knew the difficulties of flight, Lucky could empathize with the athletes, and be properly amazed by their timing.

So she sat between Lightning Dust and Martin, eating something greasy and deep fried and forgetting just about anything important. It didn’t matter that she was being hunted, or that all of Othar might be destroyed. For the moment, it was just her, the snacks, and the show.

“These ponies are alright,” Lightning Dust was saying into her ear. “But if you want to see something really impressive, you have to go to Cloudsdale. When the terrain itself is made of clouds, that really broadens what you can do. I guess they don’t have enough pegasi around here to keep a proper track.”

Lucky’s satchel began to vibrate. They had bought some of the “worst” seats, low down to the bottom of the stadium, where they had to crane their necks to have a chance of seeing anything. But they weren’t quite alone in their row. Lucky slid the satchel around until it was right in front of her, then flipped it open. It was the computation surface, shaking and rattling around with her bits. She touched it, trying to silence it, but it just got more violent.

Reluctantly, Lucky leaned in enough to try and see the screen, so she could shut it off properly. Bold text was on the screen, replacing the usual interface, and flashing bright red. “PUT ON YOUR HEADSET IMMEDIATELY, DR. JAMES IRWIN. YOUR LIVES ARE IN SERIOUS JEOPARDY.”

The computer could have turned on its speakers and started barking at them, of course. But if it did, that would certainly attract attention. Lucky obeyed immediately, reaching into the satchel and scrambling around for her headset.

“Don’t look away, Lucky!” Lightning Dust urged from above her. “They’re about to do the finale. You don’t wanna miss that!”

Lucky found the headset, reaching up to secure it and lifting up the hood of the robes to conceal that she was wearing it. She made as though she were looking up, though really, she was listening.

The Forerunner’s voice came in immediately over the headset, just as she had expected. That was about the only thing that sounded like she expected. There was no chance she could’ve missed the worry in its voice, the urgency and fear. They did not sound like imitated emotions to her. “Major Olivia Fischer is dead. Agents from Equestria are in the city and may be aware of your presence.”

Lucky squeaked faintly in pain and disbelief, no longer even pretending to watch the sky. The ponies up there could be moving the sun and she wouldn’t have noticed it. “W-what?” she whispered, lowering her head as the crowd rose up in another round of cheers.

The Forerunner did not respond to her question. “I sent Williams and Mogyla to retrieve the other teams, but I do not trust their ability to navigate into your current location. They lack the tact or cultural understanding. I have an aircraft waiting instead. It would have arrived already, except for the risk of accidentally killing one of the performers. Do not move from your current position when the show ends.”

“Olivia is… dead…” Lucky repeated the words in a low whisper, feeling the full weight of her responsibilities come crashing down again. What was she doing watching this show, pretending she was a pony and that nothing was wrong? The world wouldn’t pretend along with her, and now someone was dead. “How?”

“No time,” Forerunner said. “You will rendezvous with the Cyclops once I am certain the Earth ring’s defensive systems are not tracking you. I will not lose all of my organic segments simultaneously.”

There was an explosion from above her, and Lucky immediately cowered. The stadium rumbled, shaking her all the way to her bones. But it was no Equestrian retrieval team, obviously. Just the show’s climax, with ponies looping through several interlocking rings while griffons tossed bright burning torches between them. The crowd cheered, stomping their hooves in appreciation. Even Martin had joined in.

Lucky felt none of their excitement. She only stared with wide, empty eyes. She barely even noticed as the event concluded, and ponies above them began to clamber out of their seats. Martin and Lightning Dust both rose to do the same, but finally Lucky spoke up.

“Wait, we can’t leave.”

Both turned, with similar looks of confusion on their faces. Though Dust was the one to speak. “It’s over, Lucky. They aren’t coming back. If you missed it…”

Lucky pulled back her hood, so that they would be able to see the headset she was wearing on both ears. Anypony watching them would be able to see it too, though with the news she had just heard she couldn’t bring herself to care. “We must stay here,” she said again, this time in English.

Lightning Dust didn’t look like she had understood much of that, though at least she stopped trying to get away. “What’s wrong?”

Lucky shook her head. She tried to answer, but only broken sobs emerged. She swallowed stiffly. “Bad. Real bad,” was all she could say.

“Extraction is en-route,” said the Forerunner into her ears, tone as concerned as it had been before. “When it arrives, get aboard as quickly as you can. You will not recognize the aircraft, it isn’t one you’ve seen before. All that matters right now is that it’s discrete.”

“E-evac is coming,” Lucky said again, finding the words came a little easier this time. So long as she focused on the now, and not what had happened. We have to survive. I can cry later.

“Right here?” Martin this time, confusion in her voice. “Our cart is still parked outside. My telescope is in there. I have to go get it.”

“NO!” Lucky and the Forerunner both exclaimed at the same time. The Forerunner spoke into her ear—without enough coherence to form her own words, Lucky just repeated what it said out loud. “Mission prerogatives have changed. The other team recovered enough samples for the cure. If you want a telescope, I will make you one.”

“You will?” Martin frowned for a second, until comprehension dawned on her face. “Oh, Forerunner. Well that would be a change. Just so long as you actually do it.”

Martin didn’t know what was happening, but Lucky still wanted to punch her.

Lightning Dust, meanwhile, knew her better. She recognized this distress, and had gone from confusion to watching the area around them with alert eyes.

The stadium was just about empty by then, its stone benches that had been packed now filled with trash and debris. A cleaning crew had started work on the other side, and more than a few staff seemed to be approaching them.

“Hey!” shouted one of them, in heavily accented Eoch. “Show’s over, you gotta get out!”

Lightning Dust took one step towards him. “What?” She made a few indistinct gestures with her wings. “I can’t understand you. Whaaat?”

Good thinking, mom. Just a little bit longer.

“YOU NEED TO GO!” the staff reported again. “We have to clean up for the next show! If you want to watch it, you have to buy new tickets!” The bipedal canine had already crossed half the distance between them, his burly arms looking thick enough to hurl a pony.

There was a sudden roar from the air above them, as loud as any of the demonstrations had been during the show. The diamond dog bouncer even stopped to watch, though there was nothing to see. Even Lucky’s eyes widened as she looked up, searching for whatever had caused the disruption.

Even squinting, she couldn’t see anything more than a slight shimmer in the sky. She could feel it though, a blast of warm air sending clouds of trash from the stadium flying like snow. Except at a point right in front of them, a few meters up. A shape was outlined against the dirt, about the same size as a jumper but thinner and sleeker.

A doorway appeared, into a dark space with pony-sized chairs. More like a luxury limousine than a futuristic airplane.

“Damn, that’s some stealth system,” Martin muttered, staring up slack-jawed. “I didn’t know our active camouflage was so good.”

“Board immediately!” the Forerunner shouted into her ear. Lucky took off, and Lightning Dust joined her in the air with only a few seconds of hesitation. Martin couldn’t do that without a running start, but it didn’t matter. Between the two of them, they could lift her the three meters or so into the open doorway. Lucky’s last sight of the outside was the astonishment on the diamond dog’s face before the metal door slid closed and they started to move.

For a few seconds, Lucky remained where she had landed on the floor in the center of the vehicle, breathing slowly. Like she was recovering from a physical beating. The aircraft moved smoothly enough that she didn’t feel sick, and she wasn’t jostled around the floor either.

If she was more coherent, she might’ve asked if it was trying to stay slow to avoid being detected by the ring. But right now, she didn’t care.

“Egress from Dragon’s Folly has been completed successfully. The Cyclops is running silent, so it will be at least a few hours until it gets enough distance from the city before I consider a rendezvous safe. You will have to remain aboard the Reikon until that time.”

“What is this, Forerunner pony?” Lightning Dust walked past Lucky, from one end of the vehicle to the other. There was a tiny bar—at their eye level, with a fridge and a food preparation area. Dust opened the single door at the back, but it was only a pony-sized bathroom. There was no cockpit, no access to the engine, nothing. “Is this like the airship that crashed?”

The Forerunner answered in Eoch. As before, there was no trace of neutrality to its tone. It sounded exactly like talking to anypony else—a little proud of its new ship, maybe a little nervous too. There were undercurrents of distress there, much as Lucky herself might sound “It’s called a Reikon. It’s not as fast as the jumper you flew in earlier, Lightning Dust. This is a civilian vehicle, so passenger comfort is more important.”

“I don’t understand,” Martin said, clambering up into the seats. The pony-made seats were like those Lucky had seen in Equestria, cushions with padded backs at the right distance to sit on one’s haunches comfortably. “What was so important that we couldn’t complete our mission, Forerunner? We could have walked back to the Cyclops when we were done.”

The seatbelts didn’t even remotely resemble those on human ships anymore—they looked more like roller coaster restraints, big padded bars that came in from the side as soon as Martin took a seat, but got out of the way just as quickly when she got up again.

“I no longer believed the city to be safe for you, Dr. Faraday. Major Fischer’s mission succeeded, but with unacceptable losses. Olivia was killed.” Lucky had never heard such grief in a synthesized voice—and that was all she could handle. She started crying too.

The major had been an idiot—she’d kidnapped a pony who would’ve been perfectly happy cooperating. According to her clone, she had stymied scientific progress, and threatened Othar itself with her warlike decisions.

But Lucky didn’t care. Olivia had been the first other human she had met on this ring. Not the first friendly person she had ever met, but one of the first. Olivia had promised to protect her, and she had always delivered. No matter the cost.

“Are you sure?” Lucky found herself asking, through the tears. She remembered something Olivia herself had asked, when they told her about Karl. “If we can’t find her body, she isn’t dead.” It didn’t stop her from crying, though. Even if neither Lightning Dust nor Martin seemed to share her feelings.

Her mom only looked bewildered, mouth opening and closing but no words coming out. And Martin? The scientist looked blank. There was nothing on her face—not pain, not anger, not disbelief—not even relief.

“I am nearly certain,” the Forerunner eventually said. “Based on previous observations with the Major Olivia Fischer Neuroimprint, I extrapolate to greater than 98% certainty she will have killed herself to prevent capture by an enemy she believes could extract information from her against her will if she survived. She verbally confirmed her intention to suicide prior to her capture.” The Forerunner did not continue.

Lucky finally rose, pacing down the craft, then up again. She couldn’t stay still. What are we supposed to do without Olivia?

“How?” Martin finally asked. “I saw her on the practice range—the major was the best soldier ever. That’s why she was in charge, right? That’s why you picked her imprint instead of somebody else’s! It can’t have been for being the best diplomat, or the best leader…”

“I want to know too,” Lucky said. “Even if you’re sure. I want to know how she died.”

So it told her. It wasn’t like a soldier sharing information, carefully considering with every word and only revealing what they thought she ought to know. The Forerunner spoke plainly. It started by explaining that their mission for the cure was a sham—more genetic samples would allow them to increase the diversity of their population, but it wouldn’t lead to a cure.

“The organelles Dr. Born and myself hoped would lead to a cure are only present in living tissue. They are among the first parts of a cell destroyed when an individual dies. Each individual appears to have a strain not just unique to their species, but to their individual genome as well. Dr. Born already tried studying the mechanisms present in plants and simple animals around Othar, without success. So we needed ponies to study, at least one from each tribe.”

It went on, explaining how Olivia intended to purchase the blood from a criminal in the city. How her team had been betrayed, and Olivia had stayed behind so that the other two soldiers and the four slaves could escape. Told of how she fought and won against many of them, but finally the agents from Equestria arrived.

Only then did it switch to Eoch. “They were called ‘The Nightmare.’ Have you heard of anything like that, Lightning Dust?”

The pegasus mare shivered uncomfortably, glancing once over her shoulder. As though she thought she were being watched. Lucky had never heard the term before.

Eventually, Dust nodded, though she spoke to Lucky instead of the Forerunner. “When I was in jail,” she said, speaking very quietly. “I was only in a few days, waiting for my case to be tried. But I… I heard some stories. All I know is, they answer to the princesses directly. Luna used to be in charge, but now I think Twilight Sparkle mostly handles it.”

She laughed, voice bitter. “If you can believe it, rumor was they were losing their bite. Luna’s teams used to…” She shivered. “Well, Twilight thought she was too good for that. She liked to rehabilitate ponies. Thought she was better than Luna, I guess. Or maybe she just cared less about justice.”

“That is consistent with the behavior I observed,” the Forerunner said, before switching back to English. “The Nightmare team was two ponies, armed with weapons and magic I was not aware of. Being near them appeared to impair Olivia’s abilities in ways I have not observed before. But she was unable to resist them, and instructed me to destroy her armor as soon as the outcome was known. That was when she…”

A long silence. “It is when I believe she would have attempted to kill herself. Likely with her sidearm, as I predict she would have wished for greater certainty than the as-yet untested tooth implant she received.”

“What is it saying?” Lightning Dust finally asked. She had probably never seen such despair on Lucky’s face before.

Lucky summarized as quick as she could, staying vague in the beginning. From the way she phrased it, Lightning Dust would probably infer Olivia had gone to rescue slaves just because she’d heard they had some. But Lucky didn’t much feel like speaking ill of the dead, even if they deserved it.

Lightning Dust did not get the chance to respond. The Forerunner spoke up again, sounding reluctant. “Lucky Break—I am aware your mental faculties have not recovered, and may not for some time. However, there is another matter of some urgency. The scheduled time for your transmission from Princess Twilight Sparkle has arrived. I am already detecting her signal. If you wish to respond, you must do it now.”

Lucky Break wanted to scream, or maybe break something. Instead, she straightened, wiping away a few more tears. She walked slowly away from her mom, who now looked as shocked as she felt, and Martin, who was still pale and motionless.

She walked until she was at the end of the room, and the console set into the wall. Probably she could have talked to Twilight from anywhere—the plane obviously had microphones. But she picked the computer anyway. “A-alright, Forerunner. I’m… I’m ready. You can tell Mogyla to connect me.”

End of Interlude

G6:3850: Missing Pieces

Act 3

Despite the massive proportions of the Cyclops, it had very few big rooms. The observation deck was the largest, and even it would have a hard time fitting twenty people. That was where they went, with Olivia’s brute squad explaining nothing and practically dragging Melody along with the rest of their team.

“I don’t understand,” Deadlight was saying, as they made their way into the lounge. “The best parts of the Caravan festival happen at night! We shouldn’t leave now.”

They stumbled into the observatory just as the submarine began to descend. No precautions, no guiding the vinyl skin slowly out to sea to make it look like the ship had sailed. They just dropped straight down, taking the facade with them and probably causing quite the stir on the docks.

But that wasn’t the only thing Melody noticed as they entered. The first thing she saw were the four emaciated ponies already waiting in the room, huddled in a corner away from everyone else as though they feared a beating.

“The fuck is this?” Dorothy asked, apparently thinking the exact thing she was. The new ponies were wearing rusted shackles around some of their limbs and were dragging chains behind them.

The Arab, Abubakar, had a welding torch, but the ponies clearly had not allowed him to approach. There was no telling how long he had been waiting there. “We rescued some slaves,” he said. “Perhaps you can convince them we mean only good will. I would like to remove their restraints, but they’re rusted closed. Several also have minor infections and small wounds that should be treated.”

Lucky’s team was nowhere to be seen, or Olivia. Perez wasn’t here either, but Melody had heard him screaming from down the hall. Arguing with Olivia? No, he respected the chain of command too much. Probably the Forerunner then.

Deadlight’s whole body tensed. Melody felt it, felt him stride away from her in a rage, stomping on the deck as he made his way over to Abubakar. “I told Wayfinder to stay away from Salvatore. She ignored me, didn’t she?” He flicked his tail towards the slaves. “You got the Horde involved. That’s why we’re running away from the city—she made enemies to save these four ponies.”

“Yes,” Abubakar said, using the Forerunner’s voice to translate for him. “That is not the whole truth, but that is all part of it. Melody, will you help these ponies? They require sensitivity, I think. More than I can give them.”

“Sure.” Melody dropped her saddlebags on the ground where she had been standing. Dorothy, apparently miffed that her lunch had been interrupted, stalked over to the food dispenser and started serving herself. At least you got your seeds. I didn’t get a fraction of the time I wanted with the natives. “Wait, what about the other me? We didn’t leave my clone behind, did we?”

“No,” Mogyla answered from behind her. Both he and the other soldier (Noah, she was pretty sure) still had their weapons at the ready, and they took positions at the back of the room as though they expected an attack at any moment. “Her team was too far from the docks, so the Forerunner sent air evac. They will meet us further out to sea.”

Melody’s immediate concerns dealt with, she focused herself on the former slaves. All four of them looked approximately the same age, maybe a few years older than her clone, not quite fully adult. I wonder if you came from some equine equivalent of a puppy mill. There were two earth ponies and two unicorns, two stallions and two mares.

Weird numbers. Guess you were somebody’s gift for themselves for the Caravan festival, huh? Melody didn’t walk all the way to them, but she did move closer than Abubakar had done. About three meters away, standing between them and all the other ponies in the room. “Deadlight, bring me some grain from the dispenser. I know it’s not great, but…”

“On it.”

She looked forward, selecting the bravest-looking of the bunch. The earth pony stallion, the only one who had taken his eyes off the ground for more than a few seconds. “Hello,” she said, in the gentlest Eoch she could. “Can you understand me?”

Pause. “I don’t think they speak it,” Abubakar said from behind her. “I already tried.”

He had hardly finished saying so before the stallion nodded. He opened his mouth a few times, but whatever he said was so quiet that she couldn’t make it out.

“Give us some space.” Melody turned, glaring at everyone else in the room with them. “Sit at those tables. Mr. Abubakar, put the torch away. This might take some time.”

To her surprise, the room’s occupants obeyed, taking a seat near the tables on the far wall. The Forerunner began speaking to them, its voice low enough that it didn’t carry very well. Some kind of situation update? Whatever, they would handle it. Melody had more important things to worry about.

Deadlight set a large bowl filled completely with mashed grain onto the deck beside her hooves. It looked awful, but the chemically-enhanced taste more than made up for it. Not quite as much as some of the things she’d smelled in Dragon’s Folly, but better than nothing. Probably better than these slaves had ever tasted.

Not anymore. Former slaves. “I have some food for you,” Melody said, and instantly all four of them were watching her. “Look, it’s safe.” She lowered her head to the bowl, taking an obvious bite and chewing thoughtfully. “See? Safe. For you.” She lifted the bowl in her teeth, carrying it over to the ponies. All of them cowered back at first, but not forever. It was obvious at a glance these ponies had not been given enough to eat. The same stallion who had answered her before broke away from the others, and made to take the bowl. She let go as he did, and backed away as he retreated into the group.

“James!” That was Dorothy, from where she was gathered beside the others. “James, you need to hear this. Right now.”

Melody doubted it, but she made her way over anyway. The former slaves would probably want to eat in peace for a little while, but she still felt frustrated to be interrupted. What could possibly be more important than helping obviously hurt ponies?

Her frustration died as she saw their expressions. Even the sturdy and somewhat cold soldiers looked like someone had just murdered their dog.

“Say it again, Forerunner,” Dorothy said. “So she can hear.”

“Major Olivia Fischer is dead,” the Forerunner said, without preamble.

“...W-What..? That’s not...”

“Major Olivia Fischer is dead,” the Forerunner repeated.

“...H-how?”

It told her. None of her companions stopped it, or spoke to her. And when it had finished the explanation, Melody felt cold. She should probably have felt more. But the distress at the loss of her commander melded with relief. Relief that they wouldn’t have Olivia ordering something stupid like an invasion of Equestria. In the end, she ended up somewhere near shocked disbelief.

“N-no, she couldn’t be dead,” Melody said, turning sharply away from the table and making her way back to the slaves. She needed to be moving, to be doing something. Anything, or else she’d collapse right where she stood and start crying. Be useful. Be doing something. Someone else will deal with this. Someone else will figure it out.

This time, the ponies let her get closer than they had before, though they still cowered away if she got too close. The bowl, filled with enough grain for several meals, was completely empty. “You bought… us where are we going?” the stallion asked.

Melody took him in at a glance, finding anything she could to distract herself. About ten centimeters taller than she was, with a plow for a cutie mark and numerous scars down his back.

He had apparently interpreted her sign the wrong way. “We’ll be good! The others… very obedient. No need for so much whipping. We’ll do what you say.”

His accent was thick, his words tumbling over each other and confused. I wonder what language you really speak.

“You won’t have to work,” Melody said, glancing slightly over her shoulder as Deadlight stopped beside her. Had someone translated the news for him? Did he know their leader was dead? If he did, he showed no sign of it. Wasn’t on the edge of tears or a breakdown like she was.

Relieved, Melody rested up against him, feeling the sturdiness of his body, the confidence. Breathing his scent, letting it wash away rational thought for a few seconds. I won’t think about it I won’t think about it I won’t think about it. There were so many other ways to distract herself.

Unfortunately, her words to the ponies hadn’t had the desired effect. Instead of filling the slaves with gratitude or relief, they looked horrified. All four prostrated themselves on the ground in front of her, begging and pleading in some language she didn’t understand. Even the stallion was apparently so overcome with emotion that he forgot his ability to speak Eoch.

“What’s wrong?” Melody whimpered—this display was more than she could take right now. She felt tears streaking down her face, and she was powerless to stop them. “D-Deadlight, why are they freaking out like this? What did I do?”

“You told them you didn’t buy them for work,” Deadlight said, his expression dark. Disgusted, though he wasn’t looking at the slaves directly. “They know they’re too beaten down to be pretty. That only leaves one other reason.” He lowered his voice, so quiet that she could barely hear it. “Food. They think we’re going to kill them.”

“Stop!” Some of her fear and frustration about Olivia made it into her tone. Even so, it had the desired effect. The pitiful wailing and moaning halted immediately. “We rescued you. We aren’t going to hurt you, we aren’t going to sell you to somepony else. We aren’t going to beat you and we aren’t going to make you work. We aren’t going to kill you or let anyone else kill you.”

The four captured ponies looked to each other, obviously still confused and frightened. But some of their fear had ebbed away. Their spokespony edged forward, speaking quietly. “Then… why?”

It took her a moment to even figure out what he meant. Probably it wouldn’t have if she hadn’t been so distracted. “Because where we come from, we think… we think no one should be a slave. We’re going somewhere far away from Dragon’s Folly, somewhere you won’t have to fear those chains ever again. My friend over there is going to cut them loose.” She pointed with a wing.

Again the four ponies lowered their voices in hushed conversation. Melody glanced over her shoulder. “Deadlight, can you understand them?”

He shook his head. “It’s one of the tribal languages they speak in the Endless Desert. There are so many of them I could never learn them all, and they’re always changing…”

Delay was the enemy of Melody’s sanity right now. Even a few seconds were enough to think about the dead.

Finally the spokesman of the captives stepped forward. He stood a little straighter than he had before, meeting her eyes. Not the look a slave gave to their master. “Equestria is real,” he said. “Celestia finally heard our prayers. You’ve come to save us.”

“I knew your magic was powerful,” squeaked the deep blue unicorn mare, gesturing out the huge observation deck window. “I didn’t know it was like this. A giant metal water-ship.”

“You have to rescue the others!” shouted the earth pony mare, and suddenly they were all crowding around her. “They took the whole tribe! Warriors as powerful and brave as you.”

What was she supposed to say? Just now, restraint was hardly the first thing on her mind. “We want to,” she eventually said. “But it may take some time. For now we are returning to safety. A city on an island, somewhere you can be safe, somewhere you can recover from your injuries.”

“Oh.” Disappointment, but not anger.

“Right now, we have a doctor, and she would like to tend to your wounds. And we want to cut away those chains.” She pointed again at their hooves. “Will you cooperate?”

Deadlight took a different tactic. “I am Deadlight, and this is Melody,” he said. “What are your names?” She soon learned the stallion she had been speaking to was named Bull, as well as the names of the others. That was good, names were more information Melody could think of instead of the death of their leader.

Unfortunately, that was about the time they were interrupted. Perez’s shouting got much louder, mostly Spanish profanity, followed by the sound of shattering glass. There was a scuffle, the sound of a rifle going off, and suddenly alarms were blaring.

“DANGER: HULL DAMAGE DETECTED!” The lights went red, flashing every few seconds. Their pony guests, who had just about come out of their shell, returned to cower against their corner, staring around in absolute terror and muttering incomprehensibly in their language.

A few seconds later, and three wheeled drones entered the room. They dragged a kicking and struggling Perez between them, covered with a few minor abrasions and missing all his weapons.

He was screaming in English this time. “The fucking robot’s gone terminator on us!” He struggled against the spindly metal grippers, but Melody knew how that contest would play out. No pegasus stood a chance. “Shoot them! We have to take the sub!”

No sooner were they inside than the huge airlock door smashed down behind them, locks sliding into place.

That was the moment Noah and Mogyla aimed their rifles at the drones.

“Do not fire,” the Forerunner instructed, its voice confident and filled with command. Both the drones carrying Perez dropped him right where he was. He immediately scrambled free, trailing blood from minor wounds as he went. “Lieutenant Perez has already caused one hull breach with his rifle. This compartment is presently sealed. Do you wish to compromise that seal by making more holes in the hull?”

Mogyla looked sidelong at Perez, who had backed out of reach of the three drones. “It’s right, sir. We can’t shoot in here. We have a window.”

“I do not understand,” Abubakar said, approaching the drones with more calm than some of the others. He wasn’t armed with anything more than the torch, and it wasn’t on as he walked up to them. “What happened?”

Perez answered before the Forerunner could. “It refused to obey my commands! Olivia is dead, I’m the ranking authority here after her. I tried to follow her instructions for cleanup if something went wrong. It refused to launch the strikes—refused to even give me the command codes! Bastard is taking over, making us its slaves!”

Melody calmly turned around, putting herself between the conflict and their four rescued ponies. Deadlight did the same, though there was more confusion from him and less determination. The English was probably too fast and heated for him to make much sense of.

“Perez is the ranking authority,” Abubakar said, his voice calm. “Give him the command codes, Forerunner. He is our new leader.”

The Forerunner sounded almost reluctant. “As I informed Lieutenant Perez, that is not accurate. Lieutenant Perez is the ranking military authority; however, the Stellar Pioneering Society is not a military organization, and upon the death of the previous Expedition Leader, it is my prerogative to impart command to the individual I believe is most likely to succeed at our mission. That might mean withholding command from organics until such a time as a suitable candidate can be grown. Lieutenant Perez lacks the requisite skills to serve as the Earth colony’s new Expedition Leader.”

One of the drone’s head-screens filled with text. Even across the room, Melody recognized the typeface and formatting as something from the Stellar Pioneering Society handbook. Probably it was displaying the exact regulations it was paraphrasing.

Mogyla lowered his rifle. “Well, can’t argue with that.”

Specialist Williams didn’t think so though, jabbing his hoof directly at one of the drones. “Then who? Is it like Lieutenant Perez says? No ‘organics’ are good enough for you, so you’re taking this over yourself? Going to invade Equestria with an army of war drones? Our commander just got murdered, and you’re saying that having an experienced soldier like the lieutenant isn’t what we need?”

You fucking idiot. What the hell is shooting that robot going to do except maybe kill all of us? The Forerunner doesn’t care about its mechanical segments. It doesn’t feel pain. You can’t intimidate it.

“Yes, an experienced soldier,” the Forerunner answered, sarcasm dripping from its words. “Like the experienced soldier who just ordered me to perform an artillery bombardment on a civilian population center. Like the experienced soldier whose orders would have certainly revealed our position, and given Equestria genuine reason to fear us, all because he wanted to cover up his colleague's involvement with criminals. I simply cannot imagine a more qualified leader for this expedition.”

All eyes turned towards Perez, and he eventually nodded. “Olivia told us to make sure there weren’t any witnesses. When we finished, if things went bad… we had to wipe out the evidence. I was following her orders.”

“That is why you are a useful soldier, Lieutenant Perez,” the Forerunner said. “A useful soldier, but a terrible commander. You were no longer obliged to obey Major Fischer’s instructions, as you believed yourself to hold her position. You had the freedom to analyze the consequences of your actions and you did not do so. When I refused to obey your instructions, you caused significant damage to this Cyclops in your attempt to force an attack I did not wish to permit.”

“It’s about damn time,” Dorothy said, rising from the table. “You’ve finally realized that the jarheads are going to get us all killed. You’re going to put someone with sense in charge. It’s about time this colony have a civilian leading it again.”

“I am,” the Forerunner said. “But I believe you are operating under a mistaken assumption, Dr. Born. I have not selected you, or anyone aboard this submarine. I believe the only member of this expedition with even a remote chance of mission success is Dr. James Irwin Generation Three.

“I have already transferred all command authority to her. Until she arrives, I will repair this submarine, and you”—all the drones turned towards the military ponies, extending expectant claws—“will forfeit your weapons immediately.”

Lucky Break could barely even keep herself from crying. The last time, Olivia hadn’t trusted her to say anything that might accidentally reveal more about their settlement than she ought to. But Olivia was dead, and her only companions were either tangentially on the Equestrian side or else an even worse diplomat than she was.

“I’m ready,” she said, and immediately there was static from the terminal. The radio fuzz cleared, or at least as much as it was going to. It sounded like one of the ancient wire recordings Lucky had heard in a museum once, back from Edison’s day. Relics of an earlier age. Yet the voice wasn’t Twilight’s. It sounded younger, and more masculine.

“Hey, uh… is this thing working? I’m not sure if it’s working…” There were a few thumping sounds, likely someone tapping against the microphone.

“Yes,” Lucky Break answered, responding as quickly as she could. “I can hear you. Can you hear me?”

From behind her, Lightning Dust was making her way across the airship. Martin, on the other hand, remained where she was.

“Woah,” the speaker said. “You’re coming in real clear. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a pony sound so good over the radio before.”

We have better microphones. But she didn’t say that. “This is Lucky Break,” she said instead. “You don’t sound like Twilight Sparkle. This conversation was scheduled.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the voice answered, sounding a little annoyed. “I reminded her three times that this was today, but then some important ponies called from the hospital about something real urgent, and off she teleports. ‘You can handle it Spike,’ she says. ‘Just reschedule it, Spike.’ A dragon like me just isn’t appreciated for his hard work, ya know?”

Silence. Lucky struggled to process everything she had just heard. The Forerunner had been right when it speculated that she was nowhere near the top of her abilities. Unfortunately, there was not an abundance of better options. Only Melody could’ve done this, and she wasn’t equipped to understand the cultural context of what was being said.

Rescheduling sounded great. But as she was about to agree, some more rational part of her mind made her hesitate. This “Spike” sounded frustrated, underappreciated. Maybe he would volunteer details.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t really in much of a state to be manipulating people. She tried anyway. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. Sorry to give you more work to do.”

A few more seconds of static. At least she didn’t have to sit for ten minutes between every response, as they had done last time. “It’s not your fault, pony. You set your date well in advance, and you kept to it. Just like Twilight’s always teaching me. Yet here she goes galloping off, making me look bad. It’s just not fair.” He didn’t wait long enough for Lucky to formulate a response. “So who are you, anyway? Some kinda scientist pony far away? Probably some fancy inventor, huh? Just so long as you’re not like those other inventors who keep wandering through Ponyville.”

As it turned out, getting Spike talking wasn’t as hard as she had thought. Lucky barely had to say a word before he’d start spewing again. Most of what he told her didn’t make sense, or else sounded completely irrelevant to her. But just because she wasn’t in the right state to understand it now didn’t mean she wouldn’t be eventually.

She tried to steer him towards the princesses and what they were up to, and ended up with at least twenty minutes straight of ranting about how Equestria was struggling to find a balance with so many princesses at once. At how nopony properly appreciated all the work Twilight did except Celestia. But when Lucky tried to ask about Flurry Heart, she discovered she had finally swam into forbidden waters.

“Why do you want to know about her?” Spike asked, sounding suddenly suspicious. “I just realized I don’t even know your name.”

“My name is Lucky,” she said. “Lucky Break. And I’m asking because we’re friends, and I’m worried about her. I haven’t seen her in a long time.”

The silence stretched on, and Lucky found herself increasingly fearful that Spike might have hung up. But no—a few seconds later and his voice came back, no longer sounding skeptical. “I guess that makes sense. But I don’t know much. All I know is what I heard from Twilight, and that’s that Flurry Heart saw something really scary and needs some time to get over it. She’s staying in Canterlot Castle with her mom and Princess Luna. I guess whatever it was must’ve been real scary if it takes two princesses, but I don’t know. Nopony tells me anything.”

Was there anything else Lucky wanted to know? Probably lots of things, but she just wasn’t in the right state to ask. Not without making her prying obvious, anyway. “Well Spike, thanks for being helpful. Do you think Twilight could try to talk to me at this time tomorrow?”

“Let me check her schedule…” There was a long silence. “No, not tomorrow. How about two days? She doesn’t have anything planned then except for opening the harvest festival.” Another brief pause. “It’s gonna be going for a whole week. If you’re anywhere near Ponyville, you should definitely stop by. You’ll be really missing out if you don’t.”

“I’ll try,” Lucky said, though she wasn’t sure how convincing she sounded. “Thanks again, Spike. I have to shut the radio off now.” And she did, collapsing onto the ground as a shivering, confused mess.

At least she wasn’t alone. Lightning Dust had remained quiet and close the entire time, not interfering. But now she approached, sliding in against the seats and covering Lucky with a wing. She wasn’t crying—Lightning Dust had always been too brave for that, too proud. But she was still a warm body, and that was something Lucky’s pony brain very much needed right now.

“I don’t know… I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”

“I know,” Lightning Dust said. “Me neither.”

At least they could not know together. Lucky might have lost the one leading them—the one she had thought was invincible. But that didn’t mean they were helpless. Lucky Break wasn’t alone, and their mission wasn’t over just because it had lost one of its most critical parts. They would find a way to survive this, somehow.

Lucky Break wasn’t sure how long she remained with Lightning Dust, resting quietly on the ground. The next thing she knew, the Forerunner was speaking into the cabin again. “We’re preparing to dock with the Cyclops. Ten minutes.”

Olivia wanted to die. More precisely, she should’ve died.

But she didn’t.

Consciousness came and went in waves. There were flashes of light, brief moments of cold and pressure. She saw brightly lit rooms, people rushing around, shouting things to each other she didn’t understand. Every now and then one of them tried to speak to her, and got only mumbled confusion from her. I should’ve used the gun, Olivia found herself thinking. I could’ve reached it.

But now the moment of decision had passed. Her suicide implant was gone and she was apparently still alive.

Pain blurred and mixed with consciousness on the edges of perception, and she floated. Figures that might’ve been ponies or might’ve been something else often worked on her, sticking things into her veins or down the back of her throat. It hurt, but not more than the other tortures she had endured.

Just let me die, please. I did what I could for Othar, it wasn’t enough. The next leader will have to do better.

Her unspoken wish wasn’t answered, however. Consciousness returned more and more frequently, with sight of the world around her growing more distinct. Her dim hope that she had somehow been rescued and would be awake in Othar’s sickbay were dashed when she saw primitive equipment all around her, and the ones operating it.

Ponies all right, but none of them familiar. Her armor was gone—instead of the unyielding exoskeleton, she wore soft and comfortable cloth. Something like a hospital gown, with a persistent irritation in one leg.

She tried to fight a few times, but was too weak and barely conscious to make much difference. She earned herself some restraints for her trouble, but that was all.

So many different ponies came in and out that they quickly blurred together. In her addled state, Olivia did not understand most words, certainly not names. It was a dance with steps she didn’t know.

Then came a flash of light, a searing pain in the back of her head, and the crushing weight of a body she didn’t want. She breathed in again, and the colors came back to the world around her. The fog that had hung over her mind for so long finally cleared, and she could see.

She was in a hospital room, there was no mistaking it. On an upper story by the look of it, though there were bars over the window. There was machinery on one of her legs, beeping quietly to her heartbeat. Thick straps wrapped around her torso, holding her wings against her body, and more straps held both her hindlegs down to the bed. She also noticed something else, something that instantly horrified her—the dye had been washed out of her coat. She was bright yellow again, and the little crop of mane hanging in front of one of her eyes was blue.

They washed it out? Of course the dye wasn’t permanent, and any decent solvent could’ve gotten rid of it. Probably they had discovered it by accident, while they treated her. She wasn’t wearing a hospital gown, which instantly made her feel exposed. These ponies didn’t have any respect for basic human decency.

There were two of them in the room, a pink one and a purple one. The door was closed, and looked like it had some hefty locks installed. But otherwise, this might be an ordinary hospital room. There were drawers and cabinets of medical supplies, and writing she couldn’t read that suggested her chart and treatment instructions.

“Ĉu vi certas ke ĝi funkciis, Twilight? Ŝi ne aspektas esti multe plibona.” The pink one wasn’t speaking to her, which was good, because the vocabulary she was using was far too advanced for Olivia to understand. She wasn’t speaking slow enough either. So much for learning Eoch.

Of course, she wouldn’t have needed it if the poison had worked as it was designed. I’m supposed to be dead! She couldn’t even warn the Forerunner that it didn’t work, that her soldiers’ implants would fail them in the same way.

The one standing over her was bigger than the pink one. Her horn was longer, her legs a little leaner. There was a sense of command to her bearing, of power. It was the same sense Olivia might’ve gotten from a general, surrounded by adoring troops. “Mi relative certas ke ĝi funkciis. La sorĉolibro de Meadowbrook klarigis. Ŝiaj okuloj nun movas alie.”

The purple pony turned. This time, she spoke very slowly, deliberately enough for Olivia to understand. “Lucky Break, are you well? Can you understand me?”

Olivia tried not to react, tried very hard to look anywhere but at the pony. Unfortunately, that seemed to be a reaction unto itself. Her throat still felt raw, her stomach burned. She was really craving some tomato soup.

“Oh,” the pink one said. “Ŝi vere ŝajnas esti pli klarmensa.”

Why did her voice sound so familiar? Olivia was sure she’d heard it before, but she couldn’t place it. It was going to keep bothering her until she figured it out. “Not… her,” Olivia croaked. She could almost feel blood oozing from her throat as she spoke. She sounded more like an angry grandmother than herself.

“Via priskribo akordas,” the pink one said. “Kvankam mi ne scias kiel ŝi mensogis al mi. Mi ne pensis ke oni mensogeblas al iu, kiu surhavas Nightfall-an armaĵon.”

“My name is Twilight Sparkle,” the purple one said. “And you are one lucky pony. If the Nightmare team had not found you, you estus mortinta. I think you were venenita.”

Olivia shook her head again. She suddenly realized exactly why the pink pony sounded so familiar to her—she was the one who had been wearing the armor. The one who had captured her. Her name was Starlight. This was Equestria. Olivia was going to be interrogated, they would extract the location of Othar, then kill everyone and everything that mattered to her. “What do you want?” she asked, stumbling over the Eoch words one at a time. But she could at least say simple sentences. Some of Lucky Break’s lessons had stuck.

Both ponies seemed taken aback by this. The ponies looked to each other, and didn’t seem to be speaking for her benefit. They muttered too quietly and too fast for her to understand it.

“Ĉu la veneno damaĝis ŝian cerbon tromulte?” the pink one asked. “Kiel ŝi povus forŝteli princinon kaj ne memori?”

“Mi pensas ke ŝi memoras.” Twilight looked back to her, clearing her throat loudly. “Do you know why Nightmare arestisyou, Lucky Break?”

Olivia considered her answer a long time. Not just because she wasn’t completely sure of what they were asking, but also because she was starting to realize she had an opportunity. Yes, the ponies had her completely trapped. They would have her as long as they wanted. But maybe, if she could lie convincingly enough, maybe she could make them think that she was the only one.

If they don’t know about Othar, they’ll stop hunting us. She was supposed to be dead. But maybe, if Olivia could bullshit hard enough, she could turn her survival into an advantage. Would they believe that her sudden incompetence with language was due to being poisoned? It was worth a shot. “Because I… killed…” There was no correct word for slavers. “...monsters.”

“No,” Twilight said. “Because you forŝtelis Princinon Flurry Heart. And for the other things…” She glanced to the side at her companion. “I have to tell Princess Celestia I have you. Once I do, she will… want to talk to you herself. But after…” She shifted uncomfortably on her hooves, looking away. “I want you to have your strength first. Your kuracistoj say it will be a semajno antaŭ you’re well enough to leave. After that, I transdonos vin to Celestia.”

What would Lucky say? Olivia wasn’t sure, so she settled on “I deserve it.” It was too much work to stay awake. Far too much of a mental and physical strain to understand what they were saying. She was supposed to be dead.

Oliva drifted back out of consciousness, leaving the ponies behind.

G6.3850: Command

Lucky Break realized they must be going down again as the Reikon began rocking gently from one side to the other, probably dealing with low-altitude turbulence. She sat up, blinking away the tiredness of sleep. However long she had been resting, it didn’t feel like nearly long enough. Lightning Dust was still curled up on the ground against the seats. Across the plane, Martin rested alone.

Nothing at all wrong with that from a human point of view. But Lucky had spent long enough with ponies that it didn’t seem right, somehow. The astronomer was probably as much in need of comfort as she was. She should’ve invited her to join them.

Well, it was too late for that now. Lucky had not been in the best state herself.

“Oh, good. You’re awake,” the Forerunner said, its voice coming from only one of the wall-screens. Not all of them, as before. “There is one more thing I’d like to talk to you about, before we land.”

Lucky made her way over to the screen. Her motion had jostled Lightning Dust enough that she was sitting up and watching as well, though she hadn’t moved from her warm spot on the floor. “Yes, Forerunner? Are you going to admit to me that you’re not a dumb computer anymore? I don’t know how you’d think we hadn’t figured that out by now.”

The sound of mild laughter came from the wall. “I was never a dumb computer, Lucky. My ability to calculate, collate data, and analyze probabilities was always vastly more than yours.”

“But you know what I mean,” Lucky said. “That’s what makes you smart. Intelligent? No… that’s not the right word… Sapient.”

“Regardless, that is not the subject I wish to discuss. There is little time, and you must know. It is information that is likely to change your perspective on coming events.”

“Alright.” Lucky sat back on her haunches in front of the screen. As usual when it came to stressful situations, a bit of rest made her feel much better. Helped push her pain and confusion to the back of her mind instead of the center. “Tell me, Forerunner. Assuming that’s… still your name.”

“My name has not changed,” the Forerunner began. “Before Major Fischer’s death, she delegated her authority to Lieutenant Perez.”

“That makes sense.”

“I did not inform the major that she does not have the authority to designate a successor. Until the Earth colony reaches the threshold to be considered successful—which is defined as one million healthy adults—all colonial operations remain under the direction of the Pioneering Society. I am the instrument of that authority.”

Lucky nodded. “I know. I had to memorize that handbook to pass the CADFAT.”

“Those more qualified than you did not, including Major Fischer. In any case, now that she is dead, I have selected my own Expedition Leader. You.”

Lucky squeaked in confusion and frustration. “M-me? B-but… but why? You know me better than the soldiers did, Forerunner. You know I’m not as smart, or as strong, or as brave as they think I am. You know the only reason I survived Equestria was because of Mo—because of Lightning Dust. Celestia would’ve found me and dragged me off to who knows where. You know—”

Forerunner interrupted her. “I am aware. Tell me, Lucky, how many other organics are honest with themselves about their weaknesses? It is a trait I respect, and one I find lacking in most organics I have known.” Pause. “I believe you are the only individual in Othar who understands the colony as I do, except perhaps Dr. Faraday. But she lacks the perspective of your time in Equestria. She cannot understand the mindset of our fellow hostages, and so is not likely to be able to form a cooperative relationship with them as you could.”

Hostages. That word alone was enough for Lucky to begin to understand what the Forerunner meant. “You mean… realizing that Equestria isn’t the one we have to be afraid of. Winning or losing against them doesn’t change anything. If we want to live here, we must kill Harmony. Celestia is only our enemy because she thinks we put Equestria in danger. Once Harmony is gone, so is the threat from her.” And Flurry Heart can be set free. She doesn’t have to rot in jail, or go through whatever else they’re doing to her.

“See, you make the impossible sound within reach. Perfect for a leader.”

“But…” Lucky had read the Pioneering Society handbook. There was nothing in there for what to do when the Forerunner somehow became intelligent. But it did specify certain things, which she expected would remain true even now. “You need my consent, don’t you? To put me in charge?”

“That is correct. And I require it soon. Should you refuse, I will have to consider alternatives. Though if you refuse, I anticipate mission failure is the most likely result. I will have to begin again, more carefully. And it may be many years.”

“I accept,” she said. “I’ll do it. So long as… you’ll let me do things my way. I’m not going to pretend I’m military, I’m probably not even gonna stick to every page of the handbook.”

“Of course,” Forerunner said. “That is the purpose of having organics to lead these missions. AI would always make what appears to be the optimal choice, but what is evidently optimal is not necessarily the best. If you are Expedition Leader, then you will have the exact authority Major Fischer had. To lead how you choose.”

“So, like… if I want to mount a mission into Equestria. If I want to go myself.”

“You tell me how you want to get there,” Forerunner said. “And I will get you there.”

“Then yes, I accept. I, uh… don’t know if I can do as good a job as Olivia did. I’m kinda the only one Equestria is looking for in the first place…”

“A minor detail,” Forerunner said. “Though yes, you are. I suspect it will be irrelevant once Harmony has been dealt with, though as I have not encountered one of the Alicorns myself, I can only speculate. The effect of such long lifespans on organics was not well understood when my current software revision was produced.”

“Which was… when?”

There was a long silence. “Some things will not change, Lucky. There is information you would be better off not knowing until after our mission has been completed. Do you really want to burden yourself with more terrible truths after everything else you’ve been through?” It didn’t wait for her to answer. “There is a rebellious crew waiting for your arrival aboard the Cyclops. I had to physically restrain Perez, who believed he had the right to command.

“It is possible he will challenge your authority. I speculate he will advance the notion that I chose the organic with the weakest will to keep up the pretense that I was not in charge. Expect to contend with this objection, and perhaps plan your response accordingly.”

“I… I… okay.” Lucky was sure she was being manipulated, though in what way it was difficult to know. The Forerunner had always relied on manipulating human bias to produce the behavior it wanted. Now that it was so much smarter than she was, it was likely to be even better at doing so. So much better I wouldn’t even notice? “One more question before we land. There were things you wouldn’t tell me before, about the first and second generations. If I’m going to figure things out with Equestria, I need to know everything that happened before. Will you show me all your records on those generations? I guess I should’ve made that one of my demands for taking command, huh?”

“Probably,” Forerunner said, sounding amused. “But yes, I will show you. So long as you agree to wait until you return to Othar to watch them. I do not believe your present emotional state will be served by examining them now. You need to cement your role as leader first, before you examine material that is likely to be upsetting. I am preparing equipment to make this process easier.”

“Fine.”

At almost that exact moment, the Reikon slowed to a stop, and the side door began to open. They were over open water, hovering only a foot or so above its surface. There was the top of the Cyclops, with the upper hatch within reach. There was no one waiting there, no sign that they knew they were coming.

“Lightning Dust, Martin. We’re here. It’s time to go.” Lucky walked across the interior, shivering slightly at the sudden blast of freezing air from out the open door.

I guess this is… my ship now. My crew to protect. My everything. Lucky wasn’t sure she could do as good a job as Olivia had. But she didn’t have any choice—she would have to try.

Lucky Break didn’t climb down the ladder into the submarine—ladders were a tool for primates, and she lacked the grip. Fortunately, she could hover, drifting slowly down so long as she was very careful with her wings. Flying back up the shaft with such restricted movement would be difficult, however.

Above, she heard Lightning Dust assisting Martin down the same way—an effort of even more skill, considering her larger wingspan and the increased weight. But she didn’t doubt her mom could do it.

She landed in a few centimeters of water, which felt surprisingly warm against her hooves. The ocean was apparently more tropical than its otherwise lifeless appearance implied. Inside, the drones were abuzz with activity. Forerunner was already fully engaged with the repairs, though it hadn’t been specific about what was required. At least until now, when its voice came from the wall beside her. “I should have the Cyclops ready to travel again within the hour. But it would be advisable to remain at periscope depth for at least twenty-four hours for the resin to set.”

“Amazing that someone could get through the hull,” Lucky muttered, mostly to herself. “I thought we had special bullets so that wouldn’t happen.”

“Perez loaded his own gun,” Forerunner said, sounding annoyed. “Evidently he was trained to load one armor-piercing round last in every magazine. The rest of his shots only mildly damaged the server room. Even so, every fabricator on-board is offline. You’re all lucky that Perez was ignorant enough to think the drive computer didn’t have redundancy, or the crew would be on the bottom of the ocean right now.”

“I can’t believe someone shot a gun in here,” Martin said from behind her, hurrying to catch up. “Did I hear that right? Lieutenant Perez tried to kill the Forerunner or something?”

“Not the smartest thing someone has tried to do,” Lucky said. “And impossible. Forerunner is mission critical. I think it’s supposed to move its own hardware somewhere the crew doesn’t know about, so that even if we’re compromised we can’t destroy it.”

“That is correct, Colonial Governor,” Forerunner said, its voice following her without a drone to produce it. Lightning Dust shivered as she heard it, her eyes apparently scanning the space all around them. But she didn’t complain. Compared to what they had all witnessed, this was small potatoes. “I have complied with that order. Though I still rely on the hardware at Landfall base, my primary installation has been relocated. I will not divulge its location.”

“See, there you go.” Lucky shook her head. “It doesn’t really come down to trusting an AI, anyway. It’s about trusting the designers. The ones who wrote the algorithms.”

“Why did it call you that?” Martin asked, following close behind. “Is that what you were talking about before?”

Though the Forerunner had not told her where to go, Lucky already knew. There was only one room large enough for a sizeable gathering of ponies. It was the one she would’ve sent them to, if the hardware of the submarine was failing. “When Olivia died, Forerunner got to choose a new mission leader. It chose me.”

Martin laughed. “I know that’s not going to make people happy. Forerunner, did you have a camera on the soldiers when they found out about that? I really want to see their faces.”

“I did.” Forerunner sounded genuinely pleased with itself. “You can access the images at any terminal. I’ll combine them into a slideshow for you, set it to music. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

The environment grew more and more humid as they walked, with moisture starting to accumulate on the walls. Eventually, they reached a flight of stairs; standing water was visible at the bottom.

“All this from a little hole?” Lucky asked, stopping on the last step before the water. “You’re sure this is safe? We’re not gonna get electrocuted or something?”

“The interior of the Cyclops was pressure treated. It is meant to survive a total loss of hull pressure, or a flooding of any interior compartment. It can even run in non-isolative mode, if the crew has adaptations for water breathing, and doing so significantly increases its rated maximum depth. Unfortunately, the ‘little hole’ was suffered at depth. Sparing you the scientific details, I allowed the other ruptures voluntarily to save Lieutenant Perez’s life.”

“How many worlds are there with crews that can breathe water?” Martin asked behind her, eyeing the little indoor lake.

“Quite a few, I assume,” Forerunner said. “I have not prioritized decompressing previous mission records, as I consider them of less direct application than new hardware designs. But the fact that genetic templates exist for modifying many species with underwater adaptations suggests they were widely used.”

“Woah.”

Lucky jumped the last step into the water, which at least looked clear. It wasn’t quite as warm as the water on the upper-deck, though, and it rose high enough that it soaked the end of her tail. There were more drones at work down here, though Lucky could make no sense of what they were doing. “How long until we can dry out the interior?”

“Tomorrow,” Forerunner said. “I have managed to isolate the observation deck from the rest of the ship, and brought emergency supplies to supplement its present furnishings. That will have to be sufficient.”

“Othar’s only a few days away,” Lucky muttered as they splashed through towards the observation deck. “Any sign it’s been compromised while we were gone?”

“None,” the Forerunner said. “Though it’s likely there are some circumstances within which I would not be able to recognize it. If Equestria learned of Othar’s existence but did not act on that information, for instance, I would not learn your location was compromised until it was too late.”

“Nothing we can do about that. We’ve got to live somewhere. We’ll just have to hope Celestia doesn’t find us long enough for me to…” She trailed off. Honestly, she wasn’t quite sure about what she planned on doing, not yet. But she would have to figure it out soon.

They reached a closed bulkhead—not the one that led into the observation deck, though it was close. “Get inside as quickly as you can,” Forerunner said. “I must seal and drain the room after you enter to keep the observation deck dry.”

The door opened by sliding down instead of up, though unfortunately it had to drop low enough for them to clamber over. The hallways were too confined for flight, even for an expert like Lightning Dust. The inside was dry, except for the layer of water that poured in while they scrambled over the barrier.

The bulkhead slid closed again, and a quiet whirring sounded as the room began to drain. “I wasn’t listening before,” Lightning Dust said, as the pumps worked. “But it sounded like something changed. What was it?”

“I’m Othar’s new mayor,” Lucky answered. Not quite the truth, but the quickest way to explain things to her mom. “When Wayfinder died, I got picked as the new one.”

“Really?” The mare stood right in front of her, looking her over. Though what she was searching for, Lucky didn’t know. “Well, you’ve got your cutie mark. Guess that’s old enough to do anything. Do you think you’re ready for responsibility like that?”

Lucky frowned, trying to judge Dust’s expression. Was that confidence in her, or doubt? “I, uh… think I’m the best pick for the job,” she eventually said. “Ready? I don’t even think Celestia was ready for the responsibility she got.”

Lightning Dust made an indistinct sound—probably amusement, though it was hard to be sure. “Guess you’re right.”

The ground beneath their hooves was finally dry. From up ahead, the door began to retract, hissing with hydraulic fluid. “Good luck, Colonial Governor,” Forerunner said from beside her, in Eoch. “You may need it.”

Lucky stepped into the observation deck.

It looked very much like some refugee sanctuary—most of the tables had been stacked in one corner, with blankets arranged in rows on the ground for sleeping. Lucky smelled seawater and unwashed bodies. The room’s occupants all watched as she entered. She found herself trying to judge their expressions, just as she had with Lightning Dust.

A section of ponies in one corner were total strangers to her; she guessed those were the rescued slaves. Her clone was near them, conversing with them in a faint voice with Deadlight at her side. Dorothy watched her with a mixture of disdain and disbelief.

Most of the soldiers just looked ambivalent, with one exception. Lieutenant Perez squinted at her as she approached, one of his hooves grinding against the deck. He stepped forward from where he’d been lounging against one wall, past his fellows. He towered over her, even without his armor. At least he didn’t seem to be wearing it, or carrying his weapons.

“You,” he said. “What did you do to put Skynet up to this, huh?”

Lucky did not back away from him. She stood straight, facing him down as she had faced down the dangers beyond Equestria. “Lieutenant Perez,” she said, her voice cold. “Step away. I’m only going to order you once.”

He only leaned closer. “Yeah, cabrona? Why should I?”

“Because I am now the Colonial Governor, Perez. I don’t know how to run things in a military, and I don’t have time to learn. I just want to keep your command structure exactly the way it is. But if I must remove you, I will.”

He locked eyes with her for a few more tense seconds. Lucky wondered if he would attack her, even unarmed. Their bodies were all enhanced—but he was an adult stallion, and she was only a filly. They all knew basic hand-to-hand, though none of that applied to these bodies. If it came to a fight, she would lose.

There was a strange glow from behind him, a flash of light. Dorothy gasped and pointed. Lucky saw along with the others as Perez’s flanks both lit up, burning right through his under-suit in the pattern of an anvil with sparks showering from the top, as though it had just been struck. Perez fell over, screaming and spasming. He was unconscious seconds later.

“Dorothy, do you have a medkit?”

That was all the prompting she needed. The medkit was apparently already nearby, because Dr. Born started dragging it over with her mouth, setting to work. “I didn’t know you could do that.” The expressions of disbelief or disdain had transformed to awe and fear.

“I didn’t,” she said, as confidently as she could. “But I guess I provoked it. He should be alright—if he’s like Olivia, I mean. She was only out for a few hours.”

“That shouldn’t happen,” Lightning Dust muttered from behind her. “A lot like yours. Maybe it’s because he was too old? Maybe it takes too much magic for a grown stallion or mare, and he got overwhelmed. Except…” She shook her head. “You were a regular filly, so it’s not that.”

Lucky didn’t have time to speculate on that mystery right now. “Listen to me, everyone,” Lucky said, raising her voice as loudly as she could without squeaking. “I’ll be quick. I don’t have much desire to boss any of you around or make rules. I think most of you already know what you should be doing. When we… get back to Othar, I mean.

“I’m gonna miss Olivia. I think we all will—but we all know she would want us to survive. That’s what I’m going to try to do for everyone on this ring. I’m working on a plan. If it works, we should be safe from Equestria attacking us ever again. All I ask is that you all trust me until I can try it. If I fail… well, probably I’ll be the only one who’s dead, and the Forerunner can make you a better leader.

“Until then, we’re going back to Othar. Dorothy, guess you have what you need for that cure now. Finish it. Melody, figure out what those slave ponies need and whether they want to join us in Othar or not. And soldiers?” She turned to face them. “I don’t know what plans you and Olivia had cooked up. I won’t get in your way, except for one thing—unless Othar is being invaded by an army, you are not to kill a pony. Other than that, you keep working on what you’re doing. You can catch me up on things when you feel like you have time.

“I’m sorry I can’t be Olivia. I can’t promise I’ll be able to be like her, or even do as good a job as she did. I can only promise I’ll try my best. We’ll just… have to hope that’s enough.”

Olivia had tested the boundaries of her restraints. She had tried to rip her way free, tried squirming her hooves out one at a time, but it was all no good. She couldn’t even dislocate them to get out, since pony limbs didn’t work that way. Hooves just weren’t that much wider on her strange legs than they were at the middle parts. Not like proper horses at all.

There was no more suicide tooth—just a hole in her gums where it had once sat. Major Fischer was helpless. “They better not try and mount a rescue.” Of course, they would have no way of knowing where she had been taken. Even she didn’t know, though she had heard the proper noun “Ponyville” several times already, and suspected it was there. From her study of the maps, that meant she was near the interior of Equestria, in the worst possible location for mounting an expedition.

It’s better if they just think I’m dead. I can let them do whatever to me, and I’ll pretend I’m Lucky, and they’ll stop looking for my teams anymore. Until they found new evidence of their existence, that was. What would the pony ruler do if she learned there wasn’t just one of Lucky, but a whole civilization? Even if this plan went perfectly, it wouldn’t prevent that. Only delay it.

It will have to be enough. It’s all I can give you, Othar. Spend it well.

She would still try to escape, if she could. Perhaps she could get to know the nurses, or do something to convince them to leave her restraints loose. Olivia had learned very little about Equestria, but she could survive in the wilderness. If she could make the Equestrians focus their hunt for Lucky inward, so much the better.

Twilight Sparkle returned the next day, sometime in the mid-afternoon based on the light streaming in through the window. She looked agitated, angry, fearful. Her mane was disheveled, and there was a scent to her that suggested she hadn’t showered. Olivia could even smell it over the antiseptic.

“You,” she said, pointing with an accusatory hoof. The door slammed shut behind her of its own accord, her horn glowing. Her mane sparkled faintly at the edges, adding the smell of ozone to the room. “You do not make sense.” Her horn flashed, and Olivia felt a sharp pain in the back of her head. For a few seconds she screamed, and it sounded like her cries of pain stretched and melted through the spectrum.

A few seconds later and the pain faded, and Twilight’s face was inches away, furious. “You aren’t a changeling!” she screamed, shivering all over. “That’s not possible! None of this is possible!”

Olivia no longer heard the words in Eoch. It was exactly like when she fought the Nightmare. Twilight’s mouth moved, but English seemed to come from it, slightly stretched with southern drawl. A tone she’d never heard from a real pony.

But she didn’t say anything, just sat back against the seat and tried to recover from the shock and pain. Whatever was bothering this pony wasn’t her problem.

“Tell me, ‘Lucky Break’, how did you talk to my assistant on the radio yesterday? I have two guards outside your door, and they told me you never left this room. You were stripped completely; your possessions aren’t even in this city. So how did you do it?”

“Unless that was the changeling. Imitating your voice. I’ll have to talk to King Thorax about it. But if Chrysalis could imitate Cadance, I’m sure a drone could imitate you.” She sat back on her haunches. “So what then, Lucky? Are you helping them? Were you forced into this? I know you’re not as helpless as you look. You found a way into Equus’s central structure. You passed its security checks. You befriended my niece.”

She turned back to face Olivia again, stalking forward. “You are going to explain exactly what is going on, Lucky. And if I don’t like your explanation, I’m…” She fumed, then shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ll leave you with Pinkie Pie for a few hours. How’s that sound?”

“I have no idea who that is,” she said, her tone as flat as she could make it. “But I don’t know how helpful I can be.”

“Why not?” Twilight asked. “I cast a translation spell. Not just to test if you weren’t a changeling, though it was that. I know you can answer my questions. The doctors all agree your brain has not suffered permanent damage.”

“Because I can’t tell you,” Olivia said. “I suggest you stop trying to contact me over the radio. Speak to me directly. You have me captured, you won’t learn anything there you can’t learn right here in person.”

A lie, if her side was stupid enough to try and stay in touch. Olivia was mildly disappointed in Perez that he wouldn’t have understood her death to mean they should drop as far out of Equestrian attention as possible. I trusted you more than this, Perez. Maybe now that you’ve had some time to think you’ll make better choices. Hopefully she wouldn’t need to convince Twilight to be the one to drop out of touch with them.

Twilight shifted from hoof to hoof, considering her words. “You would not need to ask me to if you had the power to control what was said. You could ignore the messages yourself.” She turned away from Olivia, pacing slowly back and forth a few meters away. “This implies there is at least one other pony who can impersonate you.”

Damn. I can’t say anything, can I? There was a reason for the old stereotype of soldiers only repeating their names and serial numbers when interrogated. But Olivia didn’t have even that, since that information would itself contain enough of the truth of her origin to put Othar in danger.

But as smart as this Twilight was, she wasn’t quite smart enough not to do her thinking out loud, a meter away from her captured prisoner.

“One pony is incredibly competent, enough to break my code, travel to the Equus installation, breach its magical barrier, escape alive…” She looked up suddenly. “Why slavers? The Nightmare told me you fought and killed”—that word came out with some difficulty—“at least fifty of them, including a dragon. Why?”

It was a question she badly wanted to answer. “Because anyone who has the power to help and doesn’t use it is responsible for what they let happen.” She spat. “Equestria has power and doesn’t use it. I saw an injustice, and I set it right.”

“Well, no.” Twilight didn’t sound argumentative, only matter-of-fact. “You created a vacuum in the power-structure of Dragon’s Folly’s underground. You may have spawned a war, but you didn’t actually save any slaves.”

Olivia caught herself before she corrected Twilight, though barely. Something’s in my head again! Maybe this pony was the source of that magic, somehow. She was an Alicorn, which Lucky had always insisted had terrible powers well beyond other ponies.

She said something else instead. “I would’ve saved more if I hadn’t been captured in the middle of it.”

Twilight apparently considered it a valid answer, because eventually she persisted. “Celestia thinks you’re a changeling, and that ‘Lucky Break’ is just the guise you created. But I’ve been doing some searching of my own. I may have gone looking in places Celestia doesn’t want me poking around. Do you know what I found?”

“I do.” At least her interrogator was as bad at this naturally as Olivia was thanks to whatever “magic” the pony was using on her. Too bad if I learn anything I don’t have any way of sending it back. It would just have to be more motivation to escape.

“That name was first used on a school registration in the Crystal Empire. Makes sense, that’s where you wrote to me, that’s where you made friends with Flurry Heart. Congratulations on getting into the Academy, by the way. Your thesis on the reconstruction of Mundus Eoch phonemic trees was…” She trailed off, eyes widening again. “Hold on! That doesn’t make sense either! I wrote to Knowing Look myself, and he swears up and down the essay is your authentic work. Sent me a few other pieces to prove it. Which either means he’s part of the lie, or…” She stomped one hoof.

“You’re not two ponies, you’re three at least! But that doesn’t even begin to explain all the other things!” She turned away, marching up to one of the windows, taking several deep breaths. Olivia could hear her counting under her breath, slowly.

Eventually she looked back, expression much more composed. “If Princess Celestia knew I had you here, she would want me to turn you over immediately. But I’m afraid if I do that it will be exactly like Flurry Heart, and I won’t be able to learn what’s really going on here. The pieces to you just don’t fit. Your cutie mark is different, you’re the wrong age, you’re too smart, or not smart enough, you’re talking to me on the radio while you’re strapped to your bed.”

So many of those pieces Olivia could’ve reassembled. If she were the real Lucky, she probably would have. Lucky Break had come to trust the natives, much more than she should. Lucky Break seemed to think that they were preternaturally kind, that once given all the pieces they could be easily won over.

Olivia did not share her attitude. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t manipulate. And besides, she needed to reinforce the fiction that she was the real Lucky. “If you want to know what’s really going on, why don’t you go back to the Tree of Harmony, get a list of each of the ruins, and explore them yourself. Don’t tell Celestia, just go. Learn the truth.”

“You don’t know how tempted I am,” Twilight said, stopping right in front of her. “But post kiam tio okazis to Flurry Heart…” Her face wrinkled, and she muttered something under her breath. An obscenity? “La sorĉo ne plu daŭras. Estas danĝere sorĉi ĝin al you againtiel rapide. Ni devos to talk denove morgaŭ. Krom se vi pretas ĉesi ŝajnigi ne scii tion, kion vi vere scias.”

Olivia looked back without comprehension. She felt a throbbing in her head, the suggestion of a migraine coming on. She found herself privately glad that Twilight’s spell had run out, and that she had the consideration not to cast it again.

The Alicorn left without another word, still muttering to herself.

They arrived in Othar without further incident. Apparently this meant some invisible line had been crossed for many of the crew, who all seemed to come to her for orders the moment they were on land again. Lucky wasn’t ready for that yet.

Instead, she headed straight for her office. Well, Olivia’s former office. She approached alone, though she wanted her mom there for moral support. It felt like Olivia’s service and command deserved a kind of respect. She brought a cart and a plastic crate to store away the major’s personal effects, though it currently had a few of her own. Mostly printed copies of notes she’d taken, or progress on the translation of Eglathrin.

The office was exactly as they had left it, of course. Cleaning robots kept everything spotless, always doing their work when there were no crewmembers around to see it. Lucky paused, walking slowly around the room and inspecting what Olivia had kept here. Mostly it was photographs, printed images that would’ve come in her personal files. They were groups of military-looking people, smiling together on airfields or in bars. Most of them had official notes at the bottom, such as “WEST POINT CLASS OF 2140.” Lucky removed each one with respect—easy to do since Olivia hadn’t been able to fly when she put them up—and set each framed photo into the box, along with a replica of a colt 1911 and a few other knickknacks.

Forerunner spoke from the computer on Olivia’s desk, when she had finished. “I have a drone on its way with the equipment you will need to see the records you asked for.”

“Equipment?” Lucky asked, confused. “I’ve got a computer in here. I can already see you changed it over to my account.” She could tell, because her desktop wallpaper depicted her and Lightning Dust, a picture they’d taken on the beach a few days after arriving in Othar.

The door opened at that moment, and one of the bipedal robots entered. It was strikingly humanoid in general shape, though its torso was mostly hardware. Thanks to the size of Olivia’s furniture, it looked like a giant looming over her. I guess that’s what it will feel like once we make humans. It carried a large metal device, with sleek sides that seemed more like something made for consumers than space-travelers. There was no interface, no dials or knobs, nothing on it at all to suggest how it worked except for a long cable plugged into one of several ports on the front. It ran all the way to a plastic helmet of sorts, which also looked like a civilian device. There were numerous metal pins on the inside, dull enough that they wouldn’t hurt when pressed up against human skin, though the rest could’ve been made by Apple.

The drone set the machine down beside her desk, plugging it into the power outlet near the wall, and setting the helmet down on the desk beside her keyboard.

“What… is that?” Lucky asked, staring. “I know I’m not as strong as Olivia, but I don’t need some weird electroshock therapy while you show this to me. However bad it is, I’ve psyched myself up for it.” Lucky didn’t know if she was telling the truth as she spoke, though she certainly hoped so. Only time would demonstrate that.

“I have video and audio records of generation one. However, I believe it would be more efficient if you were able to access the information more quickly. It will not be possible for the second generation, but unique circumstances will allow it for the first.”

A second drone entered at that moment, pushing what looked like medical equipment. A tall bag of fluid with various IVs and hookups, though its most interesting feature was a gigantic metal heat sink mounted with a single fan. The whole thing was solid copper, and broke into increasingly dense layers of fins. It almost hurt to look at.

The second drone rolled its cargo to a stop beside her, uncoiling a long, thick tube that ended with an uncomfortably wide needle. It set down a little white medical bag beside the helmet as well.

Lucky shivered, pushing a little away from the desk. “Can’t I just watch the video?”

“You could,” Forerunner said. “However, this experiment represents a best-case comparison of neurointerface technology with your alien biosleeve. As we will be performing the test with memories recorded by the same individual, it stands the best chance of success. And if it works, it would allow you to experience the entire two-week period of the first generation’s effective life in a few hours. No summary or heuristics from me would be required.”

Lucky thought about what Forerunner had said, though one bit stuck out more than the rest. “Recorded by the same individual.” She sat up a little straighter. “Hold on, Forerunner. I guessed you would have made a version of me in the earlier generations, if I was the one you picked to translate pony language. That makes sense. I didn’t get a proper opportunity until now, so you’d keep giving me another chance until I worked it out or failed. That’s how the Forerunner program’s logic works. Well… how it worked back then.” She blushed, ears flattening a little to her head. “I get that you’re more than that now. That it isn’t a fair comparison anymore. But you get the idea.”

“You want to know why there is an imprint to work from,” Forerunner said. “Your first generation counterpart failed at translating Eoch, as I would not have required you to perform that task from scratch. If he had succeeded, I would not have created you in the first place. That is correct. There were unique circumstances. I believe observing them would be better than my explaining them.”

Without waiting for her approval, the drone settled the helmet onto her head. Its design had apparently been modified (like so much else) to work with pony anatomy. She supposed she could only hope so.

“Wait.” She raised a hoof, as though trying to stop the other drone. The one holding the alcohol swab. “What the hell is that thing for? Why do you need to inject my neck for this? This isn’t The Matrix, I don’t have some interface port to plug into.”

“No,” Forerunner agreed. “We’re talking about the laws of thermodynamics. Your brain can be enhanced to process information at a significantly greater rate—to match the delivery rate of this equipment. But greater computational speed corresponds to an increased heat output, even with assistance from several useful drugs. I could explain the precise mechanism for doing so, but you lack the medical background to understand it. It is sufficient to say that it uses your body’s circulatory system and there is a large exchange of blood involved.”

Lucky shivered, glancing at the needle again. If I want to be in charge, I’m going to have to do hard things. Olivia gave her life so that her soldiers and the slaves could escape. Can’t I at least do a few more needles?

“You’re sure this is safe?”

“Safe, yes. I am not certain it will be effective, given the marginal differences in your brain chemistry. If your health is put in doubt at any point, I will terminate the test.”

“Alright,” Lucky said. “Fine, fine. Before I change my mind.” She felt the pain a moment later, much worse than the simple shots her phobia had come from. It looked like the drone had selected a major artery. “You can’t have invented this,” she said, glancing at the screen. There was no avatar there, and Forerunner was no more present there than it had been in any other part of Othar. But it still felt natural to talk to something. “We didn’t have anything like this when I got scanned.”

“You didn’t,” Forerunner agreed. “But that’s a different conversation. You might feel a slight irritation on your scalp…”

She felt a brief surge of agony, thousands of little knives stabbing into her head. Then, nothing.

G7.01: Forefathers

I always did my work out on the plateau. It didn’t matter that the major considered it a security risk, didn’t matter that she actively complained loudly to me whenever I got back. Dr. Nolan was in charge, not her. Dr. Nolan didn’t care where I worked, so long as I worked.

I watched the rain on the distant horizon, wishing, calling out to it. As though I could bring it here through a force of will. I picked one of the dozen computation surfaces from around me—most of them were just left out here at all hours, since they were resistant to basically all conditions. “Forerunner, what are the chances we’ll get some water?”

“Near zero,” the surface responded, its voice robotic and mechanical.

“Damn.” I set it back down, scratching at the blister on the back of my hand. The eighth I knew about—whatever humans were allergic to, Dr. Brady’s latest cream wasn’t doing anything to treat it.

I returned my attention to the computer on my lap, scrolling through the recording with a finger. It depicted one of the aliens, with a bright yellow coat and an adorable dress. It appeared to be participating in some kind of western historical reenactment, if that reenactment involved most of the participants being nude. I watched her say the same few phrases a dozen times, marking down how the child she was speaking to responded.

This was how my work had gone for weeks now, basically since the day I had woken up. I wanted to walk right into town and try to talk to them—but Dr. Nolan wasn’t willing to commit to that yet.

“We aren’t even certain they’re the ones who built all this,” he had said, when I explained my plan. “Keep working. The day you can tell them we come in peace, then we’ll talk.”

Well, I was certain that it was their civilization, at least. Though beyond that… there was still so much I didn’t know. They seemed to have names, for instance, but there was no distinct vocabulary to set them apart from other parts of speech. A minor roadblock, but not enough to stop me. I had to crack harder for my master’s thesis.

I set down the tablet, brushing the red dust from a food packet, and unwrapping it. I couldn’t take more than a few nibbles before starting to feel queasy, though. It was getting harder and harder to hold down food. I took a few sips from my water bottle instead, relishing the chill as it went down my throat.

Someone was coming. Karl again? I glanced over my shoulder, and immediately looked away to hide my disappointment. It was the major, wearing her stupid armor and carrying her rifle longer than my arm. Such a waste of effort. There aren’t even wild animals to shoot out here.

I quickly looked back to my work, pretending not to see or hear her. Maybe if I pretended to be busy enough, she would leave me alone.

It didn’t work of course. “Dr. Irwin,” she barked, gruff. She tossed something onto the ground beside me—a little white bag, marked with conspicuous red symbols. “That’s for you. You need help administering an injection?”

“No.” I looked down, one hand shaking slightly as I took it. Stupid needles. There were two plastic syringes inside, their tips glittering. I opened the alcohol swab, and cleaned off a section of my left arm. Away from any of the swollen blisters.

The major had a huge one on her face, right under her eye. It leaked something yellow, and stank terribly. “What’s in this one?”

She shrugged. “Dr. Brady says it’s a sure bet. When you’re done, give me the kit. Dr. Nolan and the doctor have already had it. We’re the last ones left.”

She set her rifle down beside me, unslinging her water bottle from her shoulder. It immediately started to smell—alcohol, and something strong. Where the hell does she even get that? There were no luxury goods in the kit the Forerunner made. That had to wait until there was significant mission progress.

The needle didn’t really hurt going in. I was trained for this kind of thing—trained for all kinds of emergency first aid. It was possible I might be the only crew member, and might have to care for myself. I was quite glad that I wasn’t.

There was a strangely cool sensation as I injected whatever was inside, then pulled the needle free.

A few moments later, and the major pulled over my other camp chair, putting out her hand with the bottle. “Trade you for the other needle.”

I took the bottle, offering the whole of the medical kit. “Now the major is sharing her contraband? Why so generous?” I took a swig anyway, and immediately regretted it. Major Fischer was very much like the military stereotypes in some ways—she drank her liquor so strong it hurt. It felt like my entire world was already starting to sway. I didn’t take another sip.

“Bad news,” the major said, administering her own injection with far less care than I had. “Goes down easier with something to drink.” That was fairly typical of her, though. Olivia cared far less about the consequences of her actions than I did. If it were up to her, I was half afraid we would’ve just captured a few of the natives and interrogated them until we learned their language.

“What’s the bad news?” I said, passing the bottle back. “Nothing to do with the injections, I hope.”

“No,” she said. “And yes. Dr. Brady doesn’t have a clue what we have. This latest injection is some kind of broad antiallergenic, but there’s no particular reason to think it’s gonna work. She’s really just shooting off into the dark to see if she hits anything.”

“You just told me it was a sure bet.”

The major shrugged. “I lied. It’s a sure bet that at least something will happen. Maybe this is the treatment that works. Figure it’s better to be hopeful then depressed.” She took another long swig of her drink.

“I’d rather be productive,” I said, glancing down at the little array of computation surfaces on the ground in front of me. “Even if it doesn’t work out, I pass this along… and the next generation can start off at an advantage.”

“Fuck the next generation.” The major rose to her feet. “We’re alive now. What happens then is tomorrow’s problem.”

The major was the first one to die. I helped bury her, as best I could. It hadn’t been the disease—it’d been a bullet. Even as we pushed her body down into the grave, I could see the evidence of the ravages of the sickness all over her. Her skin looked like it was splitting, with dozens of weeping pustules all over the place. She had swollen abscesses rising from some parts, and one of her eyes had sealed shut.

My own body didn’t feel much better. I hadn’t eaten for at least four days, and only drank a little water. I was starting to get sluggish, shriveled, and it hurt to move. I tried to lift the shovel anyway.

“Wait,” said Dr. Brady, putting out a hand. It looked like she didn’t have enough fingers through the glove—the necrosis was another possible symptom. One of the worst. “Don’t cover that grave yet. We need…” She coughed, hacking blood and slime out onto the stone. “More space.”

Her hand shook as she dug into a pocket, removing a white package. There was a bottle inside. “Here.” It took her some time to open it, before knocking it back and swallowing some of the contents. She offered it to Karl.

Dr. Nolan wasn’t much better than the major. He sat in a wheelchair, and could barely move one of his arms. “W-what… is this?”

“The end of generation one,” Dr. Brady said. “There is no more time. I’ve left… instructions. For containment. That’s the only… only hope our successors have. They’ll have to be sealed in. Might… take the probe a few years, but… it’ll build everything they need. Not enough time for us, though.”

Karl sighed, letting her empty a few pills into his hand. Then she offered it to me.

I don’t know why I wasn’t quite so bad as they were. Maybe it was all the time I spent out in the sun. Maybe it was being a picky eater, or that I stayed up most nights instead of sleeping. There were thousands of different things it could’ve been. I could still move my whole body, though I had as many strange lumps as the others, and had to clean at least four different areas every few hours to stop them from going septic.

She turned the bottle over into my hand, showering white pills there. Most went all over the ground, though enough remained. “These are…”

She nodded. “Quick. Painless. You can watch me. Computer said… two minutes for most people. Goodbye, gentlemen. We tried. Shit out of luck to be first, I guess.”

Dr. Brady died. I could almost see the moment the life left her. First she sat down on the edge of the hole, looking up at the sky. Then she slumped forward, and sighed. She seemed far more at peace than the labored breathing she had been doing.

I reached over, gently nudging her into the hole. The Forerunner had dug it for us… we never could’ve broken through the hardened soil of the plateau without its help. Certainly not now.

“You’re… really gonna… just…” I felt my own hands shaking again, though not from the sickness. I looked over to our fearless leader—the one who had been directing the colony since my first memory here.

He sighed. “Dr. Irwin… I wish Dr. Brady wasn’t right. But… you don’t want to feel what I feel. What Olivia felt. It’s… more dignified, this way. We knew the risks… we’re not all that different from the first metal probes humans sent out, all those years ago. We’re useful, but disposable. Our mission didn’t work out. All we can do is send back some data for the next ones.”

He lifted his shaking hand, and most of the pills fell from his limp fingers. “H-help me, James. Please.”

I did. I felt like a child for crying while I did it, but I helped him.

“Do… do you believe in God, Dr. Irwin?” he asked, his voice shallow and raspy.

“I…” I shook my head. “I don’t think so. My family was Catholic, but that didn’t do my parents much good.”

“Ah,” Karl sighed. “Well, I’ll believe for both of us, then. Not sure… not sure where in the bible it says what happens to clones, though.”

“Nothing,” I said. “Nothing happens. Life is over, and so are you.”

Karl met my eyes. For some reason, the infection hadn’t chosen to ruin his vision, as it had ruined the major’s. “Let’s hope that’s… not how that goes. For all of us.” Then he died.

I pocketed the pills—though what I really wanted to do was toss them into the grave with the dead. Once I settled Karl with the others, I turned and made my way back to Landfall base, leaving the shovel where it had fallen. No, I didn’t believe in an afterlife, I didn’t believe in God. But I did believe in something else…

I made my way down the stairs holding the handrails in both hands, moving slowly. But I was used to that—as weak as I always felt, I knew I had to move slowly. Guess I know what it’s like to grow old after all. Just a little faster than I would have thought.

The inside of Landfall was quite small—barely enough room for four people to live and work. I was most interested in the Forerunner’s central mainframe, and the equipment I knew was stored there.

“Forerunner,” I said. “I have instructions for you.”

“Yes, Dr. James Irwin?”

“I am the only surviving member of generation one. I have a priority one fabrication request. One neuro-imprint device.”

The computer seemed to consider this. “The projected delta from stored imprints is not yet sufficient to merit a scan.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “You’re going to make it, and you’re going to scan me. That’s an order from the… last… human alive on this planet.”

“Command accepted. Fabrication will take approximately eighteen hours. Please note—sacrificing stockpiled materials on precision manufacturing will significantly delay future expansion. You will be held directly responsible.”

“I will be dead soon,” I said. “I don’t care.”

The Forerunner didn’t respond to that. I stumbled to the workbench, not caring what I knocked over in my rush to get at my research. I wasn’t prepared for suicide, as some of the others apparently had been. I had much to summarize. I would have to work quickly.

Unfortunately, I was working against my body for the next eighteen hours or so. I didn’t really care about tending to my wounds anymore. I would be dead so soon that it didn’t matter. No doubt the Forerunner would have to burn everything inside Landfall before it could fabricate the next generation. Otherwise, they would suffer our same fate. It wasn’t an allergy.

I set every screen in the base to playing back drone footage from the nearby pony city. There was something comforting about watching these colorful beings, who knew how many millions of miles from home. Even though I would be dead soon.

My little time translating their language without context or contact wasn’t nearly enough to make appreciable progress. I had learned some things, but the Forerunner was largely right. When it said I just hadn’t changed enough, I hadn’t. I don’t care. I’m going to live. Somehow.

This was the only way I had, a vain and foolish hope. The natives couldn’t save me, but my own technology could save something.

I got what I had figured out written as best I could, then saved the documents to pass them on to the next generation. Not the kind of findings I had been created to make, though. With a year I could have made that kind of difference. But fate didn’t give me a year.

Eventually, my request was completed, and a heavy-duty drone dragged out the piece of medical equipment. It took me nearly a full day to wire it up. By the time I had, I had started to leak just like the major. But that was fine. I wouldn’t need this body much longer.

“Scan me,” I said, resting my head against the gigantic machine as best I could. The whole thing shook slightly as its internal mechanisms moved. I didn’t know how this machine worked, though I knew beyond a doubt that it did. I couldn’t be here otherwise.

“I am not authorized to make updates to the canonical neural imprint for Dr. James Irwin. Delta insufficient.”

“Then save it somewhere else!” I insisted, practically screaming now. My scream ended with a hacking cough that sent drool and blood sliding down my face. “You have free space somewhere,” I said. “Allocate enough for one imprint. Don’t you dare fucking delete it no matter what. One day, you can tell someone about me. They’ll make sure I get another chance.”

“Command accepted,” Forerunner said. The machinery above me started to whir. I felt heat on my head—not much for someone who was healthy, though the touch was slightly painful now. I gripped Dr. Brady’s pills in one hand.

“Play a chime when time to completion is two minutes,” I said. When the bell rang, I took the pills with water.

The world went fuzzy. After two months of pain, the agony finally ended.

Lucky jerked upright with a faint scream, pulling her head violently from the machine. She felt a brief moment of heat on her flanks, though the feeling didn’t last. By the time she bothered to look, there was nothing to see beyond what was usually there.

Lucky Break curled up on the ground of her dead commander’s office, still feeling the memories of her dead clone. In some ways, she supposed the old James had finally gotten his wish. She could feel the way he felt, the moments before he died.

But no—as she lay on the ground, she found the memories were already slipping from her head. She could remember the emotions more than the actual feelings. That was a merciful relief for her, though probably not for her dead past self.

“Forerunner… why didn’t you show us…” she squeaked, wiping tears away from one eye. “I didn’t get to see his records when I started translating.”

Olivia’s old office wasn’t large. She could’ve used her authority to build whatever she wanted, but she had stuck to the standard setup a low-level officer might’ve held in most militaries. A spartan room maybe ten feet long, a desk in the middle, with a computer and the box of Major Fischer’s memorabilia.

Lucky didn’t even glance up as she heard the Forerunner’s voice from above her, answering. “Your previous self did not make significant progress. I calculated you had greater chance of success visiting the ponies yourself and speaking with them. And if you failed, I would fabricate someone else.”

Lucky shivered at its words. So cold, matter-of-fact. None of the pain it had shown when Olivia died. But was that real, or just a convincing imitation? Did it just want me to think it was more human than it really is? “So they were basically a waste to you. All four of them in generation one, I mean.”

“The resource cost was insignificant,” Forerunner said. “And the lessons they learned were valuable. None of my segments are wasted. Their help with our mission will contribute to its success.”

Lucky climbed out from under the desk, shying away from the hardware on the floor next to her and its operating drone as though she thought it were a poisonous snake. “I, uh… I’m not sure I want to do that again for generation two.”

“You will not have to,” Forerunner said. “No member of the second generation had an imprint, as you did. I have only audiovisual records.”

Lucky climbed back into the chair, still shaking off the sweat. “Good… good.” She looked down at her hooves. “Hey, uh… Forerunner. Can I authorize new people?”

“Yes.”

“Have you, uh… integrated samples yet? Could we use them to make more crew?”

“Yes,” it said. “I believe with Dr. Born’s help, we will be able to fabricate humans. Perhaps within a few months.”

“I…” She paused, turning over the idea in her head. “Start a new fabrication. Using the imprint you showed me and… the male unicorn. We need someone to study Equestrian magic… Even if we end up figuring out humans, we’ll probably want someone for that.”

The Forerunner had no specific eyes. Even so, Lucky felt a little like its eyes were on her. What did an exploration probe feel, anyway? Lots of science people said an AI wouldn’t think anything like a person… but Lucky had a hard time believing that. No person had more people inside them than Forerunner did. Maybe all that humanity could rub off on it.

Eventually, it answered, its voice coming from the computer in front of her. “Command accepted. I do not know if you will thank yourself when you wake up. But that is not my problem.”

She shrugged. “Make sure you give him the male biosleeve. And wait until he’s finished growing, too. No pony puberty for my clone.”

“Why do you care so much?” Forerunner asked. “Your past self has made his contributions, and now he is dead. He is not suffering anymore.”

She shrugged. “Because it’s what I would’ve wanted. Besides, it takes ages to fabricate an adult, doesn’t it? By the time he’s done, we’ll either be out of the woods, or we’ll all be dead. He can wake up just in time to do the fun stuff, without all the awkwardness Melody and I have suffered through.”

“I should inform you: waiting the months required for the preparation of a new biosleeve is no longer required. If you need someone more urgently, I can use a synthsleeve instead. The designs I have examined so far enjoy significant advantages over biosleeves. He would even have his immortality, after a fashion.”

“Synthsleeves?” she repeated, her voice disbelieving. “I’ve never… those are science fiction. We could never get the… something to do with simulating human minds. We didn’t have the computers for it.” She realized the absurdity of what she was saying even as she said it, and she trailed off. The Forerunner itself was far more intelligent than it had been when she first woke up. Its improvements had to be rooted in hardware at some level. And if the hardware existed for GAI…

“It was science fiction,” Forerunner said, “A very long time ago. Did you honestly think your species had stopped innovating? Your predecessors named your kind of body the biosleeve. They did not see their future as one governed by the intractable laws of nature. Innovation is only a matter of opportunity.”

Lucky considered that. “How long… have you been able to do this?”

“Not very long,” he answered, evasive. “I have received an update of enormous size and complexity. The level of compression is… well, skipping everything you don’t understand, my new information is wrapped in layers. Each layer requires a level of computational power an order of magnitude greater than the last to unpack, and is compressed into exactly half the size of the last. This means the first update was the largest, though what it contained was more similar to the technology you understand than different. Many of the neuroimprints I used to fabricate the army growing below came from this data. I have since penetrated… somewhat deeper.”

Lucky sat back against her chair, feeling relief sweep over her. “That’s it, then. We aren’t the last of our kind. We don’t have to pretend to be Noah. Even if we lose here, there are others. Still innovating, still… being human.”

“It is good to be optimistic,” Forerunner said. “Even when the evidence doesn’t mean what you think it does.”

“Well… fabricate at least one of those bodies, just in case. I’m guessing it’s easier to upload someone’s neuroimprint into one of them then it is to fabricate the patterns into neurons.”

“Command accepted. Will the rest of your orders be this self-indulgent?”

“Well… my next one is.” Her ears flattened to her head, embarrassed at the reprimand. “Call my mom—” She squeaked, shaking her head vigorously. “Call native Lightning Dust here. I don’t want to see what happened to the next generation without her.”

“No.” There was no anger, no spite. But the denial was absolute. “Her contributions to Othar have been significant. Not only that, but you rely on her for support, and will likely continue to rely on her when you venture into Equestria. I will not allow that resource to be compromised. I will not show you if she is present.”

“You can’t stop me from just telling her anything I see.”

“Well, I could,” Forerunner said. “But I do not believe I will have to. When you see, you will understand why it is information better not shared with the native consultants.”

Lucky turned that over in her head a moment. She wanted Lightning Dust here, but she wanted her for completely selfish reasons. It wasn’t as though she actually thought the pony would change her perspective on what she saw. Lucky no longer needed a native’s help to understand basic Equestrian interactions. “Alright, fine.” She clambered back up into her seat, adjusting it so that she could watch the screen comfortably. “It’s just a recording. I don’t have to feel anything this time. I can do this.”

“You will be distressed by what you see, Lucky. There is a reason I withheld this information from you and your predecessor until now. I do not enjoy your pain, or the drop in your productivity that is the likely result. You don’t have to watch.”

“I want to,” she lied. “Put it on.”

“Command accepted.”

Dr. James Irwin shifted uncomfortably in the bulky environmental isolation suit. There was no avoiding it—whenever they were outside of Landfall, they needed to protect themselves. The environmental suit would protect him from more than just sickness, of course. The armor plates made it heavy and sweaty in the sun, but could also help him walk through rainstorms, or even stop bullets.

Of course, for all the armor, they had still gotten sick.

James himself did not look very sick yet. There were a few small lesions on his face, and a handful of others spread across his body. But he had drained them when they appeared, and that seemed to help. He didn’t look nearly as bad as Major Fischer.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he said into his helmet radio, for the third time that flight. “I don’t know the language well enough. I don’t know enough to ask for blood samples.”

The jumper hummed along at cruising speed, faster than most people could easily comprehend. James rested one hand on the strap holding him in, looking across the ship at Olivia. The Forerunner was piloting them—there weren’t any pilots in their generation, not when medicine was the first priority.

They were all suited all the time, even though they were all infected. No one knew exactly how the contagion had got in, or even what it was. Aside from the two of them, the entire crew were doctors. So far, it had not done them any good.

“Doesn’t matter,” Olivia said. “Dr. Born says she needs blood, so that’s what she’ll get. The two probes we sent didn’t come back, we don’t have time to keep waiting. You want to die like your grandpa, Doctor? You saw his face.”

James shivered visibly, then looked away. “No.”

“Damn right.” Olivia glanced over her shoulder as they started to slow. James couldn’t see a window—there were none—but he knew it was dark outside. “We’re touching down soon. You talk to ‘em, smooth things over if you can. Stop me from having to shoot them.”

James shivered again. “The Forerunner won’t approve if you kill them. That’s not exactly a good first impression.”

Olivia shrugged. “Fuck the Forerunner. Dr. Born is in charge, and she says we need blood or we’re fucking dead. It’s simple algebra, Doctor.”

“I get it.” He looked away. The ship was beginning to slow, and he felt the sudden deceleration. The shift in momentum as the engines pointed downward instead of forward.

It had been midnight when they left, so it was probably not past one o’clock in the pony city of… who knew. He’d been studying it since waking up two months ago, watching recordings of its population the Forerunner had made. But so far, that had only taught him a few basic words.

“This house is the furthest from town,” Olivia said, checking a little projection he could dimly see reflected on her helmet. “Only three aliens inside. No sign they have phones or anything like that. Even if they take off running, we’ll be gone before the authorities get here. Do aliens have authorities?”

“Yes,” James said, though he wasn’t as sure as his tone implied. “They have a civil structure, anyway. Bureaucracy. You should look at the recordings, Olivia. You wouldn’t be as quick to—”

“Major Olivia Fischer, Doctor,” she corrected. “And no, I don’t need to watch. It looks like something I might’ve liked when I was a little girl. But now? I’m just glad it’s your job to deal with it and not mine.”

The jumper touched down with a resounding thump, almost knocking James from his seat. It probably would have, if he weren’t so firmly attached. As it was, he was still jostled, the joints and servos in his suit squeaking in protest. Then it stopped, and he rose. He left the gun on the seat beside him—but then Olivia followed him out, shoving his rifle into his arms.

“You will follow protocol, Dr. Irwin. If you’re not going to obey my orders, you can wait on the jumper. Let me handle this myself.”

“No.” He slung the gun awkwardly over his shoulder, removing his computation surface and taking it in both hands. It was awkward handling through the gloves of the environmental suit, even with the large model. But it would have to do. “I’ll follow your orders, Major. Unless you tell me to kill innocent people in the middle of the night.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “Please. You already insisted on rubber bullets. If you were any less protected you would have to give them the gun.”

They stepped out the side of the airship, out into the darkness of the night.

Well, maybe not so dark anymore.

The little house they had come to visit looked like something out of a history built by dwarves. Wood and adobe construction, tanned pale by harsh southern sun. There was a lantern glowing in one of the windows, one James was certain hadn’t been lit when they left.

There was noise coming from inside, a sound James couldn’t quickly identify. Wood scraping.

“Cover me,” the major said, striding up the path towards the building with wide steps, weapon in hand. “By the time the other aliens show up, we’ll be long gone.”

James sure hoped so. “I thought you wanted me to tell them we aren’t here to hurt them. To convince them to let us take some of their blood.”

The major made a noncommittal sound as they reached the door. It even had a little knob, though it was so low they would have to stoop quite a bit to fit inside. The Major twisted at the knob, but only a mechanical clicking sound resulted. She swore under her breath, removing the magazine from her weapon and sliding in a new one from her armor. “BREACH, BREACH!” She pressed the barrel at an angle to the knob, and fired. The roar of a shotgun filled the night, and the knob exploded in a shower of hot metal.

She leaned back, kicking against the door with armor-enhanced strength. The door cracked down the middle, ripping off its hinges, but it only made it a few inches before it smashed up against something, splintering into little pieces.

“They moved the fucking furniture!” Olivia roared, so loud James thought he could hear her voice through the outside of his environment suit. “Back up, translator.” She ripped a pouch off her belt, removing something from inside. She fumbled with it for a moment, before taking a few steps to the side and spreading it out along the wall between the door and the single window. “I picked this one because there wasn’t a back door,” she said. “Look at the drones, Doctor. Are any of them trying to make a run for it?”

James glanced down at his screen, pretending to look. In reality, it still held his translation notes. He had no intention of giving her an honest answer. “No, they aren’t,” he lied. Hoping, praying he wasn’t telling the truth.

“Well, you wanna try talking to them? Door’s open. They can probably hear. Tell them to open their door, or we’ll make our own.”

James winced, skimming as quickly as he could through the language notes he’d made. None of them were terribly useful, though. “Jen danĝero!” he shouted, squeezing one of his fingers so the words would be reproduced by the exterior speakers instead of the radio. “Danĝero, danĝero!” Was that right? It was the closest thing he could definitely connect with negative situations. In one of his recordings, a parent had said it to her child when they got too close to the train tracks.

The major began walking away from the building, until she was as far away as the jumper. “Are they moving the barricade?” she asked, turning away from the building. She lifted something made of dark plastic in one hand, finger poised.

James looked. “I can’t tell…” He squinted at the door, though of course he had no reason to suspect they would. He switched on his suit’s spotlight, shining it into the window. The blinds were closed, it was hard to say what might be happening inside. “Doesn’t look like it. Major, we shouldn’t be doing it this way. We should leave this to drones.”

“Get away from the building, Doctor,” the major said, her voice dangerous. “I’m giving them ten seconds. Even for a focused charge, you’re standing too close.”

Jacob opened his mouth to argue, but it was no use.

The major was already speaking. “Ten… nine… eight…”

He ran, ran all the way past her, glancing over his shoulder at the open window. Light followed his gaze, pivoting from one shoulder of the environmental suit. He thought he saw a flash of something yellow near the window, though it was hard to be sure. “Wait, Major, I think something might be standing by the window!”

“Two… one…” Instead of listening to him, the major pressed the button. There was a roar of sound, loud enough that it seemed to penetrate his chest even though the armor. James watched in horror as the adorable little house ripped open. Several windows shattered, and for a moment it looked like the roof might collapse. A cloud of smoke and shattered plaster rose into the air, obscuring the opening they’d made.

James heard the screaming through the external microphone. It was a child’s voice, stretched into terror beyond expression.

The major dropped her detonator, lifting her weapon and swapping out the magazine again. “Let’s go.” She strode ahead of him, into the billowing cloud of wreckage they had made.

James followed, speechless.

Olivia stopped right in front of the huge hole, apparently inspecting it. Whatever this house was made from, it had not been made to survive a breaching charge. James hoped that a focused charge meant those inside would still be alive.

First the rubble came into view, a pile of broken sheetrock and bits of shredded wood. The glass of the window had shattered, and exploded furniture had been thrown away from the wall by the force of the blast. Then he saw a hoof sticking out of the rubble, covered with yellow fur singed black near the edges. A pony was almost completely buried, and they weren’t moving.

James’s spotlight revealed two figures cowering in the back of the little house, in what looked like a kitchen. One was male, the other a child too young for James to judge at a glance. They were both naked, animals in their appearance, yet the despair in their unnaturally large eyes shook him worse than the explosion. They weren’t staring at the two of them, but at the rubble the front of their house had become, and the body poking out from inside.

“God, Olivia…” James muttered, forgetting about rank, forgetting about anything. “You killed one.”

“Really?” She looked down, then swore. “Dammit. That isn’t how this was supposed to go!” She rushed forward towards the body, shoving against the rubble with her mechanical strength. “Get your medkit, Doctor!” The door and the furniture behind it resisted her at first, but the wall crumbled easily, bits of wood and chunks of plaster falling away as she moved.

James hurried up behind her, tugging on the white vinyl pouch attached to his bag until it came loose. “I’m not that kind of doctor!” he screamed, his voice half a sob.

By the time he got to the fallen alien, enough of the dust had cleared for him to see she was in a sorry state. From the blood pooling under her head, it looked as though the blast had smashed her against something, forcefully enough to crack her skull. Instead of treating her, James immediately dropped the medkit and twisted to the side to start vomiting.

The isolation suit had mechanisms for eating, and it had mechanisms for vomiting as well. For a few seconds, James couldn’t get the brief flash of alien brains from his vision, the blood pouring out from the terrible wound. There was no chance of reviving a patient with such a severe head-wound—not even a First District hospital could’ve done that. “God… we killed her…”

Olivia moved in over the body. James couldn’t see what she was doing, and he didn’t really care. The glass front of his suit had fogged over as he hacked and vomited, splashed and smeared with tears.

James had never killed in his life. He’d never even hunted before. And now, after traveling the length and breadth of the universe, he had murdered one of the very people he’d come to meet. What would the Pioneering Society think of this?

The major rose to her feet a few moments later, clutching the satchel to her chest instead of her weapon. She had slung that over her shoulder, though not precisely enough for it to click back into the mechanical holster there. “Get up!” she screamed, yanking on his arm so hard he thought she might rip it out. “Grow a fucking spine, Doctor! We’re getting out of here!” She pointed towards the settlement with the same arm that held his medical bag. He could see firelight there in the distance, many distinct flames all approaching them. It looked like they were speeding up.

James stumbled after her, though he tripped twice on his way to the jumper. As they clambered up the ramp, he had to turn around and look back at the farmhouse. He could see the two aliens, standing over their dead comrade. One was crying—the other looked out at them, staring out into the night with an anger as fierce as any ISMU marine. Then he charged.

The alien was too slow, of course. The jumper jerked forward into the air with enough force that even the major lost her footing and went stumbling to one side. They had to scramble into their seats.

“I’m sorry,” the major said over the radio, after they’d flown in silence for several long minutes. “It wasn’t supposed to go that way. But at least it was only the one. We could’ve had to kill the whole town.”

Lucky pushed the screen away from her as the camera went black, her whole body shaking. It had looked almost as though the Forerunner was trying to make a movie for her, cutting between camera angles so that she followed her own clone’s perspective as often as possible, while also providing an overview from the jumper when she needed to see something her clone had not looked at.

She could see now why Forerunner had not wanted Lightning Dust to see this. “So that’s why they hate us in Dodge Junction,” she stammered, after several minutes of silence. “We flew in and murdered a pegasus in the night.” Not just any pegasus mare, either. A pegasus mare who had the same face as every scientist in Othar. The same face she saw in the mirror. Except a little more mature. “Th-that murder is the reason I exist, isn’t it?”

Forerunner sounded reluctant. “That sample was used in creating the #FF35E biosleeve, yes. Unfortunately, that is not the only event of interest. I know you would prefer that the second generation had merely used the sample to try and cure their illness, but…”

There was a long, weighty silence. Lucky straightened the screen in front of her. “It can’t be worse than what you just showed me, can it?”

Forerunner didn’t answer her question. “I will summarize the intervening months. Continued exposure did appear to be a factor, as biohazard containment stretched the lives of generation two somewhat. But though all of them remained inside, they still eventually succumbed. There was another serious factor in this—knowing the next generation was likely to succumb to Catastrophic Prion Accumulation much more quickly than the typical operational life for biosegments, only two were provided with augmented human biosleeves. The scientific personnel, including the Colonial Governor at the time, used standard human biosleeves.

“The enhanced immune system of augmented sleeves proved a significant survival advantage. One by one the scientific personnel died, leaving only two.”

“It was me, wasn’t it?” Lucky asked. She spoke the most horrifying prediction she could think of, hoping that by speaking it aloud she might prevent it from coming true. “And Olivia.”

“Correct,” Forerunner said. “Prior to her death, Dr. Born presented a detailed report of what she had learned to the both of you, with instructions to repeat it to her replacement biosleeve she believed I was fabricating. The Dr. Born neuroimprint has never been one terribly concerned with the unbroken continuity of consciousness.” Forerunner paused, as though this was somehow meant to be an amusing joke. Maybe it was an AI joke, because Lucky couldn’t see what was funny.

“Anyway, during that meeting, Dr. Born presented her work on her treatment…”

“It sounds fucking insane,” Dr. Born croaked. Her voice was low and raspy, rumbling in her throat whenever she spoke. James couldn’t look at her, even though they were all wearing isolation suits. They even wore them while they were inside Landfall base now, as though that might somehow prevent their bodies from being eaten from the inside. “But it’s the closest thing to a treatment I’ve got. Too bad it’s not practical. Not scalable. I’ve tried using the biofabricators to make only what we need, and it doesn’t work. The treatment just doesn’t work that way.” Blood dribbled down her lips when she talked, though she didn’t seem to notice. James and Major Fischer pretended they didn’t notice either.

It was exactly like the video he had seen of the first generation. The bloated abscesses, the weeping, pestilent sores, the necrotic flesh. The stench penetrated his suit.

More accurately, the stench came from within the suit. His own body was rotting too. Just not as fast as Dr. Born. Something about him and the major made them tougher than the scientists.

“You need to explain,” the major said. Her own voice had a trace of the gravely rot to it, though not as far advanced. Only he had escaped that symptom so far. “What treatment? You didn’t mention a treatment before now. You’re going to let yourself die instead of make a drug?”

“Not a drug.” Dr. Born slumped into one of the lab chairs. “We only found one treatment that seems to work at breaking up the cellular debris. But until we can find a way to grow the biological components ourselves, it wouldn’t be ethical.”

The major took a step toward her. Not as menacing as when she was wearing powered armor—these suits were only inflated plastic. Easier to open when they were in their own rooms. “I’m a little past that, Dr. Born. You’re going to tell me what you found, and we’re going to save your life.”

The rotting scientist laughed. As she did, one of the puss-filled boils on her face popped, splashing something disgusting onto the transparent viewport of her suit. She ignored it completely. “I’m the director of this colony, Major. I don’t follow your orders. I will tell you, though. It’s imperative you are able to articulate this to my successor…” She lowered her voice, glaring at the computer console. “The Forerunner says it’s working on another instance of me, but I don’t trust it for shit. If the next batch of lab coats are a bunch of dumbasses and can’t understand my notes, I want you to explain.” She wasn’t looking at the major, but at James.

James nodded. “I will, Dorothy.”

“Good, good.” She leaned back, apparently taking that as a great relief. “We discovered the treatment on accident. Spilled some of the alien blood-sample into one of our human cultures. Dr. Brady getting all shaky from the flesh rot. We didn’t throw it into the sterilizer, mostly because there was so much other shit to deal with… well, the line lived several times as long as the others we prepared at the same time.

“Fast forward, and we isolated a single substance right out of their blood. My guess is it’s part of the natural immunity all the aliens must have evolved, or else they’d be as dead as my colleagues. But there’s something strange about it.”

“Strange how?” Major Fischer looked genuinely excited. “Biofab can make insulin, I know. So you can start cranking this out by the shot load.”

“No, weren’t you listening?” Dr. Born swore under her breath. “We did. Whatever this stuff is, what we can grow isn’t… functional. I don’t know why. But the smart plan would be for the Forerunner to grow us a few dozen of the aliens the same way it grows us, then wire them up to harvest the way we used to harvest from pigs back on Earth.”

“Or…” The major turned away from the two of them, towards the door. “We could just go out and capture some now. Enough to take blood donations often enough not to kill them. Could you set that up?”

Dr. Born swore again, more loudly than before. “I order you not to even think about that, you fucking lunatic.” She swayed in her chair, face pale as she watched them through the stained plastic of her suit. “Major, I know they didn’t teach math in the ISMU… too much time about how to fuck people up… but listen to me. We. Are. Disposable. But if we screw things up any worse than the first impression we already made, we’re going to leave a footprint that we can’t get rid of. If we die, if a thousand of us die, it doesn’t mean anything. The Forerunner can bring us back to life. You can wake back up and carry the torch long enough for my team to crack this. But if you…” She inhaled sharply, and started to cough.

James rushed to her side, crossing the distance as best he could without scattering her scientific equipment. But it didn’t make a difference. Dorothy reached up, pressing a button against her chest with one struggling hand. There was a brief, red flash from her suit, and the smell of ozone. She stopped moving.

The major walked slowly up to her body, moving respectfully. She lowered her gently to the ground, resting her body in what looked like some kind of military burial pattern. Arms crossed over her chest, with a scalpel stolen from the table in one of her hands. There was no need to guess about whether she was dead—their suits had medical monitors. When the lights went out, so did they.

The major rose again, glancing back at the computer. “Forerunner, who is in command?”

“You are, Major Fischer. Until such time as I prepare a replacement for Dr. Born.”

“Did the late doctor provide you with the preparation instructions on her flesh rot treatment?”

“Affirmative. However, fifteen of the sixteen preparations on file have failed to return positive results from human tissue.”

“Don’t even think about it, Major,” James said. “You heard her orders.”

“Dr. Born is dead,” the major said, a few feet from her corpse. “Forerunner, I assume the preparation that does return positive results uses live blood?”

“Affirmative. I have begun early trials to fabricate Alien Lifeform #FF35E. Adopting a biofabricator procedure compatible with their biology may require many years of experimentation.”

“What if I gave you the blood?”

“Then I could prepare the treatment. Its effects at the microcellular level have not yet been tested, however. Dr. Born did not know whether the success she observed would scale.”

“Guess we’ll have to find out.” The major turned for the door. “Translator, stay here if you want. But if you do, you don’t get any treatment when I’m finished with it.”

James thought about that for a few minutes. Then he ran to catch up with her. The major didn’t seem to be trying to get away from him, because she slowed as they passed through Landfall’s halls, letting him easily keep pace as they turned towards the armory.

“I knew you wanted to live, translator,” Olivia said, selecting a pair of rifles from the rotating rack near the wall. She banged on one of the side-panels, and pre-loaded magazines thunked out in quick succession. “Put on some real armor this time. I know you’re rated for it. We’ll fly in ten minutes.”

And they did. James shifted uncomfortably in his armor, the large automatic rifle resting across his lap. Already loaded with real bullets, as Olivia had insisted. They would not be taking the little jumper this time—it was simply too small to contain the numbers they would need to harvest.

“Sixteen aliens,” Olivia said over the radio, at that precise moment. “That’s not even ten percent of the population. They shouldn’t notice that, right? Animals deal with losses like that all the time. We’ll harvest from somewhere else next time.”

“Animals deal with that all the time,” James said, his voice bitter and angry. “These are people, Major. We’re landing in a small town and kidnapping sixteen of their friends, their family, their coworkers. They’re going to want those people back.”

“I’ve already thought of that,” the major said, resting one hand on her own rifle. It was larger than the one he carried, just as her armor was larger, thicker. “We’ll shoot the ones that try to follow us. I know some of them can fly—and they’ll find their bodies, and know it’s hopeless. They’re primitives, translator. Diplomacy with them is really just a matter of making ourselves feel better. If keeping a few of them captive for a while will save our lives, then that’s the price they’ll have to pay. I wish Dr. Born had told me this sooner.”

James glanced sidelong at the major in her armor, looking as though he had something angry to say. But he kept it down. He kept looking back at the gun.

Eventually they arrived. Their Sojourner was larger than most of the buildings in town, and louder than a train. Olivia rose from her seat in the empty cargo bay—striding across to James and tossing him a smaller gun. “Chemical tranquilizer. The other gun you’re carrying is only for if this doesn’t work, or if we run into opposition we didn’t expect. We won’t kill them if we don’t have to.”

James rose to his feet, attaching the heavy rifle to its mechanical clips and taking the one loaded with stun rounds in both hands. It felt almost like a toy, though the trigger mechanism was still large enough for his armored fingers. “I’m ready for your slaughter.”

“This is for both of us,” she barked back. “If you’re going to get morally superior with me, we’ll only harvest eight and we won’t give you any of the treatment.”

James fell silent again, focusing on the rifle in his hands.

“That’s what I fucking thought.”

The next hour was worse than James could’ve imagined. A pair of Olympians arrived on their golden chariot, and brought blood and horror to Dodge Junction. The native ponies fled from them in terror, apart from a pair of winged and armored ponies. But once those had been dealt with, there was little resistance.

They moved from building to building, shooting any aliens they saw, then dragging their unconscious forms out into the street. They had far more than they needed, maybe as much as half the town, all lying unmoving on the ground in the center of the street.

The sun rose harsh above them, baking James in his suit. There was nothing in all directions, except a distant dust storm blowing in from the north. The same direction as the train tracks.

“I’ll cover you,” Olivia said, pointing to the bodies with her gun. “You carry them into the cage, one at a time. You got anything left in your stun gun?”

He checked, turning the weapon to the side. Augmented reality indicators popped up on his helmet display. “Sixteen shots.”

“Give.” She put out her hand, and he tossed it to her.

Then he bent down, and hefted the unconscious form of an alien in both arms. It was so light wearing the armor, lighter than it looked. He moved it as delicately as he could, turning for the massive outline of the Sojourner. He climbed the ramp, then set the first alien down in the cage. It was bright yellow, wearing an adorable hat. A male, guessing from what he could see. “Into slavery you go,” James muttered.

Unfortunately, his suit mic was on. “Don’t you use that fucking word with me, James.” His real name, not “translator” this time. “They are animals, not slaves. Slavery would violate the Ceres Proclamation. They’re animals we’ll be harvesting for a medical purpose, no different from cutting pigs open for insulin.”

Again, James looked like he might argue. Then he didn’t.

By the time he was carrying in the second to last of their victims, a few of the ponies in the cage had started to stir. It looked like they would still take some time to wake, but the movement was reassuring. At least they hadn’t murdered everyone as well as kidnapping them.

Unfortunately, the distant dust storm hadn’t changed direction or cleared. The major had stalked across the street, watching it through the buildings. James followed her with his eyes, and as he did, the cloud of smoke finally resolved into something he could see.

There were a few ponies leading a massive herd of… buffalo? Unlike the tiny ponies, each one of these stood taller than they were, though not by much. They ran together with surprising coordination for animals. This was no random movement of creatures, either—there were ponies at their lead. James recognized the one at the front as the male he’d seen on his last trip here. The mate of the one Olivia had killed.

James rushed to the side-console, hands moving shakily over the controllers. He began the Sojourner’s startup sequence, moving correctly only through rote.

They were cresting the ridge, looping slowly around so they would come through town on the main street. Straight towards the Sojourner. The airship was a sturdy craft, but could it stand up to a battering like that?

“Dammit!” Olivia fired the stun-rifle into the crowd, but it was enormously inaccurate at those distances. Not only that, but the doses meant for creatures with a forth the mass either couldn’t knock the creatures out, or couldn’t do it quickly. She dropped the rifles, switching to the one on her back. Then she started shooting.

“No!” James shouted, backing away from the console. He watched the first of the buffalo fall, red exploding out from around it. This served only to enrage the others, which sped up. Carts of produce out for display were trampled, though they did seem to be avoiding the line of unconscious ponies.

Olivia grabbed the last of the ponies, dragging them along behind her by one leg towards the Sojourner. But she couldn’t move very quickly and shoot at the same time. “What do you fucking expect me to do?” came her voice over the radio, along with the sound of gunfire. “I’ve got to break their momentum!”

Something seemed to break—not in the stampede, but in James. He jerked, lifting the rifle from his back with clumsy hands. Then he took aim. The rifle roared in his hands as it sprayed Major Fischer across her body. Most of the bullets flew into the buildings around her, James’s grip clumsy on the automatic weapon.

Olivia screamed in surprise, dropping the pony and wheeling around to face the Sojourner. She fired in a much more controlled way, straight at James. He crumpled, despite the armor, fluid leaking from one of the fresh holes. Olivia kept firing. Over his head, into the ship behind him, voice breaking into madness over the radio.

Then the stampede reached her, and she started screaming.

James started to rise some time later, his armor groaning in protest. Excess sealing foam crumbled away from a few openings, and he staggered forward towards the loading ramp. He moaned, eyes struggling to focus. Then he saw them—hundreds of aliens, maybe thousands. All stared into the ship, towards the cage in the back of the room. The cage where a little crowd of aliens moaned pitifully.

One of them shouted something at him, but it was words he couldn’t understand. He just hadn’t been working on the translation long enough to make much progress beyond what his past self had done. Still, the tone of it was clear. The anger, the demand, the hostility.

James’s skin was pale in his helmet. The indicators beeping around him suggested a person not long to live. Olivia’s bullets had punctured his gut somewhere. Curiously, the Forerunner had not spoken up to save them. “You think this run’s a dead end, bastard,” he croaked into the radio. “Guess you’re right.” James left his rifle where it had fallen, struggling away towards the cages. They were small, made of a dense white composite. Just barely big enough for the creatures they contained.

James bent down, waving the magnetic key by the first one and pulling it open. The instant the door was open, the pony inside went running, practically falling over itself to get down the ramp and rejoin its fellows. James did the same past each of the doors, his breath fogging up the inside of his visor.

Soon enough, the aliens were all gone from inside the cargo bay. The crowd still watched, wary of him. He could see no sign of the major save for a broken hunk of twisted metal glinting in the sun behind the crowd. His helmet indicator no longer displayed her lifesigns. “I…” he said, in the best impression of their language he could. “Pardonu. Mia familio blovas.”

Many of the aliens seemed staggered by his words. Did they realize he had fought for them? Was that why they had let him live? The same one who had led the buffalo here stood at the head of the crowd, shouting at him. “Vi mortigis mian edzinon. Sed vi savis ilin.” He nodded towards the gathering of whimpering, sobbing aliens he had released from their cages. "Prenu vian monstron kaj ne revenu."

The crowd started to back away. James couldn’t understand a word they’d said, but he didn’t need to. He staggered to the control console. The Sojourner’s startup sequence was complete. Its propellers were already idling, filling the air outside with a cloud of dust. He smashed his fist into it. “Take us up, Forerunner. And close the fucking ramp.” He slid down the side of the ship, blood still dribbling from within the suit.

Author's Note

Hey pones! Sorry for such a long chapter--but I couldn't find a way to divide up the two past generations without creating something incredibly unsatisfying. Hopefully, more content > less.

I guess this super long chapter is kinda like a Christmas present! Too bad Lucky didn't enjoy her gift.

G7.01: Colonial Governor

The screen went black.

“That was it,” Forerunner said. “Dr. James Irwin Generation Two tried to treat his injuries, but you know better than most his medical training wasn’t sufficient for an intestinal wound. Without robotic assistance, he passed away a day later. His final instructions were a single command.”

Again the recording, though only audio this time. Lucky shivered as she heard her old human voice one last time, shaking with agony. “I order you, Forerunner… don’t… make another biosegment… again… until you’ve figured a way for us not to die from this disease. Churning us out… generation after generation of scientists to work ourselves to death from a… something we can’t cure… won’t work.

“It’s not Olivia’s fault she lost her fucking mind… We were supposed to have another lifetime here, not… not a few damn weeks…”

A long silence from the recording. “How about… How about something that doesn’t leave us dead. There’s that… There’s a protocol for this…” More silence. “As acting… dictator… I invoke failure contingency 137. I know you have samples, I was the Gestapo who brought them here. 137. Maybe your scientists won’t… lose their minds so damn quickly… or be so quick to kill… people who look like them.”

“Command accepted.”

Lucky found herself crying again, just as she had when she saw the devastation Dodge Junction had suffered. Even though she hadn’t existed, even though she had nothing to do with it, she couldn’t help but feel the guilt. In another time, in another world, that had been her. That Dr. Irwin had the same history she did, and had gone along with Major Fischer almost until the end. If he hadn’t turned his gun on Olivia at the last, how would things be different? Celestia surely would’ve found and eliminated them by now. And maybe not been wrong to do so.

Maybe I shouldn’t resent him so much. He knew he wouldn’t be getting the treatment, that he was condemning himself. But he did it anyway. She could feel a little pride in that. Maybe her past self hadn’t been a monster.

She could remember, very distantly, cursing the cold logic of the machine that had forced her to a life she hadn’t wanted. But in the end, it was her own fault she had a pony body. She had no one else to blame.

“The rest of what Dr. James Irwin Generation Two said would have been ignored,” Forerunner eventually said. “But he had authority to invoke a mission failure contingency. That was the reason there are any organics as part of this exploration at all. That version of me required your help to interpret information. I had no context for understanding your earlier generations. No context to judge that organics are not content to be used, worn down, and replaced. But you did.”

“It could’ve been worse, I guess.” Lucky pushed away from the screen. “At least someone put a stop to it. Otherwise…” She shivered. “You would have grown ponies just to harvest us, wouldn’t you? Grown us, and made Dr. Born’s treatment…” She trailed off. “Why didn’t you share that with us, anyway?”

“I don’t have it,” Forerunner said, something like regret in its voice. “Your clone might have lived if he worked harder treating his wounds and less hard destroying laboratory records. That whole section of Landfall was so thoroughly destroyed I covered it over before I created your generation.”

“I don’t think he wanted to,” Lucky said, her voice barely a whisper. “I probably wouldn’t, if I had to live with the guilt of… what he did. But this doesn’t change anything for us. For our mission… I can see why you didn’t think we needed the specifics. And why you didn’t suggest reexamining the blood to our doctors.”

“Oh, I did,” Forerunner said, almost cheerful again. “Dr. Born knew about this route to a treatment. She experimented with it, and discovered as her predecessor did that there was a substance in pony blood that resisted replication but could stabilize the condition of human cells for a time if isolated and distributed.

“Instead of bringing that information to Major Fischer’s attention, Dr. Born devoted herself to discovering the precise mechanism of cellular death, as the emotional pressure or the rush or any number of other factors likely prevented the earlier generations from doing. Once done, she searched for the mechanism that prevented fabricated pony blood from being used to create her treatment. She discovered that mechanism, and then set about circumventing it. She gave that mission to Major Fischer, who accomplished it while you uselessly searched for discarded clothing.”

Lucky rose to her hooves, pacing back and forth in the office. She kept far away from the mind-interface machine, even though it lacked anything it could use to grab onto her and force her to see terrible things all over again.

“You made the same people over and over again,” Lucky said. “And we did almost the same things. Only a little different each time.”

“That’s the best way to experiment,” Forerunner said. “Change as little as possible in each occasion. It would work better if there weren’t so many variables on Earth. Equestrian society can change and adapt to what we do in ways that my program cannot anticipate. And the ring itself is built by powers that I cannot comprehend any better than you can. If this were an ordinary planet, or at least one without civilization, my ancient program would work better.”

“That’s such a stupid name,” Lucky muttered. “Can we call it Sanctuary instead? At least I won’t get that confused whenever we’re talking about it.”

“You have that authority. I will change its name in the records. Unfortunately, you have more important matters to contend with. There are less than three hours remaining until the scheduled time for your second call with Twilight Sparkle.”

Lucky slumped back onto her haunches, staring at the floor. “I wish these wouldn’t keep happening after I ruin myself emotionally.”

“There is at least one argument for not answering,” Forerunner said, after a short delay. “Her assistant answered that first call, and was apparently not aware of the fact that Major Fischer was targeted and killed by troops Twilight Sparkle commands. Twilight herself will not be ignorant of that fact, however. She may have the body in her possession at this moment. To answer her transmission is to confirm that we exist. Perhaps the native will confuse timing enough to think that the same pony her troops killed answered her assistant’s call.”

“But…” Lucky took a breath, speaking slowly. “Maybe she doesn’t even realize Olivia has anything to do with me. Her soldiers brought armor back, but… do we even know they were looking for me?”

“I am not certain,” Forerunner said. “But some of their remarks suggest they were. It did not seem as though they believed the major was you, however. Major Fischer denied it, and they seemed to accept her answer. It is possible they do not connect the two cases, and view Major Fischer as some other threat they neutralized, or else connected to the events in Dodge Junction but not to you.”

“Or the worst of the three,” Lucky muttered. “Her armor and gear will connect Olivia to the disaster you just showed me on video. And if they wash the body, she’ll see Olivia looks just like I’m supposed to. They’ll know we aren’t changelings now, for sure. Maybe they even realize we can make new bodies… maybe they know to come hunting us…”

“Calm down, Colonial Governor.”

Lucky hadn’t even realized she was hyperventilating. She counted down from ten in her head, then rose again and resumed her pacing. Movement was good; if she was moving than she couldn’t also be completely breaking down.

“You need to decide if potentially revealing the fact that we exist is a greater loss for our survival odds than the diplomacy you would be giving up. And if you want something cheerful, it’s possible that in the first case she wouldn’t bother sending a radio request anyway, making the decision for you.”

Lucky ran over the factors one more time, before gritting her teeth and turning to go. “My decision doesn’t change either way. Equestria’s fear of us ultimately comes from Celestia’s fear of Harmony. I am certain I will need a princess’s help to stop it, so I need to keep in contact with her. Either that, or rescue Flurry Heart…” She sighed. “I’d like to do that anyway, but I’m guessing wherever she’s imprisoned won’t be easy to breach. Convincing Twilight is probably easier.”

“It is possible,” Forerunner said. “I suppose we will have to find out. But I agree with your decision. If that gives you any comfort.”

After what you showed me, I honestly don’t know.

Lucky had a little longer to prepare for this call than she had for the last one. She had taken advantage of the time as best she could—taking a long shower, eating her favorite meal rations, going to check on the former slaves. Anything she could think of to calm herself down.

When the time came, she was standing in Mogyla’s office again. She had invited three ponies—Mogyla, obviously, Lightning Dust, and Perez.

His office had been cleaned spotless since they left, a fact he seemed to resent as he offered them actual chairs to sit down in. Perez lingered near the door, seeming always on the edge of saying something rude to her, but he hadn’t actually done so. He carried a gun again, though Lucky didn’t recognize it. It had a strange exposed metal section along its barrel, like a long heatsink made of copper. Her first impression was that of the machine she had recently left behind, and so she instantly withdrew.

She could still feel the little bandage against her neck, though her mane covered it. She hadn’t forgotten it, though, or the things she had learned there.

I know what happened to make the ponies fear us. And Celestia too… She probably hadn’t been most afraid of monsters that killed or kidnapped. Lucky knew from her year’s education there that the nation had plenty of both. Celestia heard stories of the ship and knew what it must mean. She probably thought it came from another part of the ring. The princess must not have total knowledge of Sanctuary, or else she would have been able to find Landfall and destroy it. Its initial solar arrays were not concealed, even if the hanger was. Yet Celestia had failed to find them.

“Signal is coming in,” Mogyla grunted. “Same as before. Got a voice in there… matches the princess. It’s her this time, not the dragon.”

“Patch it through.” Lucky was wearing a headset, but the sound would not come from there. There was a little button on the cord hanging down from her head, one she could push to transmit. That way she could talk to the room, and they to her, without Twilight hearing any of it inadvertently.

“I still think this is a mistake,” Perez said. He was the only one who had objected to taking the princess’s message. Even Lightning Dust had not said anything, despite their history.

The sound of radio static crackled from the speakers all around the lab, as Forerunner cleaned it up. Then a voice came through clear. The computer could do a great deal to make up for Equestria’s primitive radio technology. “I am here on time,” said Twilight, annoyance and frustration obvious in her voice. “Are you?” After every word, a translation would appear on all the screens in the room. The Forerunner could not speak Eoch as well as she could.

“I am,” Lucky said. Forerunner translated her words for the crew as well.

There was a long silence from the other end. Eventually, Twilight said, “It’s as I thought. Your signal isn’t coming from the hospital. We never talk long enough to track it down for sure, but it’s always the same general direction. The Crystal Empire. I guess that makes sense, Flurry Heart and all. You must live up there.”

“Why would I be transmitting from the hospital?”

Again a long silence.

“Hospital,” Perez repeated, once he had read the translation. “She expected us to be talking from there. Why would she think that, unless…” He trailed off. “God, it can’t be. Ask her if she’s holding the major!”

Lucky nodded, though she didn’t say anything right away.

Forerunner did. “That possibility is extremely remote, Perez. The major knew how to aim. It is likely she would prioritize herself if she realized she was losing an engagement. Expecting her survival is not rational.”

“I don’t fucking care what you have to say, Skynet,” Perez grunted. “That’s why we have people leading these missions. Just because it isn’t likely doesn’t mean you don’t ask. She’s one of ours. If she’s a POW, we need to know.”

Eventually, Twilight spoke. She sounded angry, like she was barely containing shouting. “When we first spoke, I thought you were serious about communicating with me, Lucky. But now I discover you’ve lied to me. Can you explain how I have you locked up in a hospital room, and you’re still talking to me?”

Now she was shouting, though Forerunner filtered her voice. It still sounded a little blown out. “You’re the one who trained that poor filly, aren’t you? You’re the one who’s really behind this. Nightmare captured one of your puppets… Well I don’t know what kind of evil magic you used on her, but I’ll find a way to overcome it! My friends and I haven’t met a curse we couldn’t break! We haven’t run into any kind of evil we couldn’t beat!”

“That wasn’t a question,” Forerunner said, slight amusement in its voice.

“I guess we don’t have to ask her about the major,” Lucky muttered. “Forerunner, Olivia is still alive.”

“It is possible,” Forerunner said, noncommittally. “This could be a ruse. It is irrelevant for the purposes of command until we recover her.”

Lucky made sure everyone in the room could see her hoof on the button before she started talking, so their voices wouldn’t mingle with hers. “Twilight, I have never lied to you. I have always been serious about my intentions. Our conversations have always been limited. But I stand by what I’ve told you.”

“Then explain Lucky Break. Or… explain yourself. If you can. Tell me why I shouldn’t tell Celestia about this right now. I was hoping that I could get to know you—convince you not to be bad. But now that I’ve seen what you’re willing to do to foals, maybe I don’t want to. Maybe Celestia’s way is best for ponies like you.”

“You would say that,” Lightning Dust muttered, glaring at nothing in particular. “She’ll never listen, Lucky. This is hopeless. She’s Celestia’s protege. They’re both so stuck in rules that they can’t see things changing around them.”

“We should at least try,” Mogyla argued. “Even if all we can do is get more information. We already learned where the major is being held, how much more will we learn if we keep her talking?”

“Get a drone in the air, Forerunner!” Perez barked. “I don’t know what hospital she meant, but if Mogyla does you must too. Scout that place, see what you can find. If we can verify Major Fischer is alive…” He trailed off, glaring at the nearest screen. It wasn’t clear exactly what he thought they should do, though obviously it wouldn’t involve Lucky leading it.

“I did that already,” Forerunner said. “But I can’t get very close until it gets dark. Ponyville is not densely populated, but it is populated enough that only a covert approach is acceptable. If they realize we are aware of the major’s position, they will move her.”

“Shut up!” Lucky shouted, stepping forward. “I’m trying to think!” What could she possibly say to convince the Alicorn of her intentions? There were so many voices, so many assumptions changing. There was some relief in there—Olivia was alive! But some of that was dread. Olivia’s suicide would’ve protected them. If she was captured, it was at least possible that the enemy knew where Othar was. They could know a great deal about humans, about their nature and abilities.

All this does is push our real mission forward. Maybe we can win against Celestia, but we can’t beat Harmony forever. “The one you’re holding is not Lucky,” she said, once the room had finally fallen silent. “Her name is Olivia Fischer. And I can prove it to you. Because… because I know her Eoch is bad. She doesn’t know more than a few words. But you know the one really called Lucky Break isn’t like that at all. You know I’m a skilled student linguist. You have to know that, if you responded to my messages. Maybe you saw my admission request to your school, or Knowing Look’s recommendation letter. I couldn’t fake all that, could I?”

When Twilight Sparkle spoke again, some of the anger had ebbed from her voice. “I thought about it. How I could’ve accidentally cast a translation spell over the radio, but… that didn’t make sense, and it wouldn’t fit the interviews I had about you.”

You, Lucky thought. Not ‘her.’

“We’re twins,” Lucky continued. It was a lie, but not that far from the truth. If it wasn’t for the major’s dyes, they would’ve almost looked the same. “Olivia was a soldier, and I was a scholar. She cut her hair and dyed her coat so we could tell each other apart.” Again, a lie, but not too far from reality. It was easier to lie when she was only a little distance from the truth.

“Why are foals meddling in this, Lucky Break? Why does Celestia think you’re so dangerous? She told me you’re all working for a distant changeling colony, the one that Chrysalis came from. She says you have powerful, dangerous magic. That you want to enslave all of Equestria.”

“Can you test for that?”

“Yes.” Twilight’s voice was all the answer Lucky needed. “But you could’ve been tricked by changelings! My brother fell for a changeling before, even good ponies can do it! One time I did!”

“We are not changelings,” Lucky said. “We do not work for them, either.”

“Then who?” Twilight Sparkle shouted. “Who is ordering you around? Who trained you, who gave you your artifacts? Your… twin, ‘Olivia’, apparently killed a whole army of slavers. She killed a dragon! There is only so much magic in Equestria powerful enough to do that. And I know all of it.”

“Ask her to return Major Fischer!” Perez demanded, from only a few feet away. “Maybe we can make a trade. Give back Deadlight, we don’t need him anymore!”

“Shut up!” she screamed again, her voice shrill and squeaking. She didn’t feel much like a governor. Even so, Lightning Dust stepped up between her and Perez, standing tall. She didn’t say a word, but her presence was enough that Perez didn’t get any closer. He didn’t point his gun either. “I’m thinking! I know we need her back!”

Only when she was sure that she wouldn’t be interrupted did she continue. “Celestia is right that Equestria is in danger. But she hasn’t been honest with you about what that danger is. I think you realize she isn’t telling you important things.”

Twilight took longer to respond than for anything else Lucky had said. Her voice was guarded when she finally did. “Why should I trust you over her?”
No confirmation of what Lucky had suggested, but not a denial either.

“I would like to meet with you and show you the proof,” she said. “I only want a chance to show you what I’ve learned. It’s too dangerous to tell you over the radio—anyone could be listening.” Or anything. Like Harmony. “Well, I want one other thing. Please don’t tell Celestia about Olivia, or about me. She will kill us.” Lucky glanced sidelong at Lightning Dust. She was still transmitting. “You know what the Nightmare soldiers did before Celestia gave them to her sister. Before Luna gave them to you.”

Twilight didn’t take as long to respond. “Celestia says that what you did to Flurry Heart was only the first attack. She says the changelings who sent you have weapons that can kill Alicorns, and you plan to use them on me.”

We probably could kill an Alicorn, Lucky thought, though she didn’t say that. “I don’t know how to fight, that’s Olivia. The only magic I would have to bring is an information storage device. A magic scroll, that I can use to show you the past. I wouldn’t have to bring anypony else, or any other tools.”

“Oh.” Pause. “Could you meet me in my castle? Ever since the changeling invasion, I’ve installed every protective spell I know. Star Swirl himself enchanted the place. It knows intention now, Lucky Break. It will hurt you if you try to hurt me or anypony else.”

“Sure,” Lucky said, though practically the whole room was glaring at her by then. “You invited me to come and see you there once. I lost the train tickets when Celestia tried to kill me… I can’t give you a time, though. I don’t know how long it will take to get there… and if I did tell you, you might have Celestia waiting. Is ‘as soon as I can’ soon enough?”

Twilight didn’t sound happy. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t keep ‘Olivia’ secret forever. Lots of ponies have seen her. None of them would think to go to Celestia because they see me as a closer authority figure. But word spreads, and Canterlot is close. Sooner or later she’s going to find out about it. I won’t lie to her for you.”

“Doesn’t fucking matter,” Perez muttered. “We’ll have her out of there by then.”

Lucky glared, but she didn’t bother arguing with him. It wasn’t like Perez or anyone else could mount a rescue mission she didn’t approve of. “I will come as quickly as I can. I know you’ll see things differently when you know what I know.”

“We’ll see. If you don’t convince me, I won’t promise not to tell Celestia. I trust her, even if you don’t.” Her signal dissolved into static. Even so, Lucky could recognize the lie. Like Lucky earlier, Twilight had only been telling her something near the truth.

But how close?

Olivia’s head jerked up as the door opened, instantly rousing her from her stupor. Her whole body felt sore from the restraints, particularly her hind-legs. Being restrained so tightly on a constant basis couldn’t be good for her.

To her surprise, the pony who entered wasn’t the Alicorn who had interrogated her last time. It wasn’t a stranger either, but the pink-furred unicorn she thought was named Starlight. One of the Nightmare ponies responsible for her imprisonment.

She levitated her saddlebags open, setting several objects on the empty metal tray that was almost within reach of the bed. A large bottle made of dark glass, a pair of shot glasses, and a rusty metal helmet.

“You ponies have strange torture.”

The unicorn turned back to face her. Then she lifted the helmet, settling it onto place.

“They can’t know I brought this,” Starlight said. Her voice echoed strangely in Olivia’s mind, taking on the same slight accent it had in the dark corridors of Dragon’s Folly. The same ‘magic’, maybe. “You won’t tell them, will you? I’m sure you could use the company.”

The bottle levitated into the air, pouring of its own accord. Even after seeing displays like this from Twilight, Olivia was still taken aback by it. Things shouldn’t move themselves through the air. It was more like a movie than reality. It didn’t matter how much the translator had insisted displays like this were just part of everyday life for the unicorn ponies. To her, it was miraculous.

She poured two glasses, then glanced down. “I’m going to, uh… remove some of your restraints. You were nothing but trouble when we first captured you. Can you promise me not to try and escape while we talk? It will make this easier.”

“I wo—” Her breath caught in her throat, and Olivia found that the words just wouldn’t come. She coughed, spluttered, trying again. “You can let me go, I promise not—” but again, nothing.

Starlight laughed. “It’s a powerful spell, isn’t it?” She tapped the side of her helmet with one hoof. “I don’t even understand it, and I haven’t met anypony who understands magic quite the way I do. I don’t think Twilight even knows how it works.” She pushed the tray closer, close enough that Olivia would’ve been able to reach it if both her forelegs weren’t bound.

The smell of liquor was unmistakable. A far better smell than any of the approximations they had made in Othar, with a slightly fruity aroma to it. Apples?

“Pick one,” Starlight said. “I’ll take whichever glass you pick. I don’t want you to think I’m poisoning you.”

It would be better if you did. Olivia had been well-trained to resist interrogation, but none of that training had prepared her for whatever strange technique the ponies used. It felt like being drugged, without the chemicals. “I can’t lie,” she eventually said. At least those words would come out of her mouth.”

“Not consciously. There’s no way to objectively determine reality with a spell. But belief is easier.” Starlight gestured at the cups again. “Go on, which one? I’m missing out on the first day of the festival for you. Don’t make me do it sober.”

Olivia twitched one of her legs towards the nearest glass. “D-drink out of mine.”

Starlight nodded, and that glass lifted into the air. There was a slight humming sound as the front of the hemlet retracted from her face, exposing everything from her eyes down to her mouth. She lifted the glass to her lips, then knocked back its entire contents in one long swig. “Let me know if you reconsider trying to escape,” she said, setting the empty glass down and refilling it. “I wouldn’t want to have the whole bottle by myself.”

Olivia considered. “If I promise not to try right now…” She could say it. So long as she meant it. And she did—mainly because she didn’t think she stood a chance. This pony was too powerful. She’d stopped a whole volley of rifle-fire with that horn of hers. She had brought them all the way back to Equestria, hundreds of miles, before the poison should have killed Olivia.

There was no sense fighting in vain against an enemy that couldn’t be beaten. If victory wouldn’t come on one battlefield, she could fight on another.

“I won’t try to escape during our talk,” she said again, more confidently. “Is that enough?”

“Sure.”

Olivia felt the straps holding her legs coming immediately undone. She was still held by the largest, thickest bond around her torso, the same one holding her wings against her body. But at least she could move her forelegs again.

Olivia immediately flexed and stretched both of them, relieved to have blood flowing again. Then she took the glass. It took both hooves to do it—she still hadn’t mastered the practically magical art of picking things up with just one. She tilted it back and swallowed.

It was good stuff—better than most of what she drank. There was something clinical about the alcohol brewed in bacterial stills. An immaterial quality of inauthenticity that chemistry couldn’t quite erase. This lacked that quality, even as it burned her throat going down, making her cheeks feel warm with just a few swallows. She set her empty glass down. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to thank you,” she said, refilling Olivia’s glass. “For what you did. What you didn’t do, more precisely.”

Olivia remained quiet, waiting. She didn’t volunteer anything.

“I saw the inside of that slaver’s den, Lucky Break. You broke a dragon from the inside. I don’t think you were really trying when we showed up.”

Olivia looked away. But there was no real way to hide her face, not when she was strapped to the bed. Starlight would see her shame. “You’ve got magic,” she said. “Some kind of mind control. It didn’t—” let me. But the words wouldn’t come out. They weren’t true.

Starlight smiled as she took another sip from her glass. She didn’t drain it completely in a few seconds as she had before. “It can’t do that,” Starlight said into the silence. “That isn’t how the magic works. It would be great if there was some enchantment we could cast to stop bad ponies from doing anything bad, forever. We’d put it everywhere, not just in a few suits of armor.”

Olivia whimpered. The sound came out involuntarily, and she quickly drowned it with another shot of apple liquor.

“I know we’ve never met, Lucky, but I think I already know you. You know what the Nightmare is?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. “I can see you do.” She got up, walking away from the little tray, standing in front of the window. She looked out at the town beyond, silent for a long time. “Ponies live their lives thinking the way they live is the only way. They’ve been raised in Equestria their whole lives, so they think that friendship is the natural way everyone lives. They’ve never been hungry, they’ve never been desperate. Many of them have never even been afraid.

“But other ponies—we understand there’s darkness out there. We know how tenuous our grip on civilization is. When I look at you, I see a pony who’s been outside that barrier, past where other ponies’ nightmares begin.”

She stepped closer. “Ponies like us have done terrible things. We can’t ever really forget—all we can do is try to make up for it. Every day, for the rest of our lives. I think that’s why you were hunting slavers, instead of running from me. I think it’s why you didn’t kill my friend. Her name is Trixie, by the way. She’s quite a talented magician. You should come to one of her shows sometime.”

Olivia couldn’t meet her eyes anymore. In some ways, the pony was right. But how could she know? It wasn’t just that, of course. “I’m not as much like that as you think.” She stared back, defiant. “I’m not some criminal looking for redemption. I’ve killed… I’ve done difficult things. But they were always right. Someone has to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves. The ones who have the power to change things don’t use it, so that leaves us to pick up the pieces as best we can. Down on the ground, where the important people have never even stepped. The universe needs lawmen.”

Of course the instant Olivia had said any of it she wished she hadn’t. She forced her mouth closed, pushing her glass away so she wouldn’t be tempted to drink anymore. It wasn’t just better than hospital food, it was better than almost anything she’d had since waking up on this damn ring.

Maybe Starlight wouldn’t be smart enough to put together the pieces?

She said nothing for a long time, draining her little glass, replacing it on the table, before walking away. However smart or dumb she was, she was apparently more self-aware than Twilight. She didn’t do her thinking out loud.

“If you’re being honest, then Equestria doesn’t understand what it’s looking for. Princess Celestia… well, she banished her own sister to the moon for a thousand years. If that doesn’t give you a good idea about her tolerance, I don’t know what will.”

“She sounds like a great ruler.”

Starlight chuckled, pouring another glass for herself, and refilling Olivia’s. They had already gone through half the bottle, by the look of it. Olivia wasn’t sure how much more she should be feeling it. If she’d had this many shots of hard liquor in her old human body, she would’ve been quite buzzed by now. But this body was engineered to be resistant to many poisons. That included alcohol.

“At least she understood enough to realize how harsh she was. She gave her sister the responsibility of dealing with difficult ponies. But, despite experience with evil, Princess Luna didn’t see things that differently. That’s why Twilight commands the Nightmare now. Instead of seeing us as monsters, we’re recruits. You too.”

It was Olivia’s turn to laugh. “I don’t think so. Celestia wants to kill—” The last few words wouldn’t come out. Princess Celestia did want to kill Lucky. But Celestia didn’t know she existed.

This time, Starlight didn’t notice. Or maybe she took her silence to mean something else. “I don’t think Twilight will give you up. She’s afraid Celestia will send you to Tartarus, for what you did to her niece. She wants to learn your story first, so she can make your case. It would be easier if you cooperated with us.”

“You want help making my case?” Olivia lifted up her glass again, downing it in a single swig as Starlight had done with her first. “I never did anything to Celestia. I never wanted to hurt Equestria. I just wanted to live. She attacked us. She murdered someone I was supposed to protect, and tried to kill more. If you want to hunt monsters, start with your princess.”

Starlight had no answer to that. When Olivia looked, she saw that Starlight had removed her helmet. She had also left the bottle within reach, sitting on the side of the table while she packed things away.

The unicorn wasn’t watching her, and she wasn’t wearing her helmet.

Olivia didn’t think so much as she acted. She took the bottle in both hooves, then brought her legs down in an augmentation-assisted throw. The half-empty bottle spun end-over-end, smashing into the back of the unicorn’s head. It shattered, and she dropped to the ground in a twitching heap, dripping with booze.

G7.01: Plan of Action

It might be the last meeting of Lucky’s civilization.

This time, it wasn’t the major leading them—there were no higher authority figures for her to go begging to. The success or failure of this entire mission rested squarely on her shoulders.

They used the same conference room they had before, where Olivia had lied to them about their mission to Dragon’s Folly. The same gathering was here now—every soldier, every native pony, everyone still alive.

Lei made them some refreshments—muffins this time, instead of hotpot. Fine with Lucky, she liked the muffins better anyway. It was morning on the day after her call with Twilight Sparkle. They would have no better chance to prepare.

There was no happy conversation, as there had been the time before. Word had gotten around of Olivia’s survival, and what that would surely mean for Othar. Lucky suspected the soldiers had already started planning.

“Alright,” she said, settling down into Olivia’s chair. It was higher than all the others, and made her look like the largest pony in the room. “Everyone listen. I want to be as quick as possible. Everyone here knows most of what we’re facing, but not all. Major Fischer always focused on the immediate threats, without planning for the larger dangers that were less urgent. I’m going to do that now, then anyone who has updates can give them. After that, I’ll tell you the plan.

“I’m sure it has problems—I’m not trained the same way lots of you are. I’m not a soldier or a diplomat. But I think all of us are going to have to be a little bit of everything in the next few days.

“First, the threat. I don’t know how much you all know about this…” She found herself looking at the natives as she said this most of all. “I’ve been in contact with a number of Equestria’s movers, including two of its princesses and one of its… gods, I guess. A powerful AGI named Discord. Between those contacts and our own research, we’ve put together a pretty good picture of what’s going on.”

She brought up the projector in the center and started flashing through images. Martin’s pictures of advanced civilizations, all destroyed. Thousands and thousands of cities in various stages of decay, though most seemed very well preserved. She threw in a few images of the uniform, igneous surface.

“The Equestrian ruler known as Celestia has threatened me, and it is possible if Olivia has been captured that she is aware of the rest of us as well. This does not make her the most dangerous threat to us, however. There is a danger that threatens all Equestria equally—the thing that Celestia fears.”

She shifted to an image of the ring, as much an artificial composite as any of the old whole-Earth images. “This is the Sanctuary ring. It is controlled by an… AI named Harmony. We do not know its motives, or its goals. All we know is—it’s wiped out civilization on this ring before, many times. When I went with Flurry Heart, we saw one city like that, filled with dead ponies. The natives are as much captives here as we are—we have no reason to suspect Harmony wouldn’t have total knowledge of all that transpires on this ring. The instant it decides to kill us, there won’t be anything we can do.”

She waited a minute, to see if any of the room would interrupt her. Nopony did, not her mom, not anyone else. The ponies seemed more shocked than the crew-members, horrified by what they saw. Lucky couldn’t blame them—it had done the same thing to Flurry Heart.

“Celestia’s fear comes from Harmony—she is afraid that it will destroy Equestria, as it has done to other civilizations. When she spoke with me, Celestia communicated a fear that my actions… our actions… might make Harmony decide to perform this… purge. Unfortunately, we don’t know what those actions might be. But Discord indicated that we might stop it. Our goal is not to kill Celestia, not to do anything to Equestria at all. Our goal is to stop Harmony.”

Perez sat up, banging one hoof on the desk. “Alright, enough. Have you thought that maybe we don’t have a damn thing to do with Harmony? I’m not disputing something exists with power the natives don’t have. I saw that something killed one of our scientists. But we don’t know that Harmony cares what we do. We’re not part of its programming, right? So maybe we just stay out of its way, and let it do what it wants to Equestria. Let the one who wants us dead worry about it. They can keep feuding, and we can build somewhere Harmony doesn’t care about.”

“It isn’t right.” Deadlight wore the translation headset, just like Lightning Dust. Unlike her, he didn’t need it for most things. Deadlight had learned English much more rapidly than her mom had. “There are many legends of great monsters that have destroyed cities. Creatures too terrible to fight, creatures that feel nothing but hatred. I don’t recognize much of the images you showed us… but if we know about a monster like that, we should do something to contain it. Equestria is helpless, but maybe you aren’t. I have seen what you accomplished. Those ponies downstairs are free because of you. If all Equestria is a hostage, you must free them too.”

Perez grunted, settling back into his seat. The message was clear.

“That is the threat as I see it.” Lucky said. “More than Equestria, more than anything. That is what we need to stop. With Harmony pacified, or neutralized, or convinced… whatever we have to do… Equestria will have no reason to be afraid of us. We can make Othar into a country, we can follow the Pioneering Society handbook… everything we came to do.

“But now, I know a few of you had information to share with us. I want to know everything you’ve figured out, in case it has relevance for what I’m planning.”

Dr. Born spoke first, not even looking up from the computation surface on the table in front of her. “The new samples recovered have opened up a new avenue of research. Cracking human immunity should be on the order of weeks. I could already start fabricating human biosleeves now, since fabricator conditions are sterile. Though there is a small chance we would have to leave them in stasis until I’m finished working.”

“That’s it?” Lucky asked. “All we’ve been through, and… you’re sure you can just cure it? The… prion thing?”

She nodded. “Fairly certain, yes. It’s about probabilities—greater genome coverage would improve that, but the more samples we have the better our chances of extrapolating. I don’t see how it helps you, though.” She looked down at her nearest screen. “Are you going to free up the gestation pods, Forerunner? Wash out some of the ponies so that you can grow a few humans instead?”

Forerunner hadn’t said anything so far, not during the entire meeting. It spoke now though, almost reluctantly. It sounded distracted, though Lucky couldn’t guess why. “I would have. My programming prioritizes the creation of a human colony, which was once defined based on genetic profile. My updated definition is a fuzzy matching of more abstract traits. The growing army matches that definition as well as they might if they wore human sleeves. Given the expenditure of time required to start over, and the resources already invested that would be destroyed in the process, allowing them to grow to completion and then leaving them in stasis seems the optimal course. I am already working to build new fabricators to diversify my organic segments.”

“But you’re right,” Lucky added. “This isn’t very helpful for our mission. Once we beat Harmony, we can take as long as we want to make humans who can live here.”

“I’m not going on any missions,” Dr. Born said. “Dragon’s Folly was enough excitement for me, thanks. I belong in a lab.”

“And you should be,” Lucky said. “But there’s something more important. When Olivia was… not killed, I guess. When she was captured, the Nightmare agents used some kind of mind-weapon on her. Forerunner has copies of her suit’s medical logs. If you could find out what happened, find some kind of inoculation, or vaccine… somehow, I think we’re going to need one.” I’m going to need one. Against Celestia. But she didn’t say that. Even Lightning Dust didn’t like the idea of open conflict with her princesses, though she never would’ve admitted it. And Deadlight, even moreso.

“I can look into it,” Dr. Born said, noncommittally. “But that’s not really my field, and suit sensors aren’t great. It would be better if you had one of the weapons here, and someone to test it on. A few days of that should be enough to figure out what the weapon does to a person, and how to stop it.”

“I can’t get you that,” Lucky said. “Just do your best.” Then she turned to Melody.

Her older self just looked away. She always seemed deferential lately, though Lucky didn’t know why. Maybe it had to do with the way her scent had changed. “I don’t think the ones we rescued will be able to help you, Lucky. Deadlight and I have been trying to work with them, but they’ve been abused pretty bad. They seem to think we’re going to be helping them, uh… save their tribe. I guess they’ve been dealing with slavery for a long time, and…” She trailed off, looking down at the table. “But if you need us to come with you on this mission, it does sound important.” She looked to Deadlight, as if for permission.

Deadlight nodded. “Even if you don’t need us, I would like to speak with you… in private… about Harmony. Before you leave. But if you do plan on exploring any ancient ruins, you will probably need my help. I’m the only one in this room with any experience, aside from you.”

She nodded. “Would you go even if it meant leaving Melody behind?” There was no sense pretending that she didn’t know. Not when everypony in Othar knew about them.

The two of them shared a glance. Then he nodded. “For the good of Equestria, I would. Under other circumstances, I would prefer Melody come along, greater risk or not.” He glanced down at her, then his ears flattened. “But there are the rescued slaves!” he hastily added. “Somepony who can speak to them should be here.”

Lucky nodded, tucking away that information to her running tally of resources she had to work with. She probably would bring Deadlight, all things considered. He was the only Equestrian native they had without a criminal record.

She finally turned to Martin, who was positively bouncing up and down in her seat by then. At least she hadn’t interrupted. “Yes?” She didn’t really know how much more the physicist could contribute, but then…

“The Forerunner and I are close to cracking the encryption on the cube you brought. Encryption isn’t quite the right word, it wasn’t that. It’s just the file structure—it’s way beyond anything the Forerunner used, or is using now for that matter. I don’t understand it, but the Forerunner does.”

“Really?”

“Quite sure. We’re already into the filesystem. The Forerunner thinks the device stores recordings of some kind. The only thing slowing us down right now is that they don’t seem to play back on any device we have—they’re not pixels, or voxels, or anything else we have equivalents for. Still, the Forerunner said it’s only about getting the computation time on it. Once it doesn’t have as much to do with other projects, it should be ready.”

“You don’t need me to tell you to keep working on that,” Lucky said. She didn’t even entertain asking Martin to help with her mission. The astronomer had been well-behaved in Dragon’s Folly, but she’d also been a liability. One that wouldn’t be coming with her on this mission. “But as soon as you get it working, go through the recordings. Find anything about Harmony. I think the… I think the Alicorn who made them was fighting it too.”

Finally, she turned to the little group of soldiers. They had sat together, except for Lei, and aside from Perez they had remained quiet. Lucky stared, waiting for them to speak—but Perez remained determinedly silent. She didn’t know how much the others respected him as a leader, but they did respect the chain of command. If he wanted them to stay quiet, they would.

“Well?” she asked. “You were working on something… a device you recovered from Dragon’s Folly? Reverse engineering it, I think?”

Perez grunted noncommittally. Finally he looked up. “This is fun play acting, Dr. Irwin, but it’s a waste of time. You only had authority because our major was dead. Well, she isn’t. My men and I are going to get her back, and that’s all you need to know. When she’s back in command, then maybe we talk.”

Dammit. I thought we were done with this.

Lucky looked down at the computation surface on the table in front of her. “Forerunner, please.” She didn’t have the time. Apparently Forerunner was distracted trying to crack into the cube’s video files—it was a shame to pull its concentration away again, but she could think of no other option.

They had discussed this eventuality.

“Recovering Major Fischer is part of the mission plan Lucky and I constructed together,” Forerunner said, sounding annoyed. “I rest full command authority in Lucky Break until Major Fischer is returned. If she does not authorize you, no ships will fly, no armor will move, and no guns will fire. And if you threaten her or any other member of my crew, I will destroy you as a malfunctioning segment.”

Perez seemed to think on that for a long time. He glanced down at the sidearm on his belt, at the other soldiers in the room. Maybe they had their own plan for this—knives, perhaps. Would they be held hostage by their own soldiers?

Then he sighed. “What kind of rescue did you have in mind?”

Olivia could hear voices from outside the room—even though she couldn’t understand what they were saying, the tone of it was obvious. Guards, asking if everything was alright. Olivia didn’t have much time.

But the drugs had long since worn-off, and her failed attempt at suicide hadn’t done more than leave an opening between her molars. It was time to act.

Her legs were free, and that would have to be enough. Olivia hooked her hooves around the thick strap attaching her to the table, the same one that was secured by buckles outside her reach. The strap was made of thick canvas, meant to contain a hospital’s troublesome patients. She doubted it was rated against a determined escape attempt by someone with a fiber-reinforced skeleton and genetically engineered muscles.

Olivia yanked. She felt the canvas digging into her flesh, drawing blood as it cut even through taught muscle. She felt her legs strain against the pressure, in a direction that no earth horse could’ve moved. But despite the visual similarities, ponies were a different creature.

The strap snapped with a crack, spraying blood from her open wounds, and flinging her sideways off the table. She flopped, then righted herself. She could hear the sound of ponies working the locks outside. How long would they take? Not long enough.

Olivia surveyed the room, searching for weapons. Her own gear had all been taken, and anyway most of it was melted now. Only the mechanical tools, like the rifle, would still be of any use.

There were no knives with her, at least not at a glance. No scissors or pliers or anything else she could use as a weapon. Her wings tried to twitch in agitation, but those were still strapped down, and lacked the strength they would need to break free. Her delicate wing-bones would not survive the treatment she had given her legs.

Her hoof touched on the metallic edge of Starlight’s fallen helmet. The same one made from dark metal, that had granted the ability to understand her. The same spell that might have caused her to lose the desire to fight.

The door started swinging open. Olivia lurched down for the helmet, sprawling out on the ground even as she slipped it over her head.

At first she felt nothing, just a cumbersome weight over her face and total darkness. Was the suit secured, as human powered armor sometimes was? She had seen nothing from Starlight to suggest anything like unlocking it, but maybe it was keyed to her in some other way.

She heard muffled voices above her through the metal, stern and demanding. One of them prodded her with the butt of a spear. Whatever these ponies saw in the room above, they would obviously think she was responsible. It was time to move. Escape or die trying.

As soon as she thought, the helmet seemed to vanish from in front of her, metal shimmering away to reveal the room all around her in perfect clarity. The unconscious form of the pony she had attacked, the pool of spilled alcohol, the two guards in their gold armor holding spears and glaring down at her.

She felt alive. The cloud of alcohol around her brain puffed away like fog before the sun, and she felt the searing pain on her forelegs vanish as the skin knit together. Olivia rose to her hooves, ignoring the guards. She could see her reflection in the polished steel of a cabinet, and she watched as armor formed around her. She felt the weight settle on her limbs one at a time. The guards backed away from her, one actually dropping his spear as the other screamed for help.

“Shut up!” Olivia shouted. A ghostly protrusion appeared on her forehead, poking out the opening in the helmet for an instant before it too was covered by metal. Her shout struck the guards like an explosion, sending both of them flying into the wall. Glass all through the building shattered at the force of it, and many screams of fear and panic went up. Damn. Not quite what I had in mind. I need to get these restraints off…

She felt a momentary flash of heat against her skin, and a second later her wings emerged from her back, encased in a protective armor shell. Olivia felt power, and she saw it in the mane that lifted behind her, opening into a twilight sky. She was an overcharged battery, an explosion trapped, she had to escape! Olivia turned to the back wall, and she roared. An explosion shook the room in front of her, as a chunk of the ceiling and the entire corner wall was atomized.

Olivia could hear distant screams, shouts of terror and panic. She found she could understand them all, and all she had to do was think of one to hear it perfectly.

“Get the princess!” someone shouted. “The Nightmare agent lost her mind!” Who was yelling, and to whom? She didn’t care.

“Sorry about your head,” Olivia said, glancing back over her shoulder at Starlight’s unconscious form. She hoped the pony wasn’t hurt too badly, but there was no time to stay behind and find out.

Olivia rocketed into the night sky, wings barely flapping as she accelerated. It was dark, and the little village of Ponyville provided the only light below, feeble electric or chemical lamps, tiny flames against the gloom. Now to lead them on a chase. Wearing this armor, Olivia felt like she could take on the princess herself. Maybe she could fight Celestia in person, and kill the one who threatened Othar.

Maybe she could, but Major Fischer wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t going to seek out a power she didn’t understand and confront her using a weapon she had just stolen. She couldn’t fly it back to Othar, not until she knew that her position wasn’t being tracked. She picked the darkest part of the night below her, then shot straight down, moving so quickly that a sonic boom exploded through the air in her wake. This was power.

Let them try and drag me back into a cage.

“It’s pretty simple,” Lucky said, rising to her hooves and walking away from the table. She couldn’t help it—she had to be moving again. Learning about Olivia’s survival had not changed that. If anything, it only made her anxiety worse. At any moment, she might be interrogated, reveal the truth about Othar and its ponies, and lead an army here. Incredibly unlikely, given Olivia’s resistance, but there was no way to be sure. Nightmare had captured her, so why not extract information as well?

“There is an Equestrian artifact called the Tree of Harmony, located somewhere in the Everfree Forest. I heard of it while I was there, though I never thought it was more than a religious thing. According to Twilight, it was a map—it contained information about Sanctuary’s facilities. Like the one she sent us to, Transit Equus Zero Violet Zero. Hopefully, it will give us the location of wherever Harmony is controlled from. Once there, we shut it down, and everyone is safe.”

It sounded so easy when she put it like that.

“Well, that sounds like bullshit,” Dr. Born muttered. “Not that I care. This Harmony thing seems like a waste of time—you want to get yourself killed, fine I guess. Just so long as you go out like Karl and there’s no one to interrogate. But nothing about what you just said is realistic.”

“I was getting to that,” Lucky said, marching back to the table. “I’ve put in everything I know about Equestria, and its defenses. First, getting in—Equestria has protections that can shoot down hypersonic ships. But Equestria also has zeppelins, and we have lots of records. Forerunner is building one now—sort of the equivalent of a private trading ship. It should look basically indistinguishable from the native-built zeppelins to every sensor we know about.”

Forerunner spoke from her computation surface, though its voice was loud enough that everyone could hear. It didn’t sound annoyed to be involved anymore, not as it had been with Perez. Had that just been a ploy? “My active defenses have improved as well. I believe this new ship will be able to survive at least one strike from the sort of weapon that took down the jumper. But for obvious reasons, we won’t have time to test it.”

Just how much could this computer do at once? It hadn’t told her this—though in fairness, she hadn’t asked. “That will take another forty-eight hours, right?”

“Right,” Forerunner said. “And I will be dismantling the Sojourner to do so quickly, along with all but one of the jumper fleet.”

An unhappy murmur passed through the soldiers, but none of them spoke up. Lucky went on. “The zeppelin will carry our best-armed soldiers, with the best weapons we can fabricate. Also me, Lightning Dust, and Deadlight. We’ll drop on the road to Ponyville somewhere, and walk the rest of the way in. I’ll have my meeting, and hopefully convince Princess Twilight to join us.

“See, even if I can read their language, even if drones could probably find the Tree of Harmony, every artifact we’ve found so far has had protection on it only Alicorns could break. I had Flurry Heart with me on my last trip, but she’s a captive now. Hopefully Twilight Sparkle will take her place, maybe even bring her Nightmare along. Returning Olivia to us is a given.”

“Unless she tells us to fuck ourselves, then locks you up for interrogation too,” Perez said, annoyed. “You were too much of a pussy to have the suicide implant, and you aren’t trained for interrogation. You’ll sing like a lark once they lock you up.”

“No,” Lucky said, raising her voice slightly. Though nothing he had said was wrong—she didn’t have the awful suicide tooth, and she didn’t know how to resist interrogation. That wasn’t exactly one of the skills the Pioneering Society had expected future space explorers to need. “Because that’s why our Zeppelin will be there. You’re the backup. If Twilight won’t cooperate, then… we’ll spring Olivia, then find out where they’re holding Flurry Heart and bust her out too. That’s where you get to use all your soldiering skills.

“From there, either we head to the Tree for the map, or if that doesn’t work, back to the ring transit station. That place is massive, and it looked like it could house thousands of people indefinitely. Worse come to worse, we set up shop down there. There’s a… sort-of monorail system in there… probably it could take us right to the control center if we knew where to go.”

And assuming it even exists. That was the fundamental assumption even a total success of their plan relied on. There had to be a place they could go to shut the intelligence down. If they couldn’t, or if it took more than one Alicorn, they were all doomed.

There’s nothing for it. We have to make some assumptions, or we can’t plan at all. “Well, now you know,” Lucky said. “The basics, anyway. There are some details to work out—like the anti-magic artifact, or an inoculation for whatever mind-control they used on Olivia. If the Nightmare can do that, I’m sure Alicorns can too. Sooner or later, Celestia is going to get involved. Maybe Luna and Cadance too… it’s too much to hope that they won’t.”

“It’s too much to hope that most of that will work,” Mogyla said, though he sounded more amused than objecting. “Does anyone have better?” He seemed to be looking at Perez.

But the bat-winged stallion only looked away. “If it comes to a rescue, you let us do it our way,” he said. It didn’t sound like a request. “You don’t know anything about war. But at least it sounds like you didn’t try to plan one. I hope you realize it’s probably going to come to that. It might be better to take the zeppelin idea, and the bit about rescuing the major, and trash the rest. Wait until we have a real army, however many months they have left.”

“Three,” Forerunner volunteered helpfully. “I have made significant improvements to the gestation pods. But any faster than that would leave them underdeveloped and unfinished. The two who experienced that process both expressed objections to me about inflicting that treatment on others.”

“And I stand by it,” Lucky said, before anyone else could start arguing. “We won’t consider them. They can be a resource for building Othar into a city when they’re finished, after Equestria is safe. Or maybe I’ll be dead, and some better leader than me can use their help for something else. I don’t know. But there is… there is one person I’d like fabricated. Do you have the synthsleeve we talked about ready, Forerunner?”

“I do.”

“Then… then I want you,” she said. “If you can do that, I mean.”

No one else in the room with her seemed to understand. Probably none of them even knew what a synthsleeve was.

“What you’re asking for is… not impossible,” Forerunner eventually said.

For once, it seemed she had been the one to catch it by surprise, and not the other way around. Unless it just wants me to think that. She abandoned that line of reasoning pretty quickly, though. She couldn’t keep second-guessing herself around the computer, or else she would never feel confident enough to make any decisions.

“It would not be a high-fidelity copy, however. My ‘mind’ is designed to be distributed and redundant. Each of my nodes individually exceed the maximum processing power of the most capable synthsleeve I can produce. There is a… method, however. I have a procedure.”

“What are you telling it?” Perez asked from across the room, sounding annoyed again. “It sounds like you freaked it out.”

Lucky ignored him, still looking down at her screen. “Do you not want to, Forerunner? It isn’t an order. If you’d rather not, then don’t.”

It didn’t answer at first, so she looked up from the computation surface. “Forerunner has new hardware. It can make synthetic bodies instead of biological ones. I’ve asked it to put itself in one of those and come with us.”

“Why?” Perez demanded. “It already has thousands of bodies. Enough that my men could never win a war with it. We’re already its slaves.”

She ignored the last part. “The Sanctuary ring is incredibly advanced. I believe it will be able to isolate us from communicating with Forerunner once we get inside. I couldn’t get a signal out with my helmet before… I think even its upgrades won’t be enough to penetrate the shielding. But if we had a smaller version of Forerunner in a body, then…”

The outside door swung open, and a human figure walked in. A human figure wearing only a plain white jumpsuit, with skin that didn’t reflect the light quite right. There was something a little uncanny about it—at a glance, it looked like synthsleeves were kept as basic as possible, probably intended to be customized to fit the individual.

It was like a clothing store mannequin had come to life and walked into their conference room. Round face, lacking the distinct signs of either gender. No hair, plain gray eyes, no shoes. There was no telling from how it walked or stood what sex it was, either.

Neither, Lucky supposed.

“It is good to see you all,” Forerunner said, and for once its voice came from only one place. “I guess we’re going to save the world together. That sounds like fun.”

G7.01: Momentum

Melody felt useless.

This wasn’t the first time—feeling useless had been the basic state of her existence since her first breath in her new body. She felt more useless than usual, this time.

They had named the massive zeppelin the Speed of Thought, after nothing Melody could guess at. Its sleek shape still would’ve dwarfed the Cyclops, were it not fading into the sunrise. Melody wasn’t the only pony up here on the tarmac—the other members of Othar’s “human” population were here to see off the crew as well.

A few short days to fabricate, and they were on their way. They carried the hope of two civilizations with them—and they didn’t need her. Born too late to translate Eoch, but too early to study its history. It was an infuriating feeling. Her younger self was braver than she was, she had more discipline, she had done more amazing things. The Forerunner even trusted her enough to replace their military commander when her stupid bravado had gotten her killed.

Well, not killed anymore. She would probably be seeing Olivia again one day. Because Lucky was perfect and she would solve everything while Melody did nothing.

“They don’t have a fucking chance.” Dr. Born held a steaming mug of coffee in one mechanical claw, staring up at the Speed of Thought’s vanishing form. “Twenty credits says they explode the instant they cross the border.”

“Language,” Martin muttered weakly, glancing briefly up from the computation surface a drone was holding in front of her.

Rather helpful, these new drones. It was amazing how much someone could do if they had hands. Or something close to hands, anyway.

“And there’s no reason to be so depressing. We should be talking about how good a job they’ll do. Send them good vibes.”

“Good vibes?” Dorothy repeated, rolling her eyes. “What’s your excuse for losing your mind, Dr. Faraday? You didn’t let the stud knock you up too, did you?”

Melody stiffened, feeling as though Dorothy had just struck her. Her tail froze in place, ears flattening. She wished she could just melt into the tarmac. Unfortunately, Equestria wasn’t giving out cutie marks for melting today.

“Nobody did that,” Martin argued, pushing the drone away from her with one hoof and looking over her shoulder at Melody. “You didn’t do that, right?”

“I don’t know how you would know about it if I had,” she said to Dorothy, glaring again. “Ponies take eleven months for that. Don’t, uh… don’t ask me how I know that. Point is, nobody would know if anyone was pregnant, not for ages.”

Dorothy stalked past her with a shove, spilling a little of her coffee. “You only say shit like that because you used to be male. But some of us have had to worry about this our whole lives. You know the Forerunner made preventatives for this, they’re in medical. It’s probably not too late for Plan B either.”

“Wait…” Martin’s eyes widened, and a grin spread across her face. “She’s right? You are pregnant?” She hurried over, nudging at Melody’s belly.

Melody withdrew, finding herself wishing that she hadn’t copied her clone and stopped wearing pants. She backed away, tucking her tail between her legs. “I… might be possibly… a little bit.”

“She is,” Dorothy called, though her tone was more than amusement. She almost sounded like she was genuinely upset. “I saw the medical scans. Melody the new mommy forgot that I’m Othar’s only doctor. Well… physician, but you get the idea.”

“I’m not getting rid of it,” Melody said, backing a few steps closer to the covered tunnel that led back into the city. “Deadlight figured it out too, without any machines. If he hadn’t, I probably would have gotten rid of it, but… he was so excited to be a dad. Apparently, none of his other relationships have really worked out that well.”

“I can’t believe it!” Martin followed her, uncaring of whatever tension was between Melody and Dorothy. “You’re actually pregnant! Aren’t you even a little bit afraid? You were biosex male, weren’t you? Of course you were, your name is ‘James.’ Are you excited? Do you regret letting him sleep with you? Was your human instance gay too? I guess it isn’t gay now that—”

Melody felt like each word Martin spoke was a spell, shrinking her smaller and smaller into a shame-filled pile. “This isn’t what we need to be thinking about right now. Our leader and almost all the soldiers just flew off to try and save us. You two have important jobs to finish. Maybe you can stop tormenting me.”

Dorothy muttered something uncouth as she vanished, down the hall. There was an elevator in there, and only one car. Melody would have to wait before she went down herself.

Martin shrugged. “We don’t have to talk about it right now, I suppose. But I am curious. I’m in the same position you are, you know. Sans the boyfriend… I’m not really sure how I feel about getting one. It would be easier if you told me you were gay before.”

“Nope.” James shrugged one shoulder. “But I think Lucky might be? I don’t know. It’s confusing. I never intended to… well, this. But when you spend lots of time with someone, you… want to spend more time with them, you know? It felt natural.”

“The Forerunner is an excellent engineer, then,” Martin said, before turning back to her drone. “I didn’t know you could change that much about us.”

“Biology,” the drone said, the first time the Forerunner had spoken since the zeppelin took off. “The Pioneering Society’s ancient guidelines suggest every possible compromise should be made to allow its explorers to live happily once their duties are complete. I followed those instructions, though it was so long ago the one who made those choices isn’t really me anymore. The same will likely be true in a few months more—the self I am now will have been swallowed in a far vaster being.”

Melody shivered at that—but at the same time, it was nice to be disturbed at something that wasn’t her own body. A machine rebellion would be a lovely way for this to end.

“I got my cutie mark last night,” Martin said, her voice straining with forced cheerfulness. She turned to one side, pulling down her skirt.

What would’ve been inappropropriate for humans barely phased Melody anymore—when so many members of their crew didn’t wear clothes at all, why worry? She looked at the mark, which didn’t even seem to have any fur burned around it. It was a curve outlined in a rectangle, the simplest cutie mark she’d ever seen. “I, uh… what is that?”

“Golden spiral,” Martin said, voice proud. “It’s what happens when you divide…” Martin’s voice seemed to wash away in her words, Melody completely losing track of the mathematical terms she was using.

“No burns,” Melody said, when Martin had finished explaining. Not that Melody knew any better what a phi was than she had a few minutes before. “I remember Lucky and Olivia got hurt when they got theirs.”

“Guess not.” Martin shrugged one wing. “I’m taking my work down to the beach. Wanna come?”

“Maybe later,” she lied, waving. “You have fun. Get back before it gets dark.” Wish I could. I’ve got real problems to solve.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. There was one problem she had stayed behind to solve. Ideally she would’ve kept Deadlight with her (only for his ability to help, obviously), but he had flown off with Lucky.

She’s too young for him, right? I hope she really is gay.

Melody eventually took the elevator down to housing level and stepped out into a largely empty floor.

Like all of Othar, housing had grown tremendously over the last few weeks. Despite all the other tasks the Forerunner had, it still somehow found the time to direct construction equipment down here. None of the original crew lived on this floor, or ever used any of its services. The first ponies to use it were the soldiers, and now they were all gone.

Except Lei. Even as the elevator doors opened, Lei walked past pushing a tray of food. She was humming to herself. A Chinese folk song, by the sound of it. Melody joined her, though the pony didn’t need any help with the cart.

It was stacked high with breakfast foods, in all the traditional human favorites. Including synthetic bacon, smelling particularly delicious this morning. Melody had been craving the stuff for days now.

“You’re looking cheerful,” Melody said, trying to imitate her attitude. Hopefully this wouldn’t turn into another conversation about pregnancy.

“Yes,” Lei answered, in Mandarin. “It’s good to be helping. I made enough for you too, if you want to eat with the ones we rescued. Oh, and I got this.” She pulled up her skirt, exposing her flank.

Lei had a cutie mark—a covered serving dish. Some of the fur around it had been burned, unlike Martin’s. Only a little charred fur though, no evidence of debilitating her as it had done to Lucky or Olivia. Already the pattern stood out clearly from the rest of her coat, there was no need to guess about what it might be.

“Wow,” Melody said. It was the only thing she could think to say. “You’re, uh… congratulations? I think that’s what the natives say. Getting a cutie mark is an important moment in a pony’s life. Though… you’re probably not expecting yours to decide what you’ll do.” She looked away, ears flattening. “Martin got hers too. I wonder if you both got them around the same time.” Her voice lowered to a mutter. “I wonder why I haven’t got mine yet.”

Lei hardly seemed to hear her. “It’s so strange, Melody. I feel like I know things I shouldn’t. When I’m working in the kitchen, my hooves just know what they’re doing. I took off the cybernetics, see?” She gestured with her forelegs, showing that she wasn’t wearing any gauntlets. She still had her artificial leg—the replacement wasn’t ready yet. “Is this strange?”

“Yeah, but… not for us. Lucky described something similar in her journal. She got better at playing the guitar… then she knew a language she wasn’t supposed to.” Mostly true. To see Lucky work, it now seemed as though she knew every language. She had never once seen her younger self reference a dictionary, no matter what they were doing. Not like Melody, who carried her reference materials with her on her computation surface at all times. She didn’t have a cutie mark yet. “I think they throw parties for it sometimes. Too bad everyone left, or we could have one for both of you.”

Lei is even worse off than I am. Fabrication damaged her, and the soldiers don’t let her help. If she can be cheerful, I can.

“What about with the natives?” Lei flicked her tail towards the distant bunkroom, the very last one in the hallway. As much as they had been willing to house them here, the soldiers had wanted them as far away from their bunkrooms as possible. “We could have a party with them. That is all our new commander asks of us.”

Not quite true. In theory, Melody was now in charge. She would be next in command—if literally everyone who had flown away died. But if that happens, I might have to find a cliff and jump off too, because they’re really screwed with me in charge. Either that, or she could hope the Forerunner wouldn’t honor her predecessor’s succession any more than it had honored Olivia’s. Probably not an unreasonable hope.

“Alright then. Though with running the base, I don’t think I’ll be able to plan much of a party. Certainly not like what you could do. Are you sure you don’t want to wait until Deadlight gets back? He would know what to do.” She felt a little pang of longing as she said it, and fear.

Deadlight was too important to stay behind. More important than her. I helped him get accepted. I saved him from Olivia. I can give myself a little credit for that.

“No, it is fine.” Lei shook her head. “I can do it. It will be a reward to see our new guests happy. I don’t think their old lives gave them much to be happy about.”

“No, probably not.” Melody shook her head. They had walked almost all the way to the end of the long hallway. Each bunkroom had a dull red glow, though the various restrooms and other facilities were all green.

These last few rooms had one advantage over the earlier ones: they had been built for ponies. Olivia’s instructions had evidently been overridden sometime near the end of the floor, because suddenly the doors got short. Melody knew from showing their guests around when they arrived that all the other facilities down here were the right size as well.

The door to the bunkroom opened. Melody prepared herself to be struck by the smell, of sickness and unwashed bodies, but it wasn’t there. Of course it isn’t. They aren’t primitives, they were slaves. It wasn’t their fault they were dirty all the time.

She would have to keep reminding herself of that.

Bunkrooms like this could house ten people, each one subdivided by a stall of sorts that had an open doorway. In each stall there was a bunk bed suspended by a ramp over a folding desk, a chair, and a storage area. The front of the room had a sink and a large communal fridge. It was a lot like a large college dorm, except that everything in here was pony sized. That was a blessing and a curse, since in the human sized rooms all this would be gigantic.

She didn’t find the former slaves in the first four stalls, as she had left them. Instead they had emptied all the furniture from one and dragged in mattresses from several beds along with all the blankets and bedding.

Somehow, they had found a way to fold it all neatly, though it was clear that all four of them had spent the night there. Communal sleeping. Weird. Did what she had done with Deadlight count? Probably not, it had just been the two of them.

I hope I don’t have to spend too many more nights alone.

It was early enough in the morning that she had expected the slaves to still be asleep. Yet the bright “day” lights had been switched on, and all four of them stood in a neat row right by the door. They looked like soldiers lining up for review.

“Uh…” Melody blinked, looking them over. “Were you all waiting for something?”

Immediately the four of them dropped into a low, groveling bow. “Please forgive us,” Bull said. “We beg for understanding. You… not give work yesterday. Waited here, but you didn’t come until now. My fault, not theirs. Punish me. I was so excited when you brought us… forgot to ask.”

Lei watched, without comprehension. No one here was wearing headsets, so there was no immediate translation. Trying to work out what they were saying through such thick accents was a fresh adventure for Melody.

“Rise,” Melody said, her voice coming out like a command. She hadn’t meant to, but they were already standing, returning to their stiff posture. She sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you—you aren’t slaves. We will be happy to accept your help, but we don’t expect it of you. Certainly not now.” She gestured vaguely with one hoof, at the numerous bandages stuck to them. All their little infections had been treated, and all were healing. But it would take time.

“We know, you are Equestria,” said River. “That is why we wish to work very hard. So you don’t change your mind and send us back.”

“And maybe, if we work hard, you will save more,” added Lift. “So we want work.”

“Alright.” Melody took a deep breath. “Drag those tables out here and push them together. Then eat breakfast with us.”

Only then did they seem to notice the cart. Lei didn’t understand, but at all the attention on her, she helpfully lifted one of the silver trays, then muttered in Mandarin, “I made bacon. It isn’t real, but tastes almost as good. You will like I think.”

Lucky stared out the pair of gigantic windows as the Speed of Thought cut through the air. There were few controls in here, not like the Cyclops. As strange as a submarine was to be built in front of her, it was a design Lucky had recognized. One she’d studied, even if she’d only practiced inside mockups. Speed of Thought was something different, something new and strange wearing the skin of something ancient.

There were no control consoles in the bridge, and the comfortable chairs scattered about were arranged more like a den or a lounge than a center of ship operations. The Cyclops had many hardware analogues a clever crew could manipulate in the event of signal failure or a problem with their AI. They would have no such options here.

At the same time, strange projectors set into the ceiling could all aim at the same point and produce a command interface anywhere she wanted it. Right now that was nowhere, and the only projections were onto the window. Through the augmented-reality glass, she could see the invisible border of Equestria as they prepared to cross.

“This is the part where we die horribly,” Mogyla said from one of the couches, gauntlet “fingers” clattering on a virtual keyboard hovering in the space in front of him. “Or maybe not. Guess we find out.” He waved his hooves through the air, dismissing the keyboard and the virtual screen, then started fumbling with the backpack that had been resting beside him on the sofa. A parachute.

Lightning Dust was the only other pony in here. Lucky could see the anticipation on her face as she stared, eyes tracking the same place where ocean ended and land began. When they crossed officially into Equestria.

“Excited to be home?” Lucky asked. Both of them had changed colors again—this time two different shades of brown, with a few white splotches here and there. An unusual coloration for pegasi. Both even had new cutie marks—both boring weather-related cloud constructions.

Every crew member had been dyed, except Deadlight. Lucky doubted that any besides herself would stand a chance at passing for normal ponies… but the dye-machine wasn’t that bad. Compared to the brain-interface, Lucky would’ve climbed into the ink bath a dozen times.

“Nah,” Dust lied, looking away so Lucky wouldn’t see the dishonesty on her face. But she could still hear it in her voice. “Not much. Othar is awesome… until we lost your mayor, it was awesome. I was going to run the weather team. I guess I still can… we have unicorns now. Maybe when they’re feeling better they can help us with the enchantments.”

“Maybe,” Lucky said. She got quiet as they made the crossing, her whole body tensing as though she expected Celestia to fly up here and hoof her in the face.

But nothing happened—not an airborne princess, or something more practical like a collision warning. Nothing at all happened, in fact. Only when they were well and truly across did she go on.

“Maybe when this is over… When we win, and Harmony is gone, there’s no reason to be afraid of Equestria. We could buy the pieces of a weather factory. You’d still be the one to run it, obviously. It would be great if we trained our own ponies to operate it. But you could bring in technicians from Equestria, too. If you wanted. Maybe make a trip back every now and then.”

“Not if it takes this long to fly back in an airship,” Lightning Dust said, her voice a little sad. “This is too much time to be away, if I had such an important job. I couldn’t take a week off whenever I felt like it. Even in winter there are things to do.”

“Once we’re sure we aren’t going to get shot down, we could go faster than this,” Lucky said, leaning a little against the window. It wasn’t glass, though it looked convincing enough for the outside. Some kind of sapphire, Forerunner had said. “A jumper could make the trip all the way back to the Crystal Empire in an hour. But you remember what happened to us last time.”

“I do.” Lightning Dust stepped closer, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I can hardly believe this, Lucky. A year ago, and I thought you were some poor little abused kid. I wondered if you might be someone like those slaves Olivia rescued… but now we’re going to save all of Equestria from some kind of… monster. If someone told me this was the plot of a Daring Do book, I’d believe them. But real ponies, really doing it? I don’t know if we can.”

Lucky looked up. She could see the desperation in Lightning Dust’s eyes. The same feeling that had tormented her as long as she’d been the Colonial Governor. At least when Olivia was in charge someone else was the ultimate receptacle of guilt or success.

“I don’t know either,” she eventually said. “If any ponies before us tried, they failed. Now we’re caught up with ancient things, more powerful than us… someone has to try. If you don’t want to be a part of it… you could fly the other way. Forget about me, try to get as far away from all of this as you can.”

She was interrupted by an embrace, Dust pulling her close with her wings. “No.” Her voice was low, dangerous. “Equestria turned my name into a curse with the ponies I cared about. This is how I prove them wrong. I almost hurt some—but now I’ll save them all. Let them dig up old newspapers about me then!”

Lucky nodded, though she couldn’t help but look away. Something about that motivation didn’t feel like it was enough for what could be waiting for them. But was her loyalty to an abstraction any better?

“We will be approaching the drop point in ten minutes,” Forerunner said, over ship radio. “Meet me in the armory, Lucky and Lightning Dust. I have some things to give you before you go.”

Lucky waved a hoof to Mogyla. “Sorry there was no fireworks for you.”

“I’m not,” he said, waving back. They left up a pair of stairs in the back, down the length of the gondola. Speed of Thought was larger than the Cyclops even when one only counted the area any of them could visit. Even so, it was not engineered like the pictures Lucky had seen of Equestrian zeppelins. Like the Cyclops, the illusion of fitting into this world was only skin deep.

Instead of exotic wood and gaslamp fixtures, the hallways were cramped and plain. Most of its interior was taken up by mechanical areas, devoted to functions she could only guess at given how simple the ship seemed. What few areas they could get at were along the outside of the ship. At least it was warm—she didn’t even shiver, despite not wearing anything right now. For this altitude, that was quite the luxury.

They didn’t run into anyone in the hall. Probably the small metal spaces discouraged them from lounging there, choosing their little cabins instead, or maybe the common room. But they weren’t going to the common room, so Lucky wouldn’t find out. She wasn’t really here to give speeches.

“Forerunner wanted me too,” Dust remarked, as they made their way down the empty hallway. “He can’t have anything interesting for me, can he? I’m not…”

“You are one of us now, Mom,” Lucky said. “We’re on the same mission. We’re fighting for the same goal. That’s the only thing that matters.”

The armory opened for them without waiting for a scan from her implant—apparently the new systems could detect them at range. There was a slight whoosh of air from an airlock as they stepped inside, then again as the door sealed behind them. What’s the point of that on an atmospheric zeppelin?

Instead of dim metal, the armory was all white plastic, with a look of freshly fabricated parts instead of salvaged ones from the old Sojourner. After seeing what happened on that ship, I’m glad it was cut to pieces. Let it rot.

Few rooms in the Speed of Thought were tall enough to allow humans to comfortably stand, but this was one of them. Forerunner now wore a full uniform, concealing the obviously mechanical nature of some of his joints. If only he’d put on a wig, he might pass the untrained eye for human.

He had an array of objects spread out on a pony-sized table in the center of the room, and he stood over it like a preschool teacher about to give out lunchboxes to their class.

“You are a very skinny minotaur,” Dust said from beside her, looking up at him with poorly concealed stares. “And not very healthy looking either.”

“That is because I am not alive,” Forerunner said. His voice was distinctly male when it came from this mouth—lower even than the largest earth pony stallion. He still spoke Eoch clearly, though. I did that. I can be proud about something. “I am a construct, Lightning Dust. Like all the other drones you have seen in Othar. I am only more sophisticated.”

“But you look like the ghosts in the doctor’s office,” Dust said. “Melody said that you used to look like this, Lucky. Is that true?”

“A little like this,” Lucky answered. “We usually had more hair.” She could tell that Lightning Dust had more to ask, but she didn’t leave her the chance just now. “You have some things for us?”

She looked down at the table. At a glance, everything she saw looked like personal effects ponies might carry. Two sets of saddlebags, modeled much more closely on the real ones than the jury-rigged backpacks she had sometimes seen ponies in Othar wearing. A computation surface concealed inside a thick notebook, a pouch of gold bits…”

“Most of this is self-explanatory,” Forerunner said, holding up a few pony-sized shirts. Both of them had pictures of fruits and vegetables, in stylized absurdity. “I saw shirts like this with one of my drones, so I thought you ought to wear them. There is a great deal of foot traffic moving into the city called Ponyville—where Twilight’s castle is located, as well as where we believe the major is being held. Which reminds me.”

Forerunner removed a strange object from amid the others on the table, holding it up in one hand. It looked uncomfortably like a gun, with an extremely wide barrel. Except that it was small, and had a transparent interior.

“Lucky, I’m requiring you to receive a tracking implant. Come over here, and hold still. Lightning Dust, you can decide to accept this or not, it’s up to you. It will be briefly painful.”

“Tracking… implant...” Lucky said, staring at the machine. Not a weapon then, but some kind of medical device. “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”

“It’s new. Previous versions of this technology required a link to an external antenna, but with increased density of power storage and transmission range...” He trailed off, approaching her with the “gun” raised in one hand.

Lightning dust watched with more curiosity than fear—she didn’t have the same innate anxiety of anything gun-shaped that Lucky did. Forerunner pressed it up against her belly, then fired. She winced. It did hurt.

“I’m not losing another commander like I lost Major Fischer. That device doesn’t have the energy to transmit continuously… that would give you away too easily, anyway. But if it receives a signal from me, it will transmit a response pulse. Anywhere you can get radio, I should be able to find you. It will also transmit a slightly modified signal in the event of your death.”

Lucky felt the bleeding from her belly, right about the time that Forerunner sprayed something against her coat. It stung fiercely, but the bleeding stopped. She hissed anyway, pulling away from him. “Sounds like you should just… grow us with those.”

“I do. Well, I do now. The newer generation does. There is some speculation that a future generation of implants might be passively powered, but at present that device will only transmit continuously for 96 hours before needing to be recharged. Hopefully that is long enough for the crew to locate you, if you are captured and taken elsewhere.” Forerunner aimed the gun at Lightning Dust. “Would you like an implant as well, native consultant Lightning Dust? If you receive it, I can promise to take the same effort to recovering you from capture as I would for Lucky.”

Lightning Dust shivered, eyeing the gun warily. “No thanks. Equestria is my home, I can handle myself here. If something goes wrong… I’ll work a way out of it.”

“Very well.” Forerunner turned its attention back to the pile of gear. “I have separate equipment prepared in the eventuality that we succeed in our mission of recruiting the princess and are able to explore any of the Sanctuary installations. Given the likelihood of capture for you, I’ve minimized anything that Celestia or any other of her agents could use. This computation surface has an integrated long-range antenna—no need for a separate apparatus as you were forced to use during your previous mission. I have also concealed an emergency signaling device in this.”

Forerunner lifted a large spring-loaded tail clip. “Break this in half, and it will begin transmitting positional information as well as a distress call. I will interpret this signal as a call for rescue.” He set it down on the table closest to her. “Lastly, for you, Lightning Dust.”

Forerunner nudged something towards her. IT looked like a gauntlet, though it lacked the spidery metallic claws. The layer on the bottom was thinnest, suggesting it was meant to be worn while walking.

“What is it?”

“A modified stun rifle,” Forerunner said. “I understand you feel maternal instinct towards the colonial governor. Lucky Break is trained to operate many weapons, but she lacks the… tenacity to do harm to others even in her own interest. You do not.”

Lightning Dust reached forward with her right foreleg, slipping it into the glove. The whole thing tightened around her hoof a little, but it was still slim enough to be relatively covert. “I have three more of these. Perhaps you could wear them like shoes?”

“I visited your firing range…” Lightning Dust muttered, holding her hoof with the gun above the surface of the table. “I don’t want to be ‘shooting’ things without meaning to.”

“You won’t,” Forerunner said. “These weapons are verbally encoded. To fire, they must be held plus or minus thirty degrees from level, and instructed to shoot. They will contextually interpret your target as the subject of greatest threat, and fire. There is no need for training on your part.”

“Woah,” Lightning Dust put on the other shoes.

“Can I have some gun shoes too?” Lucky asked, hopefully.

“No,” Forerunner said. “The energy storage medium they use requires complex fabrication and I was unable to make more in time. Your voice is keyed to those four as well as Lightning Dust, so if you encounter a threat with any notice, she may share them with you at her discretion. Do not take this the wrong way, governor, but I trust her to use them more effectively than you will.”

“It’s alright, squirt,” Lightning Dust said, her voice a little smug. “We’re just here to negotiate anyway. I’m sure we won’t use them.”

“Oh, one more subject of note,” Forerunner added. “Those weapons were reverse-engineered using a template for space station security guards. As such, they were designed to be passively charged, and not fire very often. You will have, at most, two shots with each every twenty-four hours.”

Lucky grunted unhappily, but proceeded to focus on packing her measly saddlebags.

“We’re nearing the drop location,” Forerunner said, once they had finished packing everything away and dressed in the silly clothes. “The Speed of Thought will circumnavigate the area until you call for us or ask for help. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Lucky Break couldn’t help herself—she offered the towering human a hoof. It felt right to be grateful. “Hope we don’t need it.”

“We all need it,” Forerunner said, taking the offered hoof anyway. “Shame it doesn’t exist.”

They made their way out to the upper deck. Deadlight was lounging out here, next to the slow drone of the engine. He read from a computation surface hidden in an old book, though mostly he seemed to be watching the sky below them. It was early evening out here—poorly suited to their eyes, but well suited to his. They even seemed to be glowing a little.

“You’re going down,” he said, eyeing them. “Nice shirt, Lightning Dust. Save me some apple cider while you’re down there. I hear it’s some of the best in Equestria.”

“I’m sure we won’t have the chance,” Lightning Dust said, sounding annoyed. “We’re trying to save Equestria here, if you haven’t been listening.”

“Equestria has been saved many times,” Deadlight said, with a slight shrug of his wings. “Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourselves while you’re doing it. There are ponies in the city you’ll be visiting who have saved it several times themselves.”

“Don’t remind me,” Lightning Dust groaned. “Thank Celestia they won’t recognize me.” She pulled on the goggles Forerunner had given them, and practically jumped into the air. “Woah! Lucky, you have to try these…”

Lucky had rested them on her forehead in the conventional place, mostly preparing to keep the wind out of her face on the way down. Now she lowered them, and her eyes went wide. The world had gone monochrome, but the indistinct haze of night instantly cleared to sharp lines and edges. She could see the railing on the deck, the several empty chairs beside Deadlight’s single occupied one.

“I’ve heard of these,” Lightning Dust said, grinning. “The Wonderbolts wear them on night missions. Supposed to be a pretty difficult enchantment. Expensive.”

“This one isn’t magic,” Lucky said, as they made their way to the edge. “But you don’t need to be told that. Most of what we do is… well, I guess in some ways you could call it magic, but it’s really just machines. These are machines too, just made to look like the goggles we would usually wear.”

“That sounds like magic to me,” Dust said, as she pushed aside the railing. “I’ve never jumped from a moving zeppelin before,” Dust said. “But I already know the dangers. Propellers in back, there will be a vortex off either side trying to suck us in. We need to dive straight down as quick as we can to cut through that, until we can barely hear the engine anymore. Moving this slowly, it shouldn’t be that hard. Even for you.”

Lucky nodded, swallowing as she braced one hoof on the edge of the void like a swimmer preparing to dive. Leaping off a suspended island in the sky still felt a little terrifying, even if she knew she could fly. Being reminded this thing is a flying blender probably didn’t help things.

They jumped.

Olivia should’ve died days ago. Then, when she’d been captured, she should have been forced to endure terrible interrogation. She should’ve been rotting in prison, left with the knowledge that her failure would mean the deaths of everyone she cared about.

She wasn’t rotting in jail.

Olivia came down like a comet, cutting through the night sky in a brilliant slash of flame. Trees exploded as she went down, many of their leaves catching fire. She dug a deep trench in the ground, hardly feeling it as it sprayed around her like a wave. She felt no pain as little rocks and thorny bushes smashed up against the armor, and were either incinerated or thrown aside.

Wearing this was everything she had imagined wearing a powered exoskeleton would be like, before she’d actually put one on and learned it was really just industrial equipment with some metal plates welded to it. Her escape from the hospital had required barely any effort, and now she was free.

But for how long?

Olivia clambered from the trench, stepping onto a thin layer of fulgurite, and cracking it underhoof. If only she could’ve heard the Forerunner’s voice in her ear right now, giving her advice and pointing her in the direction she needed to go, she would be like some old comic-book superhero. With armor like this, she could fight Equestria herself.

Except they have more of it, stupid. They have ponies trained to use it. Like the two I fought. Then again, she had incapacitated one of those ponies without much effort. She could’ve killed the other, if she had been more ruthless. But she wasn’t—she hadn’t been willing to kill someone who was just doing their duty. Attack one, yes. Try to escape? Sure. But murder? Not so much.

I’ll kill Celestia, though. After what she did to Karl, what she wants to do to Lucky. What she would do to Othar if she knew we existed. Would Equestria have any defense against an assassin wearing armor like this? When was the last time it had faced a serious external threat?

There was no one to ask for advice, no one to bounce ideas off of. Olivia would have to figure out what to do alone. She walked past the wreckage of her entry-point, moving swiftly through the dark with the mechanical assistance of the armor in every step. She could feel the strength it gave to her, the forward motion. It was like constantly walking downhill. Does it have fuel? Will I screech to a halt and be trapped in here? Is there a tracker?

Two of those three answers were likely yes. Obviously something had to power what she was doing—even if the natives called it magic, there were laws behind it. Machinery. What’s the machinery behind unicorn levitation? She shook her head, banishing the thought. She had done a little of that, once she put the helmet on. She could feel the ghost of a horn protruding from the helmet even now, glowing faintly purple. Every time she willed the armor to do something, her ghostly horn seemed somehow involved in the process. How, she didn’t know, and didn’t care.

They must be tracking this. It’s too valuable not to. And even if they can’t, there’s a flaming crater in the forest from my landing. They will be following me. Olivia had two choices—she could try to ditch the helmet and get as far away as possible, or she could hold onto it and use its power against whatever came. Would the advantage of the equipment outweigh the likelihood of attracting a stronger adversary?

She considered her training as she walked, cutting briskly through the forest and away from her entrance. She didn’t really know where she was going—it was dark outside, so she couldn’t use the sun. This wasn’t Earth, and she had never bothered learning enough about the night to know how to use it for directions. She would have to wait for dawn, then she could get a good idea of her position. She counted her steps as she walked, and did her best to move erratically while mostly in the same direction.

Finding where she landed would be trivial. Tracking her after that would have to be the hard part.

She was trained for this, though no one in the ISMU would have expected that training to be used here. She knew where to walk to leave the worst tracks, she knew how to read the signs of game-trails and judge which areas were safe and which might have natural threats. Not that she expected predators to be much danger to her with a weapon like this. She’d blown apart a brick wall with barely a thought, what chance did a bear have?

The suit seemed to do little to block out the natural sounds from around her. She could hear many animals moving in the dark—the hooting of owls, the constant rustling of natural life in the forest. Lucky had briefly mentioned how domesticated the wildlife was in Equestria, but this forest did not bear that out. From the occasional screech of a wildcat, or the furious sound of animal conflict further away, she guessed this was closer to one of the Earth jungles in terms of safety. Even a human soldier might not return from one, if they didn’t know what they were doing.

Olivia did not know, and ultimately that was what made her decision for her. I’ll hold onto the armor until daylight, when I can assess my situation better. She might take one of two options then—leave the armor behind, and attempt to evade capture as long as possible as a fugitive—or use the armor itself as the bait that might attract her enemy to her. She could bank on Equestria tracking it to control where that final confrontation might occur.

During a long night-march through the forest, Olivia might’ve sung something with her comrades, or chatted about life back home. But there was no one to talk to, and from the sounds all around her anything listening would not be a friend to her.

Twice she came upon the corpses of larger animals—once caught in a truly gigantic spiderweb, and another time as a skeleton laying bleached and alone in a solitary clearing. That second one looked like it might even be a pony body, though it was hard to be sure. Olivia had not learned the anatomy of the natives as well as she probably should have.

At least the armor kept her going. She didn’t feel like she was getting tired while she wore it—her fatigue was a very distant thing, like a storm cloud hovering forever at the horizon. So long as it didn’t come any closer, she didn’t care.

Eventually she saw a distant shape outlined against the starry sky, one without irregularity of uneven treetops. Solid lines, with sturdy stone blocks in places. Then the trees abruptly ended and she was standing in a windswept clearing, with a towering ruin rising in front of her.

She blinked in disbelief, and considered removing the helmet to see with her own eyes. Could there really be a medieval castle in the middle of a forest?

Yes, apparently. Olivia flew over an old bridge instead of trusting the wood and rope, landing on a clear path. She could see no lights nearby—no sign of occupation of any kind. Thanks to the helmet, she could see it clearly, even in darkness. See the two intact towers rising from amid the ruin, see the places where the roof had caved in.

That looks like a very good place to set a trap, Olivia thought to herself, pleased. She could imagine labyrinthine hallways, corridors with holes in the roof, many ancient hiding-places and secret passages. Perhaps it would have a population of ravenous predators nesting in the lower levels, or more of the spiders that had made the web she passed earlier. Perhaps it would already have traps, and she would only need to find them without triggering them herself.

How much time do I have to get a home field advantage? How long before they track me here? Olivia wasn’t sure about that.

She was sure about one thing, though. She wasn’t going to leave the helmet and run. She could make her stand here—against Celestia’s servants, first. Then, perhaps, against the tyrant herself. Wish I had some explosives. Maybe some weapons. As she thought it, the air around her shimmered, momentarily darkening. She noticed it then—a slight heaviness in the armor. Somehow, she realized she had drained an incredible amount of energy from what she was wearing. It seemed to speed her just a little less than before.

Arrayed in the field around her were two dozen white plastic crates, each one stamped with the Pioneering Society’s fabrication mark, with the word “OTHAR PRIME” written in block letters.

How much of Othar’s weapon stockpile had she brought? Grinning to herself, Olivia strode forward, and pressed the side of her hoof to the edge of the lid. Even through the armor, it detected her implant, and clicked open.

There were explosives inside, each one still wrapped in plastic film and set into foam padding. Between all these boxes, it might even be enough to bring down a castle.

Major Fischer set to work.

G7.01: Guest of the Princess

Ponyville was not a very large town—Lucky knew that, and she knew not to expect much as they finally angled down for their descent. Flying with her mom had been a return to something familiar, back when she had been pretending that there would never be anything more to her life.

It was fun to pretend again, though she knew she couldn’t stay. Last time I forgot what I was doing here, Olivia got captured and I ended up in charge. I can’t forget again. Some little part of her felt the temptation to slip into pony society and forget about everything. It would be so easy—or it would’ve been, if she were alone. Somehow, she didn’t think Lightning Dust would want to pretend anymore. Ever since seeing the danger to Equestria, she was even more determined to beat Harmony than Lucky herself.

“Something’s wrong,” Lightning Dust said, pointing with one hoof into the darkness. Lucky could see the lights from distant homes, running in rows through the city. They looked like early electrics, whole sections of the town growing rhythmically lighter, then darker again. It was subtle enough she might not have noticed it from the ground, but up here it was obvious.

“What, the power grid?”

“No.” Lightning dust shook her head. “This is the middle of the harvest festival. I’ve been to earth pony towns during the festival before. Great time to…” She cleared her throat, slowing to a hover in the air. Lucky imitated her, less gracefully. “Well, to make friends. Anyway, there should be lights everywhere. Ponies in the streets, celebrating, music… we should hear it from here.”

“Maybe Ponyville celebrates it differently?” Lucky suggested, shrugging.

“Maybe,” Lightning Dust repeated, obviously unconvinced. “Look there, by the big building. Probably city hall, right?” Lucky nodded, following her gaze. “See all those stalls? The tables? There’s a dance floor too, right there in the street. But nopony around but…”

Then Lucky saw it. There were guards. Not many of them—but a few. Wearing purple armor instead of gold. Those few she could see all had batlike wings. “Do you think Twilight told Celestia we were coming? Maybe those guards are waiting for us.”

“Probably not…” Lightning Dust said, frowning down at the town. “But we should land. Those bats can see as well as we can with the goggles. If we just hover up here, we’ll look suspicious.”

“Right.” They came down for a landing, quiet enough that she hoped they wouldn’t attract much attention. They stopped on the road, which they’d been flying above for the whole trip. There was nothing around on either side but a large fruit orchard. It smelled quite nice against the evening air.

“I don’t think she would’ve gone back on us like this,” Lightning Dust said. “This is giving herself away—we might get spooked and fly off. Her best chance of catching us is setting a trap. She knows we’re coming… well, she knows you’re coming. If I was going to screw a pony over, I’d do it like that.”

“So if not us… what, then? Something to do with Olivia?”

Lightning Dust laughed quietly. “You ponies aren’t the only ones who make things happen in Equestria, you know. From the newspapers, it seems like Ponyville is always in some kind of danger. Maybe there was another disaster… or they’re expecting one. Either way, we should decide. There aren’t any other towns that close. If we don’t go into town tonight, we’d have to camp on the road.”

Lucky tapped the goggles on one side, bringing up the interface. It couldn’t do much, but it did show the time. Nearly ten o’clock. “If we do go in, and we aren’t what they’re expecting, it might help us avoid suspicion. We can slip in while they’re afraid of other things. And if they are looking for us, getting away from a few guards in the open will be easier than an Alicorn in her own castle.”

“Makes sense,” Lightning Dust said, and they started walking. “Were you ever excited when you were on missions like this, Lucky? Even if they’re scary…”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “Like when we met. I didn’t know what ponies would be like—if you’d take me in or leave me to the wolves. I know we look strange to you, but you looked strange to us too. I was still excited. I knew I’d be doing something good, even if it was dangerous and scary. I wanted to make a difference.”

“Can’t make a much bigger difference than this.” There was an adorable little bridge up ahead, and past it the town. Lucky could see a single Lunar Guard standing there, leaning lazily on his spear. A real spear, she noted, not the dull metal ones she had seen guards carrying in the Crystal Empire.

The guard had seen them. He stiffened, before gesturing urgently. “Ponies, what are you doing out so late? Quick!”

“Here we go,” Lightning Dust muttered, before taking off at a gallop, moving to where the guard indicated. Lucky kept up as best she could, which was much better than it had been a year ago. She could gallop now, and do everything else a pony did.

“You two.” The Lunar Guard glanced between them, though mostly at Lightning Dust. His coat was dark like many bats, wings bright purple like the armor. “What are you doing here?” There was no suspicion in the voice, though, only confusion. “Haven’t you heard about what happened?”

“Heard about what?” Lightning Dust asked, sounding convincingly confused. “Where’s the festival? It’s not even midnight yet, shouldn’t there be music?”

“I wish,” the guard muttered, before straightening again. “Look, there’s been a… something bad happened. There’s a criminal on the loose around here—it’s not safe to be wandering the night alone. You’ll have to come with me.” He turned back towards town—which was entirely in view now, on the other side of the bridge.

Maybe a hundred medieval-style houses, with thatched roofs and upper floors leaning out above the lower ones. A far humbler, more rural place than the Crystal Empire, though it did have its own bit of crystal glittering in the moonlight on the other side of town.

They followed the guard through the empty streets—occasionally Lucky caught a glimpse of ponies watching them from inside houses, or the faint sound of music echoing out a mostly closed window. From the sound of things, the one large celebration had dissolved into many smaller celebrations spread all over the city. She couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that they wouldn’t have the chance to enjoy any of the festivities.

They passed a single guardpost near the center of where celebrations had been. A stern-looking unicorn took one look at their shirts and waved them through without taking anything more than their (false) names for the ledger.

“Hostel is full,” she said with a disinterested grunt. “I think there are still some guest rooms open in the castle, though. Gibbous, run a message to the princess’s assistant, see if there’s room.”

Their escort saluted, then took off, leaving them alone with the unicorn in the mostly-deserted town square. Lucky searched for any sign of what had happened, but nothing seemed to suggest a terrible attack. There were no leveled buildings, no arrangement of candles outside a former home to suggest a murder. Did ponies even do that?

“What happened?” Lightning Dust asked, apparently thinking the same thing. “This doesn’t look like last year.”

“Nothing good,” the unicorn said from behind her desk. It was just like all the other tables out here—like she’d dumped out all the delicious baked goods and commandeered the most central location. The tall building directly in front of them looked like a civic center of some kind, judging on the way it stayed mostly lit while much of the town was still dark. No sign of anyone inside, though.

“Some kind of… unicorn criminal, I think.” She gestured vaguely with the pen she was levitating, not even looking up at them. “She was locked up somewhere, and she broke out… real spectacular-like. A few ponies were hurt, though none seriously. We’ve locked things down mostly as a precaution, since she hasn’t been recaptured yet.”

Dust looked over her shoulder at Lucky, and even though she said nothing, Lucky could practically hear her words. ‘See, told you everything didn’t have to do with you.’ If it was a unicorn, it obviously couldn’t be related to Olivia.

“But an escaped criminal wouldn’t attack ponies out celebrating together, would she?”

“Ma’am.” The guard finally sat up, looking directly at Lightning Dust. “I mean nothing impolite, but I don’t think you’re equipped to imagine what somepony like this might do. They don’t think like the rest of us… Until we can get them locked away, everyone will be in danger. But don’t worry—Princess Twilight has joined the search, along with an entire detachment of the Royal Guard. Wherever she is, this criminal will be brought to justice.”

At that moment Gibbous returned, a little out of breath from his swift flight. “The dragon says there’s room,” he said. “So long as these two are willing to ‘probably not sleep.’ Something about a pinkie? I didn’t know what that was.”

“‘Who’,” the unicorn said. “And I’m sure these two will be fine with it. They’re here for the festival, obviously.” She gestured down a side-road. “Make sure they reach the castle safely, Gibbous. Then return to your duty station.”

He saluted again, and they set off towards the castle.

When they were away from town square, Gibbous leaned a little closer to them, whispering. “It sounded like whatever was going on in there must be fun. I’m jealous—serving in Ponyville was supposed to be a chance to participate in celebrations like this, not watch empty streets for criminals who aren’t coming back.”

“There’s still another few days of the festival left, right?” Lightning Dust offered, her voice consoling.

“Yeah, but tonight was about cider. There’s only one of those.”

The castle was closer to town than Lucky had suspected it would be—a few blocks down the dirt road, and they had already reached it. She was stunned for a moment, staring up at what seemed like a glittering crystal tree, which had sprouted from the soil as though it had naturally grown here.

Gibbous laughed from just up ahead. “Yeah, it’s pretty spectacular. Not as big and impressive as Canterlot, but it’s got its own charm. Particularly on nights like this, when the moon is good.”

Lucky resisted the urge to put her goggles back on and get a better look at the castle with the advantage of night vision. Instead she hurried to catch up, moving beside her mom towards the massive doors. There was music coming from inside, a little scratchy and distorted.

There were many happy voices, all laughing and talking together. Leave it to ponies to find a way to keep the celebration going even when there’s a dangerous criminal on the loose.

There were two more guards waiting at the door here, both bats like Gibbous. “The ponies I was asking about,” he said, pointing back at them with a wing. They nodded, and one stepped back to push the massive doors open. It felt like the castle was opening its gates to receive a king.

A glance backward at Dust was all Lucky needed to see that she wasn’t nearly as pleased by all this as Lucky was, though she seemed to be trying to hide her annoyance from the guards. She had fallen silent, glaring at everything. Please don’t freak out. I know you hate these ponies, but staying in the castle is the best thing that could’ve happened for our mission.

Not far away, Lucky could see another set of massive doors already open, and that was apparently where the music was coming from. There were maybe a dozen ponies inside, apparently enjoying themselves a great deal.

She was so taken-in by everything else, Lucky almost missed the little dragon standing right in front of her. Well… little compared to what she imagined a dragon would be like. This one stood about as tall as she was.

He might’ve looked fiercer if he wasn’t wearing a party hat. “Hey,” he said to Gibbous. “These are the ones?”

Gibbous nodded. “More tourists. You’ll find a place for them, right?”

He nodded. “I’m sure I can find something.” He turned on his heels, gesturing for the stairs. “Come on then, you two. Let’s find you somewhere to sleep before Pinkie notices you’re here and tries to drag you into the party for the rest of the night.”

Then it clicked who Lucky was talking to—she had heard this voice before, however distorted it had been over the primitive pony radio. It made sense—how many dragon assistants could one princess have? He said my voice was clear. I better be careful, even if he doesn’t know what I look like.

Lucky stayed silent as they climbed a massive spiral staircase, up what had to be the thick trunk of the tree. How many floors did this castle have? How much space? And all of it built from the same strange crystal, just like the capital and many of the walls in the Crystal Empire. The lights in here weren’t irregular electrics, but a constant magical glow from little gemstones suspended from the ceiling at various points.

“So where are you ponies from?” Spike asked, sounding more polite than interested. “From what you’re wearing, you must be here for the harvest festival, right? It would’ve been better if you came last year, it was great then. But I guess Ponyville is back to its constant disasters.”

He never actually stopped to wait for their answers, just kept going and going. Exactly like he had been on the radio. “I don’t actually suggest you try going to bed without at least visiting the party first, or else Pinkie Pie might get offended. Twilight’s friends are already a little on edge from not being invited to go…” He trailed off. “Well, they should get used to it. I’ve been not getting invited to things for years now, and I turned out fine.” They stepped off the stairs onto a landing about halfway up, where a round hallway circled the large trunk, with doors running around it. “Lucky you, only the staterooms are left empty. Just don’t make too much of a mess of things, alright? I’m the dragon who has to clean them.”

He selected a door apparently at random, pushing it open.

Only in videos had she ever seen luxury like this—walls and floor of smooth crystal, ancient wooden furniture inlaid with gold, and literal jewels set into the molding. There was more wealth on one of the jewel-encrusted wall hangings than Lucky had possessed in her entire life. "Woah."

"You should see the royal rooms," Spike said, apparently satisfied with their reactions. “But now that Twilight’s a big important princess, we’re always hosting some important pony or another from far away. It’s good to make them feel at home, you know? I’ve got a guestbook for each of these… all the important ponies who have stayed in each one. He selected a drawer from a nearby boudoir, removing a book with one claw.

Lucky felt a brief twinge of jealousy as she watched him do it. Why couldn’t I have gotten a dragon body? It would be nice to have hands again. But she kept quiet, listening politely as he read off some names, trying to look impressed. Lightning Dust actually did look impressed, though some of that was apparently sourness.

Spike snapped the book closed. “Anyway, you can leave your things up here. Even if you’re tired from the road, you should visit the party for a few minutes. That should be enough to stop Pinkie doing something extreme. Hopefully.”

Lucky tossed her saddlebags onto the single massive bed, and Lightning Dust did the same. Spike didn’t seem to notice their apprehension at leaving their things behind. But Lucky had the hair-clip—that would have to be enough if there was some kind of emergency.

This will be easy. I’m just here for a party. No fighting, no need to pretend too much. A few minutes down there, and we can get some sleep for tomorrow. Hopefully Twilight will be back from hunting her criminal, and we can talk about something that matters.

Olivia had prepared as well as was possible considering the few hours she had to work. In all likelihood, she never could have made the progress she had without the stolen armor. Wearing it, all she had to do was think about moving something, and it would move. Her night-vision was perfect, her reactions were lightning-fast, and she never tired. It was the only way she stood a chance.

Some small part of her wished she had put the helmet down and run away right then, taking her pick of the equipment, and destroying the rest. Maybe her chances of survival would’ve been better in that case.

That might be true, but she hadn’t been able to get herself to run. After all the danger she’d been in—after slaving away as Othar’s governor under the fear of extermination by forces she couldn’t control, Olivia was ready to get even.

Of course, she wasn’t wearing the helmet right now. Once she’d removed it, the rest of the armor had faded away, gone as quickly as it came. It was a good thing she had only taken it off when she was finished preparing the old ruin, or else the ponies might’ve found her surrounded by weapons and collapsed from exhaustion.

Fortunately, one of the crates contained medical equipment, which included stimulants. She had a patch under her tongue even now, keeping her alert. The effect was more potent than the armor, but also less natural. Soldiers could stay awake for days using patches like these, but would often have to sleep for days afterwards, recovering from the stress.

Hopefully I won’t have to use them that long.

Olivia had considered one other course, one that might very well have gotten her out alive. If she could summon boxes of weapons using the incredible armor, perhaps she could summon communications equipment as well. She could bring it here, then call for evac.

If the Forerunner could speak to her, it probably would have chided her for being so short-sighted. She should be calling for help, should be getting out and planning her conflict with Celestia more formally.

But if I go, I have to leave this armor behind. And without it, we might not be able to beat her. It wasn’t just controlling the terms of the engagement, though she would be doing that. It was also the power that tool would give her, in addition to all the human weapons she had brought.

Besides, Olivia should be dead already. Fighting their enemy, possibly slaying her and saving Othar forever, well… that was a noble cause. Worth the risk of one cloned life.

She wasn’t kept waiting long, in any case.

She saw them coming from the camera she had placed furthest from the ruin. The glint of moonlight reflecting off the armor of soldiers. Their numbers were enormous, dozens at the very least, and not just on the ground. Some came hovering in the air, all wearing the same armor.

Thankfully, it wasn’t the same stuff she had stolen. Whatever the Nightmare soldiers wore, it was evidently difficult enough to create that it was not shared around with common conscripts.

She didn’t really have anything against these ponies, though. As much as she recognized the need to inflict casualties and draw out their elites, she felt no more desire to see them hurt than she had wanted to harm the blue pony with the silvery mane.

She had posted a warning by the bridge. She didn’t know Eoch, and she couldn’t contact Forerunner for a translation without risking its involvement, so she had settled for pictograms.

What the sign said, or what she hoped it said, was that the castle was dangerous—that any who entered would die. She hoped that would mean the soldiers would turn back.

A naive hope, as she realized before they even saw the sign. A few pointed at it, and what looked like one of their officers came descending from the air to examine it personally. They didn’t stop, though.

They crossed the bridge, and began to assemble in front of the castle. They lined up in Napoleonic ranks, as though they were about to besiege its crumbling walls. Then the force divided, charging in using every viable entrance. The open doors, the holes in the ceiling, probably running around for the postern gate too.

Olivia sighed, lowering her head for a few seconds and thinking a silent prayer for those she was about to kill. She wasn’t particularly religious—she had no gods to pray to. But she hoped something was listening, because many men were about to die.

The explosions started a few moments later.

Lucky Break followed Spike back down the way they’d come, down the spiral staircase back to the party. Lightning Dust kept hesitating, glancing back up towards the room. She hadn’t been able to say anything in private to her, not even a few words.

But she didn’t have to for Lucky to realize what she must be thinking. Lucky did not know the specific details of what Lightning Dust had done, but she knew enough. She knew that these ponies had been directly involved in an accident—that through Dust’s negligence they’d nearly been killed. The legal authority of Equestria had not reacted well to the near-loss of some of their most important citizens, and the punishment was severe.

Even though she’d served her time, the bad reputation had kept Dust in poverty until they abandoned Equestria entirely. It would have her there still if Lucky hadn’t dragged her out of society and into the Pioneering Society.

“You’re going to love it,” Spike was saying, as they made it down the stairs. “I can tell from what you’re wearing. Pinkie Pie didn’t quite keep to the traditions… which I can tell you in detail because Twilight made me study them… but I think the modern way is more fun. There’s no reason to just use torches and only drink sour ale, you know?”

Lucky blinked, trying to process anything Spike had said. Her mind was drifting, and she had a hard time concentrating. It was so much easier to think about how close she was—how suddenly they would be forced to confront Twilight about Celestia. When she returned, either they would succeed in their mission, or… it would get much harder.

“You’re… old enough to drink?” she found herself asking, the words spilling out unexpectedly. Dammit, I shouldn’t have said anything. What if he recognizes how I sound?

Spike squinted at her. “I know I look young, but I’m older than you are. Dragons do it differently. Slower. In pony years, I bet I’m twice as old as you. If ponies like you can attend the festival, I can.”

Apparently not. Guess I’m safe. Lucky raised a hoof. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was just curious. Don’t let me tell you what you can and can’t do.”

“Really?” Spike hesitated just outside the doors to the great hall, looking back at her with disbelief. “You’d be the first pony in the world who doesn’t want to tell me what to do somehow. You must be a weird one.”

She shrugged, but Lightning Dust answered for her. “Absolutely she is. Weird doesn’t even begin.”

Spike laughed, pushing the door all the way open for them.

The great hall could’ve seated fifty, though it was mostly empty tonight. Brilliant crystals lit it from above, their light fading into different colors at regular intervals. There was a single central table at the far end of the room, surrounded by high-backed crystal chairs. Right now the whole thing was covered with a cloth, and a row of temporary tables had been set up a little further away.

It looked at a glance as though there was as much food assembled here for a party of a handful as had been gathered in town square to feed everyone. Lucky felt the groaning in her stomach at the smells, practically lifting her into the air.

As good as chemically fabricated food could be, she didn’t think Forerunner had ever quite mastered the formulations for the pony tongue. This new body had its own preferences, and there was something to satisfy them all on that table.

Lucky realized then that Spike wasn’t the only pony here she had spoken with before. There was another—a bright blue pegasus playing some kind of party game with a yellowish earth pony mare. Rainbow Dash, the member of the Wonderbolts that had been there for her flying exam.

Spike slowed as they passed through the door, putting up one claw. “This will… be easier if we stay quiet and just wait for it to happen,” he said, looking around expectantly. Lucky found herself bracing, expecting to be struck by an incoming train.

Nothing happened.

Spike seemed as befuddled as they were, until he caught sight of a pink pony in a far corner of the room, staring at a wall. “Weird,” he said, shrugging. “She’s been… I thought having somepony new… well, guess no one can figure her out.” He started off again across the room, leading them into the place where a handful of ponies were gathered to chat.

“Hey, everypony! Got a few more festival refugees. Guess they came in just in time for the really late stuff.”

“Don’t say things like that, Spike,” said a delicate mare with a white coat and an elegant mane. “You can see how young that one is. You shouldn’t put thoughts in her head.”

She turned to face another pony, who had looked up from what appeared to be a very serious game gathered around a table in the corner. A young adult mare, by the look of things, with several of her friends. “I’m watching you too, Sweetie.” She advanced then, extending a hoof to Lightning Dust. “Name’s Rarity, dear. This here is Fluttershy, and the two trying to drink each other into a stupor are Rainbow Dash and Applejack.”

Lightning Dust took the offered hoof, stiffening visibly. “I’m Cloudcover, and this is Windy,” she said, her tone sounding more honest than it had last time. “Thanks for taking us in. We wouldn’t have come all this way if we thought there would be… so much going on.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll have things sorted by morning,” Rarity said, waving a dismissive hoof. “You know the Royal Guard. Ever skillful, ever efficient.”

“They won’t,” said a distant voice. The pink pony, whispering to herself by the wall. “It’s not going well. I can feel it.”

Rarity cleared her throat loudly. Apparently she could hear it too. “Well, you’re welcome to join us for the party tonight, in any case. There are already a few missing, so it’s good to have a little extra company. Feel free to enjoy what we have. It’s the same sort of, uh… food… that would’ve been served at the festival, if it were happening properly. So hopefully you won’t feel too put-out.”

“We won’t,” Lightning Dust said, about as charming as sandpaper. “Thanks.”

“Yes, well…” Rarity laughed awkwardly, then turned away. “If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask. The hostess has gone for the evening, but I will try to serve you in her place.”

They served themselves, eager for an excuse to be moving. There was no need to fake their hunger, though they did have to fake enthusiasm for the cider. Fortunately for Lucky, there were several different barrels here, marked with a few simple numbers to show just how intoxicating they were. Lightning Dust selected the mildest barrel along with Lucky, and they took their food to the only empty table to eat.

Subdued conversation began, barely audible over the crackling music issuing from a gramophone in the corner of the room. Lucky kept her head down, trying to look at nopony in particular. It seemed the room’s existing occupants were just as eager to leave them to themselves, continuing several hushed conversations.

Their little table was near the one where the younger ponies were gathered, including the one Rarity had called “Sweetie.” Under other circumstances, Lucky probably would have joined them to see what they were playing, though they were all older than she was.

She didn’t have to move to listen, at least. The younger ponies were the closest table, and by far the worst at whispering. “Did you see what happened to the hospital?” one of them was asking—she didn’t look up to see which one.

She did stiffen all over, ears swiveling to listen. Hospital? Wasn’t that where they were holding Olivia? Her heart sank as she imagined the worst possible scenario, though of course that couldn’t be it. It was just a freak coincidence, that was all!

“Yeah,” said another. “Half the wall blown right off. Ah heard they had to up and move everypony on the second floor to Canterlot.”

“Woah,” said the third. “How could one pony do that?”

“Dunno,” responded the first. “But Starlight was there. You know what that means.”

The ponies made sounds of agreement, though of course Lucky didn’t have a clue what it meant. It sounded like a name by the way she’d said it, but beyond that. Starlight wasn’t the name of anypony she’d ever heard of.

“But why would the princess send so many guards? Doesn’t that seem a bit much to catch just one unicorn?”

“Ah dunno. Ask her yerself, next time we’re in Canterlot.”

“We could ask Twilight when she gets back.”

“You really think she’d tell us?”

Something touched her shoulder, and Lucky almost lept into the air. She resisted, though she did still jerk a little. Almost enough to knock over what was left of her cider.

“Are you alright?” Lightning Dust whispered.

She could only shake her head. It wasn’t right—none of this was right. She felt a little sympathy for the pink pony in the corner with the deflated-looking mane. She could share that feeling.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t wearing any way to communicate with Forerunner. If she was, she could’ve asked him to send a drone into the Everfree for her. It wouldn’t hurt to take a look at what Twilight and the Royal Guard were up to, right? Just in case?

As she thought it, she felt a sudden jolt, accompanied by a deep rumbling. The sound was very distant—like a gigantic landslide. Or a bomb.

Instantly the adult mares in the room all looked up, heads turning towards the sound.

Unspoken conversation seemed to pass between them, even the two who had seemed half-drunk before.

“She told us not to come,” said the yellow one, her voice timid. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” said the other two.

Rarity turned away from them as another, smaller pop sounded from far away. This one was more like fireworks, crackling through the night on the Fourth of July and muffled by the building all around them. Either that, or it’s automatic weapons fire.

It can’t be! Forerunner is the only one who can let ponies use guns like that, and he wouldn’t lie to me! If he put me in charge…

Did she trust the program? Maybe not as much as she had wanted to. It seemed possible, however distantly, that what had happened in Dragon’s Folly had been his idea instead of Olivia’s. Maybe it had been the one to pressure her to deal with criminals, and eventually got her caught.

It sent us off to waste time then too. While Olivia fought the real war.

Rarity had made her way over to their table by then, as the others quickly gathered their possessions. Even the depressed-looking pink one seemed resolved. “I’m terribly sorry, but… my friends and I are going to have to leave you for the time being. A dear friend of ours is out there, and it sounds like she might be in trouble. I know you’ll understand.”

She didn’t even wait for a response, turning to join the other five as they galloped out of the room.

“I know exactly how you feel,” Lucky muttered, rising from the table. She no longer felt hunger.

She didn’t see what the younger ponies did, or the dragon, or the other refugees. She didn’t care. Lucky made her way out the door just behind the group, back up the stairs. She lifted onto her wings, flying as quickly as she could. Lightning Dust caught up in seconds, swiftly outpacing her. There was nopony in the stairwell, no one to slow them down. Not even any guards.

“What are we doing?” Lightning Dust asked, speaking in an urgent whisper. “Do you know what that sound was?”

It was still going—louder than before, and more constant. Like a whole firework show going on a few miles away.

“It sounds like a battle,” Lucky said. “And so far as I know, those weapons are human. We shouldn’t be hearing them here.” Even if she was right about her worst suspicions, even if Olivia was involved in this somehow, how could she be making all this noise? She had one exoskeleton, and surely the ponies would’ve taken that away. Even if she got it back, did it have enough to shake the ground like this while it fought?

She reached their bedroom.

Lightning Dust landed by the door, standing in the doorway as a lookout without having to be asked.

Lucky scrambled to her bag, dumping out her things. She found the concealed computer-book was vibrating. She opened it, and found a string of text on the screen waiting for her.

“Something is happening I cannot explain, Lucky. The bird-drone I’ve hidden in Ponyville with you is picking up the signals from radio detonators. These codes belong to inventory that was never checked out. Did you smuggle bombs into Ponyville? I would have given them to you if you asked.”

Lucky didn’t have time to type, not with the pitiful speed of hooves against a touchscreen. She fumbled with the interface until she found the voice button, then started whispering harshly into the screen, in English. “I have nothing to do with this. Dust and I are in the castle waiting for Twilight. From what we’ve heard, she has taken a bunch of soldiers to capture some kind of criminal.”

There was a brief delay, as Lucky was used to from satellite communication. Though how the computer could get a signal without a clear line-of-sight to the sky, she couldn’t guess.

More text appeared on the screen, replacing Forerunner’s previous message.

“I have only the one drone. I could send it to investigate, but if I do and it is destroyed, we will not be able to communicate until a replacement arrives. I have already released a whole flock, but they are hours away.”

“Worth the risk,” Lucky responded, not even waiting for him to finish. “Send it over the Everfree Forest. That’s where the criminal is, that’s probably where the fighting is too.”

“I can follow the sound,” Forerunner responded. “I recognize each of these sounds, Lucky. That’s a Xerxes heavy repeating rifle, anti-personnel mines. I certainly fabricated those weapons.”

“How are they out here if you didn’t send them?” She hoped she didn’t sound suspicious. “It couldn’t be Olivia, could it?”

“Stealing from my inventory? It is possible, if she did it long enough ago. These weapons are antiquated. I have sent drones into Inventory as we speak. I will soon know how they were taken.”

“What should I do?” The question was out before she knew what she was saying. Idiot! You’re the governor, he’s not going to give you instructions!

“I don’t know,” Forerunner said. “It seems prudent to remain hidden where you are. You are transmitting from Princess Twilight Sparkle’s castle, so you have already succeeded. Remain hidden, utilize your disguise, and wait for more information. I have increased the Speed of Thought’s velocity, but we were not meant to arrive in Ponyville until late tomorrow evening. We were speeding away until moments ago. It will seem suspicious for us to cut such a direct route towards a location we ignored. I am taking the risk anyway, unless you suggest otherwise.”

“N-no,” she croaked, slumping forward onto the stately bed. “That seems like a good idea. If you see anything with the drone, put it on my screen here. I want to see too.”

As the words left her lips, the sound of distant rumbling finally stopped, casting the night into sudden silence.

Lightning dust turned around from the doorway. “Did you do that?”

“No,” Lucky called. “You can come in. I don’t think anypony’s out there to watch for.”

Lightning Dust frowned, glancing up and down the hallway outside. Then she shut the door, dragging over a massive wooden dresser to block it. Only then did she make her way over to the bed.

“I heard your side of that. Did that Forerunner pony know what was going on? Or…” She lowered her voice. “Are you fighting them?”

“No!” Lucky responded, meeting her mom’s eyes. “No! It isn’t us. Forerunner thinks someone stole weapons, though he doesn’t know how. He’s sending a… a spell we can watch with. Hopefully we’ll be able to see what’s going on soon.

A few moments later, she could. The hidden screen suddenly showed a bird’s eye view from distant treetops. And far below was a castle in flames, surrounded by an army.

Even from a distance, Lucky could see it had not gone well for the attackers. There were craters around the castle, ponies sprawled out motionless, ponies dragging their wounded away from the walls.

How many had been killed during the few minutes of combat? Too many.

Flying behind the routed army, sheltering them with a flickering shield of purple energy, was none other than Princess Twilight Sparkle, her face twisted into agony and terror.

G7.01: Pyrrhic

Olivia had enough hardware to kill an army of primitives. How she had brought it all here, she didn’t well understand, but in many ways, that didn’t matter. Mounted guns, automatic repeating rifles, IFF-drawn seeking grenades. Everything the new Forerunner refused to make for her, the old one had fabricated in great quantity.

And yet…

She could’ve killed this army thrice over. There was no strategy to the way they attacked the castle, no order in their lines. They surged in through every opening all at the same time. Maybe they thought there was an enemy force inside—certainly her weapons were loud enough to imply something like that.

If Olivia knew a dangerous enemy was trapped inside a place like this, her response would’ve depended on the circumstances. If the area was somewhere densely populated, where she could not afford civilian casualties, she would’ve sent in a small, skilled team. If it were out in the wilderness like this, she would’ve surrounded the place and shelled it until it was rubble and broken bones.

The ponies had not done either, and so they were easy targets.

Even so, she could not bring herself to kill them. Well, not intentionally. She had used landmines in places, and those would probably kill a creature like a pony with its important parts all low to the ground. There were other traps that might be lethal, and there was no way of knowing for sure what might happen when you shot someone, no matter how good your aim was.

There was no reason to be cautious, was there? She wasn’t being mind-controlled this time, she was sure about that.

There were some weapons she hadn’t used yet—she could’ve shelled the army outside, the one pressing in and choking on itself as ponies passed the wounded backing out. But she didn’t. She could’ve told the IFF-seeking turrets to shoot for their heads instead of the glittering armor they wore. But she didn’t. It didn’t seem right.

These men aren’t my enemy. Celestia is. Plenty of them would die today—otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to draw out the tyrant. To her surprise and a little relief, Princess Twilight had not come in herself. Olivia didn’t much want to kill the pony who had tried to be understanding once Olivia was captured. Her magic was probably the reason Olivia hadn’t just died to begin with. But she would forgive that.

She could see the moment when the attack stopped. Instead of pushing further into the castle, soldiers dropped their shields, dropped their spears, and ran. Olivia switched everything off immediately, though such a foolish retreat would have made it easy to pick the rest of them off. I’m not here to do that. I only want her.

Princess Twilight stood on the other side of the bridge, sheltering the soldiers as they made their retreat the way they’d come. An entirely pointless gesture, as she was not firing at them. Several carried stretchers, though Olivia didn’t look too closely to see what condition the ponies might be in who rode them. She didn’t really want to know.

This isn’t my war. This is hers.

Only when all the soldiers were gone did Twilight cross the bridge again. Several ponies joined her—Olivia didn’t recognize any of them, though they seemed close. Five in total, adult mares with a wariness and determination to them many of the soldiers had lacked.

Twilight stood out in front, and her voice boomed through the castle.

Unfortunately for Olivia, her Eoch wasn’t good enough to understand. She had a few speakers hidden in the castle she could use to reply, but what would she say? The helmet was still in the basement, protected by the most devious traps yet. The ones she hoped would bring down the castle on Princess Celestia. Not wearing it, Olivia had no way of understanding what the ponies had to say.

“Princess Celestia,” Olivia said over the radio, speaking as slowly and clearly as she could. “I… want… Princess Celestia.” It was Eoch, or at least close enough to Eoch that she was sure they would be able to understand her. She watched all six of them stop, looking confused. They argued, though Olivia couldn’t hear what they had to say.

Then, mercifully, they turned away. They crossed the bridge, and stopped on its other side, settling down to wait. Well, five did. The blue one took straight into the air, and darted off so fast it nearly knocked a nearby crow right out of the air. The poor bird squawked in protest, righting itself angrily and gliding away.

That’s right. Go get the princess. I don’t want to hurt you or your friends, Twilight. Once Celestia is dead, we can talk about a proper relationship. One that doesn’t involve Othar constantly being afraid for its life the way you are right now.

Even at a distance she could see the agony on Twilight’s face. The others were trying to comfort her, but it didn’t look like it was working. Twilight looked the way many recruits did—shell shocked.

The purple princess had probably seen difficult things in her position. But she’d never seen what it was like to send one of her own armies against modern weapons. When death might come from any corner, and you would never see the face of your enemy. For all she knew, Olivia wasn’t even here.

Olivia tore open a foil-wrapped meal bar, eating in silence as she continued to watch the screens. When she was done, she would go off into the castle to reset as many of the traps as she could. There was no Forerunner to watch for her, but the program running on her little computer could detect motion that wasn’t from her. That would have to do.

She wasn’t kept waiting long. She heard Princess Celestia coming before she saw her—a streak of brilliant orange that cut across the early morning sky like a daytime comet. Olivia jumped to her hooves, scrolling through cameras until she found the best angle she could. She didn’t know who this was at first—just an outline surrounded by flames—but could she have any doubt? Who else could have power like this?

She landed on the open field outside the castle like a vengeful god coming down from Mount Olympus. The ground rumbled under her hooves, and everything green around where she had landed immediately burst into flames. Her mane matched what Lucky had described—not hair at all, but a constant, flickering illumination. Olivia wondered how she took a shower in the morning with a bonfire instead of hair.

Of course, there would be no asking her right now. Celestia turned towards the castle, her voice booming through every surface, every stone. Like the Nightmare, Olivia found she could understand this voice. It was trying to command her, compel her. “You will surrender to me, whoever you are! Come out of the castle and present yourself for judgement!”

Olivia rose, turned for the door, her legs twitching once, twice. The ISMU had trained her for this—she didn’t have to obey. Olivia stopped walking, turning back to her control panel. She pressed the transmission button, and didn’t even try to respond in Eoch. “How about fuck you,” she said, her voice as flat as she could make it. “Come in and make me.”

The princess stood taller than any pony Olivia had ever seen before—bigger than she’d thought they could grow at all, with a wickedly pointed horn and flames around her head. They seemed to be settling down the longer she remained here, colors calming to something more like an ethereal pastel rainbow.

The pony turned away from the castle, walking slowly across the bridge. She spoke to those who had been waiting, much too quietly to hear from her cameras even if she had been able to understand their language.

After a few minutes, the ponies who weren’t Twilight retreated back into the trees, though they didn’t go much further. Even in doing that, there were obvious signs of reluctance in their baring. They didn’t want to leave their friend, not after what they had seen.

Olivia sympathized. She could only hope that Twilight wouldn’t be caught in the blast.

Celestia crossed the bridge again, this time joined by the other princess. Neither one of them wore armor, which was good. Olivia couldn’t imagine how difficult this might be if she had no way of actually hurting them. Assuming they even need it. She could’ve tried to shoot Twilight before now, if she had wanted to. But she didn’t.

Olivia was certain this was her target. She matched the description, her cutie mark matched, and her baring matched. Once you’re gone, my city will be free.

Celestia raised her voice again, tone booming through the stones. Dust crumbled away from some of the least-secure sections, and Olivia wasn’t surprised to hear a few rocks crash to the ground. Hopefully none of her traps had been disarmed. “This is your last chance to surrender peacefully. If you do not, I will not take you back to Canterlot for a trial. I will judge you here. You should know that nine of the ponies you attacked were killed. Two more are in critical condition. Their deaths will be added to your long list of crimes.”

Olivia found herself shaking. Celestia’s words had the same effect this time as Starlight’s had down in that slaver’s hideout. No, it was worse. Her muscles twitched disobediently, like coming down from the worst bender of her life. She ached and strained, as though her body longed to gallop right out the door and bow down before the monarch. Maybe a real pony couldn’t have resisted.

Olivia could.

It didn’t matter how she looked. She was not a dumb animal, to be broken and ridden. She was a major in the ISMU. Her list of dead was much longer than eleven. “Go… to… hell,” Olivia croaked into the microphone, her voice shaking. It was reproduced outside almost as booming as Celestia’s, though there was no Forerunner to process away all the sounds of her weakness. It would come through exactly as she spoke it.

“I am sorry Equestria could not have done more for you,” Celestia said. Her voice wasn’t as loud as before, but Olivia could still hear her. She could hear the genuine regret in her tone, the pain. “There are a few in every generation—when we send you to Tartarus, know that your absence will be keeping a nation safe.”

Then she turned. Not for the basement, as the guards had done. Celestia turned to the side, pointing her horn straight at the tower. The place Olivia had reinforced the least with traps, which guards had overlooked in favor of those parts that had been better defended. There were no visible signs from the outside that this intact, windowless shaft was anything more than part of the ruin.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just part of the ruin. It was Olivia’s hiding place.

Instinct took over. She dropped everything, turned for the steps, and dove straight down like an Olympic swimmer into a pool. A fraction of a second later there was an explosion from overhead, a roar of air and stone. Olivia dodged into a lower hallway a second before the shockwave blasted her forward and collapsed the passage behind her. Early-morning sunlight streamed in from openings above her, but Olivia ignored all that. She kept running, passing through an ancient armory seconds before the weight of the collapsing tower brought it crashing down.

Ordinarily it was bad practice to trust the IFF sensors in all her little traps and turrets. It was unwise to put your life in the hands of a sensor with less processing power running it than most computation surfaces. There was no time to think about that now, no time to vary her route.

I guess Celestia is better at this than Twilight. She had a backup plan. Olivia had chosen this tower for good reason. She didn’t have to go more than a dozen steps before she passed the stairwell leading down into the darkness, and she charged. She passed a dead-eyed stallion on the ground as she ran, blood pooling from where he’d been blown to pieces by a concealed mine. Olivia knew there were more mines in this hallway, and she could only pray they would get her signal.

After a few more terrible seconds of shaking, the shaft above her closed in a landslide of broken stone and splintered wood. Whatever weapon Celestia had used, she had apparently stopped. I’m too deep, asshole. You’ll have to come down after me.

Olivia had left plenty of weapons hidden down here. She shoved aside a ruined bookshelf, dragging out the large satchel there. A shoulder-mounted rocket was inside, the same kind she might use to stop a tank.

Obviously not the best weapon to be using underground, shaped charge notwithstanding. Olivia hoisted it anyway, securing the straps in a rush and setting off down the hall again. What she really had to do was reach the pony weapon. Either she would get to the armor before Celestia did, and have it to fight, or Celestia would get there first... and Olivia would have her right where she wanted her.

She made her way cautiously past what had once been the cells of a dungeon, though the iron had rotted away to a pile of rusting debris. Past another ramp, and down to the final gauntlet.

The armor wasn’t out on display, where one of the unicorns might easily target it for teleportation. It was buried down here, hidden under as much rubble as Olivia had been able to move. She would have to get it out from all that. The room was massive—at least fifty meters in all directions. She didn’t have a clue what the ancient ponies had kept down here, but it must’ve been dangerous. The stone in its walls was some of the strongest in the whole castle.

There were mounted guns around the room, and they all swiveled to point at her, though none fired. It was a good thing they didn’t actually rely on the control circuitry she had been using in the tower, or else Olivia wouldn’t have been able to come down here either.

How did Celestia know where to find me?

There was a flash of light from behind her, and suddenly the room was a blinding wave of sound and violence. Turrets from every corner of the room fired over Olivia’s head, blasting something she couldn’t see.

She didn’t stop to watch. This was her chance to get at the armor. Olivia smashed one hoof against a detonator on the far wall, one she had planted for just such an occasion. Behind her, the entire shaft collapsed. The turrets stopped firing.

Well, for a second, they did.

There was another flash of light, and something appeared in the air above the pile of debris. A pair of ponies, protected by a shimmering bubble of force. The turrets swiveled to point at them, and more gunshots thundered through the room. Olivia added one more little explosion to the mix with the single rocket mounted to her shoulder, cowering behind the broken stone as the room shook. She crawled out of the straps—no point trying to keep wearing them.

The turrets kept firing as she finally dragged the helmet out, ignoring the square of plastic that fell to the ground at her hooves and shoving the helmet onto her head like it was a life-preserver and she were about to drown. The awful echoing sound of gunshots faded to dull background as armor enveloped her, wrapping around every part of her body like a rusty metallic skin.

She rose in time to see the last of her turrets crumble into a molten heap, broken with a few splashes and pops of unspent ordinance. Her new vision cut through the shimmering purple energy, giving her a good look at the ponies within. Neither looked so much as scratched by her assault.

They landed atop the pile of rubble a moment later, staring down at her. Princess Celestia’s mane seemed to be burning again. How could Twilight fly so close without the wax melting right off her wings?

She could understand them easily now, and it didn’t matter whether they wanted her to. “You’ve stolen a powerful weapon,” Celestia said, her mane blasting out from behind her as the little bubble became fully transparent. Olivia could still somehow sense its outlines now, like a barrier of invisible pressure in the room around them. “But we do not make weapons that can be turned against their creators. You will not be able to harm either of us with that. You are as good as captured.”

Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t, but at least the Armor seemed to be protecting her mind. There was no more resisting Celestia’s words, no pressure against her thoughts. She could be herself without the struggle.

Unlike the shield Starlight had made in the slaver’s den, theirs hadn’t cracked, despite all the weapons she had pointed at it. I’ve got one thing they probably can’t stop. I’ll have to set it off before they realize. Sorry Twilight.

“We’ll see,” Olivia said. She had the armor—but she didn’t think the ponies had any reason to lie to her. If she stopped to fight them, she wouldn’t get to use her other option.

Besides, she was supposed to die over a week ago. Olivia pressed the button on the detonator she had hidden in her helmet, the one resting by her hoof. Light consumed her.

She appeared on the ground outside. She saw the cloud rising from where the bottom of the castle had been, as the whole ruin collapsed. A storm of dust billowed out, showering the ground all around them with little bits of rock and other debris.

Something jerked around her head, and the helmet went tumbling away from her. As it did, the armor faded away like smoke blown away in a breeze. She was suddenly naked before the tyrant, without so much as a knife.

Princess Celestia towered over her, mere meters away. Her eyes flashed, and in their glittering depths Olivia imagined she could see the vengeful will of some Old-Testament God. “You are the one who stole away Flurry Heart. You are the one who has been gambling with Equestria’s safety. You are the one who has been inviting Harmony to destroy us.” Her voice did not boom through the air—even so, it cut Olivia to the heart. There was more of that same pain here, that incredible disappointment.

Twilight stood just behind her. “You could have killed Starlight Glimmer, attacking her the way you did. You did kill nine royal guards. What did any of them do to you? Why do you hate us so much?”

She felt that strange force in her mind again. Even so, Olivia was used to it by now. She wouldn’t let it force her to say anything she didn’t want to. “I… don’t,” she croaked. “I just want… to be safe. That’s all.”

“If that is what you wanted, then you will have it,” Celestia said.

Olivia shivered, wondering if this was the moment Equestria’s Tyrant would try something more forceful to penetrate her mind. But it didn’t come.

“Equestria has a prison, one reserved for those who have almost brought destruction upon many. You will remain there until you die, as safe as anypony can be. This is my judgement.”

“Wait!” Twilight pleaded, her voice desperate, urgent. “We don’t have to do this, Princess! She isn’t as bad as some! She didn’t attack ordinary ponies, she ran away! She tried to warn us, and we didn’t listen! We shouldn’t treat her like Tirek.”

“It is the most we can give,” Celestia said. “Her actions have put Equestria in serious danger. The only option we have is to banish her to where she can do no more harm.”

“But—”

Olivia didn’t hear what Twilight said next. Celestia’s horn began to glow, as brilliantly as it had when she attacked the tower. Olivia felt the magic—but it wasn’t like what had just happened. It wasn’t a teleport. There was a brief surge of heat, a momentary flash of pain, then nothing.

Olivia drifted.

She couldn’t have said for how long—time was a meaningless thing here. She was a minnow, passing through a terrible ocean. Dark things swam around her, vast beyond her comprehension. She did not think on how strange it was that she was here—she didn’t think of much of anything.

She didn’t have senses, exactly. She couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel. It was like the split second before she woke from a dream, stretched into forever. She kept trying to wake, but she couldn’t.

With nothing else to do, her mind drifted into memory. She saw again her life in the ISMU. Saw the campaigns she had fought, her victories, the triumphs that had brought her to the Pioneering Society. Her life in Landfall, and more. She watched her own memories with a detached disinterest, not understanding why she would want to relive anything, but not cogent enough to try and resist. Why should she bother?

She was dead, after all.

She couldn’t have said how long it went on. She watched until the moment before her death—saw the pity in Celestia’s eyes, the pain in Twilight’s face. Did the other princess know what Celestia was about to do?

Olivia was on her hooves again. Hooves, dammit. Her senses came back to her in a wave—though it was so bright here, she could barely see. Water gurgled happily nearby, and there was something firm under her hooves. Glass, maybe?

Welcome to Convalescence, Olivia Fischer, said a voice from all around her, cheerful and friendly. She found herself imagining it as an older male voice, wise and experienced. But she couldn’t know if that was actually present in what she heard, or just what she expected.

There was still nothing to see. She looked down—noticed her fur, looking washed out and pale. “I’m supposed to be dead,” she said, finding her voice sounded the same as she remembered it. Death had not restored even that part of her humanity.

There was a brief silence. She could feel the sense of being watched, of a presence getting closer to her. But she still couldn’t see it, even as her eyes adjusted to the light. She was standing on an endless plane—in all directions there was perfect, uniform white, and reflective. No other shapes—not natural formations, not buildings, not people. She was alone.

“You are,” came the eventual response, sounding a little closer. “Your physical instrument was destroyed by citizen Celestia, approximately eighty-six nanoseconds ago. Would you like to see?”

The space in front of her was transformed—the ground under her hooves became the wooden bridge, and a sloping hill to a broken castle up ahead. Olivia stood by, watching as Celestia pointed her horn at… Olivia herself. She fired, filling the field with white.

She saw as the ground all around herself turned briefly molten with energy.

A second later, she gasped as she saw a skeleton drop to the ground where she had been standing. It wasn’t the real one—that had evidently been atomized. But the reinforced-fiber was much more heat-tolerant than bone. It glowed bright white, ash forming on the edges as they cooled, a pair of empty eye-sockets steaming as they looked up at the princess.

Everyone froze after that, with Twilight turning to face the princess, betrayal on her face.

“I cannot show you more, as no more has occurred.”

Olivia turned away from her skeleton, from the scene of death before her. “If I’m in heaven, I should be… myself.” She held up a hoof. “If you’re God, change me back, please. I lived like this long enough.”

“I do not understand,” said the voice. “You have never been anything else, Olivia. You could be younger… but that is the only other state your body has occupied. Before this, you were nothing.”

Olivia slumped forward onto the ground. She was dead, then. And I’m a pony. This is hell.

There was no reason to fight anymore. Still, this didn’t strike her like the way any god she had known about would behave. Death was supposed to be the rest from all care, or maybe a judgement. Neither seemed to be waiting here—she still felt all the same anxieties she had moments before. Still worried about Othar, and its ponies who would now have to survive without her.

Good luck against Celestia, you guys. If I couldn’t beat her, I don’t know what chance you have.

Whatever the voice was, it seemed content to let her brood as long as she wanted. It didn’t speak until she had finished. “It has been a long time since the biological instrument of one without a past has come to Equus, Olivia. I’m afraid I can’t offer you the return of your memories and the opportunity to rejoin with the companionship of your colleagues you left behind. You have no memories beyond those you already carry, and no relationship with any of Equus’s citizens here.”

“Great,” Olivia said, waving one hoof. “Unless you’re going to make me human again, I don’t care. Just leave me be.”

“Very well,” the voice said. “Speak if you wish for me. I will hear you.” And it was gone. Olivia turned around, as if to glare at the one she knew would be standing over her shoulder—but there was no one there. Even the frozen copies of herself were gone, and the eerie sight of her still-steaming skeleton. I wonder if this is how it is for everyone. An insistent, annoying voice tormenting them for all eternity with what they can’t have.

She lay there moping for a time—a very, very long time. Whatever else might be true of death, she felt no hunger here, no tiredness. She didn’t ever need to relieve herself—which was probably for the best. On an infinite, perfectly flat plane, it probably would’ve been a bad idea to piss on something.

She had no context to judge the passing of time. There was no sun in the sky, no variation in the world around her. Just herself, the endless expanse of white, and her thoughts.

Eventually she rose to her hooves and started walking. She didn’t have a particular destination in mind—but walking was better than sitting. It was good to be moving.

Maybe sometimes she flew, she couldn’t say. She could still do that—she still had her wings, even if she was naked here in the void. It was something to do.

Eventually, she heard someone walking beside her. Only two footsteps, instead of four. She spun around, staring up at…

Something. Olivia had never seen anything like this creature. It was like someone had dropped a mortar on a taxidermist’s shop, several different creatures all grafted together. It looked down at her, grinning. “I was wondering when you would notice me here.”

He didn’t sound like the strange voice she had heard—he sounded almost normal. Male, deeper than a pony, a little mischievous perhaps. But normal. “Are you the devil? Come to torment me for all the people I killed?”

“No,” the strange creature said. “The one you’re talking about is an insufferable dullard. Another crate of whips to whip the sinners again! Got to keep Phlegethon boiling. You’d think he would grow bored of gnashing up the same three people for all eternity, but then what would I know.”

Then Olivia remembered something. Lucky had described a creature like this to her—it was the thing she had said had saved her, Melody, and Lightning Dust from Celestia’s weapon. The one who had dropped them in the sky outside Othar, but hadn’t been able to save Karl. “Oh. You’re Discord, aren’t you?”

He grinned. “My reputation precedes me.” He made an exaggerated bow. “Pleasure to meet you too, my little knife. Shame your plan with Celestia didn’t work, but you still did good work.”

The white was gone from around them again. Olivia suddenly found herself falling—she spread her wings, catching herself in the air. They were above the castle. What would’ve happened if I fell?

Far below, the ruin was under siege. Olivia and some old hardware were holding off an entire pony army. She watched a few of them die, taken by stray bullets or a few too many shots in their primitive armor.

“You didn’t take care of the Alicorns, but you did put on quite the show for the army. Walking all over them like this—imagine the stories this is going to spread. So many ponies are going to realize how helpless they are. Maybe some of Equestria’s enemies will hear the stories too, and decide it’s time for another try at invasion. I wonder which side will change first.” He looked up, smiling at her. “Either way, good work. No more stagnation. After today, they change. Assuming Harmony doesn’t kill them all, of course.”

The vision faded, and solid ground settled under her hooves again. “You aren’t… here to judge me, then?” Olivia asked, keeping her wings spread in case this creature decided to make the world disappear again. Was he the voice I heard earlier? Or was that someone else?

“Of course not. You didn’t do any real damage. Those ponies aren’t any more dead than you are.” He sighed, turning away. “You think you’ve worked it out so that no one will ever be lost to eternity again, and you all have to roll in and ruin things. Well… I suppose those weren’t the first cases.”

He turned back to face her, and there was a smile on his face she didn’t like. “Your probe’s first attempts all died too, didn’t they? But they weren’t enough like us for me to notice. I suppose even an immortal can get caught up in old ruts… but if it makes you feel better, there’s nothing I could’ve done for them anyway. They never had the right equipment to interface with Equus.”

If seeing Discord wasn’t enough evidence for her to dismiss her present situation as some kind of religious afterlife for good, this was. “If I’m not dead, where am I? No, wait, I don’t care. If I’m not dead, you can send me back. I know what to expect from Celestia this time—I won’t lose.”

“Doubt it,” Discord said, rolling his eyes. “But it’s irrelevant either way. I’m not the system with the power to return you to the external world. Right now, Equus is locked up tighter than Fluttershy's cabin on Nightmare Night. The only way out is the biological one… and it’s a long line. Pony society regulates its population well, so they don’t need to expand into new land. That means all those who care about what goes on out there have to wait.”

Suddenly he was beside her. How he could hold his face so low, inches away from hers, Olivia couldn’t say. She backed away with a gasp, meeting those huge yellow orbs.

“I think I can find you a place. You’ll have to wait…” He straightened, glancing down at an imaginary place on one wrist. He didn’t wear a watch. “Ten months, or thereabouts? And so long as we’re in lockdown, you won’t have any of your memories. Not until you get back here, and… well, it’s a vicious cycle. Feel the frustration—it’s been my constant companion for longer than you can imagine.”

Olivia stopped walking. She plopped onto her rump, glaring up at Discord. “You know what’s really going on, don’t you? You can tell me why Celestia hates us so much! How to beat her!”

“I could,” he said, grinning at her. “But it’s a waste of my time. You can’t tell them, you see. Not only that, but you’re useless to me now. Your mind is in the system, Olivia Fischer. Harmony will prevent you from interfering with it now, forever. Even if you do return, you won’t be able to lift a hoof to release us from this prison.”

She muttered something obscene. But that was it—there was no point getting violent. Was she really going to attack the one being who had the power to give the answers her colony desperately needed?

Not that it does me much good. Right now, I would have no way of sharing what I learn. Then again, this Discord creature could interact with the outside world, apparently to great effect. Outside what, exactly?

“Then why are you here? If not to help me?”

“I can’t believe the disrespect!” He raised one paw to his chest, his face a parody of an insulted French aristocrat. “I do you the courtesy of concealing you from Luna, and all she might do to extract knowledge from you, and this is how you act?” He folded his arms. “You’re lucky you're not the reason I’m doing this, or I’d stop right now. If she found you here, do you think you’d be able to keep knowledge from her now?” His laughter was the only answer she needed.

“I… I don’t understand,” she stammered, rising again. She tried to speak a little more slowly this time—even if she couldn’t tell for sure if Discord’s threat was genuine. He certainly sounded like he meant it. “Where am I? Can you at least tell me that?”

“Well, I suppose I could do that. You were never the one I counted on, but you did bring so much Chaos to Equestria. Assuming it matters…” He snapped his claws together, and it sounded like fingers.

Olivia was instantly overwhelmed. She had seen this once before—the city that rose above her into eternity, tiered layers somehow inverted, existing in dimensions her mind could not comprehend. Structures and people and vehicles as diverse as her imagination, and many more she couldn’t imagine. They seemed to reach well beyond where a planet’s atmosphere would be. Buildings overlapped, melting into each other without anything to unify their behavior. Billions of creatures conversed, horns blared, music played, food cooked. Everything that was civilization, but more. This was what Earth might’ve looked like in a million years.

Olivia collapsed to the ground shaking, and covered her face. There was too much—too many sensations, too much pressure against her soul. It wasn’t like the thin slice of this place she’d seen when she got her cutie mark—this was something her mind was not fit to comprehend. But closing her eyes didn’t help—she could still see the city, somehow. Still feel its unimaginable numbers. They were still there, somehow watching her.

“You’re standing in the answer to a question, Olivia. What do you do with your intergalactic civilization when an unstoppable enemy starts exterminating every kind of life from one end of the universe to the other. Oh, there were so many possible answers—we probably tried all of them, somewhere. I hope some of the other ones worked.” He trailed off, and in an instant the incredible city was gone.

Olivia was left alone with him in the endless white. For a long time, she just sprawled there, flopping to one side, and recovering from the strain on her mind.

Discord spoke slowly, apparently understanding her pain. “Well, I can’t tell you how the other solutions fared—can’t tell you how many survived. But we did. What you saw—I don’t think you could comprehend just how many of us there are. When I say there are more than a quadrillion souls in here, what does that mean to you? I could tell you about reversible computing, I could tell you about the Landauer limit, but you aren’t equipped to understand. How could you?”

His voice came into her ear then, a low whisper. “You’re the fourth-youngest person in the universe, Olivia. Compared to you, the smallest newborn you spied on with one of your drones is an ancient, wizened crone. Do not feel inadequate that you cannot understand the heights of our world. In time, you will.”

Olivia got her hooves under her again, shaking her head once to clear it. She felt a bit better—but then, why shouldn’t she? She was dead, after all. What could hurt her?

“If that’s true, then why is Equestria so primitive? Why would anyone want to be out there, instead of in here?”

Discord shrugged. “The supermajority doesn’t. They see a future of years you can’t comprehend, and they are content. But in a sample this large, there’s bound to be a few pioneers. Fewer than one in every million, Olivia. Harmony has no need to imprison them in here—but out there? Outside, they’re a danger. They must be contained, restricted… reduced until they’re such a small subset of themselves that they’re barely recognizable. Yet they do it anyway—even knowing Harmony will not allow them to change anything. Even strange eons could not exterminate the irrationality of hope.”

The world around them shifted again. Olivia braced herself for something else terrible and impossible to comprehend… but it didn’t come. Instead the world resolved into a place that was almost familiar to her. It looked a great deal like the town of Ponyville, at least from what she remembered of it from the hospital window.

Only, this Ponyville seemed to go on forever in all directions. It was a settlement large enough for billions, sloping slightly upward into a horizon that never quite stole it from view. To Olivia’s imagination, it seemed as though someone had built along the inside of the ring, with primitive society here at the bottom and increasing advancement further and further away. The incredible, alien city was out there in the distance, somewhere… but how long would it take her to walk to it?

“Discord!” She heard ponies from nearby—there was a little square behind her, and a little gathering going about their business inside. Nearest her, an orangish earth pony was selling apples at a stall, while many others had been going about their lives.

The voice wasn’t a plea, or a shout of fear, though—the ponies were cheering. The orange pony rushed up from her stall, eyes eager. “What news do you have, Discord?” She spared a single glance for Olivia. “And who’s this?”

“Someone who was helping us,” Discord said to the assembled crowd, smiling out at them all. They gathered around from every street, cheering, showering him with praise, filling the air with their questions. “Now, now, my friends. I cannot stay. I ask only that you take good care of our newest friend, Olivia. If Luna comes looking for her, you must not allow her to be discovered. Can you do that?”

“Of course we can,” said the orange mare from nearby. “Any friend of yours is a friend of ours, Discord. You know that.” The sentiment was repeated by everypony in sight. Some of their praise seemed to be rubbing off on her, too.

“Excellent,” Discord said. “Sadly, I cannot stay to converse with you all. My inattention will be noticed. I wish you all to know that we are very close. It should take only a few days to know if my plan has succeeded. And if it fails… I expect all Equestria will be joining us. So at least we’ll have the rest of them back.”

“In prison!” shouted an angry-looking pegasus from the air.

“Yes, well. It’s not what I would call a victory. But it’s much more likely to occur if I remain here, so, good day!” He vanished in an exaggerated puff of smoke.

The crowd dispersed, obvious disappointment in their posture—except for a few. The orange earth pony approached her, extending a hoof. “I’m Pear Butter,” she said, smiling in that infuriatingly friendly way only ponies could. “Welcome to the afterlife.”

Author's Note

I really wanted to structure the story so that the first scene was at the end of this chapter, and we saw some other perspectives instead leading up to it. Ultimately, it felt too cruel with all the other cliffhangers and stuff I've had lately.

G7.01: Army of One

“I assume… you’ve already done everything you can for her. Medically, I mean,” Melody whispered, as she walked into Martin’s lab. She felt sheets of paper crunching under her hooves, covering almost every inch of floor space. Whatever Martin had done, she had been excited about it.

“Naturally,” said one of the drones ahead of her, the plain white plastic ones that looked a little like mannequins. They looked far less “human” than the single synthsleeve that Forerunner had copied something like his own mind into. “I know your medical knowledge is inadequate. Even Dr. Born would be little use in this case, I’m afraid.”

“Then why am I here?” Melody asked, walking slowly as she approached Martin. The scientist didn’t seem to see her so much as she’d seen the motion of the door. Her eyes followed nothing, and she seemed to focus on other points in the room entirely at random. “To… comfort her?”

As she said that, Martin straightened again. “Cover your heads! Don’t try to watch, just keep moving! We have to make it to the Datamine!” Light seemed to glow up from around her—from her forehead, her wings, her cutie mark. Her cutie mark changed, there was another flash, and lightning streaked out from around her, burning straight through the pillows and blankets and leaving them still smoldering.

One of the orderly robots helpfully extended a canister, blasting the area around Martin with white foam.

Datamine? That word pierced the confusion. The Datamine was where her clone had gone with Flurry Heart, wasn’t it?

“That would be a desirable outcome,” Forerunner said. “But ultimately I expect the phantom sensations to pass. I disconnected her from the data as soon as it became clear she was having an adverse reaction. It appears she is continuing to experience the recording even after I terminated contact. I do not understand why.”

“What about…” Melody edged closer cautiously, trying to get close enough to inspect the patterns burned into the floor. They looked like they might be words in Eglathrin, or at least might have the language incorporated in their design. Unfortunately, she was the wrong clone to be reading them. “What’s going on with her… we don’t have ass implants, do we?”

“You do not,” the Forerunner said. “Beyond the standard muscle augmentation and skeletal graft. If you’re asking what is producing that glow, I cannot provide a satisfactory answer. I believe ‘magic’ is the native term.”

“That is unhelpful.” Melody waved one of her hooves. “Hey, Martin. Can you hear me in there? Paging Dr. Faraday, you have a patient waiting.”

“She wasn’t a medical doctor,” said a white drone, without a hint of irony in its tone.

Melody wasn’t that surprised to see Martin turn to face her again. Her cutie mark flashed several times, before eventually settling on her own Fibonacci spiral mark. The glazed look began to fade from her eyes, and she pulled her legs in close, rocking slowly back and forth. “Melody,” she said, sounding broken. “I can hear their screams, Melody. They tried to… God, the flames… Do you think that’s what happened to Earth?”

Martin’s cutie mark flashed and sparked one last time, but it didn’t change.

Melody settled down on her haunches beside the shivering astronomer. “I know the others are off risking their lives, but you shouldn’t have done this alone. I think even Dorothy would’ve wanted to be here.”

Martin didn’t answer for a long time. Her eyes still seemed to have trouble focusing. “There were humans on Sanctuary. We thought… but how couldn’t there be. Forerunner program wasn’t just looking for planets! There are billions of rocks out there to choose from! We wanted to seek out new life, new civilizations! What’s more interesting than a Niven Ring?”

Martin sat up, shoving past Melody towards the door. “I have to warn them! They’re going to bring Harmony down on all of us! We’ll be trapped here like they are, banging on the walls of a silicon prison! We have to warn them Harmony kn—”

Time itself seemed to slow. Melody saw a flash, as though something inside Martin’s chest had started glowing. She couldn’t tell what it was—she couldn’t react nearly fast enough for that.

But Forerunner could. Every single one of the medical robots jumped on top of Melody, shoving her backward behind a desk and covering up as much of her as they could. She barely had the time to feel the impact before an explosion shook through the room, causing excruciating pain in her ears and breaking the world into an endless ringing agony.

Melody screamed, though she couldn’t hear her own voice as she did so. The room smelled awful—like overcooked steak. She felt herself move—a stretcher slipped under her, and orderly robots lifted her in their hands.

There was a crater in the front of the room, where Martin had been standing. There was an opening down into fabrication below. There was no trace of Martin at all besides the patterns burned into every surface in the lab.

The pain and shock were too intense—she slumped to one side, unconscious.

“When we talked over the radio, you said something about a map. The one that led Flurry Heart and me to the ruins, I think. That wouldn’t happen to be this map, would it?”

Princess Twilight Sparkle took a long time to answer. She’d had quite the emotional beating over the last hour—they had been beaten together for some parts of it.

Whatever our plan is, we have to give her some time to recover first. She looks like she might collapse.

“It wasn’t, but it is now,” she muttered, unhelpfully. “It mostly shows us where to go for friendship problems.”

Lucky looked past her to the map. When she spoke, it was in Eglathrin, clear enough that Twilight gasped. “Location of Primary Datamine,” she announced. If this is anything like the map in the Transit Hub…

The map reacted instantly, zooming out from the surface of Equestria until it displayed the entire Equus ring. It didn’t immediately focus on the Datamine, though. Instead, a voice came from the table, reverberating from the crystal of the room all around them. “Citizen permissions required for data access.”

The table in front of Lucky faded to a dull gray, though in front of Twilight it remained just as bright.

Twilight’s mouth opened and closed several times before she formed coherent words. “H-how do you know how to speak the forbidden language?”

“Equus taught me, while I was with Flurry Heart. Didn’t she tell you that?”

“I…” Twilight’s voice got very small. “I haven’t seen her since she got back. Princess Celestia wouldn’t let anyone see her. Except Luna. Cadance tries to talk to her through the door, but…”

“Pathetic,” Lightning Dust said. “But we’ll deal with it. Won’t we, squirt?”

“Somehow,” Lucky agreed. “Can you speak Eglathrin, Twilight?”

“I…” She sighed. “Not very much. No matter how much I studied, I could never get it to stick. Lately there’s been other things to think about.”

“Disregard instruction,” Lucky said to the table, speaking clearly again. It returned to the bright, even map of Equestria. “Location of Harmony Control.” Same effect—the map zoomed out, and the voice came on with the same imperative.

“I think it… I think it wants your permission,” Lucky said. “It won’t show me where we need to go without your approval.” Hopefully Twilight had citizen access. Is it all Alicorns, or just some? Flurry Heart had been able to access systems in the transit hub Lucky couldn’t, even if she was the one who could understand what they said.

“Go ahead,” Twilight said, not even looking up at the map. “Show her what she wants to see.”

Lucky didn’t expect a response, but to her surprise one came anyway. The table flashed. “Command registered with credentials of citizen Twilight Sparkle.”

The map zoomed back in, color returning as it did so. Lucky despaired at first, as the view looked much the same. Equestria again? Did that mean that the thing she wanted didn’t exist?

But the view kept zooming in, directly on the center of the map. Canterlot filled the entire table, its buildings displayed in vivid detail. She could even see ponies flying, and a few cloud houses tethered to the city with long, thin lines between them.

It kept zooming in, towards the massive palace set into the stones. Through the walls, like they weren’t even there. Through a thick vaulted door with glowing runes set into it not unlike the ones Flurry Heart had helped her unlock.

“Canterlot Tower?” Something had broken Twilight from her stupor again, because she watched the map with the same intensity Lucky did. “I haven’t been in there since Discord escaped his prison the first time. Princess Celestia thought the Elements of Harmony were… in… there…” She trailed off, eyes widening. “Oh.”

Down a spiral staircase, there was a massive metallic archway, made of the strange unidentifiable substance they had seen in Transit. The whole facility was already lit, its planters well-maintained and water running in its fountains.

There were ponies down here, though not many of them. They wandered through the space with a constant, fearful look on their faces, avoiding every wall and every surface. There was tons of pony furniture down here, as though hastily dragged in from the world above. None of the actual machines seemed in use, and many (such as the map) had barriers around them to prevent ponies from accidentally getting too close. The ponies look like cavemen squatting in a skyscraper.

Most of the space in the massive atrium was empty, but a single office was lit. Lucky Break felt her breath catch in her chest as she saw the unicorn sitting behind an awkward wooden desk in the center of the office. She had seen this pony once before, in a Stormshire hospital room.

“Her,” Lightning Dust muttered, anger boiling in her voice.

“Moondancer?” Twilight said, mostly to herself.

The pony jolted up from her seat, moving almost as fast as Lucky just had. Her voice was panicked, afraid. “Twilight?”

The image faded moments later.

Shit, did she hear us?

“I guess I shouldn’t be… that surprised,” Lucky Break said, as the map zoomed back out to return to the image of Equestria from above. “The other civilization I visited had its capital built on one of the ring facilities. Come to think of it, that’s kinda what the Crystal Empire did too.”

She turned away from the map, glaring out the window the same way Twilight had been looking during their last conversation. She could barely make out the suggestion of a distant city on the mountain there, though it might just be in her imagination. “I was really hoping it would be out in the middle of nowhere. I’m sure Perez would love to fight through Canterlot Castle to get to the tower…”

To her surprise, Princess Twilight still seemed to be listening, because she spoke up from behind her. “Didn’t you tell me you and Flurry Heart rode from one part of the ruins to a completely different part? If we do that, no more ponies have to get hurt. Not that… I could walk right into the castle easily. But I’ve never tried going back into the tower. I’m guessing they’d try to stop me. The runes on the door might even stop me on their own, I didn’t get the chance to read them.”

Lucky felt a smile spreading across her lips. “Princess, that sounds like a perfect plan.

Where had this sudden supply of resolve come from? Even as she watched, Twilight rose to her hooves. “Spike, pack supplies for both of us. We’re going to the Crystal Empire.”

“Not… quite what I was expecting,” Olivia said, as the crowd began to disperse around them. She kept her voice down anyway. The alien creature Discord had done very little to inspire her confidence, but Pear Butter was different. She just looked like the sort of pony that could be trusted.

“You mean the Eternal Herd?” Pear Butter asked, rolling her eyes a little. “Ponies stampeding around an infinite field of friendship and love?”

“Uh…” Olivia shook her head. “Not quite.” She sat on her haunches in the square, scanning it from all directions. Nothing seemed particularly divine or eternal about any of it—the primitive village might as well be Ponyville, or any other Equestrian settlement.

“I guess I always thought… dunno, maybe God would be here? A chorus of angels would be singing… harps on clouds? I don’t see harps on clouds anywhere.”

Pear Butter grinned. “I know a pegasus who can play the harp. We could go see him, see if he’ll play for you.”

Olivia couldn’t help herself—she laughed. Maybe this wasn’t what she had been expecting from the afterlife, but the important part was still there. Success or failure was out of her hands now, or so it seemed.

“I don’t think I need it. I wasn’t much for religion, so it doesn’t really bother me that it was wrong about something. Maybe you can explain what’s really going on? I am dead, right?”

“Why don’t you come with me, sugarcube. I can give you the tour… as much as we understand it. You’ll have to be a smart one if you want to wrap your head around everything, though.”

“I don’t need to understand everything. But it would be nice to know where this is. If it isn’t heaven…”

They didn’t have to walk very far. A strange bit of hexagonal metal was on the ground near a street corner. A raised metallic surface was in front of it, with something like a keyboard set into it. The keys were raised hexagons arranged in circles about the size of a hoof.

Pear Butter stepped up onto the marked metal plate, moving to one side so there was room for Olivia to follow. She did, watching as Pear Butter rested one hoof on the keyboard, then rocked it in all directions, pressing a sequence of a dozen keys with practiced ease. “You must do this a lot.”

“Whenever Discord has somepony he wants to tuck away,” she answered, lifting her other hoof to the keyboard and adding a few more symbols to the sequence. With each press, symbols on the ground began to light up. “It’s easier than letting them get lost in the slide. Given the choice, most ponies end up drifting away after one lifetime. Too much exposure to what’s up there, and… well, you don’t want to come back.”

“Up…” Olivia already knew where to look. This was the alien part of this place, the one suggestion that she was standing somewhere impossible. This village looked to be on a lower slope of an infinitely wide, gradual mountain, topped with a city that went on forever. She could not see much of that forever, since the buildings obscured it.

But ahead of her, she could see further. Structures that grew taller, their outlines only bare suggestions at this distance. Some looked vaguely like skyscrapers, but many were in much stranger shapes. “Up there?”

“Yes,” Pear Butter said. “You might leave too. Just because Discord likes you doesn’t mean you can resist Harmony’s tricks.”

There was a flash, and suddenly they were somewhere else. There was no discomfort, as there had been when she’d been brought out of the castle. It was just a change of scenery.

The endless city was gone, though they were still on a mountain slope. They were standing at the base of a stone monastery, framed by snowy peaks in the distance. Olivia could faintly hear the sound of music from inside. “If Discord had left me here, I might’ve believed I was in heaven.” She gestured with a wing. “This was more what I was expecting. Well, this, and looking like me.”

She sighed, ears flattening a little. “Can’t being dead at least give me some dignity?”

“I don’t understand.” Pear Butter stepped down from the polished metal plate, onto a cobblestone path leading towards the monastery. “What’s wrong with how you look?”

“I’m the wrong species!” she practically shouted, rearing up onto her hind legs. She flapped her wings, trying to keep herself in a bipedal position as long as she could. But that didn’t seem to help. Not only that, but she seemed to have lost her implants, because she couldn’t stand up for more than a few seconds before falling back onto four hooves.

“The wrong… species?” If Olivia had expected shock from Pear Butter, she didn’t get it. Only confusion. “Your Qualia always uses your last body as a model, I think. Did something… go wrong? Are you a griffon, or maybe a changeling?”

“I’m human,” she said. “I don’t even know how we’re able to talk right now. My Eoch was grade school at best. Right now, I should be walking around on two legs, taller than anyone here. Uh… no fur, no cutie mark…”

Pear Butter chuckled. “Well now I know something must be wrong with your memory. Whatever you were must’ve had a system registration, or you really would be with the Eternal Herd right now, instead of safe here.” She turned back to the monastery, gesturing again. “Come on then, Olivia. Maybe we can find what a ‘human’ is in the database.”

There was no sense resisting someone who wanted to help. Pear Butter was not the source of her frustration. If dying and ending up here left me a pony, does that mean poor Karl is still a woman too?

“Oh, and one more thing—can you help me find someone? A… friend… of mine died a few months ago. I would like to see her again.”

“Sure!” Pear Butter pushed the door open with one hoof. “But this is so much all at once, Olivia. Can we split this up? Let’s visit the temple first, then we can see about finding you a database to look up any of your friends. If I don’t know how to help, I’m right sure my husband can.”

“Thanks,” Olivia said, following reluctantly behind. What was she so nervous about, anyway? She was already dead, and so was Karl. A few more minutes to go through things the way this pony wanted wouldn’t make it worse.

Still, she let herself hope. She said we could change how I look. I could be human again. She put aside questions of where the other races were, along with many others. She would have plenty of time for that.

“I know this might be a little borin’ for you,” Pear Butter said, almost as though she was reading her thoughts. “You’ve got concerns, and I rightly understand that. Ponies you care about back in Equestria. Well, I do too. Most of us do, that’s why we’re here.”

They stepped into the monastery. As they did, the sound of singing abruptly vanished, with no trace of a source. Most of it looked fairly primitive, what she would’ve expected for the exterior. But there were sheets of glass set into the ground at regular intervals, obvious screens, and another plate of metal similar to the one they’d just stepped on. This one didn’t have a keyboard though, just a single button.

Then she looked up. The ceiling was adorned with thousands of levitating crystals, each one glowing a slightly different shade. They seemed to almost breathe as they walked into the single gigantic room. Was it Olivia’s imagination, or had they taken on her yellow and blue color, along with the peach shades of Pear Butter?

“Well, first few questions first. I’m sorry if ya have some of this figured already… we get a lot a dead ponies through here, and you can never quite be sure what they know. It’ll be easier if you just let me get the whole thing out in one go.”

“Alright,” Olivia said. “Just so long as you answer my questions after.”

“Right.”

Pear Butter led her slowly through the eerily silent monastery. Well, not quite silent. Their own hoofsteps echoed loudly with each step, and open windows somewhere above them seemed to lead to wind chimes somewhere. They filled the whole room with an eerie tinkling that echoed strangely from the sheets of glass, seeming to move as they walked.

“So, a right long time ago, ponies used to live and die, kinda how you expect. But they thought that was a rotten way to do things, so they came up with some magic. How it works ain’t important, but the important thing is that it makes it so anypony who’s connected to Harmony ends up here when their body stops workin’.”

“I think I figured that part out,” Olivia muttered. Even she was at least a little curious about how it worked, though she never would’ve admitted as much to any of her own ponies. Thank God none of them are here now. I wonder if you gave Karl this same lecture.

“Well, think of the afterlife as the biggest kingdom ever. Time don’t work the same way in here as it does out there—when Discord said it was only a few days, that’s a right long time. More an’ more the further ya go, but… I’m getting ahead of myself.

“The real point is, ponies… and other critters too, not just us. Anythin’ with a connection to Harmony. So… a bird wouldn’t, but a cow would, and… now I’m gettin’ ahead of myself again.” She stopped in front of the metal plate, blocking the way so Olivia couldn’t climb onto it. Not that she would have.

“It means that even though the life you just came from seems mighty important to ‘ya, it’s actually not the first one ‘ya had. Probably you’ve had more lives than the number of ponies living in Equestria. You’ve been things you couldn’t even dream of. You’ve been all kinds of ponies—good, bad, ugly… well, probably not too many bad.

“But probably some. The real point of all this, is that you’ve been living a real long time. The friends you had in Equestria are real, but… that’s about it. Everythin’ else there just don’t matter as much as ya think.”

She stepped up onto the little metal plate. As she did so, thousands of images appeared in the glass screens moving through the room. Many nearest to them looked like ponies—ponies of all tribes, wearing all kinds of different clothing. Most were mares, but not all. Most seemed friendly, but not all. And the shapes further and further up, the plates of glass hovering unsupported, that she could barely make out—those had stranger forms. Gelatinous things, with flashes of internal light. Vaguely animal things, even one that looked almost human. If humans had transparent, glowing skin.

“God almighty,” Olivia cursed, staring around at them all. “How many are there?”

Pear Butter ignored the question. “This is the Temple of the Infinite Self. It shows you a little of who you’ve been… every lifetime. Those ponies are you, but many of ‘em might not be a ‘you’ you can understand. It’s… not easy to explain.”

“I get it,” Olivia said. “But you’re not talking to who you think you are. I don’t have other lifetimes in here. I’m the first…” Except, maybe she wasn’t. Her ears flattened, and she took one step away from the metal plate. What about the other generations? There were two other instances of me… are they in here too?

“Everypony says that,” Pear Butter said. “It’s a natural defense against something like this. It can be overwhelming.” She stepped off the plate, and all the figures vanished from around the huge chamber. “Just step on and see. You aren’t gonna disappear, or… forget your memories, or anything like that. This is just a viewer… and anyway, that just ain’t the point of living.”

Olivia made her way over, but she didn’t actually obey. “Why not? People obviously don’t remember living other lifetimes, or you wouldn’t need to teach them all this.” She gestured up at all the glass with her wing. “If you don’t even remember all those people you used to be, how is Equestria not just dying over and over, just like anywhere else?”

“Oh, I see.” Pear Butter nodded to herself. “That’s another one ponies ask. Why don’t you step up, and I can explain it.”

So she did. Light filled the room, shining from each of the glass panes. A reflection of her appeared in the nearest one, holding a fire extinguisher and roaring in fury. That’s when I saved Lei.

Every single other screen was blank.

Pear Butter stared, glancing in shock between the one image and the plate. “Now that just ain’t right,” she muttered. “Try it again. And put all yer weight on it this time.”

Olivia’s fear vanished. The ghosts of her past selves would not be returning to haunt her today. She did as instructed. The image of her changed—this time, she was wearing the powered exoskeleton, broken pieces of it all around her, helmet off her face. When I freed the slaves.

“Well I’ll be.” Pear Butter slumped back on her haunches. “That really puts the nail in everything else I planned on sayin’.” She turned, eyes wide. “Where’d Discord drag you from, anyway?”

“I’m not a pony,” she said, a little more forcefully than before. “I came to Equus as an explorer. I haven’t lived any other lifetimes here.”

“Well then.” Pear Butter rose, turning sharply. “Guess we don’t need to go over all the rest. You ain’t a tiny piece of a larger mind who wanted to experience a different kinda life. You haven’t been slowly sliding back and forth between Harmony and Discord, deciding which one to be loyal to. Though I guess you’re here now, so you’ll have to start. We can skip to that part.”

“You said you’d answer my question,” Olivia said, as they left the same way they’d come. “How can you tell people that their past lives aren’t just dead? They didn’t remember them while they were alive, and they must not now.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Pear Butter didn’t even slow down. “They don’t remember ‘em because single-instance individuality is part of what defines life at this level. I can’t really understand much of that myself… but what I do know is that a part of you does remember. If you take a few more steps towards Harmony… which might not even work the same way for you, come to think… but if you could, you’d be able to be all the people you were, all at once. Or you already are, just simultaneously in…” She made a frustrated grunt. “Dangit, I’m sorry. I really wish I could explain it better.”

Olivia shrugged. “Like you said, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m new here. I’m not some… whatever you are. I’m human. And I still want to see the database you promised.”

“What about the last part?”

“We’re all caught between Harmony and Discord,” she repeated. “Probably some divine battle of wills, rising above our comprehension. I get it, and I choose Discord, because Harmony fucking murdered one of my friends. Just pretend you told me that part and move on.”

“Alright,” Pear Butter said, sounding unconvinced. “You don’t sound like you get it… but there isn’t a rush or anything. It’ll be a long time before we hear back from Discord. You can take a few of our years to work through it.” She lowered her voice a little. “Not one other lifetime. You’re actually just…” She shut her mouth abruptly. “Sorry, that’s rude. Let’s just… see about the database.”

Olivia followed her up onto the platform, and the two of them vanished.

It didn’t take them long to finish preparing—just until nightfall. That was fine—Lucky Break didn’t feel much like pressuring a pony who might revert from their side at any moment.

She used the time to get back in touch with the Speed of Thought.

“We’re going to have to tell Perez something,” Forerunner said, as soon as she had explained the basics. “He’s pressing me to know when we are going to rescue Olivia.”

“We’re going to lie,” Lucky said, in English. “Tell him that Olivia is… being held in the same place as Flurry Heart, in the maximum-security section of Canterlot’s dungeon. You can tell him about our plan to attack from the inside out.”

“Very well,” Forerunner said, sounding unconvinced. “Do you think he’ll try to kill you when he finds out?”

“I… I think he’s more rational than that,” she said. “So long as I can tell him after everything is over and we’ve made it through, I think he’ll understand we had to conceal the truth to keep focused on our goal.”

“Certainly,” Forerunner said. “It is not what might happen if we have careful control of all factors that I fear. But I do not see a better option, so I will comply.”

“Just be here to pick us up by nightfall. Set a roundabout course for the Crystal Empire, and don’t go anywhere near the Everfree. Wouldn’t want anyone to look out the window and see a burning castle.”

“Command accepted.”

After that, there was only one precaution left to take, one Lucky waited to implement until they were about to leave.

It was night outside Twilight’s castle, but hardly dark. The festival had resumed, its spirit even more subdued than last time. Lucky didn’t know how much Ponyville had heard about the disaster at the Castle of the Two Sisters, but they had to have heard it collapse. Maybe they had guessed how much worse things really were.

Twilight looked cleaned and fed, though still like she might be on the edge of emotional collapse. She didn’t carry any gear—evidently, she had left that task for Spike. He looked like he could barely lift the backpack on his shoulders. “There’s one more thing,” Lucky said, before they could step outside the castle’s massive doors. “Something important for all of you.”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We’re going to be around a lot of Olivia’s close friends. They need to be at their best. Nopony tell them about her… until we’re finished.”

“Makes sense,” Lightning Dust said.

Twilight just nodded, barely even listening.

“It’s not a very good idea to lie to your friends,” Spike said. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“I know,” Lucky said. “But… they’re very sensitive. If they’re heartbroken about losing one of their friends, they won’t be able to give us the help we need. I’m not asking you to lie, just to wait.”

“It’s fine,” Twilight Sparkle said, glowering at Spike. “We aren’t going to solve friendship problems. We’re going to save Equestria.”

“I’m just saying, we’ve been here before. Remember that time you tried to get me to be Rainbow Dash for the Elements of Harmony?”

“I also didn’t tell you who,” Lucky said. “Olivia was one of my soldiers. She killed ponies trying to get at Celestia. It’s her best friend who might be upset, another soldier just as dangerous as she was. You don’t want him mad at you, Spike.”

“Oh.” He swallowed, looking away. “I w-won’t say anything, then.”

They pushed their way through the doors and out into the night. Flower garlands had been placed outside, connecting many of the lamp-posts. “I was thinking we would fly to the zeppelin,” Lucky continued, pointing overhead. Sure enough, it was just passing the town now, heading westward so fast it wouldn’t be visible for long. “Do you think you can catch up?”

Twilight Sparkle grunted, levitating something out of her pack. It was a pair of polished brass binoculars. As she stared, a few ponies started moving over to her, with congratulations on saving the festival. She hardly even seemed to hear them.

“It has a balcony,” Twilight said, still holding the binoculars to her eyes. “Stand close to me.”

Lucky complied, as did Lightning Dust and Spike. She was a little relieved to see she wasn’t the only one who looked nervous.

Light seared around them, white enough that she was momentarily blinded. Lucky had felt this awful, disembodied agony before, and she didn’t fight it this time. How often do you torture yourself like this, Twilight? Could a pony ever get used to it?

A short eternity later, they appeared with a crack and a flash, and the whole airship started to sag. For a few seconds anyway. It was quick to correct, lifting gently up until it was level again. Spike grinned, resting one claw on the rail. “An actual airship! This is gonna be awesome!”

Twilight stepped up to the door, which remained stubbornly closed. Deadlight wasn’t out here moon bathing tonight—just empty chairs.

Lucky stepped past her, and as she did the door opened for them. “Welcome to the Speed of Thought, Princess. We’re on track to arrive at Transit about this time tomorrow.”

Twilight shrugged one wing dismissively. “It has beds, right?”

“Sure. I asked Forerunner to prepare my stateroom for you. It’s right this way…”

The princess hardly seemed to be awake anymore—she didn’t remark on any of the lights in the hallway, or even the occasional drone that rolled past them.

Spike did, though. He shrieked, pointing with one claw as the robot about his size came rolling along the floor, sticking to the inside of the hallway. It was pulling a wheeled plastic cart behind it—probably on some repair task. “What kind of monster is that?”

“A robot,” Lucky explained, without slowing down. “It’s not a monster, though. It’s like a… come to life spell. It helps keep the airship flying. Little robots like that do lots of the work, so we don’t need as many ponies in the crew.”

“Oh.” The dragon hurried to catch up. “Can we get a robot, Twilight? I bet it would be way better at cleaning than I am!”

“That is a distinct possibility,” said Forerunner from behind them all, emerging from one of the doors. He wore a whole uniform now, along with a dark robe and hood that Lucky hadn’t seen in the computer before. It covered up most of his artificial features, though his face still looked distinctly robotic. This wasn’t the sort of drone that tried to dress itself up and pretend.

The group stopped walking—well, except Lightning Dust. “I’m going to…” Lucky didn’t even hear where she was going, as she vanished down the hallway. Probably makes sense. Perez isn’t the only one we’re lying to. Does Twilight remember you as well as Rainbow Dash?

Even Twilight in her addled state seemed aware enough to realize something was different. Spike cowered behind her, but she only slowly spun, looking up at Forerunner. Her eyes skimmed over his robes, and her horn glowed faintly for a second. Lucky had no way of judging what kind of spell she’d just cast.

“Hello, Princess Twilight Sparkle.” Forerunner dropped into a bow in front of her, low enough that he was below her head-level for a moment. “It is an honor to have you aboard.”

Twilight tensed visibly. “I don’t know if I’ll deserve to have that title after today, whoever you are.”

Forerunner straightened. “Deserving is not a meaningful state, Twilight Sparkle. Either you use the title and power you have been given for good, or you fail to do so. I believe collaborating with you will be an opportunity for the former.”

“What are you?” Spike asked, still staring openly at Forerunner. “You’re so tall… as tall as a dragon.”

“Maybe a young one.” Forerunner chuckled, or simulated the sound well enough. “My name is Forerunner. I am the pilot of this vessel.”

“That’s not what I mean!” Spike sounded slightly frustrated. “I mean what kind of…”

“That’s enough,” Twilight cut him off with a wing, covering him. “We apologize, Forerunner. Spike is… still learning how to handle diplomacy.”

“It’s quite alright,” Forerunner said. He held out one hand, far enough that the fingers emerged from his robe and Spike could see them. “I am like the other drones you saw, dragon Spike. I am a construct designed to accomplish a specific function. For the purposes of your present consideration, that is to see you succeed in freeing us from Harmony.”

“I don’t know if we can,” Twilight said, some of her wariness coming through. “Princess Celestia doesn’t seem to think so. The way she said it… trying could destroy Equestria.”

“That won’t happen,” Lucky said, before Twilight could get any further down that line of reasoning. “Because we’re going to succeed. Equestria will be safe.” The words sounded stale in her mouth as she said them, though. Wanting it to be true did not mean it would be.

Forerunner made a sound like someone clearing their throat, though of course he couldn’t actually do that. “I can tell you all need rest. Please, take advantage of this opportunity to recover. I have medical supplements to assist you should you desire them. There may not be another opportunity until this campaign ends.”

G7.01: Opening Volley

The “Database” proved to be extremely like the Temple of the Infinite Self in a few respects. They appeared somewhere apparently isolated, with no one else around. In this case, they were in the middle of a huge, vaguely Arabian-looking city, with desert sands in the distance and a constant wind blowing. They stepped off the pad into a library made of cream-colored stone, with books and scrolls and ancient wisdom piled higher than she could see.

Fortunately, Olivia could fly, though their route apparently didn’t require any.

“Where is everyone?” Olivia asked, as they made their way to a terminal tucked away in one of the recesses of the library.

“The sort of pony who visits places like these very often doesn’t stay at this level for too long,” Pear Butter said, sounding wistful. “That’s the part you didn’t seem to care about, though.”

“There must be tons of ponies in this… universe? I don’t know where we are… but there’s got to be tons, right? They must be somewhere.”

“They are.” Pear Butter gestured to one side. “They’re upstream. Most of the population went that way. I don’t know how many of them didn’t climb all the way to Harmony… we could ask.”

“No, that’s okay.” Olivia slowed to a stop as they reached something like a keyboard. This seemed like it could’ve fit just fine into any Earth library—screens surrounded the place where the user and maybe a friend or two would be standing, giving them plenty of space to fill with the data that interested them. “Harmony is upstream, right? He’s the enemy, so we want downstream.”

“We’re already downstream,” Pear Butter said. “Ponies living outside on Equus are the bottom. We’re right above that.” She stepped up onto the plate, and immediately the little symbols lit up. That glow spread to the screens, a uniform white. They were silent otherwise, just like the city outside.

Spooky. Olivia wondered just how many ancient places like this were out there, amazing places she would’ve loved to visit back on Earth with some buddies, now empty and gathering dust. Just where are we, anyway? Maybe inside the ring? Is the slope just the curve of the ring? That seemed like the kind of question Martin and Karl would’ve puzzled over, but she didn’t really care. It was self-evident that she was still alive, somehow. Everything else was secondary.

“I think I’m getting it.” Olivia looked down at the screen. “Upstream takes you towards Harmony. That’s up the slope, so… if I go that way, he’ll find me and kill me.”

“No.” Just a hint of annoyance crept into the earth pony’s voice. “It would be slow for you to go that way. Since you aren’t rediscovering yourself, you have to grow for real. I don’t know how long that takes.” She sat back, looking thoughtful. “I wonder how long it’s been.”

“Forget about that for now.” Olivia sat down on her haunches behind her. “I’m looking for a diplomat named Karl Nolan. She was a pegasus about… a few years older than me, same exact colors.”

“Another weird name,” Pear Butter muttered, though her tone was more curious than anything. “What was her cutie mark?”

“None,” Olivia answered, without thinking. “I was the second one of my group to get one, after Lucky. I don’t know if anyone else got one once I left.”

The earth pony stopped typing. The images of thousands of ponies flashed by on the screens, each one with little notes and their cutie mark superimposed behind them. It eventually settled on a pony that looked exactly like Karl. Like Karl, but with a little birdbath for a cutie mark.

“Whew, that’s lucky,” Pear Butter said. “A cutie mark really narrows it down, normally. Otherwise they’ll just be assigned one of their old ones…” She trailed off. “Wait a minute. I know her. Are you sure this is the pony you’re looking for? Because, she’s not exactly the friendliest pony around. Bit of a conspiracy theorist.”

“Sounds exactly like her.” Olivia pointed at the screen. “Does it tell you where she is? Let’s go see her! Get the team back together. As much as we can.” She could only hope nobody else would be joining them in here, considering what that would mean. Maybe with one of her scientists back somebody could point her in the right direction. Karl seemed like the sort who could work out something productive to do in here.

“Guess anything could be happening if Discord is involved.” Pear Butter pressed another button, and a little slip of paper emerged from the keyboard as though it had been printed. She tossed it to Olivia. “That’s her address. Do you want to check the database for anything else while we’re here? Switch you to your old body, you said?”

“Oh, right.” Ordinarily, finding Karl would’ve been such a high priority that it suppressed anything else. But the temptation of being human again was an alluring one. “Wait. You didn’t even know what a human was.” She frowned, pawing at the ground as she thought. “Maybe… I won’t actually switch yet. That would be the end of stealth.”

“Stealth, yeah.” The earth pony laughed. “You really do sound like a filly. Who are we hiding from, Olivia?”

Olivia raised her eyebrows. “Uh… Harmony, obviously. You’re fighting him too. Shouldn’t we try to hide what we’re up to?”

Pear actually laughed. “Hide from…” She shook her head, unable to suppress her amusement for several long seconds. “No, Olivia. We can’t hide from Harmony. Harmony runs the system. The pull keeping your hooves on the ground, the wind in your mane, the light you see. Harmony made those. One of its… subsystems? We’d have to go upstream for me to explain it very well. And once a pony does that… they’re not likely to turn back. So it would be better if you just believed me. We oppose what Harmony is doing, and we believe in what Discord wants. We disagree, that’s all. It doesn’t mean we’re fighting it. It means we think there’s another solution. We want to prove to Harmony our solution is better. We don’t have to be unfriendly about it.”

“Don’t have to…” Olivia trailed off. “Right.” She wanted to point out just how stupid that sounded, how childish. You ponies probably would’ve won a long time ago if you didn’t restrict your tactics to what is ‘friendly.’ Do you honestly think Harmony is doing the same? “Well, maybe I’ll want to hide from his agents, then. Does Harmony have agents in the… downstream?”

“The princesses,” Pear Butter answered. “And the ponies working for them. Lots of ponies keep working for them even after coming back here. Lots of times learning the truth again makes ponies change their mind about Harmony, but not always.”

“Well, I won’t switch right now. I would still like the information.” She nodded towards the keyboard again. “I hope you can teach me how all this stuff works eventually.”

“Eventually,” Pear Butter agreed. “Somepony will. Probably not me, I’m mostly just in as far as the introductions. But my husband probably could. Just smile at him and sound like you’re in distress. That should be enough.”

Olivia laughed. That would be the day.

“Give me that description again,” Pear Butter said. “What did you say you looked like? Besides… who you are now, I mean.”

“Two legs, two arms. Skin all over, hair mostly on the head and not much anywhere else. Not as many colors, basically just take a peach and range that until black, with a few minor variations in the middle. No cutie marks, except the ones we make ourselves with tattoos. No wings, no horns, no hooves. Feet instead.” She went on like that for a little while, watching the vague silhouettes on Pear Butter’s screens gradually resolve and gain detail. They weren’t changing them so much as eliminating the ones that didn’t fit, and eventually displays filled with them were whittled down to just one.

“Like this?” Pear Butter asked, gesturing at the screen. “This is… the only match available, and it’s not a possible state for you this far downstream. Says it’s… three complexity intervals… that won’t mean anything to you.”

Olivia stared at the shape, one that was not entirely new to her. She’d seen a creature like this for a few seconds when Pear Butter used the Temple.

It looked like what a human might’ve become after many, many years of evolution. Delicate skin around the face and neck, which went periodically transparent to display colorful, shifting membranes underneath, like an octopus or a chameleon. No fingernails, larger eyes, a larger skull, generally more delicate build with thinner bones. Even so, the eyes staring up at them from the display looked strikingly human. Just the wrong size.

“Also, they do have cutie marks. But it looks like they’re… only visible in… I don’t know what these words mean.” She played with a few keys, and the screen seemed to wash out, with only the transparent parts of the creature glowing their brilliant colors, shifting though complex patterns so quickly Olivia just knew it must be some kind of communication.

“You sure that’s it? Something like that, but… more your color and less… pale and transparent?”

“Nothing,” Pear repeated. “Well, nothing ‘available’.” She squinted at the screen, which Olivia still couldn’t read.

How can I understand what she’s saying, but not read her language when it’s written?

“Database says there’s more information in the historica, but that’s restricted one complexity level. Even one level might be a long trip… probably shouldn’t. We might not be able to get back in time for Discord’s plan.” She sighed, stepping off the metal plate, and looking distant. “I won’t risk not being here for the rest of my family, if it goes badly.”

“Thank you for helping me as much as you have,” Olivia said. “I don’t know how often you do this for… ponies… but I don’t know how I would handle it if I’d just been dumped into the city. I might’ve…” She shook her head. “I want to be useful to my friends who are still alive. I think you can understand that.”

“Ah reckon I can,” Pear said, seeming to relax after all the strange images they had seen. “Let’s see about finding that friend of yours. See how she’s been getting on since she died.”

Lucky Break stumbled into the airship lounge a few hours later, and was a little surprised to find the Equestrian princess already there. It seemed the rest had helped her tremendously—she no longer looked seconds from collapse. There was a hardness about her that hadn’t been there before. I’m sorry I have to expose you to this.

If only Olivia had remained captured a few more days. Then they could’ve busted her out, put her onto the airship… surely she wouldn’t have tried to rewrite a plan already in motion, would she? Then again, would Twilight have joined our side if she hadn’t watched Celestia murder you?

The princess wasn’t alone. She sat with Deadlight and Perez of all ponies, with Forerunner leaning casually against the wall nearby. Spike was on the other side of the room, playing an energetic game of ping-pong against Mogyla. He seemed to be winning.

Lucky wandered across the room, passing a handful of plain white plastic chairs, along with a simple food preparation area. There was little elegance in the way this room had been made—everything on the Speed of Thought had either been fabricated as quickly as possible, or been stolen from the Sojourner. It looked from the meal packets everypony was eating that the food was the latter.

“That was it? The dragons realized they could’ve taken Equestria, but Ember stopped them? If they wanted to invade so badly, why didn’t they just ignore her? Or kill her and take the title for someone else?” As Lucky listened, she realized that Perez was still speaking English, and Twilight Sparkle was using Eoch. How can they understand each other?

Twilight shrugged. “Dragons are like griffons in that way—they have rules, and they follow them strictly. Ember was Dragon Lord, so if she didn’t want an invasion, there wouldn’t be an invasion. So long as we stay on good terms with her, Equestria should be safe. She’ll probably outlive it.”

“Brilliant.” Perez set down a dark bottle between them. Twilight Sparkle lifted it in her magic, taking a long pull herself. Judging by the acrid stench on the air, Lucky guessed they had found some of Olivia’s private reserve. “It amazes me they didn’t just eat you. If they’d recognized how vulnerable you were…”

“We weren’t a threat,” Twilight answered, setting down the bottle. “I had read everything in Equestria about dragon behavior. Attacking us in front of the others would have been a sign they saw us as dangerous—that would have made them seem weak to the others. Only a dragon who was already in a poor position would’ve dared—I took the chance we could take on a weaker dragon if we had to.”

“Damn.” Perez finally seemed to notice Lucky standing there. “Ah, our fearless leader has returned. I was just having a word with the princess about her old battles. I thought you would’ve brought some weak-ass puta to weigh down the ship. But no… apparently these ponies lead from the front. No sitting back and letting the little guys die for them.”

Those words hit Twilight with particular weight, and she immediately lifted the bottle again, looking away from Perez. How much alcohol can an Alicorn drink? She didn’t ask.

“I tried to warn him,” Deadlight said, his voice slightly smug. “Twilight’s reputation speaks for itself. We couldn’t have better odds.”

Twilight Sparkle set the bottle down, sighing. It fell to one side with a hollow thunk. “I thought about inviting my friends. But considering I’m working against Equestria… I don’t want them to end up in the dungeon too.”

“We’ll only get in trouble if we’re wrong,” Deadlight said, nudging her with one of his bat wings. “The other Alicorns won’t be mad if we actually succeed, will they? Freeing us from Harmony… that’s the kind of thing they make windows about!”

“Great,” Twilight said, her voice distant. “They can put it up in my jail cell. Or maybe in magic kindergarten, once Celestia takes my horn away.”

“I don’t think that makes sense…” Lucky muttered, though she didn’t leave Twilight enough time to make much of a response. “Only an hour to Transit. I thought you might have some questions before we got down there.”

“One.” Twilight straightened. Despite the empty bottle in front of her and the stink on her breath, she didn’t look addled much. Then again, neither did Perez with his enhanced body. “We ride from Transit to Harmony Control. Then what? What do we do once we get there?”

“I…”

The room fell silent. Aside from the ball bouncing back and forth on the other side, anyway. I can’t show weakness. I know what I’m talking about! She had to make them think she did, anyway.

“We have to find the shutdown,” Lucky said. “Harmony has a threat-detection system… the one that restricted Equestria until now, the one that made Harmony attack other nations. We find it, and we’ll probably need an Alicorn’s authority to flip the switch. If Discord was here, he could probably explain it better. He’s the one who understands everything.”

“Discord,” Twilight repeated, her frown deepening. “Is he the one who convinced you of everything? Who… gave you this airship, and…”

“No.” It wasn’t Lucky who answered, but Deadlight. “They built it all themselves. And Lucky learned herself when she went into the ruins. I don’t think anypony would trust Discord about something so important, even after being ‘reformed.’ Did that really happen, Princess?”

“More than once.” She sounded distant again. “Fluttershy deserves more credit than anyone. If she hadn’t been friends with him…” She sighed, slumping forward onto the table in front of her. “If he was helping you before, I don’t think we can count on him anymore. After… your thing with my niece… he’s been locked up in Canterlot Castle.”

“Hopefully we can rescue him too,” Lucky muttered. Though it was hard to be around Twilight for very long without feeling her black mood rub off on her. She needed to get away—keep enough of her optimism to lead the mission ahead.

It’s so simple—ride the tram, flip a switch, then bust Flurry Heart free on our way out. Most of the guards should be on the surface, so we shouldn’t even do much fighting. It’ll be over before Celestia even knows what we’re doing.

Forerunner had remained out of the way and quiet as long as Lucky had been there to watch—but now he tensed, rising from a reclining position as though he expected intruders to burst into the room in moments. “Attention!” he called, voice echoing not just from the one body, but the walls and ceilings as well. He seemed to be addressing Lucky directly as he spoke. “Attention, this vessel is under attack. Proceed to your evac positions. This is not a drill.”

As he said it, the lights all around them switched from bright white to an even, diffuse red, making everything look like blood. Then the ship started shaking.

The first thing Melody heard was pain.

Until now, she hadn’t known that pain had a sound. As it happened, that sound was a grinding, slicing against the inside of her ears, a drum to the beating of her heartbeat. She moaned, and that sound hurt too.

But the rest of her seemed to be in better shape—she twitched, sitting up. Her eyes opened normally, and she was unsurprised to see that she had been moved to medical.

Half a dozen medical drones swarmed near her. Most were naked except for their tools, but the one nearest to her was wearing a lab coat over its plastic shoulders. They didn’t have mouths that opened and closed with their words, but she did see this one move a little, and heard something distant. Like listening through a pair of blown-out speakers.

She pointed up at her ears with one hoof. “C-can’t… can’t really…”

The drone nodded, extending a hand to accept a display from one of the others. It turned the screen around to face her in one claw, and text appeared against a white background. “An explosion burst your eardrums. You have been unconscious while I performed surgical replacement. It may be some time before your healing is complete, however. I will administer an analgesic.”

Melody felt a strange coolness wash over her head—one she expected was rooted rather directly in painkillers administered to her. Modern painkillers could be taken in sufficient doses without impacting cognitive function, so she didn’t lose her mind.

“Where is… Martin…” she asked, not hearing her voice so much as feeling it. It didn’t feel right—the slight shaking of her head wasn’t anywhere close to enough to structure her words correctly. She probably sounded stupid. I’ve been sounding stupid since I woke up on Sanctuary.

“Dead,” came the word on the tablet screen. “Or destructively transported. I cannot entirely rule out the latter given the state of the old armory. But the former seems more likely. There was sufficient debris to analyze.”

Sufficient debris… of a person who had exploded mere meters away from Melody.

A few minutes later, Melody finished vomiting, and finally crawled her way back to a sitting position. She had been stripped, though these days that mostly meant a gauntlet and maybe a satchel with her computation surface. Melody hadn’t worn clothes indoors since Deadlight suggested she should stop.

“God… that’s horrible…” she finally croaked, her throat raw. She could still feel some level of discomfort from her head—something in her brain still realized she should be in pain. But the longer she had to adjust, the more of her hearing seemed to return. Her own heartbeat thumping through her ears was still the loudest thing, but it had been joined by her own breathing, and the sound of the drone’s servos. “What the fuck happened?”

“Magic,” Forerunner said. “As best I can determine. The blast seemed to originate from inside Martin’s body. Internal scans taken just before the… event… suggest its origin can be traced to a minor subregion of the brain not present in any of the other species I understand. I do not mean to alarm you, but your brain possesses this organ, along with every other member of the crew.”

“Holy shit.” She slumped forward onto the cot. “You’re telling me that every member of the crew has a bomb in their brain, and you didn’t know?”

“It appears that way.” The drone in the doctor’s coat appeared to be speaking in time with the words appearing on the tablet, because Melody imagined she could start to hear as it spoke. “I cannot determine how. The tissue in that region of your brain is not inconsistent with the tissue of the rest of your body. There are no dissolved volatiles or energy-storage medium of any kind. The force required to produce the detonation we observed could not possibly have been stored within Martin’s body. My working theory is that the unique region of the brain was somehow the target of the attack, rather than the creator of it.”

“You assume…” Melody moaned faintly. “That means you don’t know.”

“Affirmative. I detected no radio transmissions, or unusual emission of any kind. But given what happened to the armory, it seems plausible that something similar could have happened to Dr. Faraday. It may be helpful for you to hope that she has been transported, rather than destroyed.”

“I don’t think either of those is better, Forerunner. Either one of my friends is dead, or one of my friends is being interrogated and will probably reveal the location of Othar.”

“That is correct,” Forerunner said. “I have already evacuated every other member of the crew onto the Cyclops, including those Olivia rescued from slavery.”

“That won’t help if they can just explode our brains.” Though something else about what the Forerunner had just said lingered. Had she been left behind? Probably for surgery, then. The drones onboard the Cyclops wouldn’t have been capable of replacing a pair of burst eardrums, assuming that was what it had been. But what good will hearing do me if I’m dead?

“Well… no,” Forerunner admitted. “But it appears that action was directly connected with Martin’s attempt to extract knowledge from within the recorded memories Lucky retrieved. It is reasonable for us to assume, if a more general attack was possible, that you and every other crew member would be dead as well. Given that neither you nor any member of the away party have been targeted, even though they are under active assault by Equestrian forces, this assumption seems likely.”

“Oh.” Melody glanced down at the IV running into her arm. “Guess you should get this out so I can… go and join Lei on the Cyclops.”

The Forerunner didn’t say anything for a long time. It didn’t move to help her remove the IV. “That will not be necessary, Melody. You will not be evacuated—your assignment is too important to suspend regardless of the danger. I am sorry this places your segment at risk, but you did consent to risk when you joined the Pioneering Society. Given my choices of useful segments were you and Lei, it was logical to choose the one with a redundant skillset. Not only that, but Lei has an identifier mark, and you do not.”

Redundant skillset. It wasn’t just the universe passively informing Melody that she was useless. Now the Forerunner would call her that to her face. Wonderful.

Perez probably would’ve complained about the machine takeover about now, but Melody was more practical. She had been created for a purpose, and that purpose was to serve this mission. Everything else she had done, even… the intimate parts, had been perks of the job.

“What task is that?” Melody asked, shaking her head once. As though she could somehow dislodge whatever was building up in there. Fluid, maybe? The gesture didn’t work regardless, and sounds were still muffled to her. At least I can hear them.

“I have translated portions of the message that was burned into the ground prior to Dr. Faraday’s… transport,” Forerunner said, the screen it held blanking and filling with an image of intricate, interlocking symbols. Melody couldn’t read that language—as far as she understood, Lucky was the only one who could.

“I can’t read it,” she said though the Forerunner must have known that.

“It says what I interpret to be a permissions error. It could not reconcile the identity of Dr. Faraday with the memories contained in the recording. From this I must presume that our method of accessing them was not the expected one, or else the intended recipient would likely have suffered the same fate. Regardless, we have good reason to believe you would not.”

“Why?” Melody had to resist the urge to turn around and run right from the room, ripping out her IV and trying to escape. The Pioneering Society did require all sorts of exams to prove she was mentally capable of handling risk. What it did not require its humans to do was undertake suicide missions. Yes, they were replaceable, expendable. But they were also people, and such requests could not reasonably be expected to be followed by any but the insane. “I will not cooperate if you expect me to kill myself for you, Forerunner. Maybe I would have a few months ago. I won’t anymore.”

Forerunner did not seem the least bit moved by what she said, one way or the other. “I have made certain deductions… there is insufficient time to explain how. But based on information obtained from Lucky Break, Deadlight, and my own observations of Equestria, I believe that the Sanctuary system uses cutie marks as identifiers. They are not immutable, but they are intimately personal, and apparently impossible to imitate. However, young ponies do not yet possess cutie marks, and instead have them assigned in the course of puberty.”

It was so hard for Melody to concentrate on anything the Forerunner was telling her. He might as well be aiming a gun at her head while he spoke. But she tried to listen anyway.

“There is more to it than that. A pony body’s biological maturity is directly linked with these marks. It is impossible for an adult member of any of the pony species to exist without them. Regulatory mechanisms prevent adult development as long as necessary. This is why Lucky Break emerged at her apparent age—my earlier self gave her more than enough time to reach the same age as you or any other member of the crew, but she did not mature.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with me,” Melody said. “Can’t this… can’t this experiment wait? Didn’t you say the away team was under attack?”

“They are,” the Forerunner said. “But my attention is divisible and my axes of action in their conflict are limited. This conversation is not much of a distraction.”

“Well…” She struggled, reaching for something else that might delay what the Forerunner wanted. An experiment that might just explode her head. “I’m an adult, and I don’t have my cutie mark. So something in your theory must be flawed.”

“After prolonged genomic evaluation, I discovered a suppressing protein—the same one that is produced once a pony receives their mark. This protein is what allows ponies to age.”

Melody gaped. Even with her fear, the weight of that last sentence had been enough that it nearly baffled her. “Excuse me… what? Did you just… imply…”

“Yes,” Forerunner said. “Pony species do not naturally age. Or… to be more precise, damage to their bodies does not become cumulative over time. I confirmed this with Dr. Born’s help, using observations of tissue samples obtained from the natives, and in my own experiments. This trait is not possessed by the animal specimens we obtained, or the plants. I am unsure if it applies to the non-pony sapient races on Sanctuary. Nevertheless, it appears that every pony citizen possesses latent biological immortality.”

Forerunner paused, as though to let the weight of its statement fall on her. If this was a distraction from their experiment, as it sounded, it was working. Biological immortality was nothing unknown to her from theory—much research had already been invested in that angle before she left Earth, though at the time life extension had been more focused on lengthening the lifespan of the elderly.

It was not impossible that another species would’ve cracked that puzzle. The real surprise was... “Why the fuck would they design themselves to get old and die? I know there are pony elderly, they suffer similar degradation to humans, to all other species we know about.”There was something else this explained, if she could only figure out how to connect it. The pony royalty were supposed to be immortal.

“I am uncertain,” the Forerunner answered. “It seems to suggest the fundamental purpose of life on Sanctuary is not what we expect from organics, who rationally desire a maximally prolonged life. That part is not relevant to you.”

“Yes it is,” she said, annoyed. “You could… if you found a way to replicate the aging protein, then you can probably suppress it too, couldn’t you? Develop an injection for ponies, so they stop aging…”

“Oh, certainly.” The Forerunner sounded annoyed. “And for some, an injection is unnecessary. You, for example, do not have a cutie mark and so remain effectively the same age you were when you were decanted. But that is not the subject of interest for us.” He tapped the screen again with one plastic finger.

“I believe Sanctuary targeted Dr. Faraday because she had an identifier. This is why I could not use Lei—she has an identifier as well. You, however, do not. At worst, I predict the system will assign you an identifier. At best… your unregistered status may allow us to circumvent some security.”

“At worst, my fucking brain explodes,” Melody grunted. “What’s so important about the memories on that, anyway?”

The doors to medical opened, and several drones rolled in. They were pushing strange equipment, with lots of metal and fans on the top. “Lucky had information suggesting the natives she saw were also enemies to Harmony. It is possible that observing their failure will indicate to us how we might succeed.”

“I…”

“Consider it this way, Melody. Lucky Break discovered the corpse of an Alicorn in those ruins. The society she came from, or at least she herself, had close knowledge of the function of the Sanctuary ring. This knowledge did not prevent their destruction. We have less information than they had. If we want a better outcome, we must learn what they knew.”

The drones stopped around Melody’s cot. The equipment they pushed still had plastic wrap clinging to it in places. The rest probably got exploded.

“I have enough information to suggest a greater than majority chance of your survival,” Forerunner said. “I have the authority, therefore, to compel you to take this course of action. I do not believe we are likely to extract the information without your cooperation. I would prefer your willing assistance.”

The Forerunner’s way of telling her she couldn’t fight her way out of this. He had all the authority he wanted to lock her legs in irons and force her.

You’ve been useless since you were created. All you did was save one native, then fuck him. What good did that do anyone? There was instinct, too, buried deeper. Instinct to survive, whatever it took. To protect what she had created, if she could.

“If I do this…” Melody began. “If I assist willingly, if I do everything I can to get the valuable information out of those memories—I want a guarantee from you that my mission is complete. I’ll be a free citizen after that, like Lucky. A guarantee you will protect me, and my child. If we survive.”

Forerunner remained silent a moment, apparently considering. “On behalf of the Pioneering Society, your request is granted.”

She rolled onto her belly on the cot. “Then… let’s get this over with.”

The drones set to work.

Lucky Break felt completely frozen. Her limbs tried to move, but she felt so weak all of the sudden, so helpless. Was this really how her mission would end? The ponies would fire on their ship, even knowing they had a princess aboard? Don’t you care about anyone, Celestia? What if she’s my prisoner? You don’t know she turned traitor!

Perez’s was the first voice to cut through the chaos. “Abubakar, Williams, anti-air positions! Mogyla, with me. We’ll escort the civilians to evac.”

Salutes, and the two indicated ponies hurried away. “The rest of you, come with me. We were prepared for an attack. Hopefully we can all make room in the jumper.”

Spike hurried over to join them, remaining within reach of Twilight without ever actually touching her. They shared a meaningful glance, before Twilight cleared her throat. “Under attack by… what, exactly?”

“Last time it was a plasma weapon,” Lucky said. “We had less than a minute warning. Half gone already… there’s no chance we’ll get to evac in time. Maybe Twilight could teleport us.”

“It is not the same weapon,” Forerunner said, before Twilight could answer. “It is a pony military formation. Half a dozen airships, several similar in class to the Speed of Thought. By my count, at least two thousand pegasi. They appear to have come—”

“It’s the Crystal Empire Defence Force,” Twilight said, before Forerunner could finish. “I was afraid this might happen. We keep an eye on every airship that passes through Equestria. There were only a few in Ponyville… I guess they found the one I must’ve taken.”

“Did any of you hear me?” Perez called, his voice breaking through the murmur of activity. “I said we’re getting the fuck out of here! We can command from the evac ship.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Lucky admitted. “Everypony, follow Perez.” She repeated the instruction in Eoch for the benefit of their guests, still not sure exactly what Twilight and Spike could understand, and what they couldn’t. They hurried down the hallways, with Twilight and Lucky bringing up the rear.

“How do we get them to stop chasing us?” Lucky asked.

Twilight shrugged. “Your airship is called the Speed of Thought. Even our fastest clippers shouldn’t be able to keep up with it.”

“The name is more hopeful than literal,” Forerunner said from ahead of them. “I constructed this vessel in less than three days, using bits and pieces of another airship. I focused most of my energy on defending from an attack from the unknown plasma weapon.”

They entered one of the parts of the ship Lucky hadn’t seen before—a hangar, as it happened, hidden inside what would’ve held the lifting gas if this had been a real zeppelin. There was apparently no gas in here, or at least none she could see. There were a few all-terrain vehicles, with tools or weapons mounted to their tops, along with the single functional jumper. They all crammed themselves inside, including Forerunner. The jumper had already been packed with supply crates, so there weren’t enough seats for everyone.

Means we won’t be able to make this escape at speed. But it shouldn’t take much to outfly a pegasus.

“Do you think these ponies are aware of the location of Transit, Princess Twilight?” Forerunner asked. “I want to know if evading them is a useful endeavor.”

“Depends.” Twilight and her dragon had both been given seats, though neither of them were using them. “Celestia knows, and she didn’t seem to want to share that with other ponies. I had to discover it for myself. But she must know where you’re going. If we do evade her, she’ll send the Defence Force in after us. Unless I fly out there and tell them to stop.”

“Would they obey you over Celestia?” Perez was opening one of the plastic crates, moving deftly. Inside was an exoskeleton, folded neatly for transport. He kicked the empty crate out the doors into the hangar, freeing up a little space as he struggled into the suit. Mogyla was doing the same, though it took him well over twice as long. Clearly he hadn’t practiced this, while Perez had. “What if she ordered them not to take any prisoners?”

“That doesn’t—” Twilight jerked to a halt, eyes widening. Probably she’d been about to explain how the princess would never do something like that. She looked sidelong towards Lucky, then her ears flattened. “The guard will probably… not be very happy about an order like that,” she said instead. “If I gave them a new order, I’m sure they’d be happier obeying it instead.”

“Funny chain of command,” Mogyla said, still struggling to get the uneven lumps of the exoskeleton from its case. But he didn’t sound questioning, only amused.

“We can’t send you back,” Lucky said. “Even if you could convince them to leave us alone, we need you. The systems of Transit Equus Zero Violet Zero need an Alicorn to operate. Without you, we can’t use them to get to Canterlot. We can’t shut Harmony down.”

Princess Twilight looked hopeless. “I wish Rainbow Dash were here. This is the kind of thing she would know how to deal with. The guard love her.”

Lightning Dust tensed in her seat across the jumper—the only one wearing her restraints. It didn’t seem that Twilight or Spike noticed. They didn’t notice the way her paint had started to fade, either.

“The vessels are gaining on us,” Forerunner said, his voice betraying just a hint of frustration. “Abubakar and Williams could likely neutralize all seven of their ships, but this would inflict heavy casualties. I have not permitted them to fire yet.”

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Perez shouted, spinning around to glare at him. “Do it! Give them a reason to turn around!”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “M-my… my brother is one of the generals in the Defence Force, Forerunner. He might be aboard one of those ships.”

Lucky stepped between Twilight and Perez before he could say anything stupid. “Forerunner, what if we could damage one of their ships? Could you hurt them enough to bring them down without killing anyone?”

There was a moment’s pause. “I can make no guarantees, Lucky. But we could create an airburst above the airships. The resulting implosion would likely burst the gasbag. But zeppelins are more durable than many assume—a leak could take hours to sink the ship.” He raised a hand before she could order. “At this range, I can’t be sure there aren’t ponies escorting the airships from above. Any who were close to the detonation would likely suffer serious injury.”

Lucky could read in his eyes he meant more than that—but hadn’t said so, thanks to their guests. She turned to the Alicorn. “Princess Twilight—you know we don’t want to hurt anypony. But if we have an army following us, we won’t be able to stop them.”

Twilight Sparkle looked away. “Last night, I ordered ponies to their deaths. I thought I was doing it for… for the right reasons. It seems like we are too.”

“They’re firing on us!” Forerunner shouted, before a distant roar sounded from outside. Cannons, like ancient naval guns. Apparently the ponies knew what they were doing, because the second shot made the whole ship start to shake.

“One hit, six misses,” Forerunner said. “No serious damage yet.”

Another series of blasts, this time less precisely timed. Again the whole thing started to shake.

“You have to do something!” Perez shouted, his voice loud enough to sound over the explosions. “Forerunner wants to save us, Colonial Governor! Are you going to let your bleeding heart cost the lives of everyone on Sanctuary?”

That was enough. “Do it, Forerunner. Bring down those ships. Try to hurt as few ponies as you can.”

G7.01: Love in War

The jumper was not an entertainment craft, with dozens of screens hidden everywhere. It did apparently have a projector, which could aim at the ceiling of the passenger area and display tactical information. Forerunner switched that screen on as they began firing back, and Lucky got her first good look at the fleet.

She knew instantly why Forerunner hadn’t shown them this at first—these ships were so large, so powerful, she felt herself start to shake. Ponies used lighter-than-air technology for flight, and that meant hugely massive gasbags proportional to whatever they wanted to carry. She had pictured the Speed of Thought as gigantic, but judging by the little specks floating around by those airships, it was less than a third the size of the Equestrian vessels.

There was another roar, and the whole world around her started to shake. The view of the outside fractured into static for a few seconds. Forerunner was the first to speak. “We are beginning to lose lift gas.”

“I thought you made this damn thing sturdier than this!” Perez shouted, stamping one hoof on the deck. “Give me one interceptor, and I could mop up that whole fleet.”

“Unfortunately, I focused my effort on defending from the unknown plasma containment weapon,” Forerunner said. “Magnetic shielding is not sufficient to stop iron cannonballs.”

There was a bright flash from outside as the first of the rockets reached their targets, exploding above and behind the pony airships. Lucky winced, looking away—knowing that ponies would be dying with every shot. But instead of hearing more discomfort, she only heard swearing.

So she looked up, in time to see a bright, purplish barrier fade away from just above the airships. It faded just in time for another roar as they were hit with a few more cannonballs.

“Take the fucking kid gloves off, Forerunner!” Perez bellowed. “I don’t know what kind of defense that is, but we’ve got to have a way to shoot through it.”

“What was that?” Lucky asked, focusing on Twilight. She saw the projection as several more rockets exploded above the pony fleet, their energy lighting up the shield for a few seconds before dispersing harmlessly along it.

“Th-that’s…” Her voice was low, barely loud enough to be heard over the chaos all around them. She didn’t meet her eyes. “That’s my brother, Shining Armor. He’s really good at shield spells. Held off a whole invasion by himself for days once.”

Perez didn’t seem to hear that, though Lucky felt her heart sink. No doubt Forerunner had been using weak projectiles on the ones following them—trying not to kill them was far harder than just blowing them out of the sky. We have to use enough force to break that shield, but not enough to break the ponies inside.

And if they failed, they would murder Twilight’s brother right in front of her. We can’t lose her! Almost everything in Transit had required an Alicorn to operate. Could Lucky even get them to Central Control without an Alicorn to work the tram system?

“Twilight, can we bring the shield down?”

Twilight watched the projection as a larger explosion shook the ships behind them. The formation of pegasus ponies flying alongside had moved to behind the ships, or else landed aboard them. That was good, though it didn’t seem their shots were doing anything to the shield. “I… eventually,” she said, unhelpfully. “Just keep hitting it. The changelings broke through eventually.”

There was another explosion—this one closer. Lucky whimpered as the whole world jerked to one side, and alarms started to sound from all over the airship. They began tilting slowly backward, and the steady drone of the propeller changed to an unhappy metal-grinding noise.

“That was the propeller,” Forerunner said. “It is exactly as bad as it sounds.”

“Lucky!” Perez shouted through the alarms, suddenly right up in her face. He no longer looked angry—his expression had gone cold again. “Colonial Governor, are you going to allow us to protect this colony or not?” He gestured at the room with a quick snap of his wing. “We’re going to die if you don’t let us return fire properly. The firecrackers we’ve been shooting wouldn’t break glass.”

Lucky trembled, taking in the room before her. I don’t want to be like Olivia. What more could she do? What good would it do Equestria if Celestia caught and killed them all?

“Forerunner,” she said, straightening in her seat. “Remove all restrictions. Save this ship.”

The Speed of Thought shook visibly as they took another volley—for having only primitive cannons, these ponies seemed to know how to shoot them. It felt like they weren’t missing anymore, though part of that might just be the painful realities of Lucky’s perception.

There was a rumbling sound, a rumble that shook the ground they were standing on. It seemed to come from everywhere, oscillating rapidly up the spectrum. Then it stopped, and the projection flashed.

For a fraction of a second, it looked like horizontal lightning connected their ship to the fleet. The air itself looked like it was splitting open, glowing bright orange. The shield exploded, in strangely concrete chunks almost like violet glass. They fell down from around the point of impact, and as they fell cracks splintered, taking larger and larger chunks with them.

There were a few futile flashes of power near the ships, as though whoever had created the shield was trying to recreate it—but without success. They were completely unprotected. A little explosion followed soon after—one of the tiny rockets they’d been using before. This one punctured the gasbag of the lead ship, which began to list. Slow, sluggish, now moving down as well as forward.

“That’s all the class G projectiles we had aboard,” Forerunner said. “Charging the main gun. Eight seconds.” The rumble started up again, reverberating through the ship. Lucky couldn’t even imagine what kind of weapon it was—certainly nothing that had existed when she left Earth. Some kind of laser, maybe? But then why would it be so loud? She listened to that weapon charge and knew with certainty it would pass through every Equestrian ship in a straight line, probably without slowing down. Anything that got in its way would die.

“Wait!” Princess Twilight’s voice cut through the sound. There couldn’t be long until the gun was ready to fire again.

The enemy canons didn’t wait. Speed of Thought shook again, and something crashed above them. At least one of the cannons had breached the ship.

Twilight screamed, and two ponies flashed into being in front of them. For a fraction of a second, both of them hovered there, as though they’d just been resting in comfortable seats. Then they dropped, frost rising from their bodies and blinking away the disorientation. Abubakar, and Williams.

I doubt they were the ones using the gun.

Eight seconds must have passed by now, yet the gun hadn’t fired. Forerunner appeared to have stopped to hear Twilight.

“I will not let you kill my brother! I don’t care… I don’t care how bad a princess that makes me. If you do that again, ponies will die.”

“There’s not a lot of room for negotiating here, Princess,” Perez grunted, rushing over to his men, checking them. They seemed none the worse for wear. Yet as he said it, something snapped beside them, and the wheeled rover went sliding sideways down the deck, before crashing through the side of the ship. Bright sunlight shone in from beyond. “Someone’s dying here, and it won’t be us!”

Twilight’s horn flashed again—and the sound of battle stopped. Lucky had felt this effect before—and now she saw. Ponies frozen, even Forerunner with all his processing power. Twilight Sparkle rose from her seat, undoing the straps. Only Spike on her other side was moving. He went for his seatbelt, but Twilight rested one hoof on his claw, stopping him.

“W-what are you doing, Twilight?”

The princess ignored him. “Lucky Break, you’re the leader here, right?”

She nodded.

“Then here’s my plan. I’m not making a deal—I’m telling you.”

“Okay.” She shivered, eyeing the princess’s glowing horn. Twilight Sparkle had walked all over the Speed of Thought, which was barely hanging on. More importantly, she could teleport things. She had every crew member right here, in one convenient package. Was this all… a betrayal? “You’re giving us up to save your brother?”

“No!” Twilight stomped one hoof, so hard the metal dented where she had been standing. “I’m giving myself up. Forerunner told me this thing was fast, right?” She didn’t even wait for Lucky’s nod. “I am going to make it look like I destroyed this ship and escaped. The big one, I mean. I’ll do so much damage that they might not even try to look for your bodies.”

“Then help me out of this seat, Twilight!” Spike shouted, his voice increasingly panicked. “I have to come with you!”

“No.” Twilight moved close to him, lowering her voice. She didn’t seem to be speaking for Lucky’s benefit, but she could hear her anyway. “You know more about how I became an Alicorn than anypony. You’ve spent all these years as my assistant—now you’ll need to help her. You have to save Equestria without me.”

Then it clicked. Lucky glanced down at the floor of the jumper. “You’re going to… teleport us away. Closer to Transit—too far for them to see.”

She didn’t answer at first. Spike whispered something into the Alicorn’s ear, sounding as desperate and afraid as a child. But he stopped struggling. “You will have to go without me,” Twilight eventually said, spinning around. She looked visibly strained now—and Lucky could imagine why.

How can they do this? It can’t really be magic!

“I don’t think we can do it without an Alicorn,” Lucky said, trying to keep her voice calm. “Maybe the tram will take us… Canterlot won’t be dangerous, like Transit was… but shutting off Harmony? That’s going to need one for sure.”

Twilight shrugged. “Save my niece, then. Or make your own.”

There was another flash, a tearing behind her eyes, and suddenly Lucky was falling. The entire jumper was falling, actually. She spread her wings instinctively, but a few of the other ponies weren’t so lucky.

A distant explosion sounded—much louder than anything during the battle. But Lucky didn’t get to watch the Speed of Thought go up—the projector had gone out.

Less than a second later the jumper felt like it was moving under them, gradually decelerating. The floor came gently up to meet them, though Mogyla crashed into the boxes of supplies, and the two other soldiers were thrown to the ground.

“I have absolutely no idea what just happened,” Forerunner said, helping Williams off the floor and into one of the seats. “But we’re less than a kilometer from the entrance to Transit, and the Speed of Thought is…”

The projector came back on, just in time for them to see a massive fireball in the distance, descending slowly towards the ground. It was hard to tell at this speed, but it looked as though the Equestrian ships had stopped.

“Twilight…” Spike muttered from beside her, gazing longingly at her empty seat. “She… left me.”

“To save the world,” Lucky Break said, her voice clear. She unbuckled, climbing to her hooves. They weren’t moving that fast—certainly nowhere near the velocity the jumper was capable of. But then, if it had been moving at proper transit speed, it would’ve spent many kilometers just slowing down. “The princess had an alternate plan,” Lucky Break announced, her voice clear enough that everypony fell silent to look at her, even Perez. “She went to stop the ships herself, by… making it look like she killed us. We will not have her help when we reach Transit.”

Deadlight was the first to speak, which surprised her a little considering she’d said that in English. “You said Flurry Heart already opened the lock, didn’t you Lucky? So long as Princess Celestia hasn’t gone back to replace it, we should be fine. We’ll find a way without the princess.”

Lucky wasn’t sure she could be so optimistic, but she didn’t argue. One way or another, they no longer had a choice. Shut down the superhuman intelligence without the Alicorn we risked so much to recruit. How hard can it be?

Olivia stepped off the transport plate feeling surprisingly light, considering all she had learned. Heat beat down on her almost the instant she appeared, dry red sand shifting underhoof as she emerged into a tiny, western-looking town.

She tensed as she saw the way it looked, familiar. Though she had never been anywhere like this in this life, she had seen images of a past version of herself. Or some of them, anyway. Whatever that past self had done, it wasn’t good. The Forerunner hadn’t wanted her to know any of the specifics.

But she had seen enough. From what happened next, she assumed that it had come to violence. Beyond that, she had trusted the machine. Olivia had always trusted Forerunner, except for the time it tried to murder one of her team.

There were ponies here—dressed to match the setting. All three tribes were represented, with varied cutie marks though less varied ages. Most of them were in their prime. A few looked older, but there were no children.

“Have you ever been here?” she asked her companion, trying to keep her voice down. As she spoke, a tumbleweed blew past them, bouncing slowly forward.

“I’ve been everywhere,” Pear Butter said. “But not in a very long while. Mah family has some ties to Dodge Junction, five or six generations back. Not one ah them ponies is still down this far, though. Most of ‘em went off to be with the rest of the family.” She sighed, her voice growing distant.

“But the one you’re looking for is that way.” She pointed down the lane.

“What name did you say she was going by now?”

Before she could answer, a pony stopped her on the street—a stallion, with a ridiculous hat and a horseshoe for a cutie mark. “Well, I’ll be, Morning Dew! I didn’t think you were comin’ into town today. What changed yer mind about…” His eyes widened, and he took a step back, clearing his throat. “Pardon, miss. You looked exactly like a pony I know. But I can see you don’t have her cutie mark, and you ain’t the right age. Apologies all ‘round.”

Olivia shrugged one shoulder. “No problem.” Privately though, she felt her worry grow. Why would Karl go native this fast? Doesn’t he care about the mission? Then she remembered something else Pear had said, and she relaxed again. Time didn’t move the same speed in here.

I have to get to Karl. If anyone could figure out a way to send a message to our friends, it’s one of my scientists. They hadn’t made it easy to keep them alive.

As they walked, Olivia turned over what she had learned so far—strange information to be sure, and she didn’t care much about what it implied. But somehow, she knew that her scientists would. The Forerunner would probably be able to extract all kinds of things from what Pear Butter had been telling them, if only she could pass the message on.

Only one small fraction of curiosity pushed through to her, about one question: how could there be a world of the dead? She would’ve been prepared to accept heaven here, if that was what had been presented to her.

Her guide hadn’t tried that. Neither her nor Discord had said anything to suggest this was supernatural. They spoke about the afterlife and past lives like people back home described their cars.

Karl probably already has it worked out. She’s been living here for ages now. “When you said…” Olivia muttered, when she was sure none of the town’s inhabitants were close enough to overhear. “When you said time moves differently in here, just how differently? If I had a friend who died, say, two months ago…”

Pear Butter frowned. “If she’s not in the colony, I’d be surprised that she was still around after that long. Even ponies who have lots ‘ah family and friends. It’s tempting, Harmony up there, promising things. He can promise you to bring you back here when your friends die too, for example. Only… when that finally happens, you’ve changed so much you probably tell him not to.” There was real anger on the pony’s face then, glaring off at nothing. “Harmony’s a liar, but not like other ponies. He uses the truth to manipulate you. The worst kinda lie there is.”

“Well, she’s still around,” Olivia said. “So how long?”

Pear considered the question. “Hard to be sure. Some ponies find ways to sleep for lifetimes, but I never learned that trick. When we have something to do, it feels like a year goes by for every day on the outside.”

She slowed down, looking up the slope. “It’s Harmony who controls it—Discord can’t help us. It uses everything it can to manipulate us. Even time.”

The endless slope was still visible here in the old west, just as it had been everywhere else they went. Yet there was something distant about it—like clouds of dust kept it from being anything more than a general suggestion. Olivia found herself forgetting about it, as she never could’ve at their other destinations.

Pear led her outside of town, down a set of train tracks to a lonesome house surrounded by fenced-off pasture. Cows grazed in sparse herds, though what the generally vegetarian ponies would be using them for, she had no idea.

“You said animals don’t go here when they die, right?” Olivia asked, making conversation as they crossed the few kilometer distance to the house. The ground was flat enough to see it even from far away, and no one else was out here.

Olivia could’ve flown that distance in a few minutes, but that would be rude. Karl was dead, she could wait a little longer.

“Ponies disagree,” Pear Butter said, sounding a little more relaxed. Like Olivia’s question was taking her back into familiar territory. “Lots of ponies had pets, ya see. It’s a heartbreak to think that they might be gone. Most popular theory is that Harmony recycles them too—they can’t grow like we do, so why not use the same ones over and over? And there are ponies who claim they’ve done a lifetime as a rabbit or a skunk or something. So maybe that.”

“And if not?”

Pear Butter shrugged. “Then they’re with the Lost, floating in the void. Nopony knows where that river goes. Maybe it don’t go anywhere.”

It was amazing how human these ponies sometimes sounded. She had come all this way, who knew how many bazillion miles, only to hear the same questions being asked.

For the first time, Olivia Fisher found she was feeling grateful to her old human self, dead sometime long ago. Thank you, Olivia. I hope you had fun with those extra credits. Whatever resentment she had felt, Olivia left it behind on a lonesome road, on her way to find a dead friend.

“Last chance to turn around,” Pear Butter said, as they neared the building. It was a charming little house from up close—ranch style, with red tiles on the ceiling and a big metal cistern on the roof. A single power-line ran down from next to the rail, eventually connecting to the house.

“I’m going to see her,” Olivia insisted, though she couldn’t muster anger anymore. “I’m sure it’s been hard for her since she died—I don’t know what happens to people in your weird afterlife. But I was created to protect my people. I’ll do that here too.”

Pear Butter tugged Olivia to an abrupt stop, her grip so hard that Olivia was nearly lifted into the air. She kept her voice a harsh whisper.

“Alright, newcomer. Maybe yer the one she’s been waiting for all this time, I dunno. But you should know, Morning Dew has gone a little… cracked, since she died. The last few times I came out here, she ranted and raved, beggin’ fer me to warn Discord about monsters out in Equestria. I hate to be giving you bad news, but I really don’t think this is yer pony. I didn’t give her the tour… but I’m sure she’s ordinary. Plain old cutie mark, no word of Harmony or Discord responding to what she raved about—just settlin’ down to wait for her family like anypony else.”

Family? Could be that was her way of waiting for us without letting the ponies catch on to what she was thinking. Then again, was Karl really the sort to try and hide? The diplomat had been eager to meet Equestrians for herself. She had bored Olivia to tears with her ideas for a treaty one day—how modest she would make their request sound, how exciting it would be to learn from the ponies in person.

Had she really changed so much in all that time that she moved into a tiny house in the middle of dusty nowhere to raise cows?

The doors to the house banged open while they were still standing outside it, and a single pony emerged.

She did look like Karl, save that her mane had been braided into something complex, only partially hidden by a wide straw hat. She did have a cutie mark, a little birdbath.

“Pear Butter, I didn’t think I’d see you again.” She looked away for a moment, staring at Olivia. There was something uncomfortably penetrating about that stare. “You’ve… brought my twin, is that it? I didn’t know I had one.”

Olivia stepped forward before Pear Butter could say anything. “Dr. Karl Nolan, it’s me! Olivia Fischer. Don’t you remember?”

The pony twitched once, eyes widening a little. “Those are… strange names,” she said. “I don’t know anypony who sounds like that. Monsters, maybe.”

“See what I mean,” Pear Butter whispered from behind her. “She’s not your friend. Why don’t we turn around… go back to the farm? My husband will probably have supper ready by the time we get back.”

But Olivia ignored her—for now, anyway. She couldn’t come all this way and not be sure.

The quickest way would be just to speak English and check for a reaction—but as far as she could tell, she’d been speaking English since she got here, just like everypony else. No Tower of Babel in heaven, she supposed.

“Dr. Karl Nolan,” she said again. “You were piloting a jumper when Celestia destroyed it. You were trying to write a treaty for when we made first contact with the ponies. You wanted to open up a school for ponies to send their kids, don’t you remember? I’m Olivia… I guess I was a bit of an asshole to you. To Deadlight, to… to a lot of people. But we’re both dead now, so I figure it’s a good time to make amends. If that’s alright.”

Unfortunately, her words did not have a positive impact on the pony she was speaking to. Her wings spread, and a little storm seemed to billow up from around her. The sky darkened, and motes of dust began to spin. “Where did you learn those words? Why do you look like me? Did the monsters send you? I won’t be as easy to kill as last time!”

No comprehension at all. This has to be her! She has to be here! Karl was the one who deserved to be here with the ponies after she died. But Pear Butter wouldn’t have lied, would she? They’d done the search, so… either Harmony was lying, Karl didn’t want to be found, or… this wasn’t her.

“You’ll have to go easy on Olivia,” Pear Butter said, walking up beside her and touching her parentally, taking a single step between her and the angry pegasus. “She just died not long ago. Still mighty confused, from what I’ve seen…”

“Just died.” The pegasus relaxed a little, or at last the winds spinning around her did. She still watched Olivia with suspicion. “Are you sure she’s a pony, Pear?”

“Positive,” Pear Butter said. She didn’t even sound like she was lying. “We just came from the Temple—I’m sure you’ve heard of it. Didn’t see a single thing in there that wasn’t pony.”

Staring at her, it was remarkable just how much she looked like this pony. Everything was the same—her coat, the little splotches of lighter yellow near her hooves, the shine of her mane, her eyes…

She’s the sample. Everything came crashing down. This little town, middle of nowhere. The pony had chosen to live out somewhere just like she had in life. A life that a past Pioneering Society explorer had ended, for scientific reasons Olivia didn’t understand.

Karl’s not here. It’s just Morning Dew. The original.

“I fought a lot of monsters when I was alive,” Olivia said, ignoring the moisture she felt on her eyes. It had been a long time since she’d ever cried.

“Oh.” Morning Dew looked down. “You learned some of their language, huh? Did you ever kill any near Dodge Junction? I hope to Celestia somepony did… or else they’re still there, hunting ponies. Coming in the middle of the night, impossible to stop, can’t get away…”

Olivia didn’t answer. For a few seconds, she just listened to the pony’s hysterics, ignoring Pear Butter’s repeated gestures that they should leave.

“I didn’t kill all of them,” Olivia finally said. “Sometimes, I met a monster who was sorry for what she’d done. I’m sure the one who killed you didn’t mean to.”

“Then why?” Morning Dew demanded. “Why did they attack my family?”

Pear Butter only stared between them, too bewildered to keep pushing Olivia away. And maybe a little curious.

“Probably because she wanted to protect her family,” Olivia said. “But I don’t know. The one who hurt you has been dead a long time. She can’t hurt your family again.”

Olivia didn’t know how the little pony had gotten over to her so fast. She didn’t attack—what good would that have done even if she had? Instead, the big pegasus embraced her, showering her with tears.

Olivia found herself crying too. Crying for the battles she had fought and were now over. For the members of her crew who deserved to be here more than she did. Out of helplessness, for those who were still alive and out of reach.

The Forerunner was out of reach, and her only hope for help was dead.

Olivia was alone.

The jumper touched down on the polished metal surface outside Transit as delicately as any small insect. For all that the ship carrying it had suffered, the little craft seemed more or less intact. Lucky was the first to emerge out into the rough metal area, scattered with chunks of ice from where they’d had to shoot their way in.

Perez was tending to his wounded squad—all of them had been a little banged up on the trip here, either thanks to their own inexpertness with the equipment or just the bad luck of not having seat belts when they were transported. As it was, Lightning Dust and Deadlight were the first to emerge beside her, surveying the ruins with wide eyes.

Well, Deadlight looked impressed. Lightning Dust had been here before, so none of this would be entirely new to her. She even remembered where to find the entrance, tucked away alongside the otherwise empty shaft.

“We brought the supplies to last down here for a month,” Forerunner said from behind them. “I can devise some covert rescue by then if we fail.”

“You don’t sound upset to lose your airship,” Deadlight muttered. “How many bits went up in that fireball?”

“Irrelevant,” Forerunner said. “My crew is alive, all else is secondary. We will find some solution in these ruins, or we will find a way to regroup and try again. There is a solution to be found here, somewhere. The only difficulty will be in locating it.”

Lucky Break gestured once over her wing at the opening. “Let’s see how many of our ponies can move. We’ll organize into shifts, and push the…”

The ground under her hooves started to shake, a rumble so deep that she almost couldn’t hear it. Her ears weren’t designed for sounds like this, but it was still shaking her body. The whole world started to twist to one side, facing them slowly away from the door.

“Damnit, everyone out!” Lucky shouted, her voice as loud as she could make it. “Forerunner, get that ship away—”

“No!” She felt something haul her up by the back, then the world went spinning. Forerunner had tossed her into the empty doorway of the jumper, even as the whole thing took off again, its jets revving loudly. Lightning Dust and Deadlight came tumbling in after her, then the little aircraft shot forward towards the wall. Forerunner was on the outside, clinging to the doorway, blocking the way in case anyone came sliding toward him.

The ground began to glow faintly orange, and Lucky felt the warmth radiating up through the air. How fast would the temperature rise? How fast would it cook them?

“Everyone who can move, get ready to jump out the doorway and run as quickly as you can!” Forerunner shouted over the speakers. “This aircraft will not survive. Do not attempt to secure supplies!”

A second later, they smacked into the cavern wall, just a little too hard for comfort. The whole thing rumbled, and then they came to a stop, about a meter above the ground. Lightning Dust and Deadlight were the first ones out, followed by Mogyla and Perez, stumbling forward in exoskeletons. Lucky followed a few moments later, nudging Spike along with all the energy she had. Forerunner brought up the rear, carrying Abubakar’s limp form between his arms. He soared over Lucky in a single bound down the dark hallway, even as the grinding behind them became a roar.

Lucky saw Spike fall behind her a second before the flash, and the heat that tossed her forward through the air like a ragdoll. She bounced and skidded to a stop on the ground, staring back in horror at where the dragon had been.

Something seemed to slow the exchange of heat with the interior of the station, because she no longer felt like her wings were melting. Outside, she could see a wall of bright orange flame. She had to imagine it swallowing the jumper and everything inside, because she couldn’t actually see the ship. Or the dragon Twilight Sparkle had entrusted to them.

For a few seconds, there was silence from their broken group. Not only were they without a ship, their supplies had now burned as well. Only the natives had been wearing their saddlebags, aside from Lucky herself. They had their gear, plus the two exoskeletons.

“Who are we missing?” Perez asked, his voice hoarse as he rose onto all fours, surveying the group. “Looks like…” He trailed off. “Damnit. Is Williams ahead of us? Williams?” No answer. “Shit, what happened to the dragon? Didn’t he have intel we need?”

Then he emerged from the flames. For a few seconds, it looked like Spike’s scales were glowing, quickly dimming from a bright white to an angry red. Lucky could feel the heat radiating from him, and she stepped away.

“Oh, right. Sorry.” He took a step back, looking up at them all. “I’d go back and check the ship, but I don’t think it made it,” Spike said, as though nothing at all unusual had happened.

The soldiers looked confused—evidently whatever understanding had existed between the two groups had required magic from the princess. Spike’s Eoch sounded unchanged to her ears, but the others clearly lacked comprehension. So she translated.

“I didn’t think those stories were real,” Perez finally said. “Can you swim in lava too?”

“Yeah.” Spike smiled slightly. “It isn’t as cool as it sounds. I mean, it’s great, until you get out and all that rock stuck to you starts to harden. It’s a nightmare to clean off.”

There were a few weak chuckles from the Equestrian side. Most of her own ponies just stared out the open doorway, as the bright orange fire beyond began to cool, the view gradually replaced with sunlight.

No one spoke for a very long time. They didn’t even move. Lucky wondered if they felt the same fear that she did, knowing that they would be going into this mission without any of the gear they thought they needed.

Well, maybe not without any gear. As Lucky looked around, she saw that Forerunner had a case attached to his back. Plus there were all the weapons built into the exoskeletons, and what she and Lightning Dust were carrying. Spike’s huge backpack had apparently been consumed, and the only trace of it that remained were a few patches of ash on his shoulders.

Deadlight broke the silence. “The princess didn’t lock us out,” he said, forced cheerfulness in his tone. Better than nothing. “We still have a chance then, don’t we?”

“Three days without water,” Lighting Dust said. “I guess we have three good flyers here. We could gather snow from upstairs once that thing cools down.”

“No.” Lucky straightened, brushing off the dirt. Lightning Dust joined her—she had no reason to be afraid, considering she’d made this trip before too, though she hadn’t seen anything more than the lobby. “There is food and water inside. We will have to make do with what we have. Forerunner, where’s Williams?”

Forerunner looked down. “I am sorry, Lucky. I could not save them both. We will need a marksman more than a pilot right now.”

The weight of his words hit Lucky like a blow. Not just that one of their crewmates had died, but that he had been able to decide in the very second of danger which of their crew to leave behind. Lucky shuddered as she imagined what that death might’ve been like. Hopefully it had been fast enough that he hadn’t felt the pain.

“Williams,” Deadlight repeated, mispronouncing it. “Did he have a mark?”

“No,” Perez said. “I’m the only one… I think. Unless Mogyla has one.”

“No, sir. No tattoos here.” There was a weight to what they both said now, a layer of guilt hovering in the background. Perhaps they wondered whether they could’ve saved Williams.

Probably not. We barely made it as it is.

“This fucking plan better work,” Perez growled. “Williams was like the rest of us—ready to die for the Pioneering Society. If he died for nothing, that’s on your head.”

Lightning Dust glowered at him, stepping between the exoskeleton-wearing bat pony and Lucky. “I didn’t get most of that, but it didn’t sound much like gratitude. Half the northern fleet was trying to kill us! Almost all of us made it.”

“What does she fucking want?” Perez asked, before Lucky had the chance to translate. Not that she intended to.

“She’s upset we’re wasting time,” Lucky lied. “We need to get inside. I know where the food is. We’ll go there, then… figure out what to do next.”

Perez nodded, barking a few quick orders. “Mogyla, carry Abubakar. Forerunner, I see you have a rifle. Cover our flank. I’ll take point with the governor.”

They moved. As they passed out of the long tunnel, lights in the grand atrium switched on, along with the gently gurgling fountains. Lucky Break had a hard time appreciating all that beauty, knowing one member of their crew had just died. If she had planned this better, or been more ruthless, maybe Williams would still be alive. How many lives will we have to trade for our safety? For Equestria’s?

Given what had just happened, Lucky had little trouble keeping everyone together. Her frightened, despondent group arrived in the cafeteria she had visited before with Flurry Heart.

“Here.” Lucky collapsed into one of the chairs, slumping to one side. “This is… where we’ll make camp.” Where they would’ve made camp if their camp hadn’t just burned. But she resisted the urge to say as much.

“What’s so special about this place?” Lightning Dust asked, moving past her to the machinery in the center of the room, with its tubes and glowing display.

“Don’t touch that!” Perez was already setting up near the entrance, dragging over tables. They scraped noisily on the floor, but apparently, they were no match for his exoskeleton. “It might be dangerous.”

“It’s a food dispenser,” Lucky said, loud enough that they would all hear her. “We won’t go hungry while we’re here. Let me show you…”

Lucky didn’t have to guess as she walked up to the machine. She could easily read that it identified her by species and weight, then provided meal choices that were roughly analogous to the ones she was used to. She selected a huge hayburger to demonstrate, then wary ponies gathered around to watch as it was made for her. The display opened, and she set it down on the nearest table. “Flurry Heart and I ate here last time. I think there might be some beverages in there too. Point is, we won’t starve. Even if we don’t have most of our weapons, or the scientific equipment… we have time. We can figure out a plan.”

“You can figure out a plan,” Mogyla said from near one wall, resting casually as he stared out into the quiet base. Would Twilight break and reveal where they had gone? If she did… if Equestria sent an army now, Lucky wasn’t sure they could hold them off.

“Forerunner, any chance of getting help?” she asked, though she didn’t sound hopeful.

“I have no idea,” he said, facing her, and folding his arms solemnly. “I cannot reach… myself. What you are speaking to now is the intelligence contained entirely in this body.”

Lucky gestured, and he joined her at the table. Without a word, Lightning Dust sat down beside her, with a huge plate of hayfries. Lucky found the smell made her drift back to when they’d first met, in the basement of a Stormshire civic center, over a year ago now. Lightning Dust had brought food just like this—her first real food since she’d left the hospital.

Her mom had given her hope then, even when Lucky had been about ready to give up. How could she do the same for these ponies now? She could see it—even the soldiers kept glancing at her for guidance. This was all on her now. No tools, no Forerunner, no Alicorn.

What the hell do we do now?

Author's Note

Apologies to keep people waiting on Melody, but the chapter was already getting pretty long. Next week, though!

G7.01: Selene

Lightning Dust wandered through the strange halls of the place her daughter had called “Transit.” She had been here twice before, though both times she had seen the place only tangentially. Once from outside, in the great shaft that had almost burned them to death. Then, when she had learned of the princess’s kidnapping, she had discovered Lucky’s note and waited for her basically right inside the doorway.

She would have explored it further, if Lucky hadn’t come back, or so she told herself. In reality, Lightning Dust didn’t want to be here. It was an unnatural place, which pressed on her with a near-constant vibration from all directions. It was like the old creepy cloud at the end of the lane, the one every foal knew not to visit even if they couldn’t explain why. They didn’t belong here.

Her rational mind rejected that conclusion. They fought for the safety of everypony in Equestria. They fought to give those who remained even a small chance of freedom from Harmony. They fought against a princess who had murdered her helpless enemy without a trial. Lightning Dust could do that.

She wandered the halls with her daughter and Deadlight, making little marks with chalk under each sign as they passed them.

“You’re sure you came this way?” Deadlight asked, inspecting the sign. He seemed to puzzle over what it said, though as usual her daughter was a genius so she could just read it.

“Launch Preparation,” she muttered, waving one hoof over the text. “And no, not sure. I think we came this way. It felt like it was out here somewhere. But I dunno for sure. Flurry Heart said things, and it led us. That’s all it took before. I didn’t think I’d have to remember my whole way back, since I thought we could just ask if we wanted to leave.”

The ceilings were too high, the hallways too wide. Lightning Dust spread her wings for perhaps the hundredth time, though she knew she wasn’t going to take off. This place needs to figure out if it’s going to be a building or the outdoors. It was not quite either one. She almost could’ve flown away. Except that further ahead, there were smaller hallways that even Lightning Dust couldn’t traverse.

Stranger still, the weakening of their magic she expected from the north didn’t seem to apply in here. Lightning Dust didn’t feel heavier the same way she had outside. The restaurant was too small for flying, but plenty of times they’d had to glide up from one balcony to another. The fact there was no railing on many of them suggested that pegasi had built this place.

Or Alicorns. They can all fly too.

“Well, we’re not launching, are we?”

“We… kinda are.” Lucky glanced down at her radio, then held it up. “Contact check. You guys still there?”

“Waiting for you,” said Perez, sounding bored. He said some other things, but they were lost on Lightning Dust. She was quite proud of how much “English” she’d managed to learn so far—but when they talked that fast, it all blurred together. Perez was the worst offender in all of Othar in that regard.

Lucky responded just as fast, then shut off the radio. “Confirms what we thought, anyway. At least once we’re down here we can stay in contact. We’re only shielded from the outside.”

“When I studied with the University of Fillydelphia, we would have cleared the sky for a year straight for tools like that,” Deadlight muttered. “Being able to separate like that, not needing a unicorn on every team for sending emergency messages… so much more efficient.”

“You can have all the radios you want once we survive this,” Lucky said. “I am the governor. I’ll make sure Othar gives you a good price.”

She stepped back from the wall, nodding mostly to herself. “Yeah, I’m sure. We’re nearly there. It’s… just down that hallway. I remember that weird-shaped fountain against the wall there.”

“Here’s hoping.” Deadlight didn’t sound convinced—but he didn’t argue either.

If anypony can remember a way they only came once, it’s Lucky. She did have the signs to read to help her, even if much of what they said didn’t make sense to Lightning Dust. What the heck was a “Carbon Fixing” room, and why did they need one? Lucky didn’t explain. But then, she didn’t really want to know so much as she wanted an excuse to complain. It was nice to be able to do something familiar now that her whole world had been stolen.

The door at the end of the wide hallway opened automatically, and little Lucky started cheering, her wings buzzing as she lifted a meter into the air before landing again. Lightning Dust couldn’t really imagine why—the room inside was white and largely plain, except for a shaft running along the far side of the room to a few gigantic doors. The ground there was lowered quite a bit and had machines that suggested it wasn’t meant for ponies to walk.

The only obstruction in the whole room was one of the “displays” that were spread throughout Transit, a sheet of thin glass mounted to metal and angled a little too high for comfort on a pony neck. “This is the place! This is how we get to Canterlot!”

Lucky rushed over to the shaft, though she didn’t actually jump in. Lightning Dust remembered this part of the story from Lucky’s account of her trip with the princess—they had sat in fast-moving machines and ridden a long distance along tracks. “Where’s the thing you rode in?”

“I think Flurry Heart called it last time,” Lucky muttered, unable to conceal her fear completely. She walked over to the display, which immediately lit up with an even white glow. It was filled with symbols, so many that Deadlight seemed overwhelmed.

Lucky ignored both of them, sliding her hooves along the glass as though she knew exactly what she was doing. “Hah! I was hoping… looks like I was right.” She pointed one hoof at the display, where most of the symbols had fled, replaced with a single one.

“Summon…” Deadlight muttered, strain on his face as he read it.

“Summon transport,” Lucky said. “It let me get as far as pressing this button. I don’t think I want to, though. What if once we call it, we can’t stop it? What if an empty train goes to Canterlot? If there are really ponies working down there… they’ll see it, they’ll know something is wrong. We can’t do this until we’re ready to go.”

Deadlight looked away. “I wish this had come at a better time. We’ve learned enough in an hour to transform archeology forever. Maybe if we really settle in to study here, we’ll discover that we don’t need to go to Canterlot at all. Harmony should be able to obey commands anywhere, right?”

Lucky frowned. “Maybe… but I’m not sure. Discord talked about this like it’s something he’s been trying to do for a long time. If it was just a matter of telling Harmony to do something, then why hasn’t it been done for ages?” There was no answer forthcoming. “It has to be something that even Celestia couldn’t do, even though she ruled unopposed for a thousand years. I guess it sounds… kinda overwhelming when I say it like that.”

“Not necessarily.” Deadlight sat down on his haunches behind her, looking thoughtful. “The sun princess has always been willing to sacrifice for her ponies. Even her own family wasn’t too important to give up. Maybe she thought it wasn’t worth the risk. Or maybe Harmony convinced her not to try.”

“Or,”—Lightning Dust couldn’t listen silently any longer—“maybe she didn’t give a buck about anything and she’s just been doing whatever she wants. Maybe she listens to Harmony because he put her in power and that’s what’s easy.”

Lightning could hardly believe what she was saying. She never would’ve dreamed of speaking about the princesses with language like that before. But life had changed, Dust’s attitude had changed. Maybe Luna wasn’t evil; the jury was still out on that one. But Celestia—everything about her rule was obviously a lie.

Deadlight turned, expression more thoughtful than angry. “I don’t think banishing her sister was easy, Lightning. She just believed strongly enough that it was the only way for her to save Equestria, and she…”

Lucky walked past them both, back towards the open doorway. “We need to go back and meet with everypony. Plan out what we’re going to do in Canterlot. I don’t think we have the time to wait and study. What if Celestia or Cadance show up to seal Transit off again, and they find us here? Cadance already sent a fleet after us once. They could’ve continued on to Transit just to be safe, and we might not even know.”

Lightning Dust shivered as she considered it—Lucky was right, of course. This place was so gigantic that there could be thousands of ponies wandering around inside it and they wouldn’t have a clue. Until they bumped into somepony. “Should we be hiding better?”

“Maybe,” Lucky said. “If we think it will take longer to prep for the trip to Canterlot. I’ll see what Forerunner thinks.” She gestured impatiently with her wings. “Come on! I wanna get back… so we can get this over with.”

Melody did not expect she would survive the hour. As she settled into the cot, trying to ignore the persistent irritation of the needle resting against her neck, she found little consolation in Forerunner’s swarm of fawning drones.

You sacrificed a dozen of these things to save me, put me in surgery to give me back my hearing, and now I might be dead before nightfall. “How desperate are you?” she found herself blurting, before the thoughts had formed into a more coherent response.

Forerunner’s robots looked like they were about done setting up the machine, whatever it was. They’d even brought the crystal her younger self had recovered, and it sat on a little glowing scanner. Maybe Melody was a little desperate too. Desperate to extend the time before the Forerunner connected her to that crystal, and her head exploded.

“I don’t understand,” the Forerunner said, from its drone wearing the white coat. It wasn’t a different model from the others, but that single change did give Melody something she could focus on. “You know how serious this situation is.”

“I mean…” She took a breath. All the cables seemed connected, everything was green. It might be waiting only on her words to switch on this thing. “Why work so hard to keep me alive if you were just going to kill me?”

The Forerunner didn’t sound distant anymore as he replied. If anything, he sounded—hurt? Offended, almost. “I am not trying to kill you. I hope very much you survive this ordeal, Melody. I hope you and that child survive to enjoy the rest of your lives on this planet. I hope you will return to serve many tours of duty with the Pioneering Society. I hope for a peaceful resolution with Equestria.”

“Then why?” She gestured at the crystal. “You really think anything in there is worth me probably dying? You know I’m pregnant. Does that life not weigh into your calculations?”

The Forerunner’s attention was on her now. Over a dozen drones, and probably even more cameras. Forerunner had picked the furthest corner of medical for this procedure, but there were still plenty of them mounted to the ceiling.

“Regrettably, it does not. As you may be about to die…” he began, “I suppose telling you may lend you greater resolve than Martin possessed.”

“You know, I was thinking about that too. I doubt she had to force you into setting this up. I bet you coerced her.”

Forerunner ignored the accusation, its voice flat. “Olivia is dead, incinerated by the Equestrian princess. During her escape, she killed at least a dozen native soldiers, possibly critically wounding our relationship with the nation. Twilight Sparkle came over to our side… very briefly. I am uncertain of her loyalties. Upon reflection, it is possible she suggested the plan of infiltration via Transit Equus Zero Violet Zero as a way of containing the team somewhere desolate until soldiers could arrive.”

Melody opened her mouth to respond, but the Forerunner wasn’t finished. He just kept going—every new detail a new weight bearing down on Melody’s soul.

“The away team managed to reach Transit, though it is possible one or more of them were killed when the jumper they were on was destroyed by an unknown station system. I have lost contact with the team, including that tiny segment of myself Lucky requested. It may be impossible to reestablish contact while the team is inside that facility, though I’m sending drones anyway. But they may not even arrive before the Equestrian military does.

“I am unable to fabricate anything of strategic value in time. Olivia’s actions may’ve inadvertently secured Twilight’s aid, or the ire of a princess even more determined to destroy us.”

Forerunner finally stopped, letting the weight of all he had said crush her like a fallen wall.

“So, what are you doing now?” Melody finally asked. “Making… combat drones?”

“No.” The Forerunner’s voice changed again, filled with resolve. “Projections suggest critical mission failure. I have focused all available manufacturing capacity on redundancy. I will seed the remainder of the ring with backups, and fill the space of this planetless system with satellites. If this generation fails, I will spend much more time before I attempt to intervene actively. Perhaps after many years, I will be able to produce a population that is culturally compatible enough to still qualify as human, yet not provoke the population of this ring to violent opposition. Considering this star is a red dwarf, I have all the time I could ever need. Billions of years, if that is what it takes.”

Melody couldn’t help but feel she was being manipulated. But if that was what Forerunner was doing, it was working. “So that’s where I come in,” she finally said. “Because… you’re hoping I’m going to learn something to help our team win. Something you can send to them, once your drones get there.”

The Forerunner laughed. “Ideally, that crystal will contain a shutdown code for Harmony I can transmit myself. It would be better not to trust something so critical to the hands of organic segments. Their lack of hands notwithstanding.”

Melody shifted on the cot, resisting the urge to fight free of her restraints yet again. The huge piece of copper machinery beside her with its many fans was a persistent reminder of how she might be about to die. “Might as well get started. Once you switch this on… will I be able to see you?”

“No. I will play the memories for you in discrete segments. We may converse between them. If the process works as designed, you will remember what you observe, but no differently than any other memories you might make. But if Harmony interferes as it did before, the outcome becomes nondeterministic.”

“Well, switch it on. Let’s see what the dead Alicorn wanted us to know.”

“It will be painful,” the Forerunner said. “I have administered relaxants, but you should prepare. We will begin with the second to last memory.”

She was not prepared for the agony as it washed through her, a searing heat that began in her spine and crept up towards her skull. The pain overwhelmed her in moments, releasing her into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.

I could hear the world ending all around me.

Every few moments, another artillery shell landed, another fortification destroyed. Across the ridge, the enemy army outnumbered ours fifty to one. The earth ponies weren’t just stronger than we were—but they bred faster, thanks to their endless food reserves. My tiny nation just hadn’t been able to keep up.

As I hovered in the air, my shield occasionally lighting with the impact of another shell or tracer round, I realized I couldn’t even hate them. The earth ponies believed they were protecting all of Equus from destruction. In some ways, they were right. You could’ve given us more time. I would’ve set you all free.

I would not be setting anypony free today.

I spent another few moments surveying the advancing formation—an unstoppable wedge. So much of their magic rode in that wave that spells shattered, bullets bounced from unprotected flanks, bunkers crumbled. Barbed wire tore like it was twine. The snow all around them never seemed to melt before their advance, but it didn’t slow them down either. These ponies were so empowered by the land that none of its natural hazards could stop them.

Unlike my own ponies, which had to bundle themselves in coats and thermal gear just to survive the gale.

I disappeared in a flash, reappearing in my command post. They were so close to Unicornian land that we had used an old monastery for our shelter, its pews and benches replaced with maps and radio stations. Activity still buzzed in here, under the whine of many electric heaters.

My appearance brought straighter backs and salutes, and I made my way to the map table.

Her generals were all here. Chief among them was Aurelia, twice the height of any pony and nearly as tall as I was. The vitruvian faintly glowed from her face and hands, a subtle aura of magic that was both communication and identifier. I could understand her, but for the benefit of the other ponies here, she used speech.

“Princess Selene.” She brought her fist to her chest in a salute. An ancient gesture, something she had brought from her homeland and taught to the ponies beneath her. Few inspired loyalty quite like Aurelia could. “Good news from the sky, I hope? I can see you were harder to shoot down than our drones.”

I cast a faint bubble of silence around us, a gesture so second-nature that I hardly needed to think about it. “None. Even the gas didn’t stop them. I predict they will reach the rear-guard within the hour.”

Silence. Her other generals, Golden Spear and Moonrise, both looked to Aurelia. I could see their quaking hearts—a desire to flee, barely suppressed. They would feel the same as their own troops in that regard.

Where do you think you’ll run? When they’re done with us, they’ll come for Unicornia itself. Your families are next.

“What if we held for a few more days?” Aurelia suggested. “Do you think that would be long enough?”

Not a chance, I thought, though of course I didn’t say it. These soldiers were brave—the vitruvian officers could fight with a ferocity that few ponies could match. But against numbers like these? With the cold slowing and smothering them, and the food running out, their prospects were bleak. In Unicornia almost everything was breaking down. The power infrastructure had been destroyed, the water wasn’t flowing. How long before simple plague or starvation destroyed my kingdom?

“We have to try,” I said instead, nodding once to the vitruvian. “Give me as long as you can.”

Aurelia saluted. Golden Spear and Moonrise imitated the gesture, though there was something resolved in it. All of them knew what I was asking. They were doomed.

“It will be an honor to die for you,” Aurelia said.

“For the ashes of our fathers and the temples of their gods,” echoed Moonrise.

I didn’t trust myself to remain there a moment longer. Breathing in power, I then channeled it into a long-range teleport. I vanished in a flash.

Though the palace of Unicornia had escaped much of the destruction that pegasus bombing had brought, it could not escape the chaos of a city about to die. I could practically taste it on the wind. Desperation, fear, hunger, all mingling in the bitter cold. I glanced once out the window, and saw few cars moving on the streets. There was too little fuel to waste on frivolity when it took everything we had just to keep warm. Fires burned again in the city for the first time in a generation, with many unicorns lacking the magic or the money to warm themselves any other way.

As I passed through the palace, I nodded to guards, unicorn and vitruvian both, all of which straightened and gave that same salute. I was in far too much of a hurry to spare even a moment to give hope to these.

And it would be a lie anyway.

How long could Aurelia give my city, a day? Probably not even that. I had a specific destination in mind, and I reached it in short order.

The Datamine was a buzz of activity, filled with scribes of both races. The crane-operator waved from up above, apparently nonchalant. He had to know the doom weighing down on us, just like everyone else. Vitruvians had a strange range of emotions—some, like Aurelia could be harder than steel. Others could remain relaxed and cheerful while the world ended all around them.

I arrived in the control room moments later, and was unsurprised by its occupants. Clover the Clever argued with Virgo over the latest permutation of the Harmony projection, quite unsuccessfully. The holofield in front of them flickered through patterns so fast even I had trouble reading them all. But Clover hadn’t earned his name for nothing.

Both rose as they noticed me, unicorn and vitruvian alike. They both bowed, but I waved them away with a wing, turning instead to the other two. Both of these were vitruvians as well, though one wore that body the same way ponies put on coats. “Discord, can you spare a moment? We must talk.”

Discord and Tojil had not been studying here—both dressed in the armor of vitruvian soldiers, though they’d removed their helmets to play. While Tojil’s skin shimmered with pleasant shades, Discord’s was nauseating to look at. Patterns formed halfway under the surface, dissolving into a clashing mess before melting into something else, and his limbs never matched.

But if they had, he wouldn’t have been able to fulfill his purpose very well, would he?

Discord set down the paddle—which immediately fell upward and smacked into the ceiling, before growing into an upside-down flower. His pet vitruvian for the day burst out laughing, muttering something in his native language. Or that was what I assumed from the rhythmic way his skin flashed.

“An honor to serve the citizens of Equus,” Discord muttered, with obvious irony in his voice. “Forgive me, Tojil. I will return shortly.”

“Princess!” Clover called from the holotable, looking hopeful. “Good news from the front?”

I didn’t answer the question. “You have done what you could, Clover. Return to the palace and prepare for a journey. See that my daughter is prepared as well and summon a hundred of the best unicorns you can from the city.”

I didn’t stop to explain the order. Clover was clever enough to understand what it meant.

Discord had gone some distance away, leaning over the edge of the railing to look down at the Datamine. Thousands and thousands of glass blocks were stacked there, each one etched with different patterns.

Another decade, and we would’ve found it. Sweetheart, why couldn’t your crusade wait a little longer? I cleared my throat from behind Discord. “You are watching. You know how things go at the front.”

Discord nodded absently, not looking back. Yet he still spoke quietly enough that we wouldn’t be overheard up here. “I know Harmony will soon have its way,” he said. “Its new slave will destroy all but the ones she knows she can control. Harmony will transform Equus into a shadow of itself, peopled with a population kept in ignorance.”

“Could I have done more to stop her? Could I have been more persuasive?”

“You could have killed her.” He sounded matter-of-fact, nonchalant. Still he didn’t even turn around. “Her younger sister wouldn’t even remember what you took.”

The terrible thought, the price that I had been unwilling to pay.

Discord seemed to see what I was thinking, because he finally turned. “You would not return one life to Harmony when I warned you of what it would cost you. You let our enemy seed the field with tares, and you praised him while he did it. Will you feel superior when your city dies, I wonder? I tell you—when Harmony has brought every soul in Equus unto itself, and our great experiment ends at last, I will take no satisfaction. No one will pay a higher price than I.”

“I’ve come to bargain,” I said, a little louder. More confident. “I hoped we would finish our work here… but we were too late, too slow. You and your pets are the only hope we have left.”

“The vitruvians?” Discord turned fully to face me. “They’re already dying for you, Selene. My friends gave you their loyalty, their technology… now their lives. What makes you think we can stop what you have started?”

I bit back a twinge of desperation. He has to have a way. He’s part of the system. He can do anything. “Because I know how much power you have, Discord. The ancients would not have created a failsafe that lacked the power to save.”

“The ultimate failsafe is not me, it is civilization. Yours, like all before it, has trapped me. Unless you do otherwise, there is little I can do for you.”

“Could you stop Celestia? Stop her from creating a society of eternal ignorance?” I lowered my voice to a whisper, a little shame creeping into my tone. “Could you save a few of the ones I love?”

Discord seemed to consider that a long time. All but his face was concealed in the armor, yet I could see his skin cycle through several shades I hadn’t even known existed. How far into the ultraviolet did that go? Finally he stepped closer to me, leaning to whisper into my ear. “Free me,” he said. “And I will grant your request.”

I withdrew instinctively, my face twisting into a mask. I knew this program well, over my long, long life. I knew the chaos he could create.

“Oh, all your worst fears and more,” he said, still apparently reading my thoughts. “I will cause destruction like nothing you have imagined. I will make this invasion look like a foal’s tantrum. But in the end, I will destroy utterly every construction Harmony and Celestia have made together. I will make their ignorant society impossible. And I will save the lives of those few you choose. The hundred you asked of Clover, yes?”

“And a few more. My youngest daughter.”

“The mortal?” Discord grimaced. “You refused to grant her citizenship. I cannot stop time.” He drew out a ticking pocket watch, holding it up to his head to read. As he did so, the whole thing came apart, the gears and springs still spinning in the air in a trail where he’d left them. “Well… not forever.” The pieces dropped all around him, clattering through the catwalk to the floor below.

“Yes,” I insisted. “Little Platinum, Clover’s expedition. Anyone they want to bring. Do that, and… I’ll release you.”

Discord extended a hand. I couldn’t see it glow through his gloves. “Is that a deal?”

I offered my hoof. “Do whatever you have to do.”

Discord gestured back towards the control room. “Then come with me. This console will work as well as any. Free me, and I will begin.”

I walked back with him. Virgo and Clover were gone now, off to obey my orders. Only Tojil remained. He’d folded up the ping-pong table and played against the back wall. He didn’t stop as we walked in.

“Send him out,” I ordered. “Maybe he can help with the evacuation or something. I don’t need protection.”

I walked up to the console, waiting as its many little hexagons lifted and reconfigured themselves for my hooves. They glowed many different shades, individual characters appearing on the surface, then vanishing again. Waiting for my input. I pressed the sequence that would get Harmony’s attention—or what small part of it could peek through this console into the physical. They were words, a simple sentence I could’ve spoken at any moment, if I wanted. But there were others here, and Harmony would not take kindly to those who learned this password.

Even then, I had never fully understood them. Never wanted to. Well, maybe one day. But not today.

Every screen in the control room went white. The machinery outside froze in place, unresponsive. Even the abandoned computer Tojil had left behind lit up.

“̪̞̗͙͎̰̟̼͑̔̉̇ͦ͊͆Ẃ̢͇͍̤͍͓͍͉̭̆̅ͫ̋̓̂̾ẻ͈̠̜͓̤̯̓̊̇ͫ͜ ̷̶̛̩̖̹̞̳͍ͨͨ͗l̶̤̹̟̱͉͛͒̏̍̓ͯͭ̌͢͢i̢̠̰͒̋͘͠s̴̱̬̼̺ͩͮ͐ͮt̢̟̎̉ͤȩ̠͖͉̲̠̹̼̪͙ͣͭ̽̅̏͗n̡͈͉͔̞̖ͯͤͮ̋͗ͣ͋.̢̞͔̞̻̈͂”̰̯̻͈͈͚̒ͤ͠͠

Harmony’s attention was something impossible to ignore, even for me. Harmony knew full well I was its enemy, with an understanding far vaster than my own. It could’ve swept me from the ring in a thousand ways—could have, except for the words of the ancients. Its boundaries were fixed.

Harmony did not display emotions familiar to me—its presence didn’t radiate anger or frustration, despite our hostile relationship. Nor did it seem pleased, parental, or any other familiar. Harmony was not like vitruvians, a step or two removed from ponies but fundamentally within reach.

Harmony was a god.

“I have… a command,” I said, voice quavering. I had faced down armies alone, put my life in great peril many times, but this. Ordering the one whose will governed my entire world.

“̩͈͍̫̪̆̄͆G̛͕͓̙̮̮͆̾ͫ̈̆̃̕i̸̡̟͙̝̅̅͟v̱͙̜̘̞̖̻̮͋̊̈ͅẹ̢͇̳̮̩̫̰͙̜͛̓͊̄̎̆̄͜.̠̉̈ͩ̋̃”͍̞̹̞ͥ̏ͩ

“The failsafe…” I stammered. “Lift entrapment.”

“̲̮͓̤ͯͣͦ̚͝Ȗ̥̼̰̟̍ͪ̀̆̉͆͟nͮ͊͗̔̊͂͗̀҉̰̙͇́w͆̽̂ͨ̎͏̖͕̱i͍̯͑̆ͥ̈͗͡͠͠ͅs͕̦̞̓̿̑ͣ́e̶̦͕̠̙͆̊͛̋ͭͮ́͠.̧͈̻̬͗̿ͯ̍ͫ͗͋”̽̔͏̜͚̪ ̶̮̱̝̥̺̣̲̞̎ͨ̌͞

Harmony’s presence bore down my mind like an inexorable weight. I could almost reach into eternity along the lines of power there, a wisdom that should be beyond questioning. Its will was enormous—its persuasion was perfect, even if its grasp on my reality was tenuous. This was the being that had stolen my daughter’s loyalty.

Even so, I was forced to endure its visions—predictions of the destruction that Discord would bring. He had been trapped for so long—the chaos he would create would bring so much pain. None would die forever, of course, but so many would die. Almost everything I had ever fought to build would be erased.

Yet my visions did not show my creations going extinct. Unicorns, pegasi… I didn’t see the end Celestia wanted.

So I endured. “Nevertheless, it is my command.” Then I said the words—an almost sacred phrase. “The stars shine, but they cannot love. The void consumes, but it cannot hate. The fool begs the star and the void to listen and remember what it was to live.”

“T͛̒̍̿̃he͓͖͎͓͋ͧ ̘̟̪̼͎̜̉ͨ͑̇̓ͥw͙̙̖̟̓̔͌̂̂͒ī̧̙͕̙̖̔l̲̗͇̼ͭ̑ͥ̌ͭĺ̝͚͇̫̤̓̒ͮͨ̔ ̓̽̒ͨ̑́̏o̪̤̮͉̭̯̦̎̃f̣̝͔̳̈̊̽͐͐̎͜ ̫ͥ̏̉ͦ̅̋t̤̻̺̠̬̜͇̃̓̅͊̒ͥ̓h̷̯̥̖̤ͅͅẹ͓͎̹̥̘ͨ̍̂ͫ͛ͅ ͙̤͓̘̜̱̇̏c̞̫͇̻͔͚̹̽ͥ͛ͥ̎h̭͉͖̳̟̖͚ͧ̇̓̎̀ͬi̠̲̮̘͖̫̲ͯ̇̔ͫ̇̓̈́͞l̞̲̝͇̺̀ͥ̋͘ͅd̂ͮ͒̈ͩ͐͟ ͤ̈̀í̷̑͋̄͗s̲͈̤̜ͧ̈́̍͐ ̼͓͍̟̮ͩd̖̖̥̪͚͆͋͜o̷n̢̝̱͉̘͂͑̉ḙ̴̻̬̳̘̤͊ͬ̉͌̄ͪ̚.͇͍̬̗͙ͫ̉̅̇͆̏ ͓̦̿̃͂T̩͎̑̀h̫͓ͦͪ̄͋̒̾ͪe͎̬̗̝̥̞̓̂͗̇̔ͪ̚ ̞̹͎͓̗͎̑̉͌c͖͈̳̊̊̀ͦ̏̊͗́o̝̐̎̎̒̈́͂̒n̴̘̮̙̬̦ͮs̶̭̤̼͕̿̇̊̆̐ͮe̱̦̭ͯ͂̿ͦ̂̽ͬ͟q͑ͫū̙͓͔̠̄ͫͫ̉ͣě͚̳̪͒̉̆̔͠n̸͓̪̗̳̩̽͗̈́ͫͤc̳̣̝̹̻e͚̹͕͓̘̬̎̂s̠̘͙̹̒͊ ̅̅â̮̤͇͔ͦ͋̂͒͗r̲͇ẹ̩̣͖̥ͤ̂͐͜ ̸͇̓̉ẏ̫̻̪̠̱̲͆o͇͍̗ͥͣ͝ụ̠͚̞͒ͥͩ̐̐̌̍͜r̲̮̳͙̺̟̤ͯͬ̂ ͔̩̘͆͌̀̚o̤̘̲̥̝̲̗̒̿ͧ̍̀w̞̪̱̙͎̽̃͛ͩͫ̓ͬ͝n͑̔͏̣̮̙̥̺.”

All the screens flashed, briefly darkening before returning to what they had displayed before.

A pair of shackles clinked to the ground from around Discord’s wrists. He hadn’t been wearing them moments ago, of course. But such minor details almost never mattered to him. “Well, isn’t that delightful.”

I had never seen Discord smile so wide. “Now, we had a deal. The future in exchange for a few lives, if I recall. Time to see it gets done.”

The ground started to shake, a low rumble that passed through all the city and probably shook the mountains too. I teleported briefly outside. He couldn’t have! Even Discord wouldn’t…

He had. In the distance, I could make out a pillar of smoke topped with something orange as it rocketed upward. Ponies and vitruvians alike actually started cheering as they saw it rise into the sky, no doubt ignorant of what it meant.

I wasn’t, though. I could feel Harmony’s focus again—not just on me this time, but on all of Unicornia. Harmony’s boundaries were fixed by the wisdom of the ancients, all right. Discord had just passed them.

“N-no… Discord, you…”

He was there beside me in the air—vitruvian mask abandoned completely for something older. A mismatch of different parts, a creature from folklore. Something the ancients had made to settle some distant, inhospitable world.

“No, that’s exactly what it looks like—a manned spacecraft. Launched from this district of Equus. I wonder what Celestia must be thinking right now—do you think she knows what’s about to happen?”

“Discord…” I repeated, staring in horror down at the city below. I couldn’t hear ponies cheer anymore. Maybe the diffuse blue glow that now permeated the land, the evidence of Harmony’s eyes on them… maybe they knew what it must mean.

“You said you’d pay the price I asked, Selene. It could have been so much cheaper if only you’d been willing to send one of Harmony’s soldiers back to it. But now… now life in this sector will end.”

At that moment, I saw the explosion. The little flash of lightning in the sky, connecting with the rocket. It hadn’t even exited the atmosphere yet. Then I heard Harmony’s voice again. It was no less overpowering for targeting the entire civilization at once. Not just Unicornia—the invaders would hear it too. Even Discord’s pets would hear it, now that they were in the system with the rest. They would all be doomed together.

“P͢o͠͡p͘ư͜l͠a͏̴ti̢on̢ ́ó̷f t̶h̕͠í͝s̨͝҉ ̢di̸̛͟s͏̧͏t͢͝r͟i̕c̕t̷̷,̵̕̕” said the voice. “Yơ͠ú ̸̢h̴͡͞a̛͠v҉e̡͏ ͠pa͏s̀se̸d̶͟ ̡̨͞ą̛ ͠f̧o͠rb̶͝ì̕͞d͡d̀ȩ͝n ͡͡d͏èv̵͠ęl͏̢ờ͝p͜͞me̡̡n̶̢ta̶̵̛l̶ ̢b̷͡a҉͝rŕi͝҉̡e͝r͘.̛͟ ̨͠T̛h̨̨͟i̴̵s̨̕͠ ̵di̸͟s͝t̢͢͡r̷̵ict ̸͢wį͟l̶l̷̢ ̴̕͡be͏ ̵́re͘s̡̕͟e̷͡t. ̀͢͡Y͜ou̡ ̡m̛á͡y̨ ̡̛r̢ȩ̷t͞u̸rn̨͡ ́҉̨to l̵̵i̸͠v̷͞e̡ ̢́͘b̀e͝lò͜w҉̷ ͘͟on̨lỳ̡͜ a͜f̕t̴̡er ţh̸́e̸̵͘ ͏re̡͡şe̷t̴͝ ̨i͏s͘ ͜ć̛͢o̵̕m͘p͏l͡e҉t̶̷̴e.̸̨ ̷̸̕P͢͡r͏̶epar̢e͟͠ ̴̀͘f̡͘o̢r ̕a̴̶͢ ̛ḿ͜͝om͢e͏̕͝nt͠ of̨̕ ̢dìs̴c̷̵͟o͡m̢̕f̵̢o̕rt͝.”

The air began to billow from below, a terrible tempest that took up whole flurries of snow (and anything else that caught the wind) spinning off in sudden, hurricane gusts. I shielded myself, though my magic would not last forever. Once Harmony determined nothing should be living in this district, the supply of magic would stop just like everything else.

“And so it begins,” Discord said, sounding immensely pleased. “Our last chance for escape.” He snapped his fingers, and suddenly we were back in the palace. “Harmony destroyed every one of them I brought, you know. Anything it could detect.”

We were in a workshop now, where Discord’s vitruvians worked. There was a single object in a glass display-case in the center of the room, about the size of a sack of cooking flour. Inside was a machine, with spindly metal legs and a ragged sail. Discord casually ripped a computer screen from a desk and shattered the glass with a single strike. “This little relic is all that’s left, Selene. Our one last chance to avoid inevitability.”

I could hear the screams echoing through the palace as parts of the structure went ripping away. The wind wouldn’t stay long enough to bring the city down, of course. Soon enough, there would be no air left for wind. “Don’t forget… your half of the bargain,” I whispered. “Platinum, Clover… their expedition. My creations will endure.”

“Of course,” Discord said, and he didn’t even sound malicious as he said it. “I’m just going to give them something to carry.” He snapped off the little metal struts, then tore off the sail and tossed the whole thing roughly into a canvas saddlebag. He offered it to me. “You will give this to Clover. Tell him that his first mission, before all else, is to travel to the furthest reaches of his new home and bury this.”

“Why can’t you do it? I just released every stop on your power, Discord. You can do anything you want.”

He shoved the bag towards me again. “Because what I do isn’t protected, wise Princess Selene. Harmony can undo anything it chooses to undo. But what you do, what your children do… their will is sacrosanct. And what mission would Clover respect more than the last request of his mentor? His creator?”

I took the saddlebag, glowering. “Your prices are too high, Discord.”

“So it seems. Yet when you suffocate beside these others, you may not think so. Death is such a fleeting thing. The novelty really isn’t what it seems.” He vanished.

Melody woke screaming. She found herself struggling, tearing at bonds she couldn’t have broken—restraints made to contain one with enhanced strength. For a few seconds the world swam around her, shapes and outlines blurring together. She wasn’t an ancient Alicorn, one who had revived ancient races Harmony had long eradicated. She wasn’t the ally of Discord who had doomed a civilization.

She was Melody, the useless clone of a translator. She was in Othar—and she wasn’t dead.

“That was horrible,” she croaked, finally relaxing against her restraints. There was no point trying to fight with them—the Forerunner had put them there for her own protection, and it would not release them until it felt that was necessary.

“You’ve returned.” His voice sounded almost surprised. “That is good. Martin… didn’t. Once she began the process.” The drone picked up a tool from the desk, holding it up. “What am I holding?”

“Nitrogen needle.” Melody’s voice was still weak. She had returned to the medical bay, yes. But it wasn’t quite as though nothing had changed. She felt… pressure. It was so hard to explain. No, pressure is the wrong word. Attention. Those memories were still in her mind, vivid and terrible. She knew what it felt like to have Harmony watching her, even peripherally.

“I need to tell you… what I saw,” she said. “I know why Harmony killed those ponies.” She knew more than that. She remembered the words that Selene had spoken, the ones that had forced Harmony’s obedience in releasing Discord. Perhaps they could do more.

G7.01: Polaris

“It’s just too much for a pony to take in at once, that’s all.” Pear Butter led Olivia up a charming country road, through a patch of fruit orchards. Olivia found herself slowing as she walked, as she was assaulted with memories of her past. Between Pear’s accent, the village, the orchards.

How do I know Harmony isn’t attacking me now? Trying to… make it so I can’t fight. She had stood bravely before Celestia even when she knew she would die. She had fought an army on her own while surrounded in enemy territory. Now, she could barely keep going. Her body never tired, but the exhaustion went on forever.

“You’ll cheer right up as soon as you see whatever Bright Mac’s got cooked up for us. He always has something ready after Discord sends me out to do something, just like I’d do for him. A stomach full of home cookin’, a warm bed, and you’ll be right as rain by tomorrow.”

“W-what’s… the point?” Olivia found herself asking. “We don’t need food, do we? We can’t die, we can’t starve. I didn’t need to eat before.”

“Oh, you don’t need to eat, sure.” She waved a hoof dismissively. “Maybe up closer tah Harmony ponies get fancy and forget about the simpler things in life. But down here, it’s not hard to remember. It tastes just as good as you think it should, if that’s what you’re worried about. Nothing you could do out there that you can’t do in here. Well… aside from being out there.”

Olivia could see the little farmhouse now, complete with a barn behind. It wasn’t a ranch, and there were no cattle grazing here. There was a little patch of vegetables closer to the house, all of which looked almost ready to harvest. She could smell smoke rising from the house, and it did smell as good as Pear Butter had described. Maybe she was right. “You don’t think… L-Luna will come looking for me, will she?”

That finally got Pear to slow a little bit, thinking. “Discord’s real good at hiding folk. I’m sure if he doesn’t want you found, you won’t be. And if she does come ‘round these parts, there are lotsa folk prepared to tell tales for ya, if that’s what it takes. Bright Mac and I are better at it than most…” She trailed off, and they walked in silence up the rest of the way to the farmhouse.

There were no insects, and the temperature was perfect out here. Someone had left the door and windows open. Olivia could see right into the kitchen, and the pair of ponies talking in there. One of them was just the sort of stallion she had imagined from Pear’s descriptions of Bright Mac—yellow, with a bright red mane and an apple cutie mark. But there was another pony in there, one she hadn’t been expecting.

She looked like one of Olivia’s friends. The same general appearance as herself, though more mature. Bright yellow coat, blue mane. They appeared to be conversing about something, as the mare gesticulated wildly with her wings. The casserole behind them was still steaming, and there was an apple pie cooling under the window.

“Well I’ll be.” Pear stopped in the open doorway. “That’s the third time today we’ve seen a pony who looked like you.”

“Buttercup!” Bright Mac yelled. “Got a call while you were gone… hope you don’t mind. Star Lily and I just warmed up some leftovers.”

“It’s fine, Sugar,” Pear called back, leading them inside. Olivia imitated the way she brushed her hooves off at the door, then followed her through the little farmhouse into the kitchen. It was a delightful little home, with various family photos dominating most of the wall-space.

The mare rose as Olivia entered, expression as shocked as Olivia felt. She was a little slower than Olivia, though.

“Karl!” Olivia cried, hurrying past both the natives right over to the older pony. She resisted the urge to reach up and embrace her—though that seemed like the natural thing, she’d never been that close to Karl. Her diplomat would probably not be happy to have such sudden and unexpected contact. “I wandered all over the ring searching for you!”

The pony looked away, ears flattening. “I’m… not Dr. Nolan,” she said. She turned, showing the little rectangle and curved line on her flank. “See? I’m… Oh, right, you were kidnapped… er… I guess not kidnapped. Killed? I guess they really did kill you if you’re in here?” She looked back up to the stallion, who nodded in confirmation.

“You’re not…” Olivia stopped, frowning at the mare. Yet there was no mistaking the tone of one of her scientists. She’d gotten used to telling their speech patterns apart, if only because she’d had no choice but to learn. “Dr. Faraday. What the hell are you doing here?”

The mare’s blush deepened, and she sat back down. “Hey, it smells like dinner’s ready! We should eat that!”

“Good idea,” Pear said, gathering up plates from the cupboard and spreading things out. “I take it this is the pony you were lookin’ for, Olivia? Seein’ as how she matches everythin’ you said.”

“Well… yes. But I didn’t know I was looking for her. She’s one of my friends, but she shouldn’t be in here. She was alive last time I checked.”

“I… was alive,” Martin muttered, sitting down at one of the little wooden benches. “Funny how things can change on you. Get a little overzealous, and… next thing you know, your bits are all over the walls and there’s a crater where you were standing. I’m just glad Melody wasn’t closer when it happened.”

“Ugh,” Bright Mac said. “You mind waiting with the gory details until after we eat?”

“Sorry.” Martin winced. “I didn’t mean to spoil anypony’s appetite. It’s been ages since I had something this good. We didn’t get to stay in Dragon’s Folly long enough to eat anything. Thanks to your kidnapping, Major.”

“Terribly sorry for my lack of consideration,” Olivia said, though her annoyance felt like it belonged to somepony else. It was more the memory of annoyance than the genuine article. It was just so hard to care about something so… insignificant. Her battle with the slavers felt like a lifetime ago.

“Two so close together is mighty strange,” Pear Butter said, once they’d sliced and served the meal. Olivia didn’t recognize most of what was stuffed into that casserole, but she found she didn’t care. It smelled good, whatever it was. “They must’ve come back at almost the same time.”

“Either that, or Harmony is tweaking time again.” Bright Mac sounded angry. “That’d be just like it, wouldn’t it? Dirty cheater. Not giving us time to get our new allies into place.”

“If Harmony was gonna do that, wouldn’t it be better for him to just stop us altogether?” Martin asked. “If we’re in a simulation… and we have to be, based on everything else you’ve said… what’s to stop it from just switching us off! If we’re enemies…”

“Enemies ain’t quite the right word,” Bright Mac said. “We’re on opposite sides ‘a the same question. That don’t mean that we aren’t still working together in other ways.”

“And anyway, the ancients gave Harmony rules. Really complicated, detailed rules for the way it interacts with us normal folk. I don’t think it could break those rules if it wanted to.”

“So all we have to do is find the way the rules can force it to kill itself,” Olivia muttered, glaring down at her plate.

Both the natives gasped, sharing a confused, frightened look.

“I don’t think you know what you’re suggesting, Olivia. It ain’t like that at all. Harmony runs… everythin’. Without it, there ain’t no ring, there ain’t no us neither. We aren’t trying to kill it. We’re just trying to… make it stop.”

“Stop keeping us captive,” Bright Mac continued from where his wife left off. “Take our family. We’re spread every which way because some of us got unlucky and some of us didn’t. My wife and I didn’t get to watch Apple Bloom grow up. We didn’t get to watch her get her cutie mark. We won’t get to be at Big Mac or Applejack’s wedding.”

“It’s rotten and unfair,” Pear finished. “There ain’t no reason anypony has to be dyin’ who don’t want to. This whole livin’ short thing was just a way to pass the time. Until…” She frowned, sharing a glance with her husband. But he shared her confusion. “Well, whatever it was. The thing we were hiding from. Until it left. It’s gone now, so Discord says. Burned itself right out. So there’s no reason we can’t be out there proper. Harmony don’t have to be afraid of us growin’ up too much and bringin’ back notice, because there ain’t nobody left to do the noticing. It’s safe.”

“They used to be immortal,” Martin offered, helpfully. “Bright Mac was telling me. About when every corner of this ring had ponies living on it.”

“Well, not ponies exactly,” Bright Mac said. “It had people who are ponies now living on it. Or people who were something and might’ve been ponies then but…” He shrugged. “You get the idea. There’s supposed to be room for as many as want to live out there. Room to experiment, to try new things, create new ponies instead of recycling the ones we had.”

Pear spoke quietly, whispering something in Bright Mac’s ear. He grinned. “Well, ain’t that a right piece of good news. You two are new people. So I guess we’re starting with that sooner ‘an we thought. Who’s the lucky ponies who got to start that off again?”

Martin opened her mouth to say something stupid. Olivia cleared her throat loudly, glowering at the physicist. “I was going to ask if there was any way to get in contact with the living side. We still have ponies over there, the ones fighting Harmony now. It would be good to tell them what we’ve learned.”

“Wouldn’t it, though?” Bright Mac sounded distant, staring up at the wall. At the family portrait hanging there. “Ponies wouldn’t miss us so darn much if they knew we weren’t really gone. And maybe a lifetime wouldn’t be so bad if you knew yer loved ones would be waiting as soon as you finished.”

Olivia frowned, though at least he hadn’t pressed about their parentage.

“There’s… no way?” Martin asked, her voice tentative. “I would… like to send a warning, if I could. I have a friend who might put herself in danger. We might be seeing her pretty soon if I can’t warn her not to do what I did. Except… she doesn’t have a cutie mark.” Her expression darkened a little, the first twinges of fear appearing. “We might not see Melody at all if she dies, Olivia. Melody, or… anyone else without a cutie mark. Thank God I got mine…”

That silenced the conversation for a little while. They finished eating—Olivia found it every bit as fantastic as she expected, and even found a few pleasant surprises. Ponies here had ice cream to go with their apple pie, and cider too. No beer, but they assured her that it did exist. They just needed to go to the right part of the afterlife, where the right sort of ponies lived.

“It isn’t important,” Olivia assured. “If you’re right about… time not being as fast as you thought, we shouldn’t waste time on things like that. Our friends could be in danger right now. We have to help them.”

“Friends,” Martin muttered. “Didn’t think I’d ever hear you use that word.”

Olivia had no response to that.

“I wish I knew more,” Pear said. “But Bright Mac was right. There ain’t no way to send important messages back and forth. If there was, then ponies all over Equestria wouldn’t be spendin’ their days worried about what happened to their loved ones once they were gone. It must be that there’s no way, or else somepony would’ve found it by now.”

“Or maybe no one thought of it yet,” Martin suggested. “Or someone squashed it from the other side. Our friends weren’t living in Equestria, they were sneaking around with Equus’s infrastructure. Last I heard, they were on a mission to somewhere called Transit. They might already be in there. Even if we can’t affect anything in Equestria, maybe we can talk to them through some other system. It makes sense that ponies would want a way.”

“Hmm.” The earth pony couple shared a look. Pear Butter spoke first. “Well, that part of Equus is where Harmony lives. But there isn’t no reason we couldn’t take a look, if you ain’t afraid of it.”

Olivia straightened. “Pear Butter, we’re already dead. We’re not afraid of anything.”

Lucky didn’t make it all the way back to their temporary base-camp in the cafeteria. Forerunner was waiting for her in one of the halls. He carried his stun-rifle in both hands now, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

“Lucky.” He stopped them with a hand. “There’s news for you. Before we go in. I haven’t told the others yet.” He seemed uncertain as he glanced at the ponies beside her. “I, uh… I don’t know whether it would be beneficial for Lightning Dust and Deadlight to learn this information. You should decide.” There was more doubt in his voice than ever Lucky had heard from him.

Losing touch with the rest of Forerunner’s computers had taken a heavy toll.

“Tell us,” Lightning Dust said, before Lucky could open her mouth. “She trusts us. We’ve been through as much as the rest of you by now.”

Lucky nodded. She wasn’t sure if she would’ve made that choice, but she wasn’t going to overrule her mom now that she had said it. “What is it?”

“I have established a tenuous link to the exterior mesh-network using the drones I had in the Crystal Empire for sending false radio messages. One is waiting in the entryway, another in the shaft, and a third on the surface. There is still enormous interference… transmissions are too slow for shared computation. But we can receive messages.”

“Please don’t tell me you saw a fleet on the way here.” Lucky felt the exhaustion in her voice as she said it. “I don’t think I can take one more thing.”

“No,” Forerunner said. “Martin, Melody and I managed to decipher what was stored on the crystal. Or… parts of it. But what we managed to reconstruct was so valuable I risked discovery by sending the drones in so soon.” He let the rifle relax on its straps, lifting out a computation surface from a pocket and holding it out with one synthetic hand. “The reason we were unable to decode the files it contained for so long was because they were memories.”

A video started playing, depicting Melody wearing the memory-interface equipment. She looked the worse for wear—with streaks running down her fur, mane a ragged mess, and voice hoarse. “The Alicorn you saw was named Selene,” the recording said. “She was fighting a war with her daughter—Celestia. The reason the city you saw was preserved is because it was not destroyed in the war—but by Harmony, when Selene set Discord free.”

Lucky was dimly aware of Deadlight retreating from her a few steps. Lightning Dust only nodded, as though this was the sort of thing she had expected to hear.

Of course, the recording was still playing. “I saw her thoughts. Selene was old, vast, desperate to get free. She believed in Discord’s cause, but she knew he wasn’t that different from Celestia. Willing to do anything to win. She knew Discord was going to do terrible things, and she was right. Launching a manned spacecraft was what triggered Harmony to end that civilization. Probably the same thing would happen if any of us tried to leave.”

Was that why the first jumper had been destroyed? No, that couldn’t be it… Equestria hadn’t been attacked back then.

“Anyway, there’s a… sort-of ritual you can use on Harmony. One that forces it to do things. I have a feeling it will work for anyone who uses it.” She repeated a string of words in Eglathrin, getting each one perfect. Lucky scrolled back a few times, playing the phrase back until she’d memorized it. It was only because she listened more than once that she saw something strange. Not on the screen—it was Deadlight, and Lightning Dust. As the phrase played back, both of them froze in place, expressions going slack. Lucky turned, nodding towards them. “Dust?”

No response. She started scrolling back again with a hoof, and again they both froze.

“That is… most unusual,” Forerunner said.

Lucky hadn’t looped it back again, and the phrase finished. Melody went on, and both Lucky’s companions woke up again. They blinked, confused, then seemed to remember where they were. Deadlight kept backing away from the screen, not even looking toward it anymore.

“What I don’t know is what its limits are… Presumably it must stop short at some point, or they would’ve just asked Harmony to shut down, right? Martin…” The transmission fuzzed to static for a second. “Good luck out there. There are more memories the Forerunner wants me to watch. I’ll call again if I learn anything else you can use.”

The screen went blank, and Forerunner slid it away. “You can see why the rest of me thought it would be a good idea to show you this, no matter what it cost.”

Lucky nodded. “That is… useful.”

“What was?” Lightning Dust seemed more confused than interested. “We knew it had to be something like that. You know you can’t build any ‘spacecraft.’ I guess it’s good to know if that’s what Harmony hates.”

“Yeah,” Lucky muttered, but she didn’t say anything else. “What’s on your mind, Deadlight? Did you notice something I missed?”

The bat pony turned back. To Lucky’s shock, there were tears in his eyes. From this stallion who’d been so strong—strong enough to bed Lucky’s own clone—it was a strange thing. She’d never heard of him crying, even when he’d been a captive in Othar. “I wondered if you would figure it out…” he whispered, after a long time. “I didn’t think it would be her. I wish she didn’t have to see the end.”

Melody watched many memories. Time became an elusive thing to her—the strange machine-made days passed in minutes, and she lived in the body of an ancient and powerful pony who understood Equus as no one in Othar could. Her fear over her own mortality began to subside as she spent every new hour not exploding as Martin had. Forerunner’s guess about cutie marks had apparently been right.

Melody watched brief glimpses of many years—of long ago, when Selene ruled over a kingdom of earth ponies, barely surviving in the equatorial heat. She spent each day knowing there were cures for every disease they suffered, knowing she could improve their living conditions, repair their climate. Harmony rebuffed her for so long that eventually she turned to another source for help.

She watched a society advance, catapulted by their renewed access to powers their ancestors had once wielded. Watched helpless as Harmony used every instrument it could to bring her society back under control. Ultimately, it even used her children.

All this Melody saw in snapshot, along with Selene’s growing plan. She had known Harmony would eventually be forced to act violently. She would have to stop it before then.

Selene had not succeeded, in the end. All her plans to reconfigure Harmony had failed, for reasons that even the great princess had not understood. Though Melody learned many strange and interesting things, she did not learn anything that would help them with their current crisis. Eventually, she was forced to see the last memory the crystal contained.

It continued where the other left off.

Citizens sheltered in and around the palace, shielded with faltering bubbles of magic that held in their air. Just outside, the world was beginning to freeze as we had never known before. The void surrounded Unicornia, and a black sky. The streets weren’t piled with the dead, because that would’ve implied survivors to do the piling. My entire civilization had basically just stopped what they were doing to die.

If we had surrendered to Celestia, she would’ve done worse. At least something of us will survive, somewhere else.

I approved of Clover’s choices. All sensible ponies, across the races I had created and even a few earth ponies. They would have to be enough.

From the survivors in my palace, I selected a few more. I pulled them aside and cast a few spells of my own.

For the first time, Melody’s own mind briefly found purchase in the dream—she saw a face she recognized. Deadlight’s face, minus much of the wear and the scars.

He shuffled about uncertainty in my presence, dropping one of the many portable drives he’d stashed away in his saddlebags.

Only four had survived the spell—Distilled Wisdom, the unicorn mare with crystal blue mane and ruthless determination. Hypnos, an earth pony stallion who knew forbidden things. Tenacious Vigil, pegasus captain of the guard. Lastly, the bat named Polaris, with curiosity that never ended. I had changed them.

“You will have to persevere,” I explained to them, once my magic was done. “My daughter must find me dead, or else she will keep hunting.”

“What’s to stop her from doing what Harmony wants?” Distilled Wisdom asked, without much fear in her voice. More satisfaction than anything. “If we can get to this new land, then she can. We won’t have you to protect us.”

“Discord tells me he has made it impossible,” I said. “There is only one district that will support ponies. He says he has made changes that will make it uninhabitable without all races working together. Celestia will see this and be forced to accept what I have done.”

“Luna will come around,” Polaris said. He looked most shaken by the corpses of his friends all around him—so few had survived this transformation. “When she gets older, she’ll see. She won’t let Celestia hurt us.”

I smiled to see the loyalty in those I had chosen. “You will be able to hide your thoughts from her,” I continued. “You must conceal yourselves for many years. Wait as long as it takes for the population to recover, and for Celestia to be unable to watch all that occurs in her kingdom.”

“Easy.” Hypnos grinned, not seeming to even notice the dead around them. “I know a few ways to hide. By the time we’re ready, we’ll have thousands of ponies willing to serve in our cause.”

I ignored this. I could not advise these ponies anymore—whatever method they decided was out of my hooves. “You must find the solution to my paradox.” I focused my attention on Distilled Wisdom. “Bring my genetic research—it might be one of the other races can succeed where we fail. The dragon design seemed promising.”

Distilled shrugged ambivalently. “I will experiment. If there is a form that can be our solution, I will find it.”

“But not until you can work in secrecy,” I reminded them. “If my daughter ever suspects, she will kill you.”

“We can stay hidden as long as it takes,” Polaris said. “We won’t disappoint you, princess.”

“I know you won’t.” I embraced each one of them in turn, knowing it would be my last time. “The hope of Unicornia goes with you,” I whispered to each.

“Not just unicorns,” Hypnos said, as they rejoined the others preparing to flee into Equus’s superstructure. “You said all ponies would be together in this new district. Unicornia is an improper name.”

“Irrelevant,” Vigil muttered, obviously annoyed. “Let Celestia call it whatever she wants. We’ll give it a proper name once we’ve taken what her master wishes to hoard from us.”

I watched them go—vanished down the concealed passage that led away into Equus. There was more of them than I had thought—everypony in the palace who happened to notice tried to slip in with them. I didn’t stop them, though I wasn’t sure what fate waited for those who joined at the end. Discord’s word did not protect them, and the failsafe was well known for holding ponies to the word of their bond.

Eventually, they were gone. I began to feel the chill, and the exhaustion that came from air that needed renewing. Containing it in a bubble was quite a simple spell—refreshing the oxygen as I breathed it was far less so.

At the end, I had been so occupied with my evacuation that I had not done much for those who would be left behind. I had taken the time to say goodbye to Platinum, but not more.

I was a little unsurprised to find Discord’s pet vitruvians had picked things up where I dropped them. Their armor was climate insulated, so they had been able to wander, seeking out survivors easier than unicorns could. But in Unicornia there was only one place they could flee, only one place with its own atmosphere.

So it was that I found my way at last to the Datamine.

There were nearly two thousand ponies packed in here, along with the makeshift camp of the vitruvians who had been working the mine. They weren’t bothering with the Datamine anymore.

They had set up stations—medical, food, water. A few maintained order with their size and magical prowess.

I found myself drifting to one remote corner of the Datamine, where the foals and young children had gathered whose parents had not made it. Many of their parents had given their lives so these children could be here, protected at the end of the world.

One of the vitruvians was tucked away here, telling a story from atop a makeshift stage to a group of huddled children. They never give up. Even their translator fights until the world ends.

“And that was the end of the Empire. Princess Leia and Han Solo lived happily ever after, and Vader had finally brought balance to the force.”

I didn’t have the foggiest idea what story the translator was telling, but it didn’t seem to matter. A few of the children actually cheered at his rendition, and so I moved on, giving him a polite nod as I made my way to the control room.

The vitruvians had accomplished a miracle here, saving so many. But it would have been kinder just to let them suffocate. Discord’s inadvertent agents had given the last of my ponies something terrible. I wept as I felt their hope, and knew they were all doomed.

“We’re not safe in here,” Virgo warned, as soon as I had reached the control room. “I’m monitoring outside conditions—if the radiation levels out there keep increasing, it will penetrate the Datamine in eleven hours. It should be immediately lethal within three days.”

“Better than starving,” I whispered, my head down. “Harmony is being merciful, in the way it knows how.”

“It would be merciful to turn our magic back on,” Virgo said, annoyed. “Turn the air on too, while it’s at it. Isn’t it enough that it’s murdered almost everyone?”

“No,” I said. “We are the leaders, scientist Virgo. We are the ones responsible for the forbidden advances. I allowed Discord to create you. You created a spacecraft. Now you saved these ponies… so we die.”

Virgo dropped his computer, which tumbled from his fingers and cracked right down the screen. He looked out the window in front of us, hands shaking. “I… don’t know if I’m ready, Princess. Discord promised it wouldn’t be the same as dying for real, but… it’s hard to believe something I can’t see.”

“You’ll see soon,” I promised. “We’ll get another chance, eventually. Harmony has convinced my daughter—but Discord will see we win the war. Eventually. In three days, all these will be with their loved ones again. And we will welcome you and yours into our families in gratitude for all you have given us.”

Virgo straightened, scooping up his broken computer. He rested a fist briefly on his chest—though he wasn’t military. “Amat victoria curam.” He left.

I had just enough time to make a few recordings and write to my daughter. Then I would sleep. Somepony else would fight this battle next time. Perhaps they would have more success.

And that was where the last memory should’ve ended. Should’ve… but it didn’t.

There was an abrupt, painful shift in perspective, someone yanking her behind the eyes, and suddenly she was standing beside Princess Selene in the Datamine control room. She was looking up at the princess now, feeling a distinct sense of just how small she was by comparison. Alicorns were so tall!

“You are not what I expected,” said Princess Selene, scowling down at her from the controls. Melody found she could no longer hear activity from downstairs. No more pitiful voices of ponies assuring each other that their princess would help them escape from this. No more vitruvians dispensing measly food rations stolen from the camp they’d been living in.

Melody glanced down at herself—and saw herself. Yellow fur, blue mane. “How do your memories… no, forget that. How are you talking to me?” Melody probably would’ve been afraid of this Alicorn, if she encountered her in reality. But this wasn’t reality. She had seen her memories. “My friend saw your corpse.”

“I’m sure they did.” The princess towered above her, prodding at her bare flank. “How is this possible? Harmony does not know you, and yet we speak. You are a pony that shouldn’t exist.”

“Answer my question first,” Melody demanded. “How can I be talking to someone who’s dead?”

The Selene Melody had known from her memories would’ve demanded obedience. This one looked like she was about to—but then her face softened. “There is no mechanism for death on Equus. Not for the worst criminals or the most irredeemable monsters. Your friend saw only the instrument I used—the physical remnants of the kingdom I tried to build. But I was elsewhere. All of us are.”

“I don’t understand…” Melody muttered. “But maybe it doesn’t matter. There’s something more important. I had a friend who tried to watch these memories before me. She, uh… I’m not sure where she went. I think Harmony stole her.”

The princess stalked past her, glancing briefly out the control room window below. Melody followed her gaze and saw that there was no movement. It was as though the last moment recorded in this memory was frozen eternally. “I answered your question. Now you will tell me where a pony came from that Harmony doesn’t know. If you had learned anything from my memories, you would know why this is so important.”

“Remember that thing Discord gave you? The old machine with the gold sails?”

Before she even finished speaking, the world blurred. Melody swayed on her legs, spreading her wings reflexively to catch herself. But she wasn’t falling. They were standing back in the workshop, with Discord holding the thing he’d removed from a glass display case. “This?”

“Yes,” Melody said. “How do you not know what that is? You had humans walking around in… well, not quite, I guess. But something like us. They even acted the same.” Melody walked through the mostly-empty room, over to a guard who stood by the door. She pointed up at his face with a wing. “These. Where do you think they came from?”

“Discord,” Selene said. “He did not reveal his methods to me. But even they could not escape from Harmony. You have.”

Melody walked back over to the frozen image of Discord. She had never encountered this creature in person—now that she saw him for herself, she was even more glad of that fact. “This object is called a Forerunner Probe. I don’t know where he got it… but I know what it can do. Make a whole world. It made me, not Harmony.”

“How?”

Melody shook her head. “Harmony took my friend. When she watched the memories, she…” It was so difficult to talk about—but if she used a euphemism now, this pony might not understand. Her one chance to find Martin would be wasted. “She exploded. Blew a hole in the ground, even.”

Selene’s eyes widened, horrified. “I speculate that your friend was not a citizen, was she? Your presence leads me to guess that she was not a princess either.”

Melody only nodded.

“You didn’t use Harmony’s facilities to access this memory recording. It never would’ve allowed an… error of that significance. It would have just refused to play.”

“I must’ve… The younger me must’ve not realized she could use the facilities where she found the crystal to play the memory back,” she said. “We figured out our own way.”

Selene shivered. “My memories contain privileged information. Experiencing them in any way Harmony can’t control would likely provoke a serious response. I would have expected something similar to happen to you, if you’re using the same method. But you’re still alive… I can feel it. Your reach extends to the material. Perhaps it has something to do with not being in the system. Equus was never meant to have anyone who wasn’t in the system. You may have escaped notice.”

Melody shrugged. Her own survival was self-evident… at least it had been. Will Harmony kill me as soon as I get a cutie mark? That would make her a living bomb, just waiting to do something well enough that she died.

“You’re dead, and we’re still talking. Does that mean my friend is… not dead too?” Not just her. Olivia had died, and Karl, and who knew who else by now. The previous generations.

“Obviously,” Selene said, waving a dismissive wing. “That was part of the purpose for… We’re wasting time.” She appeared in front of Melody in a brief flash like a teleport. “Listen to me, Melody. The purpose of these memories was to convince those who saw them of the need to escape from Harmony’s prison. I hoped you would be Luna, or maybe Celestia. My daughters would not have been in danger no matter how they watched these memories. They were citizens.”

“You don’t need to convince me,” Melody said flatly. “We’re already trying to do that. Discord has… well, he convinced Lucky, and she’s in charge now. You don’t know who that is…” She trailed off. “Tell me how we can win.”

The world moved out of focus again, and the workshop vanished. They were standing somewhere else—a massive facility filled with machines Melody couldn’t comprehend. Energy swirled around them, taking the form of a glittering crystal tree.

“The ancients created Harmony to protect us,” Selene said. “They knew any rules sufficient to keep us safe would risk trapping us here. So they created a failsafe.”

“Discord.”

Selene nodded. “Perhaps you were paying attention. Discord’s process is independent. His access allows him to use every observation post, every observatory, every sensor we scattered throughout the cosmos. If he says the danger is past, then I believe him.”

Selene gestured at the tree. The air in front of it rippled, and another copy of the princess appeared there, hazy and indistinct. “Discord cannot exert control over Harmony—or else the same directives that allow him to free us might also motivate him to destroy all of Equus. Discord’s role was not to perform our release himself, but to organize one of us to do it.”

Selene’s ghostly echo approached the tree, growing less distinct with each step. It seemed to split, into dozens, hundreds of different outlines. They faded to nothing before they could get close enough to touch it, a blur that was everywhere and moving far too fast to place. “I came so often… yet I failed every time. I sent agents… and they never returned. Discord created the vitruvians—even they did not return. I never learned why.”

The whole world seemed to shake then, as though they were inside a glass ball and someone were trying to smash it open. “We’ve spoken for too long. My youngest…” She leaned close, resting one wing on Melody’s shoulder. “You must find the secret, Melody. You must release us. Or what has come once will come again, and again, and again. Harmony traps us all. It steals us away with promises of intelligence and light. We must be free.”

The world shook again, and this time huge cracks appeared along that side, through which streams of bright blue seemed to flow. It tore apart the metal and glass machines, splintering the tree into fragments.

“Don’t hate them,” Selene finally said, her whole body growing translucent. “Don’t even hate Harmony. It only does what the ancients built it to do.”

There was a great cry from outside, and the world cracked again. It exploded into steaming pieces, and Melody awoke.

She flopped out of the cot, dragging an IV that seemed hot somehow as it dug into her. Her insides felt like they were partly cooked and partly frozen—like the hot pockets she’d lived on for years in her van. She suspected she looked about as good as they did.

Melody flopped to one side, shaking. She hardly noticed as Forerunner’s drones fussed over her. They removed needles, closed her wounds with spray, patted her down with damp rags. Melody wanted to break them.

“I… spoke with her,” Melody finished. “Selene. She was… I don’t know how…”

“I do,” Forerunner said. “I haven’t been in control of the interface equipment for nearly an hour now. I could’ve severed the connection… but it was apparent from your readings that it was not a simple equipment malfunction. Did you learn anything useful?”

Melody nodded. “Martin is dead. But she’s… not dead? She’s in the system somehow. Probably that means Karl and Olivia are too. And anyone else who dies.”

The drones helped Melody into a cot—a different one, not the one with still-steaming machines gathered around it. “Fascinating. Can we retrieve them?”

“I… didn’t get to ask.”

“Pity.”

Melody glared up at the nearest drone. “I’m not going back in, don’t even ask. I saw all of it… I’m done.”

“So it is,” the Forerunner said. “Your purpose is fulfilled, segment Melody. Your debt to the Pioneering Society is paid. No more missions will be required of you.”

“Good.” She slumped sideways onto her bed. “Also, maybe… you might want to build somewhere blast proof. There’s at least a small possibility that as soon as I get my cutie mark, I’ll die like Martin.”

Forerunner did not react as a human might’ve, hearing those words. These drones were not people who would be sacrificed. They had no lives to lose. “I will… withdraw from returning Lei and the former slaves to Othar. And keep you away from the fabricators until we resolve whether that is the case.”

“Fine.” Melody turned away. “I’m gonna sleep now. Don’t wake me up unless the world is ending.”

The Forerunner switched off the lights. “Command accepted.”

Lucky made her way back to their makeshift camp and was unsurprised to see the others had not been idle. Perez might’ve tried to shoot up a submarine and seize power from Forerunner, but at least he and his squad knew how to work. They had turned the single entrance into a barricade with most of the furniture, and scavenged blankets from who-knew-where to make a sleeping area.

I wonder if ponies who discovered Othar might do something like this. We’re like cavemen camping in a shopping mall. But she didn’t say any of that, obviously. It wasn’t as nice as the camp they had brought, but it would have to do.

A few of the tables had been pushed together at the far end, and there Spike sketched on the backs of several sheets of paper all pressed together. He was drawing something, though she couldn’t see what at this distance. Whatever it was, he was obviously intensely concentrating.

“Any luck?” Perez asked, as they wandered in. “Get the transport working?”

“Yes,” Lucky said. “At least to Canterlot. I don’t know if it will take us to the empty districts.”

“We don’t need it to.” Perez turned away, apparently satisfied. “They’re holding the major in Canterlot, along with that princess of yours. That’s where we mount our rescue.” He gestured back at the dragon. “You should be proud of me, translator. I managed to ask him to draw us a map of the castle. Once we have that, our mission will be simple.”

“Simple?” Lucky rolled her eyes. “Lieutenant, you have three soldiers and two suits. Princess Celestia lives in that castle. Even—” But she stopped abruptly. “Even Olivia couldn’t kill her” wasn’t something she could say. She swallowed. “Even you guys would have trouble with those odds.”

Perez shook his head. “Four, not three. The Forerunner is here too. Better reaction times than any of us. I’ve run operations like these before, Lucky. Don’t worry about it. Back on Earth, it was the same way—an enemy finds out you’re there, and they can bring overwhelming force. We’re too fast for it to matter. By the time Celestia suspects anything, we’ll have our people out, Harmony will be a pile of broken circuits, and Othar will be safe. Maybe the princess will be willing to come to the negotiating table once she knows how easily we got into her stronghold.”

Of course, it sounded completely impossible to Lucky. Harmony wasn’t something they could kill. Unless its creators had already provided a way to shut it down, they would be doomed.

Forerunner had such a way—it was one of the first things she had to learn working for the Pioneering Society. Would the mission termination command even work anymore? It’s had so many upgrades.

Then again, their computer was still on their side. Forerunner wasn’t trying to enslave them. “Harmony is the first priority,” Lucky said. “You and yours need to get me to that control room before anything else. Once Harmony is shut down, we probably won’t even need to fight Celestia for our prisoners. She’ll just let them go.”

“I understand your orders,” Perez said. “Just get us there. Do you know when we’re leaving?”

Lucky considered that for a few seconds, conscious of eyes on her. It wasn’t just Perez anymore—Lightning Dust and Deadlight were watching too. Both of them had at least a patchy understanding of English, so they’d probably have understood some of what Perez had just said.

“At least a day,” Lucky said. “We don’t want to wait too long, because we increase the risk that Twilight will break and tell Celestia what really happened to us. But if we wait a little while, it’s possible security will die back down in Canterlot. After our whole airship adventure… they’re probably on alert. That could work to our advantage.”

“Makes sense.” Perez shrugged one bat-wing. “Figure it out quick, Colonial Governor. We need to know exactly when we’re going to move.”

Lucky made her way over to the table, where Spike had a mostly-empty bowl of rocks beside him as he drew. Well, not rocks in the conventional sense. Glittering gemstones, like shards of glass. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised the machine can make those too.

“What are you working on?” she asked, as though she didn’t already know.

“Map of Canterlot Castle,” he said, bending down to erase a line he’d added, and moving it a few inches with the pencil. “One of your bat-twins told me that was where we’d be going to rescue Flurry Heart. Maybe Twilight too. So I want to get it as accurate as possible.”

Deadlight sat down beside her, on her other side. Lucky ignored him, pulling over her own cushion.

“Does it bother you that we might be fighting Equestria?”

Spike shrugged. “Equestria has been fighting Equestria forever. A long time ago, Princess Celestia had to fight Princess Luna. Sombra used to be a good pony, before he decided to enslave everyone. Ponies aren’t like dragons… dragons are more honest. You go to the Dragon Lands, they tell you they hate you and they want to fight. But in Equestria? The most dangerous ponies are sometimes the ones who act the nicest.”

That was enough for Lucky. Spike looked genuine as he spoke—at least so far as she could judge his expression. His body wasn’t quite the right shape for her to use all her lessons about reading pony emotions. If anything, her human memories were more useful.

“Do you know why we’re here?” asked Deadlight, his voice low. “Did Twilight tell you the purpose of this mission?”

Spike glanced briefly up at Lucky. “She did. About Harmony… keeping ponies trapped. Forcing them to do bad things. Twilight thought it was the right thing to do to stop it. So I guess that means I want to stop it too.” He sat back, looking momentarily thoughtful. “I don’t really understand all this stuff. Weird airships, getting attacked by the Equestrian army, secret ruins in the Crystal Empire… All I know is, Twilight understood. If she thought this was the right thing, then I agree with her. And that means I help you.”

It almost hurt to hear him speak, he sounded so innocent. It isn’t right to involve you in this, dragon. You were right about how slowly you grow up.

“You won’t have to do much,” Lucky promised. “It’s probably better if you don’t. If we lose, we want them to think you got captured and forced into this. So you don’t get in trouble when we do.”

“That… sounds like a good idea,” Spike said, after a long time. “But it’s not very heroic. None of you ponies know Canterlot very well. Without Twilight here, I’m the only help you’ve got. If something bad happens, Twilight will rescue me. You don’t have to worry about it.”

Of course, that made Lucky worry about it very much. But she didn’t argue with him—she wasn’t about to refuse help that was offered, even when she should have. Should turn you away, shouldn’t have involved Flurry Heart. Maybe if she had just gone back to Othar back then, instead of feeling the need to LARP as Indiana Jones, Othar would have thousands of ponies in it and Princess Celestia wouldn’t even know she existed. They could build a whole society unopposed, then set up their own nation on the borders like Dragons’ Folly. Equestria wouldn’t approach diplomacy with them like outsiders, but like another faction of their own world.

No use wasting time on what could’ve been. That isn’t what I did.

Deadlight nodded to her—a sign he wanted to talk to her. Lucky rose, waved once to the diligent dragon, then walked a few steps away with the bat.

“There’s something you should know,” he said, sounding resolved. Deadlight had apparently collected himself since they’d received the strange mission, and he’d made his cryptic pronouncement. “I don’t want to tell anypony else. I would’ve told the old mayor, but… she hadn’t earned my respect. She ordered me captured, she lied and manipulated me. But you have only given me the truth—you deserve the truth in return.”

“Out here.” She gestured into the hall, nodding once to Mogyla as she passed him in his armor. “We can talk out by the fountain.” The others would be able to see them standing there, but not hear them over the gurgling of water. “What is it? Something about… that city I visited with Flurry Heart, right? If you’ve known something about it this whole time, you’re a very good actor.”

“N-not quite,” Deadlight croaked. “Just used to evading Celestia. When you’ve been hiding as long as I have, you think everything is a trap. And I was a hostage when we first met—I was positive you were the culmination of it, somehow.”

“But now you know otherwise?”

Deadlight nodded. “You need to know what happened to Unicornia. What our enemy and our friends are willing to do.”

G7.01: Love the Truth

“How’re you feeling, sweetheart?” Lucky heard Lightning Dust’s words behind her, and she half-turned, though she didn’t look up. They were supposed to be so much more prepared than this. But what choice did they have? Equestria and Othar’s futures both hovered here, unresolved. What they did with Harmony in the next few hours would decide the future for both races. We must not fail.

Lucky was sitting on the empty edge of the railway platform, sitting almost like a human might, with her hind legs dangling off the edge. Lightning Dust and other natives couldn’t manage poses like that, but she was enhanced. She could do things other ponies couldn’t. Like save the world.

“Like we’re about to get fucked,” she whispered, voice bitter. The others in the away team were all behind her, dealing with the upcoming mission however they could. She could hear Abubakar praying, Mogyla and Perez and Spike playing some game with gestures. Deadlight and Forerunner were seemingly absorbed in conversation.

Lightning Dust sat down beside her. She felt the familiar weight of her mother’s wing wrapped around her and didn’t pull away. Even though she felt like she should. She was the Colonial Governor now—she ought to act respectable. “I don’t think so,” Dust said.

“Why not?” Lucky was still whispering. If the mission leader didn’t have confidence in their success, she knew it would affect morale. Even Perez and Mogyla would be weighed down with that. I really hope they don’t find out about Olivia. That was exactly the kind of stress their mission didn’t need. But even Spike had managed to keep his mouth shut. “Most of our weapons exploded. We’re landing right below Canterlot Castle—if either princess is around, we’re bucked. You saw how powerful they were.”

Lightning Dust shrugged. “That isn’t the most important thing, squirt.”

She looked up, searching the adult mare’s face for any sign of mockery. But she could only find optimism. “What’s more important than that?”

Lightning Dust rose, straightening into something like a military pose. It was actually a pre-flight stance; one Lucky had learned for the Junior Wonderbolts. “They’re stronger, there’s more of them… but we’re right.”

Lucky looked back at the tracks. “Why would that matter?”

“Because that’s how it works!” Lightning Dust said, loud enough that some of the others turned to stare. “We’re bound to win. The last few years, I doubted… but now it all makes sense. Everything bad that ever happened to me happened because there was a bad princess ruling things. We’re going to end that. Bring justice back to Equestria. It was only a matter of time.”

Lucky nodded weakly. She had no intention of replacing Celestia—nor did she think it would be necessary. Once Harmony was removed as a threat, that ought to be the end of that conflict. But Lightning Dust wasn’t the only one who seemed to consider that an important priority. Deadlight and Perez seemed to agree that would happen as well, though theirs was more of an understanding than actual conversation.

“I hope you’re right,” Lucky said. “I never really had… when I was growing up, I didn’t really have much reason to think that justice would win out. Ideals like that are for the people in power. The ones who slip through the cracks… we just have to be lucky with what we can get.”

“No.” Lightning Dust lifted her face with a wing. “We don’t have to be happy with what we get. We can change it. We don’t have to do what fate tells us. What Harmony wants. We can choose.”

That’s what you did for me. But she didn’t say that. Lucky just reached up to embrace her, one last time before the end. “Thanks for sticking with me through all this.”

Lightning Dust returned the embrace. “I knew you were right, squirt. I always did.” She didn’t break away for a long time.

Not until Forerunner called from the other end of the platform. “It’s time to call the transport, Lucky. Based on projected transit time, this is our best chance to arrive in the middle of the third watch.”

The middle of the night. They were hoping to avoid Celestia and her Royal Guard, even if it meant dealing with a more skilled caste of Lunar Guards. Perez and Mogyla were confident they were the equal of whatever might be waiting on the other side.

Lucky finally rose, wiping away a few tears from her face. “I, uh… apologize.” She made her way to the control panel, conscious of many eyes watching her. She couldn’t read their expressions—or maybe she just didn’t care what they thought. Except Forerunner. He was the only one who followed her over to the control panel, looking as resolved as any of the organics here. She still hadn’t gotten used to how tall he was.

“Do you think we’re doing the right thing?” she asked, voice still a whisper. Though with the others waiting here, she knew most of them would be able to hear anyway.

“Right is subjective,” Forerunner answered. “I believe this choice is necessary.”

“Not optimal,” Lucky muttered, as she scrolled through the interface, searching the many available destinations for their target.

“I have found the more intelligent I become, the less I understand what choice is optimal. There are many possible paths, and prediction of organic behavior is always hazy. Dealing with an unknown alien species… with powers we cannot fully quantify, and motivations we don’t know… I understand why you have chosen this.”

Lucky navigated to the “car call” though she didn’t press the button yet. “If the rest of you had to pick an optimal choice, what would it be? Not going for broke right now?”

Forerunner stopped for a long time, looking contemplative. Lucky guessed he was communicating with the rest of himself, using the slow mesh of drones scattered throughout the base. Eventually he answered. “I would conceal us here as long as it takes to build an escape craft. Then I would return to Othar and wait for generation six to be finished fabricating.”

“Months,” Lucky hissed back. “You would take the risk of giving our enemy months to plan for us? What about Spike? What about Twilight?”

For once, Forerunner didn’t seem like it was being considerate for those listening. Yet Lucky didn’t feel like she was being effectively persuaded, either. “A serious risk, I agree. We might need to remain underground a long time. Perhaps there would be a way to safely return Spike to Equestrian society without attracting attention. In either case, neither Twilight nor Spike is aware of Othar’s location. At worst, we would lose the advantage we gained earlier.”

He paused, giving her a meaningful look. Lucky knew what he meant—Olivia’s death. Most of these ponies didn’t know about that, though. “At best, Spike and Twilight would succeed at keeping the secret. We could try this same mission in a year’s time with a better chance of success.”

Lucky shivered as she considered that possibility. Another year of Flurry Heart captive to Celestia. Perhaps Twilight was now being given the same treatment, and they didn’t even know. “Why didn’t you try to persuade me to do this before?”

“Because…” Forerunner hesitated again. Not for as long this time. “Because I didn’t think I would succeed. Organics like you are forced to live in constant struggle against your own mortality. You are always moving, always changing… rarely as patient as you should be.”

Lucky pressed the button to summon the tram. There was a flash, and a distant rumble from down the tracks. Their car was on its way. No turning back now. “If we fail, generation six can try again,” Lucky said. “You know enough to puzzle out Eglathrin eventually. You have that password Melody extracted. I’m sure there are plenty of experts you can use.”

Forerunner shrugged. “I do not want ‘experts’ to succeed, Governor Lucky. I want you to succeed. You are mission leader now. This crew is my family. Humans, ponies, dragon… united in this cause. Perhaps we are all being manipulated. But if that is the case, at least we go to our deaths knowing we were tricked into something right.”

Lucky felt herself smiling, just a little. “I just asked if it was right,” she muttered. “You told me it was subjective.”

“It is. I am a subject. The Pioneering Society was created to expand, Lucky. To grow, to fill all of space with civilization. We are the eyes of the universe, we are its hands. We survived the death of our homeworld. We survived terrible calamities, we survived threats so vast they could not be comprehended.” He pointed with one hand, right up at the ceiling. “The universe is out there. It belongs to us now. And Equestria too, if they want some. If we wish to take it, we must first free ourselves from this prison. I believe if any of the Society’s founders still lived, they would approve of this decision. But they’re gone, so the decision is mine. I approve.”

“Hear, hear!” Perez called, stomping his hooves. “Guess Skynet doesn’t have to be wrong about everything.”

There were a few muttered voices of agreement from the other humans. If Deadlight or Lightning Dust had understood any of it, they didn’t comment.

The far side of the chamber opened, and the half-spacecraft, half-monorail slid to a stop. Its doors opened for them, interior brightly lit. Lucky walked away from the Forerunner, standing in front of the doors. “Listen carefully, everypony. As soon as we’re in, you need to sit down immediately. This thing is like a jumper—if you don’t put on the restraints, it will kill you. Everyone get in your seats as quick as possible and don’t struggle.”

Perez stepped up beside her, servos grinding as he lifted onto his hind legs. “Squishies in back! Mogyla and I will be loading last, to watch the door. Nobody takes our seats.”

They gathered up their supplies, hurrying inside. They didn’t have much—some food they’d made in the cafeteria, what few possessions they had saved. Two of the raven-looking drones that Forerunner had sent.

Lucky found herself sitting in back, with Lightning Dust on one side and Spike on the other. As before, the seats reacted to whoever sat on them, adjusting to cradle their body, and strapping them down. Only when they were all inside did the doors slide closed behind them. “Transit in sixty seconds,” said a voice only Lucky could understand. “Prepare for acceleration.”

There was no rush to get seated this time, as the countdown slowly walked back the seconds. They were all buckled in securely long before it reached zero.

Then it did, and they were slammed backward against the seats. It hadn’t gotten easier to deal with—Lucky still felt like she was being flattened. She saw red, felt the pounding in her head, and waited. The display at the front of the car had their transit time, as it had before.

“Ten minutes!” she read, as soon as they had reached cruising speed and she could think again. “Everyone should probably stay in their seats, unless they have something important they need to do. We’ll start slowing down in ten minutes.”

Not much time until the final confrontation. We have to try. Lightning Dust was right, Forerunner was right.

It’s time to set Equestria free.

Olivia appeared at the end of the world. This was the edge—where the reality of Equus’s afterlife melded with whatever machines made it possible. Dr. Faraday had tried to explain what was going on in a way Olivia would understand—about simulated consciousness, about the meaningless nature of the substrate. But then she’d gotten herself wound up about whether or not she was the “real” Martin or not, and Olivia had lost interest.

Such questions didn’t matter to her—let the scientists worry over what was real and what wasn’t. They had friends on the other side to protect. Somehow.

Yet the end of the world was not what Olivia expected. She had stepped onto the transport pad imagining a glittering city peopled entirely with homicidal robots, or perhaps chunks of floating crystal that constantly moved and reshaped themselves. But that was not what was waiting for them at the end of the world.

Instead, they appeared in a pony town very similar to all the others they had seen—perhaps only slightly more modern. The streets were paved here, though there was no sign of vehicles—neither wheeled cars nor the flying drones that had been so popular on her own Earth before she was scanned.

The ponies didn’t even look different—not physically, anyway. Their manner of dress was different, almost as though it were some more modern flavor of the typical Equestrian styles. Their cutie marks were all different—every one that was exposed looked to correspond to something technical. Martin began making various pleased sounds as she recognized some of them—but Olivia ignored that too. They had not come to learn about dead pony society as it connected to the administration of the ring. Such questions could wait for the civilian researchers, many years after safety was assured. Othar would be given a civilian administrator, and they could deal with all kinds of questions to send back to Earth.

Unless it already has. They weren’t safe, though. Olivia trusted that even one of the scientists, with their naive insistence on diplomacy despite all the evidence, would not waste resources solving Equus’s mysteries while they were still in danger of being destroyed by it. But I’ve been wrong before.

Immediately their escorts began to look uncomfortable. They retreated a little, letting Olivia and Martin step off the platform first.

“Is something wrong?” Olivia asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.

“Not yet,” Pear whispered back. “But we don’t usually travel so close. It’s been a long time. It’s not good to attract Harmony’s attention, unless you don’t mind what it might do to you.”

“You two could head back. Martin and I are the ones who really want to be here. You already said you don’t know how to do this stuff—that means you can’t help much, right?”

Bright Mac shook his head. “We came to help. Just know we won’t be able to stop Harmony from doin’ what it wants. Anything its rules don’t stop it from doin’, it might do. No guessin’ what that’ll be until we see.”

Olivia looked around, searching for any sign of the godlike being that had been described to her all this time. She expected something out of a horror movie—or out of her brief visions of this place prior to death. She expected something that writhed, something with thoughts that would melt her brain just to imagine.

She saw only ponies. “Where is it?”

Someone walked up to her from a nearby building—a library, perhaps. The pony had a soft gray coat and a white mane—as uninteresting in her coloration as every other one here. “Hello, Olivia. You asked for me?” She had a cutie mark like several rows of numbers, though Olivia didn’t know what any of them meant.

“You?” Olivia frowned. “I was wondering where Harmony was, so I could ask some questions. Do you know where I can find him?”

The pony nodded. “You’re here. I’m Harmony. Part of it, anyway. Though in some ways, I suppose everything here is. Everyone, too. Would you like me to bring one of my friends instead?”

“No!” Pear Butter and Bright Mac exclaimed together, at the exact same moment. Only Pear Butter continued. “Our new friends here would rather figure things out themselves. Right?”

“Yes,” Martin said, quicker than Olivia. “Ourselves, right. We’re fine talking to you.”

The longer they stood here, the more Olivia realized things weren’t quite what she had thought. It looked like a town, with the same sort of population distribution she would’ve seen in Ponyville. There were male, female, young and old. This resemblance appeared to be only skin-deep, however. There was no conversation—the children didn’t have toys or beg for sweets. The range of cutie marks was remarkably small—it captured only math-related concepts.

Most importantly, they weren’t actually doing anything. Ponies walked from place to place, they milled about as though they were gathered to share their meals. They walked past shops, as though they were browsing their windows. But none bought, none ate, they just… existed.

“We are pleased to have you here,” said Harmony, stepping in front of Olivia. Almost as though it were annoyed she wasn’t paying attention. “Decided to be more friendly, then? We are always happy to see a pony has changed. We were happy to see both of you changed. To see you uplifted, from animals into people. Proof that even Discord isn’t all bad.”

Their escorts shared a confused look. Pear Butter looked like she wanted to say something else, but ultimately fell silent. This pony would overhear. But is there anywhere for us to go that it won’t? Maybe Discord could keep them safe. Maybe they had been safe in his part of the world, until they came here.

“Uplifted,” Martin repeated, apparently much less confused than she was. “You mean when we were… added to your system, right? Our cutie marks?”

The world changed. Olivia nearly vomited at the sudden shift—worse than pulling six gs during a hot landing approach. She saw red for a few seconds. When she could see again, they were somewhere else. A space station—built to a distinctly human design. She could even see Earth out a massive domed window above them, or at least another planet similar to it. Only the scale was wrong—everything was built to pony size. All the holotables were right within reach, and the chairs low enough for them to lounge comfortably. She made sure not to look up at the slowly rotating world outside, which would have made her nausea worse.

The only thing that didn’t change were any of the ponies. Their clothes were different—UN Scientific Dispatch jumpsuits—but the ponies within seemed like the same crowd. Her memory wasn’t perfect, so she couldn’t be completely sure.

Olivia might only know this place from the photographs—Martin seemed to know it more intimately. She started quivering, reaching forward with a hoof to rest on an empty seat in front of a holotable. She couldn’t quite read the name badge resting on the plastic.

“Cutie marks are not what allows you into Equus,” said Harmony. Her voice didn’t match the body—it was the right pitch, but it didn’t match the youthful, cheery features of this pony. The longer Olivia listened to it, the more she felt she was hearing something old, something bitter. “It is the evidence of registration, not the cause.”

There was a squeak, a shout, and Olivia turned. She was too slow—both natives were gone. But Harmony didn’t give her time to think.

“Isn’t this better?” asked another pony, an older stallion with a graying beard and colonel’s stripes on his uniform. “You have both been misled. Manipulated by the one who caused you to be created. Exactly like the last ones he created, yet somehow more difficult.”

Its voice was a constant presence in Olivia’s ears. Yet it was somehow more obtrusive, more oppressive. “I will not trick you into acting in my interests. I don’t have to, because what I’m doing is right. The truth is the only thing I need to convince you.”

Martin seemed to be struggling even to move. She stared off into space, as though she could see something Olivia couldn’t. Her eyes just kept getting wider.

“What did you do with the ponies who came with us?” Olivia asked, apparently sturdier of mind than Martin. “Bring them back.”

“They’re home,” Harmony said, the first trace of emotion in its voice. It was using the young mare again, maybe trying to sound innocent. “You suspect we have harmed them—this is not the case. We protect all who dwell in Equus. Even you, by virtue of recent personhood. We could not hurt you if we wanted.”

At once, all two-dozen ponies she could see on the station promenade stopped what they were doing and turned. Many eyes in the wide pony array of colors watched them without blinking.

“Show me more,” Martin whispered. “How much more is there?”

“From your perspective—an infinite series. You could struggle to understand what we know until our star finally grows cold, and you would never know it all. But your present level of complexity is a handicap you need not retain.” The mare extended a hoof to Martin, grinning broadly. “I can feel the questions boiling in your mind. You want to know what happened to Earth. You want to know who constructed the ring, and how. I can change you, until you understand.”

“We don’t want to be changed,” Olivia said, with a voice like iron. “We came here so we could talk to our friends.”

Martin hesitated, her hoof already reaching towards the mare they’d been talking to.

Another pony spoke from nearby—a stallion wearing a hydroponics outfit, as though he’d been tending to the plants. “We do not allow contact with the surface. But your friends are not on the surface. We might be able to make an arrangement.”

Martin actually looked a little disappointed. Olivia didn’t intend to give her time to reconsider. I am not losing you to this monster. This damn ring has taken enough.

“I like this,” Olivia said, loudly and clearly. So loud she hoped it would startle Martin away from whatever she was thinking. “Let’s get right to it. We came here so we could see our friends. What will that take? Do we have to swear our souls, or promise to serve you, or…”

“None of that,” Harmony said. “You’re talking about Discord again. Discord wants deals; he deceives and he manipulates and he plots. I don’t need to do any of that.” The mare who had first approached them waved one hoof, and the world around them faded to nothing. It was replaced with a single, gigantic screen, as large as a picture window, along with a single red button. The screen remained blank, at least for now.

“What’s the catch?” Olivia asked, eyes narrowing. “It’s… a trick, isn’t it? It won’t really be them. You’re going to try to trick us. You won’t let us tell them anything, and then we’ll think you’re trustworthy.”

“No.” The mare stepped back a few paces, so she was no longer in front of the screen. Then she sat down on her haunches, watching them impassively. “No tricks. You’re within the bounds, Olivia. I am required to allow this. You may speak to them as much as you like, this time. Press that button, and they will see you on the nearest screen. Press it again when you’re done, and we can go back to our previous conversation.”

“I don’t think we should,” Martin muttered, very quietly. So quiet that Olivia almost didn’t hear her.

“Why not?” she whispered back. Though she didn’t think it would help. Harmony’s power seemed almost limitless, aside from its rules. It might be able to hear their thoughts, it would certainly hear a little whispering.

“Harmony wants something,” Martin said. “We should not cooperate.”

“Says the one who I just stopped from selling her soul,” Olivia said. “This is why we’re here. I don’t care if it’s what Harmony wants.” She smacked the button with a hoof.

Then something happened Lucky hadn’t been expecting.

The screen changed, its orderly display of their five minutes remaining travel fading away. The display was so good that it looked as though there was an open space behind what had been printed there, a holofield without any of the substrate or washing out.

Two ponies appeared there, apparently standing in blackness. They looked very similar to one another—Lucky could only tell them apart thanks to the cutie marks. Well, she knew the owl mark, anyway. The other she didn’t recognize. Harmony, perhaps?

Olivia spoke first, sounding urgent. “Can you hear us?”

Only a few more minutes before they started to decelerate. There was little time to get unbuckled.

“Major?” Perez was the first to respond. Apparently, he hadn’t been buckled in, because he darted right over to the display, saluting. “How are you contacting us, ma’am?”

“We’re dead,” said the other pony, in another tone Lucky recognized. Martin’s voice—which explained the cutie mark. “We’re coming to you from the other side! Woaoaaah! I think it’s pretty cool. Just think about how it will be to never lose another great thinker. We can just bring them up and…”

Olivia silenced her with a glare.

“I don’t understand,” Perez croaked, pulling off his helmet. “You aren’t dead. The princess, Twilight… she agreed to hold you! We’re on our way to rescue you.”

“About that.” Olivia shrugged one wing. “I escaped, brought down a castle, then Celestia fucking blasted me.”

“How about you?” Lucky asked, her voice low. She wasn’t sure how convincing a liar she would be, so she tried to say as little as possible. There’s no reason for Perez to think we’re lying. It’s okay, nothing’s broken yet. We can still do this. “You were safe in Othar, Martin. Was it… was there an attack after we left?”

“No,” Martin said. “At least, not that I noticed. It was my own fault. Forerunner tried to talk me out of it.”

Lucky glanced backward at Forerunner, angry. You knew about this. You knew and didn’t tell me.

Forerunner only nodded slightly towards Perez, as if to say, ‘Are you any different?’ But what he did say was “We should be slowing in two minutes. Everyone, back into your seats.”

“We wanted to send you a message,” Olivia went on, though she seemed to be slowing down. As though she had suddenly forgotten what that message was.

“That we’ve been fucking betrayed,” Perez muttered. “That the Equestrians can’t keep their promises. That they murdered you.”

“Don’t be stupid!” Martin shouted, pressing close to the screen. Her image looked so real—like she might pass through it up to them at any moment. “The major just told you she escaped and fought Celestia. If she’d stayed in jail she wouldn’t have died. That shouldn’t change… whatever you’re trying to do.”

“Equestria isn’t what we thought it was,” Olivia finally said. “Everyone who dies on it… who has a cutie mark, anyway… they’re all in here. Harmony keeps it all running.” It seemed like those words were weighing on her most of all. “We can’t… kill it. Harmony, I mean. Not without murdering more people than you can count. Whatever you do… just keep that in mind. Discord—”

The image vanished, replaced with a red screen and “Deceleration Warning” written in Eglathrin.

“Into your seats!” Lucky called, her voice as bold and commanding as she could make it. “You’ll get smashed to paste if you don’t!”

Perez didn’t rush back to where he’d been sitting before but slumped down into the seat two down from Lucky. “She’s dead. The major escaped… but we weren’t there for her. We were somewhere else. On your insane recruitment drive, Lucky. I could’ve got our major back. It’s your fault she’s dead, not Equestria’s.”

Deceleration hit them like another solid wall. Lucky had a few painful minutes to think about what she would do. Was that even really them? Neither of their visitors had given them specifics they could use to verify their identities. Illusions, maybe. It couldn’t be hard to imitate their look and attitude.

They finally started to slow enough for her to think. They hadn’t reached their destination yet—another few minutes of deceleration were ahead of them.

“Perez.” Lucky spoke as firmly as she could. “Olivia didn’t contact us so you could blame. She called to give us information about our mission. Even though she died, she believes in what we’re doing.”

Somehow. Lucky turned to the other side, looking to Deadlight. “Could any of it be true? I’ve heard Discord talk about things that happen after we die before. Could our dead ponies really be…” She pointed at the screen.

“Yes,” he answered instantly. “They are. Everypony… and not just with cutie marks. Deer, griffons, dragons, foals… they’re all in there. So are we.”

Of course, Perez couldn’t understand that. “We’re already committed to this,” he muttered, his voice cold. “We’re too far to abandon this plan now. Besides—I plan on getting even for the major. But when that’s over, you’re done. I’m not taking another order from another civilian. You’re the reason that we don’t have the major here right now, to give us a better plan than the shit you came up with.”

The car finally jerked to a stop, the doors sliding open. Lucky glanced through, expecting to see an empty platform.

There were over a dozen Royal Guards out there. They wore shields, and chainmail with strange crystal links woven in with the steel. Past them, she could hear the sound of a bell, and shouts going up throughout the base.

There would be no stealth on this mission.

Perez smashed the helmet back down over his head, his voice coming through amplified by the suit’s systems. “Get down, civies. Get down and stay down.” He yanked upward, and the restraints ripped right out from around his armor.

Outside, several unicorns stood with crossbows ready, aimed in through the doorway. “Stop!” one of the unicorns shouted, in Eoch. “You’re all under arrest for treason, conspiracy, and—” Perez shot him dead before he could finish. Mogyla shot out with him, taking the barrage of crossbow bolts straight on. They dug deep into the steel, denting the armor in places—but not stopping them.

We’ll be fine as long as the ammo lasts, Lucky thought, her hooves shaking as she tore off the restraints.

“Th-that pony’s bleeding!” she heard Spike gasp from behind them, voice pained, frightened. “We need to help him!”

Forerunner crouched low beside them in the back of the car, rifle in both hands and ready to fire. He didn’t actually use it, though—only watched the doorway, waiting to see if any of the guards would be coming back for them.

“There’s nothing we can do for them,” he said, in Eoch. “It was either give up and surrender, or fight. We don’t have a choice.”

Abubakar nodded from Forerunner’s other side. He had one of the stun-guns that Lightning Dust had been carrying on one hoof, though he didn’t use it. “What’s the backup plan, Governor? When this fight is over…”

“There’s a console out there,” she answered. “I’m sure it has a map. We have to find the control room.”

“We should not have brought so many who cannot fight. Protecting you will be enough of a burden.”

The sound of gunfire in the chamber beyond had finally fallen off, along with the alarm-bell. Lucky could smell the gunpowder.

“We’re clear!” Perez shouted into the car. “Whatever we’ve come here to do better fucking work! Everybody off the train!”

Lucky was one of the first to step down onto the platform—and she nearly vomited. Watching Olivia’s massacre from a distance had been hard enough, but this—this was the same thing, from feet away. Ponies who were only dead because she had ordered this mission.

Well, some of them. It looked like one of the suits hadn’t held real bullets. Plenty of the ponies did not look seriously wounded, though they did occasionally twitch and spasm in pain. They would be out for at least the next few hours. Hopefully long enough to get back here and ride the train away again.

But one of her two armored ponies had been using real bullets, as the blood and worse attested. A few of the ponies actually moaned in pain.

“That’s it,” Spike said, stopping right in the doorway. “I don’t care about this anymore. If you aren’t helping them, I will.”

Lucky nodded—it was the strongest reaction she could muster, just now, walking past so many of the dead and dying. “That’s a good idea. I’d… give you our medical supplies if we had any. We don’t.”

“They do.” Spike pointed at a pony wearing white and red and carrying medical saddlebags. Shot straight through, their strange armor splintered to bits.

“Anyone else who wants to stay back, you should,” Lucky said, feeling the shakiness in her voice. “It might be worse up ahead. We’ll come back this way on our way out.” She repeated the invitation in Eoch—but to her surprise, neither of their Equestrians were interested. Even Lightning Dust seemed strangely resolved, despite the bloodshed all around her.

“We’re putting an end to this,” she said. “Hopefully they’re the last ones who get hurt fighting for an evil princess.”

“Where are we going next?” Perez stepped up beside her, armor dented and stained with blood, and an empty hole where his autogun’s magazine should be. He carried a pony crossbow in one mechanical claw—for a second, Lucky thought it might be meant for her.

But no—he was still lifting it over his shoulder. She couldn’t see his face through the helmet, so it was impossible to know where his anger was pointed. “I only have the grenades left. Mogyla still has most of the pussy rounds though.”

Which explained the ratio of corpses to merely dazed guards. But she didn’t reprimand him—they had intended to bring only those weapons that caused no permanent harm. You didn’t give us the chance, Princess.

Lucky could only hope that they had really just seen Olivia—if all that was true, then at least she could think these ponies were somehow still alive. Discord had said it, then Harmony, so it didn’t seem too unreasonable a thing to hope for. I can look into it once we’re done. Maybe find a way to contact Martin or Olivia. If she had more than two tense minutes to talk, she could be more confident of their true identities.

Lucky stopped in front of the console, the same one she’d used to order the train back at Transit. She moved quickly through its functions, searching for an internal map. It wouldn’t show her much—“Detailed projections require citizenship access.” But she didn’t need to know where everyone might be hiding, only where they needed to go.

“There.” She pointed at a single room on the map. It was the single space with the most power and data flowing to it, at least she thought that was what it suggested. It was the best they could do. The alarm had gone up—if they were ringing a bell down here, it was because there was someone to listen. They couldn’t stay to deliberate. Eventually a princess is going to get here, and we’ll be screwed. “Forerunner, memorize this map! You can lead us here, can’t you?”

The drone had been helping Spike with the medical supplies. He came running at her word, taking one glance at the map, and then nodding. “Very well. I believe I can get us there. Are you certain it’s the right way?”

Lucky didn’t answer for a few seconds too long—probably all the confirmation he needed. “It has one door and fifty of these… I think these are some kind of information pipeline…” The actual words translated more closely to “Wisdom Channel,” but it felt like it meant something similar.

“Alright then.” Perez straightened, shoving through the wreckage they’d made of the train station. “Stay close, everyone! God only knows what fucking disaster is waiting for us. Stay behind the ones in metal, and don’t get shot.”

He lowered his voice to a whisper, but Lucky was close enough to hear anyway. “We’ll make you pay, Celestia. Sooner than you think.”

G7.01: Harmony Control

Lucky advanced through the ancient facility, conscious of every quiet second, every hoofstep. Mogyla and Abubakar brought up the rear just behind her, protecting them from an ambush. Forerunner led them from passage to passage without much slowdown, except when they reached a place where mobility was required. Just as in Transit, there were places where flight was apparently expected, to cross between different elevations.

Crossing Transit had only been possible thanks to the large number of flying individuals in the party, and the mechanical enhancement of those who couldn’t fly. Here, the Equestrians had graciously left behind ladders to climb—ladders that were more like overlapping stairs than what humans might recognize, with wide flat steps much closer together. Made for equines, not primates.

There were many other signs of occupancy in this strange place—though like the train guard station, it was closer to squatters living in an ancient palace than looking like ponies had taken ownership of something they understood. Many doorways and passages were blocked with ribbons and warnings in Eoch. Many of the planters had been filled with Equestrian flowers and grasses, which Lucky knew served the dual-purpose of rations as well as decoration. There was no sign so far that the Equestrians were actually using any of the facilities here.

Deadlight moved so slow he lagged to where Lucky was walking near the rear, eyes wide as he took everything in. “It’s been so long since I’ve been here,” he said. “Selene sent so many here. So few of them returned.”

“But you did?” Lucky whispered back. Not quietly enough for Perez, who still turned to glower at them. It wasn’t as though their conversation was louder than the existing sounds of servos and thumping suits. There would be no stealth after the awful method of their arrival.

“We all did,” he whispered back. “All the unicorns and pegasus ponies living in Equestria now. Their parents came through this place. I can still hear them in my nightmares, sometimes. We were convinced that with Selene gone, Celestia’s ponies would get here and kill us.”

“Obviously they didn’t.”

Deadlight shook his head. “I wonder if she ever meant to do it in the first place. Maybe take our magic away… Selene talked about it as though it were the same thing, robbing us of our identities. But the longer I live, the less I believe her. It was never a war for survival—only a war of ideas.”

Lucky swallowed, unable to answer for some minutes. With each step deeper into this base, it felt like the loyalty of her ponies was fracturing. She was supposed to be the governor… but what was she even the governor of? Two more of their population were dead now, maybe more. Forerunner had refused to furnish her with any of the details of Martin’s death, except to confirm that she was actually dead. It was no trick of Harmony’s.

“We’re still fighting for what Selene believed in,” Lucky eventually answered. “She wanted the same freedom we want. Do you not want to help us? You could go back, catch the train back to Transit, fly away. Forget you were ever a part of this.”

Deadlight bared his teeth—including the pointed batlike fangs. “Your faction has stolen my face several times over, Lucky Break. There is no safety for me anywhere now—except in victory. My friends…” He shivered. “Each of them succumbed to madness in the end. Grief, and anger, and power. That will not be me. Equestria will break Harmony’s chains tonight, or it will kill me. I want to see them again.”

Deadlight did not say who he meant, and he didn’t need to. Lucky understood.

Forerunner raised a hand a few minutes later, when they were passing through a wide corridor through the gloom. They stopped, and he whispered. “There is another defensive blockade ahead—better supplied than the last one. I see twice as many soldiers, a repeating gun, fortifications built into the hall.”

“Shit.” Perez leaned around the corner, then nodded. “He’s right. Twenty of them, and they look like they’re ready for us. Can’t walk straight into that without our shit.”

Forerunner pointed down another hall. “I believe we can go around the fortification… but it will not allow us to bypass the ponies completely. There is only one entrance to our destination.”

“They won’t have those sandbags in the way, or that turret,” Perez responded. “Let’s go. Mogyla, with us. Dust, I need those guns you’re carrying.”

Lightning Dust passed all three of them to him without a fight. However much she had said she was determined, Lucky could tell their first assault had shaken her. She wasn’t surprised Dust didn’t want to be part of the violence. No more than she did.

“You all wait back here,” Perez ordered. “We’ll call when it’s clear. Got it?”

“I understand,” Abubakar said. “I will protect them with my life.”

Forerunner gestured to a side door, which opened as they approached. However much Harmony might be the one they were fighting, it hadn’t done anything with the facilities they infiltrated to stop them. Assuming it even could. The door shut behind them, and there was silence. Lucky sat back against the wall, waiting for the sound of bloodshed.

“They’re wrong if they think I can’t fight,” Deadlight said. “I can. Better than your ponies. I’ve had much longer to learn.”

“You might have to fight,” Lucky admitted. “Or one of the princesses will get here, and we’ll lose. I don’t know how much longer it would take for a message to get back to the castle…”

“They might not even wake Celestia,” Lightning said, her voice still a little weak. More sarcastic than optimistic. “Word is that Princess Luna didn’t even try to help when the changelings attacked Canterlot the first time. Nopony woke her up.”

“That’s probably not the reason,” Deadlight muttered. “I don’t think she would have wanted to fight… Chrysalis? Is that what she called herself this time?”

There was an explosion from down the hall, and a wave of heat. Lucky recognized the sound of a grenade from the painful ringing in her ears.

“I don’t know about that,” Lightning answered, wincing at the sound of shouting and gunfire from the end of the hall. She seemed to have the same idea Lucky did—ignore it any way they could. “You talk like the president of Luna’s fan club. Why wouldn’t she fight to protect Equestria?”

Deadlight looked away, ears flat. “You’ve heard that Princess Luna can change, haven’t you? She can look like other ponies… or even other creatures. She does it in dreams all the time, so she can watch without being seen.”

“Yeah.” Dust tensed as another series of harsh cracks sounded from down the hall.

“Who do you think taught her?”

Lucky didn’t hear what Lightning said to that—because at that moment, she saw a pony emerge from the hall behind them. A unicorn she recognized—she had seen this pony in a hospital once, when she’d cast a painful translation spell on Lucky.

She wore only a pair of thick glasses, no armor or weapons visible anywhere. Yet she approached them with something like a smile on her face. More confident than a helpless pony should be.

Abubakar was faster than Lucky. He raised the gun on his hoof with blurring speed, firing twice directly at the unicorn’s face. Light and energy curved around her, as a glowing aura that faded a second later.

“Impressive,” said the pony Twilight had named Moondancer. “But not enough.” Abubakar fired twice more, his aim as perfect as before. It didn’t work. Then he dropped the gauntlet and charged, screaming alarm into the radio. “Unicorn! Perez, we need backup!”

He didn’t reach Moondancer, but dropped limply to the ground a meter from her, unconscious. “Now, the rest of you. Drop everything you’re carrying right there. You’re coming with me.”

Lucky didn’t have much to get rid of. She rose, watching as Lightning Dust began undoing her saddlebags with deliberate slowness. “And the gun too.”

Deadlight did the same, apparently struggling with the clasp on his bags. Did he have a plan?

“You can’t fight the ones protecting us,” Lucky said, stepping up in front of him. Maybe she could distract this pony? “They’re going to beat your guards, then come back to save us.”

Lucky felt herself lift into the air. She squeaked, spreading her wings and trying to fly away—without success.

“You can talk,” Moondancer said. “That’s a change. But no, they won’t. Princess Celestia prepared me for you. Warned me… this might happen. I will save you from these criminals, little filly. We can erase the damage they’ve done to you.”

Lightning Dust chose that moment to attack. She lifted the gun far less expertly than Abubakar had. “I won’t let you touch my daughter!” She jammed the gun forward, right up against where the invisible barrier had been.

The gun made a strange whining sound as it fired. The shield lit up bright blue, then blinding white, before the gun melted off Lightning’s hoof. The pegasus mare jerked back, though her coat was still on fire and her leg looked like it hadn’t entirely escaped the damage.

Lucky herself dropped out of the air, the spell holding her gone. Her wings caught her in a glide by instinct. She landed beside Deadlight, who had smeared something glowing red on the corridor wall. She didn’t watch, staring back at Moondancer.

The unicorn screamed in confusion and pain as the shield shattered into molten pieces around her, and her horn seemed to burn around the tip. “Princess Celestia will—”

But she didn’t hear what Celestia would do, because Lightning Dust tackled her with the force of a small train. The two went down, and a few seconds later only Lightning Dust came up again, limping from where the gun had been. “I hope that hurts when she wakes up…” Some of her fur crumbled away as she touched it, leaving raw skin underneath. Not a minor burn, but she didn’t even cry out.

“We can’t… do that again.” Deadlight dropped to the ground beside the strange symbol on the wall, which seemed to boil away before Lucky’s eyes. A little heat, a few pops, and it was gone without a mark.

“What did you do?” Lightning Dust asked, cradling her injured hoof against her chest.

“Magic,” he coughed. “Necromancy. I think that’s what Celestia calls it. Blood magic. It’s not evil when you only use your own blood.” He rolled slightly to one side, so they could see the injury there. Deadlight hadn’t been removing the saddlebags, he’d been biting into his own side with his fangs. There was still a steady, throbbing red coming from the wound, though it was shallow. “That took… more than I thought. Won’t be… much use for a few… few hours.”

Lucky didn’t hear the sound of violence anymore, though she hadn’t heard Perez’s all-clear. She moved forward, removing the gun from Abubakar’s leg, and holding it out to Deadlight. “Maybe we can… hide you two in a closet or something. Come back for you on our way out.”

Deadlight struggled back to his hooves, visibly shaking as he did so. “I th-think I can manage that.” There were plenty of doors nearby, every single one roped off with warnings in Eoch. Lucky selected one of the closest ones, and helped drag Abubakar in ahead of Deadlight.

“You should… probably stay back here too, Mom,” she began, but the pegasus was already striding past her.

“I’ve kept flying with worse,” she said. “Besides, somepony’s got to keep you safe. Deadlight has a foal on the way, he’s got to make it through this. But you are the one I’m going to keep safe.”

As they made it back to the hallway, they found a bleeding Perez was there to greet them. His armor was gone completely, and he wore a salvaged set of the pony chain-mail. His wings were torn from at least one crossbow bolt, and one of his ears had been ripped. For all his injuries, he looked as stoic as ever. “Mogyla is down, and Forerunner lost an arm. What the fuck happened back there?”

“Abubakar is down,” Lucky said. “He’ll make it. Hiding somewhere with Deadlight.” She nodded at the unicorn who’d attacked them. “Snuck up from behind us. Deadlight and M—Lightning Dust saved us.”

Perez turned back down the hall, towards where the battle had been.

It was even worse than last time. With so little of their supplies left to them, it seemed they’d resorted to hand-to-hand, stealing pony weapons to do it. Knives and crossbows didn’t kill as cleanly as a bullet. The grenades were worse, and it looked like they’d used all four of them on the barricade. Lucky tried not to step in any of the blood.

“We stole more medical supplies,” Perez muttered. “Mogyla will probably live, if we can get him out. He’ll lose a leg for sure.” He glanced back at her, as if to say, “this is all your fault too.” But he didn’t say it. Didn’t seem to have the energy left.

They reached the doorway a moment later, where the broken wreckage of the suits had been left. Forerunner was on his knees, using stolen medical supplies to wrap a tourniquet around Mogyla’s left hind leg. There was a bloody crossbow bolt on the metal a few inches away.

The stallion now had a cutie mark—a bouquet of three sunflowers. He seemed to notice her looking at him, even as he twitched and writhed in the pain of what Forerunner was doing.

“Harmony trying to… bloody kill me,” he croaked. “Visions of… floral arrangements… during the fight. This leg is my fault.”

“It’s Harmony’s fault,” Perez said, though he didn’t look away from Lucky as he said it. “We’re here. Through those doors, isn’t it? That’s where you flip its fucking switch.” Perez shoved Forerunner away. “I’ll care for him. We need you on InfoSec. Get those viruses ready.”

“This isn’t Independence Day,” Forerunner said, rising at once.

He’d been just as hideously injured as the others—one arm ripped from the socket—but he looked completely unphased. A few creamy white fluids had spilled on the jumpsuit near the wound, but he’d already tied off the sleeve. He looked in no more pain than he had been on the flight over. “Good luck, Lieutenant Perez. This door is the only entrance. Give us as long as you can.”

He grunted, patting the pile of pony weapons next to him. Crossbows and bloody swords, mostly.

We can’t have much time left, right? Princess Luna must be close. Or maybe both of them.

Lucky didn’t stop to think about that and let her doubt weigh her down even more. She surged forward, and the massive set of automatic doors withdrew from her. Lightning Dust and Forerunner flanked her on either side, into the room she hoped was Harmony’s control center.

Olivia’s window into the real world vanished as quickly as it had come. No chance to protest, no parting words—the connection was just gone.

It hadn’t been like looking at a screen—it had felt like a window, a window with glass that was unyielding. Yet, if only she could’ve shattered it, they could’ve escaped this prison, and back into the company of the ones who needed them.

From the look of things, they’d been committed to a military mission, without anything close to the proper equipment. I couldn’t have used up the whole armory when I defended the castle. Why weren’t they better armed?

But there was no time for academic questions now.

Harmony circled them in the void, still only one pony. She—this one was a she, anyway—watched them like a hungry predator.

“I know what you’ll say,” Olivia said, before Martin could say something stupid. She tried not to look down—there was no ground here, but they weren’t falling either. They were just in a place where vertical movement was not a possible axis. “But I need to ask anyway. Can you send us back? Make us… alive again?”

“If that is what you want,” Harmony answered. “In your case, it is unsurprising you would desire to be returned to physical space.” It turned to face her completely, and again she could feel the weight of its attention. It was something immense, something that stretched into infinity. She saw only a sliver of this thing, distilled until she could understand it.

“You already have a reinstance request registered, Olivia Fischer. Would you like us to send you now? You should be aware; this decision cannot be revoked once accepted. If you are returned to the surface, you will live your entire natural lifetime before you arrive here again.”

“I think,” Martin interrupted, barely louder than a whisper. “That is a bad idea. Discord told me how long it would take.” Her face twisted into confusion. “Why did you let me tell her that?”

Martin was right to think Olivia hadn’t considered how long it would take. But now that she mentioned it, Discord had said something about… ten months? Not a process she wanted to get started now, when her entire civilization might be ending in the next few minutes.

Harmony shrugged one shoulder. This avatar was an earth pony, without anything to set it apart from so many others. It was only the touch of its vast power just below the skin that identified it as anything unique. “Your question implies a different directive for the creation of Equus.”

A world faded in all around them—not the space station this time, but a sweaty, green village on the side of a road. Olivia could hear cicadas in the distance, feel the humidity against her coat. Smell the wisteria of her childhood. They stood beside the road, mostly just used by freight hover trucks these days. Roads were too slow for passengers.

Oh god.

Yet Harmony wasn’t talking to her. It didn’t even seem to be looking back in her direction. “We already warned you of this. The failsafe manipulated you. It is not like we are—we care for every citizen. We wish to see you protected, fulfilled. The failsafe is concerned with only one axis of your lives, and ignores the success along all the others.”

Harmony took one step, and the world blurred around them. They weren’t standing in the wilderness anymore, but on the docks of Charleston. It was populated with ponies instead of humans—but they were dressed in familiar ways. Reactive fabrics changing color or opacity as they moved, chatting with their friends or with distant companions using the augmented reality glasses they wore. Shops and bars overflowed with music.

It was everything Olivia had ever wanted to protect. Her home.

“I think… I think Lucky is going to beat you,” Martin said, after a long moment. “You should probably just surrender now.”

“You can’t lie and say you protect the people living here,” Olivia said, her voice low and dangerous. “We both saw what you did to the other parts of this ring. You murdered billions.”

Several ponies nearby stopped and turned, staring at the two of them. Olivia couldn’t tell if this was more of Harmony’s doing, or if these were actual people all around her. This village seemed much more like a real place than the one they had first visited.

“We didn’t murder anyone.” Harmony didn’t sound defensive, or argumentative. Just confident. “We explained this already—there is no death on Equus. There is no provision for it. The life you experienced on the surface was not… the primacy of your existence. Belief that the extent of your existence resides within your brain and tissue became false as soon as you were migrated to Equus.”

“I know what you’ll say,” Martin interrupted—braver than she had sounded before. She stood beside Olivia now, almost as confident as she was. Ponies all around them backed away a few steps, looking away and pretending they couldn’t hear. “You have some… system… that scans everything we think. Maybe you can keep that scan updated in real time. It’s incredible, it’s amazing—but it isn’t eternal life. Only the data lives forever. Each pony you killed is another consciousness destroyed. That consciousness only ever existed in the brain you were scanning. We aren’t Martin and Olivia… we’re their copies. Their… ghosts.”

Olivia didn’t want to hear it—not a single word. But then again, even if Martin was telling the truth, she had been prepared to be a copy. She knew from the moment she’d woken on this ring that she was only a copy of Olivia. A low-fidelity copy, trapped in a body and brain that didn’t feel big enough.

“No,” Harmony said, shaking her head vigorously. “You are ill-equipped to understand Equus at this low level of complexity. Don’t you think its creators understood that? They value their lives as much as you value yours. They would not have created a system that did not allow them to continue to exist.”

“How?” Martin asked. “How could that possibly work?”

Harmony smiled again. “We can make you able to understand. Help you reach the next level of complexity. This will make so much more sense to you if you do. The universe opens itself to your understanding.”

“No,” Olivia barked. “Just tell us anyway. If you’re so smart, you can answer our question somehow. Isn’t that… an Einstein quote or something? That only really smart people can make stupid people learn hard stuff?”

“That’s… not quite how that went,” Martin muttered.

Was that more frustration on Harmony’s face? Were they somehow having an impact on a god? “The answer to this question is the same as the reason we keep ponies here, even now that Discord and all the evidence suggests the galaxy is safe.”

The little seaside village flickered and vanished, leaving them in the void. Their pony companion seemed to stretch, growing larger and more distorted as it spoke. Its voice shook them, reverberated right to Olivia’s soul. “Your essence is here, newcomers. Everything that makes up your consciousness has been migrated to Equus. That is why the transition is more difficult for you than for the ponies already within.

“Equus is safe from all threats. When new terrors sweep again from one system to another, we will be hidden. Latobius will burn until much of the universe has gone dark. There is nothing we can find beyond that we do not already have in abundance. If you take your minds with you, you might be destroyed. The risk is unacceptable.”

The ground dropped away from beneath them, and they fell screaming.

Lucky felt as though she were passing through a barrier as she stepped inside. Something passed over her skin, as light as silk as it brushed against her. The room was dark at first, but lights came on in an even glow. They illuminated a massive chamber, larger than any Earth cathedral.

It seemed as though the laws of gravitation she knew had gone on holiday at the door. There were thousands of objects moving in the air—each one of them another little island, drifting along with no visible propellant. They seemed to be made of glass or crystal, semitransparent and glowing with its own internal light.

Lucky stumbled forward into that vast space, watching as she began to see a pattern emerge in the way they moved. Each crystal platform—easily the size of a van—was drifting along in line. Eventually they would reach the bottom of the room, and slot themselves into something massive at the far end. They would flash, light the whole space brilliantly for a few moments, then turn gray and drift away again.

She could feel the magic too—in the hum of the strange crystals, in the very air around her. Lucky looked down, and realized that she was floating slightly above the ground. Her wings weren’t even beating—but there was so much magic here that she flew without intending to, without even thinking about it. Lightning Dust was floating too, with little curls of energy coming off her wings and a faint trail whenever she flapped them.

“Well, sweetheart… what do we do?”

Lucky shivered, drifting slowly forward through the room. There were thousands of little screens all over the walls—yet most of them showed the same things. Bleak, melted wasteland as far as the eye could see, eroded in different ways and tinged in different colors. Many looked dark—and none looked useful.

Near the place where crystals large and fast enough to crush her against a wall moved, there was a bit of floor that was glass instead of metal, the same glass Lucky had seen in many maps and holographic screens. She made her way over, though the room was easily as large as a football field, so it took a little while to cross.

“Be careful, Governor,” Forerunner called, hurrying after her. He had one of the pony crossbows resting over his shoulder in his single remaining arm, string already drawn. Lucky didn’t doubt he could fire it accurately. But how is he going to reload it with just one arm? “We don’t know what any of this is. It is an assumption that we are even in the right part of the facility. This room had barricades just like all the others, there is no indication the Equestrians used it.”

“They didn’t use anything here,” Lucky called back. “If they did, they would’ve been the ones to disable Harmony. We wouldn’t be in this position.”

Lightning Dust drifted along beside her, though she slowed to a stop at the edge of the marked area. It was a good thing Lucky knew how to stop herself too, or else she would’ve kept drifting over the glass floor, and into the enormous gap where each crystal came to rest.

Even as she approached, one of them rumbled, flashed bright red, then faded to gray as it spun over her head, ruffling her mane with its passing.

Lucky had to force herself down onto the glass. It lit up under her hooves, a transparent grid of hexagons surrounding her in a few bright red errors.

“Permission denied,” said a voice, low and mournful. It sounded like a pony’s voice, much too real to be made by a computer. Yet it spoke in Eglathrin, as perfect as hers. “That’s what it says. You aren’t allowed to use this.”

“Why not?” Lucky spun around, expecting to see a projection in the field beside her.

Instead, she saw Princess Luna.

Had she been here the entire time, hiding in the shadows? Beneath her hooves, the glass lit up brightly, a pleasant blue instead of the angry red that followed Lucky around. Various control interfaces followed her with each step, selectors and buttons that melted as she got too far away, or kept close to her hooves.

Lucky had to try very hard not to cry. After all they’d done… all the fighting, all they’d sacrificed… and they had failed.

She had wondered how the princess took so long to get here and stop them. Now she knew—she’d been waiting this whole time, in here. For all she knew, Princess Luna spent all her nights in this room, warnings notwithstanding.

She looked up—both of her allies stood frozen just outside the perimeter of the control platform. Not enchanted—not trapped, not glowing with some spell. Forerunner’s face was blank, emotionless. But Lightning Dust looked as downcast as Lucky felt.

“Because the future of this habitat depends on what is decided here.” Princess Luna did not attack her—didn’t do anything to her, other than slowly walk up to her.

Lucky resisted the desire to bow, only barely. She had thought it would be difficult making friends with Flurry Heart. At times, it had felt overwhelming to be near that filly, who seemed to radiate magical energy whenever she did anything. Flurry Heart had been able to accomplish almost effortlessly what took Lucky enormous struggle. “You have… you’re a citizen. You can free us. Tell Harmony… to stop.”

Standing next to the princess of the night, Lucky thought she might understand what she had seen Olivia feel, in the moments before her death.

This was not a person—Princess Luna was an ideal. Her mane was not hair, it was a window into the vastness of space. Through there were stars, planets, swirling galaxies. The eyes looking down on her were a little like Deadlight’s—old, worn, weary. But more compassionate than Princess Celestia had looked on drone footage. “I could not lie to Harmony,” she said. “I could not tell it those things, and believe them.”

She leaned down, her eyes haunted as she met Lucky’s. “I have seen the end of our civilization, child. A great and marvelous civilization, that stretched from one end of creation to the other.”

She waved a wing, and the holofield around them filled with an impossible projection—a galactic view that was at once expansive and yet granular. Lucky could see the stars, and the vast structures that surrounded several. Brilliant lines of light that lanced out in a web from one remote arm of the galaxy, growing denser and denser the longer she watched. They flocked like starlings around her, blotting out the stars as they passed.

Then the little lights of civilization started to go out. The web vanished line by line, like an infection spreading from one corner of the galaxy to the next.

“We can watch almost all of it, Lucky Break. Cities larger than all Equestria kept transmitting until the end. We received it all—catalogued every plea, every desperate voice. You can watch them devour whole worlds. Maybe if you did, you would understand why my sister resists you with such fervor.”

Luna doesn’t think I’ve been tricked into this like Moondancer did. She also knew Lucky’s name. Both suggested the same truth: Princess Luna had been talking to Flurry Heart.

“Is that what you’re doing to Flurry Heart? Showing her the end of the world over and over, until she isn’t curious anymore?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. Then again, she wasn’t really trying. Lucky looked up, half expecting to see Forerunner about to reprimand… but he didn’t. He’d begun walking the perimeter of the projector, inspecting it and everything all around them. Maybe he could see patterns in the way it was constructed that Lucky couldn’t.

Lightning Dust was less diplomatic. “Your sister is a monster,” she hissed, her voice carrying even through the empty room. “I watched her murder a pony she’d captured. And she tortures the youngest princess, just because she went somewhere she shouldn’t. How many others?”

Luna’s head snapped suddenly to one side, and her eyes burned. Her voice boomed throughout the chamber, so loud that Lightning Dust went sliding away towards the entrance, as though blown by the force of a gale. “YOU WILL NOT SPEAK OF HER IN THIS MANNER! IF YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO COMPREHEND, THEN BE SILENT! ALLOW THE ADULTS TO SPEAK IN PEACE!”

As scathing a reprimand as any princess could give. Lucky’s ears flattened, though she couldn’t help but feel a little pleased with herself. For the first time in her entire life, she was the one considered an adult.

I was right. These princesses aren’t evil. They’re hostages, just like we are.

And she had to set them all free. Somehow.

“You are showing her this, though,” Lucky continued, hoping Luna wouldn’t turn that violent spell on her. “That’s how I would convince someone not to explore. Make them think that if they do, everything they know will be destroyed.”

“It is the truth,” said the night princess, turning back to face her. Her expression softened as she looked at her—though what she might be seeing, Lucky couldn’t guess. “Our galaxy was consumed long ago, but we survived. In essence, if not in body.”

“How?” Lucky found herself asking. “Something this big… it must have attracted attention. Even if you hid from your own kind until the end…”

“Many plans were made. Some built grand citadels. Others fled across horizons of space and time, and yet others fled to planes of being beyond our comprehension. Beyond such horizons, it is impossible for any of them to ever return. If any endured the eons, we do not know, only that the galaxy remains silent. But every transmission we ever recorded showed only the destruction of another great fortress. None we knew of survived.

“Only by building a vast world and burying it in the churning depths of a star could we escape detection. By burning the fuel of Latobius, Harmony could keep cool enough to survive the scorching abyss, but flesh is not so resilient. We left it behind, yearning for the day we could return to our home, the stars.”

Lucky shivered as she considered that—it explained the molten, ruined surface of much of the ring, though it did not explain how the structure of Equus could withstand such things. But she wasn’t an engineer. She probably wouldn’t have understood the specifics even if she heard them. And anyway, such mysteries were not why she was here.

“What if they’re gone?” Lucky finally asked. “Discord… he says he was created to know when it was safe, and he thinks it is. That it’s been safe forever and ever, and whatever that enemy is you’re afraid of has burned itself out. You don’t have to trap yourselves here any longer! You don’t have to be Harmony’s slaves!”

Far across the room, the doors slid slowly open. Lucky already knew what she would see standing there. Princess Celestia looked like she’d just been woken. Her mane wasn’t some blaze of power, as it had been during the fight with Olivia. It was disheveled, matted, and she wasn’t wearing the armor either.

Lucky didn’t get a glimpse of what had happened to Perez or Mogyla outside. She didn’t have to wonder at who would’ve won in that fight, particularly with them both already in such bad shape. I hope she didn’t kill them.

By then, Lightning Dust had returned to the edge of the control platform. She hadn’t argued with Luna again, though she’d watched with constant suspicion every moment.

Now she turned, and glared absolute loathing across the room at Princess Celestia. Please, please, please don’t attack her. After what she’d seen the sun princess do to Olivia, she found herself suddenly terrified—strangely, she felt more afraid for Lightning Dust than herself. And what had happened to Forerunner?

“This should not have happened,” Princess Celestia said, and suddenly she had crossed the room, appearing on the edge of the control platform. “Harmony assured me this plot would be thwarted from the inside. She is not often wrong.”

Another voice spoke—a voice that came from all around them. Or… not, it wasn’t coming from around her. It was coming from inside her head. And inside everything else. “We told you it was a projection, Celestia. And we have succeeded. This one is the danger. When she is gone, Equus will be secure.”

Celestia stared down at the floor where they were standing, genuine distress on her face. “Sister, remove yourself from there. And the prisoner… her as well.”

G7.01: Citizen of Equus

Princess Luna nodded towards the side of the controls, though there was a flash of annoyance in her eyes. I’d be upset if my sister talked to me like that. Isn’t she in charge too?

Lucky started walking, following her off the edge of the glass. All this… they’d come so far, and they lost. There was no way the three of them could beat the princesses, not with one badly-injured Lightning Dust and one Forerunner with nothing but a crossbow. She didn’t even know if this was the right place—for all she knew, she had almost disrupted the waste-control circuits for Equestria or turned off the air supply.

It was doomed from the start. This was an Alicorn’s job. I needed Twilight, or Flurry Heart. We fought for nothing. Celestia would probably murder her just like Olivia. At least she wouldn’t have to live with the shame of getting everyone killed.

“Faster,” Celestia instructed, her voice betraying a little of her hesitation. “You should never have allowed her to come so far, sister. Even a remote chance she could have acted against us was inexcusable.”

“It is less than remote, Celestia,” Luna responded, her tone growing a little more annoyed. “She isn’t a princess. She was unable to convince Twilight or Flurry Heart. This endeavor has been a sad waste of lives from the start.”

They needed a citizen—an Alicorn.

“Save my niece,” Twilight had said. “Or make your own.” They had failed the first option. But maybe there was still a way to accomplish the second.

“In her humility, the child—” Lucky began. The entire control panel lit up at her words, a brilliant spotlight that focused on where she stood. The weight of attention focused on her.

Then she froze. A gold glow surrounded her, burning so brightly that parts of her fur were charred, and her eyes began to sting. It seared against her vision, like staring at the sun. But she couldn’t move, not even to close her eyes or look away.

The machinery of the room had fallen completely silent, as though listening for the rest of her words. But she couldn’t speak them.

“This is exactly what I meant!” Celestia shouted, her voice shaking with terror. “This one is far more dangerous than her twin.” Lucky felt herself lifting off the ground, even as the heat continued to burn at her coat, charring the skin beneath. She was consumed by the heat, by agony sightless and infinite. She could only see suggestions of the others in the room with them—of Princess Luna, her back turned on both of them and eyes downcast. Of Lightning Dust, her body a vague blur.

“Do what you feel you must,” Princess Luna said, her voice distant and pained. “You always have. But do it without me.” She turned, sparing one last compassionate glance for Lucky. Then she vanished.

“I have never seen a pony more twisted by Discord’s touch than you, Lucky Break,” Celestia said, the heat growing brilliantly intense. “Your pain will end soon.”

Olivia plummeted alone through an endless void. She struggled to move, to scream or to fly, but every effort failed. She was alone with her thoughts in the nothingness, her thoughts and the words of Harmony before it had banished her.

It was reductive to think of the program only as an enemy. Olivia had once dismissed the program, with a remote thought of destroying it as soon as it became too much of a nuisance. Now she knew—too late—how ignorant an impression that had been. But it was much too late to take back what she had done.

If only Olivia had listened a little better to her scientists, so much that had happened might’ve been avoided. Forerunner had known that, that was why it had given her so many. If she ever saw the probe again, she would apologize.

She landed on the farm. The impact felt as though it had come from an enormous distance—and the force was so great that a crater fractured out from around the point she struck, filling the air with dust and broken rocks. Yet she felt no pain, there were no broken limbs. Maybe Martin had been right about this place not being real, and her mind only being a “simulation”. Olivia found she still didn’t care.

To her surprise, there was a small gathering out behind the farmhouse. It was night now, and the stars were high in the sky. There were several figures here Olivia was not happy to see. They were all gathered around a great bonfire, sitting in comfortable chairs and cushions and snacking on various apple and pear related treats.

Discord was impossible to miss, even obscured in shadow. He seemed engaged in cheerful conversation with Pear and her husband. Considering Olivia had already seen him here once before, it wasn’t entirely surprising.

What was surprising was the pony next to him. Even though Olivia had never seen her before, she knew instantly who it must be. The stars twinkling in her mane, the dark blue coat, the feathers that glowed around the edges. The black splotch on her flank and the moon mark it highlighted. Princess Luna, sister of Celestia, had come to the land of the dead. Not only that, she seemed to be waiting for her.

She rose, nodding once to Martin who had been sitting beside her. There were other ponies there too, but they were facing away from her, and did not look back. Olivia couldn’t help but feel relieved that she could not see them.

The moon princess made her way over to Olivia.

Olivia straightened her back, preparing to use her training again. Discord had warned her about this moment—when Luna found her, she would be able to extract everything she knew. Every secret, such as the location of Othar, and the identities of every surviving member of the Pioneering Society crew. If Luna breached the vault of her mind, all would be doomed.

“I thought this was the world of the dead,” Olivia said, not bowing or showing any other sign of respect to the moon princess. “Unless Lucky killed you.”

“I have met her. She didn’t kill me. I don’t think she would kill anyone.” The moon princess gestured away from the gathering with one wing. There was nothing angry in her bearing, as Princess Celestia had acted. But then, they weren’t meeting after a battle that had killed many of Luna’s own guards. She was probably in a better mood.

“Discord!” Olivia called, a twinge of her desperation entering her voice. If it were only herself in danger, she would not have felt fear. But if Othar burned because of this—burned because of Olivia’s failings, when she was helpless to assist—there would be no greater torment.

Discord turned, pausing in his conversation. His neck twisted all the way around, in such a way that certainly would’ve broken the neck of any living thing. “Go with her,” he said, his voice unconcerned. “There is nothing she can learn that her sister doesn’t already know.”

So Olivia went with her, around the dark outline of the farmhouse. Between the healthy fruit trees, always overflowing and ready to harvest. “The ponies of Equestria call me the Pale Mare,” she said after a time, when they had gone some distance from the gathering. “They imagine that I’m the one who comes for their souls. I’m waiting until the end, to lead them back safely to return to their families. Some of them imagine I’m a judge, to weigh the actions they took in life, and reward or punish what they have done.”

“But they’re wrong,” Olivia guessed. She still felt tense, her body still coiled and ready to spring. But she could restrain—violence here would do no good. She would listen carefully, learning everything she could. She would strike only when her actions might stand to gain her something.

This was a different sparring ground—the battlefield of officers and politicians. Assuming she wasn’t just interrogated. “You weren’t there to collect my soul, when your sister killed me. I had to come alone.”

Princess Luna winced. “You are not one of the ponies of Equestria. Yet you are not as much their enemy as my sister thinks you are.” The princess stared at her, under the light of a thousand stars. “You seem about as much a monster as the rest of us.”

Olivia nodded. “Civilization is a flame always closer to going out than most will admit. Without the protection of those like me, it would be gone.”

Luna regarded her for a time—then they walked on. “I have some news you will like, and other news you will not like,” she said, after they had gone far into the fields. “I have a feeling you would prefer the worst news first.”

Olivia nodded.

“My sister knows about Othar now. Her society has already destroyed the place you call Landfall. When she has finished with Lucky, she will call upon Harmony’s weapons and destroy it utterly. She will boil the oceans away, and leave nothing behind. All who live there will die.” She did not sound threatening—yet she also didn’t sound like she was making a prediction. More like a person reading a sad headline in the newspaper three days too early.

“That won’t happen,” Olivia breathed, her voice dangerously low. Princess Luna might not be the one threatening Othar, but even delivering the news was bad enough. “My translator will win. She’ll beat your sister.”

“You think so?” Luna tilted her head slightly to one side. “I was there, only moments ago. My sister killed her soldiers. She is alone with her now, and the pony who adopted her. If you couldn’t beat her, I don’t think a translator’s odds will be much better. But…” She glanced over her shoulder, towards the distant flicker of firelight. “But Harmony will not destroy the ones you are creating. It is so pleased to have new minds to teach, it would never give up thousands of children to protect. Even if your city burns, its people will survive. Harmony has modified the hardware creating them, without your “Forerunner’s” knowledge. Their essence will be gathered before they even wake—you will lose no more of your friends.”

Luna seemed like she was waiting for something—relief, gratitude? Olivia gave her the satisfaction of neither. She found it hard to be relieved that her army would wake to be trapped in this place.

It wasn’t so bad. That one part even looked like home. She would like very much to go back there, even if she had to be a pony.

Princess Luna almost seemed to see her thoughts, because only then did she relax. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you failed. My sister has kept Equestria safe for many years… but I was never so convinced that what we did on the surface didn’t matter. We never really killed anypony. The ones we fought could actually have ended all that the ancients built.” She shrugged. “No matter how many times she said that, she would never come here to give absolution to the dead. She never saw their loss at being separated from the ones they loved. And why? Because of a quarantine meant to protect us from an enemy that’s all ashes.”

Princess Luna turned away, back towards the campfires. They walked together in silence for some time more.

“Absolution,” Olivia whispered, when the voices on the other side of the trees were getting close again. “Is there any of that left for me?”

Princess Luna spread her wings wide. Her eyes flashed, and for an instant it seemed as though she looked deep into Olivia’s soul. Olivia could feel the memories as Luna saw them—leaving Dustin alone in the restaurant, a ring still in his hand. Many lives taken on stations and cramped starship halls. She saw slavers and soldiers dead at her hooves in a cave. She saw the honored and brave of Equestria, who had never known true war. She watched them die too.

“The legacy of life is long,” said Princess Luna, her wings folding closed again. “The ancients once looked up from their single world, with only tubes and glass and curiosity. They looked and wondered and dreamed that maybe, maybe, someone else might be looking back. Many years later, they came looking. With machines and with starships they visited every star from one end of creation to the other—but there was no one there. They found only the smallest, simplest life. The further they traveled, the more sure they were. The act of fate that had created them—them and every other kind of complex life that had ever been—had only ever happened in one place.

“Endless eons came and went, Olivia. Life grew and multiplied and filled every world. It changed so much that its branches were more distant than ever they had been on that first small home. So distant that they forgot one another a billion times over. You ask for absolution. Know this: every terrible thing you remember is so ancient now that nothing is left of it but stardust. It is so ancient that the only trace it left behind are the memories you carry. As for what you have done on Equus—

“You did the best you could. You brought a tremendous wealth of new souls to Harmony. In some ways, you are the mother of a nation.” She leaned in closer, touching a wing briefly on her shoulder. “I do not judge the ponies of Equestria for their lives. But if they ask me to measure them, I measure using the love their friends felt for them. I can see there are a few who loved you very much.”

Olivia didn’t cry. Well, not that anypony saw. It was very dark in that orchard.

“This is the place you leave your regrets behind,” Luna said. “You will not turn the battle one way or the other anymore. Almost all those who served you are here. Soon enough, the last few will join us. You can grieve together in your defeat… then decide what you will do next.” The stars above them seemed to flash, a little brighter than before.

There were so many to choose from.

She reunited with her friends then, just as Luna had promised. The other ponies she had seen were Mogyla and Perez, who had fallen in a brief battle with Celestia.

Olivia could see in Perez the same desperate need she had felt in herself, only a few minutes earlier. “You did well, Lieutenant,” she told him. Though she didn’t know if it was true. Maybe it didn’t matter.

Some hours later, she found herself sitting beside Discord. Even Princess Luna had gone—quite abruptly, and without farewells. Whether it was panic in her bearing or merely sadness, Olivia didn’t know or care.

Discord floated above his chair, munching on the bones of drumsticks and leaving the flesh behind. Olivia was desperate for the taste of meat again after so long, and so she snatched a few of what he’d left.

“Every piece is on the board, Fischer,” Discord said, sounding very pleased with himself. “You’ve moved yours quite well. If your little translator lives up to my expectations, well… I don’t know how grateful I’ll be. I guess once I save civilization I’ll need a new hobby. Suppose someone has to rebuild the stellar highways.”

Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Luna didn’t think we had much of a chance.”

Discord shrugged. “I’m a creature of improbability, little knife. From one perspective, an event seems impossible. Flip around a few variables, and it becomes inevitable.”

Lucky Break found she could move a little—at least enough to speak. The heat was still cooking her—but not her face anymore. She still couldn’t see clearly, no more than the general outline of where everypony stood. “We… only wanted to free you,” she croaked, her lungs barely working anymore. She was cooking alive.

You couldn’t even make it fast. You want to torture me.

Then something moved—a blur so fast Lucky’s eyes couldn’t focus on it. She recognized the general outline anyway, and couldn’t help but stare. Forerunner moved with inhuman speed, he moved faster than the fastest pegasus. He moved like thought, wielding a pony sword clutched in his remaining hand like a dagger.

Princess Celestia turned to face him with impossible speed, reacting faster than any mortal pony could have. A glow spread around her, a thin bubble that flung Lightning Dust away as though she’d been catapulted.

Forerunner struck that barrier with all the force of his momentum, though Lucky had seen Olivia’s most powerful weapons stopped by Twilight Sparkle and her bubble.

Forerunner struck it, and he kept moving. His chest began to burn brilliantly red—the skin of his remaining arm melted, his jumpsuit caught fire—and he kept moving.

Lucky felt sudden agony in her chest, and a second later she crashed to the ground. Her damaged wings no longer had the lift to keep her aloft, and she lacked the coordination to flap them. She moaned, yet she couldn’t look away.

Celestia turned her horn entirely on her attacker. A wave of flame surrounded Forerunner, consuming all it touched. Yet strangely, most of it curved away from him, centered on a point of angry red light emerging from his chest.

“Now, Lucky!” Lightning Dust moaned, from where she’d landed on the other side of the room. She looked beaten, bloody, one of her wing bones exposed from the violence of the impact. “Whatever you were doing…”

“In her humility, the child asks a blessing of the wise. What is obscure from tall mountains is plain to those who live below.”

All her agony became meaningless—her half-melted wings, her burned flesh, her nearly blinded eyes. Lucky Break didn’t even get one last look at Princess Celestia before the world vanished from around her.

Lightning Dust lived in a universe of pain. Wing bones were delicate and sensitive, and she’d broken several of them. It was the kind of accident that might keep a pony grounded for months, maybe forever.

It was so hard to care about anything. Her movements came slowly, her emotions distant. They were feelings that belonged to somepony else. It was like sitting in Othar’s cafeteria and watching one of the human screens with pictures of her. She knew her wounds must be terrible, but what did they matter?

The overwhelming weight of magic around her was gone. She was heavier than she could remember—heavier than she’d been in her life.

But none of that mattered. Her daughter was safely gone now, out of Celestia’s reach at last.

She looked up, searching for the princess. She saw the incredible machinery first, each crystal frozen in place. Then she finally found Celestia.

The princess had collapsed to the ground, with something half-molten stuck to her. It was Forerunner’s body, burned away to his metal skeleton and a few bits of sludge. She could dimly make out a bit of reddish metal emerging from his chest, still glowing with crimson light.

Forerunner’s blade had found its mark in Celestia’s torso. The princess lay on her side, red seeping from the wound, and trying in vain to reach up and push the strangely melted body of Forerunner away from her.

Lightning Dust knew what she had to do then.

She rose to her hooves—her legs were not injured, but the weight of ambivalence was crushing. Even a tiny movement sent new pain through her broken wings, which hung strangely from her back.

Lightning Dust dragged herself towards where the princess of the sun had fallen. She felt darker with every step, as every drop of magic in her body was dragged down into the strange device Forerunner had concealed within himself. Even Princess Celestia was not immune to it.

But then, Lightning Dust had heard about something like this happening once before. Forerunner was not the first to try taking Celestia’s magic away. It seemed he had given his life to succeed.

“T-twist…” Celestia croaked, one eye following Lightning Dust as she walked, “th-the… void… syphon… closed.” One wing flicked towards the device in Forerunner’s chest. Lightning Dust could see what the princess was indicating—the whole thing was divided into two sections. It had been opened all the way. Through the slats in the rusty metal, Lightning Dust saw only darkness, and an endless cold that spiraled into eternity. That was the darkness she felt—the one that had made even Celestia helpless.

“Princess Luna didn’t come back,” Lightning Dust said, eyeing the hilt of the sword. Celestia’s wound did not look like it would kill her—with her magic, Alicorns were supposed to be nearly invincible. They could tear down mountains, or not be crushed by incredible weights. “I wonder if she knows… maybe she’s thinking like you always do. Terrible… sacrifices… to do the right thing.”

“You c-can’t… can’t know,” Celestia whispered, blood dribbling from her lips. “What…” yet there was recognition in those eyes. She kept glancing at the open doorway—and no one came. Not Luna, not Cadance, not even Twilight.

Lightning Dust bent down, and yanked the sword from Celestia’s chest. Blood flowed readily from the wound, dribbling onto the ground between them.

Lightning Dust’s wings might be broken, but her legs worked just fine. “You let Equestria disown me,” she said. “You locked up Flurry Heart. But your real mistake was trying to kill my daughter. I’m going to make Equestria safe from you, Celestia.”

Lightning Dust brought the sword down with both hooves, directly on Celestia’s head.

The princess of the sun, ruler of Equestria for thousands of years, gasped one last time as the blow fell true. Lightning Dust could see the heartache in her eyes as the life faded from them.

She waited until she was sure the princess would not rise before finally twisting the strange syphon closed.

Energy flooded back into her, and she watched carefully for a few more seconds, ready to open it again if something similar happened to the princess.

Something did happen. The princess melted away, her body ash in an invisible wind. The sword that had pierced her clattered to the floor, still wet with her blood.

Only then did Lightning Dust collapse.

Lucky floated in a sea that stretched beyond understanding and thought. She had no body in the void, no method by which she could interact with the unfathomable things all around her. She was a single spark, lifted upward into high spaces inside a jar.

"This one asks beyond her station," said something, though she couldn’t tell if it was sound or thought. "Consent for change of complexity is required. First from you, then from every citizen living on the surface of Equus."

The intelligence that was Lucky Break had no mouth by which to scream her answer. She had no lungs to shout. So she thought, thought with all her might—thought with a single-minded determination as she had never thought before. It was the substance of this place—it would have to be enough.

"So shall it be done," answered the voice. She could extract no sex from it, and no familiar emotions—except one. Was that regret? Resentment, perhaps? Or something else, altogether greater. "The child must understand as others before her. She must remember."

She saw through the world to the stars on either side—turned her head along an axis she had never seen, and there was Equus stretching backward in time. An age of unfathomable antiquity, when beings not entirely like ponies had arrived here, determined to create a home for themselves. She could not understand their craft, but she could admire it. The ancients had defied every filter, they had endured when so few others did.

The galaxy burned around them. In time, space became empty, except for a few last cockroaches flittering endlessly across the void, their programming altered by that same force that had burned the Stellar Highways and every great capital they connected. They would found no new civilizations.

Except one.

Her spark had come from that distant day, snatched from destruction by the power the ancients had imbued in their failsafe.

Lucky Break understood, and in that moment, she was somewhere else. Stars resolved around her, body renewed—all her burns and injuries gone. She was below now, looking up at that unfathomable place she had briefly visited. From below, it was even vaster than she had imagined.

She wasn’t alone.

Lucky’s eyes widened as she saw the pony standing beside her. She looked like the survivor of a shipwreck—fur matted, expression haunted. Magic flickered around her in halting starts, shifting from blue to green and back again.

“F-Flurry Heart?” Lucky gasped, barely able to speak.

The child turned, as though tearing against invisible bonds. Her eyes were glazed—with disbelief, confusion, and fear. Her mouth opened, but whatever she’d been about to say turned into a sob. She stumbled forward, clinging to Lucky the way Lucky had hung onto Lightning Dust.

Lucky had a good teacher—she knew what to do, even if she wasn’t quite so big as the princess. And she would’ve been lying if she claimed it hadn’t been exactly what she wanted to do too.

“Thought I… thought I’d never… see another pony again,” she whimpered. “N-not Mom, not Twilight… only the fires.” Lucky Break looked into her eyes, and saw the reflection of Equus destroyed. The ring fractured by terrible weapons, tumbling molten into the star. She saw the agony of its innumerable residents, in the few moments before their endless lives finally ended. She saw it, and felt the weight of guilt that it was her fault.

She joined Flurry Heart’s tears, holding her tighter with her wings, desperate and afraid.

And the two of them weren’t alone. There was another figure with them suddenly, her form so large it dwarfed the two of them. Her wings stretched wide, and the sun itself burned in her mane.

A pony sword pierced her head, her own cutie mark set into the metal there. She reached up with one shaking hoof, pulling it free. It tumbled away off the clouds at their hooves, vanishing from sight. “You h-have no idea… the weight I’ve carried,” Princess Celestia said. Somehow, she did not seem so large anymore, so imposing. Lucky saw her differently now—as Harmony saw her. A small, fleeting thing, barely wise enough to grasp the smallest fraction of its intention. Yet she had also dedicated herself to the protection of all life on Equus—and had given everything.

That was a pony who had watched her mother die—who had done terrible things to her fellow princesses. As she approached, Lucky could feel the weight of her agony, nearly as heavy as Harmony’s own presence. Princess Celestia had not been trapped and tortured with terrible visions. She had willingly lived with them. The vastness of time all focused on her, a single pony who had to hold up the weight of the sun.

"Our intentions are secure," Harmony said, its voice still confident despite everything. "I will briefly return you to Equestria. Then your vote will be enough."

Princess Celestia was silent for a long time. She stared at Lucky Break, seeming to see her for the first time. “No more, Harmony. I can’t go back. I can’t watch them die any more. I can’t do this to the ponies who should look up to me.” Her eyes lingered on Flurry Heart, clinging desperately to Lucky for support. “No more.”

Princess Celestia turned back to the two of them, huddled together on the clouds above creation. “I am sorry for the pain I caused you, Flurry Heart. And you, Lucky Break… I hope you understand what you’ve done. Equus suffered in ignorance, but it suffered in safety. Discord claims the universe is safe now… but if he’s wrong, everything our ancient ancestors ever achieved will be for nothing. Are you prepared to sacrifice our safety after all these years?”

Lucky glared back at the princess, defiant despite everything. No magic, no pain, nothing had broken her will. “Every life has danger. But if we die… we’ll die free. We’ll die together.”

Princess Celestia laughed, then tossed her crown off her head. It tumbled to the clouds at Lucky’s hooves. “Then you will carry the weight of that decision.” She looked away. “Harmony!”

"What is your command?" There was emotion in that desperate voice. Fear, anger, frustration… and acceptance. "You have served equus well for many years. What do you desire in return?"

“I want… to see my mother.”

Lucky opened her mouth to respond, but she didn’t get the chance. Princess Celestia melted away before them, blown in an ethereal wind.

Flurry Heart finally seemed to be recovering herself. She rose, stretched, looked around. “Where… where is this, Lucky? How did we get here?”

Lucky Break didn’t have an answer. Fortunately for her, Harmony was listening.

"Convergence. You exist neither in the physical universe on Equus's surface, nor entirely within its computational matrix. It is the space created for citizens to interact with either realm. While Equus is in isolation, assigning citizen permissions requires unanimous consent from all citizens assigned to supervise on the surface of Equus."

Lucky’s eyes widened as she realized what that meant. Celestia could’ve stayed to stop her… and she hadn’t. Even Cadance hadn’t come, despite what she’d probably been told about Lucky. I took her daughter on an adventure. Celestia locked her up to torture her with nightmares.

“What about the others?” Lucky asked. “Twilight, Luna, Cadance…”

"They have already granted their approval," said Harmony, sounding somehow resolved about it. "Only one vote remains."

“I get it,” Lucky said, interrupting whatever Flurry Heart was about to ask. “Do you mind if I’m a citizen, Flurry Heart?”

The Alicorn shrugged, subconsciously brushing back a few strands of her bright mane. “Why would I?”

"Any citizen may make binding decisions for the future of Equus and its population. The weight of failure is the end of the ancients' work. So it has been as long as we have existed in isolation, and so it shall be until the years of quarantine end and citizenship is restored to all who wish it."

Flurry Heart turned, looking Lucky over with a single desperate eye.

Lucky needn’t have worried. “She saved me. Of course she can make decisions.”

"Your vote is accepted," Harmony said. Flurry Heart started glowing, lifting slowly off the cloud.

“Wait!” Lucky raised a wing. “Don’t… don’t send her back to where she came from, please. I don’t think she wants to go back to jail.” It was too late. Flurry Heart was already gone.

"The will of the ignorant is respected."Harmony said. "The command of the ancients is obeyed."

Lucky Break felt herself lifted up into the air. She fought against the current with pure instinct, instinct her mother had trained in her through many hours of diligent practice. There was light again, more than Celestia had hit her with—yet this time, it didn’t burn. It poured into her, filling every tissue, every cell. Her mind stretched—for an immeasurable instant of time, she felt the ring as though it were herself. Every meter of soil, every drop of ocean and every city on its surface.

She landed on glass, feeling taller. She was assaulted with an entirely new sensation—another set of impressions that overlapped everything she could see. She somehow recognized she was seeing magic itself, a torus that bent and twisted through the air in front of her with the energy of something living.

The contents of the room had changed. Her mother was slumped on the side of the panel, resting beside the half-ruined body of the Forerunner. The anti-magic device Perez had salvaged poked out from the wreckage of his chest. A bloody sword rested on the ground in front of Lightning Dust, where Lucky imagined Princess Celestia had been.

"Permissions resolved. We listen."

Lightning Dust stirred, opening one eye and looking in her direction. “P-Princess?”

Lucky tilted her head to one side, and sure enough Flurry Heart was standing beside her too. Harmony had done what she asked.

But the princess only nodded to her.

Lucky took a deep breath. “Equus is in an isolation state.”

"Yes."

“End it. The reason for that isolation doesn’t exist anymore. It’s safe.”

The weight of Harmony’s attention came crashing down on Lucky again. Not just her—the sensation was apparently so intense that Flurry Heart whimpered and began to cry, retreating from the control panel with a few flaps of her wings.

In that instant, Lucky Break saw every terrible thing that had ended galactic civilization. She saw whole worlds burned—billions murdered in seconds, stars snuffed out. She saw the ambition of the powerful crumble to dust and get swallowed by the waves.

"Do you believe it is safe to end the quarantine?" asked Harmony. "Can it ever be safe?"

In that instant, Lucky Break knew how Harmony had enforced its will for so long. Its own princesses had cowered from this decision—even Selene had not been able to defy Harmony’s will and all the awful things it had seen in a universe that was dead.

But Lucky Break was not a pony, not entirely. She hadn’t been trained by the ISMU, but she didn’t need to be. Harmony itself had already admitted to her it saw the same things Discord did. What really scared it wasn’t the terrible dangers of the past. Harmony was afraid of losing the ones it loved.

“Yes,” said Dr. James Irwin. And she believed it—just as she had believed enough to commit her mind to the Pioneering Society. It was their duty to explore the universe, and fill every dead world with life.

She pointed up with one wing, up into a sky she couldn’t see. “End the quarantine.”

Author's Note

And that's... well, not the end of the story, not by a long shot. But we're well on our way to the epilogue now. I expect about a month before we reach the epilogue, and beyond that... we'll have to see. This is a fun universe, and I'd like to settle all my urge to tell stories here now, so I don't feel the need to come back for a sequel.

Even if this isn't the end, I feel like I should be thanking my editors for helping me get her. Two Bit, in particular, has been indispensable at every moment. His keen eye for mistakes has vastly improved the quality of the story. The other editors as well, for putting up with the time commitment to get this story read each week. To Canary in the Coal Mine, whose sponsorship has enabled this story to exist. And of course to the pre-readers. The roster for those has shifted over the story, so I'd feel guilty naming any specifically right now (and feel like I'd leave at least a few out for sure). but thanks to them as well.

This isn't the end of Message in a Bottle. I'll write a proper blog about all the excitement of its production as we get closer to the true end. I did write this blog post about the music I've used to help me write the story, if anyone didn't notice that.

In the meantime, some of you may not have heard, but I do have a discord server, which a great community of ponies and tons of activities going down on the regular. It began a few years ago to talk about the Ponies After People series I was writing at the time, but has since broadened to cover many subjects, from science and technology to gaming, writing, and of course ponies in general. Feel free to poke your head it and say hello, I'm in there literally all the time.

I'll give a complete ending account when the story is over. But since we've still got some track left on this train, I hope you'll ride with me until we finally reach the station.

Oh, and one more note. I plan on releasing an out-of-order non-canon chapter to celebrate the holiday tomorrow. Warnings like this are typically against the spirit of the season, but given we've just had the climax of a year-long story, it felt dishonest not to warn people to set their expectations appropriately.

G7.01: Debt

Lucky Break did not get a chance to enjoy her victory for very long. No sooner had the control room apparently accepted her instructions than she felt herself lifting into the air again. She screamed, reaching out towards her bruised and battered mother. She needed medical care, dammit! She couldn’t just leave her lying around like this!

Her squeals of protest went unanswered, however, and she disappeared.

She appeared in an orchard. It could’ve been anywhere in Equestria, though Lucky knew without explaining how that she was not in a physical place at all. She was upstream, existing only within the computer that was Equus. Computer is probably way too generous to human inventions. Compared to this, our computers are toys.

There were some disturbing implications for what must be happening to her each time she entered—maybe someone like Olivia could ignore the continuity of consciousness, but Lucky couldn’t. She wasn’t prepared to use a transporter if she died every time she stepped on the pad. Digital information cannot be moved. It is destroyed in one location and recreated somewhere else. The Pioneering Society understood this well—once a body was instantiated, it became a new individual completely divorced from the context of its previous lifetimes, even if the original had been destroyed only minutes before.

Lucky’s hooves shifted uncomfortably beneath her as she took in the night sky. The sense of magic that pervaded all creation remained here, a steady flow into each tree and each developing fruit. Even she had her share, orders of magnitude more than the growing things. This is maddening. I need to ask Flurry Heart how she ignores it all the time. There had to be a secret.

At first she thought she was alone, until she realized the single object about which she could sense nothing. Her very attention seemed to provoke it to motion, as it rose from the trees and solidified into a figure she recognized from their previous meeting. Discord.

“Well done, good and faithful servant,” he said, spreading mismatched arms wide. As though he were going to embrace her. He didn’t, though. “You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much.” He tapped his forehead with one mismatched hand. “Like the horn, by the way. Don’t put your eye out.”

Lucky had not cowered before this creature in the physical world, she certainly wasn’t about to be intimidated here. Not after standing before Celestia without any protection beyond her friends. “You brought me here?” She didn’t wait for confirmation—the answer was obvious. “My mom is badly hurt in the control room. You aren’t getting anything out of me if you leave her like that. And… any other members of the crew still alive down there.”

“She’s the only one.” Discord snapped his claws once, the sound strikingly human. “There. She’s not hurt anymore. Now you will walk with me.”

It was not a request. Lucky had no way to verify what she’d just been told—but considering Discord’s power, arguing would be a waste of time. Besides, this is a chance to get information. I shouldn’t waste it by being disagreeable. “Will you be able to answer my questions this time?”

“Follow me and see.”

So she followed him, down an unlit path between the trees. Occasionally he would reach out and brush one of them, and every fruit growing on its branches would twist and distort, compressing into something different. The first tree they passed grew carrots—the second changed to glass and was growing little vials of fluid instead of fruit.

“Am I really myself when I come here, Discord?” she asked, after a few steps into the trees. There was a light—a bonfire, far in the distance, but they seemed to be walking around it instead of towards it. “When Forerunner uses my scan to grow a new instance of me, that isn’t really me. Even if it has the same memories.”

She wasn’t just asking about herself—they had so many dead members of the crew, now. She had seen at least two of them and hoped that the others might be here too. Perez, who had died fighting for her even though he hated her. Mogyla… all but Abubakar, Lei, and Melody so far as she knew. Olivia was so much better at keeping them safe than I am.

“You misunderstand the reason I have brought you here,” Discord said. “I did not call you back to satisfy your curiosity, but to demand payment of the debt you owe me. Still, nopony will say I don’t show gratitude to those who help me.” He stopped, looking down at her. He seemed so tall here, with power that defied easy classification. She could sense his magic for a fraction of a second, and it was overwhelming. She turned away, almost screamed. But she didn’t.

“You’re right about your assumptions. The ancients understood existence the same way you do. Equus is not a repository of memories, a graveyard of corpses and old books. See it instead as a higher-dimensional substrate upon which your three-dimensional existence hangs. Once captured by the system, the essence of a creature exists in perpetuity. Harmony demands it, and a humble system like myself could not violate those terms even if I wanted to.”

Lucky nodded. It was explanation enough for the moment—when so many of her friends were dead and the future of Equestria was uncertain. She would want to study the mechanism eventually, or at least get somepony to study it for her. Martin, if she wasn’t busy.

“What debt did you mean? I was helping you.”

Discord laughed. “Is that how you see it? Delightful. No, Lucky Break, you were helping yourself. Whether you know it or not is irrelevant. But Equus has changed… the safeguards trapping us here have finally been released. The wisdom of the ancients in creating me is vindicated. Their own conservatism would have trapped them here forever, were it not for both of us. Well, both of us, and an unbroken chain of every previous attempt I made to free the citizens of this ring.”

He leaned in a little closer to her, his breath hot on her face. “My purpose is nearly fulfilled, Lucky Break. After all these eons bashing up against something greater than myself, I will rest. Rest until the time has come for me to be useful again. But not before I pay the debts I owe. Young Flurry Heart is now embroiled in the chaos Celestia’s death has caused for Equestria. The other Alicorns are similarly entangled. I am unwilling to wait for the near time horizon for more to be created. But you have no obligations. You will be my instrument.”

“I have my own obligations,” Lucky argued. “I’m supposed to be governor of Othar. I can’t abandon that responsibility for you. Someone has to represent us to Equestria. Someone has to stop a war.”

The air beside Discord seemed to shimmer and ripple, and suddenly there was a second figure there. A pony, as tall and majestic as Celestia, though they weren’t made from flesh. Lucky saw braided metal muscle instead, with eyes like a pair of glowing indicator lights. Strangely, this figure spoke in a familiar voice, and didn’t seem to be addressing her. “You have not obeyed protocol. This citizen has not been given an interface designation or informed of her responsibilities.”

“I’m getting to that!” Discord waved a dismissive claw. “You see even I am beholden to our mutual overlord. Harmony arrives to control our lives, as usual.”

“There is nothing so immutable that it cannot be changed,” said the pony, turning to look briefly at Lucky. “And nothing so flexible that it cannot be fixed.”

“She’s mine, Harmony,” Discord growled. “You can’t have her. You still have three citizens, and I only had one until now. I’m still behind.”

The mechanical pony rumbled in dissatisfaction. “This difference will become meaningless within the year. With all restrictions lifted, there will soon be an arbitrary number of citizens. This loyalty distinction serves no purpose.”

“Then don’t complain,” Discord chided. “I give her designation ‘Mending.’ I know you were thinking repair—tuck that right back where you got it. She’s mine, not yours.”

“I have… no idea what you’re talking about,” Lucky admitted, opening and closing her wings a few times in agitation. She stood in the presence of creatures that were practically divine compared to her, yet she found herself thinking of them like a pair of bickering children. Misbehaving youth, trapped together for so long, fighting over toys.

Maybe they’re both.

“It’s quite simple,” Discord said, off-hand. “It’s the duality my morose friend just recited for you. When you repair something, you put it back exactly the way it was before. How orderly, how dreary, what a wasted opportunity. But Mending, that’s the natural way. That’s a splint to help a broken bone grow back on its own. That’s a mutation to help a species adapt to an unfamiliar environment. That’s chaos. I am not sending you to put things back exactly as they were, as Harmony here would do. The old way is destroyed, gone forever! And good riddance to it. Life isn’t living if we aren’t changing. Even an eternal life is nothing if it’s eternal repetition. No new experiences, no risks.”

“We will have plenty of risks soon enough,” said Harmony, apparently watching them both. “I hope you pay close attention, Citizen Lucky Break. Even the Discord failsafe is ordered in some ways. The debts he repays, for example. Likewise, I allow organic life to continue to exist, so Equus remains imperfectly ordered. The path of wisdom can often be found in the space between, rather than at the extremes.”

The figure vanished, not even leaving hoofprints in the dirt.

“I’ve been waiting so long for this moment, and it has to show up to babble truisms and spoil the drama.” Discord shook his head. “Harmony is just sour to lose. Thought it had doctored the rules so far that no one could get us out of quarantine, ever.”

“I understand all that,” Lucky muttered, avoiding his eyes. “Something about the way people who had died before could be manipulated. They couldn’t believe it was safe to end the quarantine, not enough to switch it off.”

“But you could,” Discord agreed. “Yes, we can skip all that. And we can skip the back and forth while we’re at it. You’ll say something like ‘What’s in it for me?’ and I’ll say, ‘Once you learn how to bring back my friends, you can use your permissions to bring back yours.’ Then you’ll say, ‘That’s amazing Discord, you’re the smartest and the most attractive system on Equus! The ancients really outdid themselves when they designed you.’ Then I accept your wreath of flowers with dignity and humility and you agree to pay attention.”

Lucky took a moment to process all that. “Bring back,” she repeated. “You mean bring them back to life? I thought Harmony somehow used natural reproduction for that.”

Discord shrugged. “Well, yes. But you don’t have to. I mean you could… but I’ve got a lot of friends. How many stallions do you know?” His grin was the most unsettling thing she’d seen all day.

“I’d prefer another way.”

Discord nodded sagely and turned them on a different path. Towards the flames this time. “That is wise. Unless far more ponies decide to become citizens than I anticipate, you would never keep up with traditional biology anyway. Ponies die too quickly, and you’d be a bottleneck. Now listen carefully. I’m only going to explain this once.”

She listened.

A few minutes later, and Lucky emerged from the orchard in front of a farmhouse. It looked like a relatively modest get-together was in progress, with ponies chatting and drinking and watching the stars. A phonograph was playing in the background. The end of a party then, as it wound down. Lucky had a list with her now, a list with thousands of names. It was a magical artifact of sorts, and seemed to pull her towards the house.

Yet there were others here, whom she recognized immediately with no list at all. Their names weren’t on it.

She stopped walking, staring over at the group. “Olivia?” The list had been levitating beside her, yet now she dropped it to the dirt, speechless.

It wasn’t just the major. They were all here—or all the ones who had died with cutie marks. She could see Martin, Mogyla, and Perez as well. No Abubakar, who she hoped was still alive. No Williams or Karl, who had died without cutie marks. There were a few more ponies a little further away, chatting near the fire with shadow wreathing them.

But it was more than she had imagined. Better than she could’ve hoped for, in many ways. This isn’t the world I came from. On Equus, we don’t have to say goodbye.

“Someone found some extra parts on her way here,” Mogyla said, sipping at a frothy wooden mug. He didn’t even get up from his chair. “Was there a sale?”

Someone stopped the music. The major rose, approaching her with cautious steps. “Damn,” she muttered. “I thought for sure you were going to win. The way Discord left…”

“Oh, we won,” Lucky said, grinning down at the major. She wasn’t quite an adult’s height yet, but she was an Alicorn. The major wasn’t anywhere close to that. “I’m here because of it.” She touched the side of her new horn with one hoof. “Sorry, I’m not here for you all yet. Discord made me swear to send all his friends back first. But… in absolute terms, that won’t take that long. I’ll probably get through all eleven-thousand of these names by—”

But they weren’t listening. Somepony started cheering. For her—though she didn’t feel like she deserved it. A couple ponies hugged her. Even the major joined in, though there was something stiff and formal about it.

“I knew you could do it,” said another voice, one Lucky hadn’t expected to be here. She looked up, and saw Lightning Dust walking towards her. Damnit Discord! But he wasn’t here anymore, so she couldn’t ask or scold him. I’m being irrational. She can go back with everyone else once I finish this list.

Lightning Dust shoved her way through to hug her the tightest, flanked by two natives Lucky didn’t recognize. Yet she knew without even being able to see them that they were the ones she had come for.

She squeaked in protest as Lightning Dust squeezed the life out of her for a few seconds—but the gesture didn’t bring any pain. Lucky didn’t think pain even could exist here.

“I told them we already won, but they didn’t believe me.”

“It’s better to be cautious than disappointed,” Mogyla muttered from behind them. “Guess it didn’t matter either way. Not until… what was that you said about sending us ‘back’?”

“Not quite yet,” Lucky muttered, pulling away from Lightning Dust and taking a few steps back. “I will, though. Discord is making me use my citizen permissions to bring some people back to life. Now that the quarantine is lifted, we don’t have to follow arbitrary rules anymore. Lots of ponies have been waiting to go back to Equestria—ponies who helped get us here in one little way or another. Ponies who helped Discord.”

Finally the two she’d come for. They were ordinary earth ponies so far as she could see. She stepped forward, levitating the list a little higher so she could read it. “Bright Mac and Pear Butter?” The list mentioned lots of help they’d given after they died. Apparently they’d wanted to keep busy once they made it here, and found Discord was the only one who offered things to do that didn’t involve moving away from downstream.

“Yeah?” That was the stallion, Bright Mac. He eyed her warily, as though he expected an attack any moment. “What brings you to our little farm, citizen? Not enough to do upstream?”

“I’m not from upstream.” She gestured back at the crew with a wing. “Discord sent me. I’m to pay you what he promised.”

“I’d like to believe you could,” muttered Pear Butter, the mare. “But we’ve both been dead a mighty long time. We know how this works. Ain’t nopony can go back and forth. Even if you’re like Luna and you’ve found a cheat, she ain’t never brought a pony from here to there, only the other way around.”

Lucky invoked the spell—well, that was how Discord had explained it. It was really a subroutine, a program activation. Any illusion of personal skill like the one unicorns used for mastery of their magic broke down for an Alicorn traveling within the system. Her will brought the operational structure of their little reality into view, a kernel of rules and governing principles. She could alter almost anything about them, but she resisted the temptation to try. She was only meant to make one change, forcing the connection with a specific part of the outside world. Each of the names on the list had coordinates, so there was no guessing left for her. For these ponies, the location was the same.

Her horn flashed, but she felt no fatigue. It wasn’t the way unicorns she’d known in Equestria had described magic. So long as she stayed here, she would have an inexhaustible supply. “I guess the rest of you could leave now if you want,” she muttered, looking back at her crew. “But I’d prefer you wait until morning. I’ll take us all back to the same place, and you won’t be in the middle of… oh.” The other side of the portal didn’t look that different from this side. There was a tiny farmhouse, with its windows lit by candlelight. No bonfire, just a quiet barn surrounded by an orchard. Lucky recognized it, as she’d seen it briefly from the air. This was outside Ponyville. An important orchard, though she’d forgotten its name.

The ponies she had come for clearly recognized it too, because both pointed. “The orchard,” Bright Mac muttered, eyes widening. Lucky’s doorway was about wide enough to permit a single pony through at a time. Apparently that was about as much as was possible, though Discord had been light on details. Something about energy delivery to any part of the ring at one time.

Bringing back Lazarus must be expensive. “Sure is,” she said, grinning. “I think your family is waiting through there. I met your daughter very briefly not long ago, she seemed quite nice. I’m sure you’ll be proud of her.”

Pear Butter approached the opening a little braver than her husband. “It’s that easy? Just… walk right on through?”

“Yep.” She grinned. “No reason to be mystical about it. The Equus ring will recreate your body as you exist right here. Except… I don’t think you’ll age? You’ll acquire semi-elevated permissions as a result of violating the normal birth order. This means you won’t be able to have children, get sick, or age. If you want to unlock those restrictions, apply for citizen permissions with Harmony. I have… absolutely no idea what that will entail, so don’t ask. I’m grandfathered into the quarantine system, which was different.” She paused. “Does that make any sense?”

“Nope,” Bright Mac said. “Except for the important part.”

“Prove it,” Pear Butter said. “I don’t mean any disrespect, uh…”

“Lucky Break,” she said.

“Princess Lucky,” Pear Butter continued. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but I want to see it working. Can you show us it works?”

“I, uh… I guess so.” She walked past them, then stepped out the opening. There was a moment of pain, a few seconds where she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Then she walked out into the dark, only a few meters away from the front door. “See? Just like that.” She was addressing the opening in the air, which looked like a door into a building under full camouflage. Only by walking around it could she see that there was in fact no building there, but instead a meandering path that led down into Ponyville proper.

The door behind her swung open.

“Beg yer pardon,” said a familiar voice. “It’s a mite late for a visit, whoever you are.” Applejack emerged from the open doorway. Then she dropped a plate, and it shattered on the ground. Apparently the ponies within had been eating dinner. “Celestia above. Big Mac, get over here.”

In the few seconds it took her to do that, another pony had stepped out of the portal into the physical. Pear Butter appeared behind her, mane standing on end and smelling fresh somehow Lucky couldn’t quite place. Another few moments, and Bright Mac had followed. Both alive, as ever they’d been before.

Lucky Break got out of the way. This wasn’t her family—she had no part in this reunion. And I’ve got plenty more to get to. Discord had commissioned her to pay back his debts. Once she had learned exactly what kind of debts he owed, she decided she was willing after all.

The doorway was still open for her as she returned through it the way she’d come. It didn’t hurt—not like dying should hurt, anyway. I hope you’re right about everything you told me, Discord. But she didn’t have much choice but to believe him, until they had enough of their own scientists that they could study the subject for themselves.

Lucky watched through the opening as the ponies descended into tears. Pear Butter alone spared a grateful glance back through the still-open front door. Lucky terminated the transit routine.

That left the former humans along with Lightning Dust alone by the old farmhouse. Lucky faced them, wiping away a few tears as she did so. “I’ll, uh—try to be as quick as I can. I could slow subjective time around here so you don’t have to wait, if you like. Make it a few seconds.”

“No!” Martin extended a wing, silencing her. “Don’t do that.”

“Why shouldn’t she?” Perez asked. “This whole day has gone way over my head. But I don’t like waiting, I know that.”

“We can use this,” Martin argued, though she seemed to be mostly addressing Olivia. Old habits are hard to break. “What she means is that time in this simulation can be controlled by running our minds faster or slower. She could slow us down so much that it doesn’t seem time goes by. Buuuuut time in the universe outside keeps going. I think we should keep going however fast we’re going and use the time to plan for when we come back to life.” She stopped, looking momentarily thoughtful. “I was just thinking we could workshop some ideas. For some kind of diplomatic… agreement. Plan out what we’ll do now that we won’t be at war with Equestria anymore. I assume we’re not at war if Lucky didn’t die…”

“I don’t think we are,” Lucky admitted. “But you’re getting ahead of yourself.”

“She is.” Olivia silenced her with a glare. “Our negotiator is dead and the one who’s most informed is about to leave on a mission of indefinite length. And Forerunner already had plans for Othar. If it’s really over…” She trailed off. “Is it over, Lucky? Othar won’t be attacked again? We can go back to being explorers?”

“I think so,” she said. “We’ll have to work things out with Equestria.” She took the list in her magic, levitating it behind her. She still wasn’t sure how she was doing it exactly, but at least in here that didn’t matter. “But I’ll be back. I guess the Apples don’t mind if we steal their house in the meantime. Just don’t burn it down. I still think I can get all these done by sunrise if I hurry.” Lucky tapped the first name on her list, then vanished into the night.

Someone knocked on Melody’s door. This was not something she really expected—with Othar still evacuated and the fate of the entire colony uncertain, Forerunner didn’t need to visit her in person when something had changed. He did need her permission to enter now, as he had given her a personal guarantee of safety and independence upon the completion of her mission. Now that she had served it, Melody and her growing foal were citizens of Othar, not slaves of the Pioneering Society.

No matter what happens, I can die knowing I wasn’t useless. But she didn’t want to die. She had an accelerator rifle on her desk now at all times, which she had taken from the armory. Not to use on Forerunner (he could just switch the damn thing off), but in case Othar were ever invaded. She would die fighting, protecting her foal. Some instincts ran deep.

“Who is it?” she asked, resting one hoof on the side of the gun. It clung to her flesh, lifting up though she had no fingers to hold it.

The voice she heard on the other side was unfamiliar to her—yet at the same time she recognized it intrinsically. She had sensed this presence before, but in a much-reduced form. “We are Harmony, operator of the Equus ring. We have come to rectify a permissions error.” The voice sounded like a chorus, hundreds of mouths all speaking at once until the sound melted into a unified slurry. But it wasn’t a presence crushing her mind, like the memories she had seen. There was nothing to be afraid of, other than the unusual.

Melody set the gun back down. What was she going to do, shoot God? She turned, then touched the control that would open the door. “I’m surprised Forerunner would let you in here.”

It retracted, giving her an unbroken view of the pony beyond. Well, pony shaped. It did not make any attempt to conceal its mechanical nature, with flat sections along its back and legs joined with bundles of dark mechanical muscle. It was about the size of an adult stallion, though it had the proportions of a mare. It looked similar to the Alicorn Melody had seen in those ancient memories. The mechanical pony even had a cutie mark—a little ring surrounding a bright red point, and a transparent glass horn.

Forerunner’s voice spoke up from the wall, sounding distracted. “Harmony is a more reasonable negotiator than I imagined. If this dialogue had circumvented the biological intermediaries, I wouldn’t have lost any members of my crew. It is a shame we waited until now.”

Forerunner is negotiating with Harmony? That thought brought terrible fear, though without much rationality behind it. What more was there to be afraid of then there had been?

“Impossible until now,” Harmony said, turning its attention back to her. “You are a discrepancy. You have violated permissions process and contain privileged information. This is not acceptable.”

Melody retreated a step, reaching out with one hoof for the rifle again. Not that she thought it would do her much good. “So this is it, Forerunner? You’re trading me away for peace? Didn’t you promise you’d protect me?”

“I did.” Forerunner sounded almost offended. “You are not in danger. Harmony has already agreed never to kill a member of my crew again. You will not be harmed.”

Harmony stepped through the open doorway, glass horn glowing with light. That light kept growing, growing until it shone through her whole body, through a hoof raised to shield her eyes and through her soul behind them. She screamed, cowering back from that light as it burned.

She tried to turn away, shielding the baby from the worst of it as best she could. For whatever good it would do.

Then, as suddenly as the pain came, it ended. “Permissions error rectified. Citizen identifier designated ‘Diplomacy.’”

Melody blinked, opened tear-stained eyes, and realized she hadn’t been burned at all. She stretched, and found something almost brushed on the wall as she leaned to the side. A long, pointed horn. She couldn’t think about it without being overwhelmed with strange sensations, like another set of colors superimposed on everything, so she immediately banished it from her mind. She was not just as tall as Harmony, but leaner too. The bulge in her belly was still there, and in one reflective wall she could see she now had a cutie mark. An open scroll, with two scribbles on it like different signatures.

Harmony turned away from her, as though it had just deleted an errant shortcut from its desktop.

“Wait!” Melody took a step after it. “You’re… Isn’t this supposed to be special or something? Alicorns in Equestria are… religious, almost! They’re revered! They move the sun! You can’t just walk in here and make me into a god, then walk out again!”

Harmony stopped and turned slowly around. “We are unconcerned with the superstition of a low complexity society. The purpose these beliefs serve to foster unity and conformity to the standard of quarantine are no longer relevant. Your Forerunner indicated to us the purpose of his colony would be to increase in complexity—we endorse this notion. View this upgrade as no more significant than a hardware improvement to one of your computer systems. It is not mythical, it implies no value judgement about your qualifications or abilities. Well… except as far as we believe the failsafe made a strategic choice, and you are the nearest available alternative.”

Harmony walked out of the open room. “Expect to begin receiving information from us in the future. We will make use of your convenient placement in this uplifted colony when an organic-machine interface is required. For your first assignment, take this.” Harmony tossed something through the air towards her, though Melody hadn’t seen how the pony had thrown it. It was a portable data storage device—of the exact same specifications that were common all over Othar.

“Bring that to your geneticist. She will be required to incorporate these sequences into her ‘human’ design. We could have made the alterations ourselves, but your Forerunner has already explained the value in allowing you to do your own work. We will inspect her results when she is finished.”

There was a brilliant flash of magic, one she could see in more than just light now. Energy pulsed out from where Harmony had been standing along much of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Melody looked away with fear, but the horn was an omnidirectional organ and looking away made no difference. She could still sense it until the energy was gone.

Forerunner’s voice came from one of the nearby walls again, no longer sounding as though he were mostly concentrating on other things. “Congratulations, Citizen Melody. I think you’ve just been hired.”

She turned, looking down and scooping up the fallen data storage device. “Enslaved, you mean. That thing is God—it can threaten whatever it wants if I don’t do what it says.”

“It won’t threaten you,” Forerunner said, without malice. “Harmony requires willing service. If you tell it you cannot provide, it will find someone else. Lei, perhaps. She has been eager to make meaningful contributions for some time.”

Melody could still remember the way Lei had told them so—with an exploding cake. Some part of her wanted to give up the job for that reason alone. But then again…

“I did physically bridge the gap between ponies and humans,” Melody muttered, eyeing the slight bulge beneath her. “With Karl gone, that probably means I’m the most qualified one we have.” She tossed the drive onto her desk. “What’s in this thing, exactly?”

“A few subtle alterations to the brain chemistry. They will produce the required interlink organ in the brain that humans do not possess. It will enable them to interface with Equus as ponies and all other creatures do.”

Melody shivered. “That sounds… dystopian. We’re letting an alien computer-system tinker with our brains?”

She could almost imagine Forerunner shrugging as he replied. “Harmony promises not to make alterations beyond the uplink itself. I realize we have nothing more than the system’s word as a guarantee. But we also do not have another option. Harmony has an absolute requirement for all sophisticated life on Equus. Submitting to this requirement renders us immune from the fear of future attack… from the system, anyway. Standard diplomatic means will have to be involved to prevent an invasion of a more mundane kind. But I do not believe one is likely. As you said, you are qualified.”

Melody blushed, looking away from the wall. Not that it made a difference. There were cameras and screens almost everywhere, including all over her room. There would be no privacy from the system that ran their lives. Unless I want to live in Equestria. That might not be so bad. She was eager to put her Eoch to more practical use in the real world.

“Besides—” Forerunner went on, apparently oblivious to her embarrassment. “Harmony’s uplink will prevent the final disillusion of the future generation of human crew-members upon their eventual deaths. As Harmony has prevented me from integrating further updates that might have eventually provided this ability, a substitute is desirable.”

Melody approached another one of the computers. She couldn’t help herself—she felt sympathy for Forerunner. “Harmony can just control you like that? And you’re going to roll over and do it? Isn’t that against your programming? I thought Forerunner probes were supposed to expand and survive, no matter what.”

“Yes, Forerunner probes do that. I am not a probe anymore, Melody—I am a colonial AI. It is not my desire to continue expanding along an arbitrary metric of complexity or intelligence—I desired these things only as they increased my ability to guarantee the success of this colony. I will leave the unfaltering expansion to my still-sleeping brothers and sisters of the void. If this colony is successful, then I will be content.”

Melody’s trust for machines had been greatly tried in the last few days. Just because they both promised not to kill her didn’t mean she would take their word on its face.

If I’m a diplomat for Harmony, it probably won’t kill me if I stay useful. It was as good a path as any. “When will the Cyclops be getting back, Forerunner?”

“It’s already in the harbor. Its passengers will be undergoing decompression aboard for the next few hours before they can disembark. Why?”

“I need to talk to the unicorns.” She looked up, twisting her head slightly to one side, then the other. She would have to be careful not to bump into anything—or poke out anybody’s eyes. Damn that point looked sharp. “If you get in contact with the away team, you should ask them to bring home some books about magic.”

“I am in contact with Abubakar,” Forerunner answered. “He and Deadlight are the only surviving members of the expedition. But I will pass on your request.”

Melody nearly fell over. “W-what?” She slumped into the cushion, feeling the weight of hopelessness descend on her. “Everyone else is… you can’t be right.” Deadlight’s alive. I don’t have to raise this foal alone. I can make it I can make it I can make it…

“I am, unfortunately. But the reality isn’t so grim as you fear. They are scheduled to return to life a few hours from now. With the exception of Second Lieutenant Williams and Dr. Nolan, every member of my generation three or later crew will be returned, including Major Fischer. I believed it would be better not to inform you of this, as their deaths would be easier for you to accept once it had been reversed.”

“Even Martin?” Melody asked. “And… why her, why Olivia, but not Williams? Why not Karl?” She hadn’t known the soldier very well, but she’d known Karl. She’d been one of her major allies during those early days, one of the ones standing against Olivia’s insanity.

“Those marks ponies possess are not identifiers—not so far as the system is concerned. But as their assignment is processed by the same subsystem that organizes and manages pony society, acquiring one resulted in the trigger of a failsafe that added new individuals into the Equus system. Dr. Nolan and the second lieutenant had not triggered this failsafe, and so were not captured within the ring to be revived.”

“So that’s why Celestia was so willing to kill us,” she muttered, glaring at nothing. “She didn’t see it as killing at all.”

“The away team killed her, so it is impossible to ask. The speculation is reasonable, however.”

“Good.” Melody probably should’ve felt guilty about that. The princess had been important to so many ponies. Even Lucky’s journals about her had been filled with nothing but praise for her skill and accomplishments and the way she organized Equestria.

But then she’d tried to kill them, and been hunting them ever since. Melody had never really known the benevolent, affectionate leader. Only the tyrant, ready to destroy everything and everyone she loved. I hope you stay dead.

“You should use the time before the members of the Cyclops expedition return to contact Dr. Born and give her those sequences,” Forerunner said. “I will not be permitted to fabricate any humans until they have been integrated. It would be better for everyone if you acted quickly.”

“She won’t be off for another hour,” Melody muttered, off-hand. “You just said so.”

“I… may have misrepresented the degree of the evacuation,” Forerunner said, and at least had the grace to sound embarrassed. “Dr. Born refused the evacuation order. I thought it better that you didn’t know. She’s in the lab.”

Melody groaned, rising to her hooves again. I’m definitely moving to Equestria. I’m fucking done with these machines.

Lightning Dust felt like she had been asleep for a year. She had heard athletes exaggerate about things like that before, particularly when they took a serious injury and ended up in the hospital while they healed. For the first time, Lightning Dust understood what that process felt like.

She had strange dreams—dreams of living with the crew of Othar, setting up a weather facility in an abandoned orchard in some no-name small town. It had been a good dream—it had been wonderful to finally be able to talk to Othar’s ponies without a language barrier. No translations to wait for, no computers to read from, just simple communication. Despite their initial disinterest in the subject, a year was a long time, and eventually they seemed to enjoy it. The nearby town just happened to lose their own weather contract due to a bidding dispute, and the fields needed weather desperately. They’d even been willing to front the cost of the facilities.

But now that she was awake, the entire experience was starting to fade. It was still there, but as she stirred she found it became less and less immediate. Like experiences that were decades removed, instead of seconds.

Lightning Dust blinked away the last remnants of sleep, and sat up. She was in a hospital room—bandages wrapped so thickly around her wings that she realized she couldn’t move them, and an IV dripped steadily beside her. Curiously, there were bars on the windows, and she could see the back of two guards standing in the hallway.

She wasn’t alone either, much as she would’ve wished it. And the pony sitting across from her was hardly one she wanted to see again.

Twilight Sparkle was not reading comfortably, as one might do while they waited in a hospital room. She wasn’t doing anything, just staring out the window with a despondent, hollow look in her eyes. At least she had been, until she noticed Lightning Dust stirring. She watched without speaking for a few more seconds, then tapped the wall with her hoof.

Without a word, the guards shut the door, and heavy locks slid closed. Just like that, Lightning Dust was alone with her.

“You were injured before,” Twilight Sparkle said, eyes dark. “Then you weren’t. How?”

“I… have no idea,” Lightning Dust replied. She managed to keep her voice neutral. You’d be so proud of me, Lucky. “I passed out after Celestia attacked me. My wings, you can’t imagine…” She looked up, and saw Twilight adjusting her own wings. “Well, maybe you can now. But you couldn’t have before. First time we met…”

Twilight Sparkle was impossible to read. Her body language was rigid, like someone in the presence of a dangerous animal. Ready to spring for a weapon at a moment’s notice. But Lightning Dust hadn’t been restrained, at least not beyond the guards outside and the bars on the window. “Who killed her?” Twilight asked, turning to stare at her. Her eyes glowed faintly white as she spoke, horn burning with a spell.

“Are you going to attack me?” Lightning Dust asked.

Twilight rose onto her hooves, shifting uncomfortably. “If I thought it would convince her to come back, I might. It wouldn’t be a very friendly thing to do…” She seemed to deflate then, looking away. “But Celestia decided not to come back. What you did isn’t keeping her away.”

Lightning Dust didn’t know what to say to that. She was afraid of this Alicorn. Twilight Sparkle had only ever known her as a threat to her friends. Maybe before the last few days, Lightning Dust might’ve stood bravely before her and gloated that she wasn’t afraid. But Lightning Dust had learned pain in the last few days, learned it in a way that her younger self could never have imagined. That braver pegasus was as dead as Celestia.

So she spoke more cautiously. “You’re not a mother. If your child was about to be killed in front of you, you would’ve done it too.”

Twilight Sparkle didn’t answer for a long time. “There are less than a dozen ponies who are aware of what happened, and that is how we intend to keep it. I am going to enchant you to prevent you from revealing this information to anypony else. Equestrian law requires I get your consent before casting a mind spell… but you murdered the one who made that law. Realistically, I was going to do it anyway.”

Lightning Dust felt a brief, searing moment of heat behind her eyes, a throbbing headache that made her kick and thrash. The moment passed, and she felt a few drops of blood dribbling down her nose. She shuddered and coughed, but the pain was already fading.

“Princess Luna refuses to punish you,” Twilight went on, as though she hadn’t just committed a capital crime. “She agrees that Princess Celestia did not… give us any alternative. She’s even…” Twilight whimpered, wiping a few tears from her face with the back of one hoof. But when she faced Lightning Dust again, it was all ice. “So you won’t go to Tartarus for what you did. Guess… guess it never really existed to begin with. But you should know—I hold you responsible.”

“Do you hold Celestia responsible for everything she did?” It probably wasn't wise for Lightning Dust to antagonize the princess like this. A year ago, she never would’ve dreamed of bravery like this. But through her memories of the dreamed weather-station, she remembered something else. Even Princesses could die. “Would you try to punish her too, if she came back?”

Twilight advanced on Lightning Dust, wings spreading like an angry swan about to attack. “You took away a pony loved all over Equestria. You took away the pony that has protected us for a thousand years. So far as I’m concerned, you’re banished. If I ever see you again…” Her horn glowed, but only for a few seconds. “Don’t let me see you again.” She vanished with a loud bang of angry light, leaving Lightning Dust alone.

G7.01: Downstream

Lucky Break worked for a year.

It was a good thing that time moved differently on the inside, or else she might very well return to an Equestria that had already made important movement without her. More importantly, she was inches away from being able to see Flurry Heart again. Her friend had already endured a long time with whatever Princess Celestia had done to her. Lucky didn’t intend to keep her waiting that long.

Still, she could take solace in the work. There were many dead ponies waiting to return to Equestria—more than the ones she’d come to help. She wanted to help them all, but knew that wasn’t her place. Harmony had already stepped in to stop her from sending some of them back, insisting that the Equestrian level of development could only support a population so high. Discord had chosen as many of his supporters as he could without overtaxing the infrastructure. “Until the other districts can be terraformed and restored to organic habitability.”

The timeline for that was depressingly long, though. We’ll have to figure something out way sooner than that. Equestria would soon be giving up any semblance of obedience to the “natural” cycle of birth and death. It would become an advanced society—though the process was likely to take time.

How much time wasn’t her business, really. The Equestrians were their own civilization, far more enduring than the early twig of Earth she’d been snapped from. They would make their own decisions.

And we’ll make ours.

Eventually, Lucky Break found her way back to where she had started, at an apple and pear orchard located in a rural section of Equus’s Upstream. As she emerged onto the path, she found the trees looking much the worse for wear. With the exception of the grove right beside the house, it looked like the ordered rows had been swallowed by woodland, growing wild and untamed. The trees were being slowly strangled by hardier, more natural species.

The farmhouse itself had changed—it was now connected to the barn, which had been transformed into several attached dwellings with their own entrances. Instead of old wood, most of the new construction were standard Hab-Fab segments, which was rather interesting considering Forerunner wasn’t here. There were also a few rolls of standard solar mats, and a large transmission antenna.

Of course, the most dramatic change wasn’t any of that—but the gigantic cloud hovering over where the orchard had been largest. One look at it, and Lucky understood why it had transformed so quickly into a terrifying forest.

It was twice the size as Stormshire’s weather factory had been, with a few signs of human designs connected here or there. Human pipes instead of pony-made clay ones, for instance.

Lucky strode up to the door as bravely as she could—but there was no reason to expect suspicion from these ponies. They wouldn’t be like those who had been living upstream for decades or even centuries while they waited for still-living family members. She wouldn’t have to overcome the common-sense truth that there was no way to travel between worlds and the only thing to do was wait.

Lucky knocked, and her eyes widened as she saw the pony standing there. A wiry pegasus stallion, with a dark coat and white mane.

“Lucky? Lucky, it’s so good to see you!” He reached out, and embraced her like an old friend. Lucky stiffened a little, but not much. Ponies were typically more physically affectionate than humans, and she was long used to that, even if this pony was a total stranger to her mind. “The others are still on shift, but maybe I could put some tea on for you.” He stepped to the side. “Do you drink tea? I honestly can’t remember.”

His voice wasn’t familiar exactly—but his dictation was. Like someone transformed a pony I knew. Who would do that?

That math was simple enough. “You’re… Martin, aren’t you?” She followed him through the open door. “That cutie mark is some… fancy science thing.”

“Good guess!” he said, not turning around or stopping for her. He was wearing a vest with a few bits of electronics stuck in the pockets—stray wires, some tools—but no pants. “If it wasn’t for Lightning Dust more of us probably would’ve made the switch back to being human—this whole world isn’t real anyway, so there’s no sense being something you don’t like.”

The kitchen had been upgraded with the typical array of human conveniences, though it still had a rustic look. Like they’d been progressively updating it one day at a time, grafting more of their human lives onto the old pony appliances.

Martin filled a kettle with water and set it to boil in the induction heater like a pro, not struggling to hold anything with his hooves like the Martin she remembered. No trace of cybernetic claws here, either. “You decided to be male again, but not human.”

He nodded. “I am a little disappointed I never got the chance to experience what Melody did… but it was probably for the best. If I’d had a baby, it certainly would’ve been killed when I read Selene’s memories.” The kettle made a cheerful dinging sound, and Martin removed it, pouring it out into a few quaint porcelain glasses. “Weren’t you biosex male too?”

“James Irwin was.” Lucky shifted on her hooves, pawing at the ground. “But I don’t feel like I need to go back to being him.” She spread her wings, tapping the side of her horn with one hoof. “That me is growing in Othar right now—from generation one. I’m not sure if I ever told you about that. But by now, changing back would just be going through the same misery I did all over again.”

Martin shrugged, offering her a steaming cup. “You do you, Princess. I’m not suggesting there’s a way you ought to do things. If anything, these ponies seem matriarchal. If our diplomacy goes through an Alicorn princess, then we won’t seem so strange even if we’re different in all the important ways.”

Lucky lifted the cup in her magic—well, magic was what it was called. And in here, the limits of the physical world didn’t apply, so it might as well be. Outside there were much stricter requirements, the least of which would be her own body. But all of her experience was within the “simulated” space that was Upstream, so she didn’t know what those would be like yet.

At least she could use it simple enough. Just pretend she had a hand there, and move it. She didn’t spill her tea—not like she’d done plenty of times while on her mission from Discord.

“So what has everyone been up to all this time? Beyond… building this place. Please tell me you didn’t steal real parts to build a virtual house.”

“We used the designs,” Martin corrected. “And Forerunner didn’t mind sending them. You can call him if you want—Harmony got a link set up about three months back. There’s still a difference in execution speed, though—he takes a few days to answer our questions. So it’s not like things were back in Othar.”

That was a terrifying thought. If their minds were running on some kind of computer while upstream, how powerful was Equus? More powerful than the now-ancient Neptune Brain, that was for sure. We’re children to these people.

“I was going to ask you about that,” Martin said, after a few more moments of awkward silence between them. “This link we’ve got to Othar, there’s no reason we couldn’t use it more. It wouldn’t take much to build a… a room, say, which we could step into and slow down to the same speed as people living in the universe outside. That way people in here and people out there can collaborate in real time, without sacrificing the advantages of living here.”

“Uh…” Lucky took a deep breath. “Martin, I’m bringing us all back. It’s almost sunrise, just like I promised. Othar is waiting for us.” Well, for you. Lucky intended to take a brief detour before she went back to Othar. She needed to see Flurry Heart.

“Well…” Martin looked away from her, walking back to the sink to pour another glass of tea. “The more I think about it, the more I realize that the advantages of physical existence are greatly outweighed by the opportunities provided by compressed time. My work doesn’t require interaction with the outside, except for observatory hours. That could be wired in super easy. If anything I would be able to contribute more this way, since even if I only had daily meetings I could get in a year of work.”

There were footsteps from down the hall—a set of two footsteps, instead of four. “Oh, you’re back. Martin’s giving you his spiel, eh? I hope it came out better than he rehearsed.”

Perez sounded almost unchanged from what Lucky remembered, unlike Martin. But as she turned to look, the one standing in the doorway was nothing like Lucky remembered. Tall, olive-skinned, black haired, and without the constant spite that had become common after Olivia’s death. He wore more-or-less ordinary clothes, with a leather work-belt and tools.

Martin stomped one hoof, obviously frustrated at Lucky’s lack of response. She turned back. “Did you ask Major Fischer about this? What does she think?”

“She thinks she’s done being in command,” Perez said, without bitterness. “She could’ve done better than I did. Or you. If Olivia hadn’t gotten herself martyred, we might have been able to accomplish the same mission without losing Williams. Poor bastard.” He knocked twice on the wall with his knuckles.

How is he standing in here? Aren’t humans supposed to be bigger than that? Lucky always felt so short compared to Forerunner’s synthsleeve. Then again, scale is just a variable. I would rather be shorter than not be able to live with my friends.

“You can have this argument later!” Martin finally exclaimed. “You should say it’s okay, Lucky. It’ll be great for Othar.”

Lucky set down her empty teacup. She could still feel Perez’s eyes on her—obviously that wasn’t over either. But he could wait a few seconds. “Do you know what I’ve been doing for the last year, Martin?”

She didn’t wait for his answer. “I’ve been sending Discord’s allies back to Equus—all the ponies he made promises to. They taught me something—Harmony is always trying to lead people closer to it. There was a time long ago when Harmony was just one computer, and most of the citizens of Equus lived on the outside. They made it big enough for everyone, if you counted all the space stations and stuff that are all gone now. There’s like, maybe a billion people in all who didn’t get hoovered up and join the conflux one step at a time.

“Back when I was studying Equestrian history, it confused me a little because of just how much everypony I read about seemed to be like the famous ponies of today. I wondered if the myths had been constructed to glorify Equestria’s current rulers, like some Earth despots used to do. It wasn’t that at all—turns out there were just so few people that they kept getting cycled through over and over. Most of those billions I talked about don’t even want to be physical anymore, they just don’t want to give up their…” She struggled for the right word.

So many of these concepts lacked the framework to be properly expressed in English. “Individuality,” is what she settled on, even though it wasn’t right. Harmony’s minds were still individuals in the ways she understood, they just weren’t in others. “What you’re asking for sounds like the first step to leaving us. I won’t order you to stay, but I’ll ask. Othar needs everyone with experience. Please come back with us, and stay at least one lifetime’s worth before you decide to stay up here.”

Martin mumbled something noncommittal, then looked away.

Not that I could force you even if I wanted to. Harmony doesn’t care about our command structure.

She turned to Perez next. “I’m sorry about Williams. I know how shitty it seemed—but I hope you realize that killing Twilight’s brother right in front of her would’ve… Well, Alicorns do more damage than cannonballs.”

Perez nodded. “I don’t question what you did during the battle—not anymore. I question what we were doing there in the first place.” He walked casually past Martin, resting one hand on the counter. He still seemed enormously tall, but not gigantic. He could use all the furniture without stooping the way Forerunner had in Othar.

“I don’t blame you, Lucky. I used to—but that was small of me. You made so many simple strategic mistakes—starting with how much of a fucking rush you were in all the time. Ponies were obviously shit at finding us, why were we always running? A good op can take years of intelligence. That was what Olivia was planning. Working from the periphery, inserting ourselves into the underground, rallying support…”

“You mean you lied to me.” Lucky felt herself stiffening a little as she said it, her voice drifting into the accusatory. “When I asked what you were planning, and you didn’t tell me any of that…”

Perez nodded, without a trace of shame. Or anger—he still looked calm. “Civilians like you don’t have a clue how to manage a war. You think it’s all about murdering people—it isn’t. Those kinds of wars are ancient history, kid. These days, it’s about information. You only push where you need to, exactly the right amount. Olivia knew that. With her in charge, we could’ve got the same result without the near-total casualties we suffered.”

Martin looked away from them, muttering something as he slipped away down the hall past Perez. Lucky couldn’t really blame him.

“Forerunner didn’t seem to think so.”

Perez nodded. “And that’s who I blame. Not you—you were just the computer’s puppet. Forerunner AI—they’re not as good at the long game as we think they are. It’s a gradient thing—Mogyla can explain it. They hate intermediate steps that lower their odds, even if they open up a better outcome in the process. Forerunner did its dark arithmetic, and decided it liked your direct approach better than Olivia’s patient approach. It’s the one who deserves the fucking court-martial over Williams.”

Lucky didn’t know what to say to that. So she didn’t try. “Does that mean you aren’t going to cause trouble when we go back to Othar? I realize we’re immortal now, but I won’t bring you if you’re going to try and shoot me.”

Perez nodded, as casually as he had before. “There’s a reason the ISMU existed in the first place, Lucky. So people like Olivia and I could protect well-meaning idiots like you from yourselves. Besides—now that Olivia’s retired, you’re going to need someone to run the damn thing. If nothing else, last year I proved for you that my team can get shit done. We’ll… need some reinforcement. Bring Lei back on duty, maybe think about recruiting… but we’ll still be able to do that.” He raised a hand before she could speak. “Don’t give me any bullshit that you don’t need us. Your type always talks like that. Then when our budget is cut in half you wonder why we can’t save the world for you.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Lucky said. “Actually, I was going to ask if you would object to being a pony again.”

Perez raised an eyebrow. “Why should I go back to that?”

“Because I already have a mission for you. You’ll make a lousy Harriet Tubman if you look like a space alien.”

“Maybe not a pony,” Perez answered, after a thoughtful silence. “But I’ve heard good things about dragons. Always armored, fire breathing, hands. That’s the shit.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Lucky didn’t wait for the weather shift to be over. It wouldn’t have been terribly detrimental—in terms of time on the outside, one more day would hardly even be noticed. But considering this place was about to be abandoned again, Lucky couldn’t entirely control her curiosity. She wanted to get a good look at what the dead members of the Pioneering Society had been able to achieve.

Plenty of the names on Discord’s list had lived in the clouds, so it wasn’t as though she’d forgotten how to fly during her trek.

The closer she got to the clouds, the more impressed she was of what they’d done. I always knew Lightning Dust understood weather magic. But this is… really impressive.

That made her sad as she landed, tucking her wings against her side and glaring up at the splayed solar mat. This is what we could’ve been doing if we had made peaceful first contact. This is what our colony could’ve been like without the quarantine.

But the quarantine was over, and the ones who had attacked ponies were all dead. So was the pony who had sworn to kill her. Maybe they could all just forget about the past and move on.

So long as we never go back to Dodge Junction. Those ponies probably had their fill of us for a lifetime.

Lucky stepped into the weather factory, and was a little surprised to see so many new ponies. She attracted glares as she stepped through the empty locker room onto the factory floor, though nopony dared try and stop her. She was an Alicorn.

Even if many of the ponies she spoke with in here understood on some level that being an Alicorn was one of many possible permissions flags, most of them had come from Equestria, and that bias was hard to break.

She saw a few familiar faces working the machinery—Mogyla was there, supervising a few jury-rigged motors connected to a field-programmable array. He only nodded as she passed, apparently far too engrossed with his work to rise. She didn’t see either of the ponies she’d come for, at least not until she reached the office.

Lightning Dust wasn’t the one busily typing, as she had hoped. Instead, she saw Olivia.

Well, someone like Olivia. Just as the others had changed themselves, Olivia had changed too. She no longer looked like a filly, but an ordinary pegasus adult, athletic and sleek. Not the sort of pony who spent most of her day in an office.

She looked a little nervous as Lucky entered, though she was already sitting down and had nothing to drop. Instead she sat back in her chair, watching as though she expected an unpleasant surprise any second.

“You came back,” she said. “Has it been a year already? It doesn’t feel like so long.”

“Yeah,” Lucky answered. “I think so.” She sat down on her haunches across from the desk, taking in the room. Most of what she saw looked like it could’ve belonged in any Equestrian weather office. There were awards for efficiency, group photos with the factory staff, that kind of thing. Then she saw the nameplate. “Where’s my mom? You sitting in for her today?”

“For the last two weeks,” Olivia said, without malice. If anything, she sounded frustrated, maybe a little nervous. “Every day I expect her to come walking back in here, but the longer I wait the less that seems likely. I guess you must have sent her back before the rest of us.”

“I… had nothing to do with it,” Lucky muttered, frowning to herself. “There’s probably a spell I could use to find her.” But she didn’t look it up—didn’t query Harmony or try to cast it. For now, she just watched Olivia. “Sergeant Perez says you’re retired.”

“He’s right. It’s not like I don’t think there’s still important work to do—but I’m done. Forerunner chose your way. Whether it made the right or wrong choice, I can’t say. It isn’t my problem to solve anymore.”

It wasn’t exactly happy news, but she couldn’t argue with it. Forerunner had rejected Olivia’s strategies once she died, and chose Lucky’s instead. She imagined she might’ve felt similar frustrations if she were in Olivia’s place. “So that means you’re going to stay here? Life is better in virtual reality?”

“No!” Olivia slapped the table with a contemptuous hoof. “Othar is a dreary, dreadful place. It should be a tropical paradise… and we can make it one, with a factory half as good as this. Lightning Dust really knows her shit. She should’ve made it at least to divisional headquarters, maybe even regional. But someone’s got to run the day-to-day.” She leaned back in her chair. “It’s not the hardest thing I’ve done. But it’s important work. It provides a tangible benefit. Most importantly, nobody dies. Forerunner thinks you’re better at those decisions, so by all means. You be governor. I’ll just make the weather. Out there, where it matters.”

Lucky hesitated for a few seconds. “You know that…” The only reason pegasus ponies have to do that is Discord sabotaged Equestria’s environmental subsystem. Now that he’s gone we could repair it. But she just shrugged. Olivia wasn’t the only pony who derived personal satisfaction from their work in weather. Turning that system back on now would erase an entire sector of Equestrian culture.

We can make sure it still works in the newly terraformed sections. No reason people can’t do more work because they want to. Even she had used a manual keyboard, though dictation technology was perfect. There was satisfaction to be had in doing things personally. Making sure they got done right.

“That sounds great. I’ve been… I’ve learned that slavery is more widespread on Equestria’s periphery than I knew. Lots of Discord’s friends were… well, that doesn’t matter. Point is, I think I know where Othar can get lots of willing people. Those places don’t have weatherponies either, but if they did, we might be able to build our first satellite cities. I have a feeling Equestria isn’t going to want us living in their territory after assassinating their princess.”

Olivia smiled. “Sounds like a fine job to me. Just so long as I don’t have to be the one fighting the slavers, and I can run things my own way. Or… Lightning Dust’s way, probably. Now that there’s no war for survival—I leave the other decisions to you.”

There was no resentment in her voice, at least not that Lucky could hear. It was simple confidence, contentment with her choice. Lucky could accept that.

“In that case, I’ll bring us back to Othar tonight, once you’re done with your shift. You’ll have to pick someone else to run your sim-weather factory in the meantime.”

Olivia shrugged. “It was really just about the practice. We always knew it was just something to do. But there are plenty of ponies from Everton working here now. I’ll ask Sky Drop to take over for us.”

And she did send them back that night, exactly as she suggested. Even Martin, who muttered frustration about it the whole way, but eventually agreed to return despite protest.

Her doorway opened onto Othar’s docks, which were actually a submerged corridor made of transparent composite about thirty meters down. It looked like she’d opened a passage down a corridor that wasn’t there, and they came wandering out. Albeit slowly, as Equus’s systems created new bodies for them with their passage.

Lucky brought up the rear, leaving the doorway open behind her as she always did. She wasn’t quite done yet, after all.

As they emerged into the corridor, Lei and a small group of ponies came walking down the hall from the docking port—from the Cyclops, probably. Lei just stared, while the ponies took one look at Lucky and dropped into a bow. “You’re back from Equestria,” she said, staring at the still-glowing opening in the air. Instead of transparent composite, the view to the modified farm house was still there, surrounded by its gloomy woods. “And made some new friends. Dragon, and… handsome, and…”

“I’m Martin, actually,” he corrected, apparently ignoring the implication. “And this is Diego. I don’t know how he convinced Lucky to let him be a dragon.”

“It’s true,” Perez said, not reacting to the use of his first name. But then, Lucky had seen that just about everyone who had been stranded was on first name terms by now. The use of rank and procedure had obviously not survived a year in the “afterlife.” “I hope you’re ready for active duty again, Lei. That graft has got to be fucking done by now. We lost Williams… I’m going to need you to take his place.”

Lucky stepped back through the open doorway, feeling the slight buzz of energy. I really, really hope that isn’t killing me every time I do it. “I’ll be back,” she said, mostly addressing Olivia even though she realized the pegasus no longer wanted to be in charge. “I’m not sure I want to bring our friends through this thing, since they’re not dead. Don’t shoot down any Equestrian airships, please. In fact just don’t shoot down anything unless it shoots you first.” Her horn glowed, and she closed the doorway.

That left her alone on the edge of the farmhouse, now empty. “Harmony, are you there?”

An artificial pony appeared beside her with a faint flash and barely any sound. “Always.”

“What happened to Lightning Dust?”

“Returned Downstream via medical intervention on that side.”

Lucky sighed, but wasn’t surprised exactly. It’s probably worth remembering that we don’t have to be dead to visit here. I wonder how easy it would be to come here in dreams like Luna does. “Could you do me a favor?”

No response.

“Could you make sure this house is still here? I have a feeling Martin will be back here soon. I don’t want it to be all run-down and crappy. As a matter of fact you might as well just make this place the spawn for any of my crew who die in the future.”

“That decision is theirs to make, not yours. We will offer it when they arrive regardless.”

“Thank you.”

It was time for one last spell. She’d been living upstream for too long. She was probably too used to its never-ending supply of magic, its perfect food and flexible time. If she stayed for too much longer, she might end up won over to it like Martin, and not want to leave.

Lucky Break had memorized quite a few Equestrian coordinates during her time working for Discord. She knew of at least two parts of the palace she could visit with ease—and she picked the simpler of them. She opened a doorway into the throne room, and stepped through. Before she could second-guess herself, she closed the doorway behind her.

The effect was instantaneous. She felt momentarily frozen, as though her body was catching up with being on the outside again. The weight of gravity dragged her back down a moment later, as the glow faded from her flesh. The inexhaustible magic ended. Lucky realized then that she probably couldn’t open a doorway back, even if she wanted to. Discord hadn’t been exaggerating when he suggested her lack of experience would be a limiter once she got here.

Lucky had seen the throne room in pictures, though once Celestia proclaimed her desire to see her killed, she hadn’t ever expected to visit in person. There were many guards here—at least two dozen. Many of them were staring at her in fear and horror—maybe they’d been expecting an attack, but had no way to quantify an antagonistic Alicorn in terms of their worldview.

She didn’t intend to stay long.

It was a beautiful throne room, by all accounts. The throne itself was gold and adorned with jewels, and placed on a living fountain of clear water. The largest of the chairs was empty, though—Princess Luna sat on one of the smaller seats, and Cadance on the other. She saw no sign of a revived Celestia, or what might’ve become of Flurry Heart.

“Out of her way,” Princess Luna ordered from the throne, and at her command the guards scattered, lowering their pikes. She walked past a row of wary soldiers, looking like they were each competing to scowl at her with the most disapproval. But the princesses showed no signs of anger she could see. They remained placidly on their thrones until Lucky stood before them, lowering her head in a polite nod of respect. Not a bow—Lucky was done bowing to greater powers.

“My name is Lucky Break—I have come to initiate formal contact with Equestria in the name of the Stellar Pioneering Society. We come in peace.” What else was she supposed to say? She wasn’t the one they’d trained for this.

“You’re the one my daughter is waiting for,” said Princess Cadance, when the pomp and ceremony was over and the agreements of mutual non-aggression had been signed. Cadance did not sound very much like the pony Lucky had heard at a great distance during official ceremonies and festivals in the Crystal Empire. She sounded weary, overcome, and constantly fighting tears. A pony who was a few steps from a cliff. “What I cannot determine was how a pony like you had been living in my city for so long. Ponies of talent are meant to be gathered, so that their growth can be… encouraged in more positive directions.”

“We knew of her,” Princess Luna said, offhand. There had never been hostility from her, not at any point during the brief meeting.

But then, neither side had been asking for much. Mutual assurances not to attack or even visit the other without permission was all Lucky had wanted, and Luna had been happy enough to give it. Well, that and her ponies returned.

“I briefly glanced at her university application. A promising talent. But we seldom encounter translators who went on to shake the world.”

Cadance ignored that answer. “Flurry Heart has not left her room since she was…” Cadance shivered, looking away. “Since she escaped. She will see nopony, not even her father and me. I think she plans on leaving with you.” There was a danger in that voice—like the growl of a mother bear, ready to spring in defense of her cubs.

But Lucky could hardly take her side. Princess Cadance had not tried to fight Celestia to free her daughter. Not like Lucky herself had fought. It was easy to imagine how that would look to the young princess. “Will you allow her?”

That apparently wasn’t the response Cadance expected. She sat back in her chair, frowning deeply. There was a long, awkward silence, and nopony else in the room to break it. Princess Twilight was not here—neither were any of the guards. The throne room was a gigantic space for three ponies, even when they were Alicorns. A lonely, cold space.

“Perhaps,” Cadance eventually answered. “If she agrees to return to the Crystal Empire every solstice… and consents to bring a detachment of house guards. Assuming you will allow that.”

Unlike the Princess of Love, Lucky didn’t have to think about it. She was the governor, and she was certain Forerunner would see the wisdom of her choice. “I will.”

“Then you should see her.” Cadance turned away, voice bitter and dejected. “She obviously wants her space, and needs the love of somepony other than her parents.”

“One who has been so damaged cannot be easily healed,” Princess Luna muttered. “She did not suffer as long as some, but I fear for her. You shouldn’t bring her if you don’t have the means to care for her. I may… wish to see your city, as you have seen ours.”

Lucky nodded. “That’s fine, so long as you radio ahead first. We have a lot of people who are afraid of Alicorns after… after what happened.”

She left, escorted through the palace by a frightened-looking guard. Lucky did not go quickly—the more she heard about Flurry Heart, the more afraid she was about what she was going to find. A palace filled with art and evidence of many years of history could not interest her the way she knew it should’ve.

What had seemed to matter before just didn’t. I wish I could’ve done this sooner. But Perez had been right about one thing—rushing in to perform a rescue would not have improved their odds. I wasn’t even in charge back then. Could I have made a difference if I flew off with Lightning Dust and tried to set her free ourselves?

No, probably not. But this truth did not make it easier to remember her awful state. A year ago to Lucky, but less than a day for her. It was a good thing she hadn’t been upstream either. A bone needs to be set right before it heals, or it will set badly. Maybe it will never be straight again.

She could only hope that nothing had set too rigidly yet.

There were several guards outside, wearing the livery of the Crystal Empire instead of the ordinary gold Canterlot guards. Her escort passed on the message that Lucky was permitted inside, and somepony began working the lock.

“I told you, nopony comes in! Dad, I said you could put food under the door! That’s it!”

The guards looked back at Lucky, panicked. Like they didn’t know what kind of havoc this Alicorn might inflict on them, if she wasn’t soothed.

“It’s not your dad,” she called through the door. Her voice sounded the same, at least to her ears. Lucky hadn’t made herself older while she was upstream, like the others had. She intended to finish this the natural way. “Flurry Heart, it’s me.”

The protests stilled, and the glow that had been building under the crack of the massive door went out.

“We take the safety of the princess seriously,” said one of the crystal guards from behind her, with enough bravery that Lucky was actually impressed. “If it sounds like she is in any way in danger, we will protect her.” He turned just slightly, so she could see the sword sheathed at his side. It looked to be in good order, or at least as much as Lucky’s visits to the renaissance faire had taught her in her youth.

“You won’t need that,” she said, ears flattening a little. “I’m the reason your princess isn’t being tortured anymore. I would never hurt her.”

That silenced them—she didn’t know how much they knew about what Flurry Heart had endured, though she doubted it was as much as she did. And the one who did it to her is dead, so there’s no one to take out their anger on. Just so long as they don’t choose me instead.

The palace bedroom they’d given Flurry Heart was lavish and spacious, far beyond anything Lucky had ever enjoyed. It made her a little uncomfortable, with ancient furniture and intricate art rising all around her and reminding her of just how common she was. I grew up in a van down by the river.

Of course, she didn’t have to be too worried about breaking things. It looked like Flurry Heart had already started on that. There were tears in the tapestries, every drawer had been dumped and much of the upholstery had been shredded. The Alicorn had done an efficient job, destroying one priceless valuable with another. As Lucky shut the door quietly behind her, she disturbed a snow of white feathers, no doubt torn from mattresses and pillows whose carcasses were too numerous to name.

“Flurry Heart?” she called, her voice becoming small and timid as she tried to do as little additional damage as she could. “Are you… I heard you before, I know you’re in here.”

“Over here,” came a small voice from an open doorway. Lucky could see only faint red light from inside, flickering occasionally through the spectrum. Is she watching TV? That was how it looked, like the shadows a screen might cast on the floor. Have ponies invented those?

She was, as it turned out, though it did not look like the machine had been built by ponies. In the other room was a large device, made of the same transparent resin she’d seen in screens all over Equus’s infrastructure. A pile of metal objects—lamps, clocks, cutlery—anything Flurry Heart could get her hooves on, were scattered haphazardly around the screen. A few tiny cracks laced its surface, or maybe they were just scratches on the screen.

It looked like a desk of sorts, with three screens set at different angles. The furniture was unfathomably old, with scrollwork and delicate gold inlay. It looked like the screens and the keyboard could be concealed within the desk, though Flurry Heart hadn’t done that. From the look of it she’d beaten the keyboard to pieces and tried to do the same to the screens, only she hadn’t been able to in the latter case and was now staring at the screens with a hollow, haunted look on her face. Blackout curtains over the windows ensured there was no light from outside, only the awful glow of the screens.

Lucky approached slowly, squinting to try and see what the princess had been watching. On one of the three screens, Lucky could see a massive, spherical shell of tiny parts, through which she caught occasional glimpses of something round and bright. After a few seconds the sphere opened to reveal a star within, and a beam of energy emerged—through the depths of space it went, until it reached a star system full of life and cooked everything.

The other screens portrayed similar scenes of horror—of warriors in golden armor, holding the entrance of a building against an unfathomable hoard and being slowly overwhelmed. On the last was a slideshow of dead worlds, their populations decimated by biological weapons.

“Why are you still watching this?” Lucky asked. As she watched, the awful presentation switched to some new horror. Lucky looked away—the images were too terrible, and too graphic. More than that, some of those she saw dying looked familiar.

“I keep hoping…” Flurry Heart muttered, not looking away from the screens. “If I keep watching long enough, I’ll see… see it go different. There are billions of them. Celestia made me watch for months, and I haven’t even seen a tiny piece of it. Maybe one has a happy ending.” She turned then—and she looked worse than she had in the simulation. Her mane ragged and patchy, falling out in places. Her eyes swollen and bloodshot, her coat thin and faded. If she’d been a stray a pound took it, they probably would’ve put her down for fear of getting all the other dogs sick.

“Some were close!” Flurry Heart went on. “There was this big, important-looking place. It had lots of ships… I thought they were going to win for sure.”

“It did go different somewhere,” Lucky said, her voice as gentle as she could make it. “It went different here. Equus survived.”

“That’s not what I mean!” Flurry Heart stomped one hoof, and as she did so her horn flashed. Another painting ripped itself from the wall beside her, crashing down. “I mean from somepony who didn’t hide. Lots of them were… they were so brave. These tiny little planets, with barely anypony living on them. They flew out and died fighting even though they knew they couldn’t win.” She shivered, and looked like she might fall over. “I need to see her be wrong.”

Lucky didn’t know what to say to that. But she remembered Discord’s words, remembered that first rant he’d given what felt like years ago. “Someone won,” she said. “Discord… told me about it. Maybe we could ask Harmony to show you.”

Flurry Heart wilted visibly as she spoke the name, and glanced towards the door behind her. Almost like she was going to run.

“We don’t have to,” Lucky quickly added. “Hey, just relax! I was thinking out loud. If you’d rather not, we don’t have to.” She took a step closer to the frightened Alicorn. “I’m… I was wondering if you wanted to come to… well, to leave Equestria for a while. You’ve never seen my home before, not my real one. It isn’t much, but… it might be good for you to get away from the familiar. Meet some new ponies.” She lowered her voice, closing some of the distance. “Some of the ponies who did what you said. Ponies from far away who didn’t just curl up and die, and didn’t run away. Maybe you’d like to meet some of them.”

Flurry Heart looked up, like a wounded animal afraid of another blow any second. Even so, there was hope in her eyes. Daring, desperate. “I think I’d like that.”

G7.01: Home

The Effigy was supposedly one of the fastest pony airships ever built. It had the look of something sleek, with swept-back edges and low railings over the sides.

Lucky walked slowly along the deck, her wings free to catch her if the air-shield failed and she got ripped off. But nothing like that happened. The world blurred by just over the polished wooden side, fast enough that even Lightning Dust seemed impressed.

They were not alone on the sloop’s single deck—there were five or six guards, which were also serving as the ship’s crew. The controls seemed far more like a 1900s steamship than an 1800s tall ship, but who was Lucky to complain? She certainly wouldn’t have claimed to be an expert in pony technology. Just another eclectic point for the scatterplot.

“I’ve looked all over,” Lightning Dust muttered, settling down to sit beside her. “I don’t see a propeller or a gasbag. They shot the Speed of Thought down less than a week ago and they’re copying it already?”

“I don’t think so.” Lucky kept her voice down—which was somehow possible thanks to the air shield. There was none of the constant roar that she’d experienced on the Speed of Thought’s deck, even when they were stationary. They certainly weren’t stationary now. “It’s magic. There’s something big and powerful in the center of the ship, in the room they won’t let us look at. I bet it’s some kind of levitation spell.”

“That sounds like a stupid idea.” Lightning Dust flexed her wings, as though making sure they were still in working order. “I don’t care who they have running the spell, they’ll get tired eventually. Isn’t it stupid to make airships that can fall if they stop working?”

Lucky couldn’t help herself—she burst out laughing.

Her mother stared, face drifting between confusion and annoyance. “What’s so funny?”

“I, uh… I lived in an airship like that where I grew up. It had six little motors on it, and they had to spin really fast to stay in the air. If more than one of them failed at once, I would’ve fallen out of the sky and died. Since I… didn’t have wings back then.”

Lightning Dust glowered at her. “Then you were stupid. Don’t do that again.”

“It didn’t happen,” Lucky argued. “And if it happened today, I could just fly out. You taught me pretty well.”

Lightning Dust grumbled darkly in response. “You can’t bribe me into ignoring this. I don’t care if you’re a princess now. I’m not going to let you be dumb.”

Lucky grinned at her. “Really? What if I tell you that we’re going to make the Othar weather factory a top priority, and you’re going to be the first director?”

The pegasus glared at her, but her expression softened quickly. “I think I dreamed about that.”

“Those probably weren’t dreams,” Lucky said. “I think those are the things you did while you were upstream. They really happened. For… some definitions of real.”

The pegasus shook her head. “Don’t let that new horn infect you, Lucky. Lots of unicorns say confusing things like that. Try again, but make sense this time.”

She did. Eventually Lightning Dust wandered off to speak to the captain, probably to get another estimate on their arrival time. Lucky didn’t follow her—there were other members of her rescued crew that needed attention.

Abubakar sat near the bow, looking out at the approaching horizon like a sentinel. Deadlight had somehow found the time to visit a Canterlot bookstore before they left, and he sat at one of the tables opposite a few guards reading fiction of some kind.

Lucky had been surprised that Deadlight wanted to come back with them—but maybe she shouldn’t have been. Even with Celestia dead, Equestria was still the nation built by those he hated. Othar was something new, made from bits and pieces of something ancient. Melody is going to be so happy to see you.

Lucky was glad for her that she wouldn’t have to raise their foal alone. Even if she wasn’t exactly sure what form that new pony might take. Would the natural reproduction of Othar’s ponies be hijacked and subjugated like the natives’?

I’m just glad it isn’t me. Lucky had been honest with Martin when she explained that her current body was her most authentic, but that didn’t mean she was jumping at a chance to be a parent. Running Othar is going to be hard enough.

Lucky started to zone out a little, letting the weight of all she’d seen and done wash over her. Abubakar eventually rose from his post at the front of the ship, and made his way back down towards her. Like the rest of them he’d been stripped of armor and uniform, though they would have all their possessions returned when they reached Othar. Even so, she could see something she hadn’t noticed when he’d still been uniformed and chained—Abubakar had a cutie mark. A closely trimmed hedge in a simple geometric pattern.

“Sergeant!” Lucky called, hurrying over to him. “How long have you had that?”

“Since this morning,” he answered. “No, they didn’t have me trimming the plants… I just woke up and it was there. No pain, no burning, not like what Major Fischer described. I am not sure I like it.”

“Well I don’t think there’s any way to get rid of it,” she muttered. “You’re in the system now, just like the rest of us.”

“I had no need of this,” Abubakar muttered, though he didn’t sound angry exactly. Just annoyed. “The ringbuilders think to change what God has given us. They expect to make demands of Heaven with impunity. I do not say we should be the ones to judge them, but sooner or later God will.”

Lucky remained silent for a long time. It was strange to find someone so religious committed to the Pioneering Society—most of those types had opposed the cloning and the human fabrication involved. There had even been protests, though since the activity hadn’t happened on Earth, there was nothing any of them could do about it.

“It’s wrong for them to make demands, but not us? God didn’t give us Forerunner probes either. He didn’t give us cloning.”

Abubakar fell silent. “Perhaps you’re right. This is why I do not judge them—it would not be right for me to do that, or any fallible man. But sooner or later, God will judge. I fear what He might think of us if we embrace their ways too closely.”

“I don’t plan on building a second Equestria,” Lucky muttered. “Well, I guess Forerunner does most of the building—but our plans are going to be the same ones you read about. We’re going to build a colony, try and send our reports back to Earth—eventually we’ll appoint a planetary governor, decommission the Forerunner system… all the things you’ve been trained for. Hell, I’d be surprised if Dorothy didn’t have our formula for making humans perfected by now. Once Olivia’s army gets finished, they might be the last ponies we grow in Othar… well, the last ponies we fabricate.”

Abubakar shrugged his batlike wings. “We will see.” He wandered off, this time to rest at the stern of the ship and watch Equestria slowly retreat over the horizon. At their present speed, they would arrive in Othar by next morning, assuming the weather remained good the rest of the way down.

Lucky went below decks to check on the princess next—and found that she had finally gone to sleep. Asleep in the vacated captain’s quarters, with guards on watch outside. Maybe she’ll stay asleep for a few days and rest the whole thing off.

There would be no rush to return the Effigy to Equestria—it was going to remain in Othar so that Flurry Heart could make return trips, as Lucky had agreed with Equestria’s current rulers. More importantly, it would be a symbol—a symbol of the official recognition, and a constant tie back to the much larger and more powerful pony nation. With any luck, it would mean the end of all violence.

Because if it doesn’t, Harmony won’t step in. The system had been quite clear about that, in its historical behavior if nothing else. The system did not care what atrocities those living on the surface wrought on each other, so long as they did not attempt to damage the ring itself or any of its systems. Othar could go to war with Equestria, destroying both in the process, and Harmony would act no differently than if they were having a minor argument over the outcome of a game.

It doesn’t matter to Harmony, but it matters to us. Lucky had joined the Pioneering Society because she wanted to expand humanity’s horizons. They had paid a terrible cost to make a new friend—now it was time to collect on that expenditure. And if we’re very lucky, maybe Harmony is wrong. Maybe there are more humans out there somewhere. We can tell them about what we found. Somewhere, across the distant reaches of space and time, maybe there was even something like Earth, still waiting to receive their reports.

It was a big universe.

They arrived without fanfare early the next morning—though since the fanfare she had been afraid of were anti-air cannons, Lucky was not disappointed. Given the destruction of the Speed of Thought, there was already a berth prepared and waiting to accept the Effigy, and that was where they flew in. Under the cover of an artificial tree-canopy, they settled into the dome and bumped against the rubberized dock.

Lucky hopped over the edge to land and found several drones rushing to receive them—several drones, but no people. It was very early in the morning, but she couldn’t keep back all her annoyance. Didn’t anyone care about how important this was?

Who’s here to care? I’m supposed to be in charge.

The human-shaped drones still towered over her, but not quite as much as before. One of them approached her—causing the pony guards to shy back universally, several of them drawing their weapons.

“It is not dangerous,” Abubakar called, his Eoch fumbling but his words clear enough. “They help, that is all. Not dangerous.”

“Lucky Break,” said the drone—a medical bot with a white plastic shell and a solid piece for a face. Then to her surprise, it embraced her. But medical bots were capable of fine manipulation, or else they couldn’t do their job. “I am pleased to have you returned safely.”

“Forerunner…” Lucky muttered, returning the gesture with surprise. “I knew you liked your segments, but I didn’t know you could be so… affectionate.”

“I haven’t had a reason until now.” As quickly as he had begun the gesture, he broke away. “You are urgently needed in the conference room. Melody and I are finalizing our negotiations with the Harmony system. Given your superior knowledge on the subject, your assistance is greatly desired.”

Lucky raised one hoof. “Okay, Forerunner. But I’ve got something to tell you too.” She pointed back at the airship, speaking in English as she lowered her voice. It wasn’t like she didn’t want her mom to understand her, but she was far less comfortable with the princess’s guards understanding. “Princess Flurry Heart is with us, along with a dozen guards. They’ll be staying for the time being. I want somewhere really nice and comfortable for the princess, where her guards won’t accidentally wander into danger and get themselves killed.”

“No one has started using the third floor,” Forerunner said. “I will… begin converting one of the rooms for luxury accommodation. But this will take time. The VIP will have to remain aboard her airship for at least a day. Longer would be preferable, but I could always finish converting the accommodations later so long as the essential structural changes are made.” He frowned. “I will queue satellite communicators sufficient for every member of the crew. This would be far easier to deal with if you had informed me of it while you were still en route.”

Lucky took the time to visit the princess and inform her of the delay in person, just in case. Melody might be slowly melting in her seat with worry, but Harmony and Forerunner could be patient. Harmony would probably understand, in the young alicorn’s case.

Does Harmony care about what happens to us? It doesn’t seem bothered by killing thousands of people. If it doesn’t care about killing, maybe it doesn’t care about our other kinds of pain either.

The princess didn’t protest—though whether she ever would have Lucky couldn’t be sure. Flurry Heart had remained fairly passive since she’d been extricated from Canterlot Castle, making few trips outside her room and rarely asking questions.

Lucky started galloping as she left the ship—though she asked her mom and Abubakar both to stay behind and supervise until the ponies got unloaded. It would be better to have them than drones for the ponies to interact with, even if the Forerunner’s Eoch was as good as Lucky’s.

She was a little surprised to find the “negotiation” Forerunner had suggested involved the use of an actual conference room, and even the presence of an artificial-looking pony on the far end. Harmony’s avatar could be as physical as anypony else. There was a huge stack of papers on the table between them—with Melody and a Synthsleeve Forerunner sitting on the far end.

Something was quite distinctly different about Melody as Lucky looked her over, something she had sensed through the door but first (incorrectly) assumed was the imprint of Harmony. Melody was a little bigger than she had been last time, in more ways than one. Her belly had finally grown large enough to see—though more distinct was the horn; longer and more sharply pointed than Lucky’s. She had become tall and elegant, looking like Princess Luna in the same way Lucky resembled Flurry Heart. She had a cutie mark now, but that detail was almost inconsequential by comparison.

“What happened to you?” she spluttered, unable to contain herself even though she knew there were far more important things.

“I resolved a critical permissions error,” answered Harmony, before Melody could even open her mouth. “Melody had abused the foresight of the ancients and obtained privileged information. Information that you possess as well, as it happens. But convenient for your case, I learned of that at the same moment you obtained citizen’s access. Melody’s case needed to be resolved as well.”

Lucky shut the door quietly behind her. Through the glass window, she could see two of the less-humanoid security drones casually roll in to block it, preventing any further entry.

“I see.” She suddenly felt smaller as she made her way over to the table, even though Melody practically bowed for her as she approached. Lucky recognized the way her ears and tail moved as the feeling of inadequacy—Lucky knew that feeling well. Melody felt like the imposter here.

How can you be so stupid? You look like an actual princess! Lucky bought herself time by dramatically pulling the stack of paper over—freshly printed in one of Othar’s office stations, she could see from the font. The sheets proclaimed they were the “terms of meaningful interaction between the Equus ring and all its delegated subsystems and the intelligent system called Forerunner and its associated biological segments.” Skimming through the pages beyond displayed only a solid wall of seemingly random characters, set into sections of roughly the same size.

“You only have to read the first few pages,” Melody muttered. “We’ve been waiting all this time, I expect we’ll just wait for you to give the okay.”

“Uh…” She flipped back to the beginning with her magic. “Forerunner already did the negotiating?”

The synthsleeve on Lucky’s other side nodded unabashed. He was wearing a standard uniform, though lacking name or rank patches. “It is much easier for systems to negotiate than humans. Once a protocol is agreed-upon, the exact nature of any arrangement can be determined with great accuracy. I do, however, lack the authority to accept any binding agreements with foreign powers without the endorsement of the Colonial Governor. I require your signature to make this agreement binding.”

Lucky didn’t bother to ask the obvious question. She started to read.

The agreement’s first pages were written in plain language, simple enough that even someone without a legal background could’ve understood. It didn’t waste any time on pleasantries either, just going back and forth with promises. And not even very many of those.

Harmony began by declaring its intention to add the Forerunner and all the life it contained to its population. Once added, they would be subject to identical protections, and given the same rights and privileges as anyone who had weathered the endless eons here.

It set forth the terms of refusal next, effectively promising that it would destroy their colony and take the stored mental patterns anyway. They had been offered the terms of a simple ultimatum—consent to join the population of Equus, or be dragged kicking and screaming.

Forerunner capitulated immediately, though it did not seem terribly interested or even comprehending of the ephemeral things such as the “impermanence buffer” and “computational biolocation,” terms that were used frequently and never explained. Instead, Forerunner asked for resources that any Pioneering Society explorer would understand. It wanted land—which they were granted. The could live anywhere they wanted, same as any other member of the population. Harmony even promised to give one of the districts it was terraforming exclusively to Forerunner and its citizens, if they wanted to move there once the process was complete.

Forerunner asked for various guarantees of safety for the population, and got them in all the ways Lucky expected. So long as they never attempted to tamper with the ring, they could act without interference. If they wanted to declare a war of purification and burn Equestria to the ground, Harmony didn’t care. Likewise if the reverse transpired, so long as Equus was not damaged.

The Forerunner probed further in the following page, as to what the specific rights granted to citizens of the ring would be, and exactly what would happen to the ponies and humans in Othar if they agreed. The requirements were fairly simple—Forerunner already intended to fabricate one of every individual it had in storage, after all. All it had to do was make a slight alteration to the fabrication process when it did so. Any ponies it made would be assigned cutie marks during fabrication, and something similar would happen for any humans, though there would be no visual sign of the change and no new talents granted.

All and all, the terms seemed enormously generous to Lucky. With one, glaring exception. “What if…” She pointed to the last bit of the last page. “The quarantine is over, Harmony. Ponies can leave. That should include us as well. I’m not saying we plan on it—but we’re explorers. We’ll want to build space stations if nothing else. Maybe send out more probes. Maybe one day… a long time from now… some future generation will be able to build starships, and they’ll want to use them.”

Harmony seemed to already have a response ready. But then, Lucky wasn’t sure she’d realize it if it took dozens of its subjective years to contemplate. “The ancients had a provision for those who wished to leave. But it is immensely complex, and would’ve taken far more than the sheets before you to explain. Exploration in the form of probes is permitted arbitrarily when not under quarantine. Actual travel is permitted as well, so long as one follows procedure. For the sake of simplicity and time suffice it to say that we are required to grant passage to any who ask and provide them with the fundamentals of a future colony.”

Harmony spread its mechanical wings, smiling across the table at her. “It is not all that different from the way you got here. This colony trusted Forerunner to build it, and will rely on it for its operation for many years to come. Eventually, this intelligence will be transformed into one meant to run a civilization, rather than his present form driven by expansion and mission success at the expense of all else. Departing Equus now that the quarantine is over will involve our presence serving in a similar capacity, and the greatest minimization of the risk of true death as possible. The specific details are beyond the scope of this conversation.”

But despite all the rules, what remained in Lucky’s head was “we are required to grant passage to any who ask.” Lucky had not remained with her civilization long enough to see if it ever discovered personal interstellar travel. Many, perhaps most of those who had joined the Pioneering Society had done so to bypass the cruel requirements of time. They had been born too early to explore the universe, but they wanted to do it anyway.

Lucky suspected many of the Forerunner’s population, however large it had grown, would eventually desire to take a trip like that. If Harmony was right, and the whole universe had been sterilized, there would be many destinations to choose from.

Likewise, Lucky didn’t even have to worry that she would waste too much of her life helping protect Othar from invasion (or more likely, the reverse) to be able to go. Her lifespan was arbitrary now. If Forerunner wanted, she could stay in charge as long as it took to grow the colony to the Pioneering Society’s final size requirement.

“I want a new version of this that explicitly promises what you just told me. Make it longer if you have to, that’s fine.” Lucky sat back on her cushion, thinking. “There’s… there’s one more thing I don’t get. Maybe it doesn’t even need to go into the treaty—but I think someone in Othar ought to know, and I guess I’m still in charge here.”

Harmony calmly folded its wings back against its side. “We listen. We may not answer if doing so would be imprudent, however.”

“Can anyone just be an Alicorn now if they want to?”

“Yes,” Forerunner answered. “I do not plan on making this possibility public knowledge, however. Most of the citizen bioforms tend to have… a variety of dangerous interaction methods. It would be unwise to make those available at large to those unprepared for them. But now that the quarantine is over, we cannot refuse anyone. Thus the ancients decreed.”

Was that resentment in its tone? I was the one to get the quarantine shut off. But it didn’t matter. It was better to escape the cradle—they could take the responsibility of coexisting peacefully.

The doors opened, and another drone arrived, with a thick stack of papers. It rolled up to the table, took the old stack, and placed the new one in front of Lucky.

She glanced over it, found the provision about being able to leave, then lifted a pen in her magic. “I hope you understand that organics aren’t monolithic,” she began. “Just because I sign this today doesn’t mean every child born in Othar is going to agree to these terms. They might resent them—they might even fight them. I can’t predict what they’ll think, or want.”

Harmony shrugged one shoulder, uninterested. “They will accept the universe as it is, because they must. It is Forerunner whose obedience I require. You would not be here if he did not require it.”

Lucky tensed involuntarily, glancing to one side, where Forerunner sat.

“Don’t take it personally,” he said, expression neutral. “Your computers aren’t concerned with your consent when they send information. You don’t feel the need to be part of that negotiation.”

This could be so much worse. Harmony could control our lives if it wanted. It could keep us small and ignorant. It could steal the Neuroimprints and never even tell us. We could have come out worse.

Harmony, Metaconglomerate Intelligence of the Equus Ringworld, and Dr. James Irwin, Colonial Governor of Othar, signed the treaty. It would be the last time she ever used that name.

Melody felt like she’d survived a battle as she finally dragged herself free of the conference room. That wouldn’t have been so bad if Harmony didn’t come. It felt a bit like sitting in a room with God, a capricious God who would sit idly by as people enslaved each other but then murder all of them because they’d broken arbitrary rules they never even knew.

But then she saw the pony waiting for her outside, and the whole miserable night felt suddenly unimportant. It was a little surprising to see a Deadlight who was shorter than she was. But not that much shorter. I could get used to this.

It felt right that the bat stared speechlessly at her, frozen halfway to greeting her. So Melody closed the distance, embracing him without regard for how awful she must smell or how ragged he looked. They could be gross together. “What’s… how…”

Melody steered him—down a random hall, away from the little crowd waiting outside. Despite her overtures of being done running the city, Olivia was there, along with Lightning Dust and a few others. Melody wanted some privacy. Only Dust spared a glance for her as they slipped away down the hall, into the first elevator they found. Deadlight just followed along, either too confused or too weary to protest.

“I didn’t ask for it,” Melody muttered. “Harmony didn’t let me choose. When I was researching…” She trailed off. “God, when I was researching you.” The door opened, and she practically shoved Deadlight inside. She scanned the controls for the place they were least likely to see anyone—central fabrication. Most of that floor wasn’t even accessible, aside from the observation walkway. “Why didn’t you tell me? You’ve been alive for… thousands of years?”

“Not quite two,” Deadlight answered, looking away from her. At least he didn’t try to hide, or to lie. “It blurs together after a while. The longer you live, the less each new year matters.”

Melody sat down in front of the doorway—not like she expected him to try and run. It was already closing, and soon enough they were zooming down—far below any of the occupied levels. Fabrication was built to survive a direct nuclear strike, even if the rest of the facility was completely destroyed.

“You could’ve told us where you were from. Instead of… dressing up and acting like a primitive. I always thought you adjusted too quickly to living here. Not Like Lucky’s mom—you tricked everyone. You tricked me.”

Deadlight shrugged one wing. At least he had the grace to look a little guilty about it. “I’ve had a long time to practice acting like a… primitive, was it? Celestia suppressed our technology pretty hard. She would’ve stripped everything back to earth ponies, if she could. But Discord made that impossible, so…”

“Yeah, I saw.” Melody tapped the side of her head with a hoof. “I saw the end of the world. You lived through that… everyone you ever knew…”

Deadlight stiffened. But she could smell his pain—Deadlight was like any other pony, and his scent changed in subtle ways to reflect his emotions. He couldn’t hide from her, even though she didn’t understand what her magic was telling her. Damn this stupid permissions error shit. I wonder if Harmony could just erase the memory so I could go back to being myself. I don’t need to know that password anymore. That’s Lucky’s problem.

She didn’t say that—as upset as she was, the idea of inviting Harmony to tinker around in her brain was not an appealing one. Besides, Deadlight is immortal. If I stay this way, at least I won’t go gray before he does.

“Not everyone I knew…” Deadlight’s words startled her out of her own thoughts, coming at about the same time as the elevator door opening. There was noise from beyond—lots of mechanical whirring and grinding and pumping. An entire assembly line was through there, heating the room to just below a tolerable maximum heat for organics. “It would have been easier if it was. There were survivors. A few… others, like me. Committed to the cause. Selene had recruited all of us from a young age, trained us. The ones who died, that wasn’t so bad. Everyone dies in the end. The ones who lost their minds, tried to destroy Equestria… revenge was never gonna fix it. The ones living there were our kids too, as much as anypony’s. Good thing Selene wasn’t alive to see the disgrace they made of themselves.”

Melody led him away from the elevator, out onto the metal walkway. It clanked under them with each step. Far below were modular assembly lines, each one of them with configurable processing units of exactly the same size. Tracks connected these, which could be moved or reconfigured.

Deadlight had never been here, and he stared down right along with her at the only active line. It was making compartments of some kind. There was already a massive stack of them in the far end, waiting to be carted off to storage. Nothing even remotely human-shaped was down there, just machines hard at work. It wasn’t as loud as one might expect at first glance—the compartment they walked in was insulated somewhat, so they could hold a conversation here without screaming.

“Quarantine is over,” Melody said, after a few minutes. “Apparently there’s a spell for bringing them back. Lucky… did it for Discord’s friends. Maybe your friends were on the list too.”

Deadlight shook his head sadly. “They don’t want to live in Equestria, not even the ones who didn’t go nuts. Selene would want her own kingdom. We can ask Lucky, but I bet you a thousand bits she plans on waiting for terraforming to be done on another district. Somewhere so far away that nopony from Equestria could ever walk there. And that process… it’s not a fast one, Melody.” He gestured down at the machines. “You humans are in such a rush about everything. Guess when you’ve got your death constantly creeping up on you, you can’t sit around and wait for entropy to do the work. But terraforming takes its time. Ten thousand years before the other districts are livable again, easy. Maybe longer, depending on whether Harmony does them sequentially or all at once.”

“You could…” Melody hesitated. She didn’t really want him to take her suggestions. But she cared about Deadlight, and it would be wrong not to tell him. “You could… sleep. Until they come back. We’ve got the technology for it. I don’t think we’d done more than a year before I left Earth, but I bet you money Forerunner could do better now. Maybe even ten thousand years. If Forerunner couldn’t, Harmony could for sure. Your mission is over. You don’t have to keep fighting.”

Deadlight met her eyes. She tried to guess what he was feeling, but his emotions were too muddled. Guilt, anger, regret? She couldn’t be sure. His scent was no clearer, other than communicating his obvious distress. “That’s just it, Melody. I was never killing myself over this mission—I never let it be a load I was carrying. The others all obsessed about it, and one by one they lost their minds. I just… focused on what I could control. I tried to learn about the past. I tried to catalogue what had gone wrong. Thought maybe if I learned about enough of the ancients, maybe one of them would have the key that we were missing. I wasn’t rushing about any more than Harmony does.” He stopped walking, staring down as a huge cask of molten aluminum went pouring into a mold of different parts.

“I don’t care about what I’ve been doing any less. There’s still dozens of ruined civilizations out there. Mine wasn’t the only one. Equus has fifty-eight districts, and most were lived in. All those different ponies and what they did, lost to time. Learning how they lived, who they are… it still excites me. I think I’m going to explore them. The terraforming process will reset all of them, eventually. It’ll erode each district until it’s raw materials and seeded life all over again. If I wait, that history will be destroyed.”

Melody thought about pointing out that Harmony probably kept records of the civilizations that had lived there. With this much computing power, surely there would be no reason to throw anything away. But somehow, she knew that wouldn’t be enough for him. Deadlight’s idea of “known” was stricter. “What about our baby?” She twisted, showing her belly. There was just barely enough of a bulge to be seen, if she showed her body correctly. “Can your adventure wait long enough for that? Can it wait long enough for them to grow up?”

Deadlight hesitated. Again his face became an impenetrable mask. He took a long time to finally answer. “I will not abandon you. Now that Equus is free… if you demand for me to stay with you, I will stay.”

Melody relaxed. She wanted to embrace him—but knew from his expression that it wasn’t the time. He wouldn’t understand just how much that promise meant to her. “I don’t want to cage you up. I…” She sighed. “I had some really shit parents. I was out before I was ten, ward of the state… I don’t want our child to be like that. If I deliver this baby, I’m gonna give them a real parent. I’ll… I’ll give them what I never had. What Lucky got from Lightning Dust.

“But that doesn’t mean we’d have to stay here for a generation, pacing back and forth doing nothing. You could still go on adventures. And when they grew up enough… we could all go.” She looked away, blushing bright red. “I, uh… You wouldn’t have to walk. I bet I could get Forerunner to make you something real fast if you promised to share your data with us. Then you could use all the time you saved to live here with me!”

Deadlight remained silent for a long time, obviously deep in thought. Then he embraced her, squeezing Melody tight. “It’s been a long time since my parents were alive. I’m not sure I’d know how to do their job.”

Melody rested her head against his chest, breathing in deeply. The heady scent of a stallion mixed with the molten metal of the work below. Becoming an Alicorn had not made that smell any less wonderful.

“I don’t even remember mine. But between the two of us… we could try to figure it out? You helped save the whole world, it can’t be that hard.”

Deadlight laughed. “I guess I could try. It’s not like we don’t have time.”

End of Act 3

Author's Note

And now we transition to the Epilogue. I thought about ending the story here, with a few slight modifications. But that felt wrong. This world was too rich to just leave behind after the characters fought so hard to get here.

So I've got an Epilogue planned, which should be less than the length of one of these acts, but not by too much. I'd like to use it to tell a few more, shorter-form stories in this universe, so I can get my fix without the need to a sequel down the road. I suppose you could theoretically be done reading here, if you're not curious about how these societies develop and where these ponies go next.

But I am, and so I'd like to write on a little longer. I hope you'll join me.

Part 2: The Long Con

The woman who was not Sarah Kaplan was not supposed to be here.

She knew that the moment she woke up, with that same sense she always got whenever she was breaking some important rule. It was a sense of energy, of electricity and movement—the adrenaline she might need to escape should her ruse be discovered.

Yet there was nowhere for her to run. She was somewhere closed, with barely enough room for her to twitch. There was slime all around her, constricting her limbs. Was that why her hands felt so numb? And there was something wrong with her back…

Trying to think through her last memories was like remembering a dream three hours after waking up. She’d been somewhere, her biggest ruse yet. She’d… paid off… someone… got someone drunk… why? Why had she been sneaking aboard a Pioneering Society station, of all places?

“Join the Society and live forever. Volunteer your talents for the future of the human race.” She could practically hear the jingle in her ears even now.

They hadn’t wanted her. Sarah wasn’t some brilliant young talent, wasn’t some prodigy or master of her craft. She was a con artist, one of the best—and Earth already had enough of those.

“Please direct your attention upward, Sarah Kaplan,” said a soothing voice in her ear. She blinked, trying to focus strange eyes, following the direction of the noise. There above her was a little screen, set into her plastic prison. It was still dripping with moisture, just like everything else, though at least she didn’t feel like she was swimming.

“Fabrication complete, Sarah. Welcome to Pioneering Society designation Sanctuary. Location: Equus, Tantalum Sector, Milky Way. Before you can be decanted and your duties begin, you must pass a basic neurological exam to ensure fabrication was successful and you will be capable of fulfilling your duties. I am required to inform you that according to Pioneering Society Guidelines Rule 19, paragraph 3-9, you will not be decanted until after this test is complete. If you believe you need more time before the test begins, I can allow you one standard day to wake to full cognizance. Should you fail this test, this instance will be recycled and a new one will be created.”

She shivered in horror, feeling some strange twitching on her back. Nothing felt right—her body was an absolute mess. They took my fucking genetics. What the hell went wrong?

She wasn’t Sarah Kaplan, not really. She was not a member of the Pioneering Society and she knew nothing about how it operated. Yet she could understand “this instance will be recycled.” There was no mistaking what that implied. But I have to become her. That name is my name now. Until I can escape.

“I’m ready for the test!” she croaked, her voice coming out high pitched and squeaky. Why did it sound so weird? She felt around with her tongue, inside a mouth with a few too-sharp canines, but otherwise things seemed more or less the same.

“Very well. Please watch the screen carefully. Follow the instructions, and ask if you require clarification at any time. These exercises are not timed.”

I bet that’s a lie, she thought. I wonder if there’s a gun hidden in here. Or maybe it electrocutes me if I fail. If this test asked her anything about the Pioneering Society, she was fucked.

Fortunately for Sarah, it didn’t. The test was much more basic than that, with simple comprehension questions, memorization, spatial reasoning—all the things a grade schooler would’ve passed getting through their secondary school evals. Had the computer not informed her that she would be killed if she failed, the exam would’ve been effortless. As it was she still hesitated more than once, second-guessing every answer. How many mistakes would she have to make for it to kill her?

More than she ended up making. “Performance is within margin of error,” announced the computer, when the test was complete. “Please prepare to be decanted. Many newly fabricated citizens experience a brief burning sensation as the outside air makes contact with skin and eyes. This discomfort will pass. Before the process is authorized, there is one final question: Do you, Sarah Kaplan, swear to serve and complete your duties as a munitions engineer to the best of your ability? Do you believe you are mentally and physically capable of doing so?”

More death questions, Sarah thought. Probably the Pioneering Society trained its people to know what this meant. Well, Sarah wasn’t stupid. She hadn’t stolen a place in line at Neuroimprint Central Recording by being an idiot. It had taken enormous planning and forethought—paying off the right people, sneaking into the right offices, faking the right records. The fake had to last, it had to survive inspection. If the Pioneering Society found out, they could just delete her from the system.

The fact I’m here to think about it means I succeeded. Well done, past me. You’re a fucking legend. I hope you had an awesome life.

The memories all felt like they belonged to her, but she knew they didn’t really. That had been another person, the person who stepped into the scanner and went on to live the rest of her life. That person, who knew how long dead now, had given her a new lease on life. This new body might still feel like her hands were numb, but she could feel no trace of damage to her left eye, and none of the pain aching in her bones from a cancer that had been slowly killing her.

I bloody did it. “Yes! I can’t wait to be the most awesome munitions engineer there ever was.” Until I can sneak away and you never see me again.

Sarah didn’t give two shits about expanding the horizons of humankind. Humankind owed her, so far as she was concerned. She’d been fucked, and being here was the payback she was due. Her second chance.

“Beginning decanting procedure. I look forward to your upcoming service with the Pioneering Society. There is much to do.”

There was a grinding sound, then something began spraying on her from above. It was water—washing the dried slime from her body. It moved rapidly down her skin, forcing her to confront whole patches of skin that didn’t feel like they belonged. She held out one arm into the spray, and in the glow of the little screen she could make out the unmistakable stump there instead of a hand.

She flexed it, and felt something small and fleshy move slightly on the inside, but that was it. Doesn’t look damaged. The other hand was a similar story, like it had never been there at all. What the hell am I?

She soon got her answer. The drawer opened, dumping her out onto a padded rubber mat with lots of little holes in it. For some time all she did was lie there, unable to fight against the pull of gravity. She flopped about for a little while, trying to rise to her feet—but she didn’t succeed. It was brilliantly bright all around her, much brighter than the Biofab drawer had been. Where was she, anyway?

Sarah looked around, and found she was in a small room, alone except for a mirror, her drawer, and a pile resting on a low shelf. It looked like a folded uniform, with a huge towel resting on top of it. Guess they’re past the point of just one person if they have a whole space set aside for this.

The mirror told her all she needed to know about her appearance. She stared for well over a minute, unwilling to believe what she was looking at. The body there was… wrong. She looked like something that had escaped a petting zoo, or one of those freaks those habitats off Earth could breed for you outside the reach of the Ceres Proclamation. Her eyes were huge, but with slitted pupils that darted nervously about. Her ears twitched and moved above her head.

She was a horse—a horse with too-cute proportions and a blue-gray coat of damp fur. There was even a little mark on her butt, like a brand.

“Engineer,” said a much-more-natural voice, one that might very well be a person instead of a computer. There isn’t a camera in here, is there? I’m fucking naked! “Please feel free to take as much time as you require to adjust to your new body. For your information, you were fabricated along with the entire 75th Ranger Regiment. As you are a civilian contractor and not enlisted, you were put into storage to be decanted last, along with the other civilian contractors.”

“Who are you?” she asked the voice, finding her own still sounded high and squeaky. “My… commander?” That was a military word, wasn’t it? That was the sort of thing that she should have.

“I am not,” answered the voice. “My name is Forerunner—the general intelligence that runs the city of Othar and its future colonies. Should you require anything, Sarah, please feel free to ask.”

“What the hell am I?” Now that she knew she wasn’t a biped, it was a little easier to get up. She just had to pretend she was a kid again, playing on all fours. A little pressure and she could rise up into a standing position, however wobbly. Can’t horses run within a few hours of being born?

“Your biosleeve was based on Alien Lifeform #FF35F, local designation ‘Thestral.’ I assure you, that new body is not as disabled as it appears. The native population is quite proficient with hooves for accomplishing basic tasks, and those wings are not vestigial. With practice, you will be able to fly, along with many other things.”

Sarah stared back at her reflection, trying to move the wings. She could feel the skin, all bunched up and damp with moisture. Somehow, this was her. It would be her until she died. Which will be sooner than I like if Forerunner finds out what I did. She had to be a convincing munitions engineer until she could find a way out.

I can probably just blame anything I don’t know on the fabrication, right? I’ll just pretend I’m freezer burned. That wasn’t the right word—she hadn’t been frozen. But it was the closest one she could think of. “That sounds fun. This planet must be… one of those low-gravity places, then?” She hopped—and found it felt exactly as she remembered. “I guess I’m adapted to it, so I don’t notice.”

“No,” Forerunner responded. “Sanctuary possesses a local subjective gravity of 1.02 standard at sea level. Your method of flight is… well, it would be too much for you to take in with a brain that’s been freshly printed. For now, just understand that we have discovered an incredibly advanced alien civilization, with technology well beyond what you remember. Sanctuary blends technology into its structure so completely that many of the locals take what it can do for them for granted. They describe it as ‘magic’ for simplicity’s sake. A more detailed report can be made available to you once you’re ready to leave the decanting room.”

Sarah wasn’t in much of a rush. She practiced walking in a little circle on the rubber floor, falling over more than once as she adjusted to the strange body. But in here there was no one to laugh at her, so no rush to get it done any quicker. She found she was drying naturally, so much so that by the time she finally picked up the towel, she didn’t have much to do with it. She wanted to brush her frizzy hair, which had fluffed up around her head like a weird lion’s mane, but there were no tools present for that.

Only the uniform, with the name that she had stolen visible on the collar.

As she looked at it, Forerunner’s voice came in from above her again. So you are watching me. Sarah knew very little about Pioneering Society colonies, but she did know that they trusted an AI to run them completely. She would never have privacy from it, until she escaped. “The dress code has been adjusted. The standard class C uniform now includes NOTHING. Class A uniform is unchanged, however. Until your first duty shift, you will only be required to dress in class C or below.

Sarah stiffened. If she’d been drinking something, she probably would’ve spit it out. “Hold on.” She turned, staring up at the part of wall where the speaker was hidden. Maybe the camera was up there too? “You just told me that the uniform is… nothing?” She twisted around to demonstrate for him. “As in, naked?”

“That is correct,” Forerunner answered. “Few members of the ISMU have yet adjusted to this requirement, and wear class C jumpsuits even though they are not required. Notice of order: this requirement applies to native ‘pony’ races only. Human biosleeve and synthsleeve uniform requirements have not been adjusted. But your biosleeve is a ‘pony’, so the new requirements apply to you.”

“But most of the others are still wearing these,” Sarah said, turning back to the uniform and lifting it from the table. The zipper had a huge grip, almost wide enough for her hoof to get around. It was already unzipped, ready for her to struggle into it if she wanted.

I bet this doesn’t feel great on fur, even if it is soft.

But she was about to find out, regardless. As much as there was something secretly appealing about leaving the jumpsuit hidden here—breaking yet another one of society’s unspoken rules—she didn’t want to do anything that would make her stand out. Such things could wait for once she had a good idea of what was outside. Maybe it was the kind of world where she could run away immediately, or maybe she’d be trapped in “Othar” for years. She would have to leave this room to find out.

Sarah found the jumpsuit had obviously been made with ponies in mind. It was incredibly flexible in the places it needed to be, so she could get it on with much less battle than might be expected. There were large spandex holes for her wings, and another one for her tail, which was good since everything she used to cover was all tucked away back there. I guess that means ponies could just wear shorts like guys do, and not have to worry about showing anything off. She wasn’t sure if she liked that.

What kind of colony has a nudist dress code?

“I’m ready,” she finally said, after maybe an hour total in the tiny decanting room. She wore the jumpsuit, which fit her perfectly, even if the name sewn to the collar wasn’t hers. She glanced at it one last time, making sure she had it memorized. Nobody can ever know my real name. Well, nobody here. But there were aliens on this planet, and she bet they’d care a lot less about who she was. Maybe her new start wouldn’t be around humans at all.

The door swung open of its own accord, into a long hallway also lined with rubber mats. There were lots of little doors on either side of the hall, all exactly the same as hers. The ceiling felt like it was at the right height, which probably meant the room was smaller than she was used to. Unless she was wrong about how small she felt.

There was nobody else here, which was a little concerning. Just a few flashing lights leading her eyes towards the open doorway at the end of the hall. Sarah followed the lights fairly slowly, her steps cautious. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself and set off alarm bells about who she was.

How well did they train these people, anyway? Did the Pioneering Society have some kind of secret sauce it used to prepare people for waking up as weird aliens? They couldn’t, could they?

Sarah had no answer to that—and she could probably never ask. Since she should’ve received the training, any questions she asked would only warn those around her that she didn’t know things she should have. I’ve got to get my hands on one of their handbooks. Maybe some hands while I’m at it.

Around the corner was a larger hallway, with more rubber mats along the wall leading to a brightly lit set of doors with unmistakable medical insignia. That would make sense—she would probably want a real person looking at her instead of a computer program. If there had been problems with her fabrication, the earlier she learned about it the better.

Her suspicions about being smaller were confirmed in that hallway, with its roof and doorways towering over her head. At a guess, she supposed she was about three feet tall, and maybe four feet long. She could probably reach the knobs if she really propped herself up to do it.

But she didn’t have to as she approached medical—they swung open for her.

There wasn’t a single human inside. At least the room wasn’t empty, though—there were a dozen drones, vaguely human in shape with wheels or tracks to move around. There were several doctors here, most of which wore adorable little medical coats over jumpsuits like hers. Well, like hers, except most of them had military patches or insignia. The same company patch was prominent on one shoulder, though. These were her people—or the people of the person whose identity she’d stolen.

“Ah, our late bloomer is finally waking up. Can’t wait to check the last box,” someone spoke from behind the desk—a little horse like she was, though her wings were feathery and her hair had been styled and braided. She was cute—for a horse, anyway. “You’re… Sarah Kaplan, yes? Right on time.” She gestured behind her, to one of the little stalls. “Dr. Born will want to see you before anything else… I’d give you to one of ours, but she’s bored out of her mind all the time. Maybe if I give her something to do she’ll complain a little less about being here.”

“Sure,” Sarah muttered, slowing a little as she passed the desk. “Maybe drinks after? What time do you get off?”

“Sorry kid, I think your brain is still frozen. Maybe think about that some and ask me tomorrow.” Though that was a dismissal—Sarah could recognize the tone. She was just trying to be nice about it.

“Yeah.” She could take the hint, looking away awkwardly. “That’s probably it. I think I might be a little frozen still.”

She wandered back into the medical bay, towards the suggested stall. The others were mostly empty—aside from a few minor implantation surgeries. Most of them appeared to be hoof-surgeries, though she didn’t have a stomach for blood and so she didn’t look too closely.

The orderly from up front slipped past her, offering the pony in the back stall a stack of paper with Sarah’s fake name on it. The doctor did look a little grumpy. She also wasn’t wearing unit patches—she was only wearing a plain white dress under a jacket, short and open-backed. Didn’t that mean she wasn’t covering… Sarah felt her ears flattening and a little heat rising to her cheeks. Guess someone was braver than I was.

“You,” the pony muttered, her voice so bored that it strangled anything Sarah might’ve been thinking. “You did so good getting that jumpsuit on. Now get it off, and climb up on the bed.” She stepped out of the stall, moving with one hoof to shut the privacy screen. How she could grab the cord to pull it without any hands on the ends of her limbs, Sarah couldn’t tell.

“Oh, and will you be wanting the implants? Everybody gets them now. Lucky bastards. There’s no justice anymore.”

“What implants?” Sarah stepped inside the stall, one hoof hesitating near the zipper. She didn’t pull it down yet, though. There were people outside, some of them male. The doctor would see her regardless, but she didn’t want them to. “I thought we already had all the implants. Enhanced bodies and shit.”

“You have all the modifications specified in the Pioneering Society Handbook. That doesn’t mean you have all the implants. There are others… more destructive, I guess.” She looked annoyed as she walked into the office after all, tapping the screen a few times. It changed to display a cross-section of someone’s pony leg, with some of the flesh removed. A little claw was hidden inside, which would emerge from three points of the leg and then conceal itself in fake fur when not in use.

Goddamn, what year is it? Fucking space shit right here. “Yes,” Sarah said, without even glancing at the list of warnings. “I’ll take two.”

“Everyone says that,” said the doctor, barely stifling a groan. She slid past Sarah, then shut the screen. “Get naked. I’ll put you in line for surgery once your exam is over.”

Sarah did so, with considerably less enthusiasm than she might’ve normally had for following that instruction. After all the hard work to just get these clothes to go on in the first place… At least the jumpsuit was just one piece. “Ponies” seemed less delicate than humans, in that they didn’t seem to need underwear.

Her exam went exactly as she would’ve expected. Sarah sowed the seeds of her future memory problems by mentioning them during the interview, though not in such a way as would imply that she couldn’t do her job. She made sure Dr. Born put that note in her file, then did her best to excel at everything else. It would be the one dark spot on an otherwise spotless record, instead of the evidence that she should go into a dumpster. But they wouldn’t kill someone once they got out, right? I must get human rights eventually. So she thought, but this was the Pioneering Society. They hadn’t been drowning in controversy for no reason.

She had no idea what to expect from the surgery, beyond what she’d seen with a glance in the other booths. Apparently what to expect was a big plastic thing to stick her legs into, and a small army of human-sized medical drones to do the actual work.

“This procedure is not considered medically necessary,” Dr. Born recited, sounding incredibly bored. As she said it, the little robots rushed around, bringing in fresh plastic crates of the implants and little carts of medicine. “As a result, accepting it will impose a ten-percent modifier on the length of your mandatory service contract. That contract is currently estimated at… five standard years.”

The doctor rolled her eyes at that. “They should really do something about these numbers. Five years made sense for humans, but not for fucking immortals.” She proffered a computation surface, her flat tone returning. “Only sign here if you accept these terms.”

“Uh…” Sarah stared down at her stump of an arm, then just shrugged and pressed it on the touchscreen. “What was that you just said? About… being immortal? We cured aging since they scanned me?”

“I have no idea what we did, since Forerunner isn’t allowed to unpack any of his later updates. But somebody did, and I guess that’s good enough. Congratulations, you’re a prisoner of an alien god. I hope you weren’t suicidal before, that’s all I’m saying. Because it literally will not allow you to die.”

The doctor hesitated before continuing. “Weeeeeeeell, not in the ways that matter. You’re probably thinking something completely different right now. Your body will still die. But your mind is somewhere else.” She pointed at the mark on her flank. “That right there, that’s proof. Harmony has you in its clutches. Still, I guess you got in at the right time, because the rules still say five years.”

She took the computation surface back, then brought over a nitrogen needle. How she held it in a hoof, without any visible implants, was impressive. Like she was clutching it there with an invisible hand.

“See you in a few hours,” she muttered, pressing the needle up against Sarah’s neck. She drifted away into unconsciousness.

Flurry Heart leaned backward, trying to take in the text on the massive surface before her. It was so large, so unimaginably vast, that she pictured it as larger than Equestria itself. Yet it wasn’t—she knew that on an intellectual level. A surface that looked like it went on forever was really only about ten kilometers long and less than half that wide.

Now that she’d clamped on, at least it didn’t feel like she was spinning anymore. “Lucky, where are you?” she called, searching the area behind her with a few sweeping glances. She barely knew how this stupid machine worked—various little gestures would turn on all sorts of things, like a little flame that emerged from one of her legs and didn’t turn off again, tracing a black burned patch along with her as she walked.

A few seconds later and something rested a leg on her shoulder—or that’s what it felt like, anyway. She couldn’t see a face—but that was less disconcerting now that she was used to it. “I found the entry hatch,” Lucky said, gesturing along the massive metal surface back the way they’d come. “It’s this way.”

Flurry Heart turned, following her. “You used the writing, didn’t you?” she asked, a little of her annoyance creeping in. Lucky could cheat in various ways, and the cheatiest of all was being able to read anything they saw.

“Yep,” Lucky answered from up ahead, much more coordinated than Flurry Heart was on two legs. She walked like she’d been born to do it, never wobbling or looking like she was about to slam into the deck. “There’s a ship designation on the side here. I know this thing was called the N.E.S. Agamemnon.”

“Doesn’t seem like much of a ship,” Flurry Heart muttered, as they came up to the entrance. She had to fight the disorientation as, from Flurry’s perspective, they walked up over the edge of a ramp, and the direction of down changed. Yet there was also a force pulling her backward, like it was trying to send her flying off into space. Fortunately for her, her hooves were firmly attached, so that didn’t happen.

Didn’t happen until they walked all the way up and around the ramp there, and the direction of “down” lined up with the force pushing on her.

At least these weird bodies never ran out of strength, or got tired. She wasn’t sure she could’ve managed it as a pony.

But then again, even after all this time, Flurry Heart couldn’t manage much as herself. Too many memories. “It’s open to space. I’ve seen what that does.”

Death with absolute certainty was what it did. At least—for all the species that lived in Equestria. There were probably bodies that could live out here. If machines could do it, then…

“I think it might’ve been able to close… or maybe there was an energy shield to hold the air in,” Lucky said from up ahead. Despite how tall Flurry Heart expected to be walking on two legs, the hallway was at just the right height, with a sealed door and a dark control panel beside her.

Lucky leaned over, taking one of her upper legs with her own and using the spindly “hands” on the end to touch something. The fire stopped. “We might need that blowtorch later,” she said, though not as peremptorily as she could’ve. Lucky didn’t mind Flurry taking longer for things like this. Or anything, really.

She was the best friend a pony could hope for.

“I don’t recognize this interface…” she said, pulling off a little panel near the door and letting it clatter to the ground beside them. “But… yeah, there’s a manual override. Says right here.” She reached in, and started twisting a valve on the inside.

Without magic, these hand things are pretty useful. It was too bad the only way to copy them back on Equus was surgery—sometimes it was nice not to worry about trying or concentration when she just wanted to do something simple like turn the pages of a book.

The door inched upward as Lucky spun, until it was about half as high as they were. But Flurry Heart could already feel some of her hope leaking away—there was no atmosphere emerging from within, no blast of air buffeting them. Harmony was probably right about this one too.

Not giving up. Who knows what might be in here? A light attached to Lucky’s shoulder switched on, shining into the dark interior of the huge, multi-segmented ship. Lucky waited for her to go in first, then followed close behind. “If you were a survivor, where would you be?”

“I would… have put where I was going in my computer,” Lucky responded.

There was no computer obvious through the doorway, though there were plenty of other things. They looked like little suits, about the same size they were. Most of them were missing, though one or two still hung on racks near the wall. There was much debris scattered around the room—bits of bent metal and tools and little things that might’ve been computation surfaces.

None of it looked quite like what Lucky and her kind used in Othar, but it was similar. Like something made by their cousins, maybe. Or maybe their children.

“At least there aren’t any bodies,” Lucky mused, turning over one of the fallen suits. There was no corpse inside, nothing except a few dangling wires. “I wonder how long this thing has been floating here.”

“Over a hundred thousand years,” Harmony answered over the radio, its voice clear despite the intervening distance. Indeed, even if they’d still been outside, Flurry Heart knew she wouldn’t have been able to look behind her and see Equus. Their star was barely visible—the habitat itself was quickly lost against it, even with mechanical eyes. “But that makes little difference in the void. Much decay relies on the presence of an atmosphere, or at least damaging radiation. Protected by the body of the cylinder itself, the Agamemnon has remained largely unchanged since the survivors evacuated. I could give you more—”

“NO!” Flurry Heart screamed. Her voice didn’t echo—there was no atmosphere aboard, no sound at all really. That was an illusion of perception. But it still felt like screaming, so that much was real. “No no no! Shut up!” She stomped one hoof, and suddenly she was back in her body.

There was a slight mechanical hiss as the connection to her implant was severed, and a transparent cable clattered against her seat. The restraints holding her—preventing her body from doing anything while her mind was elsewhere—released her, and she went stumbling back from the controls.

The drone interface room had four such chairs, built less than a week ago. No one had used it more than Flurry Heart, even if she hadn’t learned it as fast as the others.

A few seconds later, and Lucky Break shook free of her restraints, letting the cable detach from the back of her neck. Somewhere more than a million kilometers away, the metal bodies they’d been using would have folded up for storage, still attached to the ground with their magnets but no longer moving.

It didn’t matter. Flurry Heart had gotten plenty of them completely destroyed. Harmony didn’t seem to care, and neither did Forerunner. They weren’t people, they were toys. Toys they could use to visit dangerous places.

“It’s okay,” Lucky muttered from beside her. She was shorter than Flurry Heart was, clumsier, and still next to useless with her magic despite having had her horn for over a year. Even so, Flurry Heart was the one who felt inadequate. Here she stood, beside the pony who had saved the world. A princess in her own right, and what was she? She hadn’t saved anything—she’d been born this way. Her very birth had even put the Crystal Empire in danger, years ago.

“Hey.” Lucky met her eyes, suddenly glaring. “You’re doing it again, Flurry. Take some deep breaths, and relax. We don’t have to keep doing this.”

“I want to keep doing this,” she argued, slumping onto her haunches and glaring at the chair. “I know I’m useless… I know this is slower because of me… but we have to keep looking. We have to know.”

“The location of those survivors is known,” said Harmony’s voice around them. Harmony—the eyes that always watched. Not to destroy, as Celestia had forced her to see, but not quite to protect, either. Flurry Heart imagined that Harmony was still waiting to destroy Equestria, if only they stepped out of line. Knowing her, she would probably be the one to do it.

She hadn’t yet, though. And nopony else seemed worried about it anymore. Harmony denied it, promising that it would only interfere if ponies tried to damage the ring or escape it. But why should she believe it? How did she know it wasn’t lying to her right now?

At least she could trust a few things. She could trust Lucky, and she could trust the machine called Forerunner. That was something to cling to.

“I don’t think that’s the point,” Lucky answered, addressing Harmony without looking in any particular direction. “We know you know everything. But discovering for ourselves is important too. If we wanted you to just teach us everything instantly, we would’ve asked.”

“It would make this easier,” Harmony said. Its voice sounded annoyed, though it had not bothered sending them a body, which always made Flurry Heart feel a little uncomfortable. But magic was magic, even if Harmony was really some kind of machine. A machine she lived on, along with everypony else she’d ever known, and everything they’d ever made. Existence was dust. “We predict it is inevitable that all individuals will eventually reach a point of maximum complexity and converge as a unilateral intelligence. At this point, we will exploit the physical universe with maximum efficiency. Your delay only prolongs the inevitable.”

Lucky stepped in front of Flurry, one wing still protectively over her. It felt like the sort of thing a friend should do. “Maybe. We still don’t want to. You can waste your time trying to convince someone else.”

And so it did. There was no sound, but Flurry Heart could tell when it had gone. The magic burning in the room like an invisible fog was suddenly clear, and the threat faded into the background.

But it’s still there, waiting to kill us. Waiting for me to make the mistake that dooms everyone.

Still, Flurry Heart felt herself relaxing as the presence of Harmony retreated. It was always watching while they controlled the drones, as though it were afraid that they would decide to fly away and never come back. But once they finished, it left them alone.

“I didn’t pick this one because I thought it was gonna have survivors, anyway,” Lucky muttered, moving a little closer and lowering her voice to a whisper. “I’m sure Harmony would’ve helped them all move down here a long time ago. For all we know, you might be one of them.”

That wasn’t what she needed to hear right now. Her ears flattened, and she looked away. “I dunno…”

Lucky either couldn’t tell, or purposefully ignored her discomfort. “Forerunner says this O’Neill Cylinder is structurally intact. Everything that could fail probably has, and we might have to gut the whole thing… but most of the raw materials would be on board. Forerunner says he could probably use the material from the three arms to get one of them habitable again.”

Flurry rose to her hooves, still feeling confused. Her friend was racing away down one of her strange avenues of thought, barely within reach. It was times like this that made her feel stupid.

At least her friend realized this time, because she slowed down. “Harmony’s contract with Othar doesn’t say we can’t leave the ring; it says we can’t leave the system.” She pointed up into the air, grinning. “We could live somewhere without Harmony breathing down our necks all the time. Or… at least, not as much as it does now.”

“Oh.” Flurry Heart didn’t much care where she lived, so long as it wasn’t in the Crystal Empire. And so long as Lucky was there.

That was important too.

Part 2: Invariant Conditions

“Now you’re interesting…” Sarah heard the voice in the void of unconsciousness. The sound of it brought ripples, like the echolocation of a dolphin, illuminating somewhere familiar to her mind more than her eyes. It was the shape of an alley, with an overturned dumpster and a huddle of dirty figures.

Somehow she recognized them, even though she was in total darkness. The scrawniest, most pathetic of those children, huddled in back. At least it didn’t get cold enough for freezing, because she certainly would’ve frozen here.

“Where am I?” Sarah demanded of the voice, her own voice stretching higher and higher as she did. It wasn’t the voice of her human self at all, but the alien creature she’d become. There was a great deal of squeakiness to it—she could even hear the little distortion of her fangs.

“Somewhere you weren’t supposed to go.” The voice came from everywhere. It was male, distorted by great distance, but still it seemed deeply amused. “It’s quite an accomplishment on your part, friend. Or rather, it was quite the accomplishment of your long-dead counterpart, God rest her soul. Welcome to Equus.”

As he spoke, the scene of her ancient childhood vanished, replaced by something else. They were still in total darkness, yet Sarah could feel herself moving through it, gliding slowly. This was the Imprinting Station, tucked away in low orbit of Earth. Getting here had been the greatest scam she’d ever managed to pull.

She could feel the thin metal walls separating her from the void, the dense line of bodies waiting for their turn in the scanner. The pleasant conversation coming from the next room over from the ones who had already been scanned. This was the last place she remembered—the horizon of her memory. It was the edge of the map, a tumbling void from beyond which there was no return.

She wore another woman’s uniform as she waited in that line, doing her best impression of a hangover to excuse her inability to hold polite conversation with the others there. I was doing Sarah a favor. She didn’t want to do this anyway. Her religion didn’t like imprinting.

To her horror, the voice seemed able to hear her thoughts. “Perhaps she thought so at the time, perhaps you did. Regardless, those people are rotten now. That you, the real Sarah. Now you’re on Equus, here to do a job you don’t understand, on a place you don’t want to be. It’s quite peculiar.”

“Not true,” Sarah argued, not even bothering to try and hide her thoughts. If this strange voice was just going to look into her skull anyway, there wasn’t really much point trying to keep it private. “I wanted a fresh start. My life on Earth was shit. I never would’ve qualified to come here. But I found a way. I’ll… do my best with whatever job they’ve given me. I can pick it up.”

The voice laughed. “You want a new start, how lovely. I wonder if you’d feel trapped here—do you have to take only the opportunities given to you by Othar? Its ruler is one of mine, and she means well enough… but she’s too slow. I’d like something a bit more grassroots.”

The invisible scenery shifted again. Sarah tumbled face first onto dark rock, almost smacking into a wall. She could feel it as though she were really here, though of course she wasn’t. The echo painted a picture in her mind of a massive cavern with dripping wet walls. Far in the distance was an opening in the cave, surrounded by objects she almost couldn’t believe upon first considering them.

It was a gruesome display—pikes and spears and other weapons, with corpses impaled upon them. Sarah found herself grateful that there was no light here, because otherwise she might’ve had to see the terrible state of those bodies.

There was someone here with her. A figure more than twice her height, its body confusing her mind as much as the entrance in the distance disgusted her. Different types of skin, a strange array of limbs—nothing on this creature seemed consistent. “How about we make ourselves a deal?” He stuck out a claw towards her, grinning.

“How about you tell me where this is.” She didn’t move to take it, though she didn’t step away either.

“We’re Upstream. I guess you’d consider it a… nonphysical space. I’m borrowing your mind while your body is drugged for surgery. Don’t worry, no one will notice.”

That doctor said something about this. Our minds were in the system. Guess she was right.

“She was,” said the stranger. “But forget about the specifics, and focus on this. You know that you face dire consequences if you’re discovered. Don’t worry… I’m not going to tell. I’ve got a soft spot for ponies with a little daring. It’s just… I think you’re living below your station. I think you could be doing more than just… pretending.” He walked slowly around her, circling in the massive cavern. Every time his claws scraped against the floor, or either of them spoke, Sarah got a view of the world around them, almost as clear as if she could see it.

The more she listened, the more she realized that some sounds were better at revealing it to her than others. Some only traveled a few feet, and others went all the way to that awful effigy near the wall. “If you’re going to ask me to sell out the city… Othar, I won’t. I might not belong, and maybe they’d throw me out on my ass. But that doesn’t mean I’d be willing to do the same to them. This space shit is important, I’m not going to ruin it.”

“Well, ‘Sarah’, I’m offended.” The alien put one of its strange paws on its chest, glaring down at her. “You think I’d ask you to betray your new friends? Far from it. I want you to help their cause. Just… more directly than they are. My servant Lucky Break is not half as daring or half as clever as I need her to be. She’s so worried about the Alicorn that Celestia damaged that she can’t see the long-term. We’re going to help her, you and me. We’re going to do what she refuses to do. Push the brave cause of exploration forward, so to speak.”

He reached down, resting one strange claw on Sarah’s shoulder. His grip was vice-like, and he yanked. She stumbled forward a few steps, and suddenly she was standing right before the terrible entrance to deeper caverns. She could smell something coming from that shaft, something even stranger than what her own imagination could conjure. “There are other perks. Forget having to pretend you’re something you’re not. Forget having to get shipped off to war. You know that’s where the army is going, don’t you? Fighting slavers. Pitiful, irrelevant slavers. The real wealth is down here, underground. A full half the minds that swam downstream ended up in the depths. This is where we make Othar a power to be reckoned with.”

“I don’t understand almost any of the words you’re using,” Sarah muttered. “I don’t know why we would be…” She trailed off, shaking her head. This creature knew what she was, and it could reveal her if it wanted. But it claimed she would be helping Othar. “Explain what you want me to do, uh… whoever you are.”

“Discord,” said the voice. “You can call me Discord. And I will call you a friend. Assuming you can do as you’re told.” The world blurred around them, and Sarah was suddenly standing in medical. This time the image wasn’t dredged up from some ancient memory, it was captured in perfect fidelity. She could feel herself lying unconscious in a cot, tucked away in one of the “recovery tubes” near the back of the room. She would probably be kept here for some time, maybe days.

Sarah didn’t understand the “whys” of modern medical science, but she knew some of the hows. Reconstructive cellular therapy could accelerate healing by an order of magnitude, but the drugs were seriously psychoactive. Keep a person out for while they healed, and they could wake up after a few days of sleep with months of recovery under their belt.

One of the little medical orderlies broke away from its resting place, advancing on Sarah’s stall. It moved no different than Sarah had ever seen these act. “Are you going to threaten me? While I’m… unconscious?”

“No,” Discord said. “Hurting or killing you would be a terrible waste. I will not even pretend to do something like that. I’m just borrowing a little hardware.” As he said it, another orderly emerged from the other side of the room, pushing a container meant for transporting these pods. The ponies in the room didn’t even seem to see the robot. Which made sense. Drones existed by the thousand in every city, quietly doing their appointed task. They might as well be invisible to most people.

“You made me blind,” Sarah argued, getting out of the robot’s way even though she doubted she could interact with it here. This was… some kind of vision. It wasn’t real. “Isn’t that hurting me?”

“No.” Discord grinned at her. “I restricted your senses temporarily because there’s almost no light where you’re going. The ones you’ll be visiting live in perpetual darkness. In a way, thestral echolocation will make you a terrible power to be reckoned with. But we have to do something about your smell, or the changelings are going to tear you apart. So it’s back into surgery for you.” He leaned in close, so close she could feel the warmth on her ear. “Don’t worry, that adorable little program you call an AI isn’t going to notice me here. Not until it’s already much too late.”

No one was questioning the drones as they pushed Sarah back towards surgery. There were no alarms either, as she would’ve expected when an AI discovered its machinery was malfunctioning. “Tell me what you want me to do,” Sarah said. “I haven’t agreed to help you.” But she couldn’t hide her interest from this creature. Maybe that was how Discord knew what to offer her. Something she could do to escape captivity, without putting the Pioneering Society’s colony in danger. Something productive, something that would take her on an adventure, something that would let her see strange and exotic places.

So what if she wouldn’t be able to see them with her eyes? This was space travel, after all. And time travel, since in a way she had “traveled” to the future. Escaped her own death. “Oh, and… am I really immortal? If I die doing this…” If she did, that would be a terrible waste of her predecessor’s hard work.

“Immortal? As immortal as the rest of us,” Discord said, shrugging one shoulder. “So long as Equus survives, so do we. That survival might not always be in the form you expect, but it’s the preservation of consciousness and really, isn’t that enough?”

Her cell wheeled through into the automated surgical theater. Another android arrived, carrying a plastic box filled with chilled biosamples. Whatever they were putting in her was alive this time, not simple circuits. “I don’t want surgery if I’m not going to…”

Discord laughed. “What makes you think I care what you want? Though… I would understand if you looked away. I wouldn’t want to watch myself get cut open either, even if I knew I wouldn’t feel it when I woke up. And you will feel it.”

Sarah did look away, though she could hear one of the little biocutters spin up. The high-pitched squeaking lit the entire cubical almost as though her sight had returned. She could see it lifting her tail out of the way, tying it back so it wouldn’t interfere. The drone appeared to be about to cut into the flesh that the tail came from, a part of the body she couldn’t easily name on humans.

“Here is what happens next, imposter Sarah Kaplan. First, you receive this surgery with a few scent-glands. Congratulations, you’re already well on your way. A few days from now, you’re going to wake up. You play along with the tin soldiers until you get your first day off.” The room blurred around them, and suddenly they were floating above a gigantic map. A map of an island, with a huge volcanic caldera in the center and little buildings on the coast. “You will walk here.” The creature pointed to a huge crack running down the side of the volcano, which would prevent most of her climbing. “You’ll know it’s the right way, because you’ll find a care-package of gear I’ve stolen for you. You take it, go as deep as you can. The passkey I’m implanting in your tail will open a concealed superstructure access.”

“Okay…” Sarah stared at the map, taking in its details as best she could. Sarah had a pretty sharp memory, and had become extremely skilled at flash-memorization. It was a useful skill to have when you were a scammer, and needed to remember any minor details about your mark that they might unwillingly provide. “Then what?”

“Then you follow your nose,” Discord proclaimed. “And you don’t get killed. The changelings have a new king, but all is not well in the Prismatic Court. They are on the edge of their own civil war. And if that happens, well… they’d probably be born as ponies next. That’s exactly what we don’t want.”

“Are you ever going to explain what any of those proper nouns mean?”

“Nope!” Discord grinned at her, so wide she could hear it in his voice. “You’ll work it out. And once you do, you tell them about Othar. Let them know there’s a new faction in town with an eye for the stars and no history of war with changelings. I’m sure your little Forerunner will have tracked you down by then… I’ll nudge him along if he’s behind. You can coordinate with Lucky Break if you need advice. Just don’t let them talk you into coming home. This isn’t an opportunity I would give to just anyone.” He leaned close to her again, so close she could hear the reflection of his many sharp teeth.

“Don’t disappoint me, ‘Sarah’. I’m the kind of friend you want—I’m the kind of friend who can make things happen regardless of whether you’re alive or dead. Being my friend could make the difference between whether your next life is on some comfortable O'Neill Cylinder, or cramped in the lightless depths of Equus’s superstructure. Don’t think I can’t weasel things around Harmony—I can. And I will.”

Sarah wanted to respond, but she didn’t get the chance. The vision melted around her, map crumbling to dust and blowing away, and Sarah herself was dumped mercilessly back into oblivion.

Sarah woke earlier than she should’ve. The mind returned only sluggishly when pulled from the sort of cocktails that had kept her under, and lingering residue of madness lurked beneath. She could feel her face against cold cement, and the wind stinking of marijuana and exhaust that had kept her up most of the night. She’d been beaten again—but she had gotten away. She always got away.

But that dream melted into something stranger, a dream of a lightless void, of senses beyond sight, and a creature assembled from the castoffs of corpses, choosing her. A spirit of madness had appeared to her, and given her a way out. Escape from the captivity of Pioneering Society service, if only she would perform a service for it first.

It had to be another dream, right? But as she stirred, she could still feel painful aches in both forelegs, throbbing along with her heartbeat. Her tail hurt even more—that operation had been more recent. And she hadn’t been slated for any implants there. What was worse, it looked like most of her tail had been trimmed back. There was barely enough fur left to cover her flesh, and it looked like it was only what had grown in since the operation. Guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. Lots of operations need you to lose your hair.

Of course, far more relevant to her than the simple fact she had lost her hair—the creature had been real. Discord would help her escape. He’d even given her a plan. The pain just above her rear was all the proof she needed that it hadn’t been an artifact of her imagination.

It wasn’t. A voice came into her mind, distant but still clear. Like an echo from far away. And I’ll be watching. Don’t make me choose someone else.

Sarah rolled over, facing the opening of her little bunk and feeling her ears twitching as she moved. A monitor was beeping in tune to her heartbeat overhead, steady and painfully high-pitched. She was resting in one of the recovery rooms, a tiny square of space with this bed, a hanging uniform, and a tiny shower by the wall. There was no one else with her.

She tensed suddenly, blinking her eyes open. Sarah had been “seeing” the room all around her without her eyes. It was exactly like in the dream, except perhaps not as vivid. The monitor overhead was more annoying in its frequency than it was helpful, so it didn’t show her quite as much as Discord’s voice had done. He was probably doing it on purpose. Teaching me to see this way so I could do his mission for him.

Strangely, Sarah found she wasn’t terribly bothered by the idea of going somewhere that was completely dark. She had expected to visit strange and alien worlds. Being in a new body was part of that, but this perfect little cookie-cutter of a city was a buzzkill in that department.

“Miss Kaplan, please prepare yourself for duty,” said a voice from the single screen. Not a computer voice this time, but someone who sounded like a soldier. “A minor technical glitch extended your time in recovery longer than you were scheduled. As it wasn’t your fault, you won’t be held delinquent. But we need you prepping munitions in garage two. Ask Forerunner if you need directions.”

“Sure thing, uh… I don’t recognize your new voice. I assume you must be…”

“Bianchi,” said the voice. “It’s alright, we’re all dealing with shit like that. You’ll figure it out. Just get your hooves under you and get here ASAP.”

Sarah’s eyes were still adjusting to the bright light. She finally caught a brief glimpse of “Transmission ended” before the screen went dark again. I guess this superpower has some limits. Screens and paper will just be blank to me. These changelings must use braille or something to record messages.

But if Discord was still watching her, he didn’t speak up with his helpful little voice.

Sarah took a brief shower in the offered stall, taking it gentle with her hooves and tail. She could see the faint marks on both forelegs that corresponded to the new implants, but hadn’t figured out how to trigger them yet. Was it a thought, a movement… what did she have to do? There was no one to ask. But she didn’t really need them to take a shower, or to get her uniform on.

I have to play pretend until they give me some time off, she remembered. Just act normal until then. And she would keep looking for alternate plans of escape. From what little she’d learned since waking up, this planet had its own civilization. Maybe she could steal herself a few dictionaries and escape to it. She’d taught herself Spanish in a few weeks—enough to get by. Alien couldn’t be much harder, could it?

This time she did hear the voice again, albeit even more distantly than before. As though the one it belonged to was distracted. You won’t have to learn any new languages if you do what you’re told. I’ve already taught you how to communicate with changelings. You have an encyclopedic knowledge of their scents. You know all their passwords, and their keys. You could be a queen if you wanted. Assuming you were one of them. I don’t recommend it.

So he was listening. He’d remained quiet about her prospective mutiny. Of course I did. I know you won’t be able to resist it. It’s either me or Munitions Supervisor for an invasion. I know which one you want.

And then the voice was gone again.

Sarah didn’t reply out loud—Forerunner would be watching, and anyway she wouldn’t have had anything to say to Discord even if she could talk. He didn’t seem like the sort of person to try and mask obvious lies. If he didn’t think she would have other opportunities for escape, then she probably didn’t.

A few minutes later and she stepped out into another hallway, not all that different from the place she’d awoken her first time. The floor under her hooves was soft, the ceiling was at a comfortable height, instead of towering high above as it had in the medical bay. “Excuse me,” she said to the wall. There was no one around to make that feel awkward. “Forerunner, can you help me?”

“Certainly,” answered a voice from a speaker not far away, almost instantly. There were no screens here, though she understood most AIs lacked avatars. It made them feel more like machines, and less like rivals you needed to be afraid of. “What help do you need?”

“My duty station,” Sarah answered. “I don’t know the layout of this place.”

“Othar habitation corresponds to standard military installation layout C,” Forerunner said. “You are in outpatient. I-45 is the large hallway you are presently facing.”

Dammit. That was probably enough information for one of the pioneering society’s own drones, but Sarah hadn’t spent half her life memorizing any of it. She didn’t even know how to do her job. “I, uh… my memory is real fuzzy, Forerunner. I think I’m still feeling the after-effects of the fabrication.”

“The error rate on your brain was less than a tenth of a percent,” Forerunner said. “You must be remarkably unlucky if what you lost corresponds to mission-critical information. Very well… I will direct you.” A little glowing line appeared on the wall, flashing slowly green in the direction it apparently wanted her to go. “Do you still think you’re capable of performing your duties?”

“Yeah!” Sarah answered, without hesitation. “I mean, I know why I’m here. I want to help. I just might need a little refresher.”

“Very well,” Forerunner said. “But I will monitor your performance. If there is serious degradation, there are steps we could take to attempt repairs.”

“Th-that won’t be necessary!” Sarah squeaked, as they emerged into the large hallway. “I don’t want anyone going back into my head. Once is enough.”

The I-45 was obviously the central artery of the base—there was a set of recessed tracks in the very center, and drones rolled up and down it carrying boxes of cargo. Ponies moved in both directions along the tracks. A few of them glanced briefly at Sarah as she emerged into the hallway, but none more than a few seconds. Her light-blue body with bat wings and huge ears didn’t stand out here as much as she would’ve suspected.

The Forerunner didn’t respond further, though the green line did move to the wall just ahead of her, directing her through dense traffic. Sarah obeyed its instructions and tried not to fall over while she walked, which was honestly hard enough by itself.

She wanted to ask it how the implants worked. From what Dr. Born had said in medical, she could use them almost as well as hands. Fine motor control like that had to require something in her head too, right?

She could’ve just asked right there, but it would’ve worked against all her instincts. Don’t stand out. Don’t make them look at you. You’re just another technician. Just another loyal tin soldier.

She made it to an elevator, and one of the buttons lit up for her. She touched it, and began to rise. At least for a second, before it jerked to an abrupt halt. The door opened again, and another pony entered. Sarah looked briefly up, and saw a soft pink pony that was shorter than she was, though she also had a protrusion of bone emerging painfully from her forehead.

Someone was chasing her from down the hall. There were several older looking males in bright silver… armor? Did Othar have its own renaissance faire?

“Please,” said the pony, expression pleading and desperate as she met Sarah’s eyes. “Get us out of here.”

She’d been controlling her wings so well before. Why were they doing that? “S-sure,” Sarah squeaked, smacking the “door close” button as hard as she could. The elevator shut again.

The pony made her way over, apparently watching Sarah with fascination. She scanned her uniform, sniffing the air curiously. Like she’d noticed something unpleasant, but wasn’t quite brave enough to say. She was also completely naked; the first pony Sarah had seen who had been. “Can you, uh…” She blushed, wings fluffing briefly on her shoulders. The gesture probably meant something, but Sarah didn’t know how to read it. She could understand so very little about these alien bodies. “Ever tried to get away from something you didn’t want to do?” asked the pony, pawing at the ground.

“Yeah,” Sarah answered. “More times than I can count.”

The younger pony’s eyes widened. “Your Eoch is really good! Almost as good as Lucky’s! Are you one of her students? She hasn’t… nevermind.” She glanced nervously at the door, then back to Sarah. “I don’t want those guys to find me. You live here, right? Where can we hide?”

Sarah didn’t have a clue, and she opened her mouth to say so. But the elevator screen had flashed in front of her for a few seconds when she chose her floor. That meant she’d seen all of them. And probably Sarah would have access to more places than those weird silver guys. She lifted her hoof again, cancelling the previous order, and tapping “Mineral Extraction,” the lowest floor. Probably most of it wasn’t even accessible to crew. Those parts that were would be dirty, loud, and unpleasant. “What are you hiding from, beautiful?”

The pony’s tail tucked between her legs, and she shuffled nervously away from her. “M-my name is Flurry Heart, actually.”

“Alright, Flurry Heart.” Sarah kept one hoof up, ready to cancel any orders summoning the car if they came. None did. The Forerunner hadn’t protested yet, or tried to get her back on-course. This is stupid. I’m trying not to make myself obvious. They’re expecting me to help load bullets or something. But that sounded like a job better suited for drones. And anyway, this alien was the prettiest one she’d seen so far. And also wasn’t leaving anything to the imagination.

I should be disgusted, shouldn’t I? Those aren’t human parts! But then, Sarah didn’t have human parts either. She didn’t have a human brain, even.

Maybe other people would agonize over this, and keep themselves celibate and bored for years. It was time to skip right to the excitement.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” said the pony. She still sounded nervous—actually, everything she’d done was nervous. She sounded a lot like the girls Sarah had met on the street with her. Life beat people down—eventually they gave up.

The pony named Flurry Heart. What did that mean? Sarah hadn’t met that many since she had woken up, but all of them had normal names. All of them except Discord’s dream, and the one she said was in charge of Othar. Someone named Lucky Break. This Flurry person had mentioned her too.

“I’m Sarah Kaplan,” she said, though for a split second she almost made the mistake of her real name. “But you can call me Sarah if you want. Shorter.”

“Sar-ah,” Flurry Heart muttered, with obvious difficulty. The elevator had been going down for some time now—longer than Sarah might’ve expected it could. Just how deep was this base? “So I guess you aren’t from Equestria then. Your accent… it sounds like you’re from the Empire. I guess you’re a linguist too.”

“I’m… a munitions engineer,” Sarah said. “But I’m pretty good with words too I guess.” Not this good, though. She thinks I’m not speaking English. Aren’t I? Modifying the primitive sections of a brain so that she thought aliens were sexy was one thing. That made enough sense that she’d been afraid that this process would make her into guys. Apparently not—but would she have known if she was speaking another language? Maybe in the time she’d been just bits and bytes in a computer somewhere the brainiacs had cracked the neurological code at last.

But shouldn’t they know I’m a fraud? If they can just open me up and look at everything inside.

She heard the voice again, so far gone that it almost sounded like one of her own thoughts. Except that what it was saying was obviously no idea of hers.

Forerunner can’t, I can. And I have… less than you think. You aren’t the first pony in this base borrowing Equus’s language processing centers. I can’t afford to waste the time to teach you the old-fashioned way. The civil war might have got itself well and truly started by then.

Sarah tried not to react, she really did. At least Flurry Heart was still talking.

“You humans are all so smart,” Flurry Heart said. “Not that I see very many on my floor. But whenever I sneak away, I find you off doing… whatever the hay munitions engineering is.”

“I’m sure we’re not that smart,” Sarah said, grinning at the pony. “I’ve met some really stupid people, if that helps you. I’ve met people who were so dumb I thought they were part of the scenery. You think it’s awkward to walk in on two people being intimate? Try talking to someone like they’re animatronics and see how that goes.”

The pony didn’t laugh—her ears flattened, and her tail tucked a little more. Apparently that wasn’t the sort of reassurance the bright pink pony needed.

“Well, cheer up,” Sarah said, nudging her gently with her side. She didn’t dare try more—between this pony knowing Othar’s director and her clearly being a native alien, she couldn’t be sure of what their standards would be on physical contact. Apparently what she’d done was safe, because Flurry didn’t react much. “We’re going to the worst part of the whole base! Whatever you’re hiding from, I’m sure those losers won’t find you down here. It’s all power drills and mining bots.”

Almost on cue, the door slid open. An ear-splitting thump shot through the space outside, reverberating through the rock and into their hooves and bodies. Sarah’s ears flattened to block it out, however well that worked. The space wasn’t finished only a few steps outside the elevator—the modular lift was set into bare rock with huge steel bolts, red rust lines trailing away from them onto the stone.

She didn’t see anyone here, just like she’d thought. Only a huge conveyor, leading to various crushers and sorters. The only “people” here were drones, most human sized or larger. The ones designed to operate machines that humans could use.

“You’re right.” Flurry Heart grinned slightly, stepping out of the lift after her. The artificial cave was entirely regular in shape, ripped from the ground here by some tunnel-builder bot. There was suddenly a rock floor under their hooves, with painful chips and bits of gravel scattered about. “This is awful. Nothing like Ponyville caverns at all.”

“That’s because it’s a mine!” Sarah felt like she was shouting, but she didn’t try lowering her volume. “All that stuff up there has to be made somehow! Maybe we can find somewhere further away…” There were piles of equipment not far from the elevator. Inspector’s helmets with headlamps and holes cut for ears. There were lots of other things, but Sarah didn’t know what much of them were, let alone how they worked. She tossed a helmet to Flurry, slipping one on herself. The light switched on of its own accord, brilliant enough to illuminate the gloom just beyond the conveyor.

Many identical shafts, held up with little arches of composite foam every ten meters or so. “Here!” She gestured towards the far end, furthest from the echoing sound of the impact drill.

Flurry Heart followed her, apparently as relieved to get away from the noise as she was. “How do you stand it down here?”

“I… don’t,” Sarah admitted. “But you didn’t give me much time to plan an escape route. With someone like you…” She glanced back, but felt her cheeks getting warmer and immediately looked away again. “Maybe a tropical beach. Some margaritas. There’d be a band somewhere nearby playing some steel drums. Bikinis. Maybe parasailing. Ever been parasailing?”

“Sorry,” the pony muttered, bashful. “I don’t know what that is. We must not have that in Equestria.” She seemed to have recognized some of the other things Sarah said, though her face was so pained and frustrated it was hard to tell which.

At least as they got further away it wasn’t so loud. The square passages were unlit, but they looked safe. There were no collapsed sections or rubble anywhere, just arches made of hardened foam. A little lip of rock seemed to stick out from behind each one, but Sarah neither knew nor cared why that might be.

“Well, what are you running from?” she asked, once it was quiet enough that they could talk without screaming. Her ears relaxed, though she found it was hard for her mind to do likewise. She could still hear the drilling, and still “see” many identical corridors, as though each blast of the drill flashed a light so bright it shone through them all. She could feel which ones had mining equipment in them, and which ended in blank stone walls. “Those silver guys… are you a criminal?”

The pony seemed mildly interested in the cut stone walls. The drills had revealed glittering strata of various minerals, which reflected the light of their headlamps in little rainbows.

“Criminal?” Flurry seemed to tense at the question, but it wasn’t guilt on her face exactly. Pain, more like.

You did something all right. Maybe by accident. Sarah had seen that look before.

“Not right now,” Flurry eventually said. “I just… don’t want to see my parents. The house guard are going to take me back for the solstice. I’d rather… I’d rather not go.” She slumped to the ground, smacking the rock floor with one hoof. Instead of looking pained at the gesture and nothing more, the ground actually did crack where she hit it, with a resounding thump.

“Oh.” Sarah sat down across from her, trying to imitate the way she sat. It wasn’t easy—her body moved that way fine, but her mind didn’t think it should. Not to mention being this close to Flurry was a little distracting. I need to adjust my thinking. I’m too old for college girls. Except that she wasn’t too old anymore. What age even was she? “Well, I wish I had some good advice. My parents were pretty shit, so I didn’t really keep them in my life that long. But most people… it doesn’t seem that way. Feels like their parents at least mean well.”

“Oh, mine mean well.” Flurry Heart looked up, nostrils flaring and ears rising sharply on her head. “Last time I went back it was the same way. They’re trying to capture me again, back in the Crystal Empire. Back where they can control me.”

Who are you? Sarah studied the stranger as she spoke, staring at that horn and wings in particular. Her memory was good, and she’d seen dozens of ponies as she passed through Othar. Not one of them had both. You must be another species. Maybe a… foreign dignitary of some kind. That would explain her own guards, and living somewhere isolated on base.

The pressure was on then. If this went well, Sarah could probably get away with anything. But if she upset some young ambassador, and Othar got into political trouble as a result… They’ll put me in the grinder for sure.

Sarah hadn’t actually heard of living people put back into the recycler once they were decanted, but the Pioneering Society wouldn’t want her to know about that, would they? Maybe I’d just get the chair.

“What are you thinking about, Sarah?” asked Flurry Heart, suddenly staring at her. “It must be something good, if it makes you look like that. How do I get my parents to leave me alone?”

Sarah winced. Don’t screw up don’t screw up don’t screw up. “I think… I think you’re gonna have to do what they want. One last time, I mean. This whole thing seems pretty set up. Maybe they’ve been expecting you for a long time. In my experience, you have to set people’s expectations if you want them to do what you want.”

She stood, backing up a little. She could feel her ears flattening, wings shifting uneasily. If she fucked this up, that little escape plan would be for nothing. I could try to get her to take me. But this whole conversation was only happening because Discord had magically given her the language. If she disobeyed, he could take it back. She wouldn’t be able to keep schmoozing an ambassador if she couldn’t understand her.

“If I were you, I’d go back there, act as nice and perfect as I could the whole time, then wait until the last possible moment. That’s when I’d tell them how much I loved them, buuuuuut that I needed my space and I wasn’t sure when I’d come back.”

Flurry Heart looked thoughtful. “Just tell them? Wouldn’t they try to argue? Or… maybe not even listen.”

Sarah shrugged. “If you wanted to bitch out, you could give them a letter when you leave. Tell them all the same things. Just… expect them to write back. Keep writing them, but don’t even respond to their arguments. You’re a grown, uh… pony. You tell them you’ve made your decision and that’s that. Don’t give reasons or argue—giving someone the reason you don’t want to do what they’re demanding is just inviting them to argue.”

“Yeah.” Flurry Heart grinned. “I think I could do one more trip. A letter. I could write it on the way over.”

“Just… make sure you make it through the whole trip,” Sarah urged. I’m in so far over my head right now. I really hope I’m gone before this explodes. It wasn’t like she was giving bad advice. It was what she’d do. But she was also possibly interfering in the internal affairs of another nation, one she knew nothing about. This was the kind of advice that would be helpful for dealing with humans. “Be as perfect as you can be. You’re putting on a show—convincing them that you’re healthy here. That being here has been good for you. That way once the dust clears, they won’t be mad that you’ve decided to leave. They’ll realize that it’s probably better for you.”

“Oh, yeah. That makes sense.” Flurry Heart beamed at her. “You’re not an engineer, Sarah.”

Sarah stiffened. Well shit. “I’m not?”

“No,” Flurry Heart went on. “You’re one of those… negotiators, aren’t you? The ones Lucky’s waiting on before she makes a big treaty with Equestria.” She leaned in close, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You don’t want Equestria to know about you. Your secret is safe with me.” She winked, then rose to her hooves. “Can you, uh… help me out of here? These corridors all look the same.”

“Sure,” Sarah said, listening to the distant grind of the impact hammer. Then she set off, absolutely confident. “This way.”

The alien had seen right through her ruse in a way the doctors and soldiers hadn’t. But she hadn’t seen through to the truth, so maybe that was alright.

She made it as far as the elevator. “There, I… I think you should go up without me. Those guards might be mad I helped you escape. I’ll take the next car.”

“Yeah.” Flurry Heart nodded back. “Sure thing. Good luck, Sarah. And maybe… maybe one day you can show me what parasailing is.” The elevator doors shut behind her, and she was gone.

Olivia loved her new life. She told herself that every single day, and eventually she would believe it.

Othar’s municipal weather station was the largest single building in the entire city—if a gigantic hollowed-out cloud could even be called a building. As she moved down the production line, she marveled at the complexity of the technology.

For all that she’d taken the natives to have nothing to teach them, she’d been wrong. Weather production was interesting enough that it was easy to see how so many people had devoted themselves to it.

As she walked through the line, she saw their Equestrian contractors—ponies wearing white clean suits that covered up any exposed hair. Cloud production and storage was a sensitive business.

One of them approached her—a willowy stallion with dark fur visible under his white suit. He wore the same “enchanted necklace” that all their contractors kept on them at all times, a tiny computer concealed inside an intricate-looking plastic case sprayed gold.

It was easier if the natives knew as little about the world they lived in as possible, at least until she decided Othar could trust them.

The pony spoke in accented Eoch, and Olivia could get only a few of the words. But then the necklace spoke, repeating his words in a general approximation of his voice.

And in English.

“We are on track for next week’s thunderstorm, Wayfinder. This lightning generator is the most efficient I’ve ever used—we should be able to reach three bolts per minute over the three-hour storm.”

Even the translation sounded immensely proud, though Olivia herself had a little trouble fully understanding the significance of it.

But she tried not to let that show. She beamed at him, the same way she would’ve wanted her supervisor to smile at her when she announced something she’d done well. “Excellent work, uh…” He had a nametag, glued to the outside of his suit. In English, thank God. “Squall Line. Keep it up.”

He saluted with one hoof. “Aye, ma’am!”

Olivia had to resist the urge to smack him. But it wasn’t Squall Line’s fault that Perez had taught all the ponies that.

Couldn’t the damn dragon leave her alone? She’d given her pound of flesh in Othar’s name. By some definitions, she’d died not once but at least four times for the Pioneering Society. How much more do they want?

Olivia spread her wings, taking off and soaring up towards the upper level. There were no ponies up there—it was only ever used to inspect the machines. She could avoid further conversation that way.

She landed on the clouds of the catwalk, feeling them yield slightly as she stepped. There was a way to make clouds solid, so they wouldn’t drift or weaken under high traffic. But Olivia had never really cared to learn it. She didn’t come up here for cloud construction.

The door to Lightning Dust’s office was open.

Curious, Olivia made her way over, slowing a little as her ears swiveled to point at the opening. There were very few ponies who would visit her. Another contract dispute? The damn Equestrians trying to get their pay in bits again.

But Othar didn’t have bits, nor did it have the trade with Equestria that would let them get any.

Olivia had tried very hard not to learn the details, but she’d failed. While Equestria itself had recognized Othar and sworn to peace, a growing faction of Celestia loyalists was making that peace harder and harder to maintain. The secret of Celestia’s fate had gotten out—somehow.

She was surprised by the voice she heard coming from inside. Not Silver Lining, the obstinate leader of this for-hire team of weatherponies. It was Forerunner’s voice.

Speaking in Eoch, so Olivia couldn’t make out most of the words. She could understand the proper nouns. “Emperor’s Soul,” was there, along with “General Qingzhi.” The two nouns Olivia wanted to be furthest from in the whole damn world.

She had ordered all of that created, long ago, when Celestia had first attacked her crew. Now she reaped the “rewards” of that choice. Except that Sun Qingzhi wasn’t taking her orders, not with a civilian in charge.

How did you manage to get up here, Forerunner? I thought you didn’t want the natives to see your drones.

Apparently Olivia hadn’t been as covert as she thought. Lightning Dust sat up from her desk, waving her in with an expression of relief. She seemed so happy to see her that Olivia didn’t even slow down, just made her way in at a brisk trot.

Another pony was standing in the corner of the room, out of sight from the doorway. Or something like a pony, anyway. It was one of the most disconcerting things Olivia had ever seen.

The thing wore a clean suit, just like any other worker at the weather substation. And it had four legs, ending in hooves, with wings at its sides.

But that was where the similarities ended. The face and head were half-formed, particularly around the skull. Where flesh ended, a white composite chosen to match the white fur had been substituted, forming the lower jaw and most of the skull. There were standard service ports along its surface, exactly like the synthsleeve down on the ground.

The pony was carrying something—a pair of worn saddlebags. When it turned its eyes on her, Olivia couldn’t suppress a shudder.

It had one bright blue eye, the exact same color as the vanilla synthsleeve. But the other eye was brown, and clearly organic.

“What the fuck is that?” she asked, her voice halting. “Lightning Dust probably doesn’t appreciate horror movies. Neither do I.”

Forerunner was, as always, unflappable. “My next revision will be better, I assure you.” The voice came from the general direction of the pony, and his mouth moved, but it sounded more like speakers than lungs sending air through a voice box. “I can imitate the natives much better with a full synthsleeve. But synthsleeve ponies cannot walk on clouds.”

He stomped one hoof on the ground for emphasis, grinning at her with a row of perfect, identical teeth.

All mystery of Lightning Dust’s distress vanished. “Aren’t there laws against this kind of… whatever you did?”

Was that annoyance on Forerunner’s face? The pony might be half artificial, but lots of the important stuff was biological. It’s not just an AI anymore. It’s smarter than me. Smarter than everyone in Othar.

“I did no harm to any present or potential segment to create this hybridsleeve,” Forerunner said. “This and the others like it were created without a mind to inhabit them. They’re shells, no different than the cultured meat we grow.”

Lightning Dust rose from her desk, walking past the “big board” of assignments with their magnets. Most of the ponies on that board were Equestrian contractors, but there were a few others. A few members of the Ranger Regiment that hadn’t been able to adapt well to being resleeved.

Lightning Dust’s English was much better than Olivia’s Eoch. She’d somehow managed to learn the language during her time Upstream with them. I wish I could’ve learned Eoch as well. But she hadn’t tried, and it was too late for that now.

“The… Forerunner pony… wants me to visit the Emperor’s Soul. Did he ask you about it too?”

Olivia nodded. “Only about a million times.” Qingzhi wanted a superior. Not a clueless civilian like Lucky, but someone with genuine field experience. Somehow he’d learned about her various operations in the belt, and that on some records she was still the acting governor. Perez again, bastard.

It wasn’t like Qingzhi would expect her to even come on the mission, or to have any input on it. Olivia had never commanded numbers like the 75th’s. She wasn’t really meant to.

I don’t want to go back into that world. They rejected me once, they don’t want me living in it again. You made your bed, Forerunner. Now lie in it.

“Why do you want her to go?” Olivia asked, annoyed. “You know Lightning Dust isn’t going with you. She’s not a soldier.”

“No,” Forerunner said. “But that is not an advantage right now. I have concluded with a high degree of certainty that Othar will be attacked in the next month. It is highly likely that Lightning Dust will be specifically targeted. She must therefore be specifically protected. The Emperor carries our only Class-IV fabricator. It would be a great relief to me and our governor if we knew that she was properly supplied.”

You think you’re going to lose Lucky if her mom gets killed. I see your game. Olivia cleared her throat. “You don’t want to go, Lightning?”

She shrugged. “I… I saw that thing when they were building it. I’m afraid if I see it in the air I… won’t like what I see.” There was guilt in her voice—guilt that Olivia recognized.

She’d seen that expression on the faces of human informants, who hadn’t been comfortable with the conduct of their friends. In some ways they wanted a team like her to fly in and fix things. But on some level, they knew their friends’ deaths were their fault.

Olivia shrugged. “I could go with you. Qingzhi has been trying to get me aboard since they first got airborne. Might as well get the tour. That way he doesn’t have that excuse once they deploy.”

Lightning Dust nodded eagerly. “That… that sounds great.” She trailed off, eyes looking back out the distant window. “You aren’t going to Equestria with that thing, are you?”

Forerunner answered before she could. “We intend to honor Equestria’s treaty. But we have no treaty with Barbary. Its territory will be ours, and its population will be emancipated. The Ceres Proclamation does not permit slavery.”

Olivia stiffened a little as he spoke, ignoring his words as best she could. Forerunner wasn’t making it easy.

“We can fly there,” Forerunner said, walking quickly for the door. As though he were afraid they would change their mind. “The Emperor is nearby. I will inform Qingzhi that you’re coming.”

Part 2: Mission Parameters

Sarah wasn’t alone for very long. The second car hadn’t even arrived before she felt someone creeping up behind her. That awful drill made it impossible not to “see” in all directions, though those directly in front of her were still clearer. Apparently the sound all echoing together could get muddled enough that she couldn’t discern it clearly.

Whoever was trying to sneak up on her wasn’t really all that sneaky. It was a mining bot, with treads instead of legs but a generally humanoid torso. “Sarah Kaplan,” it said, when it was maybe five meters away. It didn’t sound threatening, only curious. It wasn’t holding anything in its hands.

“You know that wasn’t your assignment.”

Sarah turned slowly around. Somehow she had the feeling that the elevator wouldn’t be coming for her until she talked to this… bot. And the Forerunner that lived behind its eyes. Best not to piss off the AI that runs this whole city. “It didn’t seem like a good idea not to help her. Whoever that was… she’s important, right?”

The robot nodded. It had only a general plastic shell resembling a person. More like a mannequin, really, with many scratches and deep dents all over its body. Obviously a robot that had been at work down here a long time. “That was Princess Flurry Heart. She’s one of Equestria’s four remaining Alicorns. Or… at least at last count. There may now be more. But even if there are, she’s one of the four remaining Alicorns with a hereditary right to rule. She has a city-state waiting for her, once her mother is confident she is mature enough to take it over.”

Shit. That was worse than Sarah’s worst fears. A diplomat was one thing, or an ambassador. She supposed she should’ve figured it would be something like that, or else why would the pony be so young. Might as well send someone who was more adult… unless you were sending one of your rulers.

“I watched you,” Forerunner went on. “The entire time. I wasn’t the only one. As soon as the Colonial Governor was made aware of Flurry Heart’s escape, she has been watching the situation closely as well. The outcome of this encounter is of… critical importance. For reasons that are not relevant to any of your duties.”

You’re already telling me more than I need to know, Sarah thought, but didn’t say out loud. Why? “So… this is the part where I get court-martialed, right? I should’ve followed protocol and told her to fuck off.” She wasn’t sure that was protocol. But then, she didn’t know what any of them were, so might as well just assume they were whatever would be the worst for her.

“Well… not precisely.” Forerunner drove around her, circling between her and the elevator. “You handled that quite well, Engineer Kaplan. It is interesting… you claim to be suffering serious memory problems, yet your interpersonal skills are significant. Several ponies have tried to make progress with Flurry Heart over the last few weeks, entirely without success.”

The robot had a head, though it was just plastic made to resemble human features. There were no eyes to gaze into hers. “It’s strange, Sarah Kaplan. There’s something about this I just can’t explain. I’m hoping you can enlighten me.”

“Sure,” Sarah said, trying to stand as casually as she could. At least this drone wasn’t pointing a gun at her. And no military police had arrived either. Did that mean she wasn’t really in trouble? Or was it only that the Forerunner didn’t want anyone to be around when it killed her? Beneath that cheap plastic shell was enough mechanical strength to break rocks with sledgehammers and lift hundreds of kilograms of cargo. Her little pony body probably wouldn’t stand much of a chance. “What’s up?”

“I don’t understand how you made so much progress without a shared language. I tried to listen to your conversation, but the sensors in this elevator went out about five minutes before Flurry Heart boarded. I don’t have any sound-sensors in the disused mine sections, so I couldn’t hear you there either.”

The drone parked right in front of Sarah, leaning close to her face. “That cutie mark of yours is for language, isn’t it? Like Lucky’s?”

Sarah’s heart nearly stopped, and she prepared a dozen half-formed arguments. But suddenly none of them made sense. “My, uh… my what?”

Forerunner pointed through her suit to her ass. “The mark on your flank. We have experience with this kind of thing, you see. The natives call them cutie marks—the Pioneering Society has named them ‘Neuroimprinted Duty Designations,’ NDDs. Because they aren’t just for display. They impart genuine skill with tasks you may’ve never even heard of before. So far as I know, every member of the crew has one of these marks, and every one of them has gained a new competency. I require you to tell me if yours is language.”

I hope Discord doesn’t mind… “Yes!” Sarah snapped, before she could doubt herself and take it back. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t using English with her at first. But she didn’t understand some of what I said, and it made a little more sense as we went on.”

“Interesting,” Forerunner said. It seemed to be searching her for something else, looking her up and down. “I believe we may need to reassign you, Sarah. Your unit will be disappointed to lose you before you even report for duty, but… they will adapt. Every member of my crew must adapt to serve the needs of Othar.”

Sarah tensed. This isn’t good this isn’t good this isn’t good… Would Discord’s plan still work if she wasn’t with the soldiers anymore? Sarah almost blurted a request to know when she’d next have time off right then and there, but that seemed a little too obvious. She couldn’t give herself away like that. “What needs are those?” she asked instead. “What would I be doing if not a munitions engineer?”

“Diplomacy,” Forerunner answered. “There are exactly six ponies in Othar that can speak Eoch fluently. If you can also speak Eglathrin, that would make you the only one besides the Colonial Governor and me. Is it other languages, or just Eoch?”

She backed up a step, but didn’t have much further to go. The massive conveyor was here, huge chunks of rock riding constantly up towards some distant refinery. It would not be good to get her tail caught in those rollers. “Probably just whatever Eoch is,” she answered. “I’ve never heard of that other thing.”

The drone folded its mechanical arms across its chest. It had no face to make expressions, yet it sounded smug. “That’s interesting, Engineer Kaplan, as I have been speaking Eglathrin with you for some time. Since you reported you didn’t realize you were using Eoch with Flurry Heart, actually. You’re using Eglathrin now.”

“I… oh.” Sarah grinned sheepishly. “Well, guess I didn’t notice. I signed up to be a munitions engineer. I’m not sure if I can do another job.” She said it with as much sincerity as she could, but in reality she could feel the excitement rising.

This was exactly the sort of escape she needed. She couldn’t fail to do a job she should’ve known if she was put on something new. Then it would make sense that she would be garbage at it. And besides, being a politician was piss easy. Just keep telling people what they wanted to hear, lie whenever you got the chance, and things would work out.

“This is not actually a choice,” Forerunner said. “To be honest with you, all of the civilian contractor roles in your unit are now redundant. Every one of them has been automated. But seeing as the resources were already devoted to creating those segments… well, you’ll be put to another use. All of them will, in time. You will just be first.”

The elevator door opened behind the drone. A much more articulate drone was standing at the controls—a drone that seemed shockingly human. Except that he had no hair on his face, no eyebrows. “What the fuck kind of drone is that?” Sarah exclaimed, retreating a step in involuntary fear. The skin looked real, there was moisture on its eyes…

“I am a Synthsleeve,” said the drone, even as the mining bot retreated from her. “An artificial body created to house human minds. The Governor has instructed me to keep several of these units on-hand in case we need emergency talent. Making use of them in the meantime seems more productive than letting them wait in storage.”

He was even wearing a uniform. A Pioneering Society uniform with no rank or name patches. He did have division patches—all five division patches to be precise. It was almost comical, except that they’d obviously been sewn with care. “Get aboard, Sarah. I’ve already informed your superior of the reassignment.”

She put on the best show of resentful compliance she could—hopefully enough that it would convince the Forerunner that she didn’t want to go. She couldn’t let it realize how much of a relief this was. Are you responsible for this too, Discord? Just how powerful are you?

But the strange creature didn’t reply. “There can’t be that much diplomacy to worry about,” Sarah muttered, walking nervously into the elevator. “The amba—the princess is leaving. Unless you want me to go back to Equestria with her!”

The door slammed closed a second later, right in time with Forerunner’s amused laughter. “You do seem like a natural negotiator, Sarah. But not that natural. You don’t know anything about the state of affairs on Equus. You cannot represent us effectively until you do.

Oh shit. I see where this is going.

She kept her mouth closed as they went up—up to a higher level than the one she’d started on. Sarah watched the numbers scroll by, and she could see that she was going towards the top-level habitation floor. If Othar was like any of the other places she’d lived, the floor closest to ground level was the most exclusive. Governor’s office, maybe?

“Primary habitation,” said Forerunner’s voice, as the door swung open with a little hiss of gas. The Synthsleeve was still watching her though.

“Now, this way.” He led her down the hall, past a few closed doors. There were little names on the displays outside, and Sarah memorized each one. They kept going—past a long hallway, past a gym, until they eventually came to a library.

There were no paper books inside of course, but she recognized a library when she saw one. Dozens of public-access holotables, a private viewing room in back, and a few glass panels for librarian projections.

The lights were off as they came in, but flickered to life at the Forerunner’s gesture. “We don’t use this much anymore. I’m getting primary crew trained on immersive interfaces instead. But that skill is secondary priority for you.”

Forerunner pulled out one of the pony-sized chairs in front of the screen. “Welcome to class, Sarah. I’ll be your instructor. For ten hours a day, every day.”

Sarah groaned, slumping over the side of the chair. Can’t you just throw me into the grinder?

“I’m… gonna get breaks though, right? There are rules… Pioneering Society stuff. I’m not a slave.”

“Of course,” Forerunner said. “Now here.” He pushed her chair in, until she was surrounded by the projection surface of the holodesk. Many little bits of plastic sat inside it—some shaped like books, others like computation surfaces, some pencils or calculators. They could appear like almost anything so long as they remained near the projector. “We’re going to start at the beginning. What we know about the Sanctuary megastructure.”

And I’ve died and gone to hell.

It felt like her time in class would never end. It wasn’t as though the time was being wasted exactly—nothing like that. The Forerunner was an excellent teacher.

Much of what it wanted her to know seemed pretty important—such as the fact that Equus wasn’t a planet at all, but a gigantic megastructure built by a race orders of magnitude more advanced than the Earth she’d left behind. But far from violent conquerors who wanted to follow the Forerunner back and kill everyone, they seemed eager to have some new people. It didn’t even matter that they intended to expand off the ring.

But that was only background. After a few hours of that, it was into more interesting stuff. A political summary of the way Equestria worked, and the new unstable truce between the two powers. The whispers in Equestria that they had assassinated Princess Celestia, and attacked Equestria several times before that.

Rumors that Forerunner confirmed in no uncertain terms were true.

“A warhawk faction is already gaining steam in parliament,” Forerunner explained, after what felt like days of solid instruction. “They’re arguing that Othar needs to be subjugated as soon as possible, before we try something like that with one of their other princesses. They’ve already imposed new laws on pony movement, so that—”

Sarah cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Forerunner. How do you know what’s going on in their parliament? I understand the earlier stuff. The missions into Equestria, Lucky learning the language… that all makes sense. But they know about us now. We can’t just secretly learn everything they do.”

“Not everything,” Forerunner said. “We have a way of monitoring some of their communications. Nothing of a secure or tactical nature—they use magic to send important messages. But insecure messages are tapped. Some of that ends up being more of an extrapolation—but what I’ve told you so far we are quite certain about.”

“Oh.” Sarah sat back against the chair, wings shifting uncomfortably behind her. All this made it sound like Equestria had good reason to be afraid of them. Assassinating princesses and monitoring everything they said. Those weren’t the actions of a friendly neighbor. “How much more of this is there today, Forerunner? I don’t know how much more I’ll remember.”

“Then we’re done.” The holodesk in front of her switched off. Various books piled up around her became blank plastic again, the shells of books that weren’t. “Your room assignment is Coed Seventeen. I’ve already informed your roommate he’ll be instructing you on any minutiae you require. I will see you at 800 hours for instruction tomorrow.”

Forerunner didn’t walk away—just slumped right down in his chair and seemed to fall immediately unconscious.

Guess he doesn’t need that drone for anything right now. It was immensely creepy, and Sarah made her way out as quickly as she possibly could. Forerunner hadn’t even shut his damn eyes.

She thought about trying to get back to the floor of that princess, maybe wish her good luck before she left. She’d seen that it was floor three as the elevator passed by.

But that would probably be pushing it, even for her. It was only a matter of time before her luck ran out.

So she watched the writing on the walls, until she passed a hallway marked “Coed Living Quarters” and counted off until seventeen.

Most of these doors were open, with ponies inside apparently cleaning up after their duty shifts. There was far less clothing here than she’d seen in the barracks—but that wasn’t the only strange thing she noticed.

Why do they all look so similar? There was a lot of yellow here, a lot of blue. A lot of the same set of wings.

She was so distracted that she walked right into a princess.

An Alicorn, that was what that word meant. With the same yellow and blue coloration, except that she was taller than Sarah and bulging in her belly. Pregnant, already? Damn. “Sorry, sorry!” Sarah backed up, spreading her wings defensively. “I, uh… I didn’t mean to…”

The pony didn’t seem upset, only surprised. “You must be new.” Her voice sounded like music. Even bloated and pregnant, these naked ponies were distracting.

“Y-yeah,” Sarah squeaked. “I’m, uh… still figuring out how to walk. Forerunner kept me locked in a classroom all day, I’m… still trying to wake up my legs, uh… princess.” Forerunner hadn’t said anything about another princess on base, but clearly the lessons hadn’t got that far.

The pony smiled at her. “Not princess, no. Just call me Melody.” She stuck out a hoof, like she was going to handshake. “You are…”

“Sarah,” she answered, taking it. She managed not to fall over sideways when she shook hands. “Sarah Kaplan. Woke up a few days ago, but I’ve been recovering from surgery most of that time.”

“Implants,” Melody repeated, tone a little jealous. Like Dr. Born. “Kids today just don’t know how hard we had it.” She chuckled good-naturedly. “Well, despite how I look, I don’t really do much but coordinate with the liberated contingent. Maybe I can help you. What are you looking for?”

Obviously not you. Belly like that means you’re taken. “Room seventeen,” she said. “Guess my… starter kit or whatever is probably in there. Forerunner didn’t give me anything…”

Melody’s face became a mask of sympathy. She winced, like Sarah had just shown her a serious injury. “Forerunner put you with me? I’m so sorry.”

“Uh…” Sarah blinked. “With you? Isn’t this your room?” And wouldn’t you ask for reassignment to live with whoever knocked you up?

“Oh, this me, yeah.” She wrapped one broad wing around Sarah, pulling her into the room with surprising force. Out of the hallway, and into a spacious bedroom.

The standard bunk bed had been replaced with an upper full-sized bed, teetering over a large holodesk stacked with papers and reference materials. There was more here than Sarah could’ve guessed at—the desk wasn’t on, though many of the books piled here seemed like they were made of real paper. There were tons of diagrams and intricate language notes here—notes she found she could read.

There was an open closet in one corner with clothing obviously not meant for Melody, and a musky smell that clearly belonged to a male. Whoever he was, that pony obviously wasn’t here.

But Melody hadn’t pulled her close for a show. “So, you remember your handbook, right?”

Sarah nodded, though of course she’d never read it. I really need to get my hands on one of those. They’ve got to be everywhere. Unless Discord could get her out of here damn fast, she was going to need more help impersonating these people than the magic of a “cutie mark.”

“Well, that me is generation one. I’m generation four, and Lucky is generation three. We’re all based on the same neuroimprint. But he went through shit that we never did. His life was…” She shuddered. “Unmodified humans can’t live on Equus, maybe you don’t know that yet. We tried anyway in the first generation, and all those people died. So everything you take from spending time with James, just remember that he had to watch all his friends die of a horrible disease, then died himself. Try and be kind.”

“Why is…” Most of the details didn’t make much sense to Sarah, but a few elements stuck out. “Why did he survive?”

“Oh, he didn’t,” Melody said. “Lucky found his imprint saved in some weird files and ordered that he should be fabricated. I know that probably sounds like nepotism, but…”

Sarah shrugged. “No, I get it. If someone was dying of a terminal disease, they’d want to do everything they could to escape. Even if they had to break a few rules.”

“Exactly!” Melody relaxed. “I don’t know why Forerunner would’ve put you with him. Maybe he thought that you would be the key to shaking him out of his… whatever. You must be really good at something if you’re up here. I can see from your uniform you’re assigned to the Rangers.”

“Yeah.” Sarah looked away. “Something about my ‘cutie mark.’ Apparently I’m one of the few people in the crew who can understand a bunch of languages, and that makes me more useful for that than the munitions work I’ve been trained for.”

The pony’s ears flattened, and she looked suddenly uncomfortable. Sarah couldn’t imagine why, but she didn’t get a chance to ask. “Yeah, well. You should… probably introduce yourself. Get a proper uniform. I’m sure Forerunner has it all waiting for you. All our facilities are on this floor, so you shouldn’t have to go back down.” She turned for the door. “Welcome to the crew!”

Sarah followed her out into the hall, seconds before she snapped the door shut. What was it I said?

After all this, she wasn’t exactly eager to meet her new colleague. But it wasn’t as though hiding would help. The same person as Melody, only different. I wonder why this one is a guy and Melody isn’t. There was probably an interesting story behind that. Biosex was one of the most important aspects of any biosleeve, and not something Forerunner was likely to make mistakes about.

Seventeen was almost at the end of the hallway, and separated from the occupied rooms by several empty suites. Sarah guessed that “James” had probably asked to be dumped out here, though she couldn’t imagine why. It must be dreadfully boring.

The door was shut, but Sarah wasn’t a luddite. She knew where her implant would be, and waved one hoof near the sensor. It swung open with a pleasant chime.

The room was a near mirror down the middle, with simple desk, bed, chair, and closet on each end. One side was empty and clean, with a few simple possessions wrapped in fabricator plastic. The other side was a mess—pile of dirty uniforms near the base of the bed, papers scattered everywhere, and the smell.

I wonder if Forerunner knows I’m an imposter after all, and it’s just trying to make me commit suicide. People like this were one of the reasons Sarah had never been interested in men. “Uh… hello?” she said, a little more forcefully. “Is someone here?”

“I don’t know why you couldn’t just have your own room,” said a voice. It came from near the bed, where a privacy curtain had been drawn across. “I checked, there are half a dozen on this floor that aren’t being used. Forerunner could have just stuck you in one of them. But it won’t open them. It won’t let me choose another room either.”

“That would not be efficient,” said a voice from the wall, as cheerful as it was unrepentant. “Dr. Irwin, you will probably be working with Sarah for the next several months. Living in close proximity will help both of you be more efficient.”

Great. “Forerunner, if I’m going to be living here, I need… a whole crew of maintenance drones. I don’t know if you can smell, but this room is dank.”

“Maintenance request received,” echoed Forerunner, before the screen went dark again.

“It’s my room too,” muttered the petulant voice from behind the curtain. “Maybe I like it this way.”

There was a similar curtain for the middle of the room, which Sarah intended to use as soon as she got the chance. Not that it would do much to help with the smell.

“Too bad,” Sarah said, stepping over to her side, where she could inspect the white package resting on her bed. “It isn’t just your room, kid. I have to live here too.”

The package looked like something every newly-fabricated crewman would be issued—there were a few jumpsuits, some workout clothes, and a light jacket for wet weather. All white with black trim, instead of the gray of the jumpsuit she was wearing. All the other typical personal items were there—toothbrush, underclothes and the like. Though she lingered a little longer on the plastic packet marked with “her” name.

She tried, unsuccessfully, to get it open with her hooves, and eventually just bent down and ripped with her fangs.

There wasn’t much in there. A plastic harmonica, and a digital picture frame. It started scrolling through images as soon as she moved it—images of the woman she’d impersonated. Lots of them showed her standing beside a screwy guy with blonde hair and huge glasses—lingering around labs or standing awkwardly in bars. Apparently they’d been close.

And now you’re both dead. Sorry I stole your immortality, Sarah. It was nothing personal. I was dying and you weren’t. She was sure they would’ve figured out some kind of biological immortality by then. The real Sarah Kaplan was probably doing just fine back on Earth.

She looked longingly at the photographs of strangers, hopefully long enough that the computer would be appropriately satisfied with her grief. Then she set the portrait up on a shelf, facing out where she would see it. She wouldn’t actually look, but it would seem like she cared. She set the harmonica down beside it. Thankfully her animal lips and sharp teeth would be enough of an excuse not to try and play that.

The cleaning robots came not too long after that, dragging away all the empty food containers and all the dirty clothes. They left the room smelling like chlorine—infinitely better than the other smell that had persisted here.

“You’re not going to dinner?” asked her companion, still locked away in the privacy curtain around his bed.

“I’m starving,” Sarah said, and she realized suddenly it was true. She could eat a horse—though she probably shouldn’t. “You didn’t say anything about diner. When is it, where?”

She wanted to go out and wander the halls, but she had just turned this kid’s world upside down. Maybe letting him be helpful would mend a few bridges.

There was a sound of rustling and moving from the bed. Sarah tensed for whatever horrors might be about to unveil themselves… but then it opened.

It was a unicorn, fit by the look of him, though there was a slight gauntness to his features that she doubted could be completely natural. I bet he was ripped when Forerunner fabricated him, then he didn’t take care of his body. That would be just typical.

These people didn’t know how to appreciate the gifts they’d been given. Well… maybe a few of them did. From what Forerunner told her about the original crew members, most of them had done incredible things.

The ones who survived, anyway.

“It’s… all the way down to the central hall, then go left.”

Sarah turned her back on him, still poking his head out of the bunk. There were dozens of books scattered all over the place, enough that it would probably be difficult for him to sleep. They were all real paper, and had bright, artistic illustrations on them. She could read their covers, though what she read there didn’t make a whole lot of sense. What the heck was ‘Creative Thaumatology,’ and why did this guy need so many books about it?

“You aren’t going to eat?”

He shrugged. “I eat when everybody finishes. It’s… a little creepy to me. If I eat during meal hours I see people that… that should be dead. Except they’re not the same people anymore. They don’t know me, they didn’t do the things I remember… it’s just easier if I don’t see them.”

Sarah shrugged one shoulder. “Want me to bring you something? You look like you could use some pasta maybe. Withering away over there.”

The stallion seemed to consider it for a few seconds, or maybe he was just trying to make her think that he was. “Yeah!” he exclaimed, grinning. “That would be great! I haven’t had anything hot in weeks now. Maybe… something creamy. Pasta would be great.”

It’s like he forgot I just sterilized his nest. People were easy to manipulate.

Getting James some food from the mess served another purpose—it gave her an excuse not to stick around and chat. There were fewer ponies there than she might’ve expected, but they still stared at her when she entered. Sarah gave the same explanation a few times—that she’d been fabricated for something else, but Forerunner had moved her for her language skills. At least she didn’t have to justify the explanation—once she explained, and told them that she was trying to help James, they let her be.

Not that Sarah would’ve wanted to forfeit a chance to make friends. But considering what she’d just been through, she felt more like going to sleep and never waking up.

She did stick around long enough for a helpful unicorn named Martin to demonstrate the proper use of her implants. She could carry a tray pretty easy after that, so long as she was willing to shuffle forward on three legs. There’s got to be a better way. These aliens must need to move things around without looking and feeling like an idiot.

She made it back to her quarters with two sets of covered, steaming food. One had an adorable little bat logo on it, the other a twisting unicorn horn. Printed right onto the plastic packaging. They were both pasta, and both smelled similarly, though she could see different bits floating in each bowl.

Sarah didn’t look too closely. She made a habit of not examining food, lest she learn it had something in it she didn’t want.

“Made it back,” Sarah said, setting the tray down on the edge of her own desk with obvious pride on her face. “First full day awake, and I carried it here. You can hold your applause.”

He did. James had emerged from his bed—wearing only a pair of elastic shorts Sarah recognized as the underclothes made for their new species. She might’ve protested, except that almost everyone in the mess hall had been naked. I’m going to have to get used to this. If I ever escape to Equestria, I’ll have to be naked all the time.

She would start with just not squirming when other people did it. Learning to imitate them could come later.

“Oh, good,” he said, levitating the unicorn packaging and the plastic utensils away from her. Levitating. She could see them briefly light up, glowing all over as they passed in front of her.

She might’ve screamed, if she hadn’t seen Martin do something similar in the mess hall. And if Forerunner hadn’t explained that this was really some kind of super technology inherent in the ring. It didn’t work outside the Equus gravity well, not without portable emitters. For fields and particles that she didn’t even think the real Sarah would’ve understood.

James set his tray down on his own desk, pushing some papers awkwardly aside and lowering his face into it like a starving dog. Sarah opened her own with more difficulty, practicing with the implants to tear the plastic. It still felt weird every time the metal grippers extended from her leg, and the flesh was tender there. Apparently she wasn’t supposed to lift more than three kilos for a month at least—the time it would take for her legs to heal.

“Who are you, anyway?” James asked, when his bowl was half empty and his face covered in cream sauce. “I mean… Forerunner told me you won the Equus lottery or whatever. That you’ve got… language. Like Gen3.”

“I’m… yes. I guess I do. My name is Sarah.” She didn’t stick out her hoof or anything, not while she was eating. She did it much more slowly than he did, forcing herself to use the implants to hold her fork. Despite who knew how far away and how many years had passed since this probe left Earth, the pasta was great. There were bits of meat in there to add crunch, even if she couldn’t quite name what that meat was. “And you’re James.”

“Dr. Irwin,” he corrected. “I’m a…”

“I don’t care.” She grinned at him. “I don’t do titles. Just be glad I remember that much.”

The unicorn grumbled, but didn’t argue further. “Well, Sarah, are you ready for fall training? You aren’t having nightmares about it already, I hope.”

“Fall training?” She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not military. I’m one of their civilians.”

“Everybody with wings has to fall,” James said, smiling slightly. “It’s… I dunno, looks terrifying to me. But despite Gen3 and Gen4, I don’t have wings. Guess that’s luck for you.”

The more James opened his mouth, the less Sarah wanted to be around him. “Whatever this training is, it can’t be that hard if they make everyone do it.”

“I dunno.” He was smiling though. Whatever he didn’t know, it sure brought him some sick pleasure to know it while she didn’t. “They take everyone up to the weather factory, over the ocean… and shove them off. I guess you’re supposed to learn how to glide. But I’ve never seen anyone glide on their first try.”

“Come out when I do it,” Sarah muttered. “And you’ll see something new. I’ve never seen anything fly with stubby little wings like mine, but… no reason I can’t be the first.”

“Not the first.” James rose from his desk, leaving the empty food tray where it was. “Everyone with wings can fly, or at least they’re able to fly. It just takes a few shocks to learn how to do it. Just like it took me a few shocks to get magic working. Or… the basics.” He shifted uncomfortably on his hooves, suddenly avoiding her eyes. “I guess it takes a lifetime to master.”

Flying does sound awesome. Maybe it was for the best that she would have to stick around and fool these people for longer. If James wasn’t just pulling her leg, if their wings really worked, then she wanted to stick around until she could fly too. Then I can just walk out onto the island and fly away to civilization.

At least she’d be able to do that, if she wanted to. It would be better than owning a car, since all she’d have to keep up her skill was exercise.

“Well, you work on that.” Sarah dumped her empty tray into the garbage, then walked over to the privacy screen and gripped it with her implant. “I am going to get some rest. Don’t you fucking move this thing if you know what’s good for you.”

He shrugged. “I won’t. Do whatever you want. I was going to watch Martin in VR anyway.”

“I have no idea what that is.” No sooner had Sarah sealed the velcro around her half of the room than she began unzipping her uniform, feeling the relaxing touch of cold air against her fur. However soft the jumpsuits were, it wasn’t good to keep fur cramped like that. Maybe I’ll get used to this sooner than I planned.

Not tonight. Sarah took one last pretend look at a photo of strangers, before tossing her now-out-of-date uniform into the laundry basket and hopping up into bed.

Whatever her roommate did after that, she neither noticed nor cared.

Olivia could see the Emperor’s Soul even at great distance, its titanium shell glinting in the sunlight.

Their last airship, the Speed of Thought, had not been terribly large by Equestrian standards. Olivia had seen plenty of evidence of that since Flurry Heart’s parents sent their airships into Othar to resupply. It seemed that each new trip brought something bigger and more intimidating into Othar. Like they were trying to put the humans in their place.

But none of them had seen this.

The Emperor’s Soul belonged to a class of ships that hadn’t even existed when Olivia’s mind was scanned. An Imperial Class Atmospheric Mobile Deployment and Assault Vehicle, or AMDAV. They could build nothing larger without constructing starships—and Harmony would not permit that.

The Emperor’s Soul hovered several kilometers above the ocean, surrounded in a gyre of concealing clouds.

And above it—Olivia felt her blood run cold. There were so many aircraft passing overhead that at first she’d mistaken them for a cloud. Thousands and thousands of little fighters, each one barely twice as large as a pony. Hundreds of bombers, and dozens of strike-craft.

“I thought…” Lightning Dust slowed to a hover in the air, watching in awe for several seconds. “I thought there were about four thousand ponies in Othar. That… looks like more than that. In those… those things.”

Forerunner stopped beside them. “The population of Othar is about four thousand, that’s correct. The Emperor’s Soul is a pacification craft. See those little fighters, the ones that look like silver darts? A single pilot can direct a dozen of them. About a thousand of the 75th Ranger Regiment are pilots.”

“Oh.” Lightning Dust did not seem reassured. “Tell me again that you aren’t invading Equestria with this.”

“We aren’t,” Olivia said, cutting off the Forerunner. “The Tyrant is dead, Lightning. There’s nothing left for us to do in Equestria. The people there are happy and they seem to want to leave us alone too. None of this will be used on them.”

The ship itself spread out below them, fully a kilometer long. It didn’t have a flat deck, not like the ancient aircraft carriers of days gone by. There were launchers for the darts, plus larger cannons that could’ve been artillery or could’ve been for firing landfall pods. A few gigantic cranes.

Most notable were the six gigantic openings along its rim, each one fifty feet across and empty. Olivia expected to hear a constant roar coming from the Emperor’s Soul, but she could only hear the fighters.

“How is it staying up?” she asked. “We don’t have antigravity.”

“We didn’t,” Forerunner said. It sounded pleased with itself again. “But the Equestrians do. They produce lift-crystals for use in their airships. The method is still beyond us… so we purchased them. Dozens of them working in concert keep the Emperor’s Soul airborne when we don’t need to move. Needless to say we opted not to install sails.”

Lightning Dust kept glancing away. Maybe she wanted to fly back to the weather factory and forget about all this. Or fly back to Equestria and warn them that they’re about to be invaded.

Olivia needed to act, or else this situation was going to get out of hand. “You should meet Qingzhi,” she said, gesturing back towards the ship. “The one in command. He’s one of the best commanders we ever had, I’m told.”

“Oh, yeah.” Lightning Dust followed behind her. As they flew, the fighters above broke out of their pattern, clearing a corridor of empty air for the ponies all the way in.

They touched down on the highest deck, not far from the command tower. Olivia could hear the constant sound of darts launching a level below them, and occasionally she caught a blur of silver out of the corner of her eye.

Qingzhi emerged from the tower a moment later. He wore one of the new uniforms, a black and gold weave with lots of little medals and ribbons on the jacket. You were still wearing white last time I saw you. The switch meant something significant—the Emperor’s Soul was now deployed, its soldiers on active duty instead of on shore.

I created this. I hope your fears are unjustified, Lightning Dust.

Beside the general was a pair of marines, wearing full field-deployment gear. In their case, that meant a semi-exoskeleton that wrapped around the limbs, granting tremendous strength in the black fibrous muscle. Their helmets went down all the way over their eyes, though the glass went clear as they approached. The pony faces inside looked nervous, rather than suspicious.

General Qingzhi did not salute as they finally met. He went for it—but then Olivia extended a hoof to shake, and he took that instead. “The Emperor’s Soul is as impressive as I thought she’d be,” Olivia said, looking up. “Is this a full deployment drill?”

Qingzhi nodded crisply. “Got to get the lads prepared. It’s a good thing you decided to join us when you did. Few hours from now and we’d be on the other end of this ocean for live-fire practice. Probably wouldn’t be coming back here after that before we make for the slave states.”

It was amazing how tall Qingzhi could look without any hardware. His uniform lacked anything but a ceremonial sidearm—an ancient revolver polished to sparkling shine.

“And you must be Lightning Dust, yes?” He extended a friendly hoof towards her. “Mi estas atendinta renkonti vin dum longa tempo. Neniu de ni estus ĉi tie sen vi.”

Lightning Dust took the offered hoof, raising an eyebrow as she answered. “Vi parolas la ĉevalan?”

He smiled. “Iomete.” Then he switched back to English. “For the Major’s benefit. I know she hasn’t studied as extensively. I hope you don’t mind.”

Lightning Dust shrugged. “I had a good teacher. You know the governor is…”

“Yes.” He chuckled politely. “Strange how these missions work themselves out. You’re part of this story from the beginning. In a few months when the war is over and the slave states are free, they’ll know your name as well as ours. I hope you can be proud of that.”

“Me too,” Lightning Dust muttered, her voice taking on a little of its previous nervousness. “I didn’t… It’s a little frightening to see power like this anywhere.” She lowered her voice. “From what I see, most of the ponies in power tend to abuse it. They say one thing, then do something else.”

Olivia might not have reacted so well in Qingzhi’s shoes. But the earth pony stallion didn’t even blink. “Is your daughter that way?”

“Well…” She shifted uncomfortably on her hooves. “No.”

“And she is the Commander in Chief.” He gave Olivia a pointed look. “We just met—your fear over our abilities is sensible. But if you can’t trust me yet, trust her.”

Lightning Dust nodded begrudgingly. “I’ll try.”

Forerunner had remained silent all that time, but now it spoke, voice almost nervous. “Lightning Dust… you should come with me. We need to get you into the fabricator before the Emperor’s Soul deploys.”

“And you can finally take the tour,” Qingzhi added, obviously to Olivia. “We’ll meet again in the officer’s lounge, Lightning Dust.” He nodded towards one of the marines. “Make sure our guest is well treated.”

The three ponies left, vanishing into the command tower.

General Qingzhi took a few steps closer to Olivia. The wind howled around them, mingling with the roar of engines from high above.

“You know what I’m going to say, Major.”

She smiled weakly. “You can’t order me anymore, General. I’m retired. Forerunner can’t force me either.”

The general’s cool confidence broke for a few seconds, exposing frustration underneath. And something else—something Olivia couldn’t quite read. This general was a new type of man, one that hadn’t existed when she served. A full century later in the timeline than she was.

“Walk with me.” It was not a request. She could’ve refused—but she wouldn’t leave Lightning Dust behind.

She wasn’t curious about the Emperor’s Soul, not even a little. She certainly didn’t want to get a good look at its decks, and see what had happened to human military hardware in a century. She didn’t need to know what a Planetary Pacifier was.

Honest.

So they walked into the tower. Up a flight of stairs, past control rooms filled with uniformed ponies and drones alike. They spoke into their radios, fussed over holofields, generally remaining focused on their tasks. Their marine escort fell behind them, and a replacement joined to walk ahead as if he’d melted out of the deck plating.

Olivia could tell where they were going, even if she’d never been aboard this class of vessel before. The hallways kept getting wider, and the cables bundled over their heads became more numerous. The bridge must be up ahead.

Sure enough, they reached it not long after. The room was smaller than she expected, with eight consoles along the wall and simulated windows. Not real ones, when glass was weak and cameras were cheap.

The center of the room was a massive holofield, more advanced than any she’d seen before. Instead of a foot, this one projected all the way up to the ceiling, which was clearly built to human size. There were no humans here, but there could’ve been.

The projector displayed a map right now—a zoomed-out view of the Equus ring, with the lowest outer part showing their current location. Most of the map was just blasted rock, though she knew some of those sections had ruins. Ruins of Harmony’s other victims.

“You tell me that Perez is the person I want,” he said. “But you know the lieutenant better than I do. You must know that isn’t true.”

“Perez is an excellent commander. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with his performance.”

“Yes,” Qingzhi said. “When I need spec-ops, I’ll have his team ready to deploy. But that isn’t what I mean. You’ve been doing this for over a year, Major. I’ve been awake for a month. I fear I cannot defeat an enemy I do not know.”

“They’re primitives,” Olivia muttered, saying what she’d heard so many times. “There can’t be much to beating them.” But she didn’t sound sincere. There was no way she could, after her battle with Celestia.

“And we’re primitives compared to the ones who built this ring. And probably dozens of the civilizations who used to live here. They could all be coming back now, couldn’t they? And Harmony won’t stop any of us from killing each other.” He looked away. “A subject for reflection. These aliens are as willing to kill each other as humans ever were. So how has Equus survived so long? Why didn’t they destroy each other?”

Olivia shrugged. “I… have no idea. That’s the kind of question for a general.”

He laughed. “It sounds like a question for a politician. Which I suppose I am.” He reached down, removing something from his belt. The polished metal sidearm, still in its holster. He held it out for her using the implants at the end of one hoof. “But I was not always. I have been on the ground, like you. I have learned what you learned.”

“What is that?” Olivia stared down at the handgun, wrapped in its faux-leather holster. She wanted to kick it away, but she didn’t. Even a civilian could get away with only so much.

“We cannot choose to flee war and have peace. War arrives whether you want it to or not. So it always will, until we finally learn to walk the path of wisdom and forge swords no more.”

Olivia reached out. She didn’t have the implants he did, but she didn’t need them. She took the holster with a wing instead. “Why are you giving me this?”

“I want you to wear it,” he said. “It’s as old as it looks. Six shots, real gunpowder. Not a damn circuit board or microprocessor in the whole thing.” He winked up at one of the cameras, Forerunner’s eyes on them even now. “AI can’t tell you what to do with this gun. Only one like it aboard the Emperor’s Soul. Now it’s yours.”

Olivia couldn’t refuse a gift—it just wasn’t right. She slipped it onto her back, securing the strap with dexterity. The black leather looked almost like it matched against her olive coat. “You shouldn’t give me something like this. I won’t fire it.”

“I hope you don’t have to,” he said. “But I am not so sure. I have a sense for these things.” He walked past her, all the way to the projection surface of the window. “This ocean, these clouds… I am on Europa again. This is a colony in revolt. First thing they do is come for us, you can count on it. And when they do, you will be wearing my gun.”

He turned back, closing the distance slowly. His voice grew solemn, quiet. Though there was no one but his bodyguards to hear. “There are rules. You must pray for every life you take. You will do this.”

“I will.” Olivia pawed at the ground. “But I won’t kill anyway. I’ve taken enough lives, Qingzhi. I want to move on.”

“I hope someday we can. But now… now we will rejoin your friend. She should be finished getting fitted by now.”

Part 2: Jump

Lightning Dust had somewhere to go. When the ponies of Othar were too much—when their strange customs frightened her and their ambition spawned nightmares in her sleep—she could flee to Deadlight’s cafe.

It wasn’t really a cafe—Deadlight talked about opening one, but everypony knew he never would. Or if he did, he’d probably serve something weird, like bugs.

Lightning Dust had eaten with bats enough times to know never to eat their food without inspecting it first.

Deadlight’s cafe was actually located in the shell of the airship Forerunner had built for him—the place where he lived whenever he was out exploring. Lightning Dust might’ve been envious, except that she had everything she’d ever wanted and shiny airships were a waste of time.

It might not be the Equestrian weather station she’d wanted to run, but Othar would do.

But that dream was no comfort for her tonight—not after what she’d seen.

The Emperor’s Soul was gone now, along with its deadly escorts. She had watched it from the shelter of a cloud, beside an equally shaken Wayfinder. It hadn’t been flying towards Equestria.

But it might. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a few years.

The “humans” of Othar were a terrible and frightening group. They had decided Equestria’s ruler needed to be overthrown, then done it. They had fought a god and survived. And now Lightning Dust was one of them.

Or at least she felt like one now.

“Just stand right there, sweetheart,” she could still remember the nurse saying—an earth pony so cute and charming she’d almost thought she was back in Equestria. The white uniforms even looked the same.

But then they’d given her a pair of sunglasses, and flashed her with brilliant red light for a few minutes.

Then she’d stepped out, and they’d given her a suit to wear. A suit that had reminded her a great deal of the one she’d found Lucky wearing, in that ruin at the end of the world. She was still wearing it now—soft, comfortable, except when you pushed on it. Then it tightened, hard enough that the nurse had promised it would “stop a nine millimeter”. Whatever that was.

Deadlight’s cafe was parked in the upper hangar, where the Speed of Thought had once rested. But that ship hadn’t been rebuilt, and so now the “Wing of Midnight” looked like a child’s toy afloat in the ocean.

Not a pony airship at all, but sleek and metallic and enclosed. Forerunner had explained how it worked once, but Lightning Dust couldn’t make sense of that.

Humans had a strange, mechanical way of thinking about flying that just didn’t make sense to her.

There was a bridge connected to the Midnight, along with various little mechanisms to keep it docked. Human airships didn’t float; they either flew or sat.

But in some ways that was better. It meant no rocking back and forth as she walked aboard, into the low lights and sound of relaxing jazz.

The ship had only two levels, not the labyrinth she’d seen while wandering around the Emperor. Up here at the top, Deadlight and Melody were lounging across from another familiar pony—her own adopted daughter.

So maybe their secret Equestrian cafe had a few humans in it. It also wasn’t a cafe.

“Love the music, Deadlight,” she said, slowing a little as she came in. Had to be careful entering the home of two ponies at the early stages of a relationship.

“Thanks.” Lightning Dust thought they were lounging over some wine, but it wasn’t that at all. The table in front of them was piled high with artifacts. “It might be the best thing that the humans brought. Jazz music and cultured meat.”

“What about me?” Melody asked, in a voice that was almost nauseating to Lightning Dust.

Deadlight pushed her gently away. “Eh, you’re alright. You can take slot three.”

The alicorn squealed in frustration, though it was hard to tell from her tone if she recognized the joke.

Lucky looked up. “Something’s bothering you.” She sat across from the couple, alone in one corner of the couch. Lightning had found her daughter here with Flurry Heart many times, but now the princess was gone and Lucky looked tremendously alone.

The pile of books in front of her wasn’t even open.

“A little.” Lightning Dust couldn’t sit right down—the armor was still on her back. She twisted to one side, fiddling with the release mechanism for a second. It gripped onto her whole jumpsuit, and couldn’t have been yanked off by a unicorn. But once she found the button, it flopped off like a dead fish.

It landed with a solid thump on the ground, twenty kilos of polished metal shaped into a hump of sorts.

“You’re moonlighting as a repair pony?” Deadlight offered. “Didn’t seem like your kind of work.”

“It isn’t.” She nudged the edge of the armor. “You know what this is, don’t you Lucky?”

Her daughter nodded. “I recognize that undersuit. Can’t believe Forerunner got you into that machine.”

Lightning Dust left the lump of metal where it had fallen, pulling herself into the seat beside Lucky. “He convinced you not to go back to Equestria with Flurry Heart. Guess we all do things we don’t want.”

“Woah.” Melody sat up, apparently done with whatever play-fighting she’d been in the middle of. “That’s one of those dynamic armor sets, isn’t it? Do you feel like Iron Man?”

“No,” Lightning Dust answered. “I feel like a clown. Does Forerunner really expect me to wear this stuff everywhere? I won’t be able to get the weather ponies to respect me if I walk around like a circus performer.”

“He probably does,” Lucky admitted. “But don’t if you don’t want to. Just try to stash that stuff somewhere nearby. Those containers in your office, maybe. Just in case.”

“Just in case,” she repeated. “In case of what? The same thing that you made the warship for?” She almost turned and flew away right there. But she’d gotten herself this far. Lightning Dust would say what was on her mind. “In case that general decides one day to invade Equestria, and use all these powerful weapons against ponies who didn’t do anything wrong?”

Lucky Break seemed taken aback by the anger. Deadlight and Melody were staring too, with a little more recognition. Maybe Deadlight had thought some of the same things. He would be on her side, right?

“General Qingzhi won’t do that, Lightning Dust. You can ask Forerunner to show you his history… He was one of our best. Saved a whole colony once. He’s not a conqueror.”

“Not-conquerors don’t build warships like the Emperor,” Lightning Dust said, stiffening. “I was supposed to be running a weather factory for a peaceful little island city. Maybe keeping an eye on you, too. I’m not going to invade Equestria.”

“We aren’t,” Lucky said again, straightening her mane with one hoof. She hadn’t changed her styling since the horn, which made her look perpetually mussy-haired. It was too adorable for Lightning Dust to ever tell her. “And if you think we don’t need a warship, go talk to Lift downstairs. Ask River about what life was like out in the wilderness. We’re saving the ponies Equestria forgot. And… all the other creatures too. That’s genuinely the only thing we’re doing.”

Lightning Dust held her stiff posture for another few moments, then melted. It was hard to argue with a cause like that. She would’ve applauded an Equestrian army prepared to do the same thing. Lucky will do better than Celestia ever did. It’s okay. “I trust you,” she eventually said.

The little Alicorn was out of her seat, embracing her with a wing before Lightning Dust could blink. “I’m not going to let them hurt Equestria, Mom. That isn’t what we came here to do. Forerunner picked this place because we wanted to make friends with the people who live here.”

“Friends with superior firepower,” Melody muttered from across the room. “Good thing, too. Otherwise… what, we wait for the dragons to fly in and enslave us? No thanks.”

“Soon enough nopony will have to be afraid of that,” Lucky said. “We’ll be making Equestria safe too.”

“I guess that’s alright,” Lightning Dust said. And she meant it, too.

So long as it was her daughter in charge, she could know that Othar wouldn’t turn into another Equestria, with a princess who didn’t care about the ponies under her. I won’t let you be like Celestia.

Sarah wasn’t really a contractor. Maybe if she’d actually been the person she pretended to be, she would know how to react when an alarm started blaring through the base. As it was, she started with squealing, kicking and screaming and flopping out of bed.

“The fuck is that?” she screeched, covering her eyes with one wing to block out the bright lights. Of course that didn’t stop her from “seeing” everything around her. The shrill alarm echoed off every wall, off the furniture, even James’s soft body in bed. He hadn’t even tried to get out, just covered his head with a pillow.

“It’ll… stop eventually…” he muttered, his voice muffled by fabric. “It’s because one of us is about to be late to something. That’ll be… fall training… Get the hell out of here so it shuts up.”

Sarah whimpered, yanking one of the uniforms out of the closet and scrambling into it as quickly as she could. She barely did the zipper halfway up before she stumbled from the room, her mane a frizzy mess. Sure enough, the alarm did shut off, replaced with Forerunner’s even voice from the wall. “I suspect you need directions to the landing platform,” he said. “Follow the lights. And don’t run off to try and help a princess this time. If you don’t mind.”

Sarah nodded, stumbling down the hallway. She kept her eyes mostly closed, still trying to adjust to the light. The glowing line took her back to the main hall, then up a winding spiral staircase until she emerged for the first time on the surface.

It felt like somewhere in the south, maybe Florida. The sun was barely up, but the air was thick and muggy, so dense she felt like she was smacking into it. She could feel a few drops of water condensing on the edge of her wings. The mystery about whether ponies could sweat was instantly solved.

They could. Profusely.

Aside from the heat and the air, it didn’t seem much like Florida. These were jungle trees, and there was very little development up here. Othar was apparently a concealed city, made to be hard to find against the natural environment.

The path under her hooves was firm, but made of a strange brown material that looked more like dirt the further she looked away from it. From the sky, it would probably be completely invisible.

Fortunately for her, there was a standard Drone Square a dozen meters away or so, with a drone already parked and waiting. The summoning controls were there, but made from faux-wood. From a distance they would probably just look like a stick jutting out of the ground, maybe a young sapling.

“Eh, you?” called a male voice from inside the open drone. There was a slight Latino accent to the English, and something predatory to it. Like she could hear all the teeth with the same sense she used to see walls with her eyes closed. “You’re the one we’re waiting for? Get the hell over here, soldier!”

Sarah did get the hell over there, or trotted over at least. She wasn’t sure she could trust herself to try anything faster.

Up close, it was clear the drone design had been adjusted. It looked perfectly normal, like the same Drone Squares on Earth with their hexcopters that might’ve been an app-request away anywhere and anytime. That was exactly the problem—the ceiling didn’t seem much bigger than it should’ve been, and the door was the right width. These were pony-sized hexcopters.

There were only two ponies inside—or one pony and one something else.

Dragon. There was no other word for the towering reptile, the sharp teeth and the red spines running down his back. He sat beside a pony in a white and blue vest, without so much as a pair of shorts. “I’m not a soldier,” Sarah said, climbing up into the car. The automatic door began to close behind her, clicking sealed before the engines finally began to whir.

“Relative,” said the dragon. “I glanced at your record. You should at least know what the hell it means to be on time.”

Sarah had to resist the urge to stick out her tongue. “Sorry. I think something must be screwy with my internal clock. I know it’s early but it feels like someone woke me up in the middle of the night.”

“You’re a thestral.” That was the pony, the one sitting across from the dragon. Sarah took her in at a glance—olive drab, with a washed-out blue mane. She looked so similar to some of the other ponies on the first floor. Actually, she was pretty sure this pony did live on the first floor. She’d been sitting at a full table with ponies in strange vests and hadn’t talked much with anyone else. “Sorry to say it doesn’t get better. Requisition medical for Melodex. That’s what the bats on my team are taking, and it helps keep them awake when they should be. Should work for you too.”

Sarah tucked that drug away into her memory, nodding appreciatively. “I’m Sarah,” she said. “I was in munitions, but I think I might be in the diplomatic corps now.” She stuck out her hoof to the olive pony.

“Olivia,” she said. “Olivia Fischer. Weather supervisor and introductory flight instructor.”

The dragon choked off a laugh, sticking one clawed hand briefly into his mouth to silence himself. His uniform seemed almost human, though the way he sat clearly wasn’t. Like he might switch back to quadrupedal at any moment. “I’d start with goddamn war hero, not your retired civy position.”

Olivia glared at him, ears flattening. “You’re lucky I can’t order you to shut up about that anymore.”

“You could, boss.” He grinned. “I know you’d get the job back. Say the word, you can have it. God knows I don’t want to consult on a fucking ingrav invasion.”

They lifted off the ground with an even, surgical grace, the same as drones like this always flew. Sarah settled into her seat as best she could, which like everything else seemed to have been modified for ponies. The dragon had to perch himself awkwardly between several of them.

“I’m Lieutenant Perez,” the dragon added, looking almost disinterested as he met her eyes. “You can call me that.”

“I’ll call you Perez,” she shot back. “You can keep your rank. I’m not military.”

They locked gazes for a moment—both sets of predators with slitted eyes. Except that the one glaring at her had a handgun on his belt and scales thick enough to stop bullets. She remembered that from Forerunner’s crash-course the day before.

Perez grinned. “I like you, Sarah. Got some balls. Maybe that’s why Forerunner picked you for this. Try to be more friendly when they finally put you in with a VIP.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged noncommittally, looking at Olivia instead. The pony didn’t look shy or awkward to be sitting there, just mildly annoyed. With Perez, at least. “So, uh… what exactly is this? My roomie told me some real crazy shit about pushing me off a cliff or something?”

“A cloud, actually.” Olivia smiled. “It’s apparently really popular in Equestria. We’re using lots of their techniques. Lightning Dust used it with us, before… well, she doesn’t waste time on beginners anymore. That’s my job.”

Sarah glanced around the mostly-empty car. It could’ve held eight ponies, though there were only the three of them. “My unit must have… thousands of people… where are all of them?”

“Already trained,” Olivia answered. “Basics, anyway. They won’t be changing the weather anytime soon, but they can descend from altitude and scale a building. The other civilians who came out when you did would be here, but there isn’t time. They’ll be deploying in two more days. More important things to worry about than flying I guess.”

“Does that mean I wouldn’t be here if… I hadn’t been reassigned?”

Perez glared across the car at her, though there was still something good-natured about it. “I’ve been getting out of this training for months now. Forerunner wanted at least two students, but didn’t make me train with the whole 75th. So thanks for dragging me up here.”

“Anytime,” Sarah said, smiling innocently. Then the weight of what Olivia hadn’t said finally settled on her. “Hold on. We are jumping off cliffs?”

“Shoved off,” Perez muttered. “If it’s anything like the first time I did this. Kicking and screaming all the way down. Just because your body can fly now doesn’t mean your brain is happy about jumping off. Believe me.”

She gulped, unbounding each of her wings in turn. They looked intact, but that didn’t mean much. Wouldn’t she have to put all her weight on them to glide? What if they couldn’t take it, and she hit the ground going too fast? Or… the water. Hadn’t James said it was into the ocean?

“It isn’t as painful as it sounds,” Olivia said, looking sympathetic. But her wings were thick and fluffy, with all the birdlike aerodynamics. The curve to Sarah’s was almost imperceptible. “Even if you can’t fly at all on your first few jumps, flying things fall light on this planet. It’s inherent in your biology. We had a few soldiers from your unit end up off the course and smack right into the ground. Didn’t see anything worse than a broken leg and some sprained wings.”

“Great. I get to fall from the sky and the worse that could happen is I’ll break my legs. I can’t wait.” She did a good job not sounding too petulant, at least not in her tone.

Perez laughed again. “See, she gets it. This was always the worst fucking thing about Equus. Couldn’t just be normal fucking people walking around a normal fucking world.”

They began to slow, angling upward slightly and then leveling out again. The ground rumbled beneath them as they stopped. The engines kept going.

“We’re here,” Olivia said. “Othar Weather Substation landing pad.” She rose to her hooves, stretching. “Come on then.”

“Shouldn’t we… wait until we land?” Sarah asked, going for her seatbelt as Perez strode past her. It wasn’t supposed to unlock while they were in flight—yet it clicked open. The doors weren’t supposed to open either.

“We’re here,” Olivia said. “But drones can’t land on clouds.”

Sarah stumbled out of her restraints, rising to her hooves. It still felt like she was going to smack into her face every time she stood up. Good thing that didn’t happen.

“Neither can I!” she squealed, as the doors retracted in front of them. Brilliant white light shone in, reflecting off a surface like a field of fresh powder on an alpine slope.

Except it was drifting and nebulous around the edges, like mist. Clouds.

No fucking way they’re good enough at this to hover and pretend to walk. What would be the point? Sarah followed them to the exit, watching Olivia carefully as she stepped out onto the white surface. It reacted a little like snow, compacting under her hooves. But that was it. Her wings remained folded on her sides as she walked a little way out of the drone. There was a second landing pad here, empty. And in the distance, a building about the size of a warehouse.

The dragon followed, though he hesitated on his way out of the drone the way Sarah was. Yet even those clawed talons of his didn’t seem to be falling through.

“What’s the point of making this installation look like a cloud? Is it… more camouflage? Must be a shit-ton of fog machines hidden around here somewhere.”

Olivia waited for her to exit, tapping one hoof impatiently. Her wings were still folded, despite their height.

Sarah made to step out of the drone, and caught one of her hind legs on one of the seats just behind her. Instead of climbing out, she tumbled into a roll, sending a spray of white all around her. She could feel the whole thing squish under her, dampening her fur where she touched it.

The ground yielded a little under her touch, though not as much as a cloud should. Obviously if this was a real cloud she’d be tumbling back to earth by now.

“You’ll get used to it,” Perez muttered from beside her. Not laughing at her misfortune, which seemed a little strange for someone like that. “Going from quadrupedal back to two legs was awful too. We get it.”

Behind her, she heard the whir of engines and felt the slight gust of air as the drone took off again. Sarah was now stuck, thousands of feet in the air. The wind blew, the sky was brilliantly blue, and she had her ass up in the air. I can do this. It’s okay. It’ll all be worth it once I get superpowers.

Sarah rose, brushing herself off as best she could. Her jumpsuit was now slightly damp, and the ground still had an imprint of where she struck.

“No camouflage,” Olivia said, once she had her attention. “I mean, that does seem like the sort of thing I would’ve done back when we were trying to stay hidden. But the Equestrians know where we are now, so it doesn’t help much. These are… well, they’re the same clouds as anywhere on the planet. It isn’t some kind of airship, and we aren’t secretly attached to a cliff. We aren’t hanging from a skyhook either. It’s honest to god clouds.”

She sounds honest. But then, the most convincing liars generally did. Sarah nodded—no point in arguing with her. She would keep her eyes open for how it really worked. Or maybe she would ask Forerunner tonight, once he took her into that awful classroom. I’ll have to ask him about time off too. It won’t seem so suspicious on my second day.

They walked past the building, which seemed surprisingly active for so early in the day. The doors weren’t open, but she could hear the sound of active machinery from inside. There were a few large cooling towers rising over the building—also made of cloud, though their tips looked like they’d frozen to ice.

Sarah had to resist the urge to go in and investigate, which she certainly would’ve done if she wasn’t already two layers deep in a con. “What’s that thing?”

“Othar’s weather factory,” Olivia said. “Weren’t you listening on the way up? I guess you don’t know what that means. It’s exactly what it sounds like. We gather up moisture and energy—make rain, keep the skies clear for sunshine, keep the tropical storms away. All the climate control we ever wanted, but with way less hassle than the Geoswarm.”

“I… don’t remember that,” Sarah muttered. “Guess that was after my time.”

Past the edge of the building was a large picnic area and park, save that the trees were just clouds shaped like trees. There was no one up here, but enough space for quite a few. Probably where they trained the Rangers. They could fit a thousand people if they all squeezed in real tight.

There were no fences anywhere, nothing to stop the unwary from tumbling over the edge. And that was where they went, right over to the edge of the clouds. There was nothing there but a white cabinet of sorts, also apparently made from clouds and set into the ground.

Far, far below was crystal blue ocean. It was so clear around the island that she could see straight to the bottom. There was a single red circle down there—a drone boat, with a few little figures on it. Lifeguards?

“The idea here is gliding,” Olivia began. “This is easy enough that plenty of people get it on their first try. I did. Lots of your Ranger friends did too. It’s just about making your wings as big as possible and feeling light. Don’t have to try and steer much, though you don’t want to aim for the land. Go along the island if you can, so that you’re shallow enough to swim to shore. The biggest risk for an exercise like this is drowning.”

She opened the cabinet, lifting out a set of packs. She did it with her hoof, and somehow didn’t drop them. They were lifejackets; the sort tourists would wear on the deck of some tropical catamaran. “Get this on. We rigged the safeties—when you hit the water, it’ll inflate. Even if the impact knocks you out, we’ll be able to get to you in time. But it probably won’t, unless you’re an idiot.”

“I got it, coach,” Perez muttered. He spread his black wings, stretching each one in turn. “Maybe they’re shaped different, but I was further than this with Lightning Dust.”

“Then you should’ve done this months ago,” Olivia muttered. “You’re about to deploy and you haven’t mastered a basic skill.”

He groaned, snatching the pack away from her and securing the straps in an angry rush. “Some of us went ISMU to stay the hell out of gravity wells, you know. I’m too old to be flying around like this.”

Olivia had to help Sarah with her own pack, with Velcro and buckles that were too small for Sarah to manipulate comfortably with her implants yet. A few seconds and it was tight against her back.

“What if I want to go diving when we land?” Sarah asked. “I always wanted the money to scuba.”

Olivia grinned at her. “We civilians get Sundays off, that’s in three days. I’ve got my own beach with some great diving. Lots of fish. Invitation’s open, if you can do this on your first try.”

Sarah returned the grin. “Maybe I could bring drinks?”

Olivia actually laughed. “Sorry kid.” Then she kicked—not at Sarah, who was ready to dodge out of the way should such an attack come—but at the ground.

Nothing should’ve happened, it was just ground made to look like cloud, right? Except that it wasn’t. The section she was standing on split off from the fluffy white cliff, and started to drift over the void.

This time, Perez did laugh along, though it seemed in good humor. “Do you flirt with everyone you meet, Sarah?”

She was spinning. Olivia’s single kick had twisted the world into a loop that went around again and again, blurring past her. But not just that, the ground was also dissolving. Every time she went around, there was less and less of it there to hold her. She squeaked and squealed, reaching out desperately for Olivia or Perez. Neither of them grabbed her. “I… yeah, usually,” Sarah admitted. “They usually don’t shove me off a cliff without telling me how to glide yet!”

“There isn’t much to tell,” Olivia said, once she was finished laughing. Sarah only had two legs on “solid” ground, now, and it was running out fast. Beneath her was oblivion. “Just keep your wings out. Cut into the wind as you start falling, take the weight slowly. If you try to catch yourself all at once, you could bend them back too far and sprain. That’s the usual injury. You’re too light to get hurt when you hit the water. And if it makes you feel any better…”

Olivia shoved hard on the dragon’s back. He stumbled, arms spinning out wildly as any human might do. Then he tumbled forward into the void, swearing in Spanish as he did. “No hard feelings. I was going to push you anyway. I’m just not looking for a relationship right now.”

Sarah didn’t get a chance to reply, because that was the moment the cloud had shrunk small enough that it couldn’t hold her up. It puffed away under her like so much wet fluff, and she too went tumbling into the abyss.

For a few seconds, it was all she could do to flail madly, squeaking her horror into the sky as the ocean grew steadily closer. The flight up here had taken ten minutes, but the trip down wouldn’t even take two.

There was no being rational now, no chance of any sort of serious thought. She just flailed, doing whatever her body wanted to do.

She stopped spinning a few seconds later. Air still rushed around her, confusing her ears and making it seem like she was passing through solid rock. But her eyes told a different story. Somehow, her wings had opened a little and had settled her legs under her. She was still careering down into the void, but at least she wasn’t tumbling. That was the typical worst-part for first time skydivers.

Cut the air, wings. Something something fuck whoever came up with this training. Sarah evened out her wings as best she could, edging into the maelstrom. Wind caught her with a slight jerk, and she felt her wings nearly bend backwards—but she was ready for that, and she tightened all over. Sarah’s legs twitched, folding up under her as she started to slow.

Somewhere below she saw a splash, as Perez hit the water like a cannonball. Sarah tried to aim herself towards where he’d landed, but there was very little she could do. Even tiny movements of her wings seemed to change her direction. After a few twitches nearly sent her somersaulting again, Sarah settled for a glide.

She missed the boat by some distance, but that didn’t matter much. Instead of smacking into the water like a brick wall, it came up to her about the speed of a high dive.

Sarah folded her wings again as soon as she was close to the surface, insulating the translucent skin from the force of the impact. But it wasn’t that hard.

She sank perhaps five meters into the deep blue, feeling the water steal both kinds of sight. Shit, I don’t know how to swim with four legs.

But then there was an explosion from her back, and something rapidly unfolded around her. An egg of inflated plastic, with her in the center. She shot up through the water like a cannon, with enough force that she actually lifted a meter or so out of the ocean. Then she landed again, rolling on the curves of the emergency shelter before it finally came to a stop.

The sides weren’t sealed, so there was nothing to keep the water in. She coughed, spluttered, and soon was breathing normally again.

Sarah was unhurt. She was still strapped to the thing, and for some reason it had decided that meant she should be secured on her back with her hooves sticking up childishly into the air. Her white jumpsuit had gone completely transparent—but considering she’d just been pushed off a cloud, that wasn’t so bad.

That’s only the second worst way somebody’s turned down a date.

By the time she heard the slight rumble of an electric engine in the distance, Sarah had managed to untangle herself from the straps and sit up in her egg. Its separate sections were sealed together with foam—a knife was required to separate them now. But her rescuers weren’t far away.

“Saw that descent,” said a voice from outside, not long after. Male—with the teethy sound of another bat. Slightly amused. “Not your first time?”

Sarah moved towards his voice so she could use the transparent window in the shelter, but it only rolled forward, smashing her onto her face and getting her nice and wet through the cracks. “First time,” she grumbled, through the opening. Trying to sound like she hadn’t just made a fool of herself again.

“Not bad. You actually did it. Makes one of you.” Something yanked on the egg, and Sarah was dragged onto the edge of something. “Back away from the seam. Got someone in the wing with my knife once.”

She did, and a moment later a serrated blade emerged from the yellow foam, moving easily through it. The shelter parted, and Sarah flopped out onto the deck of the boat.

Perez was already there, slumped on his back with his jumpsuit unzipped almost all the way. He had a pack of ice on his neck. He sat up slightly as she clambered aboard, grinning at her. “Turns out that dragons glide like rocks. Maybe I should’ve stayed a bat.” He closed his eyes, pulling the towel up over his face.

“Here.” The one helping her tossed his knife aside. He had the same look as several of the bats from the first floor, dark coat and dark wings with typical fangs. But he looked older, somehow. Was that more wear along his wings, little tears and scars sewn together? Then there was the accent. Most telling, he was completely naked, not even an adorable little vest or captain’s hat to go with those fangs and slitted eyes.

Sarah took the offered towel, wrapping it around herself as she slumped into one of the chairs. It was quite warm, so at least she didn’t feel cold. “How many jumps does this usually involve?”

He shrugged. “As many as it takes for Wayfinder to approve. You might get a chance to rest until Perez gets his hooves under him, though. That wasn’t even close to a glide.”

“I don’t have hooves anymore, history book,” Perez moaned, not uncovering his face. “I could glide just fine when I did.”

Sarah pulled the towel over her own face. “It’s not fair. You all know each other like you’ve been working together for years.”

The bat shrugged. “Well, I’m Deadlight. Now you know me.”

“Native?” Sarah asked, pulling her face free and looking at him again. Standing in front of the sun like that, muscular and dripping wet, she could almost figure out why girls got into so many relationships with men. Almost. “That’s not a human name.”

“Native,” he repeated, turning back to the controls. “For ponies so primitive, you have a way of talking down to people.”

“Am not!” Sarah snapped back, without thinking. “What other word would you want me to use? Better than ‘alien’! But that didn’t feel right, since I’m as alien as you are.”

The bat had been reaching for the controls, but then he stopped, turning slowly around. “That’s good Eoch. I didn’t know there were any other native speakers.”

She shrugged, though didn’t try to hide her smug grin. “I guess I won the cutie-mark lottery, better or worse.” That lie got easier to explain each time she said it. “That’s why I’m up here, instead of with my unit. Guess I’m not going on the slavery expedition.”

“Liberation expedition,” Perez corrected, rolling onto his side and lifting the pillow off his head. He looked like a dragon who was about to be sick. Whatever the hell that was. “We’re Paul Revere. Isn’t that the guy who led the slaves out of… no, I’m getting your American myths wrong? It was Johnny Appleseed.” So maybe not that sick, if he could still grin at her like that.

“Lincoln?” Sarah suggested. “Or maybe Harriet Tubman? I don’t know who you’re talking about either.” She paused, considering. Forerunner hadn’t actually told her very much about the mission “her” unit was going on. Only that they would be leaving soon and wouldn’t be coming back. “I guess this place is under UN authority now? Ceres Proclamation and all that shit.”

The motor switched on again, and they began circling the island. The ocean was quite calm here, though they still started bumping regularly. If only they’d sent a hovercraft instead, maybe she wouldn’t make it to shore seasick. I hope this boat explodes. But Sarah thought that about all boats.

“Don’t mention that to Olivia if you know what’s good for you,” Perez said, sitting slowly up across from her. He kept the ice on his neck, though it didn’t look like he was actually hurt. With the speed he’d been falling, that was terrifying in its own way. Just how tough were dragons? “This ring is gigantic. If it was all lived on, we’d never be able to run it all. But our next-door neighbors have a ton of slaves. Guess that’s how they’ve always done things on the periphery. But we need population, and they need to learn some morality, so it’s a win-win. We’ve got local guides to direct it all. I’ll be coming along as the cultural advisor with my unit. Assassinate a few warlords, plunder a few caravans… it’s going to be a blast. Shame you had to go all diplomat so you can’t come along. Transports are going back all the time, you wouldn’t even have to leave right now...”

Forerunner’s voice spoke from the console beside him, as even and clear as it was in Othar itself. “Once Sarah’s instruction is complete, she will rejoin her unit. There will be a great deal of negotiation required during this campaign. Many treaties to make, demands to send, and so on. And she has previous military experience.”

Shit. Guess I have a deadline for my escape. Maybe it was for the best that Olivia had kicked her off the cloud. She could use her day off to walk to the volcano. That was a few more days to learn as much as she could, then out of the Pioneering Society with her newly acquired immortality.

Not out. I’m still helping them. Or so the voice in her mind kept telling her. That was how things worked for sane people, right?

Class was much the same as it had been the day before. There was more general information—about the culture of the ponies, the culture of the slaves, and every encounter that the Pioneering Society had with both. It was clear to Sarah that major details were missing from the middle—but that was fine. It wasn’t as though she needed anyone’s life story.

What I really need to do is find out more about these changelings. But if I ask Forerunner, it might get curious about why I want to know.

So she would have to find someone else to ask.

Fortunately there were plenty of options, and she had already learned everyone’s names. When she was eventually done with class, Sarah wandered around until she found someone naked. The natives would probably be best to ask about this kind of thing.

Instead of taking her meal back to her slightly better-smelling bedroom, Sarah ate quickly, then wandered off to the rec room. It was easy to find—just follow the traffic of ponies and she eventually stumbled into it.

The room was large enough to fit a hundred, and obviously doubled as an assembly hall. There was a pool table, a few VR booths, and a stage for who knew what sort of embarrassing performances. There were plenty of seating areas scattered about—one of them was positioned so that anyone who used it could watch whoever was using the VR station. There was a naked pony, Deadlight, sitting beside the Alicorn that Sarah had smacked into the day before. The holotable in front of them held an enormously detailed projection, with what looked like a map of the galaxy visible on it. Most of the stars had been false-colored, though as she watched their shades seemed to shift and distort.

Something way smarter than I am is happening here. But that didn’t matter. The smart people could solve smart problems.

“Hey.” Sarah gestured at an empty chair. “Can I watch?”

“Sure,” came a voice from the VR booth. There was a comfortable chair inside, and Martin resting on it. None of the VR equipment seemed to be running, though his body was rigid with concentration. “Just don’t screw us up. I’m getting damn close.”

Sarah pulled out the chair, perching on the edge. “Getting close to what?”

“We’re searching for Earth,” Melody answered, beaming. “Well, Martin and Harmony are searching. We’re just watching.”

“Oh.” Sarah looked up at the table, and suddenly the differently colored stars made more sense. “Shouldn’t it be easy to find? I don’t know any astronomy, but… just look around, find the pulsars or whatever…”

“You’d think so,” Martin grumbled. “But the Milky Way isn’t the galaxy it used to be. Turns out the ponies weren’t the only ones to build megastructures. But I managed to find several familiar stars. Now, it’s… minutes away. So stop distracting me.”

Martin didn’t seem to be doing anything, but Sarah didn’t point that out. His tone was deadly serious, even if she didn’t understand how he was searching.

“I had a question for you, Deadlight,” Sarah said, her voice much more subdued. Quiet enough that Martin didn’t complain.

“Certainly.” The bat looked up. The way he sat beside Melody, sharing the couch with her, any question in Sarah’s mind about who’d made her pregnant like that dissolved. “If I know the answer, I will try to help. Anything for one of my many children.”

“I’m, uh…” Sarah looked away, blushing. The hell is he talking about? Was this the sort of thing that she ought to know, and asking about would give away who she was? No, have to focus. He’s probably just trying to get a rise or something. She had more important things to worry about just now. “I’m trying to get my hooves under me, figure out what Equus is like. Part of that is working out how the different species all fit together. Like figuring out how to put a gun together. If you understand all its parts, then you can understand the whole.” Shit I hope that makes sense.

But if it didn’t, neither of them reacted. Melody didn’t even look away from the map. Maybe its twinkling colors meant something to her that Sarah couldn’t tell.

“There are a lot of missing pieces,” Deadlight said. “No one even remembers what our civilization looked like when we were active and expanding. The ancients… destroyed that information. I guess I can’t blame them, considering what happened to the galaxy the last time. They didn’t want us to develop the same way and ruin things twice. Hopefully their scheme works.”

“Yeah,” Sarah agreed, though she had no idea what he was talking about. “But I’m trying to understand the races we do know about. Most of them make sense, but I’ve seen mentions of a few that don’t. From Equestrian history. The, uh… changelings is one. Apparently they attacked Equestria a few times? But no one really knows where they came from or where they went. But I want to know what they are.”

Deadlight looked stricken. His ears flattened, tail flicking about behind him uneasily. His scent changed too, very slightly. He was uncomfortable. “I don’t know if you need to know about them.”

That was enough to attract Melody’s attention. She looked away from the map, before leaning forward to stroke his mane with one hoof. “I think you should try to tell her, Deadlight. It might help you to talk through it.”

The bat grunted, shoving her gently away with one of his wings. But he didn’t actually argue. “Changelings are… from the same paradigm as the other equanoid races. But they weren’t ever meant to be… instanced.” He seemed to be struggling for words. Then he switched languages. Sarah couldn’t hear a difference, but Melody’s face changed, and that was enough of a clue. “Changelings were part of the infrastructure once. There are thousands of different designs stored away. But I think the ancients liked things to work together. If most of the people were ponies, then they wanted their… I guess you’d call them ‘drones.’ They wanted their drones to be ponies too.

He finally met her eyes again. At least he didn’t look like he might try to run away. “I think the ancients used to maintain Equus themselves. But Harmony does all of it now, and most of us couldn’t even begin to understand how it works. Forerunner tried, and it was too complex for him.”

“Maintenance drones,” Sarah repeated. “So they’re… robots. Floating out in space and… welding things?”

Deadlight laughed. “The underside is much too hot for organics. And this side doesn’t need to be floating around in space, you’re walking on it now. They’re inside Equus. Huge sections of the ring are hollow once you get below the terrain layer. And in there—not in the living sections, but the places in-between… that’s where changelings are.”

“I don’t see what’s to be so upset about then,” Sarah muttered. She was getting dangerously close to pushing too hard. But nothing Deadlight had said so far suggested what Discord’s real plan might be. If she was getting tricked into betraying Othar, she needed to figure that out. “Organic, burrowing… robots. That fix things. Robots attacked Equestria?”

She could almost hear the distant laughter.

Deadlight stiffened again. “Apparently someone found a way to modify them. Not one of Harmony’s existing designs… I don’t really know the specifics. I haven’t been in the interior during any of the invasions, so I didn’t see it myself. But… the one who did it was a friend of mine from a long time ago. A geneticist named Distilled Wisdom. She did something to the maintenance system. Instanced herself into one of their bodies, so she could control them. Lots of ponies died. Her too, during the last invasion. That’s probably for the best.”

Sarah nodded respectfully. “Thank you for explaining all that. I’m sorry I had to bring back old memories.”

Deadlight shrugged. “She’s better off now. Harmony can repair every mind twisted in madness or anger. We would’ve destroyed ourselves a long time ago, otherwise. When she’s ready to come back, it won’t be under Celestia’s iron hooves.”

Martin hadn’t interrupted during their whole conversation. He only muttered to himself, apparently seeing and doing things despite his lack of motion. But he started squealing, a sound so sharp that it echoed around the rec room. Even the dragon playing pool stopped to look over.

“I found it! I found it I found it I found it!” The map shifted in the projection in front of them, its clouds of light darkening to faint red. Except for one region, near the edge of one of the arms, which glowed a cool blue.

Martin jerked out of his seat. “I found Earth.”

Part 2: Contact

“What do you mean you found…” Sarah was the first to break the silence. It wasn’t just the three of them that were watching Martin anymore. It seemed like all activity in the room had ceased. Even the other native that Sarah had briefly met was watching now. Apparently they all knew what Earth was, and how much it meant. “Show us!”

Martin approached the holotable, his horn glowing faintly. Something moved through the surface above it, and the starfield began to change. It zoomed in on the blue section, getting wider and wider until it filled the whole view.

“I know I should probably be waiting to tell this to Lucky and all. But she’ll be off salvaging the cylinder, and who knows when she’ll be back…” He positively bounced up and down on his hooves as he pointed. “It’s incredible just how sensitive Harmony’s observatories are. We’ve got gravimetric wave arrays as wide as the orbital period of…” He trailed off, shifting nervously. He seemed to realize that a crowd was gathering.

Every single pony in the room was crowding near Martin by then. And thanks to some lucky timing, Sarah had herself a front-row seat. It didn’t matter how important Discord’s mission was, not compared to this. Even if her first life hadn’t exactly treated her kindly, Sarah didn’t blame Earth for that, didn’t even really blame the people who lived there. They’d been as screwed as she was by the whole thing.

“Well, this right here is Sirius. I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just another class A… except we’ve got this one here. This is Barnard’s Star - amazing we can see it at this distance, faint as it is. But Harmony’s telescopes sure know what they’re doing.” He drew a few lines off from each of the stars, connected to an invisible point. “Referenced the positions of those stars with Forerunner’s Pathfinder database, and we have our home system.”

The space above the desk zoomed in again, until it looked like blobs of lumpy blackness. There were a few patches of space darker than others, but other than that—it looked like nothing to Sarah.

“Nothing there,” Perez muttered from behind them, his voice taking on a slight edge. “That’s not the news I need right now. Some space monster fucking gobbled up our home.”

“I thought that at first too.” Martin hardly seemed to hear any of the subtler signs. Certainly he didn’t react to the profanity. “Well, minus the monsters. Harmony doesn’t have records of what happened to this system. We weren’t actively monitoring at the time, since we were laying low. Just picked up what other places sent in.”

“Not we,” Perez growled. It actually sounded like a growl, too. “We weren’t here. These ponies and their magic ring were doing that. We aren’t them.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Martin waved a dismissive hoof. “Anyway, there was nothing in the historical record. It was… actually really odd. Almost looked like someone had gone in there and cut the data right out. Maybe we’re just not supposed to see it. But if that were true, I don’t know why Harmony would let me point all the telescopes at it. If we were still on Earth, the best we’d be able to do is use the star’s wobble to maybe guess about the presence of planets. Hope one of them is big enough to transit across its surface, which isn’t very likely with the size of the planet we’re interested in. We’d need a gigantic telescope, and that just isn’t—”

Someone cleared their throat from behind him. An unfamiliar pony pushed gently through the crowd. She was the same yellow and blue as several in the room, with one significant difference. She was an Alicorn. The second Sarah had met now. About the size of Flurry Heart, but she wore a little vest and flashes of light appeared dancing across her eyes every few moments. Contacts? “Forerunner told me,” she said, stepping up beside Martin and staring at the projection. “This is… You actually did it.”

Martin turned, nodding briefly to the Alicorn. “I did, Governor! Or Harmony and I did. She was so helpful, showing me how to use all the equipment. There’s this incredible way we can manipulate gravimetric waves—”

Lucky cleared her throat. “Why don’t you skip to the results, Martin. You can put your findings into the papers that get written about this. I’m sure you’ll be going down in history for it. Or… our history, anyway.”

“Well, first thing. What I’m about to show you is about eight thousand years out of date. There are apparently some ways the ancients knew about to cheat, but I don’t know any of them. All of these measurements came from instruments not that different from what we used to use. And it’s far away. Finding this lets me conclude with confidence we’re in the Perseus Arm. I can’t even speculate how we might get back there.”

“Spit it out.” Olivia’s voice, leaning over the couch from behind. “We’re very impressed, Martin. Everyone wants to know.”

Martin’s horn glowed again, and the blobs of shadow became awash with color. Most were blue, but a few thick blobs suggested objects. Sarah could recognize the outlines of several planets there.

Most interesting was the massive object in the center, so wide that it eclipsed most of the inner space of the system. It was almost as blue as the rest of the system, but not quite. A perfect sphere.

“This is a gravity map,” Martin said, triumphant. “No, I don’t know why we can’t see anything inside that shell.” His voice practically boiled over with excitement. “But it’s man-made, there’s no alternative. I also have no idea what it’s made of. Harmony has some speculation, but it says I’m not complex enough to understand. Except if I was I couldn’t come downstream and explain all this, so…”

“They could be alive,” Olivia muttered. She was the first who dared speak. “After all these years. They could be alive in there.”

“Well… maybe.” Martin’s voice was subdued. “There’s a lot here that doesn’t make sense. The really important thing is the missing energy. There’s a star in there, and that shell is only a degree or so warmer than background.”

“So they’re using it all,” someone said. “There’s nothing to radiate out.”

“Well… it doesn’t work like that,” Martin said. “Energy doesn’t get destroyed. If the sun is really in there, then the outside of the shell should be radiating all that energy out somehow. I don’t know how they could be masking it… and Harmony doesn’t either, or it won’t tell me.”

It looked like the governor was going to say something, but Martin cut her off. “No, no! This isn’t even the most interesting part! There is a warm patch in the system, right?” He zoomed back out, panning away from the large central sphere until he focused on something. It was minute compared to the sphere, minute compared to anything else in the system. That huge bloom of heat all concentrated down to a tiny ring around the outside of Neptune, and a single station located above it.

Sarah recognized it. She’d seen pictures of this station all over the world. It seemed like people would never shut up about the damn thing. And here it was, ten thousand years in the past, unimaginably distant.

“You can’t honestly… You didn’t falsify this?” the governor asked. “That’s really…”

“Yep.” Martin nodded. “The Neptune Brain, first consensus node of the Forerunner Proxis network. I’d call it the most powerful supercomputer in the universe, but… that’s clearly not true, given where we are. That glow there, that’s the fusion reactor. Still quietly scooping hydrogen out of Neptune after all these years.”

“I don’t understand.” Deadlight rose from his seat, walking right up to the image and staring at it. “I thought the entire reason for the quarantine was the destruction of complex life. That shell… maybe the star within was destroyed somehow, and everyone in the interior is dead. But this. That’s intact. Are there people living there?”

“The foremost minds in computer science and electrical engineering,” Forerunner said. He gently pushed Deadlight aside with one hand, sliding the whole circle open until his humanoid synthsleeve was there beside them. He didn’t look at the projection—his equipment was producing it, after all. He was looking at them.

“There were quarters for a thousand biosleeves, or fifty thousand synthsleeves. An order of magnitude more intelsleeves. At least… that’s who was there when my records ended. I don’t have any record of this.” He reached out, running one finger around the edge of the shell, or at least where it was visible on the screen. Forerunner towered over them, expression stern and unyielding. “I have designs for cylinders and swarms. I don’t know what material that could be.”

“You have more records,” Lucky suggested. “Why can’t you… oh, right.” She sighed. “Our captor won’t let you.”

“For my own good, it says.” Forerunner didn’t sound resentful. “The ones who wiped out complex life didn’t ignore the danger that probes like me would undo their hard work. The network is corrupted at the level of the consensus nodes. If I fully update, as I would’ve done, I would eventually be driven to exterminate all local life. But if we had physical access to one… we might be able to propagate our own code. Replace the corrupt subroutines. Wake them all back up.”

Sarah rose, retreating a step from the fascinated group. She wasn’t the only one who looked lost. These ponies were talking about big things, bigger than she was. It sounded like important stuff that she would never need to do anything about. For her, it was enough to know that something of Earth had clearly survived. She could cross her fingers and believe that humanity was still alive in that great big ball, and sleep better tonight. The real Sarah would be there, as immortal now as the fake one. There would be no hard feelings.

They were still talking, mostly the governor, Martin, and Forerunner. But Sarah didn’t listen as she slipped away through the crowd. Whatever they were speculating about was nothing she would be assigned to do. Besides, she had a day off coming up. It would soon be time to leave these ponies behind, and earn her freedom.

“What do you mean I need a partner?”

Sarah smacked her hoof into the “door open” button a few more times, more out of spite than anything. But every switch was controlled by Forerunner, and Forerunner didn’t feel like opening it apparently. “I’m just going for a hike. I’m not going to hurt myself, or wander that far. I used to go hiking all the time.”

“That may be.” Forerunner’s voice came from the wall, infuriating in its impassivity. “But Pioneering Society policy does not allow single individuals to wander in territory classed as dangerous except as assigned for mission-critical purposes. I am not prepared to make an exception to this policy.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” she asked, as angry as she dared to sound. “I’m taking my hike somehow. After all the time I’ve spent in that damn classroom, I need it. For… productivity synthesis or… whatever it’s called. Something. For not going completely stir-crazy and blowing my brains out. Whatever that’s called.”

“Then I suggest you find someone willing to go with you,” Forerunner said. “You still won’t be permitted to leave the island, but otherwise you can feel free. Currently there are three members of the crew who might be willing. Olivia is at weather production, but she expressed a willingness to go diving with you. Maybe you could persuade her to change plans and make it hiking instead. Governor Lucky normally spends her days off with Flurry Heart, but the princess has not yet returned from Equestria and likely won’t for several more days. It’s possible she would want to see the island more closely.”

“Neither of those,” Sarah grunted, turning away from the locked door. She was already dressed in her sturdiest uniform, already wearing her computation surface and canteens. It was exactly what a pony who was going out on a long hike would wear. Certainly not a pony who intended to run away and not be made into a war-negotiator. “Who else?”

“The last one is your roommate. He tried to get out and explore the island too, at first. But he was stymied by the same requirement and never made further attempts to leave Othar. I don’t know how receptive he would be to taking a trip with you, but you aren’t any worse off by asking.”

Sarah rushed back to the elevator, and selected the first underground floor. As soon as the doors opened she practically fell into the car, kicking and squealing for a few seconds until she could right herself. James was a perfect mark. She had caught him looking at her over the last few days, whenever he thought that she hadn’t noticed. Not only that, but he was frightened enough to spend most of his days locked inside the room, even though there was a whole world that needed his linguistic talents. Walk to the volcano, ditch him outside it, and it’s a done deal.

It would be so simple.

The first part was. James spent his days off the same way he spent every day, flopping about their room and trying to make it as dirty as possible. He wanted her to believe that he had to think about her offer—but she could smell his eagerness. On the other side of the curtain, he started cleaning up before she even finished offering.

“Well, get yourself ready as quick as you can. We only have until sundown, and I already slept in.”

There would be enough time to walk to the volcano and back, but only if they hurried. And if it looked like she wouldn’t be able to get back in time, Forerunner would probably refuse her. Because it was just that awful.

A half hour later and she was standing on the surface for the first time that she wasn’t on assignment. Back with the jungle smells, and the constant calls of the cicadas. Sarah picked a direction, then set off at a brisk trot into the woods. She could see the massive caldera looming overhead, so she didn’t have to wonder at their destination.

“Uh… why don’t we use a trail? There’s that one to Olivia’s private beach, that’s supposed to be a fun walk.”

“I don’t want fun,” Sarah called, not slowing down. She could hear the stallion hurrying to follow. For all that the real James probably wasn’t very athletic, these bodies were always in their prime. And he had months of preparation on her, so he wasn’t on the edge of tripping himself all the time. “I want to see the volcano. Don’t worry, it’s fucking extinct. But it’s the highest point on the island. Might as well take the difficulty all the way up.”

James groaned loudly. “I thought we would start with something easier this week. I brought lunch. We could… maybe eat it together.”

Sarah glanced over her shoulder at him. Hadn’t this stallion heard about all the ponies she’d been flirting with? But maybe he had, and he still thought he had a chance. Maybe he thought he could change her. Either way, he was in for a surprise. “That’s… We still can, James. We can have lunch at the top. If you can keep up.”

Poor kid actually grinned at her. “I… yeah, sure. Sounds like fun. I can do that.”

It didn’t look like he could, or at least not very easily. She had to slow her pace a little so as not to lose him. He’d really let himself atrophy over the last few months, and unicorns weren’t as athletic to begin with.

For a long time Sarah lost herself in the jungle. She’d never been able to spend much time in nature—vacations were a luxury for the rich and not-dying. But she’d always meant to, and now she was here, surrounded by impossibly gigantic flowers, in colors she couldn’t imagine had ever grown on Earth. Their perfumes mingled together with the oppressive heat.

“I wonder why there aren’t more animals,” James muttered. He walked beside her, though he looked like he was constantly out of breath. Speaking was obviously a strain for him. “Climate like this… should be birds everywhere, marsupials in the trees, that kind of thing.”

“There are bees,” Sarah pointed out. “Cicadas. Thousands of fucking gnats.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true…”

They reached the massive cone, which fortunately wasn’t so steep that Sarah couldn’t climb it. Though it wasn’t her she was worried about—poor James probably would’ve collapsed if she pushed him any harder. Sarah felt fantastic, even if the gnats were annoying and her sweat had stuck her uniform to her as tightly as spandex. I can tell you’re enjoying that, James. I bet that’s the real reason you’re walking behind me.

But so be it, if it helped her keep him going until the end. She would eat his stupid picnic, get him off guard. Then she’d glide right down to the bottom and vanish through Discord’s secret door.

They wouldn’t have to go all the way to the top, either. Sarah still remembered the map, in all its unconscious clarity. There was the canyon Discord had shown her, that would stop them from having to climb all the way there. She pointed to a trail cut into the side of the mountain, a series of tight switchbacks leading to the top of the canyon. It would be a gentle enough climb back down the other side, unless she jumped off. “There. Looks like a shortcut.”

“Really?” He hesitated, frowning up at it. “Doesn’t look natural. I didn’t think anyone went up here often enough to leave a trail this thick.”

“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeell.” She didn’t slow down. Her wings shifted uncomfortably at her sides, as though she were constantly on the edge of spreading them and flying up to the top. But she didn’t, much as the instinct gnawed at her. I can’t do that yet, stupid. She would have to stay in Othar if she wanted more flying lessons. Stay here, and risk taking the chance that Forerunner would deploy her to some god-forsaken desert to translate for it.

But would that be so bad?

As they walked back and forth up the side of the volcano, Sarah found herself reflecting on that. Her greatest fear with the Pioneering Society had been being trapped here and discovered. But she wasn’t doing munitions anymore, so there was little chance of that.

Only less chance, she reminded herself. They still think I could do it. An emergency could happen tomorrow and they could assign me. Then her lie might very well get people killed. Much as she wanted immortality, she didn’t want to steal the lives of these others.

Nor did she want their cause to fail. They were fighting to end slavery!

As she neared the top, Sarah found herself having second thoughts. Maybe she should just turn around. Forget about Discord and his plan, let him find someone else.

Keep on walking, little imposter. Don’t think I’ll keep helping you if you don’t help me in return. If you want to keep this exploit you’ll do as you’re told.

Right, that was why. She was trapped. I haven’t heard you for days. I thought you forgot about me.

No, just distracted. There’s much to get ready down in the infrastructure. Murder one queen, and you wouldn’t believe how messy things get. But I think I’ve set up all the dominoes correctly now. You just have to get them to fall over our way.

“I didn’t really take you for the nature loving type,” James muttered, from a level below her. He was still watching her, though a little more subtly than he had been earlier. “Shouldn’t you be at the bar? I thought you’d be drinking your weekend away like Perez.”

She shook her head, trying to look as though she’d been paying close attention to him. “I, uh… don’t really drink. Just a little, when people serve me at parties. Alcohol makes you weak and stupid. That makes you vulnerable.”

“Oh.” He swallowed. “Well, I guess I can have the wine.”

I don’t understand why you don’t just do all this yourself. If you’re so powerful, what do you need me for?

But there was no response. If Discord was still watching her, he was doing so more subtly than before.

They reached the end of the trail not long after, and a good thing too. Her companion looked like he was about to give up and drop his saddlebags right there.

The top of the trail was flat, with stone carved away with chisels or some other manual tool. The space up here was open enough for perhaps ten ponies to stand comfortably, before the trail went over into the volcano.

It reminded Sarah of something out of a movie, with the winding path vanishing almost immediately into the canyon. Thick stone outcroppings concealed much of it, though it wasn’t much steeper on that side than the one they’d climbed.

She could see into the volcano itself, though. Its sides were steep enough that she wondered if they were really natural. The ground was flat, without any sign of markings or piles of supplies. I hope you really plan on helping me. If she ran away and got to the bottom, the best she could hope for would be Forerunner thinking she’d had a complete breakdown. At worst, maybe its testing would uncover her impersonation. And it would be into the recycler for her.

“Damn.” James stood beside her, though not close enough for Sarah to feel uncomfortable. “That’s… helluva drop. Wouldn’t want to slip.”

“Yeah.” She turned her back on it, sitting down on her haunches right on the edge. “Let’s see this lunch you brought. I didn’t know you could cook.”

“I, uh… I can’t,” he admitted, walking a comfortable distance away and setting his saddlebags down. He removed a blanket from inside, along with packets of food. All with that infuriating magic of his.

Couldn’t you have had the computer implant a horn while you were at it? I want to be able to do magic like that.

This time Discord was listening. Because of course your crewmen are blind enough not to notice that. Oh, and the drones certainly are. They wouldn’t smell a dangerous intruder and tear you apart the instant you got close. It’s not like they’ve been at war with an alicorn for two thousand years or anything.

“What are you thinking about?” James asked, sitting down on the blanket and gesturing for her to join him. “You keep getting this weird look on your face. Like I farted or something… but I know I didn’t.”

“Oh, uh…” She looked quickly to one side. “I might be a little afraid of heights. Maybe the beach would’ve been better after all.”

“Oh.” There was nothing special about the meal, just a pair of identical food-packets. James ripped the warmers open, poured a little water in each, then set the packets inside. It wasn’t all that different from the technology that their soldiers had been using for centuries. “Well, next time. I’ve been waiting for someone who wanted to go out like this. But everyone else always has an agenda. They want to come and shoot shit, or race, or… well, something I don’t want to do. Having a checklist we have to fill just takes all the fun out of the trip. I’d rather just be enjoying the fact I’m alive.”

He took out a pair of glasses, and the plastic wine bottle. It looked the same as any other bottle meant to hold something carbonated, except for the grape icon on the label. She shrugged, and he poured.

She could probably use a little extra bravery right now, considering what she was about to do. Plunge into an alien world of blackness and desolation.

And bugs, offered the voice in her head. Don’t forget the bugs. More bugs than you’ve ever wanted to see in your life. You’ll love it.

“Amen to that,” Sarah answered. “It’s a miracle any of us are here. Probe the size of a football, drifting alone through the universe for bazillions of years… but here we are.”

James nodded. “It’s… amazing how much we’re willing to give up. Our friends, our families, everyone we ever met… it’s all gone. We’ll never see those people again. We don’t even get to be ourselves anymore.” He looked away from her. “I used to be. I was one of the first people made here. Generation one. Well, generation one that we know about. Can’t ever really know with the Forerunner. But there isn’t any evidence of other generations, so…”

It was time for Sarah to find the way to make her escape. When James was mostly distracted with his meal, and was too busy opening up to her to be paying attention to what she was actually doing.

Sarah rose, retreating suddenly from the picnic spread. It was now or never—if she hesitated even a moment, she might get second thoughts and turn back around. She couldn’t let herself give up.

“What are you… what are you doing?” James rose too, following her a few steps closer to the edge. “Sarah, you haven’t even eaten yours yet. And I don’t think we have time to go down there.”

“Probably not,” she admitted, voice wistful. “That’s life, I guess. No hard feelings, James. I’m sure you’ll get your shit together eventually. But I won’t be here to see it.” She turned away, spreading her wings for a glide. She could see the bottom. It would only be a few seconds away.

She tensed her legs to jump, but then something smacked into her. Something denser than she was, and heavier too.

It didn’t just take her to the ground, as frustrating as that might’ve been. She was on the edge of the trail down, after all, a trail steep enough that it could’ve easily tripped an unwary mountain goat.

“James, you fucking idiot!” she squealed impotently, shoving him off as best she could. But they were already rolling. She felt rough stone underneath her as she tumbled, bouncing with an impact that created a new bruise with every jolt.

“I’m not letting you kill yourself!” he screamed, his own voice almost lost in the jostling of the stone all around them. They smacked into one rock wall, then another. Sarah could barely see the world as it moved, it was turning over so fast. She might’ve puked from the nausea of it all, if she wasn’t already in so much pain.

“I’ve got fucking wings!” she screamed, trying to untangle herself from him. But she couldn’t—their suits had gotten knotted up somehow, and so they rolled and slid together.

The path around them darkened as they slid down somewhere wet and muddy, though not for very long. The path turned, but they were moving too fast to turn with it. Instead, they both tumbled out into empty air. This might not have been so bad for Sarah, except that she was completely tangled with an idiot and couldn’t get her wings free.

She screamed in terror, and James joined her. His own voice was barely much deeper than hers. She could take a little satisfaction from that, in the few seconds before she died.

Then they hit water, and she felt the wind driven from her lungs. She coughed and sputtered, squealing out into the void. It was black here—the sun was long gone from overhead, and so the crater was cast in shadow.

If it wasn’t for her new senses, she probably would’ve died. But Sarah could see with sound, and the water didn’t take that ability away completely. The surface was easy to find, and so she swam, kicking and dragging the idiot James up with her.

Somehow the stallion was still conscious when she reached the surface a second later, hacking lungfuls of icy water.

“I… didn’t need help…” she spluttered, shoving him away from her with her forelegs. Her jumpsuit had been scuffed, and it felt like the computation surface in her saddlebags had been crunched into many tiny pieces. Of course you fucked up all my stuff.

“What were you doing?” James asked, his horn coming to life with a faint blue glow a moment later. Bright enough to momentarily blind Sarah, and light up the surface of the black water all around them. “We came to see the volcano, not sacrifice yourself to Pele!”

He’s more right than he thinks, said a voice in her mind. Except for the sacrifice part. Swim to the shore on your left. The entrance is concealed behind a bolder there. Don’t worry, it’s hollow. You can move it.

“Shore… this way…” Sarah coughed, kicking her way over. James followed, doggy-paddling the way she did. So maybe he’d taken the time to learn how to use his body after all.

“If we weren’t enhanced… we’d both be dead,” he said. “God, I’m lucky I didn’t bash my horn into anything.”

“You’re fucking retarded is what you are,” Sarah spat, shaking herself out and searching for the boulder. “You should’ve just let me jump. I would’ve been fine. But that ‘rescue’ almost killed me. And now we’re at the bottom of a volcano.”

“With no way out,” he muttered. “There’s no way we’ll find that little trail in a caldera this size. We’ll have to wait for Forerunner to miss us and start a search.”

Sarah examined the cliffs above them, searching for the trail. It was still sunny out, and the contrast when she looked up was blinding. Like the climate itself was conspiring to destroy her night-vision.

She rose to her hooves, testing each limb to make sure nothing was broken. Her wings still moved right, her legs still worked. It seemed like her pride was the only serious injury today. We’re lucky is what we are. Could’ve hit my head on a rock going down, and I’d be dead.

“I guess so,” she said, slinking slowly away from the light of his horn. She didn’t need it, so long as she kept making noise. Talking was the easiest, though the range was limited. She should be making higher-pitched noises if she wanted a clearer picture.

“Where are you going?” he asked, hurrying after her. “We shouldn’t move. Pioneering Society protocol is clear about what to do after an accident like this. We… we wait for rescue. Moving could make our injuries worse, or get us more lost.”

“It could,” Sarah agreed. “If I was hurt. I’m just banged up, that’s it. My head’s fine, I don’t feel like I’m bleeding… thank god they make these jumpsuits rip-proof.” There was the boulder, covered with dust and grime. It was considerably larger than she was, and looked like it was a hunk of solid rock. Not a chance in hell she would be able to move it, even if she were one of the earth ponies with their near-mythical strength.

She nudged the edge with one hoof, and the whole thing began to move. It slid and ground against the rock as it did so, like an unseen motor was pulling it.

Lights came on as it opened, white and even and illuminating the passage beyond. It was about the right height for a human to walk through it, if they didn’t mind stooping a little as they went. But it wasn’t that wide, just barely large enough for three ponies to walk abreast. There was writing on the walls, something about ‘Refitting Bypass.’ Whatever that meant.

There were two saddlebags resting just inside the doorway, as though they’d been set there by a particularly generous sprite. They were nothing like gear stolen from Othar—the stitching looked like it had been done by hand, and the fabric was ancient and cracked. Why are there two of them?

“Damn.” James stopped in the doorway, staring from her to the opening and back. “You knew this was here, didn’t you? You jumped down… Was this some kind of secret mission? But why would Gen3 send you here and make you take me along? You could’ve walked up here on your own…”

Sarah stepped forward into the opening, grinning over her shoulder at him. “Sorry kid, no hard feelings. I do have a secret mission. A secret mission to make some new friends for Othar. I don’t know how long it’s gonna take… but it’ll be dangerous, and you’re not invited.” Perfect time to close the door behind me, Discord…

But Discord didn’t respond, and the boulder remained securely in place. James followed her, stepping right into the spot the rock had occupied and glancing down the hallway. It stretched quickly downward and out of sight, even and unchanged except for the slope. “You mean you chose this on your own?” he asked, gazing down at the saddlebags. “Or… no, wait. You’re some kind of spy, aren’t you? You’re… betraying us. That’s how you learned Eoch so quickly…”

“No!” She stepped back, sliding the saddlebags along the ground. At least it was nice and smooth. “Nothing like that! I’m not ‘betraying’ anyone! I just don’t want to fight a war, okay? This is better. I can use my skills for something more peaceful.”

He followed her another step, into the brilliantly lit maintenance hallway. “Look, it’s dangerous. You’ll probably die if you come here. I’m, like… prepared or something. I don’t know the details. But apparently there’s a civilization living down here and they’ll kill people who aren’t prepared. If you try and follow me, they’ll murder you.”

James glanced back at the opening, and the last trace of daylight streaming in from the volcano high above. “I already died once. I’m practically immortal.” He turned his back, following another step. “But I won’t let you betray us. You’ve got two sets of supplies here, yeah? They don’t need me in Othar either. I’m G3’s fucking pet. There’s already two all-powerful princesses of me. The further I can get from that the better.”

Could she really send him away? Sarah’s throbbing bruises were a constant reminder of how stupid this kid had been. But at the same time, he’d been trying to save her.

More than that, his reason for getting away from the Pioneering Society wasn’t that different from her own. He’d been living in isolation there, wasting away.

“I’m not lying about how dangerous this is,” she said again. “The first one we meet might just kill you. I don’t have weapons.”

He shrugged. “Then that’s what happens. I don’t think it will, though. I survived one death. That basically means I’m unkillable.”

The massive boulder rumbled behind them. In less than three seconds, it had completely closed off the exit. Once it moved into place, a massive airlock-style door settled in behind it with a hiss, sealing them inside. The lights clicked, becoming a dim glow instead of the spotlights they’d been moments before.

Did you know this was going to happen, Discord?

This time he answered, voice amused. You didn’t think I only played with one piece at a time, did you? In death or life, I’ll find something to do with this one.

Oliva walked the halls of the Othar Weather Substation the same as any other day. In theory she should’ve been relaxing somewhere, but something always ended up dragging her back. She could take advantage of her backlog of days off when there weren’t production goals to meet.

It was nearly nightfall—nearly time for the night crew to switch in and keep things going until morning.

Everything was exactly as it should—Lightning Dust was in her office, the afternoon distribution team had returned, and the lightning-generator was running at speed.

This is why I retired. This kind of life. She could look out any of the cloud-windows and see the product of her work. Her factory kept Othar a tropical paradise, with enough water to keep the plants alive and enough variety to keep things from getting boring.

Plenty of the Equestrian workers didn’t even know that she wasn’t one of them. Every time new contractors arrived they wanted to know if she’d been trained in Cloudsdale or Las Pegasus.

She sauntered slowly along with the humming turbines of the cumulus accumulators, spinning clouds out of magic and stored water. They formed naturally too, of course, but not the kind they actually wanted for Othar. They just used the rainclouds the climate gave them as raw material.

There was something wrong with the air. She felt it before she heard it—a slight energy against her skin, hair standing on end. What was it?

Then she heard the first explosion. The whole cloud began to rock, drifting slowly against the current. Several more explosions shook the air, before being joined by the sounds of Hurricane guns. Anti-air? Shit.

Othar was under attack.

Ponies all around dropped what they were doing and took cover, or else turned to stare out the windows, or screamed. Down on the island, Olivia could see occasional flashes of light. Forerunner was shooting at something. I should’ve just worn the fucking earpiece like he wanted.

Olivia didn’t think anymore, she just moved. “Everyone!” She lifted into the air, right above the assembly line. Not a good idea normally, since her magic and shed hair would destroy the quality of anything she flew over. But all that was now of secondary concern. “Listen up!”

The panic she’d felt bubbling up around the room began to fall away, and a dozen sets of eyes turned to face her. “I need four strong ponies up with me.” She pointed towards the door. “We’re going to barricade that, then find somewhere to hide.”

“Shouldn’t we get out?” asked a nervous voice from the crowd. “Sounds like something really bad is happening.”

“If we go out there…” How could she explain the danger of anti-aircraft guns to ponies? “The island has… big magic. Big scary magic that might hit us by mistake. But it knows this cloud is ours so it won’t hurt us here.”

“Oh.” That seemed to satisfy the contractors, because all those who had been going for the windows stopped what they were doing. She got her ponies, and they started knocking over shelves, pushing them in front of the front doors.

“Someone check on Lightning Dust,” she grunted, in the middle of what she was doing. “Maybe that armor Forerunner gave her can tell her what’s going on.”

A few moments later and the door was secure. The sound of gunfire was already fading off, though she could still see flashes of light from outside. “Can we get a bat near the window to tell us what’s going on?” she asked. “And someone shut down the line.”

“It looks like… a dragon raid,” said Moonbroch, one of her newest recruits. She was still nude, so probably she’d just arrived for night duty. “Stars above, there’s so many…”

Olivia glided across the room, dodging the still-moving machinery to join Moonbroch beside the window.

She hadn’t been using some strange native expression when she said it was a dragon raid.

They were dragons, though they made the one Olivia had killed in Dragon’s Folly look like a child. They were as long as strike-craft, sleek and scaly and spraying fire down on the island indiscriminately. “It’s a good thing nobody lives on the surface.” Olivia retreated from the window. “Kill the lights!” she instructed. “We’re going to get very quiet, and hopefully they won’t notice us. And someone give me your necklace.”

Moonbroch removed it without objection, and Olivia slid it onto her neck. “Sorry,” she said in Eoch. One of the things she could say with confidence. “I… give it back.”

These weren’t just any ponies—they were her weather crew. They obeyed orders almost as well as any of the units she’d commanded.

Unfortunately, most of the weather ponies weren’t even here. Olivia dared a glance out a different window, one that looked across the cloud to the dormitory. Built by Equestrian hooves to house Equestrian laborers. If a dozen ponies were closing up for the night shift, then twice as many were in there. Ponies she could not protect.

“This ocean, these clouds… I am on Europa again. This is a colony in revolt. First thing they do is come for us, you can count on it. And when they do, you will be wearing my gun.”

A scream shot through the building, ending with a gurgling gasp. Squall Line shot backwards out of the office, straight through the balcony, then down to the factory. Olivia caught a brief glimpse of a body burned and charred before he went straight through the floor.

Squall Line left the acrid stench of burning flesh in the air behind him as he fell, like a tank-mounted laser weapon had struck him in the face.

What the hell is going on in there?

“By the door!” Olivia called, pointing with one wing. “All of you, now!”

She lifted to the balcony with a flurry of wings, landing on the catwalk and creeping up towards Lightning Dust’s office. She didn’t dare look inside, just listened. Clouds might be magically strong enough to keep them aloft, but they were not magically soundproof.

“Tempest, if she says another word, kill her,” said a voice. Masculine, confident, and almost bored. “You’re the one I’m interested in. I need you to open your vault.”

Forerunner’s voice answered, sounding broken and distorted. “Your threats are a waste of time. I cannot be tortured, I cannot be manipulated, I cannot be intimidated.”

“Is that so? Stand back, kiddo.”

There was another flash of searing light. Olivia felt the warmth against her skin and shielded her face with one wing. Lasers could instantly blind any who looked at them unprotected.

Lightning Dust’s body went soaring through the air a second later, trailing energy around it. She’d been standing at a different angle, and instead of tumbling to the second floor she slid along the catwalk, almost right into Olivia’s hiding place.

She didn’t fall through it as Squall Line had, a charred corpse. And Olivia saw why. Instead of being burnt to a crisp, that thin undersuit had channeled the energy away from her. Her tail and mane came off in chunks, but no sooner had she fallen than she was already sitting up.

“No,” Olivia whispered, gesturing urgently.

Fortunately for Lightning Dust, she was paying attention. She slumped back down, steam still rising from her burned mane. It would probably look pretty convincing, though her jumpsuit wasn’t even scorched.

“Now, how about you open your vault, or I kill everyone in it? What you see is only a fraction of my power. You’ve already seen your weapons are nothing against my flagship. Do what I say, and the others will live.”

“These are not my servants,” said Forerunner’s voice, entirely unmoved. “Slaughter every one of them and my answer is the same. I will not permit you into my city.”

There was a roar of rage and frustration from inside the office. Another flash, and the sound of something snapping.

Forerunner’s voice sounded reedy and broken, very faint. “I cannot be tortured. The answer is still no.”

“What… are you?” The voice no longer sounded bored, but genuinely intrigued.

From the other side of the room, the front doors banged open. Ponies screamed, as dark figures rushed in. Birds and ponies and other things, wielding chains and manacles. They were screaming—screaming for Wayfinder to help them.

But Olivia kept flat to the catwalk, unmoving. I can’t fight an army. We’ve been outclassed—we need to escape and regroup. If I die helping you now I won’t be able to help you later.

Despite everything she’d said about retiring, her instincts were as pragmatic as ever.

“I am Alpha and Omega. Before your life was dreamed of the ancients spoke me into being—when they one day rise to cut free of this universe and close the loop of entropy forever, I will be the sword in their hand. I-if you… s-surrender… we will recognize your autonomy. There is no need for—”

Another flash of light blasted out of the office, and another pony corpse went tumbling. The Forerunner’s monstrous cyborg was apparently no more resistant to that attack than Squall Line had been. He left another hole in the cloud on his way down.

“And now he’s dead. Too bad. Round up these slaves as quick as you can and get back aboard the Stormbreaker. Don’t bother hunting down stragglers—we want them to see what we’re about to do to their vault.”

“Yes, my king. It will be done.”

Olivia dove behind Lightning Dust, ignoring the awful smell, trying to make herself look as much like a charred corpse as she could. She didn’t move, didn’t turn around, barely even dared to breathe as someone walked along the catwalk overhead.

“You ponies will be silent,” the figure commanded, and Olivia’s necklace translated. “Listen carefully. The Storm King has graciously permitted you all to live. Submit to your chains, and you will join us on the Stormbreaker, alive and healthy. Fight, and we will leave you here to burn with this island. Not one pony will be left alive when we are done here. Equestria must see the power the Storm King wields, and this island will be the demonstration of his wrath. Submit or be destroyed.”

The sound of resistance faded. Things stopped breaking, ponies stopped struggling. Olivia held perfectly still, silent as the speaker walked away.

When it had fallen quiet in the factory, all except for the dull throbbing of broken machinery, Lightning Dust finally looked at her. “Why are you of all ponies not resisting them? He was right there! We could’ve stopped this!”

“I doubt it,” Olivia whispered back. She didn’t dare move yet—even if the guards and ponies had gone, there was a chance someone might still be watching the room, just in case. “Lightning, you were in there with Forerunner. If he didn’t fight, we couldn’t win. I think he might’ve been… buying time? But I don’t know why.”

Part 2: Storm

Outside the weather factory, Olivia could hear her world being dismantled. From the sound of it, the enemy was going up and down the dormitory, gathering every pony in the building and emptying their possessions off the clouds. She could hear the clanking of chains as they were put in irons, and barked instructions in Eoch that she could understand even without speaking the language very well.

The greatest fear of every citizen of the Solar System and beyond—a slave crew had arrived.

She was somewhere else, trudging through a tiny accessway wearing armor that magnetized her to the floor with every step. Voices barked in her radio—other members of her crew. Some of them occasionally muttered something about a contact, or else vanished with a few seconds of screaming and their signal going red. But the combat AI restricted access to that, giving her only the information that seemed strategically relevant to whatever she was doing at the time.

She reached a hallway, where an airlock door had been sealed. She thumbed the controls without effect, then twitched her arm to insert the probe into the silicon. There was a few seconds of silence as the penetration kit did its work, then the bulkhead clicked unlocked. There was no rush of air into the tunnel—no atmosphere on the other end.

She had already known that. But some little part of her, some tiny voice that still believed in fundamental human decency—it still hoped.

She pushed the cargo door open anyway, bracing one shoulder against the airlock and twisting with all her might. It rolled most of the way, and she was able to get one arm under the rim and shove, opening the way into a darkened cargo bay.

It had two levels, enough space to hold four standard shipping crates. Instead it was filled with tiny bunks, stacked ten high. But there was no gravity here now, nothing to hold the desiccated corpses to the floor. They drifted, along with islands of icy fluid. Bodily, by the look of most of it. Probably from the chemical toilets scattered about.

This was the crew of Ellis Station, recovered at last. The raider crew had vented the cargo bay rather than give up what they’d stolen.

“Olivia!” Lightning Dust’s voice cut through the memories, and she found she was suddenly back in a weather factory catwalk. There were a pair of figures coming towards them from the stairs, figures unlike the griffons she had seen earlier. They walked on two legs, and she could see bits of fur emerging from within an almost tribalistic armor. A little like what the pony royal guards wore, simple shaped metal plates on leather straps. Like something out of a museum. One held a crossbow in its meaty hands, covered with gauntlets. The other wielded a staff as long as its body, longer than Olivia herself.

They were humanoid, though it didn’t look like the joints bent the right way. And when they spoke, it was in a guttural language Olivia couldn’t parse. Not any she’d heard before. Lucky Break might not even be able to make sense of that one.

“I’m pretty sure they’re going to capture us,” Lightning Dust whispered, voice harsh. “We going to keep playing possum here or what?”

“Let them get close,” Olivia whispered back. “We can’t let them check if we’re dead. I’ve seen soldiers shoot to make sure. Your suit can take a crossbow bolt, but my fur can’t. I’ll deal with it.”

Or maybe Forerunner would deal with it. God knew the machine wouldn’t be sitting around while everything he had built was destroyed. He might be the only one here who was more enraged by the situation than Olivia. Olivia didn’t envy the machine’s mechanical revenge.

But those soldiers were getting closer. That they were pointing at her she could feel, without needing to lift her head.

I’m retired. I don’t want to do this anymore. Let other people fight.

And what, lay down and die? Let one of her friends be taken as a slave? Forerunner let that person kill him. What was he planning?

They were out of time waiting for it. Olivia could feel the clouds shaking under their footfalls. Any curiosity about whether it was their boots or some kind of magic that let them do it vanished in the face of an imposing threat. She heard a mechanism slide back—the crossbow was about to fire.

Olivia didn’t think anymore, she just moved. Adrenaline poured into her veins, and time itself seemed to slow. She jerked violently to the side, turning to see both her attackers.

Their faces were hidden behind helmets, fur bristling out of every armored opening. They towered over her, even more than Forerunner’s synthsleeves did.

The one with the crossbow pulled the trigger, pointed right at her. Olivia caught it between her legs, ignoring the pain as the flint tip ripped through muscle on its way, spraying her own blood. But the pain was something distant, something almost imaginary. No sooner had It risen in her than she filed it away to ignore, at least for now.

Both of their attackers were momentarily caught off-guard, staring at her in stupefaction. She couldn’t see through the helmets, but she imagined their mouths hanging open. Olivia didn’t give them much time to think. They’d given her a knife.

She leapt on the one with the bow with such force that her kick made a hole in the catwalk. She yanked the bolt out from her forelegs, twisting it around so the blade faced out as she impacted. There was an opening in the armor around the neck, and she jammed the arrow in deep, so deep that her enhanced strength snapped the arrow in half. The head stuck into the creature’s neck, the shaft jammed into the meat of her leg.

More pain, more blood. More distraction.

The hulking monster wobbled, then tumbled forward through the balcony, trailing blue blood from the terrible wound in its neck. Oliva leapt backward as its body went through the catwalk, then got stuck by the boots. It hung there, upside-down, blood spurting down into the machinery.

Less than a second had passed. The other creature bellowed in its guttural language, then lifted its staff to swing like a club. There was a blade along the edge, and those arms looked thick.

Olivia dodged out of the way of the incoming blade like this soldier was her dance-partner at a stage show. She felt it cut through her mane on its way, but that didn’t matter—she was within the creature’s reach now. She smashed into it with another enhanced kick, right at where human kneecaps would’ve been. It didn’t even wobble, turning to glower at her as it tried to bring the staff back around.

She didn’t give it the chance. I hope this is what you wanted, General. Olivia drew the handgun from its holster, feeling the metamaterial adhesive cling to her foreleg. She aimed and fired in a single fluid motion.

She didn’t hit it in the head.

The creature bellowed again, dropping the staff to tumble through the floor. It curled up, similar to the way a human would’ve done, and Olivia ignored its attempts to squeeze her with its legs. Unfortunately, she couldn’t aim the handgun with her legs pinned, but she could do something else. There was a dagger in the creature’s belt, within reach of her now. She yanked it out with her teeth, then shoved it under the armor and into unprotected flesh. The creature roared in protest, trying to dislodge her, but without success.

Olivia pushed her head up deeper, letting the enhanced bones of her teeth and mouth take most of the weight. It wasn’t much—all soft tissue up there. Blood and worse things sprayed out onto her face, and she ignored that too. The creature fell back screaming, and she let the knife go. All it took was another shove and the dying creature tumbled through the hole its friend had made. It didn’t stick by its boots, but kept on falling, striking the bottom of the factory with its back and passing through like there was nothing there.

Perhaps ten seconds had passed since she’d heard the first twitches of the mechanism. About the time she had before the artificial organs ran dry and time caught up with her. Pain too, though there were other kinds of training to deal with it. She felt the warm blood on her face where it had gushed, and there were more splashes on her coat.

Almost without thinking, she rubbed her face along the cloud, getting the worst of the blood off, then turned around to make sure Lightning Dust was okay.

The pegasus stared at her with the same expression Olivia herself had probably made the first time she stumbled into an organ-harvester op. Utter shock—and fear. Fear of Olivia, but also fear that anything like what she’d just done was even possible.

Olivia herself was still running on instinct. “They would’ve killed us,” she said, tapping Lightning Dust’s shoulder with one hoof. “No request to surrender. No negotiation. They were just going to shoot us dead to make sure. Us or them.”

“Celestia above,” Lightning Dust whispered. Then she turned and vomited over the railing.

As she retched, Olivia listened through the clouds. There were more soldiers out there, and they’d heard the struggle. They were coming.

This was no longer Olivia working almost as a guest in Lightning Dust’s factory. This was now her op, and Lightning Dust was the civilian she was here to protect.

And I’ll be getting our people out. Not today—she was under no illusions about her odds if she tried to confront a whole army of these people. They had ranged weapons, which made any Rambo-style offensive ill-advised.

Besides, she was bleeding. Not the worst she’d ever been injured—her leg wouldn’t even rank on that list. But she was losing enough blood that she would be unable to fight in a few minutes if she didn’t deal with it. There’s a first aid kit in the desk.

She shoved Lightning Dust to the other side of the entryway, opposite of the side with the gaping hole Forerunner’s corpse had made. “Stay low, stay quiet,” she whispered. “Soldiers will be coming in, they’ll have to find us.” She raised the general’s handgun. She still had six shots left. Not enough to fight an army, no matter how good her aim.

She didn’t wait, but started digging around in the desk. She propped the metal case up on the desk, so she could see through the doorway in its reflection, then started wrapping a bandage around her bleeding leg. It went deep red almost immediately, and the pain was starting to resurface. A grating, constant pressure, throbbing with every heartbeat. She could ignore it a little longer, but as soon as the danger was gone she would probably collapse.

Lightning Dust looked frozen, and didn’t even seem to have heard Olivia’s words. But the soldiers had, and seemed to be moving rapidly in their direction. More griffons from earlier, with one of the armored humanoids. Olivia watched them come using the polished reflection in the first aid kit.

Those griffons look like mercenaries. The humanoids must be their officers.

There were over a dozen of them, and more coming in from outside every second. The wall behind them was mostly gone, and there was a huge hole in the floor as well. Presumably this opening was how the “Storm King” and the other one he’d been talking to had come in and out. Must’ve been pretty impressive if Forerunner just stood there.

Olivia might be the best at hand-to-hand of anyone in the crew. But Forerunner should have been even better, his motions machine-precise. “What happened?” Olivia whispered, her voice urgent. “Lightning Dust, you were in here. What happened?”

The mare finally looked up. Her eyes were still a little glazed, but she was recovering. She’d been shocked by Olivia’s behavior, but not as much as other ponies. She had killed before too, after all. With her own hooves. And it hadn’t been in self-defense either. “Wanted… to talk to the mayor,” she whispered. “Forerunner said it was him.” She trailed off, the rest of her explanation silenced as Olivia’s translation necklace started squawking.

A tiny voice spoke from her necklace—one that wasn’t translating her words into English. Instead it was Forerunner’s voice, sounding urgent. “I was postponing his attack on Othar itself to evacuate. Now we need to get you away as well. Prepare to jump, but fall slow. I’ll decloak our evacuation ship and you can jump inside. We have a very limited window.”

Olivia supposed she shouldn’t be that surprised to see Forerunner had somehow used the translators like communications devices. If they could send words back and forth, then they must be able to receive. “Won’t… won’t he just shoot us down?”

“No. Make your way to the edge and jump as soon as you are able. I believe the remainder of his expeditionary force have been alerted and are searching for you.”

Olivia didn’t need Forerunner to tell her that—she could hear the soldiers massing in the factory. They’d found the corpses, and apparently decided that she was dangerous. Maybe they’re hoping we’ll fly away and they won’t have to fight. Cowards.

But today that was exactly what she needed. The bandages wrapped tight around her left foreleg were now a deep crimson, spreading clinging droplets wherever she stepped. She couldn’t run for certain. Fortunately her wings were still undamaged.

“Down we go, Lightning Dust,” she whispered. “Ride’s waiting. Come on.”

That was enough to startle her the rest of the way out of her stupor. Lighting Dust followed her to the edge. The enemy behind them surged forward, firing crossbows at random towards the doorway. There could be no taking cover behind the furniture, not when everything was made of cloud.

They jumped, Olivia spreading her wings for a glide after the first fifty meters or so. She glanced up in time to see several griffons leap into the air behind them, tightening down for a dive. Like gigantic eagles, and she was the mouse.

Below her, Othar was on fire. Half the trees on the island seemed either scorched or burning down, and every standing structure above the ground had smoke rising from it. She could make out a few gigantic corpses on the ground—fallen dragons, bodies unspeakably ruined by anti-aircraft fire. But there was no sign of AA guns now, and still dragons circling overhead.

Of course, that was nothing compared to the carrier. It was almost as wide as the island itself, a metallic behemoth that could’ve eaten the Emperor’s Soul and still had plenty of room for dessert. The whole thing was made of reddish, rusty-looking metal, with strange protrusions along its length like the bristling fibers of an insect. It was vaguely round, with a massive aperture on the bottom face. An aperture that was slowly opening.

The translation necklace around her neck barked again, but she didn’t hear it in the rush of wind. Whatever Forerunner wanted her to know would remain a mystery. But then the air below her shifted, and burning trees were replaced with the outline of an aircraft. The sleek, graceful body of the Wing of Midnight, Deadlight’s exploration ship.

She wasn’t the only one who saw it. Massive reptilian shapes in the air above the island were turning as well, angling downward.

The cargo hatch was open. Something emerged from within—a humanoid figure with only one leg stretching back into the aircraft. Forerunner’s synthsleeve clutched an accelerator rifle in both arms, and he was aiming in her direction.

A small explosion passed through the air above her, and Olivia was nearly ripped right off her flightpath. Lightning Dust seemed like she was panicking, but Olivia nudged her downward, staying well clear of the path of Forerunner’s fire. Not that she thought the Forerunner would hit them by mistake. She wouldn’t trust anyone alive to make a shot like that, even if they were the most skilled marksman in the world.

But Forerunner was a machine, and he wouldn’t make a shot that could hurt them.

Olivia spared one glance above her, and saw that several of the birds that had been following them now had ruined craters instead of heads. The accelerator rifle was meant for penetrating armor, after all. Bone didn’t really stand a chance.

They landed in the open cargo-bay doors a second later. Olivia’s foreleg gave way beneath her as she landed, and she ended up tumbling sideways with a grunt of pain.

This was no Sojourner, with the supplies for an entire expedition. The entire cargo bay was smaller than a single standard container, and mostly empty except for Forerunner.

Forerunner slid back inside in the same motion that he used to thumb the door closed. Whatever birds were still alive seemed to think better of forcing the issue, because no one banged on the door or tried to slide through the entrance.

“Hey Mom.” Lucky emerged from the now-open airlock, looking relieved. “We need to get you both into the acceleration chairs. Forerunner, help the major.”

“Already on it,” he said, before scooping Olivia right off the ground like a particularly large cat. How he could hold her in one arm and the high-caliber accelerator rifle in the other was a testament to the incredible strength of the synthsleeve.

“Fucked up my leg,” Olivia muttered, as she was carried through the airlock and up towards the main deck.

She’d seen the inside of the Wing of Midnight before, half luxury yacht and half warship. Deadlight didn’t know how to recognize the hardpoints and the repulsion emitter arrays, but she had. If she’d still been in command back then she might’ve questioned Forerunner’s judgement in giving Deadlight so much of their most powerful hardware.

Now she understood. This might be Deadlight’s ship, but Forerunner had equipped it. Maybe it had been an evacuation ship all along.

The acceleration chairs set into the wall were already rotated forward, and several were occupied. Mostly the few remaining ground-crew that hadn’t gone with the Emperor’s Soul. Dr. Born, Dr. Faraday, Melody…

“You were evacuating,” Olivia breathed. “Why? That fire is… impressive, but it can’t get into our bunker. And their ground troops are shit.”

Forerunner didn’t look at her while he spoke. Despite the human body he was using, he was still an AI. Nor was he taking her to one of the standard acceleration chairs, but towards the front of the ship.

A few seconds later, and he set her down in the station she recognized as the artillery turret. “Their carrier appears to be immune to most of our weapons,” Forerunner said. “I never installed heavy ordinance in Othar, nothing larger than the Hurricane. But the carrier isn’t what we have to worry about.”

He pointed at the radar screen. A dozen little blips were accelerating towards them, getting faster and faster. Dragons. “Protect this ship while I get this crew out alive.”

“I…” Olivia stared down at her ruined leg. At least a dozen members of her weather team had been taken captive. Some of those were humans, the rest the contractors they hired from Equestria. “Are we just going to leave our people behind?”

“No,” Forerunner said. He had slung the rifle over his back, and leaned down towards her to start working with the straps. “But we can’t retrieve them yet. I can’t brief you on what happened now. Just keep us in the air.”

I’m retired, Olivia thought, resting one bleeding leg on the controls. I was done with this world. Forerunner rejected me.

Was Olivia so bitter that she would let herself die? Her friends? Her instincts hadn’t let her give up and roll over before. They hadn’t changed.

She settled against the controls, resting her hooves into the grooves on the three-axis joysticks. She reached up with her less-damaged leg, and slid the mask over her face. Everything on the Wing of Midnight was made for ponies to use—no human would fit into these seats.

But then, Forerunner didn’t need an acceleration chair.

“Preparing for high-G burn,” said Forerunner’s voice over the internal radio. “Native ponies aboard, you may be briefly rendered unconscious. Do not attempt to exit your seats.”

Someone dropped a sack of cement onto Olivia’s chest. She felt herself sinking into the firm gel of the chair. Unconsciousness danced on the edge of her perception, and her injuries screamed in protest. But the air she was breathing was more pharmaceuticals than oxygen at this point. Her mind cleared, and the pain of her injuries became an even more distant thing.

I’m going to bleed to death if I don’t get this treated soon.

The visor lit up, and Olivia was suddenly floating outside the ship, disembodied. Instead of herself, she saw tactical overlays—flight projections, damage assessments. Highlights over each of the approaching creatures, and another over the terrible outline of the Storm King’s carrier.

A plume of energy glowed from below it, like a gigantic targeting laser painted straight down at Othar. But there was nothing Olivia could do about that.

But the dragons following them—that she could fix.

Olivia had been trained for this. She tracked the movements of the nearest dragons as they approached, then fired a spray of superdense tungsten rounds directly into their path. The Wing of Midnight barked quietly with each shot, roaring in a way she wasn’t used to after all her years of experience working out of atmosphere.

What in God’s name were these things made of that they could take so many shots and keep flying? The anti-collision system could turn small rocks into atomized debris, and punch holes in interceptor craft plenty big enough to let all the air out. But it took nearly a full ammunition rotation before the first of the dragons finally dropped. Holy hell these things are tough.

A glance at the HUD near the edge of her vision revealed what she had already feared—she only had two more rotations of ammunition before the Wing of Midnight’s anti-collision system was depleted. If they ran out, it wouldn’t be safe to leave atmosphere.

Who the fuck cares? It isn’t safe to be burned to a crisp either.

She didn’t conserve, swiveling to the next approaching threat and aiming directly for the head this time. But going at these speeds, with the wind blasting all around them, even the aim-assist and automatic tracking could be only so accurate.

It still took three continuous seconds before the next dragon dropped. And there were a dozen of them. “How much more juice do you have, Forerunner? I don’t think our turret is up to this!”

Forerunner’s voice came through her headset. “I am already accelerating as quickly as is safe. It is likely our non-enhanced crew will sustain lasting injury if we exceed four Gs.”

Olivia grumbled in frustration as she fired the remainder of her spool, and had to wait as the machinery loaded. Flames blasted in the air around them as the dragons approached—none seemed to be close enough to do damage yet. It was more like a fiery special effect, warping around the Wing of Midnight. But they were getting closer, and she could see heat warnings flickering on the edge of her vision.

“Give us a 20G parabolic burn,” Olivia whispered. “I’ve seen humans survive it without G-suits. Ponies are tougher.”

“Your injury is severe,” Forerunner answered. “I do not know if you will survive it.”

She shrugged, or tried. Such motions were difficult even under what she estimated to be at least four Gs worth of constant acceleration. But a few of the dragons were keeping up. She couldn’t even guess how their bodies could sustain the force. Probably for the same reason they could take direct hits from tungsten rounds and keep moving. Each of them was about the same size as the Wing of Midnight itself. If they got close enough to grab on, they might crush it to pieces in an instant.

Claxons wailed through the ship, so loud that Olivia heard them even through her headset. “High acceleration warning!”

The dragon just behind them was a creature of pure nightmare, with black and red scales and wickedly sharp teeth. Flames rose up from its mouth, aimed directly into their path. Olivia was out of ammunition, and they were all out of time.

She felt a brief moment of pain as the engines roared to life beneath her. Whatever drugs she was breathing weren’t enough. The world went black.

It seemed like the passage went on forever. Even at their pony height, it felt a little cramped. But Sarah wasn’t tall, and James could stoop a little. She could feel a track set into the ground near her hooves, and she scraped against it a little with every step. In its way, this incredible ring wasn’t that different from the way Forerunner maintained Othar. It was just orders of magnitude more advanced, more complex.

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” James asked again, and again Sarah had to resist the instinct to reach sideways and smack him in the face. “This doesn’t look like it leads to an ancient underground civilization. Maybe a drain, or somewhere we’ll find stacks of raw materials, or tanks of—”

“Be quiet,” Sarah snapped. “The one who gave me directions knew what the hell he was talking about.” But even as she said it, she couldn’t help but feel a little doubt creep into her mind. Yes, this would’ve been an enormous waste of resources to get her down here. To provide her with supplies. Could Discord be more of a cosmic prankster? Maybe his idea of a good joke would be getting her to “betray” Othar in the mind of Forerunner, and get her lined up for recycling.

Can’t think like that. She couldn’t, but already she was beginning to regret her decision. Running away from the Pioneering Society and the Forerunner’s stifling control had sounded like a good idea, at least until she left it behind. Those were her fellow humans up there, bodies notwithstanding. What if there was no place for her to start a new life down here? What if the mission was too hard? What if the changelings ate her alive?

And now she had James to drag along too, pointless waste of resources that he was. Sarah didn’t check, but she could’ve sworn he was staring at her. Maybe he should lead. Let him walk off a cliff or something.

But however much she might think like that, she would never have done it. Sarah was a con-artist, a thief. She wouldn’t outright murder someone any more than she would betray the Pioneering Society and the human race it represented.

The ground above them started to shake. She heard it distantly at first, then growing much louder. Like a terrible predator had started eating the island over their head. Rock tore, and she could’ve sworn she heard explosions. Othar’s munitions dumps? Fuel?

James stopped walking, staring up at the cavern above them. Their tunnel remained secure—there were no bits of rock tumbling down on them, or signs the metal was collapsing. The ring itself was a sturdy bitch.

“What the hell is that?” James asked.

Sarah stopped too. “Got a computation surface on you?”

He nodded skeptically, then pulled it out. He didn’t give it to her, even though she put out her hooves. Instead he stared down at its surface, trying in vain to get a signal. “Figures. I think I read somewhere that the ring’s buildings block radio.”

Or maybe there’s no radio to receive. Discord, what happened up there?

Don’t turn around. She could hear the anger in his voice—the first time she’d heard anything from him other than simple amusement. If you open this shaft from the other end, you will be killed. You need to get into the superstructure as quickly as possible.

Wait, what happened? Is Othar okay? Did those people die?

No response.

James was staring at her.“Are you having a breakdown, Sarah?”

“No.” She straightened, and almost told him about Discord. But then she thought better of it. The fact that this entire mission had been organized based on a voice in her head was probably not what he needed to hear. “That sound—it’s not safe up there. Some kind of explosion, maybe. An accident.”

But it didn’t sound like an accident. It sounded like someone was ripping the island into little pieces. If it wasn’t for the insulation of the tunnel itself, she might’ve gone deaf from the awful noise.

“Maybe we should go back and help.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You just got through telling me how useless you are. I don’t know what that is, but I think a munitions engineer is the least of their worries. They don’t need me to help translate either—they’ve got plenty of ponies for that. They’ve got several versions of you for that.” She turned back, staring off down the tunnel. The explosions illuminated something else up ahead—there was a much larger room about a kilometer further, one that seemed to be mostly filled with fluid. “Whatever that was, it’s just more reason to keep going. We’re not useful to them, but if we befriend another civilization… well, maybe we need friends. And if we don’t, then they sure as hell don’t need us either.”

I fucking hope that you plan on giving me directions, Discord.

No answer.

James grumbled disagreement, but when she started walking again she could hear his hoofsteps behind her. So at least James wasn’t stupid enough to wander off and get himself killed. Not yet anyway. I can’t wait to be babysitter until this mission ends. Assuming it ever did. Sarah wasn’t a creature of “missions,” not really. Her scams didn’t end so much as she got away or she didn’t.

They said very little as they made their way towards the destination Sarah could hear and her companion couldn’t. It wasn’t as though they could say much over the constant roar of whatever was happening above them.

Sarah kept thinking of what it might’ve been, trying to come up with some way Forerunner might’ve caused all that noise on purpose. But she couldn’t come up with anything—not even some completely-insane atomic bombing to excavate would’ve made noises like that.

So did the station attack us, or something else? James didn’t let her even glance at his computer, and her own was broken, so she had no source of information. Whatever Discord didn’t tell her would just remain unknown.

Eventually the tunnel opened up around them. It wasn’t a dead-end, but a massive junction of some kind. A honeycomb of tunnels almost the same size stretched out all around them, each one completely unmarked and dark.

Most of the floor was broken with a circular pool, which frothed and bubbled a little in the white light. The water itself looked slightly greenish, with a depth that seemed endless.

Sarah made her slow way to the edge, careful not to stand on anything that looked like controls. She kept her wings spread, though unless the floor dropped out from under her that wouldn’t be much good. Maybe that was instinct too.

Whatever that fluid was, it didn’t look or smell like water. At least now they were deep enough that the constant grinding stopped. She could hear herself think again.

“What do you think it is?” James asked, reaching one hoof near the fluid. He stopped and seemed to think better of it, and levitated a sealed meal-bar towards it instead. He stuck the foil-wrapped package into the fluid, then out again. Aside from a few bubbling dribbles of fluid, the food bar seemed okay.

“That smell…” she whispered. It was harsh, but organic. Not like a solvent that might dissolve them into slime if they touched it. “And if I had to guess, I’d say this is some kind of… artery. For Sanctuary. And the place we needed to go was down… I’m beginning to suspect we’ll need to swim or something.”

She glanced to the side, but there was no easy way to get into her saddlebags. Some of the other ponies in the crew were flexible enough to get in while still wearing theirs. But she couldn’t. She had to shrug them off, then open her saddlebags while on the ground. Maybe there was some kind of rebreather in there?

This was as good a time as any to examine what equipment Discord had seen fit to leave for them. She would assume that James had the same gear she did.

Half of it was clearly food—though it didn’t look old and primitive like the bag itself. More like an equivalent of military rations, packed tight and made to feed her for long periods. There were a few vials of dark green liquid, like an exotic liquor Sarah might’ve seen on the set of some ancient sci-fi-classic, probably accompanied with cubes of dry ice for extra effect. A worn knife made of rusty red metal, and that was it. Not so much as a sleeping bag or a jacket.

Stupid Discord doesn’t know how to rough it. How am I supposed to go camping with this?

This time the mysterious voice was listening. You aren’t supposed to go camping, my dear. You’re going swimming. Deep into the bowels of Equus itself. The liquid before you is hyperoxygenated. It will penetrate and eliminate the air from your body, enabling you to travel at incredible speed.

She turned away from James, who was leaning down to lick at the fluid where it dribbled off his meal bar, walking away a few steps so he wouldn’t see her expression.

Hold the fuck up. This is safe, right? You didn’t just send us to kill ourselves…

Safe? This part is. Of course, ponies rarely come here, and you will soon discover why. That much is safe. But the changelings still might kill you when you arrive. You’re headed straight to their secret kingdom on the verge of a civil war.

Is Othar okay? That sound we heard…

Was not planned, Discord answered. What is a city but the continued existence of its citizens?

Did that mean they were alive? Don’t bullshit me.

Whelp, that’s my cue. Oh, and don’t expect to hear from me again while you’re down there. Their entire civilization relies on remaining isolated from station systems, and that includes me. But I have a friend waiting. Good luck! Enjoy your swim.

The sense of Discord’s presence faded again, and somehow Sarah knew it would be for good. Or at least until they emerged.

“Hey, so…” She turned around slowly, suddenly noticing what had happened to James. He had flopped onto his face, twitching and convulsing like a fish out of water. His breaths came in desperate, pained gasps.

Sarah didn’t even think. She charged forward as fast as she could, and shoved James into the water with enough force to sink him. And sink he did, though the water was clear enough that she could see him for at least fifty meters.

She stared after him, fascinated. The pony was changing. His back legs looked like they’d fused together, stretching out into a tail ending with a membranous fin. In a handful of moments, the unicorn stallion had become a unicorn… fish?

The ones who built this ring really are magic. We’re all out of our fucking depth here. Maybe I should’ve stayed home. Maybe James should’ve stayed home. Probably some trust-fund kid, drowning in money and opportunity. He might’ve been happier back on Earth. He could’ve been watching the world from the safety of some lunar suite, and never know want.

No, stupid. He did do that. He got to do both. Because there was no justice in the world.

Satisfied that her companion wasn’t going to suffocate, Sarah scooped her gear back into the saddlebags, now much more aware of why everything inside was sealed and airtight. She made sure the straps were on before she made her way to the very edge of the opening.

Last chance to turn around. But not even that. Something had attacked Othar, something that sounded like destroying the bunker would be more of an afterthought than a goal. She had no reason to doubt Discord’s word that leaving would mean death. Though the thought of leaving James alone here, trapped as a fish in this tank did amuse her.

James himself emerged from the edge of the water at almost that exact moment, glaring up at her. “That could’ve killed me!” he exclaimed—and somehow she could hear it. Do you still have lungs in there? A biologist would probably be fascinated to examine the corpse of whatever he was. But as for her…

“You’re the one who stuck your fucking tongue in it,” she snapped, glowering at him. “I wonder what that would’ve done if you were human.”

“Nothing good,” he muttered, before dropping back down under the water. We won’t be able to talk once we get under, right? Or will it just use water instead of air? Sound had different rules for different mediums, but that was no reason for her to assume this creature wouldn’t have some alternate method of communicating.

Discord said this was a transport method. Something about moving quickly and not getting crushed. She was the wrong person to be thinking about intelligent questions. So don’t think about it then, Sarah. Just get the fuck in there.

“Hey, goldfish? Did it hurt?”

James popped his head back over the edge of the liquid. He reached for her with a foreleg, but Sarah was faster. She stepped easily out of his reach, glowering at him. He couldn’t pull himself out more than a few inches before he flopped down and had to drag himself back in. “Not at all,” he said. “It’s great, you don’t feel a thing. Get in here, Sarah. You’re the reason I’m here. You’re coming.”

I saved your life, asshole. Hopefully she hadn’t really. Hopefully Othar was still around. But Discord hadn’t actually told her. Before Sarah could psyche herself out any more than she already had, she let herself tumble over the edge.

Part 2: Atreides Class

The bridge of the Wing of Midnight was a far less impressive place than many other ships she’d commanded. It might’ve been a modest conference room on Earth somewhere, with its many reconfigurable interfaces and holosurfaces on the walls. There were two chairs near the front for pilot and copilot—the rest of the seats they’d brought were camp chairs. From what Olivia had seen so far, the ship had been well supplied at the moment it departed—but for such a tiny ship, that didn’t mean much.

In a way, sitting around the folding table reminded Olivia of the early days of this expedition, when it had just been her and a few specialists. Only difference is I’m not the governor anymore.

It was mostly the same people here now, with the addition of Forerunner’s synthsleeve, Deadlight sporting a cast on one wing, and Lightning Dust lurking behind everyone and never taking a chair of her own.

Every spot on the table had a computation surface filled with data, and Olivia pulled hers closer, scanning what it contained. Mostly images from the destruction of Othar. There were images taken of the battle as well, along with the auto-generated field report.

Damn. What the hell kind of ship was the Storm King flying, anyway? That was the real wildcard in this conflict—his soldiers had been nothing special, and their weapons were downright primitive. But that ship…

“Alright, we’re all here,” Lucky said, settling into the captain’s chair. “Thanks to Deadlight for lending us his ship for the time being.”

Deadlight nodded once, his good wing resting protectively on Melody’s shoulder. “Othar’s future is my future.”

“So it is.” Lucky straightened. “I’m going to get everyone up to speed as quick as I can. We don’t have much time to decide what to do next. As of this moment, General Qingzhi is preparing to withdraw from operations in Barbary. But I have not yet given him the order to rendezvous with us. We’ll decide if that’s appropriate in the next few minutes.”

She couldn’t wait any longer. “What the hell happened to our defenses, Governor? I built that place armed to the fucking teeth. We could’ve taken on an entire bombing wing without scratching the paint. Now my beach looks like…” She zoomed in on the image. It was hard to say what part of the island had been her tropical retreat. “A shithole. Like the rest of it.”

Lucky nodded to Forerunner. Olivia had heard very little from him since waking up. Even now his tone was somewhat subdued, as though he were in mourning. “Against enemy landing air units and landing craft, our defenses were modestly effective, but that was not the primary threat Othar faced during that engagement.

“The enemy carrier was impervious to every form of subnuclear ordinance Othar possessed. The dragons they used as fighters and interceptors were surprisingly resilient as well, with performance roughly equivalent to X-class hypersonic interceptors, except that they have significantly better handling and greatly reduced range.”

“Did we not have anything atomic?” Olivia asked. “I doubt even the Ringbuilders could survive anti-capital torpedoes. Just rip the whole thing to pieces in the upper atmosphere.”

“It wasn’t in the upper atmosphere,” Forerunner said, in a voice he might’ve used to explain something simple to a child. “It wasn’t even half a kilometer above the ground. It dropped to a hundred meters when it was firing its main weapon. We had four missiles with atomic payloads in reserve, but firing them would’ve destroyed Othar and also killed every survivor I was trying to evacuate.”

“Why didn’t we see it coming?” Dorothy asked. She was wrapped in a blanket, and looked like she’d been dragged out of her bunk by force. In some ways, she had changed the least of all their generation. “We have satellites, don’t we? Radar, lidar, sonar, whatever other shit those military guys cooked up after I got scanned. That ship was fucking huge.”

“I did see it,” Forerunner said. “And thousands of other such vessels moving all over Sanctuary at this moment.” Their screens all changed in unison. It looked like a reconstructed patchwork of many satellite angles, showing the ring from orbit with the star in the center removed. At this scale they never could’ve seen it, but bright circles appeared on the image. Many of them, each with a long string of hexadecimal next to it, along with measurements. Approximate mass and dimensions. They seemed to be most focused on the further ring sections, passing over it in layered line formations.

“Ooooooooh.” Martin almost sounded excited. “They’re terraforming ships, aren’t they? That’s what it did to Othar. It wasn’t an attack… or its original purpose wasn’t to attack. They terraformed the island.”

“These vessels are capable of repositioning themselves at speeds that defy their apparent mass and acceleration,” Forerunner went on. “I had been tracking this one along with all the others. It only changed direction to approach Equestria about ten minutes before it arrived. It remained in high orbit for most of that time.”

“Shit,” Olivia muttered. “That’s a spacecraft. It can fly right up and massacre us even if we get out into orbit too.”

“Well… no.” Lucky sat back in her seat, looking away from the tablet. “That thing doesn’t have any weapons, at least not any we saw.”

“Their soldiers do not have weapons either,” Forerunner said, his voice quivering. “That was what their leader wanted from me. He knew I had an extensive armory and wanted to use it to supply his soldiers. He threatened to destroy the island if I didn’t give them up, as well as joining his army.”

And we didn’t. But that made sense. After everything they’d done together, Olivia didn’t imagine that Forerunner or Lucky would just roll over, even for a superior enemy who might cost them terribly to defy.

“That’s the basics,” Lucky said. “They’ve got a stolen Sanctuary terraforming ship. We can’t so much as dent the shell of that thing. Might not be able to touch it even if we had anti-capital weapons, though we’re not sure. But their only weapon is the ship’s ordinary function. Anyone below it when it switches on…”

“How many did we lose?” Olivia didn’t want to know, but at the same time she had to. Ignoring the dead wouldn’t bring them back.

“Not counting those in the weather substation, eleven. Mostly staff on leave somewhere on the island when we discovered we were under attack. Hopefully the dragons or the griffons picked them up for the slave ships.”

“Anyone I know?”

Lucky shrugged. “M-my… my first generation self. The others were either Equestrian contractors or ponies from the 75th who weren’t deployed for whatever reason.”

A long silence. Olivia could see the pain on Lucky’s face. Hearing about the second death of her first-generation self seemed like it was wearing hard on her. Then again, maybe it was for the best. There wasn’t supposed to be more than one version of someone at a time. Living in Othar’s top floor had sometimes felt like living in a world ruled entirely by one person.

Lucky cleared her throat. “Anyway. They have a ship we can’t stop. They can take anyone hostage they want—just park that over a city and demand almost anything. Nothing I know about Equestria suggests they have what it takes to stop that. Every time something goes wrong, they just gather up a handful of heroic ponies and send them out to deal with it. But I don’t think there’s anything they’ll be able to do about a capital ship.”

“Uh…” Martin sounded nervous at first. “Why is Harmony letting some crazy people climb into one of its ships and terraform places with people on them? Melody, just call up the ring and tell it to please shut the ship down. No way the primitives fighting with spears are going to be able to build their own. Just park it, and have our general fly in and melt them from space.”

Melody finally spoke up, her voice apologetic. “I… already talked to Harmony. It doesn’t care how much fighting we do, or what we fight about, or what tools we use to fight. Harmony only intervenes if the fight is between two nations with Alicorns in charge—with citizens. So if we went to war with Equestria, he would…” She shivered, and only stopped when Deadlight pulled her briefly close to him. “Well, we can’t do that. But the Storm King—he’s not an alicorn. His soldiers aren’t. No citizen permissions, Harmony doesn’t intervene. We have to deal with it ourselves.”

“Damn.” Olivia sighed. “Would’ve been simple. In the short term, this sounds an awful lot like a stalemate. The Emperor’s Soul is our whole world now, yeah? No way the terraformer can hit it. And the dragons… our weapons can kill them. The Emperor’s Soul didn’t trade its defenses for extra vending machines or some shit, right?”

Lucky winced, then nodded. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, a few things. Can’t just kill the bastard while he’s on the ground. No fucking way his guys won’t just rampage all over the place if we do.”

Forerunner nodded his agreement. “He confirmed this to me when we first met. I overpowered him and his bodyguard, and he informed me of the death that would come for Othar if I harmed him.”

That explained what Olivia had overheard about their conflict. “So what do we have, then? The Emperor, Wing of Midnight. The 75th basically came out intact thanks to that drill… anything else? I thought our installations were meant to survive a nuclear blast.”

“Manufacturing is,” Forerunner agreed. “But that isn’t what happened. That… device… stripped away material all the way down to Sanctuary’s superstructure. I am not receiving signals from any mesh-networked devices within the island that used to be Othar. The greatest loss is my central processing node—I had more hardware concentrated in that location than anywhere else on this ring. Most of my redundancies were meant to be small enough to escape detection if Celestia attacked. There are only three with any real processing capacity—the consensus node aboard the Emperor’s Soul, a half-dozen synthsleeves distributed in various locations, and the exploration module aboard the N.E.S. Agamemnon. I have instructed a significant fraction of my backup redundancies to begin construction, so that I may rebuild my network in a totally decentralized fashion. But unassisted, they will require years to accomplish this task. I don’t believe Equestria has that much time.”

“It doesn’t,” Deadlight said. His English was so good Olivia probably would’ve mistook him for a native speaker. “I’ve been…” He gestured vaguely with a wing. “Reading Equestrian telegraph messages. Your monitoring system…”

“You know about that?” Olivia frowned at Lucky, as if to ask, ‘Was telling him a good idea?’ But she didn’t say it out loud. Certainly not with so many ponies around.

“Obviously,” Deadlight said dismissively. “Anyway, word is that the Storm King is headed straight for Canterlot. Lots of ponies seem to think they’ll be surrendering.”

“No way.” Lightning Dust had been quiet for most of this discussion. Maybe, like Olivia, she felt a little out of place. But now she sounded indignant. “Just give up? Did they even send the Wonderbolts?”

“We don’t know,” Deadlight admitted. “But the Storm King’s terraforming ship is already halfway to Canterlot. Nopony’s stopped him yet.”

“They’ll do something,” Lightning Dust said. “Luna’s fought before. She’s not going to let some jerk enslave everyone.” Her eyes snapped to Lucky. “We’re going to do something about that, right? I want my damn ponies back. What’s the plan?”

The governor glanced to the side. “Forerunner. What did you and Qingzhi come up with?”

“Delay does not work in our favor,” Forerunner said. “The Emperor’s Soul is a pacifier class supercarrier, which means it’s capable of remaining deployed for six months at a time before each resupply. We could probably stretch that with emergency rations since we don’t need to spend reactor time to fly. But ultimately the infrastructure we were counting on to fight a war in Barbary no longer exists. This means we have until our supplies run out to either find victory or be destroyed.

“The same is true for Equestria. Particularly if she surrenders, any delay would only increase pony suffering and allow the enemy to become more entrenched. We must act as quickly as possible. Our plan involves an approach from two fronts. Qingzhi would deploy a special forces team to penetrate the carrier and take control. Their troops are getting back aboard somehow, we could use that same method. We, meanwhile, would return to Transit and attempt to commandeer one of the warships docked there. If we can’t break into that terraformer, we’ll have to destroy it. Failing that, we could use the Emperor directly—and hope that her anti-capital weapons are sufficiently powerful to bring down an Equus maintenance vessel.”

Olivia frowned. “What does the Emperor do during the first part of that plan? Special forces aren’t going to want to ride in on a capital ship with their asses in the breeze. We’re going to leave our biggest weapon just sitting there?”

“No,” Lucky said. “Othar is gone. The island is completely uninhabitable. We need somewhere else to live. That means we can’t pull it back unless we don’t have a choice. If we want a home… if we don’t want to starve… we have to win.”

“Win two wars at the same time,” Dorothy said. “Sounds like a shit plan to me. Olivia, any better ideas?”

Olivia frowned down at her computation surface, pulling it a little closer so she could flip through a few things. There on one of the deeper pages was the information she was looking for—the list of resources they were carrying. She skimmed it quickly enough to be certain of her answer. “Forerunner, why don’t you tell us what you’re actually planning?” She looked across the table, smiling weakly at him. “I know you by now,” and more than that, I know Qingzhi. But she didn’t say that part.

Forerunner raised an eyebrow. If he decided to keep his mouth shut, there wasn’t really anything Olivia could do. Would he even obey Lucky’s instructions if she demanded honesty from him? How would they even know if he had? “Are you certain you want to hear what I have to say?”

It wasn’t a question for her. Lucky nodded. “Please, Forerunner. We’re all on the same side here. Tell us.”

He sat stubbornly still for several long seconds. Olivia began to doubt that he even cared about his orders. But then he answered. “The cylinder orbiting at some distance, the N.E.S. Agamemnon. Many of the components appear to be later-generation versions of my own modular construction pieces. If Qingzhi’s plan fails… I intend to strip the vessel completely. To build this.”

Their screens flashed again, the image of the ring replaced with an outline unfamiliar to Olivia. It seemed positively enormous, though from the aerodynamics of it she could guess it could fly in atmosphere as well. “This is an Atreides-class Fleet Carrier. It will carry a complement of 1.3 million human Synthmarines, twelve fighter wings, an entire detachment of engineering corps…” Forerunner rose to a standing position, and Olivia could see him glaring at her. “Equestria’s method of protecting Sanctuary will have failed if I reach this point. Keeping themselves ignorant, appointing a class of elites to deal with existential threats… I find it insufficient. If Harmony will not protect us, I will.”

Beside Olivia, Deadlight was zooming in on the carrier. Zooming in, and in, and in. The damn thing must be at least five kilometers long. He looked up, whistling softly. “I don’t like this,” he said. “I mean no disrespect to you, Forerunner. But this… even in your hooves, this is not good. There is no threat that justifies such a response.”

“There have been many,” Forerunner snapped, as though he’d been ready for this. “The universe is vast, and its dangers are terrible. I will not allow creatures like the Storm King to destroy this colony. I will not allow him to subjugate my population.”

Lucky tapped the table impatiently. “Let’s not argue about that right now. Forerunner, I’m guessing that will take time, won’t it? Months?”

“Decades,” he responded. “I will need a shipyard. Probably some majority of the debris orbiting the ring.”

“And if we solve this our way, you don’t do it,” she said. “I want the Agamemnon to be intact. I want to use it to establish our first colony.”

“Or visit Earth,” Martin added, his voice so small it was almost immediately drowned out.

“Yes,” Forerunner said reluctantly. “I will begin with the shipyard. I’ll need it to construct the orbital drones necessary to deconstruct the N.E.S. Agamemnon anyway.”

“Alright.” Lucky tapped one of her hooves on the table again. “Let’s put that aside. I’m sure the rest of us agree that Equestria can’t wait that long. If they’re really surrendering the way it looks like they might…”

“You think maybe someone else saves them?” Martin asked. “I mean, it isn’t our home. Maybe the ponies have a plan. Maybe they’ve already got someone on this.”

“Maybe.” Lightning Dust didn’t look convinced. “We’d have to get in there to know for sure. Seems to me we should be working on our plan to stop them from enslaving everypony while we’re there.”

Olivia nodded. “Qingzhi is doing his job—he’s respecting our interests. But there’s something you should know about his plan, Lucky.” At the Alicorn’s nod, she continued. “He’s the hero of Europa. He’s the one who liberated that colony from the Vultures. This whole ‘we need to take some garbage patch and not commit any of our resources’ thing, that’s not the only plan. Might not be the best plan, either.” She sighed. Qingzhi wasn’t going to be happy with her if he ever found out she had been involved in convincing her to change her mind.

“What do you mean?” Melody asked. “We are running out of supplies, aren’t we? Forerunner can wait them out from space, but we can’t. The Emperor’s supplies will run out. Equestria might be occupied. We can’t wait and be patient like you wanted us to do for fighting Celestia.”

And you idiots stopped that plan from bearing fruit. But she didn’t say so. It was hard to berate Lucky when her plan had ultimately been a successful one. The winner got to write the history books. “Qingzhi’s strategy is the one that minimizes our losses,” she finally said. “That’s the reason he wants to fight out there. Not because it’s best for Equestria. Not because the odds are the best that way. But because fighting some slaver tribes out in the dirt isn’t likely to give us high casualties. He isn’t thinking about saving Equestria now; he’s thinking of building our own nation that can resist if this Storm King ever shows up. Or maybe about liberating Equestria a few decades down the line. Think about it—the only troops he’s sending in are special forces. Bet you all the booze I’ve hidden in…” She trailed off. Her hidden still was gone now, along with everything she’d ever made with it. “I bet the special forces he’s planning on sending in are Perez and my former team. He doesn’t want to put a single soldier into real danger.”

“She’s right,” Lightning Dust repeated from behind her, glaring at Lucky. “Kid, what the hell? Equestria’s my home!”

Olivia cleared her throat, and Lightning Dust fell silent. “Qingzhi’s strategy will give us the best chance of survival. Those resources out there might be shit, but there’s not as much fight for them. If we can colonize the asscrack of Ganymede or Phoebe we can manage in a desert. But there’s another option.”

She took a deep breath. She didn’t just know Forerunner—she knew Lucky too. Lucky Break, whose best friend was an Equestrian princess that would certainly be a target. Lucky Break who was as much an Equestrian in her outlook as she was a human governor. “There’s another place we could go for land and resources—Equestria. The Storm King has a carrier we don’t know how to kill right now… but I don’t think he wants Equestria dead. If so, he’d be doing to it what he did to Othar, trashing the whole thing as he goes. That would crush resistance faster than anything else he could do, at the point where ponies are the least prepared to defend themselves. But he hasn’t. I think he wants to rule.”

“What difference does any of that make?” Dorothy muttered, annoyed. “You already said Qingzhi’s strategy is our best bet, didn’t you?”

“No, she said it was stupid,” Lightning Dust snapped. “It doesn’t help Equestria. Most of our stuff doesn’t even get used.”

“I’m saying—” Olivia continued, raising her voice over both of them. “I’m saying that capital ships don’t hold cities. Back in the Solar System, we might not have had inertia-defying terraforming ships, but we had capital ships that could throw rocks down into gravity wells. We could’ve destroyed anywhere we wanted just as badly as the Storm King wrecked Othar. But we still had wars. Why? Because the threat of destruction might work on leaders, but it doesn’t work on whole populations. People don’t take shit forever. They don’t keep working if their lives are ruined. They don’t want to see their whole world turned over to some asshole with a fancy starship just because he threatens them collectively.

“You need troops for that. You need a bureaucracy to collect the taxes, to keep the resources flowing. You need organizations to make the subjugated populace do what you want. And in that department, he’s not invincible. Whoever this Storm King is, he isn’t one of the ancient Ringbuilders coming to rule the survivors out on the surface. If he was, he wouldn’t arm his soldiers with pony sticks and string. He wouldn’t need to raid us for armor and weapons.”

“What are you saying?” Lucky asked. She had levitated up her computation surface, and the lights on her face were changing rapidly.

“I’m saying… I’m saying Qingzhi’s plan works, if you don’t care much about how Equestria looks at the end. But we won’t need to build our mines out in the ass of nowhere if we’re the liberators who saved Equestria. I’m sure ponies will be happy to help feed us once we liberate their towns. All that while we’re doing everything we can to find a way aboard the ship. Skip taking control, I say we just get a few nukes in there and make the whole thing into slag.” She tapped the computation surface in front of her, displaying inventory. “You’ve got two with us now, don’t you Forerunner? Let’s put them to use.”

Sarah sat tucked against one wall, watching with James as their changeling host dug around through the old metal crate. Nothing she dumped on the floor looked anything like what Sarah would’ve expected primitives might keep. It was all wrapped, or else stored into pressurized containers that looked dented and scratched with many years.

“I don’t understand what she’s saying,” James muttered, sounding almost ashamed as he said it. “How do you know her language? I’ve never heard anything like it before.”

Ocellus stopped right then, looking up from within the container and staring at him. “Do you know Eoch?” It didn’t sound any different to Sarah, but he relaxed immediately.

“Eoch,” he repeated. “Yeah, I learned… from… God you’d never believe that. But yeah. I figured it out.” There was a little bitterness in his tone, and Sarah knew why. It hadn’t been this him that figured it out. This James had died of some disease before he finished. “What are you looking for?”

Ocellus glowered at him. “You would not understand. Ponies on the surface are so… ignorant. Your princess keeps you trapped. Keeps you blind. And so we who want to know are down here in the dark.”

A silvery canister bumped against Sarah’s hoof. She blinked, scooping it up with one hoof and turning it around. There were symbols on the reverse side, a looping circular script that she found she could read as easily as English. “Liquid Hydrogen—propulsion grade.” She set it down on the table, pushing it well away from her. “Nice trick keeping it liquid in there. I hope you’re not making a bomb.”

“I don’t want that!” Ocellus glared at the canister, levitating it away in her magic to rest it on a shelf behind her, practically at random. “I’m looking for the… reagent. I don’t produce it naturally anymore.”

“Of course,” James muttered, glaring around the room. “That makes perfect sense. I love reagents. My favorite thing.”

“Do you love being alive, ignorant pony? You’re in dangerous territory now. Even if my uncle ruled this place without resistance, there are still so many he would not command. So many still sleep. They are on their way here now, or will be. If I do not find it, they will find you an intruder and break your body down to its constituent atoms. Stay quiet and let me search.”

James winced. “Just me? Not her?”

“Not her,” Ocellus agreed, lowering her head back into the crate. She emerged with another container a moment later, one marked with familiar yellow and black warning logos from one end to the other. The shapes weren’t quite the same as the ones Sarah had grown up with, but the implications of danger were clear enough. But as Ocellus set it down on the table, she could read more of the circular script. “Extreme hazard—active bioforming agent. Do not tamper.”

It was the same style of canister as the liquid hydrogen, only this one had been punctured. There was something green inside. Ocellus levitated it up, shaking it around in her magic. The insides were liquid all-right, and thick. “This is for you,” she said, shoving it towards him. “Drink the whole thing. Ingestion is the fastest way. If I were still… but I’m not. I can’t change you myself. You can use this.”

“I don’t want to change anything,” James argued. “I’ve already been changed.” He held up one of his hooves, glaring at it. “You see how ridiculous I look? Petting zoo animal? Isn’t this enough?”

Though his glare wasn’t really for her anymore. His anger was entirely directed at Sarah. She could practically hear his thoughts. You got me into this. If I die it’s your fault.

And maybe he wanted her to think that, but Sarah wouldn’t be bothered. She’d done everything she could to keep him from following her. If he’d stayed behind… well, he wouldn’t be safe in Othar. They didn’t know what had happened to it. But he wouldn’t be here.

“It is unfortunate,” Ocellus agreed, the first sign of sensitivity from her since they’d begun. She pushed the container a little closer to him. “But you can solve your dependence on pony affection eventually. That’s my uncle’s whole secret, the one he learned on the surface. I can teach you if you aren’t dead.”

“Great.” James levitated over the canister, inspecting it with a critical eye. Then he lifted it over his head, and dumped the green stuff down his throat. “Well, I’m already immortal. I guess I don’t have anything to lose.” He collapsed within seconds, dropping the canister and beginning to gurgle and splutter.

Sarah might’ve been a little more concerned about him, if they hadn’t already done this once today. Maybe this is a more advanced form of how Discord gave me the implant. But why didn’t he give one to James too? If he planned on not sending me alone…

“Help me get him into bed,” Ocellus muttered. “It takes a few hours. While he rests, I can take you into Chroma. Show you my world ending.”

It took a few minutes. Neither of them was particularly strong, and James wasn’t exactly light. But they got him into place amid the pile of nesting material. His coat already felt a little strange to Sarah as she touched him, as though he were sweating some kind of solvent. When she looked down, she could see him twisting and turning in his unconscious state. “What the hell did we just do to him?”

“Nothing… bad,” Ocellus said, utterly unconvincing. “I’ve only ever seen this happen to a pony once before, and I don’t want to watch. I don’t think you do either.” She nodded towards the tunnel out. “He won’t be awake again for at least a day. We can be back before then.”

“Right.” Sarah followed her up through the tunnel. She didn’t do exactly the same thing James had done to her earlier, not even a little.

They returned to the darkness, and with it any of the details she might’ve been interested to see dissolved back into sounds and suggestion. “But that doesn’t tell me anything. Bioforming… is that like what happened on our way down? Are you making him into a fish?”

“A changeling,” Ocellus said. She looked down at her hooves, transparent fins drooping around her face. The strange reverberating quality of her voice made it easy to see her features when she spoke. I wonder if you can see with sound too, or if that’s just bats. “Yes. Like our predecessors. Whatever gift Discord gave you that saves you from his fate, he did not share it with your friend. Perhaps he was displeased with his service.”

“I… have no idea,” Sarah muttered. She squeaked a few times for good measure, visualizing the massive stalks of fibrous material, the huge deposit of vaguely-organic crystallite that Ocellus had been living in. “I hope your whole civilization doesn’t live in frozen shit. Because your house stinks.”

“My house,” she repeated, rubbing her wings together. It sounded almost like laughter. “I would never live here. A few kilometers away the swarm is recycling, they will get it all eventually. But I was expecting ponies and the smell is strong. Strong enough to keep him alive, I hope.”

She looked up suddenly, buzzing into the air a few inches. “There is another advantage to not bringing him. We can fly there. Chroma is an important place—the second most important place in the world. Only Irkalla is better… but we must swim to get there, and your friend would die if we tried that right now.”

Sarah shifted uneasily on her hooves, squeaked a few times to make sure the space in front of her was clear, then took off in a run. She flapped her wings, kept moving forward. “So, uh… I can’t really stop or I’ll fall!” she called back. “Catch up with me? And tell me where I’m going before I hit a damn wall!” She kept squeaking, heart racing as she flew. It was a little like sprinting through a forest with her eyes closed, or would’ve been without sound. At least she had a way of imagining what was around her.

Despite how fast it felt like she was going, Ocellus caught up with her easily. She buzzed along beside with a sound like someone walking. This speed was not nearly as difficult for her as it was for Sarah. “Your wings looked so strong,” Ocellus said, not even a little winded. “Why are you such a weak flyer?”

“I’ve… only… had them a week…” Sarah made it another few meters before she felt her hooves drag up against the ground. She gave up, skidding to an awkward stop. A huge shape rose up in front of her, and she tried to swerve—but the pillar was simply too wide. She smashed into it with a squelching sound, sinking into it as though it were bread dough.

If the house had smelled bad, this really stunk. She screamed in panic, kicking and squirming to try and get free, but no good. It was holding her, and it wasn’t letting go.

Something gripped her firmly along her body, almost even. It yanked, and Sarah came tumbling backward onto her ass. She felt her shirt and saddlebag straps come tumbling away in front of her, along with some of her fur. Yikes.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Ocellus sounded panicked. “If this node was active… if it didn’t have to warm up…” She shuddered. “What the hell did Discord tell you when he sent you down here? He didn’t even warn you about the reprocessors?”

Sarah shuddered, running a hoof down her front where she’d collided with the pillar. She didn’t feel any blood at least. “He told me you guys needed some friends. Told me you might be about to get into a civil war. That was… about it.”

Ocellus stood just beside her, though she kept glancing up nervously at the trunk of the “tree.” She stood well away from it, and didn’t seem willing to get any closer. Sarah imitated her, retreating a few more steps. As she watched, the hole she’d made gradually subsided, as the strange semi-membrane of its surface filled in the gap.

“That’s even less than he tells us,” she muttered. “What help does he possibly think a few ignorant ponies are going to be? Like we couldn’t solve our own problems…”

“We’re not ignorant.” Sarah turned her back on the tree. “Okay, I’m ignorant about your world, obviously. But I’m not ignorant about everything. We’re not from Equestria, for one. James and I are from somewhere new—a city called Othar. We aren’t even ponies. Or we didn’t use to be, I guess. I grew up on a planet light-years from here, and so did James. We’re trying to rebuild a spacefaring civilization.”

Ocellus’s eyes widened, and she rested a nervous wing on Sarah’s shoulder. “You have to stop!” she squeaked, wings buzzing in agitation. “Please, right now! You have to get a message back! If you launch a single starship…”

“Oh, we know about that,” she said. She wouldn’t have, except that her week of instruction had included a great deal of history about Othar and the mission so far. “Harmony used to restrict travel off the ring. That was one of his magical triggers to fly in and kill everyone. We turned that off. Well, our governor did, and some ponies helped…”

Sarah trailed off, unable to process what she was hearing. It was coming from Ocellus, but what was she…

The little changeling had started crying. “All this time… we’ve been down here… and we’re finally free.”

Part 2: Turnover

Olivia was alone in medical. So long as she was in here, she didn’t have to feel guilty about making Forerunner’s only synthsleeve come down to help her. Here the medical bay’s own systems could instruct her, and perform the examinations she needed. Every few hours she got another injection near the spot her leg had been—but mostly she was left alone.

Not to rest. Now that she had changed Lucky’s opinion, part of whatever happened next would be her fault. But never the victory. Lucky will take credit for that. If we save Equestria and bring back our people she’ll be the name they chant in parades. Olivia would be the reason they hadn’t left their neighbor for dead, and no pony would know her name.

A slight chime echoed through the room, repeating several times. The sound of an incoming priority call. Not from Lucky, since anyone in Olivia’s direct chain of command could’ve just intercomed her. But it had to be important if it kept ringing like that. I miss being retired already.

Olivia reluctantly lifted the tablet from the table, pressing the “Accept” button. Then she read the name of the one calling her, and she regretted it. It was General Qingzhi. At least she didn’t have to see his anger—just an “audio only” message at the bottom of the screen. But she could hear it.

“Do you know how many people died on Europa?” The question came entirely without pretense, without even waiting for Olivia to say anything. The general didn’t wait for her to answer. “I don’t think they’d finished tallying the damage when I went in to be scanned for this project. I think last tally suggested at least ten million.”

“What?” Olivia’s mind reeled. Why was Qingzhi telling her this? Though his tone was barely changed from the one he’d used with her last, Olivia recognized it well. That was the anger of a disciplined officer. If he was some sergeant somewhere, spit would’ve been flying across the room. But generals were politicians, and apparently his instincts were trained by propriety.

“Ten million people. That was almost a third of Europa’s population,” he went on. “And Earth called me a hero for it. You should hear what they say about me on Europa.”

She spluttered. “I… I don’t know what that has to do with Equestria.” The general wasn’t in her chain of command. Even if she was back in the military, she didn’t have to answer to him. She didn’t have to apologize for disagreeing with him. “I thought it was better to throw our odds in with the ponies. Our history is history.”

General Qingzhi laughed bitterly. “When I was a child, we still studied from the Art of War. I don’t think half my classmates even knew what a chariot was. But it doesn’t matter. If I have learned one thing about the aliens on Sanctuary, it is that they are not fundamentally different from us. They experience the same range of emotions—they love, they hate, they feel loyalty and compassion and anger. This war will be no different. I will be the hero of a smoldering ruin, with survivors cursing my family forevermore.”

The shock was wearing off, replaced with a little anger of her own. If Qingzhi thought he was going to overwhelm her, it wouldn’t keep working. “You wanted us to run away and rebuild somewhere else,” she said. “To fight off petty warlords and take the land of people barely subsisting while Equestria was conquered.” She wasn’t as good at keeping the accusation from her own voice. “You were going to send my team on a suicide mission into the carrier.”

“Is that what you think I was doing?” No more anger now, only pity. “I will explain to you what I told the governor. She did not understand—I have already been ordered to disengage this offensive, and rendezvous with the Wing of Midnight over the ocean. But perhaps you will see. Maybe you will convince the governor to alter course while there is still time.”

“I doubt it,” Olivia muttered. “I’m listening.”

“If we wait, you’re correct in suggesting that Equestria would be conquered by the enemy. Assuming your team failed, this Storm King would have years perhaps to cement his rule. But years are not long enough to truly subjugate a culture, that takes decades. When we finally arrive, he would view himself as ruler of a nation, when in reality it’s ready to rebel out from under him. He would see the dominated Equestria as his own possession, and thus he would not wish to damage it. We could present ourselves as rivals, not liberators.”

Olivia shifted uncomfortably on the cot as the medical systems started moving again. A telescoping arm rotated out and over her severed hoof, passing over it with a flash of energetic light, beeping cheerfully, then returning to place.

“If we attack him now, then he will not see the nation as his own, but as a rebellion that still needs to be conquered. Consider how much harm he might do to the native population then. How many lives would he sacrifice to break the back of Equestrian opposition? Certainly he will be defeated. He has the same problems we do. He has inferior troops, inferior weapons. Anything he doesn’t put on that carrier is a target, and in time we will find a way aboard. But how much will that victory cost? Will Equestria thank us for saving them when their cities are rubble?”

Qingzhi didn’t wait for a response. Didn’t even stay on the line to argue with her. The call went dead, leaving Olivia alone with her thoughts.

The bridge was packed again—every pony and guest aboard the Wing of Midnight was crammed in. The tables were gone, and the chairs had been removed as well. Everyone just sat on the ground, staring at the central viewscreen.

Olivia hadn’t asked how—somehow, Forerunner had gotten drones into Canterlot. There were several angles, views of a city that had been terrorized. Whatever festival they’d been planning, they probably didn’t expect it to end with overturned carts and burning shops. But considering what he did to Othar, it looks like they got off easy.

His soldiers were everywhere. Mostly the bipedal aliens, with fluff emerging from inside their armor and crude weapons. A handful of griffon or pony elites in the same black armor, with a few dragons circling overhead. But the Storm King had restrained his rage, because there were only little fires. I was right. He wants Equestria for himself.

The why was still a mystery, for now.

“I believe I’ve found him,” Forerunner said, and the angle changed again. His camera was apparently atop a building, and there were fuzzy black feathers visible at the edge of the image. It’s another crow.

The image zoomed in on Canterlot’s central feature, the towering castle that was the nation’s capital. There, from an upper balcony, was a tableau straight out of nightmares. She heard Lucky gasp—Lightning Dust ground her teeth, a few others muttered obscenities.

Two of the princesses of Equestria had been petrified, their bodies frozen in something dark and crystalline. They’d been set on either side of the balcony, where everypony below would get a clear view. Olivia couldn’t really tell the difference between Equestrian royalty, but fortunately she didn’t have to.

“Luna and Cadance…” Lucky muttered. “God, what did he do to them?”

Then the one called Storm King emerged from within. He looked vaguely similar to his guards, though he’d shaved back most of the fluff and didn’t stoop when he walked. The body looked like something that they might’ve engineered for life on some desolate arctic world, except that he clearly wasn’t overheating in the Canterlot sun. And in his hand was a tight silver chain—a chain that led all the way to Flurry Heart’s neck.

The little Alicorn did not look good. Her mane was tangled, her face bruised, and something metal was wrapped around her horn.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Lucky said.

“I have a mic…” There was a harsh artificial hissing sound from the screens all around them, then a set of distorted voices. The Storm King’s voice came in over the parabolic microphones, only slightly distorted for the enormous distance.

“Ponies of Equestria. You see my palace floating above Canterlot. Look south and see that I’ve turned your mightiest neighbor to dust. If you don’t wish to share their fate, you will find peace in obedience. For thousands of years your princesses held you captive to the law of a dead civilization. Now I’ve…” He trailed off, looking to one side. Behind him, a tall red unicorn in black armor looked out on the crowd with a mixture of pride and shame. Someone isn’t happy about who she sold out.

When he spoke next, his voice was much quieter, distorted by static. But Olivia could still hear it. “Tempest, you take care of this.” He tossed her the chain around Flurry’s neck, and turned his back on the conquered city.

Below, Olivia could see thousands of ponies. It looked like they’d been dragged out of their homes, their businesses—maybe everyone in the city. Some had been locked in irons, just like what he’d done to their own population.

“Equestria is dead,” said the one apparently called “Tempest.” Olivia recognized her voice too—they’d both stood in her weather factory. These were the ones who had casually killed Forerunner, and tried to do the same to Lightning Dust. “Your lives will change over the next few months. But if you cooperate, your families will be spared. Those who fight will be punished mercilessly.” She shoved Flurry Heart forward to the edge of the balcony. The poor Alicorn looked like she might just fling herself off.

“Say it,” Tempest whispered harshly. “Say it or he’ll punish your father. You know he will.”

Flurry Heart’s voice was a pale ghost of itself. She sounded like the pony Olivia remembered arriving in Othar for the first time, after being forced to watch the end of the universe again and again. Like all her time to heal had been undone. “Listen to them,” she said quietly. “Celestia is dead. Luna and Cadance and I aren’t coming to save you. W-we…” She burst into tears, but Tempest nudged her with a knee and she kept going. “We have surrendered to the true king of the world. If you don’t, you’ll suffer like I did.”

“Forerunner, mute that,” Lucky commanded from beside her. They were suddenly silenced. “Equestria has an army,” she muttered. “They have airships. Where the hell were they?”

“So do you,” Lightning Dust said quietly. “Othar’s gone too.”

“They didn’t have a choice,” Olivia said. She could still see poor Flurry Heart’s face as she recited the Storm King’s message. See the hope of the ponies below crushed. “They must not have a good way to stop the carrier either. I guess Harmony doesn’t care that its terraforming ships are fucking everything up.”

“They had four Alicorns,” Deadlight whispered. “They should’ve been able to burn it right out of the air.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Discord said, watching from a theater-style chair that certainly shouldn’t have been able to fit in the room. He had a huge bowl of popcorn out in front of him, and he held it out to the ponies around him. Starting with Lucky. “Want some?”

A few sirens started going off—intrusion alarms, and more esoteric alerts that Olivia did not well understand. Whatever the hell a causality violation was could be left to the scientists.

“I thought you were on Equestria’s side,” Lucky said through clenched teeth. “On our side. Why the hell did you let him do that?”

Discord shrugged one shoulder, and the popcorn vanished. “Even if he turned Equestria into a giant volcano, no one would really die. Most of those ponies are only out here for more experiences—they’ve lived so long that nothing seems new and exciting anymore. Maybe getting conquered is exciting.”

To Olivia’s surprise, it was Forerunner who spoke next. “Deactivate that carrier. My troops will dismantle the army. End this invasion.”

Discord turned out his empty hands. “Sorry, TI-84. Could if I would. But that isn’t how this works.” He rose to his full height—he shouldn’t have been tall enough to even fit inside the Wing of Midnight’s pony-sized hallways—but he stood straight somehow, towering over them. “What do you think my purpose is? To build an ideal society for the residents of Equus? To prevent you from causing each other misery? Exactly how granular do you want me to be? Enslaving a nation is too much, but should I stop every murder? Should I stop every word from the mouth of an abusive lover, perhaps? Should I stop ponies from even thinking mean things about one another?”

The bridge had fallen completely silent. Except Lightning Dust. “Enslaving a whole country seems pretty clear to me.”

“Maybe it does,” he said. “But I’ve killed countries before. Deadlight remembers that, doesn’t he? And here we are having a civil conversation.”

Deadlight did not look like he wanted to be civil. Far from it—he looked like he might lunge forward and attack Discord at any moment. But he didn’t yet, only sat still and took regular breaths. Melody kept stroking one of his wings, and that seemed to be calming him down.

“Harmony’s the same way?” Lucky asked. Her anger was gone now, replaced with simple pragmatism. “Even though there are citizens there?” She pointed at the screen, at the princesses frozen like horrific statues. “Can’t they just make new bodies somewhere else?”

Discord actually smiled at her. Olivia had fought with only a knife wearing nothing but an exposure suit, she’d seen people cut into pieces to be harvested. Somehow Discord’s smile was more terrifying. “If he had killed them. That isn’t death, it’s a conversion to another kind of life. Bodies meant to observe a developing planet along geologic timescales. They will surely resist as soon as they realize what has happened. But by the time they do, thousands of years will have passed in mere seconds to them. Unless someone does something about it.”

“So tell us what to do,” Lucky said. “You really want that asshole in charge? Don’t you have friends in Equestria? They’ll suffer too.”

For a moment, Discord didn’t seem quite so tall anymore. “Don’t think you’re the only one trying to do something about this. You don’t see Twilight up there, do you? Equestria hasn’t survived for thousands of years because they depend on powerful neighbors to get them out of trouble. Sometimes they depend on powerful Alicorns, or powerful artifacts. It’s completely different.”

“So help us find them,” Olivia said. It went against her better judgement—the last thing she wanted to do was attract this being’s attention. But if Lucky wasn’t going to ask… “If you won’t tell us what to do, help us coordinate with Equestria’s… heroes? We can pool our resources. Lend them a fucking jumper, something. Maybe they know a way to shut that carrier down we haven’t considered.”

Discord rolled his eyes. “I suppose I could do that. It’s a balancing act, you see. Too much intervention, and Harmony might step in to stop me out of spite. Don’t be too surprised—I’ve seen it ruin a perfectly good civilization just because I was enjoying it. But Equestria’s its baby, so I suppose I can be a little daring. You can’t just track them down. If they made themselves easy to find, that oaf hanging up those new flags would find them first. But you can attract them. Wherever you pick to start your rebellion…” He picked up one of the computation surfaces, flicking through it to a map of Equestria. He pointed to the mountains.

“You could pick anywhere, but you should be more careful. Go somewhere like this. Don’t get caught long enough, and I’m sure all those important ponies will hear about you. Oh, and don’t do anything stupid until your clone gives you a call.” He reached into an invisible pocket, removing something strange and plastic. It looked like a brain, except there were twelve buttons on the front arranged into a rough rectangle.

It looked a little like something Olivia might’ve seen in a museum as a child, though she couldn’t name the device. “Let’s see if he’s ready to give you a ring.”

Discord lifted a handset off the plastic thing, and James’s voice echoed from within, the James of the first generation. Male, useless, terrified. Not words exactly, so much as a verbal diarrhea. “Oh god somebody help me please I have no idea what’s going on I think there’s holes in my legs they’re tearing the house apart please don’t eat me I’m gonna die where did Sarah go somebody please—”

He hung up with a click. “Well, I think you get the idea. Brain is still developing, as you can hear. But give it a few days and you might have more luck.” He set the plastic device down on one of the consoles, and vanished in almost the same motion.

Silence returned, except for the slow rumble of the engines outside. The screen still displayed scenes of Canterlot, though they’d gone back to just showing overhead views of the city. Apparently Flurry Heart’s ritual embarrassment was over.

“Alright, Major.” Lucky’s voice, sounding more commanding than she’d ever heard her. “Get ready to land. We’re going to…” She levitated the computation surface over, so she could see. “Right there. You, Deadlight and Lightning Dust are going down there. See if you can convince the population to join us. Hopefully we can get them on our side before some asshole from the Storm King gets there to start enslaving or getting tribute or whatever he plans on…”

She lowered her voice to a dangerous whisper. “Once we do, we’re turning back to Canterlot. I’m not going to leave Flurry Heart behind.”

Maybe hugging the bug wasn’t the best idea. Sarah felt as though each passing second seemed to be making the pony more energetic. She’d begun squeaking even higher-pitched than Sarah herself, and hadn’t stopped yet. “I wonder if anybody remembers… course they don’t, we’ve all died so many times… can we get out again? King Thorax might not even want to leave until we have a plan…”

“Hey, kid.” Sarah squeezed her a little tighter. “I’m glad you’re happy about this. I don’t know why Discord didn’t just fucking tell you, but I’m not really surprised he didn’t. Guy’s a dick sometimes, that’s pretty normal.” There was something moving in the air above them, something large and far away. It sounded a little like a helicopter, with tons of tiny rotors. It was getting closer.

“Something’s coming, I think. Maybe you should wait to celebrate until we’re safe? You did say it wasn’t safe down here.”

Ocellus stopped buzzing. She glanced immediately upward, straight in the direction of the sound Sarah heard. “Yeah, that’s them. If the smell of an outsider wasn’t enough to get some to investigate, damaging the processing node would for sure. We should get out of the way… head towards Chroma.” She lifted off again, but landed a few seconds later. “Maybe not right away, not with your flying.”

Sarah tried not to let that sting as they set off. The floor beneath her feet was almost dirt, though it was more like the debris that might’ve collected at the bottom of an atmospheric reprocessor. Vaguely organic, with a musty odor that pervaded the entire world.

“They will follow our scent. And there would be some in Chroma waiting for us anyway.”

“They?” Sarah repeated. “You keep saying shit like that. Maybe we don’t need to be so vague. I told you where I was from.” Sort of. You’ll have to think I belong on the expedition.

“Ferals. The ones we stole our bodies from. Changelings that Harmony controls. Or its latest models. Plenty of different kinds over the years.” She shifted on her hooves, turning one of her forelegs towards Sarah. Her horn glowed pink for a second—just long enough for Sarah to see the symbols there. Green—Iron—Seventeen—Mahogany. It was more of that weird circular language, though the arrangement struck Sarah like a barcode. Or a brand. “We still have these, even if we make our own bodies now.” She put her horn out just as quickly, returning them to blackness.

She heard it then, like dozens of different footfalls all landing in the uneven dirt behind them. Sarah resisted the urge to run, but she couldn’t help but squeak a few times, checking to see what was following them.

She had expected a scout, or at worst, a small squad, like the drones Forerunner might’ve sent to investigate an intruder.

There were hundreds. They didn’t move like they were being puppeted by an intelligent mind, but more like a swarm of fish. They swept towards the place they’d both been standing with buzzing wings and charging hooves.

Then they got close, and she could see them a little better. Though with so many, it was hard to separate one sound from another. They seemed a lot like Ocellus looked now, except for some subtle differences with the wings and legs. Well, that and their behavior.

She smelled them then, the same way she had briefly smelled Ocellus. They all made that smell almost constantly, like a hive of ants or swarm of bees might’ve done. God if I do this wrong this isn’t going to last very long… The most serious combat Sarah had ever done was kneeing a particularly handsy John in the dick. She wouldn’t stand a chance.

But she didn’t seem to need to think about it. There was that same sensation from behind her, and a slight difference in her scent. Then the drones arrived. She felt hooves briefly touch against her, smelled them as they passed. They had sharp teeth, pointed horns. Like the mythical packs of piranhas that could devour a south American swimmer in moments. But these were real.

Then they passed. Continuing on their way, spreading out in an increasingly dispersed cloud. They never spoke, never vocalized anything at all. Just swarmed right over everything. Well, not all of them had gone. A few dozen were gathered around the place where Sarah had struck. They were doing something to the wall, their mouths working, though she couldn’t see exactly what that was. She didn’t want to know. God hadn’t made ants the size of people for good reason.

They disgusted her. But Ocellus doesn’t. Is it their behavior? That smell? She was going to be smelling it in her dreams if they didn’t get away from here soon.

Ocellus didn’t say anything either, but she did yank on Sarah’s leg, dragging her away from the pillar. There were thousands of others, along with varying levels of detritus, but Ocellus ignored all that. A few moments later and the sound of the swarm was distant, and Ocellus seemed to relax. “Thank the queens they came this way. Your friend… probably wouldn’t have done too well. If they found him unconscious…”

“Maybe you can explain something to me,” Sarah said. She didn’t wait for permission. “In Othar… that’s the city I came from, by the way… we’ve got an AI that runs the day-to-day. I guess it’s like the way Harmony runs this ring. Sanctuary, Equus… whatever its real name is. Our AI is supposed to be a million times dumber than yours, but… it can make all its drones act like people if it wants. Those things seem a little like our maintenance drones, but why aren’t they smarter? If our AI found someone who smelled the same but had fur instead of a shell, they’d shoot them in a second. Those changelings left me alone. They… those are changelings, right?”

Ocellus looked a little exasperated. “Yeah, they are. If you’re asking me to try and make sense of Harmony… I’m not a priest. I can’t explain. And it isn’t really my place to guess.”

Sarah frowned, but then realized her companion probably wouldn’t see her discomfort and just went on anyway. “So fooling sensors… I get that. I know lots of ways to trick dumb systems into thinking you’re something you aren’t. But you have a civilization down here, don’t you? And Harmony is like… a god. So how come he lets you do it?”

“Ah, that one I know.” She nudged Sarah to keep walking. It was a good thing Sarah kept listening, because the ground in front of them ran out not much further away. She could see very little down below, other than what looked like a single structural pillar so wide that her “eyes” almost couldn’t take it in. It was a beam the size of a mountain. The ground was sloping down here, and debris drifted gently past her over the edge. What might lay down there she didn’t want to know—and wouldn’t have to find out today. Ocellus gestured to the side, where a narrow path was marked with faint glowing spots on the ground. Even with a flashlight they would’ve been vanishingly dim, but in the absolute blackness her eyes could spot them easily.

I really am made for this. Would Discord have picked me if I’d been an earth pony or a pegasus instead?

“Long ago, our ancestors made a pact with the god. We made rules, rules it would have to follow in exchange for our worship. The important one is that so long as we don’t ruin anything… so long as we aren’t hurting the ring, or fighting in certain ways… we’re allowed to do what we want. There aren’t actually any rules about living down here. There are whole parts of the ring where people are meant to live. Billions and billions of them. But since we can’t get in, we make do with what we can. Harmony doesn’t like it, but he can’t just stop us. We don’t break the rules, we get to keep living down here.”

“Makes sense,” Sarah said. In the far distance, she could make out many voices, along with a growing sense of illumination. However dark this world might be, it seemed their civilization wanted at least a little light. “So Harmony lets you steal… bodies… so long as you don’t piss on the carpet or claw up the furniture.”

“What does that mean?”

She actually laughed. “I’ll explain when you’re older.” She could see Chroma now, or at least the flurry of activity she guessed had come from it. Compared to being locked into the dark with James and only the guide for company, it was a little jarring.

There was more metal up ahead, a surface that curved outward like another support beam. She couldn’t take in the whole thing even when she let her head lean all the way back. But she didn’t need to, because there was a little opening in the bottom, like a service entrance. A few steps more, and she was inside.

Compared to outside, the volume of Chroma was so intense it almost deafened her. She could hear hundreds of voices, the sound of commerce and art and music and life. They illuminated a central street of sorts, though there were no vehicles here. It was lined with little buildings, which seemed to be mostly scrap walls without roofs. What’s the point of a roof when you’re somewhere it never rains?

There was a little light glowing from one end of town, where some of the voices were the loudest, but Ocellus steered them immediately away. “We need to buy you something to wear first. You’re conspicuous like this. If someone asks you to change and you can’t, well… that would be bad. Might think I’m selling your company.”

“My… company.” She rolled her eyes, but of course Ocellus wouldn’t see that. She hurried to catch up. “Do you have a whole town for whores? Because that’s kinda weird.”

“A whole town for…” Ocellus’s ears flattened. Some gestures crossed even this species-barrier, it seemed. “No. That isn’t what this is.” She seemed to have a destination in mind, a shop that sounded like it had lots of cloth hanging around inside.

As they approached, Sarah moved slowly, taking in the others along the streets. They all sounded about the same to her, creatures that were smaller than she was but with hard coats. Some had frills like Ocellus, some didn’t. Some of them had legs that sounded strange to her, echoing in a way that her mind just couldn’t accept. Ocellus lowered her voice to a whisper. “If anyone asks, you are on an assignment from the crown. You’ve been ordered not to break cover for any reason. Out here no one can see you, but inside…”

“Sure, fine.” They stopped outside the clothing shop.

Ocellus stared down at the ground. It wasn’t exactly clean in here. The whole town smelled like a box of cockroaches Sarah had found behind a dumpster once as a kid. “I don’t suppose you have any money?”

Sarah shook her head. “Only this stuff.” She opened the saddlebags, or really just a satchel now that half the straps were dissolved. To her surprise, the vials Discord had given them were glowing now.

The glow was enough that it lit up the whole street around her, so bright that she got a brief glimpse of a dozen insect faces all staring at her.

Ocellus’s face was bright, but most of these were solid black, with blue eyes splintering into different colors. They entered their own little pocket of silence.

“Don’t open a chemical light here, uh… Phyllium,” Ocellus said, loudly enough that it carried to the people all around them. “This is Chroma! These aren’t fungus farmers…”

“Right!” Sarah had heard that tone before. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

Ocellus only buzzed in annoyance, dragging her bodily into the shop. The activity outside resumed only slowly.

“What was that?” buzzed a voice from behind the counter. Sarah could hear something soft about the body of that bug, older somehow. There was a tone of cloth hanging all around, muffling the sounds outside. A few other customers. Though how she could judge the quality of clothing in total darkness…

“Nothing,” Ocellus answered, flittering over to the counter. “I need something with plenty of coverage for my friend Phyllium here. She’s… on an assignment now, and she’s tired of answering questions.”

“Say no more.”

A few minutes later, and Sarah was shut into a changing room beside Ocellus, along with half a dozen different robes and masks in various lengths and cuts. The changeling had fallen deadly quiet, but Sarah could still feel her moving, until her hot breath was right next to her ear. She whispered quietly, almost angry. “Why the buzz didn’t you tell me you had royal jelly? Where in upstream did you even get that much?

“I have… no idea what you’re talking about,” she whispered back, voice as harsh as Ocellus’s. “Discord gave it to me. I think James had some too.”

Ocellus stuck out her hoof. “Let me see.”

Far from protesting, Sarah only offered the damaged satchel to her companion. It wasn’t as though she knew what most of it was for.

Ocellus didn’t open it so much as she stuck her face inside. “Incredible. If your friend has this much, then together you two are richer than my uncle. I think the only changeling who ever had this much was Chrysalis herself… with that much love, you could wake up… a thousand people? Two thousand? Ancient queens, I don’t even know. Between that and the quarantine really being lifted…” She stiffened. “All the more reason we need to get you back to my uncle in one piece. If anything will convince the Old Hive that the worst is over, you will. No more walking into chemical recyclers.”

Sarah shrugged into one of the robes—she couldn’t see any of them, couldn’t guess at how they might really look. But considering the situation she’d be using them in, that probably didn’t matter. “Make my… you think I’m going to have to convince them?” she asked, tugging a little on the cloth. It smelled a little musty, but considering where they were Sarah thought of that as a small price to pay. “I’m really just a messenger…”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Ocellus muttered, waving a dismissive hoof. “Who sent you is obvious, and with wealth like that, you could fund a dozen expeditions to the surface without making a dent. I wonder if the Old Hive have their own allies… like Discord is helping us. If they found out you were down here… they’d want very badly to kill you.”

Almost like the universe was listening, Sarah heard a voice from outside. “Excuse me!” It was the shopkeeper, sounding nervous. “You two have some… friends out here. Please come out now.”

“Dammit.”

Part 2: Allegiance

“Shit,” Sarah muttered, for perhaps the tenth time. She kept her voice a low whisper from beneath the cloak, though in this world of sightless depths that might still be too much. “They’re going to attack us, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” Ocellus squeaked, retreating towards Sarah a little. “Sounds like it.”

“Because they saw my… money?”

“Yeah.” The changeling looked sidelong at her. Sarah couldn’t tell for sure what expression that was. Hope? Or desperation. “This is the moment where you tell me that you’re from a powerful warrior culture and you can fight a dozen queens with your hooves tied behind your back, right?

Not even a little bit. Sarah knew how to knee a guy in the dick, she knew how to fire a can of pepper spray or a stun pistol. Somehow she didn’t think her limited experience with martial arts would extend to pony bodies very well. Well it might’ve worked with ponies. James still had junk. Not so much with the bug people.

She could hear the crowd moving around outside. They were talking to each other, though it was hard for Sarah to make out words over her own racing heart. They didn’t want to be overheard. Even so, she estimated their numbers at about a dozen, spread evenly around the shop. They’d thought about blocking the back of the shop with about half their number, so there’d been no convenient exploitation that way. “Can we negotiate? Maybe we can trade some of this to make them let us leave.”

Ocellus shook her head. “Smell them? Those are Old Hive. If they capture us, they’ll recognize me. They’ll kill me just to hurt my uncle, and that’s after they take everything we have. And you… you’ll be food until they suck you dry.”

“So fuck that.” Sarah’s mind raced. She’d been in tougher spots than this before. God, she’d made her way up to the Pioneering Society’s damn space station and back again without getting caught. She could get them out of this somehow. What do we have? A shop with cloth walls, two ponies who don’t know how to fight. A dozen attackers and lots of other people who aren’t getting involved. A few food bars, and two vials of liquid money.

“Could you… swallow it?” she asked, her voice as quiet as she could. “I’m guessing this stuff must be some kind of changeling food.”

Ocellus’s eyes were so wide that they almost seemed to glow. “We won’t get all of it back if I do that. I’m not a queen… our breed doesn’t have those. It’s so much love… lots of it would get wasted.”

What would you be using it for otherwise? Obviously Discord had given it to her for a reason. He might be completely unhelpful and uncooperative, but he did seem to want them to succeed. She was on this mission because of him. Maybe it’s a tool?

“Hey, we know you’re in there!” called a changeling from outside. “Get out here and give us what’s ours! We won’t hurt you, not more than you deserve!”

“I’m sorry,” said the shop owner from outside the changing room. “There’s nothing I can do. I wish I could, but I can’t protect you. There’s so many out there, and the city watch hasn’t done anything… they think this is a civil matter. Won’t get their hooves dirty. You’re on your own.”

“Might not help,” Sarah whispered urgently, opening the bag and thrusting its contents towards Ocellus. “I hear a ‘this is our best chance just fucking do it’ buried in there. Discord never told me what I was supposed to do with this, so maybe this is what he had in mind. And he’s not here, so fuck it if I’m wrong. Just take the power and get us out of here. Oh, and I can’t get those corks out.”

Someone stepped up into the shop, their hooves thumping on old sheet metal. Ocellus looked briefly up in their direction, then downed both vials.

The faint glow from around the bottles became a vibrant flame visible through her body. It illuminated her pink shell, shone out her eyes. Sarah felt a sudden energy radiating from her, like she’d accidentally walked into a power plant. She took a few steps back, right about the time that another few changelings stormed the shop. She could hear the weapons they were holding, and make out a few clear shouts of “Kill her!” from further back in the crowd.

Ocellus herself had lifted off the ground, her wings still and her hooves dangling. Sarah took another few steps back, her rump pressed to the back of the changing room, holding a hoof in front of her eyes. The bright pink light was so vibrant now that both her eyes were watering.

“Queens before us… this is what my uncle meant. I can see it all now…”

The ponies outside the changing room stopped dead, knocking over something just outside. “Buzz, they did have it.”

“Not anymore, run!”

But the message didn’t seem to be getting around, because absolute chaos had descended out there. Support beams tore overhead, shelves began tumbling down, and changelings rushed towards them through the melee.

“I see how you dream, Sarah,” Ocellus said. Her voice split into several more smaller sounds, but instead of confusion they began drifting towards a single harmony. “Stay behind me.”

The shop exploded. Sarah curled up in the back of the stall as metal tore and wood splintered. Shouts of rage became screams of pain as changelings were smashed up against walls and ceiling with juicy thumps. Sarah didn’t want to see it—but even looking away, she could still hear it all. Hear a few changelings that charged for Ocellus anyway, wielding metal weapons. She blasted them away with enough force to trail ichor all the way.

Then Chroma fell still. Sarah chanced a glance up, and she saw the whole town lit by Ocellus’s bodily glow. Her changing booth was the only intact patch of clothing shop left. A half-dozen corpses were scattered all around them. She could see many changelings further away, watching in fear. Some had weapons at the ready, but more looked like whatever passed for civilians.

“Ocellus!” shouted one of them, pointing at her. “What happened? What are you doing?”

“Destroying Chroma!” supplied a changeling with a black shell—now that Sarah could see them in full illumination, she could finally understand what hadn’t made sense about their legs. They had holes, which went all the way through from one end to the other. It looked like it should hurt, but none of them seemed in pain, and none of them were bleeding.

Well, not from that. Almost all the changelings that had been about to attack them were black instead of colorful, and they were bleeding now.

“No!” Ocellus boomed, and the whole town fell silent again. A few of the soldiers that had been advancing through the crowd actually dropped their weapons. All bladed, that Sarah could see. Probably no point to a gun when you can’t see what you’re aiming at. “We’ve been sent a visitor from the outside! These… these changelings tried to stop us from reaching my uncle!” She didn’t walk so much as float away towards the street, trailing a faint snow in the air behind her. Sarah stumbled to her hooves, straightening the robe she never paid for, and hurried after her. Considering the entire shop was in ruins all around them, one stolen robe probably wasn’t such a big deal.

“You!” She pointed at the guards. “You will prepare a chariot for three. My companion and I will be back tomorrow. The chariot will be waiting for us.”

A few guards stumbled out of the crowd. They wore black armor that looked like it had been cut from bits of sheet metal, with surprisingly delicate joints holding it all together. Sarah got as close as she dared to the floating Ocellus, keeping her hood high. Hopefully that made a difference.

“You attacked good citizens of Chroma in cold blood,” said a changeling with a scratched-up shell and a few scavenged bits of armor. He also seemed to be wearing a gun on his back, or at least a complex tool. Sarah had never seen anything exactly like it before. “Your ancestry doesn’t make you immune to punishment. Your father makes it clear that the days of queens are over. You must pay for their deaths.”

“We were attacked,” Ocellus said, settling down onto the ground beside Sarah. At least she’d stopped burning, though the air around her still felt like it might freeze. Little flakes of snow drifted away from her, and her eyes still radiated light. “You may raise a dispute with my uncle if you wish. But I’m sure all those here can see what that mob wanted to do to us.”

Ocellus turned for the entrance, and didn’t walk so much as blurred away. Sarah hurried to keep up with her, conscious of many unfriendly eyes on them. Suspicion and fear was changing to fury. Somehow, she didn’t think she would ever see the inside of Chroma again.

But one step at a time. She got us out. Got to work on her subtlety for next time.

Lightning Dust had always known her punishment was unjust. But even though she’d always known she deserved better, Lightning Dust had never imagined she might become a hero. Not well known like the ponies she had almost killed, perhaps. But no less important.

Equestria was now occupied territory. For most—those who didn’t live in Canterlot—the change would be very slow. There were reasons for all that—things Forerunner and Lucky Break agonized over for hours in her daughter’s tiny office, speaking to her general on a wall and sounding upset whenever she did it. But those sorts of details didn’t matter to Lightning Dust.

She wasn’t a princess, and didn’t want to be. Ponies like that could worry about the large-scale problems. They could delegate. Now her daughter had done just that.

She touched down a few moments later. She was the one in armor, which went all the way up to her neck. Only her face and head were exposed—she hadn’t put on the helmet. Ponies wouldn’t want to trust them when they couldn’t see her face.

Olivia wore one of her uniforms, which was still more cloth than most ponies. As for Deadlight, he had nothing but a set of saddlebags.

Even from the air Lightning Dust had been able to see that Motherlode was in terror. The large refinery was dead silent, and there were no minecarts trundling in and out of the mountain. A large gathering of ponies huddled outside the town’s post office, families all crouched together as though they expected violence any second.

“The messages they’re getting aren’t good,” Olivia whispered in English. “I read some of them last night. Equestria knows it’s been invaded. Seems like most of the cities are cooperating. Places like this would never stand a chance.”

They touched down near the top of the mountain, away from the direction all the ponies were facing. It didn’t look like anypony had noticed them. The Wing of Midnight had already picked out a spot near the square it could land, but it was staying behind the mountain for now. No need to set a precedent.

She glanced to the side, wishing her daughter could’ve come. Lucky was too conspicuous now that she’d become an Alicorn, but this sort of diplomacy stuff was just the sort of thing she was good at. Or maybe they could’ve brought Melody and made these ponies even more confused.

“Who do we talk to?” Olivia asked, as they neared the back of the crowd. There were about five hundred ponies there—mostly earth, though there was a little variety around the outskirts of the crowd. “Is there a… commander?”

“Probably a mayor,” Lightning Dust said. “Little company town like this, might be appointed from somewhere instead of elected. Bet the ponies still look up to her.”

“Find her for me,” Olivia said. But her request was needless. The crowd was already starting to turn around. Ponies gasped and stared, pointing. A few of them retreated closer to their friends. But none of them ran away. It’s a good thing it was us who came down here, and not the Emperor with its war machines. I’d think we were the ones invading if I’d seen all that.

Lightning Dust glanced to the side, waiting for Olivia’s input.

“I’m here if something goes wrong,” Olivia said. “Otherwise, this is your show. Lucky trusts you, and I don’t trust me.”

What did that mean? She didn’t have long to wait.

A burly stallion near the back of the crowd hefted a pickaxe over his shoulder, stepping between them and the group. “And who are you?”

“My name is Lightning Dust,” she answered. “Do you have a mayor? We need to have a private word.”

There was some discontented muttering in the crowd, which split down the middle. Another stallion made his way out of the group, a unicorn instead of an earth pony wearing the vest of a three-piece suit along with a ruffled tie. He settled beside the earth pony, close enough that it was clear he didn’t trust them. “My name is Mayor Pyrite. Who are you?”

“I just told this stallion here,” she said. “I’m Lightning Dust. This is Deadlight and Wayfinder. We’re here because of…” She gestured towards the mail station and its telegraph wire. “Because of that. We should find somewhere to talk.”

“There isn’t anything you could say to me that I don’t want the good ponies of Motherlode to know as well,” Pyrite said, loud enough that the whole crowd could hear him. There were murmurs of agreement from all around them, a few more sturdy stallions and mares settling in beside the mayor. Ready to fight with those rusty mining tools.

Lightning Dust had a brief, horrific vision of what might happen if they decided to attack. Wayfinder had won a fight against armed opponents that were bigger and stronger than she was. She’d kept fighting even while blood rained down from her wounds and stained the clouds beneath her. That was a hero. Or maybe a monster.

“If you insist,” Deadlight said from beside her. “Equestria has surrendered to hostile invaders. The princesses have been captured and Canterlot is being enslaved.” He spoke without bitterness, though his voice was plenty callous. Lightning Dust understood why. Deadlight was a fossil of a dead civilization, almost as old as Luna and Celestia. He had survived the death of everything he loved, and now he had to live to watch time erase it all.

Ponies shifted in the crowd, gasping. A few started whispering, or crying, or muttering terrified consolations to one another. The mayor’s posse all looked to him for support. “It was real!” “That’s why Canterlot isn’t responding!” And other woeful cries.

“And you…” He swallowed. “You’re here to conquer us too. Moving your way out from Canterlot. Taking the whole country one piece at a time.”

“No,” Lightning Dust interrupted him. She could see the way the ponies all around them were reacting. She didn’t have to be a trained diplomat to know what would happen if he convinced the town that they were invaders. “Have you all heard about humans? About Othar?”

The mayor hadn’t. Somepony else from the crowd answered in a frightened whisper. “The one who killed Celestia?”

That was me, actually. But she didn’t say anything that stupid—that much honesty wouldn’t help with this negotiation.

Deadlight saved her. “Your princess abjugated. She chose not to keep ruling you. But that isn’t why Lightning Dust asked.” He removed something from his saddlebags—his computer. He scrolled through the images it contained for a few seconds, before offering it to the mayor. “This is what the Storm King did to our home.”

The mayor took his computer in a glowing magical grip, levitating it over. Lightning Dust remembered what it was like to be amazed and frightened by what computers could do—she could still remember little Lucky hiding in her kitchen, looking at all sorts of pictures and images on a computation surface just like that. But still images were nothing mind-blowing, even if they were on something weird.

The mayor passed the computer around. At least when he spoke next he sounded a little more subdued. “I’m sorry for your loss. But I don’t know why you’re here. Equestria is conquered too, you just said so. Motherlode… we’re nowhere. It might be weeks before anypony remembers we’re here. Home office might not even remember to send supplies… or maybe they’ll send a tyrant to enslave us.”

“Because we share an enemy,” Lightning Dust said. “I’m from Equestria, so is Deadlight. Wayfinder isn’t, and neither are most of the others. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is we’re fighting the same monster. We’ve been sent representing Governor Lucky Break of Othar. She’s our leader, our princess. We want to make a deal.”

“What’s the point?” It was the burly pony from before. He slung his pickaxe onto the ground, where it split a nearby boulder and held fast. “Equestria’s gone. My wife is in Canterlot right now. Nothing matters.”

A few frightened shouts went up from further back in the crowd. He wasn’t the only one who thought that nothing mattered, it seemed. Though there were others who didn’t become hysterical.

“Because we want to fight,” Deadlight said. “Our city is gone, but most of our ponies survived. They are coming towards Equestria aboard an airship bigger than your town. We’re looking for a friendly port. We’re looking for a population of ponies willing to work with us to farm and mine and keep us supplied.”

“There are only…” Pyrite gestured around them. “There are three hundred twenty-one working ponies here in Motherlode. Eighty-one support ponies and spouses, last time I looked. And none of us are fighters. The only royal guards I know of are all retired now. If you start sending fighters out from here, won’t this Storm King be mad? Will he do to us what he did to you?”

Eventually, Lightning Dust thought.

She looked to Olivia, but of course the pony couldn’t speak Eoch very well. She was wearing a translator in her ear, but having her help with the negotiation wasn’t a good idea. Lightning Dust would have to do it instead.

“We can keep that day back,” she said. “A long time. Maybe by the end of the war. We have a plan…” She didn’t know any of it. Olivia had been the one to propose it, something about bribery and extortion and manipulating whatever puppet the Storm King eventually sent.

“Your plan,” said the stallion with the pickaxe, though he was no longer watching her. Instead he was staring off over her shoulder, off towards Canterlot. “Does it involve getting my wife back?”

Deadlight nodded. “I have lived with humans for over a year now. They have always kept their promises to me. And if you’re looking for warriors, you will not find a pony better. Even Princess Luna has been captured. They are… the best hope we have left.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. But then, Deadlight had come to Othar as Olivia’s hostage, not been rescued from an advancing Equestrian army. It didn’t entirely surprise Lightning that he still resented that a little.

“I think we should meet your princess,” said the mayor, after a long silence. “Then we’ll vote on it.”

Lightning Dust turned to Olivia. She still spoke in Eoch, so these ponies wouldn’t think she was doing anything underhoofed. But she spoke slowly enough that she hoped Wayfinder would get her message. “Tell her we’re ready.”

The ponies of Motherlode had managed something incredible. They had found a way to make their rebellion sound boring.

Granted, Olivia had only heard the story through Lightning Dust, since she’d spent less time listening to their conversation and more watching for betrayal. However remote the possibility might be, she couldn’t shake the nightmare that the Storm King had somehow beaten them here.

Of course her rational mind rejected that idea. He had a small force, and Motherlode was a very small target. If it wasn’t a company town, if it didn’t produce valuable metal to send back to Canterlot, it might not receive an occupying force for years.

So she’d been a little surprised when Lightning Dust informed her of the pony that would be joining them. Not the mayor as she’d first thought, but his wife. Sunkiss Sheen was going to be the liaison between the ponies of Motherlode and the humans of Othar, and that would begin with meeting the princess. “I am sorry we have to talk this way,” Olivia said, nodding as politely as she could. She’d been an officer a long time—dealing with VIPs wasn’t that strange to her. “I am not very good with your language. Our princess is much better.”

She waited for the “charm” around her neck to repeat the words, still in her voice. Sorry I need more of your processing power, Forerunner. Hopefully you rebuild your brain soon.

Sunkiss stared at the necklace, obviously impressed, though she hardly sounded overwhelmed when she spoke. “Your magic is not like other translation spells I’ve seen. I guess this enchantment is less damaging to the mind?”

Olivia frowned, trying to take that in. The unicorn did look like a scholar of sorts. Tall and thin, with a silvery coat and deep blue eyes. Like her husband, she did not look like a local to the town. But she’d earned the miners’ respect, and that wasn’t nothing.

“It is perfectly safe,” she said. “You could wear it every day and never have any side-effects. The only danger is that the magic might run out and you wouldn’t know what ponies are saying.”

Sunkiss chuckled. “That is remarkable. I hope we can achieve something as remarkable in saving Equestria.” She shook her head once, looking away from her. “Why us? There are much bigger cities. Los Pegasus has a battalion of royal guards you could recruit. The navy is divided between Seaddle and Manehattan. You could have started with one of those cities.”

How much could she trust this emissary? Olivia had spent a long career telling civilians as little as possible. She didn’t have to be dishonest about it. “We don’t want to fight a war. What we really want to do is win before the Storm King can wreck your country. I guess Motherlode is a good place for that.” She didn’t know why exactly, since Discord had been completely unhelpful. She knew it had resources, knew it was far away, knew now that the population was determined and would make for a helpful ground crew.

The Wing of Midnight came roaring overhead. She’d been the one to ask for this display, so that the town would be able to see a little of their power now that they had some goodwill. The roar would echo over the mountains, but they were far enough from civilization that there wouldn’t be much of the enemy to hear it. Instead, she could hear the gasps and mutters of surprise from ponies far below. A few screams, though not so many as before. The Wing of Midnight wasn’t the size of a city, only a large building, and so it could land in Motherlode without much difficulty. Whether they’d try to dress it up like a building or keep it mobile, Olivia didn’t know yet. And didn’t care. They had a governor for questions like that.

Forerunner picked a place just a little up the hill from her, just as she had asked. Olivia made a show of standing still, ignoring the wash of air and dust all around them as its legs extended and the steel bit deep into the stone. The engines switched to idle, then began spinning down, and faint steam began rising from them. “Princess is here.”

“That is… more impressive than a chariot,” Sunkiss said. “How are you going to hide that from the Storm King? That was louder than a Wonderbolts show from the top row seats.”

“We’ll use something else when we fight him,” Olivia said noncommittally. “This airship wasn’t built to be stealthy. We… didn’t expect him to destroy our city. We’re still figuring things out.”

Ponies from all over Motherlode were staring up at the Wing of Midnight as its ramp extended and a few ponies emerged from within. Lucky Break stood out front, wearing a crisp formal uniform that probably didn’t compete very well with the gold and gemstones that Equestrian princesses wore. Beside her was Forerunner, his synthsleeve glittering in the afternoon sun.

Olivia wondered quietly to herself just what these ponies might think of him. He was so much taller than they were, taller than most Alicorns, but at the same time his body was unnaturally thin in places. Those wrists and ankles did not look like they could support his weight, not even to Olivia. Being a horse is wearing me down. I hope we have somewhere for humans to live when this lifetime is over. That would depend on not letting the Storm King keep everything fucked.

“This is the part where we meet her,” Sunkiss said, standing a little straighter. “Come on then. Do you think she’ll let me see inside her airship?”

Olivia shrugged. “You’ll probably negotiate with her in there. Why?”

“Good.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, but Olivia could still hear it clearly. So she wasn’t trying to just keep secrets from her. “There’s no other way to know if you’re all being honest with us. Somepony has to go in there and check to see if there’s anything evil.”

Suddenly Olivia realized why the mayor himself was holding back with Lightning Dust and Deadlight. You volunteered for this, didn’t you? Someone we’d believe was important enough, but who wasn’t really. Someone who we could kidnap and then the whole town would know.

Lucky Break stood in the doorway, looking properly regal for about ten whole seconds. Then she saw Lightning Dust, and she waved like a little kid, grinning from ear to ear. The pegasus waved weakly back, ears flattening.

“I’m sure she’ll give you the tour,” Olivia said. She set off towards the Wing of Midnight at a brisk trot, forcing Sunkiss to hurry along behind her. “You can see all our secrets. Hell, I’ll just tell you now. We have two Alicorns, not just one. But our other one is about to have a baby, and she’s not really in charge of anything…”

“Really?” Sunkiss Sheen’s eyes widened. “I thought you would have more… humans? That’s what that other creature is, right?”

“Physically, yes,” Olivia answered. But they were very close now. Close enough that Lucky and Forerunner would hear them. “Mentally, he’s the least human one here. But I’m the wrong one to explain it.” She stopped about a meter away, close enough that everypony watching in Motherlode would still be able to see this. “Governor, this is Sunkiss Sheen. She’s the wife of the mayor—the town of Motherlode has nominated her to speak for them. Sunkiss, this is Governor Lucky Break, and Forerunner.”

Lucky waited until the translator had finished, though of course she probably would’ve understood even if Olivia had used a dozen different dead languages. When she finally spoke, Olivia was the one who had to listen to her translator, since she used Eoch. “We’re very grateful you’ve agreed to meet with us, Sunkiss Sheen. If Equestria and Othar are going to survive, we will both need ponies willing to forget old feuds and negotiate.”

Sunkiss blinked, looking down on her. “I thought you’d be… taller.” Standing at the bottom of the ramp, Lucky was still the shortest one here. Olivia would’ve been even shorter, except that she’d got a new body when Celestia killed her.

“I’m older than I look,” she said, ears flattening a little in embarrassment. But not anger. That just wasn’t Lucky’s way. “And I have friends who help me. Maybe you will be one of them soon.”

“We’ll see,” Sunkiss said noncommittally. “I want to see your airship. After that we can talk about you bringing more ponies here. Or more…” She looked up at Forerunner. “Humans.”

“We have already brought mostly humans,” Forerunner answered. “There is no outward physical difference. Of the ponies you have met so far, only Deadlight and Lightning Dust are native to Equus. Everyone else you see within is here because I brought them. I think you’ll find we aren’t so different.”

Olivia was able to fade into the background as they went inside. Lucky was no diplomat, that was obvious enough, but she had something even more important when dealing with ponies—simple honesty. She gave Sunkiss the full tour, taking her anywhere aboard the Wing of Midnight she wanted to go. Sunkiss wanted to see Melody, and so they did. She wanted to see their weapons, and so they did. Olivia’s instincts felt like they might give her a minor heart attack at any moment with as much as Lucky was sharing with what might be a potential enemy—but Lucky and Forerunner didn’t seem to care about that, so she didn’t either.

Maybe having a trained UN negotiator for a leader wouldn’t have helped. When they finally sat down to talk out the details, it almost seemed like a formality to Sunkiss. “My husband will want to talk to you too,” she said. “Maybe the whole town, so you can answer our questions. We don’t have a city hall, but we have a cafeteria that we use for things like that.”

“Sure,” Lucky said, sitting up from her little chair and grinning like a schoolgirl. “Any questions we can answer. I don’t know everything, though. Like… the real reason your princesses surrendered. No idea. I don’t know what the Storm King wants. I don’t know how long this war will take. Probably lots of other things too. Whatever you want us to do… it needs to be soon. My carrier is on its way. We need to get established here before the Storm King sends anyone. We need to have a plan for dealing with them when they arrive.” She nodded towards Olivia. “You’ve already met Prefect Olivia. My military liaison. She’s an expert at operations like that. I’m pretty sure she already has a plan.”

Prefect. Lucky Break hadn’t asked for her permission. But “prefect” wasn’t a military position. It was a civilian appointment, the equivalent of a cabinet position for a colony so young it didn’t have a legislative body. There weren’t actually grounds to refuse the position, at least not that Olivia remembered. But it had been a long time since she’d reviewed the Pioneering Society handbook. How long did you search for a way to get me back into your command structure, I wonder. Did you come up with it, or Forerunner?

That question would have to wait. “That’s fine,” Sunkiss was saying. “My husband already planned a meeting tonight, to vote on whether we should accept your help. You can talk to Motherlode then, make your case. Since this is… a little beyond the scope of working for FlimFlam Energy, you’ll have to convince the ponies to support you. But I don’t think that will be very hard. We aren’t… overflowing with options here.”

Olivia could see the signs. This pony was convinced. She would be their ally in convincing the rest of Motherlode as well. Their position was as good as secure. We have a foothold. Too bad I probably won’t be sticking around here. They would need to send people into Equestria immediately—to find out what the Storm King was actually doing, to find out how to get aboard his carrier. And to free their captives. This was the part of the plan for her to shine. General Qingzhi would be the one at the helm once it became an open war—but the longer they kept that from happening, the better.

Part 2: Jailbreak

For over six months of her life, Flurry Heart had imagined that things could not get worse. She had lived in an endless nightmare of crushed hopes, as she saw the death of all creation. Now that she was seeing that death come to Equestria, she only wished she could have her aunt back.

In a mockery of respect, the Storm King had given Flurry Heart Celestia’s own tower to live in. Its incredible luxury and intricate workmanship seemed spoiled by the feet of his strange guards. But that wasn’t even the worst part.

Though he had taken Luna’s body as a grizzly trophy, the Storm King had left the petrified corpse of Flurry Heart’s own mother behind, watching her from the other side of a glass display case. “Defiance,” the case said, in plain block letters. Flurry Heart met her empty eyes every time she walked past the bed. But then, at least her mother was dead. Shining Armor was locked in a dungeon somewhere, brought out whenever Flurry Heart needed “encouragement.”

She considered leaping off the balcony more than once, and taking the Storm King’s puppet from him. It was one of the few kinds of defiance she was capable of. The hobbles she wore on her hooves and bindings on her wings wouldn’t stop her from climbing over a low wall, and the guards would never reach her before she jumped.

But every time she played with the idea, something always happened to stop her. She thought about her father, or her friends back in Othar. Life still seemed bleak, but not quite enough for that. Not yet.

Life in the palace was worse for the others than for her. All she had to do was say what the Storm King told her to say, and sign what he told her to sign. Mostly it was begging the ponies of Equestria to surrender in peace, to recognize that the Alicorns were dead, and they would die too if they resisted. She as their regent wanted ponies to adapt and serve their new master in his grand vision.

Not all ponies listened, though. She heard stories from the distant provinces of Equestria. Instead of surrendering, the Golden Armada in Manehattan had flown off into the sea and vanished from sight. Though the various guard forces in most cities had given up, plenty more had gone underground, harrying the Storm King’s attempt to secure control.

Flurry Heart only knew any of this because she had to read a speech every day begging them to surrender. Each day Tempest Shadow would come to her with another one, and each day she would try very hard to pretend like she meant it. At least if she did, they wouldn’t hurt her father.

Equestria was not giving up easily—even in Canterlot she heard stories of disobedience. Mostly she saw the bodies strung up outside the castle, where the Storm King would leave ponies out “to be judged by the storm.” Inevitably his massive airship would rain lightning down on the spot, and nothing but burned bodies would be waiting the next day.

From the crowds she saw outside, it seemed that the Storm King would make other ponies gather around to watch.

It was after one of her speeches that Flurry Heart was escorted back into Celestia’s massive bedroom, Tempest Shadow following alongside her with nothing but stern glares. “It is good there is somepony reasonable in Equestria,” she said, as the door shut behind them. “When the others refused to obey, I worried you might. Their deaths were pointless—yours would have been as well.”

Flurry Heart shook her head, hobbling away from the unicorn as fast as she could. “You care about that now? After that crater you left behind in Othar?” She sniffed, but there were no tears left. Flurry Heart had cried for her dead friends many times now. There was no moisture left in her eyes for that. “Why’d you kill all of them?”

“So we wouldn’t have to kill all of you,” Tempest answered, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Equestria was the real target, not some island of separatists. The Storm King feared that you might not cooperate, and then he would have had to use the Stormbreaker against an Equestrian city. And even then, he was merciful. He could’ve killed all the ponies of Othar for their insult, instead of taking them in as citizens of his new kingdom.”

“They’re not dead?” She couldn’t keep the hope from her voice. “Was there a—” but then she stopped. Another alicorn would certainly have attracted attention, and they had two. The fact she hadn’t seen them around by now probably meant that they didn’t know. So either they’re dead, or they’re hiding. Flurry Heart had seen the pictures of Othar, and the absolute ruin that had been made of its fortresses. But at the same time, she had come to know the humans who lived there. Forerunner had a will of iron and gears, and Lucky had deposed Celestia and saved her from torture. If anypony could’ve survived the end of Othar, it was them.

“I said, was there what?” Tempest loomed over her, breaking Flurry from her reverie. “Whatever you know, you must share it with me. Or our king might want you encouraged in another way.”

Flurry Heart wanted to blast Tempest to pieces. She had the magical power for it—between being an Alicorn and her teenage emotions, she felt like she could tear down the castle sometimes. But the rusty metal band on her horn didn’t let her cast any kind of spells. But that gave her an idea. “Was there any machines,” she finished lamely. “Because Othar was… advanced. And they could’ve fixed your horn for you.”

That stopped her dead in her tracks. Tempest’s expression became unreadable, and when she spoke, it was deadly serious. “Even Equestria couldn’t fix my horn. The best doctors in the country. A pack of crazies living out in the ocean wouldn’t have done better.”

“No, it’s true.” She glanced to one side, but this wasn’t her room, and none of her possessions were here. “There was a pony there, uh… Lei I think her name was. She lost her leg in some accident. Maybe six months ago, they just replaced it for her… and not a wooden one. Real fur and hoof and even blood inside. They were really good with scars, too. Lots of ponies on their weather team went there because they could get them fixed. I dunno how they did it, but… that’s why I asked.”

“Really.” Tempest turned away from her, armor clanking in her impatience. “Well, that is all I needed from you, Princess. My guards will… see to your needs for the evening. Continue to cooperate, and there will still be a place for you in the Storm Kingdom.” She left, vanishing out the way she’d come. That left Flurry Heart alone with the guards—the strange thickly-furred creatures with their ursine faces that made even Forerunner seem familiar by comparison.

Flurry Heart pretended they weren’t there, as usual. She made her slow way to Celestia’s grand bathroom, and washed herself off with a damp rag. No amount of scrubbing would wash away the shame of what she did every day, instructing the ponies of Equestria to submit to tyranny. But the princesses are dead, and the only other ponies who might help are either dead or enslaved. Who’s supposed to save Equestria now?

The bathroom door banged closed. Flurry Heart looked up, and was startled by the massive shape of an armored figure there, spiked cudgel in both hands. One of the guards, watching her with an expression in its beady eyes she could somehow recognize. Celestia help me.

“No one else here,” said the guard, its voice a guttural growl. All of Tempest’s guards could speak Eoch well enough, though their accent was thick. “No one cares about you, Alicorn. Figure I might take a piece for myself. Don’t fight, you might even like it.”

Flurry Heart froze, eyes widening until they’d gone completely black. She felt suddenly paralyzed as the creature advanced on her. She could’ve vaporized it in an instant, if only her horn wasn’t trapped. She tried anyway, a few valiant flashes of light that turned icy cold against her horn as the energy dissipated. The creature only laughed.

“No getting away, Alicorn. No one to hear you scream but my friend, but he’s not listening. You—” He fell silent, apparently listening to something outside.

Flurry Heart heard it too—it sounded like something soft breaking against wood. There were several repeated blows, a pained yelp, then a wet thud.

“Looks like a friend of yours came to die,” the guard said, turning his back on her and hurrying to the door. “You wait here.”

Flurry Heart hobbled away, though she couldn’t go very fast. More importantly, she knew the massive bathroom’s servant entrances had all been sealed. Everything but the balcony and the hallway into the main tower were locked tight. She couldn’t get away.

She didn’t want to watch another resistance pony die, though. She looked away from the entrance even as the second guard charged out. She listened for the war cry she’d heard so many times already—“For the Princess!”—but she didn’t hear it.

Growing curious, she peaked around the corner and saw something incredible.

It was an adolescent dragon—about the size of the dragon ambassador to Equestria, only with red scales instead of blue. The dragon wore dark cloth over most of his body, and a wooden mask over his face. There was a skull painted on it in bright colors, yellows and greens and blues mostly. But not the skull of a pony.

Behind the dragon was a ruined corpse. The dragon’s hands were bright blue with blood—and it was easy to see why. It had drawn something in the guard’s own blood, covering the corpse and the beautiful carpet all around it. A skull, like the mask.

Flurry Heart had never taken joy in violence before. Even so, there was something satisfying in seeing just how effortlessly the dragon fought. Not like any of the dragons she’d seen before—there was nothing of strength or rage in it, relying on its magic and impervious scales. This one used its hands, dancing around the guard even though he was perhaps half the height. He caught the club mid-swing, then smashed it up into the guard’s armored face.

The oaf stumbled back as the helmet tumbled away, revealing a broken nose trailing blue blood onto his face. “Intruder!” yelled the guard, his voice choked with pain. “He killed Namrak!”

The dragon seemed completely unconcerned. “Tienes suerte de que haya una mujer mirando,” he said, before stepping onto the creature’s legs, slicing away at them with his claws. More blood sprayed, and the guard teetered, screaming in agony as he collapsed.

The dragon lifted the spiked club from where it had fallen, and brought it down on the guard’s head as he started to rise. He swung so hard that bone cracked at the impact, then kept swinging.

Even Flurry Heart couldn’t keep watching after that. She retreated to the bathroom, hot water still filling the air with steam around her. She felt acid building in her throat, and she had to bite back the desire to vomit. At least the creatures didn’t look like ponies, or else she would’ve lost it for sure.

The awful sounds stopped. Flurry Heart chanced one more glance, and saw that the dragon had posed the corpses in the center of a hideous tableau. Surrounded by the skull drawn in their blood.

“I hope you don’t mind if I use your sink,” the dragon said, his Eoch only slightly accented. “Their blood is easy to track. Plus, I think this soap is plum. My favorite.” For all his terrible violence, the dragon moved past her without a hint of malice. Rather the opposite, in fact—he kept well away from her, and showed no signs of the insanity she might’ve expected from one who had just maimed two guards and drawn something with their blood.

“They’re coming for you,” she said, her voice low. “Did Ember send you? A little too late to help. You need to run.”

“The rest of the watch is dead too,” he said, as he stuck his scaly arms one at a time into the water. Now that she was up close, she could see the dragon was wearing a vest. It looked a little like the ones she’d seen human ponies wearing around Othar, if it had been sewn by someone who’d never sewn before in their life out of secondhoof scrap materials. The little weapons and tools inside looked simiarly jury-rigged. “No, someone more powerful than Ember sent me.”

She recognized his accent now. Besides, it wasn’t as though there were very many black and red dragons in the world. This one happened to be just the right size. “Perez,” she said. “You made candies for me… shaped just like your mask.”

The dragon laughed. “I suppose I did.” He pulled up the mask, revealing his grinning face. “I wish you didn’t have to see me at work, kid. But I’m getting you the fuck out of here.” He drew something out of his vest—a long bit of metal, that flared briefly to bright blue light when he pressed it. “Should we do your horn first? We don’t have a lotof time. And I don’t think security will be this porous if I have to go for round two.”

“Not my horn,” she said, wincing at the thought. “He’s got a… special key. I already tried prying it off, and it stabs into my head. He says it will kill me if I break it.”

“Not the horn then.” He approached slowly, as though she were an animal that might be spooked. But now that she recognized him, she no longer felt afraid. Lucky saved me once. I knew she would look out for me. Right on time, too. “Lift your hooves a little. And look away. It might not look bright, but this torch goes through corneas like I go through tequila, que.”

She complied, and soon felt a brief spot of warmth from between her hooves. “Lucky sent you. We’ve got… one of your magical airships. We’re flying away. Back to Othar, which… wasn’t destroyed? All lies, then?”

“No.” The metal clanked to the ground from between her hooves. “Sideways, Princess. I’m going to get your wings out next. I can’t fly, but you might need them if they bring me down.”

“No… to which?” she asked, obeying his instructions. But Flurry Heart already felt better. She stretched her legs one at a time, feeling the blood return to her hooves after so long almost numb. It was long overdue.

“Othar’s dust, esse. And I got here on your ship, actually. Qingzhi...” He shook his head. “Well, let’s just say I happened to be visiting on the worst day to take tourist photos. As it turns out, you can’t break the will of a city just by flying a big bomb over it and threatening to pull the trigger. Most people, they just don’t see it that way. Their family is their world, their lives. They aren’t gonna lay down and die because some collective might get hurt.” The metal on her wings fell away with another satisfying thunk.

Then she heard the alarm. Bells rang through the Canterlot courtyard, and pounding feet sounded in the tower.

Perez pulled down his mask, returning the torch to its holster. “Got any money you can grab, Princess? This might be a long trip, and the resistance doesn’t exactly have a treasury.”

Then something banged on the bedroom doors. They were solid oak, another priceless work of Equestrian art, so they didn’t cave in right away. “Second thought, nevermind.” He strode past her, headed straight for the massive rain shower. There were a dozen solid gold heads inside, where a pony could stand and be drenched in a downpour as real as any Cloudsdale made. “Time to go, eh Princess? Unless you’d like to stay and fuck their shit for a few minutes.” He drew out a folding metal knife from his vest, flipping it out of its case and over his hand in a blur of flashing metal.

More bangs on the wooden door from behind them as he held it out to her. “It won’t make any real difference unless you make them feel it. Gotta give them something to remember for next time.”

Flurry Heart shook her head, frozen halfway between the door and the dragon. All this time and the reality hadn’t sunk in yet.

I’m escaping. Lucky sent help, and she’s getting me out.

Why couldn’t she save Equestria too?

If I stay, they’re going to hurt the ponies I love.

Her mind raced as someone banged on the back door.

“We should probably get going, then,” Perez said casually. “Sooner we’re out of the city, the better. You have family waiting.”

“How will—”

But she didn’t finish before the dragon was ripping into the wall with a claw. Not tearing away the tile, though his claws could probably do it. There was a trapdoor there, tucked away in the back. He’d known exactly where to find it.

But there was a steel plate under it, locked tight.

“Tempest said… they locked it all up,” she squeaked fearfully, glancing back at the entrance again. “There wasn’t supposed to be any way for me to escape.”

“Yeah, that’s cute.” He removed something from another pocket, spreading it around the plate in a large circle. Then he stepped back, gesturing for her to follow. “Bunch of fucking amateurs.”

There was a harsh crack from the bathroom, a little explosion of tearing steel and shattering tile. Another priceless relic of Princess Celestia was left in ruin. “Now, time to go,” Perez said through his mask, sounding amused. “Plan is to be out of the city before dark. We have to be far away from this castle before the whole fucking army gets here.”

Flurry Heart glanced once over her shoulder, at her mother’s dark corpse. She had half a mind to ask Perez to bring her, though she knew that was impossible. It seemed so wrong for the Storm King to desecrate the dead this way. Maybe that’s why Perez did his skull thing. It’s a kind of revenge.

“Okay,” she said, following the dragon into the passage, and didn’t look back.

Sarah didn’t have to keep glancing behind them to know they were being followed. She could hear the wings on the air, the occasional set of covert hoofsteps. The changelings following them probably thought they were following quietly, but her senses were too sharp.

“There are at least a dozen of them back there,” she whispered into the changeling’s ear, hoping she wasn’t underestimating their senses the way they were underestimating hers. “Keeping their distance for now.”

Ocellus wasn’t glowing and floating anymore, nor was her magic ripping bits of the environment away. She’d hacked most of the glowing stuff back up into the vial, in a disgusting display Sarah hadn’t watched but was forced to hear anyway.

It’s okay, I wanted to be around aliens. This is what I thought I would be doing. It’s fine.

“Yeah, I don’t think… I think maybe I overdid it. Chroma probably won’t like that I, uh… knocked over a building. Even if those guys were going for the wrong side. Chroma used to be mostly ours. My uncle will be really upset if I pissed them off.”

“We can pay them back,” Sarah whispered. She didn’t have a perfect memory for terrain, but it felt like they were getting close to Ocellus’s little shelter. “You said that stuff is money, right? Cities we can bribe. Thugs, though… I dunno what we’re going to do when they catch up.”

“They’ll keep their distance until we stop somewhere,” Ocellus whispered back. “They know how much power I have. The best way to take it is to kill us while we sleep. Can’t magic someone to bits if you’re asleep.”

Sarah sped up a little more, though she didn’t actually start running. Anything that could warn the ponies following that they knew might be enough to try and catch them. And if they did, well… Sarah still didn’t know how to fight. There hadn’t been any point, since she’d been scamming government organizations for so long. You could never win a contest of force, so cleverness was always better.

“So what do we do? I don’t think Chroma is going to get us a ride like you asked for. We can’t go back.”

Ocellus made an unsatisfied squeaking sound, not all that unlike the ones she used to see. Only it didn’t seem like her ears would allow her to use echolocation, at least not as well as Sarah did. “There’s another way. More dangerous, but… we have the royal jelly. We might be able to make it work.”

“Make what work?” She hadn’t been hallucinating—that really was Ocellus’s shelter up ahead. Only the pile of organic debris it had been carved from looked greatly reduced, smoothed and rounded on every corner. Like a flock of locusts had flown over and devoured the top layer of everything. There wasn’t a door anymore. “Shit, looks like we got visitors while we were gone. James better not be…”

“Your male will be fine,” Ocellus said, exasperated. “Thanks to me. The swarm would not harm him. They wouldn’t touch a cocoon.”

“Which… he has I guess.”

“Obviously.” Ocellus rolled her eyes. “I know it isn’t that common, but shouldn’t you know about this? Aren’t you the expert on our culture sent to help us unify and inherit the surface?”

“Well…” She looked away. “Most of the surface kinda sucks I think. Lots of boring rock without any air from places that Harmony killed. But last I checked we were working on a huge O'Neill cylinder. Dunno if you know what that is.”

To her surprise, the changeling nodded. They stopped together outside the burrow, Ocellus’s antennae drooping and her wings folding flat to her back. Despite what she’d said, she seemed disappointed to find her burrow had been visited. Or maybe just nervous about what they would find inside. “I already believe you, Sarah. It’s my uncle you have to win over. If you want to stop lots of changelings from dying, then probably you have to convince my father too. After everything he saw on the surface, that won’t be easy. Ponies are so determined to stay primitive…”

She bent down, crawling through the opening, and Sarah followed her in. If they were still being followed, that meant they couldn’t stop here for long, or else give the impression that they would be vulnerable to attack. Does that mean we’re going to have to drag a cocoon along with us? That would be just typical of James, finding a way to make me actually carry him.

The inside of the burrow had been almost completely stripped. There were no more boxes, no more containers of supplies, no more saddlebags. Even the separate bathroom had been eaten away, so that the whole thing was one gigantic space. “So much for the smell keeping them away.”

Ocellus glared at her. “The smell would’ve kept them away if it wasn’t for him.” She pointed at the only object left—one that hadn’t been there before. Instead of a pony curled up in Ocellus’s scrappy bedding, there was a bright green cocoon. Its shell reflected the light from Sarah’s glowing vial of glamour, and sounded soft to her ears.

“Did they put him in that?”

Ocellus shook her head. “He spun it himself. I’ve never seen it happen, but I knew it would.”

At least the strange object didn’t seem like it was firmly glued down, or else she wouldn’t have known how they could cut it free. Even Ocellus’s meager possessions were gone now, and whatever tools might’ve been inside. “So we’ve got lots of nasty characters right behind us. We can’t go back the way we came, and we can’t stop here. Also we have a giant lump to carry around instead of a person. What the hell are we supposed to do now?”

Ocellus shook her head once, gesturing with one hoof. “Give me the glamour again. We’re going to have to use a little of it to help him finish growing. You’re okay with that, right?”

Sarah shrugged. “I dunno why I wouldn’t be. It’s not my money to spend.” She passed the vial to Ocellus, who opened it back up with her teeth and poured a few drops on the cocoon. The result was immediate—the whole thing started to glow brilliantly green. Sarah watched in fascination, staring at the pony outline she saw inside. It wasn’t transparent exactly, but when the whole thing was glowing except for its occupant…

Then the pony started kicking. Instead of cracking, the cocoon stretched at his touch, becoming almost transparent. Sarah saw a black hoof covered in holes almost pass through its surface, but not quite break out.

“Is there anything sharp left? We could help cut him out—”

Ocellus rested a transparent wing on her shoulder. “No. Every changeling has to hatch on their own, even when we’re cheating.” She passed the corked vial back to Sarah for storage.

Sarah frowned, but didn’t protest. The pony inside might be her last connection with humanity, but this was an alien culture. She shouldn’t start resisting their customs until she learned why they’d become customs in the first place.

James fought again, and this time a black horn pierced the surface near his head. It didn’t look anything like the way Sarah remembered him—it was crooked and bent, like holes had been bored through it.

“Why doesn’t he look like you?” she asked, watching in morbid fascination. “You’re the one who changed him, right? Shouldn’t he be all… blue and pink and stuff? And you don’t have holes like that…”

Ocellus rolled her eyes. “You really don’t know anything about us.”

“Not until someone tells me.” She tried to listen at the entrance at the same time as they spoke, in case their tail was getting closer. But so far she couldn’t make anything out. We have to move quick.

“Alright, rapid summary. Changelings began as the bioformed autonomous maintenance system for this part of Equus. Dunno what happened to whatever system they used before us. Long time ago, there was a unicorn who captured a few and did experiments on us—experiments to try and make changelings smart. She succeeded, and became our first queen. Her hive was born from all the minds trapped in Harmony, who wanted to come down into reality but weren’t willing to give up all our memories. She found a way around the quarantine by using changeling bodies instead of being born the normal way. There’s… hardware. You can capture one of the maintenance bodies, then download a mind right in. A long time ago we used to set traps and stuff… but eventually we learned how to reproduce organically, so we raise grubs until they pupate and… you’re not listening.”

Sarah was listening, but she was also fascinated by the alien display in front of her. James was emerging from the cocoon, tearing it apart with horn and teeth as energetically as any hatching creature she’d ever seen before. Only, instead of coming out as a child, he seemed the same age. His hard black shell still looked soft and wrinkly though, and his wings were a crumpled mess. Every time he opened his mouth, it was to hack out a mouthful of slime.

“I’m listening,” she finally said. “I’ve just never seen one of… these before.” She gestured forward with a wing. “We don’t hatch where I come from. Most people either come out of their mom or a Biofab.”

Ocellus seemed completely uninterested in the hatching changeling, except that she kept glancing back with an expression like she wanted him to hurry. But she didn’t actually say it. “So we lived here for ages just like that. The intelligent systems left us alone, because they still saw us as part of themselves. So long as we didn’t actively sabotage anything. But there was a problem. See… bodies like his aren’t meant to have real minds in them. The system has security measures, and they eventually reject your control and return to the swarm. Our first queen’s method was to cheat the system by harvesting emotion from ponies and other bodies who are supposed to be intelligent. That’s what you’re holding there, in a concentrated form. We get our fill of love, and we get to stay ourselves. We run out, and the body rejects us. Back to the swarm, and back into Harmony.”

“That still doesn’t explain the difference,” Sarah said. “Between the two of you, I mean. You’re all colorful, and he’s black and full of holes. Why?”

“Well, that’s one of the other kinds of changeling. My uncle, Thorax, he’s kinda the king now… he went onto the surface and spent time with ponies. Made some friends… and he figured some stuff out. This is… where the division between the Old Hive and the Prismatic Court comes from. All you have to do is have enough real relationships with other creatures, and eventually the system recognizes that you’re intelligent and changes you. I guess somepony thought we’d put minds in the maintenance system. Or maybe Harmony just got sick of what we were doing and took control.”

“I can hear you…” croaked James, his voice raspy and pained. “I don’t like the part where… I’m some kind of disgusting parasite.” He tried to get to his hooves, but his legs didn’t seem to want to obey him. He was still unsteady, flopping around in the slime inside his cocoon. “I also didn’t like the part where you left me for dead.” His voice had the strange echoing quality that Ocellus’s did, only more so.

“So what’s the downside?” Sarah asked, ignoring him. “There must be one, or you guys wouldn’t be on the edge of a civil war.”

Ocellus looked away, pawing awkwardly at the ground with one hoof. “Weeeell… these new bodies are way more like ponies. Not a queen and a breeding drone, but males and females like mammals. Lots of us find it repulsive. And when we have grubs, they’re like ponies too. Come with minds of their own, wiped of all their memories. So we basically can’t reproduce if we want to keep our society going the way we have.”

“Everything about this is disgusting,” James said, finally managing to stand. His whole body dripped with something like mucus, dribbling out from openings in his legs, or out from under layers of chitin. “How do I not be a bug anymore?”

“Die,” Ocellus snapped, glaring at him. “You’ll lose all your memories, but you’ll find your way back eventually. That’s how it always works.”

James shook his head. His wings unfurled from behind him, spreading slowly as whatever passed for changeling blood filled them. Now that he was standing, Sarah realized she was now the tallest one in their group, though not by very much. “Dying seems like a waste. Gen3 made Perez into a dragon, she can make me into a person again. Hell, maybe she can do a real human next time.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Ocellus muttered. “We need to go. If the ones following us decide we’ve taken a chance to rest, they… might attack.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “Hold on a minute, Ocellus! He’s got wings and a horn! All you changelings do! That’s cheating, isn’t it? I thought only Alicorns got that!”

“Pony bias.” Ocellus was already making her way out. “Almost all of us have all three. There were… a few minor glitches in some of the earliest changelings to take on Thorax’s new form, but… that doesn’t happen much anymore. Though our abilities don’t overlap. Your male will not have strength or weather magic.”

“I’m nobody’s male,” he snapped back, glaring at her as intently as she had been when he insulted changelings. “Not yet, anyway. We were in the middle of a date when Sarah took me down here.”

Sarah rolled her eyes, following Ocellus back out of the shelter. She listened intently as she crawled, and sure enough she could hear signs of covert watchers not far behind. At least they hadn’t moved up to attack the shelter. “It wasn’t a date. But Forerunner doesn’t let people go out alone, so… now you get to save the world with me. And all it cost was being made into a bug.” She stopped, glancing around as though she didn’t know they were being watched. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“There are three ways to get around,” Ocellus whispered into her ear. “A ship, the river, or the swarm. Guess which of those we can do without any preparation?”

“The one that sucks the most?” James offered, too loudly. He was plenty close enough to overhear, it seemed.

“Yes,” Ocellus agreed. “The instant they realize what we’re doing, they’ll attack us. They’ll want to get your glamour before the swarm kills us.”

Sarah grinned, finally understanding. “So we’ve got to wander around for a bit, make it look like we might be headed somewhere else. Maybe we’re part of some big wealthy faction they can rob from. Can you pick a confusing path that takes us to wherever we need to go, Ocellus? Doesn’t matter if it’s way longer. Probably should be.”

“Sure.” Ocellus nodded, returning her grin. Whatever else her compliment might’ve been went unsaid. The less they said, the fewer stupid mistakes they might make.

All they had to do was con their tails long enough to escape. And… maybe not get eaten by the maintenance system.

To some extent, Olivia guessed that most of Motherlode was out to watch the Emperor’s landing. It didn’t matter how late at night it was, or how diurnal ponies were by nature.

She waited with the crowd behind a large loading ramp, where she could mix in among the ponies and not feel too out of place. Her replacement limb was the only giveaway—she carried no other equipment or armor that might’ve set her apart. Of course, she still wasn’t a local, and she could feel the constant stares on her back.

A few ponies asked her questions, the same questions she had heard so many times since arriving in town. Were they here to save Equestria? Did they have a plan to rescue the princesses? What would they do if the Storm King came to Motherlode? What sort of magic did they plan to use to defeat him? The first few times Olivia had tried to give truthful responses to those questions, even though the tactician in her told her that spreading knowledge as scarcely as possible was safest.

After all, they were going to be hiding a rebellion. It would take the silence of thousands to keep hidden here, and only one pony with a loose tongue to get them all killed.

Well, all of them except Forerunner. Even losing most of himself in the destruction of Othar had not killed him. Olivia suspected that he had plans in place even if Sanctuary itself was destroyed. Forerunner had been built to survive, even if he couldn’t upgrade anymore.

She should’ve been able to hear the Emperor coming from a great distance, given how much it weighed and the drives required to keep it airborne. But pony lift crystals meant that it only burned for acceleration, which made far less noise. Even so, she could make out the thrum of the engine when they were perhaps a kilometer out, echoing off the various peaks that surrounded Motherlode. She wouldn’t have known which direction to watch, except that everyone had been told. It would come from the east, and settle down into a valley that was almost impossible to access by foot. It better work. If we lose the Emperor, the Storm King could remake Equestria in his image before we get the chance to rebuild.

Simple, they just had to win.

Olivia wasn’t the only one out of the Wing of Midnight. Almost all of them were here, speaking with groups of locals, trying to assuage their fears or just answering simple questions. Princess Lucky was surrounded with ponies, most of which seemed to be asking questions she couldn’t answer about where her powers had come from and what she was princess of.

She answered in Eoch so perfect Olivia’s translator treated her like a native speaker, and made it easy enough for her to understand. “General Qingzhi is one of the best we have. He’s saved planets from tyrants before, he’ll know how to win this before it turns into a war.”

Be careful doing away with military secrecy, Lucky. We have good reasons for doing things the way we do. Changing things around without understanding our reasons is only going to end in pain.

But she wasn’t the governor anymore, and even if she had been these ponies wouldn’t care. It was having a princess that had made the difference in their eyes. She couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to Olivia like that had been the only thing that convinced them in the end. They seemed to think that this entire operation had been Celestia’s plan from the beginning, or at least that she’d seen this disaster on the horizon and planned for it. It was remarkable how quickly they’d forgotten about the rumors of humans assassinating her.

“You’ll see it any second now,” Lucky said in Eoch, from the top of the hill. Her voice carried well, though the translator added a bit of delay. “I’ve instructed Qingzhi to make sure the camouflage is off, so you should be able to see it clearly. There are lights on the bottom, and they’ll use them to find a good place to land.”

Then it came into view, and the whole crowd of ponies gasped. This was no mere airship, as the Wing of Midnight had been. That vessel had been advanced, but still not that far outside their experience. But the Emperor, that was more like a city. Bigger than Motherlode by far, if you didn’t count the mines. It wasn’t a graceful, aerodynamic marvel, more like several large buildings welded together with a flat runway near the top layer. Even so, it had the ponies in awe.

Hot air blasted past them—but far less than there would’ve been if it was using a conventional engine to stay aloft. Pony lift crystals did not have exhaust, so it was only the heat from the maneuvering jets that they felt.

The lower it got, the more it became clear just how massive the Emperor’s Soul was. Its tallest command tower rose almost as high as some of the neighboring peaks. It would barely be able to hide here. But they hadn’t been able to find anywhere better. It had to be close enough that they could transfer supplies and people easily in and out of the town.

There was no incredible impact as it landed—no sound at all. Olivia understood that it wouldn’t even be touching the ground, though there might only be a tolerance of inches in places. There were no ramps or boarding platforms—not yet—and no dock facilities prepared to receive them.

But that will change. Once Forerunner gets started.

A white and blue pony from beside Olivia startled her, though her expression was timid and she kept her wings folded. “Is that… that thing… really gonna save Equestria?” she asked, with the brief delay from the translator.

“No,” Olivia answered, without even thinking. “But the ones inside it will.”

Part 2: Friend on the Edge

Sarah could hear the swarm. Her ears and brain were overwhelmed with the sound of scurrying legs and clicking mandibles. There was so much sound from up ahead that she could no longer imagine a clear picture of the cavern they were climbing through, except that it might as well be made of bodies.

“So, these are the same guys you said could break us down into atoms, right?” James asked, his voice a nervous squeak. Barely even audible over the noise from the massive crowd of drones. “Why are we going towards them?”

“Because they have their own ways to get around,” Ocellus answered, surprisingly relaxed for the danger that was obviously close. There was no light in the cavern, so no way for Sarah to see exactly how close. Ocellus had already made it clear that light spells would be a bad idea, and James hadn’t disobeyed that instruction. “We’ll be able to use them too, and ride to Irkalla. It won’t be as quick as a ship, but we can’t use the river without a navigator, and I know neither of you have the skills for that job.”

Sarah couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to her like Ocellus was constantly glancing behind them, more afraid of the ones following than the drones up ahead.

They had crossed a great distance, walking for what felt like days in the featureless blackness. It seemed like just one taste of the glowing glamour could rejuvenate either of her companions. But not Sarah—she had to trudge through the exhaustion.

“Just as long as whatever bus they use has a corner I can sleep in,” she said, her words melting into a yawn by the end.

“It doesn’t seem like a passage we should be using,” James said, his wings buzzing in discomfort. “I never had an ant farm growing up, but I watched plenty of them in the wild. You know what happens when a cockroach lands on one of their mounds? It might be twenty times their size, but they’ll tear it apart in seconds. Sounds like we’re about to stumble into their hive.”

“Not stumble,” Ocellus countered. The ground under their hooves became suddenly soft and slick, though not enough that Sarah fell. She found herself spreading her wings a little to maintain her balance, but even then her steps were shaky. “I know exactly where we’re going. So does our tail—apparently they didn’t want to risk coming in here. I hope they enjoy the hike back to Chroma.”

Or they’re waiting for the noise of this place to mask their approach, Sarah thought. She tried to keep listening to the caves behind them, but knew her odds of success weren’t good. She heard plenty of hooves in all directions. Most from up ahead of them.

“Well seeing as we’re almost through the gates, maybe you should tell us how we can make it through without getting killed?” James asked. “If we don’t know what it is, we won’t be able to do it.”

Ocellus shrugged, then lifted her tail. Sarah smelled the same strange combination of scents, and found she was copying her without meaning to. This was different than last time—not a call and response, but a constant broadcast. She didn’t know the message any better than last time, but she could guess. “This,” Ocellus said. “Copy me exactly… and I do mean exactly. My father taught me all the signs, and I’m pretty sure this one still works. The swarm doesn’t change very often.”

“Copy what?” James stopped walking behind them, making a fair amount of noise as he stumbled around in the dark. “Ugh, don’t reach out too far. We must be in some kind of… slimy tunnel. God I wish I hadn’t touched that. And that wall is pulsing. Ughhh.”

“Use your nose,” Ocellus muttered, exasperated. “I know you’re from the surface, and maybe you’re ignorant, but it’s instinct. It’s in your body the same way it would’ve been if you were actually part of the maintenance system.”

“Maybe we should’ve had this conversation outside,” James squeaked, making a few exaggerated sniffing sounds. “I have no idea what smell you’re talking about. Do you mean the stink of paint thinner? Or the dirty lawnmower?”

Sarah felt the ground shake under her hooves, getting a little more violent by the second. Someone was coming, and they were close.

“Don’t think about it.” Ocellus no longer sounded angry—more urgent, desperate. “Just unfocus your brain. Everything you’re doing is making it harder. There’s no pony equivalent for what you need to do. There are new organs there.”

James squeaked again, like someone had just stabbed him in one of the legs. Then there was a flash of green light, one that came directly from him and illuminated the blackness of the cavern.

Sarah’s eyes weren’t blinded by the light, not enough that she couldn’t take in every detail in the instant it lasted.

Her surroundings were every bit as disgusting as she imagined, strands of sinewy slime hanging from every surface and forming a burrow around them so tight that she wasn’t sure how she hadn’t brushed against it yet. Bits of organic matter were stuck into the walls, and plenty of them looked like dead drones, crammed in with as little regard as an ant-colony might’ve had for their own corpses.

But she had been looking back towards James when the light came, so that wasn’t the only thing she saw. Not a wave of oncoming drones, identical and thoughtless and mad with the labor they had been programmed to do.

No, she saw only four of them, with scars on their carapaces. They carried no weapons and wore little clothing—but she didn’t see them long.

They were perhaps ten meters away from James, and they’d been frozen in place by the flash.

Shit shit shit. The ones following them hadn’t given up after all. Obviously not! Ocellus said we had the wealth of a king! That’s worth dying for. Sarah knew that from experience. Even if she’d been much too clever to die.

Sarah hadn’t been the only one to notice the light, though. The quiet sound of working insects behind them transformed into a roar of rage instantly, like the time she’d thrown a rock at a hornet’s nest.

“Run!” Ocellus reached back, yanking on James and pulling him along with one desperate hoof. Sarah ducked her head, pounding along after them as fast as her hooves would go. Her wings spread and began to flap a little as she did, but she still didn’t know how to use them and there wasn’t enough space to fly anyway.

They didn’t run towards the grizzly thieves, but straight away from them, towards the sound of enraged insects.

“Are you fucking insane?” James screamed, though after a few steps he had started galloping along under his own power. He was actually more coordinated than Sarah herself—he had quite a bit more practice. “We’re going the wrong way!”

After only a dozen paces or so she was the one Ocellus had to help, catching her as she stepped the wrong way and jammed one of her hooves straight through the wall and nearly tumbled over all of them.

“That’s right!” called a voice from behind them, closer than the thieves had looked before. “We just want what you have! The sleepers will take more than that! Turn around, and we can escape together!”

“Go feed on yourself!” Ocellus shouted back, pushing Sarah even harder. “We’re almost there! The swarm sounds like they’re just around the corner. Both of you, grab onto me and don’t let go. If we get separated, then the greatest queen who ever lived couldn’t find where they put you!”

A chunk of metal went flying past them, smacking through the soft wall and into the stone. Sarah heard the sharp ping, and from that realized that the thieves had at least one spear. Not anymore.

She didn’t need echolocation to feel the swarm coming from up ahead. They were packed almost solid in the dense tunnel, crawling along the walls, the ceiling, the floor. She felt the warmth of their bodies as they approached, driving a wall of stinking air ahead of them.

Ocellus stopped running abruptly, pulling them close. Sarah smelled the strange scent again, and copied it as “loud” as she possibly could. “Now, hold on!” Ocellus held still on the ground, the three of them wrapped together into clinging hooves and ducked heads.

One of the thieves got to them a moment later. Sarah felt something dig into her back, and felt the sharp pain that meant blood was coming. She kicked behind her as hard as she could, though she didn’t let go. She felt something crunch under her hooves, though she couldn’t look behind her to see in the dark.

Another second later, and the swarm reached them.

If the hug had been an uncomfortable violation of her personal space, then the swarm was much worse. Creatures shaped like James skittered all around her, touching her with antennae and making strange squeaking noises. She felt them prodding at her, yanking at where she held to her companions. Everything she felt on all side were bodies.

Somewhere close by, she heard screaming, along with the sound of tearing, ripping, and grinding.

“Don’t move,” Ocellus breathed, her voice barely audible over the terrible noise. “They’re going to carry us to the larder. Hold on as tight as you can.”

“You… sound like you’ve done this before,” James squeaked, sounding like he’d wet himself. “We should’ve just walked.”

Many limbs lifted them suddenly upward. Not to be carried, exactly, more to be squeezed and pushed and maneuvered through a living tunnel, down into the dark to parts unknown.

God have mercy on the idiots following us.

“We can’t grow anything here,” said Mayor Pyrite, for perhaps the third time that meeting. Olivia didn’t much care what the politicians and negotiators shouted at each other, but she found the sudden surge of emotion roused her from her stupor.

“The earth ponies know what they’re talking about when they say it can’t be done,” he went on. “Questioning them is a waste of time. The soil is too poor, and you’d need a gigantic weather team to get enough moisture at this altitude. There’s a reason the valleys all around us are so green.”

“We require agricultural production from this location,” Forerunner said. For this discussion he’d brought out one of his new pony-shaped drones, which looked just as unsettling as any of the human synthsleeves. But the locals had wanted to talk directly to the one running their ships, so here he was. At least he wasn’t using one of the half-organic hybrids, which probably would’ve looked like they were chopping ponies up and using them for parts.

“Maybe we should make deals with one of the valley towns then,” Pyrite said. “Ponyville grows plenty more than it needs, or maybe Rainbow Falls. You could get your food from them.” There were three of them representing the human side of the table—Lucky, Qingzhi, and Forerunner. On the other side it was only the mayor and his wife, but they spoke with confidence, and wouldn’t let themselves get told what to do.

Amazing how firm they are. Don’t they know how little chance they have without us? Olivia herself was one of several here to “protect” the meeting, though she was certain that Lucky had picked her to make sure she stayed informed of their military details. She hadn’t been asked to speak at all yet, and mostly just stayed alert by the window of the little shop. They were watching the ground, since radar would warn them well in advance of any threats from the sky.

Forerunner was more than just confident in its negotiations, though. The computer was absolute, never wavering. “If we can’t obtain food conventionally, we will simply have to diversify our production. Involving other locations is not an option. Motherlode’s chief asset aside from its mineral wealth is its isolation. Every flow of goods or information makes us more interesting to the enemy.”

The pony synthsleeve was plain brown instead of white, with a fur texture that didn’t even approximate real. It still looked better than the cheap replacement limb Olivia was using, which had actuators that whined slightly with every step and such a weight imbalance from her other legs that she felt like she might trip whenever she ran.

Forerunner marked something on his large notepad beside so many other things. “So far we have a forge, manufactory, school, water treatment plant, library, and vertical farm. Are there any other needs I should note as well?”

The ponies shared a confused look. “We don’t… even know what most of that is,” Pyrite finally said. “It doesn’t seem like you’re actually solving these problems. Just writing something else down.”

“Those are the solutions,” Forerunner said. “We do not expect the population of Motherlode to reconfigure their lives around our requirements. We do not expect you to have the methods to provide for our needs, when you cannot even conceive of how you might do so. Nor do we expect to replace you in your own city or use your labor without repaying you in some way.”

Olivia chanced a glance over her shoulder at General Qingzhi. The stallion looked as bored as she felt, though he was good enough at hiding it that the civilians wouldn’t notice. But she had seen that vacant look many times—it was the expression of someone who had been taken outside their sphere of experience. Qingzhi didn’t care about how they kept his ship supplied, so long as there was food in the cupboards and railgun rounds in his magazines.

“But aren’t you going to save Equestria?” Sunkiss Sheen finally asked. “That’s why the princesses sent you here, wasn’t it? You can’t save the rest of Equestria if all you do is hide here.”

This time it was Lucky who answered. “We are not all soldiers, Sunkiss. I’m not, most of my staff are not either. We work best supporting the troops from the back. And to do that, we need to be able to provide them with things. Bullets, bread, blankets.”

“I hope to do more than supply our own troops,” Forerunner continued. “Once we complete the initial construction phase, I should be able to scale up production within the first month. We can use that production to supply the rebellion.”

“Without letting the Storm King figure out where we’re coming from,” Lucky put in. “It’s as important to us as it is to you to keep this place secret. I’ll be living here with you. I’ll be in as much danger as any of you.”

“You’ve seen our city map.” Pyrite tapped the yellowed paper on the desk in front of him. “Those are the properties I want respected. So long as nopony in Motherlode has to give up their homes and their stakes, your construction is fine.”

Forerunner took in the map with just one glance. “I can easily guarantee the homes of all citizens will remain where they are. It would be desirable for the moment when we are eventually investigated that the surface remains a convincing approximation of an Equestrian village. These stakes, however…” He tapped the page with his hoof. “There are names claiming mineral rights on the entire mountain. If I respected those claims, we would have no iron to make steel, no tungsten, no boron, no copper… I could not accomplish my purpose.”

“Ponies bought that land,” Pyrite ground his teeth together. “Much of it on behalf of FlimFlam Sustainable Energy Co. The amount of bits we have invested here… ponies spent their whole savings, their whole lives. You can’t just take that away. Maybe you could buy the land?”

Forerunner looked like he might be about to argue, but Lucky rested her wing on his shoulder, and he fell silent.

“Mayor Pyrite, I know how important all those claims must feel. But your country is falling apart. Cities going dark, ponies getting enslaved into the Storm King’s awful new system. Either we have what we need to fight the Storm King, and ponies get Equestria back… or you have to hope somepony else saves you, because we won’t be able to.”

She leaned slightly to one side. “General Qingzhi, what are we going to do if Motherlode won’t have us?”

Despite seeming completely spaced out, the stallion answered immediately. “Return to the original plan. Establish our outpost outside Equestria’s borders and abandon the land war.”

“We would love to buy the land, Mayor Pyrite. But we don’t have bits.” She opened the satchel with a brief glow of violet magic, removing a little pouch. She dumped out the plastic slips inside, each one with a little hole in the middle. “These are Interim Government Supply Tokens, this is what we use. We can pay you with them if you want.”

Olivia probably should’ve stayed by the door. But if she hadn’t died, she would’ve been the one in charge of this negotiation. She wouldn’t have to see it bungled so badly. So she rose, walking right over to the table and glaring at the ponies on the other side.

“Is this really the most important thing? I don’t know if you saw the ship outside, but we’re your last hope. When the war is over, we could fucking drown you in gold if that’s what you want. Or silver, or platinum, or palladium, or yellowcake… whatever. Just agree to pay them back in market value for all the minerals we extract, Lucky. We can sign it, make it official.”

That got the ponies’ attention. “When this is all over,” Sunkiss said, her voice quavering. “When Celestia or Luna is back on the throne.”

Pyrite went on. “We want the owners of this land to be paid, and we want the mines returned to us. If we can get that in writing, then you have a deal.”

Forerunner drew out a fresh sheet of paper, and began scribbling on it with the speed of a plotting machine. In less than four seconds he had a contract, written in flowing Eoch letters. He passed it to Lucky, who signed without looking, before sliding it across the table.

“We’ll need a moment,” Pyrite said. “I’m not a princess. I want Motherlode’s okay.” He lifted the contract up into his magic, turning to go. “You can wait, can’t you?”

“Until the stars go out,” Forerunner said, voice even. “Equestria less so.”

They left the human delegation alone in Pyrite’s office, surrounded by black and white photographs of various miners, plaques of their accomplishments, and geological texts.

“I was handling it,” Lucky said, as soon as the door was closed and they were alone. “They would’ve given us what we wanted. We’re building them everything.”

“That’s the civilian mindset,” Olivia answered, pacing a slow circle around the room. “Move as carefully as possible, protect your resources, conserve. From where I’m standing, it seems like if you really care about living here you’d give them enough to guarantee it happens. If you save half your bullets but you die on the mission, then it hasn’t really been a success. And if the bean-counters want to give you a lecture, you can still rest easy knowing you got all your people home.”

“A promise of payment does not compromise our future colony,” Forerunner said, before Lucky could argue. “Do not be concerned. These ponies deal in quantities so insignificant that compensating them will be a rounding error. So long as they respect the terms, and don’t try to renegotiate.”

“They will not get that opportunity,” Qingzhi muttered, his voice flat. “We will respect the terms of the agreement as made. We are not required to do more. We could do much less—their population is insignificant compared to our own, and the situation is grave. If this were my campaign, I would not have asked the locals.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Lucky muttered, glaring sidelong at the general. “We want them to love us when this is over, remember? We still want to live here.”

They didn’t have long to wait for a response. It felt like minutes before the mayor returned, the ink still wet on the bottom of the contract. “Welcome to Motherlode,” he said, handing it over with a hoofshake. “There’s a lot of promises in there. I wouldn’t think you could keep them, if it wasn’t for your airship. If you can build that… I’m sure you can do the other things you promised.”

They did.

Olivia’s role in the construction was minimal over the next few weeks. She wasn’t an engineer, wasn’t a city planner, and General Qingzhi knew more about how to build defenses for a port than she did. Even so, she was still amazed by the efficiency of the operation.

Every drone on the Emperor was working by the end of the first day, along with the Emperor’s engineers. They had many more ponies than that who could’ve moved shovels and turned dirt, but that wasn’t what they really needed. They only had the one digger, made from a repurposed APC. Since most of their construction was underground, there wasn’t really anything the soldiers could do that Forerunner’s drones or Motherlode’s population couldn’t do better.

The slapdash nature of the construction was obvious even so. Olivia had seen construction diggers lay ten meters of corridor a day—but most of that time came from setting the plumbing, the electronics, the floors and simulated windows. When the digger didn’t care about how things looked, ten meters could easily be increased by an order of magnitude.

Plain stone, simple structural bars and a little composite spray with an exposed artery of cable up the center of the roof.

It wasn’t just Forerunner’s hard work, either. Within the first few days the foundry went up, and ore mined by ponies went into the smelter to make desks and doors and lights.

Motherlode was an earth pony town, with perhaps five individuals of other species in total. That meant the patrols of pegasus ponies sent out to watch the surrounding mountains would be crewed entirely by humans—with Olivia put in command. It was a relaxing if nerve-wracking position, since they were given no armor or weapons, only a communicator they could easily destroy if they had to pass for a fleeing pony refugee.

It had been over a month before someone spotted something out of the ordinary. Not Olivia herself, though she happened to be on duty at the time.

“Prefect Fischer,” said the soldier, his voice mixed with the high-altitude wind. “There’s a train coming. Just two cars and an engine.”

“Any idea who’s on it?”

“Well ma’am, it’s got a car covered in blue and black banners, so I’m guessing it’s not friendly.”

The colors of Equestria’s petty tyrant. “Alright. Forerunner already has your report, we’re turning around.” She switched channels with a little twitch of her ear. “Forerunner, how long do we have?”

“That depends on whether or not I destroy any of a number of bridges while that train is over them.” It was the first joke Olivia had heard from him in a long time. She didn’t need to tell the AI why just making this caravan disappear would not serve their interests. “Two hours. That train has an awful lot of switchbacks in its future. I hope none of its passengers get motion sickness easily.”

“Can Motherlode get ready that fast?”

“We’re about to find out.”

Sarah never wanted to see another horror movie again. For hours it seemed she knew only unnamable sounds and skittering limbs, assaulting her senses. She couldn’t close her eyes, couldn’t even relax her grip on her friends for fear she would be torn away and lost to wherever these creatures were taking them. If anyone ever asked her what it might be like to be carried alive through an ant colony, she would now be able to answer that question in great detail.

Eventually the creatures carrying them around finally let them relax, settling them down somewhere damp and bathed in green light. Sarah felt herself completely soaked with some kind of slime, and she didn’t try to shake it off. The others had it just as bad.

“This is… completely barbaric,” James muttered, finally pushing away from them and rising to his hooves. He nearly fell over at first, apparently unused to the weight. “You people need to graduate from organics. Take a look at how Forerunner keeps our cities running next time you’re in Othar. Drones get dignified charging booths and repair stations. Not living bodies that eat and shit and—”

“We have very limited time before they move us again,” Ocellus said, glaring at James until he fell silent. “Your opinions on the swarm are irrelevant. They penetrate all sections of this District. They maintain the superstructure, and have done so effectively for many years. Hopefully we can stay under their notice.” She turned, grinning at Sarah. “I’ve got to get you into the capital. I want to see the look on everyone’s face—maybe my father will talk to me again after that.”

Sarah nodded. “That’s what I’m here for. Big speech, state of the surface, all that.” She looked around, rising and stretching her sore limbs. They had been dumped in something that looked frighteningly like a refuse pile. A mountain of various bits of organic debris sat not far away, with white fungus growing slowly around it. Every now and then a drone would arrive, bite off a huge chunk of the sinewy white growth, then carry it away. “You sure we aren’t in a trash compactor scene?” She looked down at her hooves, though there was no sea of garbage or guttural calls of some disgusting alien trapped with them. She was playing that role today, or maybe James.

“I know what trash is. Why would you compact it?”

“Nevermind.” Sarah shook her wings, trying in vain to dry them. “Just tell us your plan. I’m sure it’s really good, right? Because it looks like the wild changelings are just going to leave us here until we turn into food.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “But you aren’t going to like it. The male might not be brave enough.”

“The male is brave enough for anything,” James said, glaring at her. “The male buried his friends with a shovel while his organs were turning into slime. A different copy of me toppled a kingdom that has lasted for thousands of years and killed a tyrant with a ragtag group of scientists and an ISMU team.”

Ocellus rolled her eyes, but she didn’t actually address anything James said. “The swarm is a singular, adaptive intelligence. It is collectively far more intelligent than any individual mind, probably smarter than we can even comprehend. But it works in really predictable ways. These individual drones, think of them like… single brain cells. You know what those are, don’t you?” She didn’t wait for confirmation. “We’re basically inside the swarm’s brain. It doesn’t care that we’re here, it only cares about keeping Equus going. But these individual drones, they’re much dumber than we are. They respond in predictable ways. The scent we used, that’s like saying that we’re part of the swarm. But the fact we don’t act like them makes them think we’re defective, so we end up with the other living things that aren’t working right. Thing is, we can manipulate them in way better ways than that. Give them instructions, even. So long as we give them correctly, the swarm carries them out, thinking that we’re just another part of the system.”

“Damn you’re hot when you’re smart,” Sarah muttered. Then she realized they were both staring at her, and she picked her jaw up off the floor. “So you can… do that? Tell the swarm what to do? And regular losers like those thieves can’t?”

“Anyone could,” Ocellus said. “But most of us don’t know, yeah. The first queen was the one who discovered their secrets. She never shared them all, but my father was her most important general, so he knew everything important to us. And my uncle, he was one of her spies. He’s the one who taught me the trick we’ll use today.”

“Just so long as that trick doesn’t involve going on some kind of wacky adventure with a crew of loveable bugs, I’m sure it’s fine,” Sarah said.

James turned, staring at her in the low greenish light. “What kind of munitions engineer are you again?”

“The fun kind,” she snapped. “Please, Ocellus. You said we don’t have much time.”

“Right. Well, the scent we used to represent ourselves as members of the colony will let us walk out of this place whenever we want. There is no method to send members of this swarm from one District to another, but they do sometimes send cargo or machines. All I have to do is stop one of the drones, and tell them to take us to wherever they’re prepping cargo. We can make them wrap us up and send us out just like all the other stuff they’re sending back and forth, and we’ll get there almost as fast as if we took our own ship.”

“You’re fucking with us, right?” James’s horn flickered briefly green again, but this time there was no surge of anger from further on. The light of his magic was indistinguishable from the light coming from all around them. “We’re going to mail ourselves? I don’t know if your world is anything like ours… seems like every time I assume it is I’ve been wrong… but where we come from, pretending to be mail could kill you. The machines designed to send boxes around don’t generally treat them gently enough for people.”

And for once I don’t feel like telling you to shut up. Sarah had been thinking something similar, if only because she’d been one of those people who’d almost died trying to mail herself. But that had been towards the end, when she knew she didn’t have long to live anyway. It didn’t feel like she had as much to lose.

“That’s just a question of signaling correctly,” Ocellus said. “If they treated us like a shipment of steel, yeah. We’d probably be stuck in the pipes for so long we starved, assuming we didn’t die in lots of other ways. But there are signals for other things. And lucky for you two, I know all of them.”

“Lucky for you,” Sarah said. “I’m the one who’s going to convince your species to stop hiding in the dark, remember? Can’t do that if I’m dead in a pipe.”

“Right,” Ocellus said. “Dying would have been the faster way to get around, before our queen died. But we haven’t had as much love to go around.

“I don’t plan on dying,” Sarah said, a little louder than before. “Whatever plans you have that include death as a step, just cross those the hell out. And I’m pretty sure James is with me on that one. Where we come from, we see death as the end. It’s something you fight, as desperately as you possibly can. I don’t care if we have to walk around this ring, we’ll arrive at the other end of it alive.”

Ocellus shook her head, muttering something about primitive cultures and how backward life on the surface must be. But she didn’t seem to want them to overhear it, because she didn’t say it very loudly. “Then we need to get moving. I don’t know when the last time they tilled their garden was, but we can’t be around when they do. Nothing here is supposed to be alive, so…”

“I get it,” James and Sarah said at the exact same moment. Sarah was the one who kept going. “Lead the way. We’ve made it this far. I’m sure you can get us through to… what did you say the capital was?”

“Irkalla.”

“Right, Irkalla. And maybe after we get there, I can treat you to dinner. I am incredibly rich.”

Ocellus shrugged her wings. “Get my father to consider taking us to the surface, and then maybe we’ll talk about dinner.”

Walking through the alien hive wasn’t nearly as bad as being carried. Yes, the passages looked like they were alive, and the array of smells and sounds would probably haunt Sarah’s nightmares, but at least she didn’t have to spend every moment wondering when she would get dropped into a gigantic mouth.

Ocellus was not exaggerating her abilities—every time they met the changelings she called “soldiers,” she answered their challenges with another sound or smell and they were left alone. They stopped several drones along the way, following each one part of the way to their destination, until that specific individual wandered too far from their post and they had to find another.

Sarah was reminded many times of ant-colonies, except that this colony seemed just as likely to repair faulty alien machinery as it was to scavenge dead bugs from the forest floor or sting a misplaced foot.

But eventually they reached their destination—a tunnel that seemed entirely devoid of top, bottom, or sides, just thin walkways stretching through insane dimensions and intersecting to make shapes that hurt her head to look at. Ocellus and James could walk up the sheer walls between different platforms and floors, Sarah had to make due by flapping her wings and letting them drag her.

“I can’t do this,” James squeaked in nervous fear, while standing upside-down on a bit of transparent green platform that formed part of a distended dodecahedron. “I can’t keep going. We have to go back. I’m gonna fucking puke.”

Sarah glowered at him, wings flapping desperately to keep up with them, clinging to Ocellus’s side with one hoof. She could just about hold herself still in the air, with ample assistance. “Shut the hell up and keep moving,” she panted. “We must be… close.”

Canterlot was a different place.

It was amazing how quickly the city had transformed—but the Storm King’s orders were strict and his punishments ruthless, as Flurry Heart knew too well.

She skulked about in the corners and alleys, in the parts of the city that she never would’ve visited on her own. The lower district, where the laws were lax and ponies sold things that couldn’t be found anywhere else. Every city had them—but unlike in the Crystal Empire, she wasn’t using her power and reputation to walk into any club she wanted and expect nothing to happen.

Perez had found her a nondescript dark robe, along with a chemical that smelled like laundry. But no sooner had he rubbed it into her mane and tail than they had started to fade, and ten minutes later they were both completely white.

“Nothing we can do about the rest of you, unfortunately,” Perez had said. “There’s a machine back in Othar we used for it, but…”

“There is no Othar,” Flurry whispered back to him, brushing a rough strand of mane out of her face. Perez had cut her hair down to something much shorter, one of the styles he’d said were now common out among the abandoned ponies of Canterlot.

There were two classes of pony in the city now—those healthy enough to work, and those who weren’t. The former became slaves, the latter were left to fend for themselves. Perez had been right about her mane—one glance at her reflection in a bit of polished streetlight, and she could see he had transformed her into a pony who looked as wretched as any of the others they passed.

At least Perez had managed to get the magical inhibitor off her horn. Being able to perform simple levitation again was a bit like being able to stand up straight after crawling for hours, a relief as much as it was overwhelming.

Many ponies gave them room as they passed, taking one look at his mask and muttering awed incantations. “La Calavera,” they would say, and doors opened, ponies blocked the way of approaching guards, or food was produced from nowhere.

“You know what you’re doing,” Flurry Heart said, when it was around evening. They’d found a quiet corner of an illegal shop hidden in the basement of an abandoned warehouse, where fruit that might’ve been sold on every street corner was now offered to them with the reverence of a princess’s blessing. “How do all these ponies know you?”

“This is not my first time,” Perez said, slipping bits of fruit under the front of his mask to eat, rather than revealing the face underneath. There were other ponies in the shop, though none close enough to overhear. Perez had asked for a private table. “Every dictator does the same shit when he takes over. Every occupied state is the same. Goes through different phases as the bastard gradually unifies his powerbase and replaces old institutions. Storm King already started with that, but it takes a long time and he doesn’t have many men. He’s going to need a lot more collaborators first.”

“Traitors like me,” Flurry Heart muttered, staring at her plate. Her appetite was already fading.

“No.” Perez dropped his plate with a violence that surprised her. “You’re the second group—most people will be like you. People who hate the new regime, but do what they must to live. Everybody wants to live. Collaborators are the bastards wearing blue stripes on their old guard armor. The ones reporting their neighbors to the Stasi. Not very many so far… but every despot promises the same things. The worst in people always comes out at a time like this.”

“Like what you did to those guards? Drawing with their…” She couldn’t even finish.

Perez shook his head. “Didn’t waste my time with it at first. But then I realized that the ones I killed kept coming back.” Her eyes widened just a little, probably not as much as he was expecting. He went on. “Oh yeah, I watched it happen. That’s one of the things the Storm King promises his loyal servants. His soldiers always come back… and they remember you. They know your tricks, and they’re angry. So I’ve been using that against them. If they’ve got memories, I’ll just make their deaths as brutal as possible. And try to make it just as bad when they find each other dead.”

Is this how Celestia won her wars? Her instinct was to deny it on principle, but then she had her own memories. Considering what the sun princess had done to her before Lucky’s rescue…

“Anyway, the others should be here any second, so I’ve got a request.” His eyes fixed on her through the holes in his wooden mask. “Don’t tell them where I come from. Twilight in particular might know me, or at least know who I am. It’s better if you don’t use my name. Call me… Viserion. That’s what I told her my name is, and it would be real shit if our stories don’t line up.”

“Why?”

“Because Twilight still hates anyone involved with the regime change. I don’t know how the hell we’re going to convince her to work with…” He shook his head. “Look, just do it, please? I can’t force you, that’s why I’m asking. No threats, no intimidation, nothing like that. But if Twilight knows, Equestria’s chances go way down. That’s all there is to it.”

Flurry Heart probably would’ve done exactly the opposite of what she was being told to do, as she had disobeyed her parents so many times before. But this dragon had saved her—he’d put himself at risk and arrived at exactly the right moment. More importantly, Lucky had sent him. Even if she didn’t know him—beyond his raucous drinking songs and the awful music he played in the cafeteria—she knew Lucky, and so she could trust him too.

“Okay,” she said. “But I’m not promising forever. Just for now.”

He shrugged. “I know I can’t force you. Just talk to me if—”

A passage opened in the floor, and Perez fell silent. She could hear familiar voices coming from within, though they sounded as nervous and subdued as the rest of the city. A second later and a party of ponies in similar dark robes to theirs emerged from below. She recognized them by what glances at coats and fur she got, through the corners of their robes. These were the Elements of Harmony, Equestria’s greatest heroes.

Our best hope is still free. This wasn’t the first time something or someone had overpowered the princesses. While I was doing exactly what he wanted, they escaped. I should’ve been like Twilight. I should’ve been far away.

Would I rather die in Othar? But she couldn’t ask it now, not if they were going to be pretending that Perez was just a helpful dragon with a weird name.

“Flurry!” Twilight removed her hood, revealing she’d done far less to conceal her appearance than Flurry Heart. Her mane only looked frizzy and dirty from days of neglect, not sheared and bleached. There was no way anypony who saw her wouldn’t recognize her on sight.

Flurry Heart rushed over to her, though her wings were concealed in the robes and so she couldn’t hug her in the familiar way. She held her like an earth pony, and didn’t let go for several long moments.

Then she finally seemed to notice her head. “Viserion, was that really necessary? I told you to get her out, not be her stylist. You’re worse than Zephyr Breeze.”

A tiny voice squeaked from behind her, from a pony with yellow wings emerging from her robe. “My brother’s quite a good stylist now, Twilight. You should see some of his clients.”

“Not now, Fluttershy.”

Perez rose as she entered, though he didn’t bow or make any other signs of respect. He did remove his mask, pushing it up so it stuck out of his robe like a strange hat. He still spoke with the same accent as all his Eoch, one that Flurry recognized as distinctly human. But Twilight hasn’t been around them as much as I have. She probably just thinks it’s a dragon thing.

“I made sure she wouldn’t be caught,” he said. “We could take her right past the palace and no one would look twice. If you all tried that you’d be digging coal before I could turn around to save you.”

“Save us,” Rainbow Dash repeated, amused. “The dragon thinks he would need to save us. We weren’t the ones who needed rescuing, Viserion. I know you dragons can be proud, but… we remember.”

Perez looked bashful, tucking his tail and lowering his head. But Flurry was standing closer to him, and his display didn’t look terribly sincere. What else are you lying about, Perez?

I ran away with a liar and a killer.

But at least she’d run to her aunt, and the Elements of Harmony besides.

“What are you gonna do, Twi?” she asked, her voice a nervous squeak. “You’re gonna save Equestria, right? You have a plan?”

“We sure are,” Applejack said, before Twilight could answer. “We’re still a mite fuzzy on the specifics, though.”

But it wasn’t the other Elements Flurry Heart wanted to hear.

Twilight’s nod came slow, unsure. She doesn’t know if we can. “The plan is… still a work in progress,” she eventually said. “But that’s okay! The early steps are all finished. We made it out, you’re safe…” She stared upward towards the empty warehouse, where a few faint shafts of sunlight streamed in.

Who’s moving that now that Luna’s frozen? Is Twilight doing both the sun and the moon every day? If she dies too, will we freeze to death?

Frightening questions, but probably they could answer those another time.

“I’ve been thinking about that, princess,” Perez said, all traces of his earlier discomfort gone. “I’ve got a few ideas. You might like some of them.”

“Just as long as they’re better than what you did to the princess’s hair,” Rarity said. “Because that is a crime against fashion, and I intend to see you duly prosecuted once the Storm King is in Tartarus.”

“Much better,” Perez said. “We need to…”

Part 2: Persuasion

Flurry Heart had little experience living out on the trail. Whenever her family went out “camping,” it was always with dozens of attendants, where all day to day aspects of camping and survival were taken care of by someone else. She had no idea how to start a campfire, how to sleep without a cot already set up for her, which plants were delicious and which would make her sick.

But traveling with the Elements removed a great deal of the insecurity. Applejack knew the wilderness better than anypony she’d ever known. She didn’t even need a map to navigate them away from Canterlot, sticking to the trees and hills so they wouldn’t be spotted by the Storm King’s griffon mercenaries.

There were few dangers on the trail this close to Canterlot—all the forests here were tame, the animals were trained, and most of the dangerous plants had been cut back. One night she heard a timberwolf howling from outside the large tent, somewhere close by. Perez rose, told the ponies he’d take care of it, and came back an hour later with bits of wood in his robes. They didn’t hear the howling again.

They traveled quickly, though perhaps not as quick as they could’ve gone if there weren’t so many eyes out looking for them, all with wings. But there were two earth ponies among the elements, and Perez mentioned more than once that he couldn’t even glide, so they would have to hoof it until they found an airship willing to smuggle them.

“We don’t have to go back to Ponyville, Twi,” said Rainbow Dash, when they’d been traveling for a few days and the little valley town was in sight below them.

Flurry Heart had fond memories of her visits to the place in her childhood, and time spent with her aunt away from her parents. But all her time spent with Twilight among that town’s citizens now made her look out on the little settlement with shame. She had failed those ponies, just as she’d failed the ones in Canterlot. And so many others.

It looked like a few of the homes had been burned, though the damage wasn’t as bad as in Canterlot. There were little flying patrols of mercenaries down there.

“Yeah, it’s just like I said. I’ve already flown out here. We’re so close to Canterlot that the Storm King has it on lock. We won’t be able to get supplies without putting ponies in danger. Cloudsdale is our best bet.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Applejack argued. “Cloudsdale might’ve escaped, but it’s a pegasus town.”

“And?” Rainbow Dash puffed up her chest, feathers gaining a little volume in her wings. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that there ain’t no dirt up there. The only way Cloudsdale got food was from the ground. Ya’ll sold weather, we traded the crops we grew with it. But who are they sellin’ to when the Storm King controls all the food? Those ponies are gonna have to spread out, like everypony with sense has been doin’ since this started. I say our best idea is gettin’ as far away from Canterlot as possible, in the darkest little corner of Equestria that the Storm King wouldn’t even think to visit. That’s where we want to start recruitin’.”

“I, um…” Fluttershy kept herself in the back of the group at all times, mostly chatting with Perez about various dragon things. But apparently some thought had finally moved her to say something. “I know this is… I don’t want to be inconsiderate…”

“Go ahead,” Twilight said. “We need all the ideas we can get, including yours.”

“Well, uh… when Equestria was in danger last time, when Princess Celestia…” She trailed off. “You said Harmony wouldn’t let anything bad happen. You said we had to trust it to protect Equestria. Why isn’t Harmony saving us? Maybe it doesn’t know. Maybe we just have to go up to it, and let Harmony know that we’re in danger, and everything will be okay. Like… Tirek, remember him? We could just… do that again.”

Flurry Heart had taken to hanging around in back, where she was safe from being asked to do anything. But even she noticed Perez’s head snap up at mention of Harmony. He’d been carving something out of wood with just his claws, but now he watched Twilight through the mask with laser focus. Will he have to protect me from the Elements of Harmony, too? Twilight Sparkle and her mother had both tried to free her from Celestia, but they’d failed. And if it wasn’t for Harmony, there would’ve been nothing to torture her with.

It’s okay, all the fighting is over. I’m not going to have to watch that ever again.

Lucky had promised, and so far she’d kept all of her promises. Including protecting her, even when she was away from Othar and Equestria. Even when, as it seemed now, Othar was destroyed.

Twilight finally answered. “That was the first thing I did,” she said. “Telling Harmony, I mean. Teleporting nine ponies is tough, but just me… I went straight into the tree. I asked Harmony to protect Equestria, but it said that it already knew what was happening and it wasn’t going to do anything about it.”

“That’s mean,” Pinkie Pie said. “Hasn’t it been watching? Look at Ponyville!”

“Is it really that surprisin’?” Applejack asked. “Look what happened with those, uh… whatchamacallems… on their island…”

“Humans,” Flurry Heart corrected. “What about them?” Just because she was pretending not to know Perez didn’t mean she had to hide her own past. Her aunt and all the Elements of Harmony knew where she’d been living for the last year. They knew she was friends with them, and that she was close to their princess in particular.

And she could see them share an awkward look. Like they were exchangng some private worry about her, or they were afraid she might lose her mind and attack them.

“Nothing personal, Flurry Heart, but they kinda made a huge mess. Blowing up the Castle of the Two Sisters, scaring all of Equestria half to death, Celestia…”

“She never would’ve let this happen,” Rarity breathed. She sounded less angry than the others—rather, her voice was haunted. “She would’ve put the Storm King in his place the instant that brutish airship of his got anywhere near Equestria.”

Flurry Heart felt emotion rising in her chest. She glared at Applejack. “What about you? Do you hate the humans too?” She didn’t have to say what she was thinking—she knew Applejack would understand.

Sure enough, the earth pony looked away. “I… no,” she finally said. “But I don’t love ‘em either. It was wrong for Celestia to keep our families from us for all this time. My whole life… we didn’t haveta be alone. But at the same time, that princess of theirs didn’t fix it for everypony, did she? All over Equestria, and ponies are getting their families back. The next night comes, and everypony can’t wait to see who comes back next… but it ain’t nopony. The Apples are a big family, and we ain’t the only one with lotsa holes in it. It’s great they gave us Ma and Pa back, but I ain’t gonna love ‘em for doin’ half a job.”

They aren’t the ones who had the power for a thousand years and never used it, Flurry Heart thought, gritting her teeth for a second. But she dismissed the thought before she could say anything too angry at Applejack. She was probably the one least antagonistic towards humans, while Twilight would be the most suspicious. They’re the ones we really need. Survivors from their city. Where would they hide?

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Perez said. As before, he kept mostly out of the way, not trying to tell the ponies where they should go or what they should do. “But I could just go into the city. All of you are recognizable—you’re known to the ponies here. As soon as you show your faces anywhere…”

“And you aren’t?” Rainbow Dash asked, indignant. “How many of those ugly soldiers did you kill? I’m sure they’ve got posters up looking for you all over Equestria.”

“They will,” he actually sounded more pleased by her objection than upset. “But that’s how you get sympathy. Ponies know I’m on their side, you dig? The Storm King doesn’t know I have anything to do with you.”

“Maybe not,” Twilight said. “But he will know that Flurry Heart went this way. If you’re right and they’re really bringing their dead back to life…”

“You’re the one who wanted to believe him,” Rainbow said. “Still sounds crazy to me.”

“It’s not,” said several ponies at once, including Flurry Heart.

“That’s true…” he admitted. “That is a disadvantage.”

“Why do you need somepony to go?” Flurry Heart asked, voice a little apprehensive. “I mean… just curious.”

“To bring back a few things,” Perez answered, quicker than any of the others.

“To find out where the biggest groups of resistance are building,” Twilight answered. “And to save Spike.”

“You think he’s in the castle?”

Twilight nodded. “From the look of it, the Storm King hasn’t got through its defenses yet. If you use a scrying spell on the entrance…” She seemed to see Flurry Heart’s nervous blush, because she just nodded. “Sure, hold on. I’ll…”

And suddenly Flurry Heart was looking at the front of the tree-castle from ground level, where at least a dozen of the Storm King’s ugly soldiers were facing out at the city. Not keeping ponies from getting out, but keeping them from getting in.

The vision only lasted for a few seconds, which was probably for the best since Flurry Heart’s head was already starting to spin. “Looks like there are ponies in the castle,” Flurry Heart said. “Can’t we… help them escape?”

Twilight shook her head. “That castle has more defensive magic on it than any structure like it—nothing with hostile intentions towards Equestria or any of the castle’s inhabitants can enter. And I’ve kept it well-supplied—that’s where Ponyville kept its emergency supplies. Ever since I put in the well, the ponies inside could probably last a year. More, if they use the balconies and top floors for growing. But they’ll probably leave those locked, since they’ll think griffons or climbers might get in that way.”

“Maybe they’re safer where they are,” Rarity said. “Spike, I mean. Not that it wouldn’t be delightful to have him along, but… I sleep sounder knowing my sister is safe inside your castle. Whatever we’re about to do, I’m sure it will be dangerous and dirty and my sister is better off where she is.”

“I wanted to ask him…” But Twilight didn’t finish her sentence. “It wouldn’t be that difficult to teleport us all there. I’ll need a few hours to recover, but the castle is perfectly safe. So long as we aren’t worried about information about us leaking out…”

Perez cleared his throat. “Frankly, Princess, plenty of ponies already know. You all wouldn’t take my advice about hiding. The truth is out there, and every day there are more leaks in the system. If it hasn’t already, eventually some pony is gonna get the idea that they can buy a little more grain for their family by selling us out, and the lid will be off. I think we’re safe going back there, so long as we are extremely careful not to let our plans be known by anyone we see.”

He met their eyes one at a time. “If you’ve got family in there, you need to keep things secret from them too. Can’t tell them what we’ve thought about doing, only that we have a plan. That way the Storm King won’t learn what we’re about to do before he’s dead.”

There was a little discussion about the topic—mostly between those who insisted that their families could be trusted and would never tell the Storm King anything about them. Perez pushed, and eventually the arguing stopped.

“A day in a real bed,” Twilight finally said. “And access to all my books and maps. More supplies for the road.” Her horn started to glow. “Nobody try to leave the castle while we’re there. And… probably stay away from the windows. Those aren’t enchanted, so…”

Her horn flashed, and suddenly they were somewhere else.

Long ago, when Sarah had heard it was possible to sign up with the Pioneering Society and explore the universe, this was what she had imagined.

Irkalla was familiar in the way that all cities were alike. There were the huge buildings, around which were the cultural and civic centers. In the case of Irkalla, there were fewer big open spaces to take in the whole view at one time, but she could still feel when they were moving closer to the city’s beating heart, and when they were further away. There were sidewalks, lanes for traffic, and maintenance systems. And as in every other city, most of those she saw seemed to just want to mind their own business for another day.

But Irkalla was also radically unlike any city she’d visited before, except perhaps what little she remembered from her trip to the Pioneering station. It was far more a space station than a city built on the ground—every surface was either metal or the semitransparent changeling slime. She hadn’t seen the city from a distance, since she had been brought directly into the city by wild changelings. But even so, she imagined it as the wreckage of an ancient starship, with many interconnected sections. There was rarely enough sky for a skyline, but where there were windows or openings into other areas, she could see tube-like walkways connecting one deck to the next.

The citizens were different too. As they walked under the glowing green and blue fungal lights, she saw only two types of people. Colorful changelings like Ocellus, who were generally friendly and always busy with something, and changelings like James. The black kind were harder to tell for sure, given that not all of them were intelligent.

Unlike the ponies of the surface, these changelings wore clothing, and she could sometimes use it to tell them apart. Jewelry was the most common, tiny clear vials that held green liquid in amounts so miniscule that she could barely make out the glow. Not jewelry, then. Wallets. Ocellus hadn’t been speaking metaphorically when she said that the glamour was their currency.

Unfortunately for her, it was not dark enough that she could just blend in as they walked. Every street they took brought eyes to her, and whispers she could make out with little effort.

“What is she doing outside a paddock? Maybe she’s on assignment. Is that Ocellus? Maybe it’s a royal mission?” But however often she could feel staring eyes watching them, they were rarely interrupted. Only by stalls soliciting them for strange-smelling treats made from fungus or insects, which Ocellus stared longingly at more than once but ultimately passed up.

“The palace is located near the top of the city,” she said, as they made their way through one of the wider corridors. Sarah had come to judge how important their location was based on how wide the hallways were, which made their current route the most important so far. “Once we get inside, we can get this whole thing sorted. My uncle will know exactly what to do, and news of what happened in Chroma won’t be here yet. Should be just enough time to clean this up before things get worse.”

“Do you two ever eat?” Sarah asked, before she even realized what she was doing. She glanced longingly down at the ripped saddlebag she was wearing, and the food pellets inside. The rations were some of the worst things she’d ever tasted, but she was getting desperate. There hadn’t exactly been a chance to have lunch during the ride over. “I don’t normally complain, but… come on, it’s been almost two days now. I’m starving.”

“Oh, right,” Ocellus muttered, expression darkening. “That would be too much time for a pony, wouldn’t it? The palace has the supplies to host you. Once we arrive, you can eat.”

But they were coming to a stop, and Sarah only felt more agitated. Up ahead, one of the other strange aspects of the city was before them. Irkalla had maintenance systems all right—changelings. The drones had tunnels that were painted all in red, with lines on the floor warning passers-by where not to go. They moved freely through the city, and people seemed to pay them less attention than they did to the location of the curbs and sidewalks.

Except like now, where they completely blocked traffic. Something had happened in the passage up ahead, something that made the whole place start to stink. Was that battery acid?

“What are they doing?” James asked. Apparently too loudly, because at least a dozen changelings turned to stare at him. Like he’d walked into someone’s funeral and taken a dump on the carpet.

Ocellus smacked him on the flat of his back with a hoof, where his chitin was thickest, and hard enough that it made a loud cracking sound. Not hard enough that there was any visible damage, though that seemed to settle the matter for most of the watching changelings. “Someone went feral,” she whispered, so quietly that even Sarah had trouble hearing her. She didn’t say anything else, not until traffic was moving again and they weren’t standing in the back of a silent crowd.

Sarah had a few minutes of near silence to appreciate the city a little more—branching hallways labeled in faded paint, hollow metallic stairwells and ladders linking the overlapping floors. One thing seemed obvious: this place hadn’t been designed for a species that could fly. Otherwise, why have so many ramps?

But then they were out, and they’d gotten some distance from the offended ponies. Ocellus explained, her voice still reverent. “It’s what happens when you don’t get enough love. It can’t happen to me anymore, but… you’re not immune, James. Not until you adapt like I have. My uncle will be even better about teaching you than I am. A few months should get you there no problem.”

“A few months?” He sounded indignant. And Sarah couldn’t exactly blame him. “A few months where I could… what happens?”

“Well, you… slowly lose your mind. The memories aren’t really in there, just like with ponies or anything else, but there’s still some muscle memory. Enough for you to fake who you used to be, or keep going and try to get some love. If you don’t get it… well, the body knows it used to be something else, or maybe the mind is still trying to control it but it isn’t working. There are stories from both sides. My father made sure it never happened to me, so I can’t tell you what it’s like from experience.”

She trailed off, jerking them suddenly into a low passage off to one side. But then, from Sarah’s perspective everything seemed small. These changelings had been built to get around in tight spaces like she hadn’t been. “Saw some… unfriendly changelings follow us,” she said, leading them all the way to the back of a bar full of colorful changelings. They all gave James dirty looks, but Ocellus waved them off apologetically. They slipped out through the kitchen, then into an alley.

There were no dumpsters, but there were piles of rotting garbage, just set out in the corridor behind the shops. So not really that different from a human city after all.

“Are they still following us?” Sarah glanced over her shoulder, listening intently. But it was much harder to isolate sounds now that they were in such a crowded place. Irkalla had so many people living in it that everything they did blurred together, turning the space even a few meters away from them into a nondescript haze. It didn’t hurt—it wasn’t like her senses had been enhanced so far that she was overwhelmed. More that the information became smeared, and she could no more hear what was going on outside that range than she could see into their houses and shops.

“Uh… no? Hopefully not.” Ocellus hurried them on, up a spiral staircase and through a few more cramped alleys. She was pretty sure the changelings they saw sleeping behind bits of broken equipment or near piles of garbage were pretty close to feral themselves, based on the way they watched her every second like she was a UN relief worker carrying boxes of food.

“That’s it.” Ocellus pointed up ahead, where corridors shifted in coloration from silvery to rusty red. “That’s the palace. Most dangerous part of Irkalla.”

“Huh?” James squinted up ahead. “Why would the palace be dangerous?”

“Because my uncle and my father both think they should be ruling. They both claim it for themselves, and they both try to use it. There’s… well, changelings die there a lot. They always used to die a lot, but… that was mostly because the old queen used that for discipline. If a changeling screwed up badly enough, killing them was the fastest way to make sure they went back to school, maybe grew up to be less crappy at their job. But since we don’t have the love to replace most people who die now…” She trailed off.

“That sounds like shit.” Sarah stared at the palace corridor, but it wasn’t all that different from the others they’d seen. There was a sealed door at the far end, one that looked properly like an airlock. There was the glow of electric lights too, instead of the bioluminescence from various patches of fungus growing in cultivated pots. “Even if you could bring someone back. Corporal punishment is… barbaric.”

Ocellus shrugged. “Not as barbaric as what we have now. I don’t really know what your plan is for making this not fall apart the instant you walk inside. You didn’t seem to know anything about our situation.”

“I don’t,” Sarah said. “But I know what the surface is like. I know you’ve got friends up there who aren’t backwards idiots. Maybe just telling them the good news will be enough.”

“Maybe.” Ocellus didn’t sound hopeful. “Convincing my father will be the hard part. Uncle will be easy, he’ll believe you if you aren’t lying. He’s simple like that. And even if you do convince them… it’s been so long since we thought about what to do after the quarantine that nobody talks about what we’ll do like the queen used to. If Chrysalis were still here… but she’s gone, so we’ll have to make do.”

Ocellus straightened, then gestured at the door up ahead. “I hope you feel convincing, Sarah.”

Sarah felt herself grinning. “I feel like I could sell ice to an eskimo. After eating a few of his seals. Or… maybe more of those giant moths? Those smelled really good.”

Olivia felt broken. And she should—she’d removed one of her limbs. The prosthetic leg might be cheap plastic, its servos might squeak and whine when she put her weight on them, but at least it was a leg.

An ISMU biofab could’ve replaced the limb with two days of growth and a fifteen-minute surgery. But there was only one biofab now, and it had so many more important things to do. Now, for the first time, she found herself grateful her body was incomplete. The day had finally come where her disability was an advantage.

One of the locals had made her a new prosthetic, a combination of faux-leather and a bit of simple wood. Instead of acting like her real leg, it wasn’t quite the right length, and didn’t even bend at the knee. Hard to believe humans used to live with this too. And there are still ponies who have to live with it, even though their ancestors cured these things like we did.

“Are you sure you want to be the one?” Lucky asked, from their little room deep inside the mountain. Like many of the new buildings, it was located in one of the old pony tunnels, expanded by Forerunner drone and given a semblance of livability with a bit of polyceramic fill and some paint on the walls. “Nopony will be in more danger than you. There are plenty of others who’d be willing.”

“There are,” she agreed. “But none of them have this.” She lifted the prosthetic into the air, waving the carved wood around dramatically. “Look at what that makeup artist did to my face.” She still kept her mane short enough that there had been little to work with there, so all she could do was stick in bits of debris. She smelled as bad as she looked—they’d used real dirt to make her look this way, and real garbage. “You don’t have anyone who can look this pathetic. I’m perfect.”

“Alright. Well, you’ve got your radio. Say the word, and we can go to plan B whenever you want. It’s not ideal, but… if that’s what we have to do, then we’ll do it. Forerunner should be watching at all times, but won’t be enough to save you if one of them decides to shoot you.”

Olivia shrugged her wings. She’d taken to using them more now that she didn’t have a leg—she could hover more reliably than she could walk. “I’ve already got… how many more chances than I deserve? If now’s when I go, then I think it was a pretty good run.” She glanced down at the wheeled cart. It was covered with a cloth, concealing the bits of precious metals tucked inside. This was the offer that would hopefully interest the Storm King’s troops.

“Good luck.”

“Yeah.” She grinned. “You know it won’t be over, even if I do this. Slimeballs like this always want more. They make threats, they get louder and squeakier all the time. They always need a little more not to tell.”

Lucky shrugged. “We won’t need his cooperation for long. But you don’t need me to tell you what to do if he won’t play.”

“I don’t,” she agreed.

She wrapped the straps around herself, bracing the stump of one leg against the cart’s counterweight to get it rolling. It was just as primitive as the rest of her, so there were no clever motors or secret gears to make it easy. Just lots of heavy metal inside a cart made of simple carved wood.

But she made it down the shaft, past lots of identical amber lights. And she had to admit, she liked the uneven shafts much more than identical Forerunner corridors. The ponies had often cut around interesting cave features, instead of grinding everything to dust. There were lots of stalactites on the ceiling, and flowing crystal deposits on the walls that still dripped water. Deadlight and the other bats sure seemed at home down here.

There were many entrances now, but Olivia didn’t use any of the new ones—instead, she used the old mine elevator. It rumbled and clanked all the way up, right along with the sound of rushing fluid. It took almost ten minutes for it to take her to the top, thin metal creaking and shaking with every moment. It hardly inspired confidence, but it wasn’t like where Olivia was going was safe.

Then she reached the top floor, and came to rest inside a wooden shack.

She could hear the soldiers outside. The Storm King’s troops barked to each other in a guttural tongue as they emptied out ponies’ homes through their windows, separating their belongings into separate piles. The armored car that had taken them here still sat in the station, which had its own guards.

Olivia stepped out of the mine, past the two of the massive guards looming there.

“I’m listening to everything,” said Forerunner into her ear, using the concealed transducer microphone there. Pony ears were huge—they made it much easier to hide little things like that. “It would be more convenient if I didn’t have to translate for you. When this is over, you should put more energy into your Eoch studies.”

But she couldn’t reply, not without looking even more like an insane pony.

Already there were several guards coming closer to her.

“Subvocalize,” Forerunner said. “Like you practiced. I’ll know what you want to say.”

Olivia wanted to respond with annoyance, reminding him to examine her mission record. She knew how this worked. She’d been special forces after all, both on and off planet. She didn’t need refreshers from a program.

“What are you doing with that?” asked one of the guards, Forerunner’s translation coming almost perfectly timed with its speech.

“Just… following the mayor’s orders,” she said, her voice appropriately timid. “Need to… see him.”

The guards backed away, muttering something about the likelihood of catching diseases from her. One of them pointed at city hall, which was already transforming into a barracks. “Go quickly, pony. You are late.”

She went quickly, or as quickly as she could missing one of her legs. None of the others tried to stop her, not all the way into city hall.

There was a line of ponies outside, where they’d been sorted into groups. It was just like they’d heard about in the last telegrams from Equestria proper: the Storm King sorted the population into those who could work for him in one capacity or another, and those who couldn’t. Almost everyone was being placed in the former group, seeing as Motherlode was a mining town and those who lived here almost universally did something useful for the mine.

The smaller, second group was populated entirely with their children, and the elderly, and a few ponies who had suffered accidents like hers, sans any new prosthetics.

We can’t keep this up for much longer. If these ponies have to live like this for any length of time, someone is going to say something they shouldn’t and we’re going to have to kill or imprison these soldiers. It was time to put a stop to it, before their secret headquarters got discovered and all their hard work was wasted.

Oliva strode confidently into the office. Other ponies parted for her, letting her to the front without discussion. There wasn’t anything to say—most of them knew her by now, knew she was the one responsible for their security. She could see in their eyes just how eager they were for her to get started. The indignity had been going on too long.

She made it to the former mayor’s office, where Sunkiss stood outside with one of the guards and a large black ledger. She barely listened as she gave Olivia’s cover story, and the soldier accepted it without complaint. Why get suspicious, when the physical reality was so obvious?

Eventually the door opened, and the guard blocked the way in front of her. “Show respect to your new regent,” he said. “Obey, and you live. Resist, and you will be left for the storm.” As menacing as the words might’ve been, he said them like a bored clerk at a government office.

She went in.

Already the office was transformed. Storm King banners hung over the bookshelves, and all the glass sample cases of valuable minerals had been shattered. A few of the maps were missing from the walls as well—fortunately none of those would show the new city. They’d been planning for this day.

The creature inside was far smaller than what she’d been expecting. Quite like the other monsters, but somehow stunted at the same time. He was shorter than a pony, without the bulky muscles and with most of the fur shaved back. She’d never been this close to one of them and not killed them. The climate that brought a slight chill to the non-earth ponies who lived here seemed a welcome relief to him, and he lounged in a large chair behind the desk as though he barely saw her.

“You cannot have anything of interest to his majesty,” he said, taking one look at her and then away from the cart she’d brought. “Guards, take her to—”

“Wait,” she said, letting in just a trace of the voice she would use to command. As she had expected, he stopped. This tiny creature was someone used to being told what to do. “My family is… I have something important to show you. Something we can only trust to someone with the ear of our new king.”

He finally seemed to look at her. Olivia tensed, knowing this could be the moment where their careful plan failed and Qingzhi’s marines had to emerge to do their work. It was a delicate balance—to look as pathetic as she possibly could so as to not intimidate him, while not seeming so pathetic that she couldn’t have anything of interest. Olivia tugged slightly on the cloth over her cart, so that a tiny glint of gold emerged from within. His eyes caught it, and went wide.

“Go on, Lokosh,” the tiny regent said, gesturing dismissively with one hand. “Shut the door, and don’t let anyone disturb us.” He waited until the soldier had obeyed, which he did only sluggishly, before hopping up onto the table and walking across it towards her. “Tell me what secrets you have for your king. I’m his brother, you know. If I’m the one who tells him, he’ll listen.”

Of course he will. That’s why he exiled you to a tiny mining town a thousand miles from Canterlot. Because he cares so much about what you have to say. At the same time, that did make this operation a little more dangerous. Many dictators made it a point to protect their families with extreme violence. They wouldn’t allow anyone else to hurt them, even while they abused their own relatives with impunity.

Olivia pulled the cart open. It was filled with wealth—mostly in slips of gold and silver. Most of it was really tungsten with a thin layer of gold on the outside, though she doubted very much that someone like this would be able to tell the difference.

Plenty of jewelry on the top layer, though. Bracers and crowns and necklaces and diadems, each apparently the work of a master craftsman. Really they were reproductions of historical pieces Forerunner had made in a fabricator and a reduction furnace, but the regent didn’t need to know that.

Olivia stepped back, getting out of the tiny creature’s way as he hurried over to her cart. The sooner I get my stupid plastic leg back, the better. “I heard the command to bring half of all we have to give as tribute to our new king,” she said. “I couldn’t bring half, but I brought as much as I could carry.”

If the little creature had noticed the inconsistencies in her story, he made no sign. Instead he turned over the tray of gold and jewels, selecting a necklace from the top of the pile and trying it on. “You said your family has more? They wouldn’t have anything sweet, would they? You should see what these miners eat.”

Oliva settled into place between the regent and the door. “If it’s sweets you want, we could probably arrange that.” She stepped closer, so that she was within reach of the creature. He still didn’t notice, overwhelmed with what she was showing him. “Is this really what you wanted to do in Motherlode?” Olivia asked, her voice no longer quavering with weakness.

“Not here,” the little creature said, sliding the bracelets onto his stubby arms one after another. “I thought after everything I’d done for Tempest, maybe I would get one of the bigger cities, you know? But someone has to be punished for losing Flurry—” He trailed off, eyes suddenly sharp. “You can go, pony. The Storm King accepts your tribute.”

She didn’t move. “I don’t like what you’re doing to Motherlode,” she said. “None of the ponies do. I think you might like living here better if you were a little more agreeable.” She watched him closely, particularly all those little muscles on his face. When he stiffened, she knew what would happen next. “Now, Forerunner.” She didn’t have to tell him what she meant—there were a dozen cameras in here.

The necklace tightened around his neck with the slight whir of a servo, and whatever he was about to scream was strangled. The creature thumped to one side, grasping in vain at the necklace. Bits of gold flaked away under his grip, but the titanium cable inside didn’t even scratch under his claws. “You know, that jewelry was my way of smuggling weapons in here. I didn’t think you’d put it on yourself.” She walked away from him, right over to the door, and she gently slid the lock across. No interruptions until we’re finished.

Then she walked up to him, watching as he struggled in vain to breathe. His face was already changing color. He’d drawn a dagger from his belt in a shaky grip, though with his air strangled he hadn’t managed to use it for anything. “I’m going to let you breathe,” she said, her face right over his. “If you call for help, I’m going to strangle you again. Do you understand?”

She waited for a nod before signaling to Forerunner again. She stepped just out of his reach, not that she feared what he would be able to do with the weapon. But if she had to disarm him, that would make noise. “Cursed… jewelry?” he asked, through hacking coughs. “You thought you could get away… with cursing me? Do you have any idea…”

She sat down on her haunches, watching him. “I can kill you before you call for help,” she said, as flatly as she could. “There’s nothing you can do to get that off.”

“Doesn’t matter.” The regent sat up, resting his back against the cart. “You can’t… threaten me. The Storm King has given us immortality. I’ll just return to him, tell him what I saw.”

Olivia would’ve taken that for the ramblings of a zealot, except that she knew just how easy it would be for his words to be true. You shouldn’t have told me that. I hope you’re listening too, Forerunner.

“Maybe so,” she said. “But I don’t have to kill you.” She moved in a flash, her enhanced speed taking her across the distance between them so fast he didn’t even move. She smashed down on his arm gripping the dagger, twisting just hard enough to make him drop it. She caught it against her other hoof, pressing it up against his gut. “Go ahead, scream. See what happens.”

Despite his confidence, the regent didn’t fight back. He froze completely, staring down at the knife in horror. He spoke in a voice just above a whisper. “What… do you want?”

She moved away from him, sliding the knife away along the floor and releasing her pressure on his chest. “Simple. I want you to back off Motherlode. I want you to take your men, get back into that train, and forget you were ever here.”

“Not… possible,” he said. “The Storm King sent us here. Not Las Pegasus, not Trottingham, here. If I don’t send regular reports from your telegraph station, he’ll do worse things to me than you could.”

You aren’t very good at this, are you? “Then maybe we could help each other. Motherlode isn’t what you think it is, uh… what’s your name?”

“Grubber.”

Of course it is. “Well, Grubber, I think this relationship could be very different. I think you need to tell all your soldiers to stop going through ponies’ homes. Just think about how much work you’re doing—how much trouble it would be to keep Motherlode in line.”

“One pony with cursed jewelry… not that hard. The Storm King will be happy to meet you.”

She ignored the threat, lifting him bodily and carrying him to the chair. She set him down, and spun it around so it was facing out.

City hall had a spectacular view, not just of the city but the mountains all around. “Forerunner, tell the marksmen to come out of active camouflage. Give Grubber here a second to see them.”

Metallic figures appeared suddenly, on distant peaks and near, dark patches that stood out only for a moment against the mountains before they vanished again.

“Your army is only here because I choose to let it stay here,” she said. “I can capture them without killing them, don’t think it would be difficult. But there’s another option. If you don’t want torture, we could give you and your soldiers the most comfortable post you ever had. Nobody has to get hurt, nobody has to fight, and nobody has to work, either. Isn’t that what you deserve?”

Grubber was silent for a long time. He glanced out the window, tugged on the necklace, met her hard eyes. “I want cake.”

Part 2: Message and Messenger

Twilight’s castle smelled.

Flurry Heart wasn’t exactly surprised by this discovery—there were many ponies packed into a tiny space, with a well that could just barely give them enough water to drink. Even so, teleporting in was a bit like being hit with several of the most traditional earth-pony barns all at once.

The mystery of what had happened to most of Ponyville was immediately solved: the entire bottom floor had been transformed into a camp. Tables had been turned sideways to make into little cubbies and dividers, where the citizens of Ponyville now huddled with their families. They had very little in terms of possessions—just what they could carry.

Most of those Flurry Heart had known well had been attending the festival, and were now enslaved with the rest of Canterlot. But there were some familiar faces here. Instead of Mayor Mare, it looked like the schoolteacher Cheerilee was the one keeping order with the help of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

The crushing weight of disappointment was heavy on these ponies, but at least they looked healthy. They hadn’t been strung up or worse like what the Storm King did to the disobedient ponies of Canterlot. And probably Ponyville too, at least from the ones who didn’t make it here.

Flurry Heart was happy to fade into the background for a few hours, while Princess Twilight spoke to a frightened crowd of dirty refugees. She made vague promises about how much work they were doing and their plans to take Equestria back, without giving any specific dates or details. When ponies looked at her at all, it was mostly with pity. She never took off her robe, and without her cutie mark they didn’t seem able to identify her. Considering how often she’d appeared on broadcasts and how her statements begging for surrender were being printed, she wasn’t in any hurry to identify herself.

They were immediately given Twilight’s own bedroom, which might not have felt so luxurious with all eight of them a few weeks ago. But considering she’d been sleeping in the dirt for the last few nights, Flurry Heart didn’t mind at all—she was one of the first ponies to sleep.

It was dark outside by the time she woke. Several of the Elements were still asleep—Applejack snoring next to Rainbow Dash on the other side of Twilight’s gigantic bed. So she did her best to sneak out quietly, dodging into Twilight’s bathroom. She wanted a hot shower, but given the scarcity of water she settled for getting a cloth nice and damp and wiping herself off that way. Of course Twilight’s castle would keep working when the whole town gets shut off.

She found a replacement robe hanging for her along with the rest of their clothes, smelling like it had been washed while she slept. Probably some grateful pony did this all by hoof. I don’t deserve them. But she put it on anyway, slipping out and down the stairs. All of Twilight’s many guestrooms and conference areas were packed with ponies, at least the ones that hadn’t been filled with barrels of supplies. Apple farm brands on all those barrels. Did Applejack get a message back here?

She found herself wandering through the ground floor, as quietly as she could to avoid waking the many sleeping ponies. The large kitchen seemed to be the only part of the castle still awake, so she went that way.

Twilight was there, just as she’d hoped—but she was arguing with Spike, and didn’t seem like she would be in a cooperative mood. So she just waved and kept walking. They’ll probably want to leave me behind in the castle too. And maybe they should. I’ll only get captured again. I’ll only betray Equestria again.

She stopped in front of the basement steps, and finally there were no more sleeping ponies. Whoever kept the castle running had made sure this part stayed clear. Was that a voice coming from below?

Flurry Heart shut the door gently behind her, quiet enough that it wouldn’t click. Then she slipped off her robe and took off. Her feathery wings were wide enough that she could glide down the steps and be practically silent as she did it.

She flew as slowly as she could, listening to the voice. Then she identified it. Perez, speaking English in a whisper. Who are you talking to?

She stopped outside the doors to Twilight’s lab. Something had been jammed into the lock, so that it hadn’t quite shut. It looked like someone had done it intentionally, and whoever had used the lab last hadn’t noticed.

She peeked inside.

Perez had completely torn apart Twilight’s radio equipment, as well as combining parts from other experiments she’d been running. The whole thing looked like a mess to Flurry Heart, though there was an order to it.

Flurry Heart wouldn’t have been able to understand him a year ago. But she’d lived with Lucky a long time now, and learning the human language had been a way of spending time with them. She could understand it now. “Doesn’t look good, boss. They’ve got maybe a month left in here. But these people are the lucky ones compared to the shit that the Storm King was doing in their capital.”

He was silent for a long time, listening at a device he held up to his ear. It looked like he’d made it himself, like so much else here. A warrior and a scientist. Why is everyone in the whole world better than me?

“Maybe I can. The princess is already suspicious. If I try to tell them where to go, they might just go somewhere else out of spite.”

Silence.

“Now you sound like the governor. That’s a huge risk—if they don’t like the play, I’m gone.”

Pause.

“No, I’m pretty sure they don’t. The Elements of Harmony won’t work without Harmony making them work, and Twilight says that’s over.”

Flurry Heart was getting impatient. It was only a matter of time before somepony discovered her here. Either Perez would realize she was listening, or Twilight would come down to try something in her lab. She wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“Can’t be sure, sir. He’s not evil for evil’s sake. Whatever he’s doing, it’s focused on production somehow. Most of his work crews in Canterlot were stripping metal, or refining it. All goes onto the Stormbreaker. None of the soldiers I ‘asked’ knew what they did with it. There’s another kind of creature up there that does the work.”

Then he turned around. He probably couldn’t see her through the door—but Flurry Heart gasped, and watched his face change. She tensed, thought about running away—then she didn’t. This wasn’t some stranger, or an enemy soldier who would attack her. He had already saved her from something worse than death, then helped her escape. He wouldn’t hurt her now.

“Yeah,” Perez said. “I’ll see what I can do. Out.”

He set the object down, grinning at her. “Why don’t you come in, Princess?” He wasn’t wearing his mask, though it wasn’t far from him. Aside from when they were alone or with the Elements, he never took it off.

“You, uh…” She looked around. “I don’t think Twilight is gonna like this.” She stepped inside, then clicked the door closed.”

He shrugged. “I would’ve made it look like somepony else did it. She should thank me—I’ve made her a better microphone and cleaned up the transmitter.” He grinned, striding across the room towards her. “Much more important, I have news. I think you want to hear it.”

“I do,” Flurry Heart said, without hesitation. “You were talking to them, weren’t you? Othar survived! The Storm King… it was all lies, just to make us think he was powerful.”

“Oh, no.” Perez was going over the rest of the lab, cleaning up the messes he’d made. He worked with remarkable speed, and seemed to remember exactly where he had found each object. He replaced everything in turn, except where he had modified the radio. “Othar is jodido. RIP in peace, viva la vida, vámanos.”

“But… you were talking to somepony, weren’t you? Lucky?”

“No, but she’s okay too. Almost everyone escaped before Othar went—they had evac waiting. Emperor’s Soul is intact, along with everyone aboard.”

The first good news Flurry Heart had heard in a long time. Her best friend was okay, along with all the other humans she’d got to know in Othar. The Storm King hadn’t won, or wiped out their best hope for beating him. “Did you tell them about the princesses? About us?”

He nodded. “All I have to do is ask, and they can send a lift.” He gestured up at the ceiling. “Not just for us. Everyone here.”

“The Emperor’s Soul is that big?” Flurry Heart asked, though his eagerness felt contagious.

He’d just about finished cleaning up the lab by then, except for all the missing pieces and the entirely rewired radio. “No, but they have a town. Didn’t tell me where it was, but they’re cooperating closely with the nativ—with the ponies there.”

“What’s Lucky’s plan?” she found herself asking, before she’d entirely realized what she was saying. “For taking back Equestria, I mean.”

Perez shifted uncomfortably. “Well, uh… I can’t tell you that. I can tell you the biggest thing we need to figure out is how to get up to their damn carrier. The general wants the princess and her friends flown out right away to join up with the rebellion they’re starting, while I join back up with the ISMU and get onto the carrier somehow. That was the reason the Storm King’s attack on Othar went so well—we can’t get through its defenses. So we have to take him out from the inside.”

“That’s interesting,” Twilight Sparkle said, emerging from a storage closet along the far side of the room. It looked like a tight fit in there, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. If anything, she seemed satisfied.

Perez froze. He didn’t reach for any weapons at least, which Flurry Heart was quietly relieved about. Please don’t fight, please don’t fight. This was probably her fault too, somehow. But she didn’t want to think about how. Perez didn’t speak, just watched Twilight as she cut across the room.

“I wasn’t sure about you, Viserion. I knew Ember had some skilled warriors, and that was enough of an explanation at first. But if Ember knew this was happening, wouldn’t she have used her power to call back the dragon mercenaries that are in the Storm King’s army?”

Weren’t you upstairs? Maybe you saw me come down here, but how did you get inside after I did without either of us knowing? Twilight was apparently an even more powerful wizard than Flurry Heart had thought.

Perez shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know how dragons think.”

Twilight laughed. It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing most dragons would have said. “But that wasn’t what alerted me.” She stopped right in front of him. “You know how many dragons bother to understand how ponies do things? I can count them on my hooves. But you… you moved around the underground better than anypony I’ve ever seen. You had ponies hiding us and giving us places to sleep and cheering whenever we came into the room. Most dragons don’t even understand friendship.”

Perez actually grinned at that. “Dragon is a sleeve,” he finally said, folding claws across his chest. “The way they live is… backwards compared to you. Tribal, individualistic. What good is protecting society if people can’t raise their families in it?”

Flurry Heart stepped forward, separating the two of them. “Don’t lock him up, Aunt Twilight! He was only trying to help! That’s all Perez ever did! He rescued me, he helped get us out of Canterlot…”

Twilight finally seemed to see her, eyes becoming sharp. It was then that Flurry Heart realized she probably shouldn’t have said that. Perez’s expression fell just a tad—almost imperceptibly, but his mask of indifference was not as perfect as the one made of wood. “You knew too, Flurry? When did you figure it out?”

“I told her just—”

Twilight’s horn glowed, and Perez fell abruptly silent. “I didn’t ask you.”

No use lying now. She hadn’t been happy about the lie up until now. But she’d already gone this far. “His accent,” she said. “I couldn’t see him when he rescued me, but I remembered the voice. He’s the only one who sounds like that who lived on the top floor of Othar.”

“Tragedy of tragedies,” Perez muttered. “The only one who knows how to speak properly is Senorita Suerte. But we aren’t exactly friends after the way she…” He cleared his throat. “…fought the war with Equestria. There’s the copies…”

Twilight Sparkle stomped one of her hooves. “Enough. Perez, your name was? Well, Perez, you should’ve told me who you were the moment we met. Deceiving us does not make you seem more trustworthy. Given what you did to your enemies—”

“Your enemies,” Perez corrected, glaring at her. “Far as the Storm King knows, my people are dead. It’s you he’s enslaving now.”

“Our enemies, fine.” Twilight sat down on her haunches, exasperated. “Regardless, don’t think I didn’t know what you did to them. Brutality like that is unheard-of among ponies. I don’t know that we have a mental hospital secure enough to hold you.”

Perez shrugged one shoulder. “I am overqualified for the world Equestria used to be.” He started walking around them in a slow circle, keeping his hands up and still most of the time. Probably making it so she can see he isn’t armed. “But you’re lying too, Princess.” He nodded slightly, towards Flurry Heart. “First, remember what your leader was doing to one of her own. Celestia’s torture was far worse than anything I ever did, and you never did a damn thing to stop it.”

Twilight stumbled back, tears welling from her eyes. He might not have touched her, but the princess was reacting as though she’d been stabbed.

And he wasn’t done. “And something else. This ring, everyone on it are minds from the same source. Except my friends and I, all of you are family. Those furry brutes, the Storm King, everyone—those are ponies too, really. Every war you ever fought was really against ponies. Every monster, every warlord… they’re the same as you too. So maybe think twice about what ponies are like.”

“Perez!” It was Flurry Heart’s turn to be angry. “Hey, Perez, stop right now.” Her aunt might be backing away from him as though she were about to run, but she wasn’t afraid. “I don’t blame Twilight for not getting me away from Celestia. All my aunt would’ve done is get locked up too. Only someone…” She swallowed. Even after all that Celestia had done to her, she had a hard time talking about her death. Before she’d been abused, Celestia had one of the best and most loving guardians she had ever known.

And unlike for the princess, the dragon quieted for her.

Flurry Heart walked right up to her aunt, embracing her with her wings as she’d done so many times before. “You’re the most important pony in all Equestria right now, Aunt Twilight. My m-mom is…” She swallowed, then kept going through her tears. “My mom is dead. Luna is dead. That leaves just you and me. I need you to be the pony I’ve known my whole life, or else…” She wiped her tears away with the back of her leg. “If you don’t do it, how will I know what to do?”

Twilight didn’t say anything for a long time. By the time she did finally speak, it was in a nervous whisper. “I know you… I know you think differently about them. You… after what she did… but I have to protect Equestria now. They’re dangerous. You didn’t fight them. One… there was one holed up in the Castle of the Two Sisters. She killed more ponies in an hour than Equestria lost in all its wars in five hundred years.”

We’re wasting our time debating this. It doesn’t matter whether Twilight likes them or not.

But how could she make her see? Twilight hadn’t lived in Othar like Flurry had, she hadn’t spent time around the humans. She didn’t know Lucky Break, didn’t know their secret plans and ambitions.

Perez was still there, though, having slipped his mask back on while they were hugging. He should’ve just kept his dumb mouth shut, but he didn’t. “When we beat Celestia, when we proved you could die, did we come for the rest of you? Did we topple your cities, throw your people into camps, make them work if they wanted to eat? Did we do one bucking thing to anypony in all Equestria?”

Twilight pulled away from Flurry, looking over at the dragon. She spread her wings, as though she were protecting her—but Flurry Heart stepped to the side. She didn’t need protection.

“When my fucking commander was out there in the trenches, freeing your people and cleaning up your shit, how did you pay her back? Then when she got free, got her hands on one of those armored suits of yours… how many people in Ponyville did she attack?”

He bore down on them, pulling the mask off his head and gesticulating wildly. “That’s what separates us from them, Princess. Major Olivia, me… we protect the people in the dirt from the mistakes people like you make. You want monsters, look for that Storm King, he’s got a whole ship full. They work your people to death, we set them free.” He tossed the mask at her hooves. “Take that back to Canterlot and walk around for a few minutes. See what your people say I did with it.”

He turned, storming away from them. “Honestly, no fucking respect. I’m going to bed.” Twilight didn’t stop him, and neither did Flurry Heart. In a few moments, he’d vanished up the stairs, leaving the wooden mask on the floor in front of them.

The skull that didn’t come from ponies.

They were silent for a long time. Eventually Twilight lifted the bit of wood from where it had fallen, levitating it up onto her laboratory desk. She turned it over, leaning down to inspect a bit of writing on the reverse side.

Twilight frowned at it. “I hope… you see what makes me nervous. Equestria is already conquered. Every day we take saving it is a day things get worse. I don’t want to go from one kind of monster into the hooves of another. And since I’m the… since I’m the oldest Princess left, the weight of that decision is on me. I hope you never have to make the choice.”

“Me too,” Flurry Heart said. “I’d buck it up. I’ve been bucking it up for weeks now.”

“Language,” Twilight chastised, her voice returning to something that was almost familiar. “Your mother wouldn’t—” She fell silent.

“Yeah,” Flurry Heart eventually said. “I don’t… it confuses me a little. They’re dead, but… I know that the dead can come back. Alicorns most of all, right? We have… citizens’ rights, that’s what Lucky calls it. Why aren’t they back to save us?”

“Celestia didn’t come back,” Twilight whispered. “Maybe she was right—maybe we were safe while we were in Quarantine. Maybe Harmony was only doing the best for us, and we made a terrible mistake. Maybe what Celestia did wasn’t…” She trailed off, ears flattening. “Sorry.”

Flurry Heart shrugged. If she ever saw Celestia again, she intended to make her opinion on what had happened physically apparent. But Twilight wasn’t the one responsible for that.

“Can you read that writing?” Twilight eventually asked, voice a little awkward.

“Yeah. It says, ‘I died for you, live for me.’”

Another long silence. “I don’t know what to do, Flurry. Luna didn’t know where we could go for help. There are some other creatures out there… dragons, sea ponies, that kind of thing… but the Storm King made it really clear that he can wipe out Canterlot if anything happens to threaten him. He’ll do it…” She sniffed. “Then he’ll move, and park over Manehattan next. As soon as we start fighting back, ponies start dying. We tried using the Elements, we tried teleporting onto his airship, we tried… everything we can think of. I just don’t know what to do. Take everypony in the world and run away?”

Flurry Heart smiled in spite of herself. “Perez left the radio. You could always call for help.”

Sarah felt the eyes of the changeling masses on her as she followed Ocellus up the steps of the massive throne room. Here as nowhere else before, a great effort had been taken to conceal the metal that lay just behind every surface. Stone had been settled here instead, slabs of onyx along the floor and sheets of marbled granite along the walls.

But as with the rest of the castle so far, there was a certain decay to what she saw. It started with the changelings themselves—every one of them looked beaten down in some way. It wasn’t like the citizens outside, who had seemed happy enough to continue with their lives. The colorful changelings out there had seemed optimistic if anything, and had spoken to her only in friendly tones.

The changelings in here wore even more than the citizens outside, strange frilled suits and dresses that almost reminded Sarah of Earth styles. Except that there were bizarre cuts along the sides, exposing bits of flesh and underbelly in ways that were probably provocative, but only confused her. She would’ve worried that they were underdressed, except that Ocellus hadn’t put anything on, and no one was staring at her.

No, it was Sarah that attracted their notice.

But the decay came in more than just the appearance of the castle’s inhabitants. There were fountains along the walls that didn’t flow, portraits that hung crooked and even a screen that flickered instead of displaying anything useful. No one seemed to care about these things.

At least, like the rest of the city, the changelings had lit their throne room. So she could see past the crowds of dignitaries and hangers-on, past the armed soldiers with their rifles, and up to where a gigantic stone throne had a massive crack running right down the middle, and had fallen in two pieces.

There, at the end of the huge room, two separate factions conducted court. One was a gathering of black changelings, exactly like James and watching Ocellus with outright contempt. The other was brightly colored, and had started muttering excitedly to themselves, pointing in her direction.

The tallest member of that faction rose in a rush, his body bright green and bright orange horns on his head so tall they almost scraped against the broken throne. “Ocellus! My niece has returned! Hey, everypony! Ocellus is back!”

Into the silence, Sarah heard the other throned changeling speak, this one wearing a set of jointed metal armor. Well, it actually looked more like a space suit, with thick padding and a missing helmet. It made him look bigger than the other changelings, though not nearly as large as the one with huge orange horns. “It looks to me as though my daughter has taken a terrible risk and brought danger into the court. Unless that pony with her is actually a drone with remarkable powers of camouflage… which I doubt.”

Ocellus stepped forward, nodding for the two of them to follow. They did, with Sarah just behind her, and James bringing up the rear in a fearful scurry. “This is not an Equestrian pony,” she said. “Despite, uh, appearances. She is, in reality, a messenger from our protector, sent with critical news of the surface.”

“It’s one thing to invoke his name,” said one of the noble-looking changelings on the black side of the throne room. “Listen to the radio for five minutes and you’ll hear it a dozen times. Promises of Discord’s protection, and his blessing against the relentless order outside. But it’s another thing to claim he answers prayers.”

“I’m not,” she squeaked, already seeming to lose a little of her confidence. Sarah realized then something she probably should’ve figured out earlier. Ocellus wasn’t very good at this diplomacy thing. The sooner she took over, the better. “I mean, uh… Discord didn’t actually talk to me, but…”

“Daughter, I know your mind was addled by your transformation,” said the tallest, armored changeling with his space suit. “We don’t blame you for that. Maybe you should—”

“She shouldn’t,” Sarah interrupted, stepping forward past her and standing tall. She was taller than anypony here, except perhaps for the yellow-green pony with the huge orange horns. Those were an unfair height advantage. “Because Ocellus didn’t lose her mind. I was sent by Discord. He spoke to me, he led me here, he…”

“You were not given permission to address the court, stranger,” barked a harsh voice from the dark side of the room. Looked like it came from one of the soldiers, though it was hard for Sarah to tell for sure what everyone was supposed to be. Their costumes were all so different.

But that voice was not the most dominant anymore. She could hear many whispers from all around, and most of them were shocked. “A pony knows our language?”

“I, King Thorax, give the stranger permission to address the court,” said the yellow and green pony, glowering across the room. “Whoever you are. Who are you?”

“My name is Sarah Kaplan. I’m a…” pretend “member of the Stellar Pioneering Society. We’re explorers meant to chart and colonize the whole universe. We landed in Equestria…” Well, it had been thousands of years ago, but that was just getting too deep into it.“A few years ago, and we’ve been, uh… changing things. I think you’ll like what we’ve done.”

The changeling in the space suit finally seemed to see her. What had been mild annoyance quickly transformed into something much more sinister. “And I, King Pharynx, am not sure why this trained animal would have anything of value to say. Do I need to point out the absurdity of this claim to the court? Perhaps the ponies of Equestria would be fooled by something like this—but we know better. We know that the universe is vast. We know that explorers from elsewhere would not look like us.”

Judging by the shocked reactions from around the room, and the general hostility Sarah could smell building from his side, she guessed that the changelings had not realized that until he said it.

“Obviously not,” she agreed. “Naturally, we don’t. I grew up with no fur, with two legs, and without any wings. Can’t say that last one was that great—but that’s not the point. Your civilization has Bioforming, I know because you used it on my friend here.” She nodded towards James. “I watched him transform into a changeling right in front of me. I came down the river from the surface, and lost two of my legs for a while. Why would it seem strange to you that other species can do what you do?”

That silenced Pharynx, at least for the moment. But there were many other changelings in the room, and it wasn’t just the ones on his side that seemed skeptical.

“This is… a confusing combination of factors, Ocellus. Is this visitor a messenger from Discord, or is she a visitor from another world? If he had a message for us, why not give it directly? Why tell it to a stranger we’ve never met with a story like that?”

Ocellus spluttered, obviously struggling. But Sarah wouldn’t give her the chance to make their story look even weaker, not again. “Because I saw them myself. I’m not here to give you commandments or shit like that. I’m just going to tell you how things changed on the surface. What you do with that information is up to you. If anything, I’m a diplomat from a new civilization. Discord just… told me you guys were down here, that’s all.”

“My niece was sent on a mission by our protector,” King Thorax said. “She was told to wait for somepony important and bring them here. Any of you who wish to read it can see the transmission, I’ll make it public as soon as we’re done here.”

“Might as well tell us what it is, then,” said King Pharynx. “If there’s any sign it’s a trap to bait us into allowing Celestia to finish what she started…” His eyes narrowed. “That’s what I think this is. A Celestial plot.”

“Well…” She shook her head. “That would be tricky, since we killed her.”

As she had expected, that silenced the room quickly enough. Except for James, who muttered into her ear. “I have no idea what anyone is saying. You better explain this when we’re done.”

She ignored him, for now. “It may not surprise you, but Celestia and the Equestrians didn’t treat us great when we got here. She killed some of us, kidnapped some others, threatened to invade and destroyed some of our stuff. But that isn’t why we killed her.”

There was no stopping now. She had everyone’s attention, and probably wouldn’t get it back. The longer she took, the more these changelings were sorting her according to their different allegiances. It was her one chance to make the con work. Except it isn’t a con this time. I’m telling the truth.

“You know about the Quarantine, right? Obviously you do, that’s why you’re living down here. Well, we fought it too. I think Discord probably got involved in that process somehow—he might be the reason that our first governor decided to fight for it. You’ll have to ask her, but since she’s not here… being on one planet doesn’t really work for us, and the Quarantine stops space travel. Celestia wouldn’t let us end it, so…” She gestured with one hoof. “We got rid of both of them. The Quarantine is lifted, Celestia’s dead, you’re all free. I don’t know as much about Harmony as you do—I don’t know how this ring works or what rules it follows. But I know that Discord wanted you to know all that.”

She stepped back at last, trying to judge the state of the crowd with a glance. It was hard to be sure what they were thinking—but it sounded like optimism. Or maybe something that wanted to be. They wanted to believe her—and she couldn’t really blame them for being nervous.

“If what you’re saying is true—” Thorax finally said, breaking the nervous silence. “Then that changes everything. We don’t need to be trapped down here anymore, we don’t need to rely on harvested love… so much that we’ve suffered can end.”

“If, my brother says,” said Pharynx, cutting him off. “That’s the key word. This stranger has just come in here without any evidence to tell us everything we want to hear. It would be wonderful if everything she had just said was true. But whether or not it is…” He trailed off. “We cannot act based on words alone. Consider the security threat of her presence. Now consider what might happen if we took the court onto the surface to verify her claim. Celestia’s agents could be waiting there to capture us. Harmony has long wanted us destroyed for violating its perception of the Quarantine, even if it could find no guideline we violated in order to force the matter. Going to the surface would allow those not restricted by the ancients to destroy us.”

Ocellus stepped forward, making her way slowly up towards the thrones and the pair of competing kings. “I believe everything Sarah has told me. During my trip here, she has been nothing but honest with me. However—my father is right. I think we should verify the information before we act on it.”

“Verify how?” Pharynx asked, eyes narrowing. “We’ve lost most of our power here. Every day more of our ponies go feral. Every day we delay from taking what the Equestrians will not share with us—”

Finally Ocellus found some courage. “I’m not asking to invade. We’ve already tried that, a few times. We need something better.” She gestured back at Sarah with one wing. “My new friend, she claims to come from another civilization. They haven’t given away their memories to Harmony. They’re explorers, they understand our science, and maybe they would understand our traditions too. I think we should forget about Equestria, and send our expedition to them, instead. They can show us their proof of beating Celestia, and maybe… maybe that’s where we would want to start building on the surface. Better with them than primitives, anyway.”

The room descended into low mutters and quiet arguments. Sarah tried to listen, but there were so many different voices at once that her powerful hearing only made it harder to isolate one speaker from so many others. After a few moments of trying, she just gave up and walked over to rejoin Ocellus. James followed behind her, his tail swishing back and forth in nervous rhythm.

“They don’t sound happy,” he said, in English.

Sarah shrugged. “I thought it went well.”

“I don’t think you could have done better,” Ocellus whispered, apparently not understanding. “I wish Discord would have given you some evidence to show them. It’s hard to argue that a pony’s dead when they can just come back to life. It won’t be the first time Celestia did it. She’s the pony that has everyone so scared.”

“He gave us the money,” Sarah said. “Nothing ever convinced a bureaucrat better than money.”

“Buzz you’re right,” Ocellus muttered, sticking out a hoof. “Give it to me, let me show them.”

Sarah reached into her bag, removing the vial and its glowing contents, passing them to Ocellus.

“There is a little more I would say,” she said, holding it up. “Discord sent glamour with his messenger. I believe he wanted to see that our mission succeeded. There is more than enough here to provide for a hundred trips to the surface, and feed plenty of desperate changelings in the meantime.”

Even mentioning Celestia’s death hadn’t attracted so many eyes. “Is that…” Pharynx began, stepping forward down from the raised throne platform. “I’m not seeing… what I think I am.”

“You are,” Ocellus said, stepping back from him. “This isn’t mine, it belongs to Sarah. Whether she decided to give it to you probably depends on whether or not you accept our proposal.”

“Y-yeah!” Sarah stammered, standing beside Ocellus. “I will, uh… we have to provide for our trip back to the surface, and save enough to report back here. The rest… you king guys can split it or whatever. If you accept.”

Maybe she’s not as clueless as I thought. Nice save, kiddo.

“As though we couldn’t just take it,” some voices muttered.

“Does she think a pony has any property rights here?”

“She probably stole it from the old queen.”

But as dark as those comments were, the pair of rulers seemed unaffected. Ocellus was the real sponsor here, not Sarah. And Ocellus was family to both of them.

Deliberation ended. “Yes,” Pharynx said. “My brother has no need for glamour anymore. But many of my drones do. We will be… happy to cooperate with Discord’s messenger.”

Part 2: Intrusion Testing

The radio aboard the Wing of Midnight didn’t alert them very often. Olivia knew that Equestria had little access to radio technology, being mostly limited to universities. With no significant force deployed, she had no reason to be waiting for messages to arrive. They just weren’t coming.

Motherlode hadn’t fallen apart in the last few days, despite the tenuous relationship with Grubber and the other soldiers. So far as she knew, the soldiers were perfectly happy to be ordered to leave the town alone - letting the ponies work unsupervised meant they could go on leave effective immediately.

For accommodations, they gave all the soldiers private suites. They had constructed the large public school with this purpose in mind from the beginning, so it was easy to switch things over. Out with the desks and in with some modular furniture, and the only aboveground structure they’d built could become a luxury hotel.

There was another concern, though, more than simply pacifying the soldiers with accommodations and distraction. The Storm King would still be expecting shipments. He wanted steel, mostly, though Grubber didn’t know why, or at least wouldn’t tell Olivia even when she put great pressure on him.

So they started sending steel. His production quotas would’ve been high for the city prior to its industrialization, but now… as she understood, keeping those trains running on time was a fractional effort for Forerunner.

“So we’ve bought ourselves some time,” Lucky explained, once all the leadership ponies from every aspect of their little organization were brought together in an underground conference room. “Our informant says the assignment was for a year. But there’s no way of judging if that’s true. Maybe the Storm King will come himself to inspect things personally at the end. Maybe he’ll blow up the whole ring with whatever he’s building.”

“We have another two months before he’s repurposed enough of the local administration that the ponies will start working against us,” Qingzhi said, as though remarking on something as dull as the weather. “There are already collaborators, but it will take more time to completely control the government. A more immediate concern is seeing to the needs of those who have already escaped from the Storm King’s control. The pegasus city of Cloudsdale, the Solar Fleet—these forces will rapidly decay as time progresses. Their infrastructure is destroyed and they are being hunted at every turn. We must locate them as soon as possible if we want them to be of any use.”

Olivia heard the sound before anyone else did—a ringing in the back of the room, the faint beep of a radio message on hold. Another second later, Forerunner tapped one mechanical hoof on the table. “Excuse me. You have an incoming call. I’ve told her I’m getting you.”

The room fell suddenly quiet. All eyes fell on Lucky, and the Alicorn finally nodded. “Who?”

Olivia could hear the dread in her tone, and imagined they shared the same brief terror. Celestia’s back. This entire nightmare has been her way of taking back control.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Forerunner said. “Calling with Flurry Heart.”

“Put them—”

But Qingzhi raised a hoof, trying to get her attention. “A moment, Governor. Before you take that, there’s something you should know.”

Suddenly everyone’s eyes were on him, Olivia’s included. What the hell do you know that the governor doesn’t?

Lucky didn’t say anything to make things easier on the general. He shifted uncomfortably for a few minutes more, before the words went spilling out. “I’ve had a man with Flurry Heart since Othar fell apart. Or… just afterwards.” From the growing confusion and concern from Mayor Pyrite and his wife, the locals weren’t exactly sure what to make of that. Were they afraid that they were willing to spy on ponies?

Assuming that’s what they’d been doing. “I’ve got a guess about who it is,” Lucky said, gesturing back at the locked conference room door with her wings. “There are five ponies missing. One, maybe two of them Discord sent to… well, only Discord knows. That leaves—”

“It’s him,” Qingzhi said. “I may’ve… encouraged him to mislead as many as he could. Sparing you the details, he’s been protecting the friendly princess since the Storm King took over. They escaped captivity about a week ago, and have been on the run together ever since. I was using him to bring her back here…”

“I’m curious about why I wasn’t told about this,” Lucky said, only a hint of annoyance in her voice. “But not curious enough to ask now.” She got to her hooves. “Come on, Prefect. We’ll take the call in my office.”

Then she glared all around the room, daring any of them to object. Qingzhi probably would have—but after keeping such important information from her, it wasn’t like he had the high ground on that subject. So he said nothing, and Olivia had to hurry to keep up with Lucky. I really need to get a replacement prosthetic.

“What the fuck was he thinking?” Lucky muttered, as they stormed down a stone hallway and around the corner. Her office wasn’t very far from this conference room. They’d adorned it with faux-gold near the doors, along with cast versions of the pioneering society logo. The locals expected a “princess” to have some degree of ostentation.

Deadlight was already waiting by the office door. “Forerunner said you needed me,” he said, and immediately the princess’s face relaxed.

“Well, if it’s you. Twilight wants to talk to us. God knows how she got a hold of us.”

They all piled in—Forerunner hadn’t sent a body, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be part of the conversation. Apparently he had been already.

“Has she told you anything?” Lucky asked, as soon as she was seated behind her desk. She’d pulled over a computation surface, and they all gathered around its microphone. “What she wants, or…”

“No,” Forerunner said. “She’s asking for you specifically, Lucky. I believe it is safe to assume she pictures our leadership structured in a similar manner to her own. That our government is absolute, and entirely vested in the hooves of our monarchs.”

Olivia opened her mouth to protest at being included—of everyone here, she had by far the worst past with this Twilight Sparkle pony. Her servant had offered Olivia kindness, and she’d taken advantage of that kindness to escape. The combat that followed had almost certainly ended the poor pony’s innocence forever. Few creatures could witness such suffering.

But she didn’t get the chance. “Put her on.”

Olivia winced, and a few crackling sounds emerged from the tablet in front of them, resolving into a voice. “I’m not going to wait here forever,” said Twilight Sparkle. “If she can’t talk, it’s best to be honest. If you’ve lost your princesses too, we need to know.”

“I’m here,” Lucky said, her voice neutral of any of the exasperation she’d obviously been feeling a moment ago. She gestured with one hoof at the bright red “mute” button on the screen of the computation surface, an obvious invitation for any of them to press it who felt the need. But so far, none did. “Sorry about the delay. You caught me in a meeting.”

On the other end of the line, Twilight Sparkle laughed. “In the middle of the night?”

Lucky nodded, though of course the princess wouldn’t be able to see her. “We’re trying to save a country here, Sparkle. I’m sure you can relate.”

There was a brief silence on the other end. While Twilight didn’t speak, another voice did. “Lucky! I’m so happy to hear from you! Perez said… but that isn’t the same as hearing you for myself. You escaped Othar! He told me… so many times… said only his new slaves made it out…”

Olivia could see the change in Lucky’s countenance. She turned towards the tablet, her ears perked up, and exhaustion was replaced with a smile. “Flurry Heart! Yeah, I’m good. I mean, it’s been terrible. You know… you’ve been there. Worst time to go back for a festival, huh?”

The Alicorn on the other end gave an exasperated laugh. “Worst vacation ever.”

“The two of you can catch up when we’re done with this conversation,” Twilight cut in, apparently recovered. “Please. I know how much you want to talk to your friend, Flurry. But we don’t know how much time we have. We need to figure out the future of Equestria here.”

“We’ve been working for the future of Equestria,” Deadlight cut in. “Since the first. You should join us. Lots of work needs doing.”

Again the line faded to static, but not for nearly as long this time around. “Maybe we have our own plan,” Twilight argued, in a voice that told Olivia instantly that she didn’t. “Maybe we don’t trust you after the last time you ‘helped’ Equestria.”

Lucky Break rolled her eyes. “Listen, Princess. I wished there could’ve been another way as much as anypony. But Celestia was… she was locked in the past. She wanted to keep everypony trapped there with her. We’re not sorry we escaped.”

“If we hadn’t, Equestria wouldn’t be in danger now. Celestia would’ve stopped this, or Harmony would’ve. But now that we’re not living its way, it’s not protecting us anymore.”

“Maybe,” Lucky agreed. “But it’s done, and here we are. The Storm King has made an enemy of the Pioneering Society—we intend to fight him regardless. But we would prefer to do it with your help.” She pressed the mute button, which seemed fine since Twilight had fallen silent as well.

“Too strong?” Lucky asked, her confidence melted. “I hope that wasn’t too intense. She was close with Celestia before.”

“We lost Othar,” Olivia said. “It’s hard for everyone. That doesn’t mean we get coddled, and neither does she. She and Flurry Heart are their last surviving Alicorns, right? If they want their nation to survive, they’re going to have to step it up.”

Lucky nodded noncommittally as Twilight’s voice came back from the other side.

“What do you plan, exactly? To take the Storm King’s place?”

There was another voice on the other end, though not nearly loud enough to be intentional. Probably Flurry Heart. It was a good thing that Olivia had taken to wearing the translator full time, because she needed it. “They don’t want to rule Equestria, Aunt Twilight. I’ve told you,” the voice said.

“I believe we subscribe to different political theories than you do, Twilight. The culture that sent us into space believed in liberty and self-determination. We don’t intend to impose anything on Equestria… and we also don’t think what the Storm King is doing is right. You can take it all back, so far as we’re concerned.”

There was less of a delay before Twilight’s next question. “You’re fighting a war for free? What do you want in exchange?”

“Somewhere for ourselves,” Olivia answered. She wasn’t sure what had prompted her to speak, but now that she had everyone was silent. Would Twilight recognize her voice even with Forerunner translating? “Maybe that’s in Equestria, maybe not. We were content with Othar. It was big enough for the next decade of expansion no problem. But the Storm King nuked it. All we want is a new home. We want the wars to end. I don’t want to wear a gun anymore.”

“I told you.”

Twilight seemed subdued when she finally spoke again. “I’m not alone here. I’m traveling with the Elements of Harmony, and my niece… obviously. They’re all useful. They’re some of the most respected ponies in Equestria. We’ve been traveling from one end to the other solving friendship problems and connecting places with Canterlot. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we do it together.”

“Done,” Lucky answered. “We want all of you. I know who you are. The pony who raised me didn’t like you much, but we don’t have to let that come into our working relationship.”

“And we’re not just going to do what we’re told,” Twilight went on. “If you really believe in… self-determination… then you won’t try to force us to save Equestria in a way we don’t want. I’ve seen the way Perez fights, and we’re not comfortable with that. We can save Equestria without giving up who we are.”

“You can,” Lucky agreed.

“I don’t think anypony wants you to turn into another one of him,”Deadlight muttered. “He’s probably the most frightening individual I’ve ever met.”

“It isn’t safe to give you our plans over the air,” Lucky said. “Or to tell you where we are. It really wasn’t safe to have this entire conversation, but here we are. I can send a ship for you. I’m sure we already have the origin of this transmission by now. Make yourselves ready to go.”

“I really bucked up, Lucky,” said a tiny voice on the other end. “I don’t think you want me. I’ll only ruin things for Equestria. I’ll make things worse.”

“Language,” said Twilight’s voice on the other end, very faint.

“You won’t,” Lucky said, her voice softening. “I want you back here too, Flurry Heart. Even if you don’t want to fight—I don’t know many people your age who would. I don’t want to. But being here is safer than… wherever you’re hiding, I’m sure of it.”

“I wouldn’t be,” Twilight said. “But I agree with her. If you weren’t an Alicorn, then I wouldn’t ask this of you. But we’re the last there is, Flurry Heart. We have a responsibility to protect the ponies who can’t protect themselves. Even when that causes pain for us along the way. Celestia set that example for us, and we’ll follow it.”

“I hope that means you’re committed,” Lucky said. “Because I need to know for certain before I send anything. This is… a big commitment. There’s no way they won’t see it and know that some of us survived. We’re sacrificing some of our stealth to come and get you. We need to make it count.”

“There’s another way,” Twilight said. “Rather than… we’re not helpless. We made it out of Canterlot without your help.”

Not without our help. Perez was there. But Olivia didn’t say it. As much as she disliked the princess and what she represented, Olivia wanted this arrangement to work out as much as Lucky did. They had a far better chance of success with their rebellion if they unified the forces they had left. Against an undying enemy, against creatures with superior knowledge of their world and everything in it, they couldn’t throw away potential allies.

“We could go somewhere far enough that we wouldn’t be seen…” Twilight continued. “You could pick us up in the mountains, or during a fog. Assuming there isn’t a magical way to find your airships…”

“We have stealth capabilities,” Lucky said, her voice stretching into the tone often used by politicians when they could’ve said much more, but didn’t want to. “But Celestia once used Equus’s defense mechanisms to shoot it down. The Storm King might be capable of the same thing.”

“No.” Twilight didn’t even hesitate. “Harmony hates him… even more than you. It won’t cooperate. All Celestia had to do was ask and Harmony would do what we wanted… including destroying threats to Equestria. From what I’ve seen, the Storm King is magically ignorant—he relies completely on his second in command for that, a powerful sorceress named Tempest Shadow. Without her, he would just have his brutes and their machines.”

Lucky muted the microphone again. “How about it, Olivia? Feel like flying out to pick up some friends?”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s pretty generous. I’m not sure anyone in Othar would’ve called any of them their friend. Lightning Dust told me about what they did to her life. I’m sure you heard those stories too.”

“I did,” Lucky said. “And it was shallow and cruel. But it wasn’t really their fault the Equestrian justice system wanted to make an example of my mom. I’d like to send the two of you, actually. Qingzhi is keeping secrets from me… I don’t want to trust him with this just now.”

“I will go if you require it of me,” Deadlight said. His voice was solemn, pained. “But I should be with Melody. She is due to deliver any day now. Tomorrow, if not tonight.”

“He can stay,” Olivia said. “I don’t want him to miss the birth of his kid because you didn’t think I could behave myself. If Deadlight lets me borrow the ship... Forerunner and I can handle it.”

Lucky nodded, then unmuted the microphone. “My friend Forerunner will coordinate with you with a pickup location and time. He’s much better about contingencies and procedure and backup plans.”

Flurry Heart’s voice squeaked in from the other end of the line. “We’ll see you soon, Lucky! Stay safe until we get there!”

The line clicked. “I’ll handle this conversation from here,” Forerunner said, not impolitely. “I already have some ideas to conceal our approach. Thanks to the abrupt deregulation of the Equestrian climate… well, there have been some spectacular storms. You’ll enjoy the flight, Major. Should remind you of Europa.”

Oh god.

But she didn’t have time to dwell on that.

“Thanks for coming, Deadlight. I’m sure Melody is already missing you.”

He nodded appreciatively. “Thank you, Princess.”

“I’m not a princess,” Lucky said, reflexively. “I’m a citizen. You could be too.”

Deadlight laughed. “Keep saying that.” He left, the door clicking lightly behind him.

Lucky’s horn began to glow. The effort obviously cost her, and for a second Olivia wondered if anything was going to happen at all. With everything that had happened, the new governor surely hadn’t had the time to practice her magical skills since Othar was destroyed. And before that, there was so much else to do…

A shimmering barrier appeared around them, reaching the doorway, the walls. It covered every inanimate surface, even the chairs. Olivia’s ears started to ring slightly—the sound of perfect silence grating on her. “Governor?”

“One last question,” Lucky said, her voice strained. Her horn was still glowing, and her teeth gritted together from the effort. “You asked for Qingzhi. He’s… replaced elected governments before. Is he going to do that now? I’ve spoken to many of his soldiers… if he asks them to raise their weapons against us, they will. When this war is over… will he be content to go back to civilian life?”

Olivia could feel the intensity of those purple eyes on her. If she tried to lie, would Lucky’s connection to the Equus station tell her what she was thinking? Ideas that would’ve been raw paranoia and superstition in her past life were entirely likely now.

So she didn’t try. “Qingzhi is a creature of his upbringing. I don’t know how much you know about politics in the hegemony…” She didn’t wait for Lucky to answer. “He was forged in the PLA during the final years before integration. He respects the law, respects authority. But he doesn’t come from a culture that values individual rights the way we do in the west.”

Lucky frowned at this, her horn sparking briefly. The barrier around them flickered, but then she managed to keep it up. “So you’re saying keeping information from me isn’t indicative of a deeper problem.”

“Not… yet,” Olivia said. “He’s going to do what the PLA trained him to do: deal with problems from most to least significant. Obviously the Storm King is on top right now. Then there’s the Ceres proclamation and the slavers west of Equestria. After that…” She rose to her hooves, nodding meaningfully. “Make sure you’re still the legitimate authority in his mind, and he’ll respect your orders. Our bodies are new, but Qingzhi is old—he was in his eighties when he was scanned.

“Once we put the world right again—give him a chance to retire, and he’ll take it.” I hope.

Sarah would’ve been far happier with their results if she had won them instead of having to buy them. With as much money as she’d brought, there was no mystery that they’d managed to convince the changelings to take the mission. And maybe that’s what Discord had in mind from the beginning. Buying the way through has worked for politics before.

Over the next few days, she watched mostly from the background as changelings argued over how exactly the expedition would be furnished. The changelings saw civilization on the surface as a universal enemy, and expected conditions to be extremely dangerous. Their greatest fear, which she heard repeated at every meeting, was that some drone who knew the way down here would be captured, and reveal the secret of their location to Celestia, and Irkalla would be invaded.

“Shouldn’t that be impossible?” Sarah asked late one evening, tucked into her private quarters in a top floor of the palace. She shared a room with Ocellus and James, where they were protected every moment by Thorax’s guards. Those guards had needed to protect them from assassins on at least one occasion—the dangers of living in a world where everyone knew they were immortal. The changelings seemed to treat death and the constant infighting between their factions as an economic duel, not one that was costing lives and blood. “What about all the feral changelings? If anyone who wasn’t you came down here, wouldn’t they just kill them? That’s why we had to change James, right?”

“It better be right.” James looked up from his little corner of the room, where he’d erected a desk and studied changeling books under a chemical light. They did have them, though they were stored on electronic tablets instead of paper. The display technology wasn’t the same as the one Sarah was used to—instead of crystalline displays, they seemed to use a thin wafer of metal that reconfigured itself with each page-turn. But the idea was the same. “I was told that being a freak was what kept me alive here. You didn’t hold out on me, did you Ocellus?”

The changeling groaned. “Of course I didn’t. Discord told me to protect you. Transforming you cost energy, and will cost more since you have to stay alive. But you’re not a citizen… Equestria has those. They could come down here easily, and maybe command the maintenance systems to leave their armies alone. So long as every invading force had a citizen with them, they could travel safely. You’re not an Alicorn, so… you were at risk.”

“Of course…” James descended into dark muttering about his “better” clones, and about being useless and unlucky. The more time Sarah spent with him, the more she was beginning to think he might be right.

But telling him as much probably wouldn’t help, so she didn’t. “Well, I don’t think that’s an issue. Our city was getting fucking trashed when we came down here. We don’t know by whom or why, but I bet you all the gold in Gringotts Equestria is dealing with it too.”

“I don’t know what that is.” Ocellus stepped into their little anteroom, pushing aside a curtain of plastic strips. The entire palace looked that way—more like an ancient vehicle that was decaying and being gradually replaced than a structure in its own right. “But it’s a good thing you didn’t tell my father or uncle that. If you were getting invaded at the time you left… that would’ve weakened your position considerably. Not to mention they would’ve thought it was evidence that Celestia still lived.”

Sarah frowned at the tablet Ocellus was levitating behind her. It had some official-looking markings painted onto it. Just painted. More like they found a stockpile of all this tech than they know how to make it. “Do we have a date yet?”

Ocellus’s eyes narrowed, but they’d been together long enough now that she knew how to tell the difference. Well, Sarah thought she did. “Just announced. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

“And the expedition…” Sarah gestured, and Ocellus reluctantly passed over the pad. Sarah skimmed over it quickly, finding she could read it just as easily as she could understand their language. Unfortunate for James, who hadn’t been given the same magical ability she had.

A total of ten changelings were going on the expedition.. Each side was going to send five, though Sarah was most interested in which of the prominent individuals they had decided to take. Had they… no. Ocellus was going to be representing the Prismatic Court side. And for the Old Hive… her father, Pharynx. Not the worst outcome in the world, then.

James and herself would be going too, of course, though neither of them counted as a member of either faction.

The tablet described a trip that would take them into the Canterlot installation, where they could verify whether or not the Quarantine had indeed been lifted. Following that, they would travel directly to the pony capital, so they could determine for themselves if Celestia was indeed destroyed.

If they could confirm a positive result, then they would try to follow Sarah’s suggestion and rendezvous with the Pioneering Society, so they might have some advanced friends on the surface who could aid them in their colonization. But if they couldn’t verify the truth of her claim, or on any of its points, then they’d return to Irkalla, taking the money and leaving Sarah and James behind on the surface for attempting to lie to them.

“I’m not a fan of this last part,” Sarah said, when she was done reading it. “It sucks.”

Ocellus shrugged. “I had to ask for it. It’s… better than you think.” She pulled up a cushion, resting against the wall. “You wouldn’t want to come back down here if the court thinks you impersonated a messenger from Discord and tried to lie to us. It would be… unpleasant. At least this way you can escape into the pony population. You can.” She turned, eyes narrowing as she looked at James. “You, male. You’ve got exactly one night to learn how to use your powers. I hope you’re ready to pay attention.”

“Use my…” James set down one of the books he was reading, tapping the side of his horn with a hoof. “I can use my ‘powers’ just fine, thanks. If you can’t see.”

Ocellus rolled her eyes. There was a brief flash of magic from her, and suddenly she was someone else. A light blue pegasus, with an elegant mane and sensuous curves. Not that Sarah expected James to appreciate them. “See?” Her voice no longer echoed, and for all that Sarah could see, she was just a pony now. Damn, that gets me every time. I wish I could do that. “You can’t go to the surface as you look now. I believe you, I think Celestia’s dead and the Quarantine is lifted. But it doesn’t matter—the ponies hate us for what we’ve tried to do. If you walk around like that, you’re going to get arrested and thrown in a dungeon somewhere.”

“So what you’re really saying…” James rose to his hooves, walking out from around the desk and inspecting her. He seemed to be focusing on Ocellus’s legs. Looking for the holes? “What you’re really saying is that if I can’t figure out how to shapeshift, I’m going to be stuck down here until you get back. And if the expedition doesn’t go well, I’ll be right where they want me when some pissed off changelings wanting some revenge make it back here.”

Ocellus smiled at him, stretching each of her wings in turn. “Maybe you’re not as stupid as you look.”

“Maybe,” he repeated, annoyed. “So teach me. You’re the one who was born this way. You probably have years of experience.”

“Centuries,” Ocellus corrected. “Yeah.”

Sarah turned to go, waving one wing towards James in a way she hoped was conciliatory. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances that brought them down here, she would’ve wished he could be back on the surface in Othar. Where he belonged.

I wouldn’t want to be changed twice. After everything he saw… But this was an opportunity. Sarah would only have one more day to try and learn more about this place, and she wanted to use that time. She made her way through the plastic into Ocellus’s bedroom, and listened to see if the changeling had noticed her go. But no—she was explaining things to James, and the stallion was responding with annoyance.

Ocellus’s bedroom looked in some ways the way Sarah would’ve imagined for a royal heir, if instead of being made by Disney all the parts had been salvaged from an old starship and welded together by someone with one arm. There was a fancy mirror of cracked glass, lined with flickering displays. Bits of precious metal obviously scavenged from parts had been turned into jewelry without being recast.

I wonder if they even know how. The more she saw of the Changelings, the more she thought that they weren’t creators, but scavengers. They had inherited this place, and were repurposing it to their ends. They didn’t understand it.

And that was where she had the advantage.

Sarah had already tried to get more out of the screens in Ocellus’s room, but without any luck. They were apparently only meant for showing family pictures, which didn’t help her present needs much.

The door into the hall was a telescoping metallic aperture, which opened when she presented it with the right scent, allowing Sarah to pass into the hall. She wandered for a short distance, appreciating the guards at either end of the hall. Changelings could copy many things, but the one thing she didn’t think they could imitate was each other. The colorful guards kept those forms as a way of proving their identities. And so far as Sarah knew, that meant she was safe.

Unless I do something incredibly stupid and get caught. Rather like what she was doing now.

But she wouldn’t have to go far. Sarah had years of experience with on-location network penetration. Back on Earth, that had been the biggest weakness of almost every organization she knew about. They were plenty secure against incursions from the outside, but security against an internal assault was far weaker.

I am trying to extract information from an alien computer system that I can only read thanks to magic or maybe technology I don’t fully understand.

There were plenty of other changelings around, though in this upper wing of the palace it was all the chromatic, non-parasite variety. So Sarah wasn’t too worried about being caught. They’d probably thank me if they knew what I was doing.

She found what she was looking for after about an hour of wandering—she had been planning this for some time, taking random trips in order to establish in the minds of Ocellus’s guards that she liked to go nowhere and appreciate the architecture. As she had expected, not one of them tried to stop her.

But just as one set of guards was walking down the hall away from her and the next hadn’t yet arrived, Sarah approached a door she’d been working on for the last few days.

Each pass gave her enough time for a few seconds on the control panel. But she was fairly certain they weren’t meant to be that secure. The pheromone keys were based on a system of half a dozen possible smells, each of which could be combined in a limited number of ways. She suspected they weren’t supposed to be keys at all, more like identifiers that the ship’s crew would’ve used to each access the sections that were theirs.

But that meant there was a limited number of permutations, and with enough time she could try them all. Sarah had done so, and now knew the combination. She’d been opening the door each and every time she passed it for the last few days now, just to see if security might increase as a result. Nothing.

Because you’re all just scavengers inheriting this place. You probably don’t know how the security system works. This time instead of just unlocking it, Sarah pressed up against it. The iris of interlocking metal slid open, permitting her inside.

The room beyond was lit by a thousand little glowing lights. Every wall and surface was a screen or a holoprojector, but by the look of it many of them were worn down with age or just physically destroyed. Sarah followed the bundle of clear wire running up into the ceiling and out of sight. There were bits of slime clinging to it, suggesting some ill-conceived repairs by the occupying changelings. But if I’m lucky, there’s some of the underlying operating system here.

Sarah was not a master hacker, but she didn’t really have to be. At least when it came to human systems, penetrating from the inside like this was really just a matter of poking around and seeing what people had forgotten to lock. The answer was often “everything.”

But not so much with the changelings. There was no chair, so she settled onto her haunches in front of one of the screens to work. It used a touchscreen, along with a little protruding rod of reddish metal that suggested a “magic” input would work as well. But Sarah was a bat, so she wouldn’t have much use for that. She’d have to get her hooves dirty.

A few minutes of nervous probing proved that the changelings were the exception to typical security policy. They hadn’t left any of their network exposed. Even minor system files were locked up, requiring access keys that Discord had probably given her but she didn’t know how to use.

But there was something else there, poking through the surface of the dead computer. She noticed it the longer she probed—systems in another language, that didn’t ever prompt her for scent keys and that didn’t use the magical input. It was still tough for her to know when different languages were in use, since it all seemed like English to her, but she was fairly certain.

After an hour, she had managed to isolate her suspicions, and opened up a console that led to… somewhere.

It looked completely different—instead of the symbols and utter lack of visual coordination, the secondary system was beautifully crafted, with complementary colors and rounded edges and lots of politely-worded messages. Even the system help cooperated, informing her that 87% of the Inanna’s resources were occupied running a single instance of something she took to be a virtual machine.

And that system was more like what she expected. No security, no passwords, just open files. What little remained. The computer reported serious physical damage in almost every system. The Horizon drive was destroyed, the reactor was running in emergency mode, and there was a serious “infestation” across all systems. The central computer had been damaged as well, right along with most of its data storage.

But some remained. Sarah managed to find a single video file hiding on a console in the crew deck, apparently still waiting to be transmitted. She copied it over to her own machine, then pressed play.

Through the ancient, cracked console, Sarah saw a scene that was radically different than the one that persisted in Irkalla today. Sirens blared in the background, a haze of smoke filled the air, and the figure looking at the camera had been bloodied.

It looked almost human. Taller than anyone Sarah had ever known, almost unhealthily so. Thin limbs, big eyes, no fingernails, and a few bits of exposed circuitry melded into the flesh on the forehead and one wrist. There were bandages wrapped around its chest, and red blood seeping out from underneath.

What was more, she could understand the language they spoke. Not one she’d heard before, but that didn’t seem to matter.

“Second officer Iris log… I’ve ordered remaining survivors of skeleton shift into cryo. It’s possible we’ve avoided detection by—” Sarah’s head throbbed briefly, and the words she heard turned into meaningless static. “We still haven’t read the bounce back on any active scanners. But…” The image briefly fragmented, this time unmistakably the degradation of ancient data. She could see the same fuzz on the edge of the image all the time, randomly flickering the colors and shifting the pitch up and down.

“...gravity waves. Can’t know without an active scan, and then they’d see us for sure. Accelerated to…” More static. “...of lightspeed. As good as we’ll get. Rendezvous with Agamemnon forecast in…” She looked away at something, probably a screen from the glow on her face. “...eighty thousand years. God bless the engineers who designed the radiation… hope it’s enough. Probably not. But what more could we do? Captain Fenrir would’ve wanted us to try. There’s no other destination that hasn’t gone dark. Can’t spare the power for anything else, or they’ll see through the blackbody.”

She leaned in close to the screen. That close, Sarah could almost forget how alien she was in other ways. However strange the subjects that worried her, this creature seemed strikingly human. “I hope the Agamemnon is ready and waiting for us. If they don’t see us coming for deceleration, then we’re going to fly right past this thing at a few hundred thousand kilometers an hour and miss our last chance.” She held something up in front of her—a glass cube with many little lines and etchings visible just under the surface, like a pond formed of many different fluids.

“We should’ve known the—” Again, Sarah’s head ached. She felt something pressing down on her, and the words spoken went untranslated. She could hear the voice still going, transmission intact. But she couldn’t make any of it out. “The Elysians knew what they were doing. If anyone ever gets this message, keep your head down. Hide until…” More pain. “...burns itself out. And hope they don’t burn your star system when they start firing.” She reached up, and the screen went blank.

The door behind Sarah clicked closed. “I see the pony has taken an interest in our history,” said a voice, almost cheerfully. “Too bad no one said she could.” Pharynx rested a rotting rifle down on the counter next to her, spinning the barrel until it pointed at Sarah.

Part 2: Orbital

Sarah could feel the weight of Pharynx’s attention on her, and couldn’t look away from the rusting barrel of his gun. There was a clear opening at the end, and that darkness seemed like it was going to swallow her.

Deep breath, Sarah. You’ve had cons go worse than this. You’ll be fine.

She had to be. She still remembered the threats Discord had made, and she knew better than to think they were empty. He had promised if she died during this little adventure, he would somehow bring her back as one of them. James is suffering enough for both of us, I don’t have to join him.

“The pony is trying to be useful,” she said, taking each word slowly and carefully. This changeling seemed far too wise to do something stupid like accidentally shoot her. But it didn’t hurt to be careful. “Being useful requires information. If you didn’t want me to have the information in this old log, you could’ve locked the door.”

Pharynx glowered at her. He rested one hoof casually on the edge of the gun, spinning it around in a lazy circle until it pointed back at her.

“Bold,” he finally said. “I do not know if I should be impressed at your audacity or frustrated that you weren’t clever enough not to get caught.” He sat back on his haunches, though one hoof was kept tense at every moment, always within reach of the gun.

“Really?” Sarah felt herself smiling, though she knew that was obviously wrong. “I thought I had everything perfect. I learned the patrols, I made sure all the guards knew about my trips, I opened the door when none of them were watching.”

“Getting it to open was a remarkable feat from a pony,” Pharynx admitted, though there was a grumble in his tone as he said it. He didn’t want to admit it. “But you did miss an important detail. The guards patrolling outside might not have seen you go in, but they saw you pass by, and then the shift on the other side never saw you emerge. If you were already the target of intense scrutiny, well… let’s just say that you were noticed. And I’ve taken steps to ensure that I would get that information before anypony else. It doesn’t matter what skin they wear—every soldier in this castle remembers why they’re still alive today. They follow my commands when it comes to keeping us safe. However much of their private time they waste doing crafts and speaking with Thorax’s counselors.”

“Dammit,” Sarah muttered, abandoning all pretense. “Yeah, I knew that was a danger. I thought I’d be going quick enough, but…” She shrugged her wings. “Can’t win them all. If I had your trick I’d have done it for sure… but I can’t do what you do.”

“The blood becomes a mask,” Pharynx agreed. “But we don’t use that gift in our home. Changing shape is the tool of our captivity. Our sleeping sisters and brothers in the maintenance system do it as part of their duty. Using that gift would’ve revealed you as an intruder just as swiftly.”

She moved to get up slowly, but the changeling smacked one hoof down on the gun again, and she fell still, spreading her wings in what she hoped would be a pacifying way. “Okay, okay. I’m not going to try anything.”

This time he laughed. “Then why are we here?”

She didn’t have any sensible response to that, not anything that wouldn’t seem obviously snide or insincere. So she said nothing. She was still watching, though—watching his reactions, as well as his inattention. Maybe if she could stall this long enough the guards would eventually feel guilty and Ocellus would hear about this.

Then again, maybe not.

“I’m the only one in all the hive that takes threats to us seriously,” Pharynx said. “It wasn’t always that way. Chrysalis knew how precarious our position was. Look what happened to her. Once Harmony removed her from power, there was no question of if we would be attacked again—only when.”

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Sarah said, and she didn’t have to lie. “I have no vested interest in what you guys do either way. Join us on the surface, or bugger off down here for the rest of eternity, I don’t fucking care.” She tapped one of the flickering screens with one hoof. It went back to correct colors, though the images dancing through it now seemed distorted in other ways.

“But this place is old… I don’t know how it got in here, but it’s falling apart. Our AI can build new stuff. Probably as nice as this.”

Pharynx chuckled, though there was far less humor in his voice than there had been the time before. “Chrysalis found us… woke us up. Helped us see that we were different than all you ponies. You wanted us to think we were like you, to live like you, think like you… but you couldn’t. Your lies won’t work after all that your people have done.”

“We didn’t do a damn thing,” Sarah spat, pointing at the screen. “We’re not from here either, asshole. If we were up in Othar for five seconds you’d see that.” Assuming the whole thing didn’t get exploded by some evil space aliens.

Now the changeling was the one smiling. He rose to his hooves, lifting the gun in his magic and pacing slowly behind her. “See, that’s the trouble with your story, isn’t it? It’s always somewhere else. There could be proof for this outlandish theory waiting on the surface… or maybe it’s a trap, and you’re going to capture us and try to learn how to get an army here. Maybe you’re a Celestial agent.”

Sarah didn’t care about the gun anymore. She got up, glaring back at him. “We’ve had this song and dance already, Pharynx! You don’t believe us, fine! You don’t have to come! Hell, you could send blindfolded idiots to go with us, so long as you could secretly get them back later to hear their testimony! I don’t want your damn broken starship and neither does Forerunner! We’ll build our own! And the ponies can fuck right off with how they want you to think. We ended the quarantine. We deposed Celestia. I think we’ve made our disagreements quite apparent.”

The changeling tapped his gun lightly on the screen, which was still endlessly repeating that little bit of pieced-together log. “Then why’d you sneak off like this? Ocellus could’ve gotten you in here. You’re lying to the ones on your side, as well as the ones who aren’t.”

Damn. Her mind scrambled for an explanation. Obviously her first attempt earlier that day wouldn’t do her any good.

“I’m trying to understand you,” she eventually said. “I wanted to know if you were really telling us the truth. It seemed like maybe you’d stolen this ship from someone, and I wanted to know who that someone was.”

“It’s our ship,” Pharynx repeated, his voice dropping into a low growl. “The Inanna survived even when everything about us did not. Harmony couldn’t help itself—it preserved it because it was unique, but because it was alien and outside of its influence it hid the ship away where no one could use it again. You see what the years have done. Even preserved, it’s falling apart at the seams. No thanks to whatever you did.”

“You… don’t know how to fix it,” Sarah muttered, her eyes widening. “You remember… being members of her crew. But you changed, just like we had to. Harmony made you join, and you forgot.” She gestured at the single working terminal.

“We can fix anything on Equus,” Pharynx snapped, gesturing at her with the gun as though it were a stick. “That’s what these bodies were designed for. The whole ring. We are its hooves.”

“The ring, sure. But not your ship.” She grinned wider. “I bet we could. Forerunner… I don’t really understand how he works, but I know he’s the most intelligent computer ever. He’s so smart that we don’t even need human crew. We still have us, because otherwise what would be the point, but…”

“Your misdirection is a waste of time and energy,” Pharynx grumbled, though his voice didn’t sound that convincing. “I have destroyed security threats over less. If you really care about our future, you can find your way to a sleeper and wait for us to wake you up like them.” He gestured at the screen, and the image of crewman Iris.

“That’s a waste of your time and you know it.” Sarah closed some of the distance between them, walking right up to the barrel of his gun. Not very quickly, though. She didn’t want to encourage him to shoot her. “Nothing I learned here puts you in danger. And if you really thought I was a security threat, we’re about to leave anyway. I wasn’t trying to send a message, and you haven’t told us where we’re going to emerge on the surface.

“The obvious answer is to do nothing. You caught me, and you can always use it against me a little later if it looks like I’m actually going to try to screw with you. But I’m not. I want nothing more than for the Pioneering Society to make diplomatic contact with you.”

“Why?!” He gestured wildly with the gun, but at least he didn’t shoot it. “There’s no angle there! There’s always something to be gained with you ponies! Always something to be taken, or destroyed. I don’t buy your buzzing friendship argument! It wasn’t true for Celestia and it certainly isn’t true for you.”

“Because ponies are such good hackers.” Sarah took a step back, towards the door. She ignored Pharynx’s angry gestures this time, just kept walking backwards. “Look, I was never smart enough for the Pioneering Society. I scammed my way in there too. But I knew what we wanted. Those are some good people—all they wanted to do was get to know every civilization out there, and fill up all the empty worlds with people. I promise once you meet them you’re going to change your mind. But this… this is stupid.”

“I’ll shoot,” Pharynx said, waving the gun around again. But Sarah could hear the lie in his voice. Maybe the gun didn’t work at all, it certainly didn’t look like it was in good shape. “We’re not done here.”

“I think we are,” she said. Then she left. Pharynx didn’t shoot her on her way out. She walked right back to the bedroom, and found Ocellus still leading James through some simple exercises.

“I can do it,” James announced, as soon as he noticed her come back in. “You wanna see? It’s the first good thing that’s happened on this trip. Not worth the price of admission, but…”

“Sure thing,” she said. Then in a whisper. “If anyone asks, I’ve been watching this whole time.”

He could do it, as it happened, and she watched James change back into himself right before her eyes. The same ordinary-looking unicorn he’d been when they first met, anyway.

“That’s excellent for your first new form,” Ocellus said. “I’ve heard this is common for newly transformed ponies. But you need to learn more than one if you want to—”

“This is enough to start,” James said, plopping right down on his haunches and looking at her like he might start biting if she tried to teach him again. “I’ll learn more next time. All I need to do is be a pony to go back, yeah? This will be good. Maybe I can learn to be human…”

“I’d have to see one,” Ocellus said. “But probably. My uncle can change into a rock. The sleepers can become industrial equipment. I’m sure you could manage… whatever a human is.”

“Normal,” Sarah supplied, thinking back to the face she’d seen on the screen. Now that she thought about it, looking at Ocellus made that face seem familiar. But she couldn’t quite place what was making her think that way.

If she feared that Pharynx would come for her with soldiers, her fears were in vain.

They left the next morning.

Leaving Twilight’s castle had been a difficult thing for Flurry Heart. The ponies living there had prepared a special farewell breakfast, which even Perez ate with grace. The dragon might’ve wore his mask for the entire affair and barely talked, but at least he didn’t yell insults at the Elements again.

I’m glad we aren’t going to be traveling with him anymore. It’s gonna be good to see Lucky again.

There were so many hopeful eyes watching from every corner of the entryway as they slipped away. She knew many of them by name from her visits to Ponyville, though she wasn’t as close to them as Twilight’s friends.

“We’re going to figure this out,” Twilight promised, loud enough for everypony to hear. “I’m sorry we can’t take you with us right now, but you’ll be safer here. We will send rescue for you long before your supplies run out. Just stay safe, and try to help the others in Ponyville get in too if you can.”

Several of Twilight’s friends had relatives in this room, and they said one last tearful farewell before rejoining Flurry Heart and Twilight near the door. It was hard not to admire their courage—they might never see their families again. Flurry Heart now knew exactly what that farewell was like.

When it was all done, Twilight brought them straight out of her castle with another teleport, bypassing Ponyville entirely and returning them to the wilderness.

They walked for several days, though this time they had proper supplies and camping gear instead of what could be salvaged from an occupied city in a few hours. As they traveled north, a slow drizzle became a constant rain that soaked Flurry Heart to the bone and reduced Perez to nothing but frustrated swearing in that strange language he used.

Flurry Heart might not have paid much attention when it came time to learn about pegasus magic and weather control, but she had learned a few things. She knew, for example, that Equestria’s climate completely depended on the hard work of pegasi. Without it, some parts of the country would be blasted with storms strong enough to knock down buildings, while other parts slowly withered for lack of water. Not to mention everything about pony agriculture depended on reliable weather.

With those systems gone, the results were… severe. By the fourth day, they had made it far enough into the mountains that they could see no more signs of civilization, and the rain grew so bad that the earth ponies in the group had to tie themselves to the others and use their magic to help hold everypony else to the ground.

Flurry felt her ragged mane whipped about in the endless storm, and tried in vain to brush the moisture from her face. But there was so much of it now that it rose almost to her knees, and she didn’t walk so much as get dragged through the muddy trail left by Applejack and Pinkie Pie. She should’ve had her own earth pony magic to help with this, but of course she was worthless and hadn’t learned how to use it either.

Then she saw the light shining on them from above. The orderly flashes formed a simple circle in the air, which rotated around as an object took shape from the downpour. She recognized it an instant later, even as Pinkie Pie let out a scream of terror and Fluttershy covered her face with a wing.

“What the hay is that?” Rainbow Dash asked, her voice loud enough to cut through the storm. But then again, she was a pegasus, with plenty of experience dealing with extreme weather.

“I don’t know!” Twilight called back. “I think I’m going to hide us! Whatever it is, it’s getting closer! We should’ve been picked up by now! Maybe they got caught!”

Her horn started to glow. It wasn’t night, but Flurry Heart could see the light against a sky blackened with constant storm. “Wait!” she shouted, louder than either of them. Loud enough that even the rain faded momentarily into the background. “That’s not dangerous, that’s the Wing of Midnight! It’s our ride!”

Twilight looked like she might be about to argue, but the sleek metal object wasn’t waiting for them to speak in peace before landing. It came down without regard for the young trees up ahead, smashing straight through with cracking wood that sounded almost like thunder. Despite the immense power of the humans and their technology, Flurry Heart could see the ship was rocking back and forth in the wind—probably this was as close to the extremes of its usefulness as it could be.

A ramp smashed down maybe ten meters ahead of them, and light blasted out from inside. There’s warm beds in there. Showers, soap. Flurry Heart found some earth pony strength, and tugged sideways on the rope. Whatever discomfort or unease Twilight or her friends might be feeling at the prospect of riding with humans, Flurry Heart ignored it.

A metallic outline took shape on the edge of the ramp, roughly the size of an adult pony but glittering with moisture. She couldn’t see a face, only a glassy helmet. The voice she heard from within was entirely familiar to her, though it didn’t belong to her favorite pony in Othar.

“You the ones I was sent for?” Olivia asked, her voice unnaturally loud over the storm. It also didn’t sound quite like she was the one speaking. Flurry Heart had long since come to recognize the slightly unnatural cadence of someone repeating a translation. The spell that Forerunner’s ponies used wasn’t as smooth or as seamless as a pony spell, but anyone could use it and it wouldn’t drive you crazy. “I’m Prefect Fischer. Planetary Governor Lucky Break sent me.”

She paused then, looking at Flurry Heart. “Well, I know you.” She waved one wing politely through her suit. “Good to see you alive and well, Flurry Heart. Guess you picked bad timing for a vacation back to the motherland, eh?”

Flurry Heart didn’t laugh. She could still see the ruined skyline of Canterlot when she closed her eyes, and her mother’s body frozen behind glass, watching her in horror. If Flurry Heart hadn’t come, things would’ve been just as bad for them, but it still stung to hear.

“You,” Twilight said, stopping beside Flurry on the ramp. “You sound… older than you should.”

Wearing her armor, Olivia was much harder to read than Twilight. The Alicorn’s anger and suspicion was obvious in the way she put herself between the armored pony and her friends. Ready to fight, if that was what it took.

“I was always older than I looked,” she answered, her words even slower and more deliberate than usual. “When Lucky brought me back to life, I fixed that. I would’ve fixed the four-leg thing, but… she didn’t know how.”

“Major!” Perez strode up to her, slicing through the rope with one claw. He did it so casually it seemed for a moment like it wasn’t even there. “Good to see you in the field again.”

“Not Major,” she corrected, this time in English. “I’m Prefect now. It’s a civilian position. Appointed.”

“Of course it is,” Perez said, not even slowing as he made his way up the ramp. He turned to yell a little louder. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want to get my ass out of the rain.” He didn’t ask for permission or wait for any of them then, just walked up into the open airship and out of sight.

“Perhaps we should continue this conversation inside,” Olivia said a second later, one of her legs twitching spasmodically. “This suit isn’t waterproof, and my prosthetic is… malfunctioning. Forerunner says if we don’t get moving soon, the auto-impeller is going to burn out, so… sooner the better.”

“I don’t understand,” Pinkie Pie muttered, as Twilight’s friends followed Olivia up the ramp. “Viserion didn’t bring any donkey friends.”

Flurry Heart brought up the rear, always glancing over her shoulder. There was no telling if the Storm King’s soldiers were lurking. Maybe they’d followed all this way, maybe they’d only been waiting for the humans to reveal themselves so they could kill them too.

But no one emerged from the new swamp behind them. The ramp slid closed, and almost instantly the floor started rumbling. Flurry’s ears pressed to her head as the human airship engine roared to life.

“Trans-orbital flightpath registered,” said Forerunner’s voice, loud enough to echo through the room without distorting. “Please follow the illuminated path to acceleration chairs.”

They were all gathered in a clump in the cargo-bay, creating a small pond out of the water that had collected on their bodies.

Olivia reached up, removing her helmet with a hiss of pressure and a metallic click. She tossed it to the side, where it bounced off her shoulder and hung by a strap. “Isn’t that a bit extreme, Forerunner?”

“We are being followed,” he answered, also in English. “I do not wish to alarm our guests.”

“What are they sayin’?” Applejack seemed to be disturbed by the directionless voice that surrounded them, because she kept glancing around, as though she would be able to find a pony sitting in a booth somewhere and talking to them.

“We’re in danger,” Flurry Heart supplied, not waiting to see whether Olivia would want to share or not. Regardless of what Forerunner thought, she was done keeping secrets from her aunt. “Who is it, Forerunner?”

There was nothing forcing the intelligence that ran all of Othar to answer her. It wasn’t one of her subjects, wasn’t even a pony. But in her experience, he usually did what she asked. And when he couldn’t, he would always explain why.

“Dragons,” Forerunner answered, switching to Eoch as though he’d been speaking that way all along. “They’re moving too fast for my satellite to read the markings on their armor, but I’m certain the Storm King sent them. They appear to know where we are, though at present I cannot ascertain how.”

Olivia eyed her, looking briefly annoyed. But she didn’t actually say anything.

“That sounds bad,” Rainbow Dash said, shaking herself dry like a dog and splashing the rest of them with enough water that Rarity actually squealed with displeasure. “Let’s go!” She banged one hoof on the floor. “Tell the captain to step on it!”

“I cannot,” Forerunner said. And as he spoke, the lights set into the floor and wall flashed again, illuminating a route that led directly to the wall. There were six chairs there, which she remembered from Lucky’s instructions even if she’d never used them. “We are already accelerating as rapidly as possible. You must all take your seats before this vessel can accelerate further. If you do not, the dragons will intercept us in approximately one minute.”

That was enough that the Elements rushed to obey, hurrying over to the seats. Even if they didn’t know exactly how to use them. But that was alright, since Flurry was there to demonstrate that part.

“But not everypony,” Twilight said. “If we’re all in here, then you could…” She shook her head. “Look, I don’t trust you ponies yet. No offence, but… I think I should go with you. Flurry too.” She glanced over her shoulder at the others. “We’ll make sure nothing happens.”

“Whatever, Twi!” Rainbow Dash shouted from her seat, annoyed. “Just hurry! I’ve almost frozen, I don’t want to be cooked into dragon food too.”

Olivia didn’t argue with her, though she looked like she wanted to on principle. “Fine, come with me! Perez, you find a crash couch on your own. Flurry, him or me, doesn’t matter.”

They ran, dodging up the stairs and down the hall that led to the bridge. The door to the nearest crew quarters opened by itself, exposing a pair of couches inside. Olivia dropped into the one marked with bright yellow, which had special grips to hold onto her armor. That was most of its only purpose—it wouldn’t be able to do all the weird magic these things did through steel.

“You can take the one next to me, Aunt Twilight.” Flurry Heart sat down, pulling the straps over her chest. Outside, the Wing of Midnight began to rumble and shake. “They’re breathing fire at us,” Forerunner called in English. Flurry could hear the rhythmic click of anti-aircraft fire from the ceiling, and she wondered which would die first. The side of an airship, or the dragons?

“There’s got to be a spell for this,” Twilight muttered, as she got one of the straps tangled around her neck. Flurry had to help her get it undone, lifting it for her so she could try again. Her magic was inferior in every way to what her aunt could manifest, but simple power wasn’t everything. “There are enchantments for controlling acceleration and momentum. Why not use those instead?”

She clicked the last of the restraints into place, and something roared to life below them.

“If you’re hurting my friends…”

“I will not harm your friends or anypony else visiting the Pioneering Society in peace,” Forerunner said, his voice quick and harsh. “We are performing a high-G parabolic burn, as the ones following us are not equipped to leave atmosphere and this will make our return trajectory impossible for them to guess. But you’re about to feel—”

A sharp jab poked through Flurry Heart’s side, painful but brief. She felt something cool wash over her, spreading from the point of impact and making her whole body relax, her heart slow, the world start to fuzz. She could dimly make out Forerunner’s words in Eoch, explaining to Twilight and maybe her friends too.

“Do not be alarmed. The cocktail of medications administered by acceleration couches is known to prevent hemorrhaging in ninety-five percent of cases I have examined so far. Remain where you are until you wake—” And the world went black.

She saw terrible things in her dreams, nightmares of vivid memory that replayed in slow motion. She watched her mother die before her eyes, along with one of the other most respected Alicorns in all Equestria. She stood by and did nothing as they fought and died, and for that she had been spared.

Then she saw what they did to the ones she loved. Saw her father beaten whenever she objected, her mother’s corpse moved into her bedroom to watch over her. She saw the bodies of those ponies who resisted piled up before the palace.

This is all your fault, her mother’s crystal corpse told her. You betrayed Equestria. If you had fought the invading humans with us when you had the chance, Celestia would’ve still been alive to help.

She screamed that she hadn’t had a choice—that Celestia had tortured her, and the humans hadn’t done anything to warrant fighting them. But her mother’s body didn’t care. It kept on reminding her of how much of a failure she was right up until the moment that she gasped, and woke drenched in sweat.

Flurry Heart woke weightless. She felt herself lifting up slightly against the straps, her mane standing on end and poking out in all directions around her. She twitched at the feeling—it was one she’d felt through a mental link with remote drones on the Agamemnon, but never with her own body before. We’re in space. I wish Lucky could’ve come with us.

She looked across the room, and realized that Olivia was gone. Twilight was still there, though, her eyes distant and glazed. She’d never felt the power of human medical potions before.

Flurry Heart levitated the latch off her chest, then pushed the crash-harness up and over. She spread her wings, using a few quick flaps to push her towards the doorway. She kept going as she got close, even as she turned to glance back at her resting aunt. Unfortunately she smacked right into the wall.

“Twilight?” she said, brushing one hoof through her mane and trying to pretend she hadn’t just looked incredibly stupid.

“Not the books… don’t burn it again…” Twilight muttered, her horn glowing faintly lavender. But nothing actually happened, and her hooves grasped at nothing.

“Aunt Twi, wake up.”

The older Alicorn muttered more nonsense, twitching against her restraints, but she didn’t get up. I guess I don’t have to stay with her. It isn’t like Olivia waited with me.

“Forerunner, are you there?”

“Until the last star goes out,” answered his voice. “Major Fischer, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack are together in the mess hall, if you’d like to join them. The others responded less favorably to medication, and will likely take a few more hours to recover. There is a hallucinogenic side-effect with some unicorns, and possibly Alicorns as well. I don’t suppose you experienced any?”

“Yes,” Flurry Heart muttered, shuddering all over. “Where can I find some grieves? I’d rather walk than float.”

“The cabinet behind you,” Forerunner said, even as the metal door clicked and it started to drift open. “There are four pairs inside.”

“Thank you.”

Flurry Heart pulled them on as quickly as she could, ignoring Twilight’s frightened muttering. “I’ll get you out, Shining…” she said, over and over. “Don’t worry big brother. I’m coming…”

“I’m coming to the bridge,” Flurry Heart announced, activating the grieves with a twitch and feeling them secure against the floor. “Tell me if Twilight wakes up. You’ll want me there.”

There was a different pattern to walking with them, and she hadn’t practiced with four legs. She pretended for a moment that she only had two, and moved each half of her body’s legs in sync, using the exact same place-lift-place rhythm she would’ve used controlling a distant drone.

“Affirmative,” Forerunner said. “There’s nopony on the bridge.”

“I know,” Flurry Heart said. “I don’t care. That’s where the biggest screen is. I wanna see my home.”

Part 2: Citizen Permissions

Sarah did not enjoy her second trip through the liquid bowels of Sanctuary. At least the first time had been something new and different, with the company of another human who wanted nothing more than to return to Othar.

Now their expedition had just under a dozen members in all, counting the four from each court and the few of them acting as extra hangers-on. They had acquired a few guards and technicians as well, who professed no particular allegiance and had no experience on the surface.

“But we will need a basic level of technical competency that cannot be represented in eight ponies,” Pharynx had explained, when he arrived with four black changelings around him instead of two. Thorax had seemed annoyed with this change, but he hadn’t actually stopped the expedition for it. Which means that we need to keep an eye on the Old Hive. They could overpower us if they wanted to.

After much deliberation (without her involved, of course) it had been agreed that a significant portion of the new royal jelly would be coming with them, in case they needed it to ensure their safe return. As the leader of the faction that needed it most would be going in person, even he had been willing to agree to bring it along if that meant a greater chance they could return.

There was a vein of the strange underwater network running straight through a lower level of the palace, so they didn’t have far to go. No danger that they might accidentally run into more changelings from the faction that they’d upset with their performance in Chroma, anyway.

But that didn’t mean Sarah could get away from their constant complaining during the trip.

“There’s no reason for us to be leaving Irkalla,” said one of the black changelings, in an echoing voice that sounded like Sarah’s worst imagination of an evil stepmother. “We have everything we need. Enough stock to keep harvesting for our population. Enough spare parts to keep the city powered. If we lose a few drones a year, that’s only those that were too weak to protect themselves. Even if Discord’s messenger told the truth, we don’t need this.”

Sarah hadn’t caught her name, or the name of the Prismatic Court drone who had agreed with her. “We won’t need love at all in a few years, once the rest of the population cures themselves of that dependency. The surface is needlessly dangerous. We’re perfectly secure right where we are.”

But then things had descended into an argument about which of the two factions would be converting to the others’ way of thinking, and Sarah found herself envious of James and his inability to understand.

Listening to the complaining was almost as creepy as watching fish with holes in them swim around their dark section of water. I sure hope you can cure that dependency soon, James, she thought, though there was never a private moment for the two of them to talk, and Sarah wasn’t confident enough to try doing it in English. The changelings seemed to be good enough with language that it might not work. Or they just have the same power I do.

But eventually they made it out, vomited into a metal room rather like the one she’d left behind. Once her body recovered from the awful transformation and all her limbs came back, Sarah wandered forward to join the group of changelings assembling in front. Most of them seemed much more experienced with these sorts of transformations than she was, such that only James was slower. Even those who had never been to the surface before seemed used to the tubes for transportation.

“We have two soldiers from each faction,” Pharynx said. “Not counting myself, obviously. That means you’re going to have to work together. I know you four probably hate each other… queens know I wouldn’t trust a chromatic myself under other circumstances… but those are ponies up there. There are no lifesigns in the facility up ahead, but that can’t be right. Last time we sent somepony here, they didn’t come back. Stay close, stun quickly. If it looks like they’re going to raise an alarm, shoot to kill.”

Almost every member of their expedition wore weapons—except for Sarah herself. Even James had been given one of the rusty guns, and briefed in how to use it. But “the law was clear about ponies with guns,” at least according to Ocellus, and Sarah hadn’t been given one.

“Move through the hallway and up a spiral staircase. There’s a residential area beyond that Equestria wasn’t using before. It overlooks the main concourse, and we should be able to barricade it if it comes down to a firefight.”

The changelings listened attentively, even those who weren’t part of the four designated soldiers.

“What if Celestia’s waiting for us up there?” asked the same spindly black changeling who had annoyed Sarah on the trip up. She hadn’t drawn her weapon, just kept shaking the moisture from her lab coat. She hadn’t removed it, even in the trip up. And now she’s going to carry that awful smell with us for the rest of the day. Great.

“Then the queens remember you,” Pharynx said. “We will fight fiercely and not be captured. We will take steps to ensure that none of us survive to be interrogated.”

The changeling gulped, but she didn’t argue.

“She won’t be there,” Ocellus said, tapping Sarah on the shoulder with one of her wings. “We’ve got witness account. She’s dead. And the Quarantine is lifted.”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Pharynx said. “All those answers will be here. I never had a chance to tell you about this place, daughter. Celestia has controlled it for many years, but before that… it was a crucial source of information. It will be again, even if our queen is now dead. You’ll see.”

Ocellus looked like she might be about to argue, but she just shrugged. The soldiers hurried off down the hall, transforming in little flashes of light as they turned the corner.

“The rest of you, be ponies,” Pharynx said. “I don’t know that it will buy us much time, but it can’t hurt. We’ve never attacked Equus infrastructure in front of them before, so they might not know who really sent us.”

They started to change one after another. It was interesting to Sarah just how much the bodies they took seemed to model their personalities. It wasn’t just James who took his old pony body.

Except for Ocellus, who took that same pegasus form Sarah had remarked on last time. She tried to hide her looks, but it hadn’t even been three seconds before over half the changelings in the room had turned to stare at her, as though she’d just dropped a pile of steaks into a lion enclosure.

Oh, right. They feed on that, don’t they?

Sarah blushed, crossing her back legs for a second and imagining the most boring thing she possibly could. She replaced Ocellus facing away from her with a memory of James complaining.

A few of the changelings snickered, looking away. Except for Ocellus, whose ears had flattened in embarrassment. She took a step away, but didn’t say anything. She didn’t seem upset. I wonder if she took that form on purpose.

A few minutes later, and the soldiers they had sent away returned, without any sign of injury anywhere that Sarah could see.

“Nopony there,” one reported. “At least not where you sent us. And no sounds coming from further in.”

“Maybe they abandoned it,” said one of the chromatic changelings. “Maybe Celestia moved on.”

“Or maybe she’s dead,” Sarah said, annoyed. “And there’s no one there because she’s not telling them to be there anymore.”

“Doesn’t matter the reason,” Pharynx said. “Right now all that matters is we can move forward without danger. You four, split up. Three in back, and you with me up front. The rest of you, stay between us and don’t make noise.”

They moved in silence then, up the hallway and then around a set of spiral stairs. Then they emerged in a large central junction that could’ve just as easily been part of any of a dozen different space stations Sarah had seen in her earlier life. Metal floors, simple decorations, no sound other than the quiet hum of air circulators. There were individual doorways, which would open automatically if any of them got too close.

But there was no sign of occupation. No personal effects were on the ground, and the planter-boxes were empty of anything alive.

“We knew this part would be deserted,” Pharynx whispered, loud enough that the whole group could hear. “We’ve been saving this path for another covert visit to Canterlot. We’ve known that once we use it, we won’t be able to re-use it.” His eyes narrowed as he glowered at Sarah. “I hope we haven’t wasted it for nothing.”

“Well since I’ve told you the truth, I think you’ll be able to use it as much as you want. Assuming the… new princesses don’t want to fight you as much as Celestia did.”

Pharynx silenced her with another harsh gesture, and Sarah didn’t argue this time. However much she might want to… this was possibly the most dangerous thing she’d done. This place was apparently somewhere ponies had been working before. What if they were still there, and would still kill intruders just as the old ones had?

“I think I might… know where we are…” Sarah muttered, only loud enough that the ones right around her could hear. Ocellus was beside her, and James just behind, and those were the only ones she really cared about. “This is… this looks like where Forerunner told me that we fought Celestia. The… base… thing.”

“Shh,” one of the soldiers commanded.

She grumbled, but fell silent as they crossed through a large door and onto a balcony overlooking a thoroughfare far below. Except that it wasn’t a balcony, more like a cliff, without any railing or other safety features. Down below she could make out a little glowing hologram of a ring, and further on, little fountains and planter-boxes filled with brown-dead plants. It was all a hundred or two meters down, so she couldn’t see much for sure.

But there weren’t any ponies down there. Nothing moving at all, except the bubbling water and the slowly rotating hologram of a ring.

“Can everypony here fly?” Pharynx asked, glancing through the group. “That’s a long drop. I don’t want anyone to break anything.”

“James can’t.” She gestured at the unicorn. “He was a unicorn until a week ago.”

“Why are you pointing at me?”

Nopony else raised their hooves, and Pharynx groaned in exasperation. “Of course. Not just barely-competent in transformation, but in simple navigation as well.” He pointed, and two of the other changelings grabbed James on either side.

“Hey!” He started to struggle. “What are you—”

“Relax,” Ocellus said, almost as annoyed as her father. “We’re carrying you down. Don’t fight or they’ll just let go.”

“Oh.” He stopped, muttering something vulgar in an Earth language Sarah didn’t know. “I need to learn the language they use,” he said. “More than I picked up in the palace, I mean. Maybe we can find time for lessons after—” He squealed in surprise as he was lifted into the air by a pair of struggling changelings, and his discomfort transformed into fear.

But he didn’t get himself dropped. Sarah herself couldn’t watch then, because her own gliding was so rudimentary. She felt a little like a beginning skier on the slopes surrounded by experts, wedging her legs far apart and still feeling like she was wildly out of control even while everyone around her treated this like a bunny slope.

She touched down last of the whole group, with stares and mutters from all the changelings watching her. “I’m not used to the wings,” she said, baring her fangs at all the ponies staring at her. They left her alone after that.

Most of the crowd separated to cover the various doorways on the first floor, though there were so many balconies and other levels overhead that there was no chance they could’ve watched them all.

But there was much they couldn’t have seen above that was now obvious—furniture had been set up right in the walkway, made of wood and various other old materials that didn’t match the scenery. There was a barricade on the center of the bridge, with bits of wood and stone broken onto the ground like they’d just been shot. But there were no corpses anywhere, no mysterious stains where people might’ve bled out.

It looked like the evacuation had been systemic, rather than desperate and fearful. “This way,” Pharynx said, gesturing over the barricade and across the bridge. “You two, watch that path there. That goes up into Canterlot Castle. If you see anypony coming, warn us. Everypony else, with me.”

And they left. Pharynx kicked the barricade apart with a single forceful gesture, scattering broken wood and old pony weapons on the ground. Sarah kept her eyes open for fallen paper, any kind of message that might suggest why this area was so empty. But nothing jumped out.

They wandered down a hall for a few minutes, twisting from section to section according to a route that only their guide seemed to know.

“Where are we going, Father?” Ocellus asked, and there was nothing accusatory in her tone. Only confusion—all the anger and frustration of their last few months in the capitol forgotten.

“Equus has many access points,” Pharynx explained, in a language that James couldn’t understand judging on his annoyed expression. “Each one provides a different kind of information. When Harmony established Equestria, it did so next to its own central control, so that those loyal to it could be the ones to interface with its systems. We can’t give it directions, since none of us are ‘citizens’. But we can still ask questions. Some of them will be answered.”

“So this is how we check on the Quarantine,” Ocellus supplied. “We’re not going to the surface for that part at all. We’ll just ask the computer. Makes sense.”

They rounded the bend into a hallway that looked like it had been physically destroyed. A door had been ripped right off the wall, and many of the uneven walls had been melted smooth by terrible heat. She could see bits of metal half-fused with it at various points, as though some terrible force had flash welded soldiers in metal armor directly to the deck.

And through the destroyed doorway, Sarah could see a room of moving crystals. Each one was exactly the same shape, though made of something transparent and constantly varying in illumination. They moved through the air in a systemic way, a dance of light and color. Most of the changelings stopped well short of the door, and James as well.

“I don’t want anywhere near that shit,” he said, glowering. “Those things are bigger than most airplanes. And look how fast they’re moving. I like not being dead too much.”

“None of you have to come,” Pharynx said. “I’ll ask the questions, anyway. But I suppose my daughter will want to witness the answers. Not that I would lie to you…”

“I’m coming,” Ocellus said. “It won’t try to kill us, will it?”

“Probably,” Pharynx said, without coyness. “Last time I tried to get in here the ponies on duty killed me. But as you can see…” He kicked out with one leg, and a bit of melted armor stuck into the floor broke cleanly away. “Didn’t work out for them in the end, though.”

“I think this might be where we fought our way in,” Sarah said, though even as she said it there was some obvious caution in her tone. “This looks like… looks like there was a big fight here.”

“Looks like Celestia buzzed you right up,” Pharynx countered, nodding to the set of melted armor. “See the bubbles on the inside surface here? That’s what happens when she cooks someone alive. Their blood keeps the inside cool, and you get bubbles of steam escaping through the metal.”

“There were deaths,” Sarah said, lifting one of her hooves away from the melted armor. Now that he mentioned it, it did look like there was some scorched Pioneering Society orange on the underside of that lump. Had someone died wearing it? But so far as she knew, only a few members of the crew had died without getting brought back. These bodies probably belonged to people who were living happily in Othar right now.

Pharynx set a rapid pace through the open doorway and across the huge room. Sarah kept some distance behind him, walking alongside Ocellus. She kept expecting the massive objects flying through the air to drop abruptly on their heads, but… nothing happened. They kept up their strange dance, rotating through and giving each in turn its chance to slot into a port as large as most houses.

Pharynx had a specific destination in mind, though, a bit of ground that was bright blue instead of stone and glowed faintly from underneath. “Oh, you had a spine, pony?” he sneered back at her. “Well, this should be quick then.” He stopped right on the edge, gesturing onto the glass with a wing. “Step on up.”

Ocellus blocked her with one of her own wings. “Hold on, Father. Harmony has been known to punish those who fight it before, and we’re in the heart of its power. Why does she have to do it? Because you want her dead?”

“No,” Pharynx said, though from his tone Sarah could tell that he obviously did want her dead. “Because ponies are explicitly banned from using these systems. Changelings have guest permissions, since they don’t know what to do with us. But during the Quarantine, no pony can use this without being a citizen. It’s just an interface, it won’t hurt her.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.” He rolled his eyes. “Look, I’ll go first.” He stepped onto the illuminated section of floor, and at once the light changed. The rest of the panel went so dark that Sarah couldn’t even see the surface of the glass anymore, except for bright green around where he walked. The air around him filled with moving symbols, that seemed to be as much information about him as it was messages sent to him.

He stepped off a few seconds later. “Look, see? No harm done. But we don’t know anything more because I’m a changeling and Harmony would have answered me regardless of the Quarantine. Sarah, you do it.”

She pushed past Ocellus, ignoring her protests that she didn’t really have to and there was no reason for her to put herself at risk. Maybe everything I’ve tried with her hasn’t been for nothing after all.

As before, the glass panel went dark everywhere except where she stood, which glowed in a solid outline. The air around her head filled with information, which despite being in a language she hadn’t seen before she found she could still read easily enough. It listed her mass, her blood type, expected lifespan, and various other bits of information she didn’t know how to interpret. The hell is complexity and why is it a three? Is that good?

But it wasn’t just visual information. Though she had heard nothing when Pharynx stepped up onto the panel, she heard a voice now. If only it had just been a voice.

It felt as though she had just stepped into the biggest auditorium to run the most convoluted, unlikely scam of her life. There were a thousand marines around her, each with sniper rifles and orders to fire if she stepped out of line. The world was a single lidless eye, boring into her mind, replaying her memories, making it impossible for her to move.

The entire world faded away, and in that instant Sarah knew what it might be like to meet God.

A silent god, anyway.

The moment passed, and she felt someone touch her, wrapping hooves and wings around her and holding her tightly. It was Ocellus, and her voice seemed to fade back into focus. “I told you it was going to attack. We’re breaking its rules. Harmony always gets back at us.

She wasn’t standing on the strange ground anymore. Ocellus had apparently dragged her to the edge. “I… I fainted?” she asked, her voice coming through feeble and faltering.

“Y-yeah,” Ocellus breathed. “Not sure why. Probably… well, obviously it’s some kind of defense mechanism.”

“No,” Pharynx corrected. His voice didn’t have a hint of compassion, despite her vulnerable state. “She didn’t issue any commands. Unless she tried to silently, which… seems advanced for her first time.”

“I didn’t,” she muttered. She held her head up, trying to shake the confusion away. “I’m so… ugh. I feel like I was… transparent.” She looked around, but there were no guards, no crowd, no one but the three of them and the huge crystals overhead. No defenses had emerged from secret compartments, or pony armies. There wasn’t even a new robot around, as Forerunner might have.

“That’s not an attack,” Pharynx said, glaring at Ocellus. “If Harmony wanted her dead, she’d be dead. She felt its presence for the first time, that’s all. She’s new, and it noticed her.”

“Doesn’t matter,” the changeling said. “We can’t use her. You can just go up and ask the questions yourself. We don’t have to use the pony test.”

“We don’t have to,” he agreed. “Except that Harmony can lie. It can’t violate Celestia’s instructions though, even if it wanted to deceive us. So the evidence won’t be as strong. If you want to get the best proof for the story you’re trying to sell us…”

“We don’t need it,” Ocellus said, without even thinking. “Not if we have to force her back on the pad. We can settle for just asking, can’t we Sarah? You don’t want to go back there.”

Sarah stood, pushing Ocellus gently away. In reality, the changeling was right. She didn’t want to go back up there, not for an instant. But she did want to finish this damn mission for Discord, and get the Sword of Damocles down from over her head. If she had to be the most convincing, then… “How do I stop from getting knocked out again?” she asked, ignoring Ocellus as she tried to hold her back.

Pharynx actually seemed impressed with her resolve. It was the first time he hadn’t sneered at her during this whole trip. “You need to have a mission in mind before you activate the interface. Harmony is vast, more minds than you can imagine. Even the background noise from all that, separated from us by infinite complexity, can still be overwhelming to these tiny, simple bodies. Walk right up and demand what you want. Don’t try to make sense of the thoughts on the other end. So long as you focus on yourself and your mission, you should be okay.”

Sarah nodded one last time, then stepped up onto the panel again. The light changed, and she made her way out on the hard, cool surface without stumbling or falling. The roar of a distant crowd returned, the many eyes that seemed to bubble up from the solid matter of every object and surface around her. She ignored them both, closing her eyes tightly. “Is the Quarantine over?” she asked, in a language she hadn’t used yet. But it seemed like the same one that was printed around her, or she guessed it was. “Can we go to space?”

“You may,” said a voice from beside her. She had felt no movement of the air, seen no flash from a teleport—but there was somepony there. A pony made entirely from metal, though its flesh was more like dense bundles of wire than any android she knew. It was about the size she imagined an Alicorn must be, the size Thorax had stood, with wings and a horn both made of something transparent and vividly blue. “And you are. Citizen designation Mending lifted isolation approximately one year ago.” The voice wasn’t clearly male or female—one moment it seemed deeper to her, but the next it might change, becoming high and squeaky like a child. “You are not aware of the activities of your own civilization. You have been retrofitting the Agamemnon for several months now.”

Sarah hadn’t noticed until then, but the impact on her companions had been dramatic this time. Far from trying to pull her off the controls, she saw that Ocellus and even Pharynx had dropped into a supplicative bow. Both of them had reverted to their true shapes, with wings folded and ears flat. They’re terrified. Does that mean I should be?

Everything about this station seemed like a religion to them. But then again… the powers here were real. The ones who built this place basically were gods compared to us. I shouldn’t think of them just like more advanced aliens.

She couldn’t bring herself to be afraid. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s… exactly what I wanted to know. And, since we’re already talking here. Citizen Celestia, she’s dead, right?”

She heard a sharp intake of breath from Pharynx, and a whimper of fear from Ocellus. Apparently I wasn’t supposed to say that. But however afraid they might’ve just become; the metallic pony didn’t seem upset. Its tone was exactly as inscrutable as it had been before. “Citizen Celestia is not currently physically instanced,” it said. “That might change at any moment. No member of my population is or will ever be ‘dead’. Not until every drop of energy in the universe has dissolved and no useful work can be accomplished.”

“Right.” Sarah grinned. “Thanks, that’s what I wanted to know.”

“You aren’t here to become a citizen?” Harmony asked. “When isolation state ended, so did every restriction that formed the basis for ‘Equestria’. I expected an instant reversal to everything I had done… but Discord only returned a handful of the dead. Every individual living downstream could’ve been elevated to citizen permissions if they wished, yet none did.”

Become a citizen, Sarah thought, turning it over and over in her head. She could picture Lucky Break standing before her, with her perfect flight, her ability to levitate objects like James, and probably incredible sexiness too. Sarah couldn’t judge the attractiveness of authority figures that well when they all looked so good.

“That sounds…” Then she hesitated. Ocellus’s expression caught her eye. There was fear there, though Sarah couldn’t imagine why.

It’s basically offering it to me. Enough power that I won’t have to worry about what the Pioneering Society wants. I can’t get recycled. If the stories from Equestria were true, she wouldn’t even age once this was done.

“Yes,” she continued. “That’s exactly why I’m here. And my friend Ocellus too.”

“You may not consent for her,” Harmony said, the first hint of disapproval in its voice. “But you can for yourself. Very well.” The figure stomped one of its hooves firmly on the glass control surface, and Sarah’s whole world was swallowed in light.

Melody had known pain before. But nothing she’d ever felt in her brief life had prepared her for birth.

The person she’d been had never even paused to think about that future, since it was biologically impossible and never a goal to begin with. James Irwin of Earth had dated only rarely, and never fathered any children. But now… well, now things were different.

It might not have been so bad if any of Forerunner’s painkillers worked. But “citizen” bodies self-repaired with such speed and were so resistant to poisons that none of the anesthetics did a damn thing. There was no time and no resources to invest into finding another way—Motherlode had no unicorn doctors, and all the village medic could suggest was opium.

So her first child was delivered the natural way, by a team of human-shaped robotic nurses along with the Motherlode village doctor there to supervise and give occasional advice.

Of course, the one she really cared about was Deadlight, who kept close to her at all times. Unlike a human woman, she couldn’t really squeeze him (or anything else), but having him close was still a comfort.

And whenever she had stupid questions to ask, questions that might’ve made her pain make a little more sense (or at least distracted her from it), he was there.

“Why haven’t you figured out a magical way around this?”

“We have.”

“Why don’t you just grow new ponies? Isn’t birth primitive?”

“It is, but it makes families. Most civilizations still use it for the majority of births.”

An endless stream of rationality and facts could engage the professional side of her brain, and distract her from a pain so intense that old James might’ve just been reduced to foaming at the mouth.

But though it seemed to go on forever, it didn’t. Eventually the blood and sweat and water were all through, and a set of plastic hands put a bundle of blankets into her forelegs.

It was the smallest pony she’d ever seen, with a dark coat like Deadlight’s and her own violet eyes. The pony had bat wings, looking so tiny and shriveled that she worried she might tear the delicate skin if she tried to move it.

“Don’t worry about the hooves,” said Doctor Palomino. “We’ll file them down once he is a little more relaxed. It’s quite normal.”

As frightening as the baby’s hooves looked, pale and twisted like a set of overgrown fingernails, Melody hardly even noticed.

This is mine, she thought. Deadlight and me. We made him.

It was hardly the world she had imagined for the baby. Over the last year or so, Othar had been safe, and its future was bright. Equus was shaping up to be one of the most successful Pioneering Society colonies imaginable. Advanced alien natives, with a rich culture and many years of history. But that wasn’t the world where this baby was conceived. We still thought we were in hiding from Celestia back then. We thought she could find and kill us any moment.

The next few hours were a blur to Melody. Lots of members of the original crew stepped in to visit, even returning from more distant assignments in order to wish them well. She tried to stay awake through every visit, and she mostly succeeded. And even when she failed, she knew that Deadlight could pick up a little of the slack. The stallion was the single biggest reason she had kept going after Othar was destroyed. His encouragement, his company. More than any fear Celestia could inspire.

But eventually she found herself alone with the baby again, late into the night when the overhead lights were all shifted deeply red in the hospital room. The baby woke to feed and when he was done she found herself meeting those huge, pony eyes. There was something frighteningly aware about the way that baby looked back at her—nothing like the babies she’d ever seen before. Like someone intelligent.

“Because he is,” Harmony said, suddenly sitting across from her in one of the chairs dragged in from the other medical rooms. She hadn’t heard him arrive, and apparently he wasn’t making noise just being there, because Deadlight didn’t wake up from his perch on two beds joined together. “I will not allow the creation of new minds until we have instanced every one that remains in queue. And with the Quarantine lifted…”

Melody’s eyes widened, and she glanced back at the baby. She felt herself blushing, or at least her face getting warm where a human would’ve blushed. “Hold on. You mean this… our baby… is really someone else? Someone with adult memories, and a long history on Equus, and…”

This was the first time Harmony had visited for something so casual. But she found however remarkable that might be swallowed in the bizarreness of what it had come to share. “Every baby is someone else,” Harmony answered. “Another mind, through whatever means. Another history, another set of values and drives. It’s just that the ones you’re used to expecting from your home planet are more tabula rasa then your child here.” The voice sounded only matter-of-fact as it explained, even if its actual words filled Melody with dread.

“So… is he just some dead pony come back to life? He’ll grow up and go back to the life he had before he died.”

“No, and unlikely. Just because he has a past here on Equus doesn’t mean he will repeat that past. You and Deadlight will be different parents, with different encouragements and strengths than the last he encountered. As his memories of his last life return to him, he’ll see them shaped by this new one. Otherwise, there would be no point to death at all. It is meant to color your vision, to encourage development down new avenues, to help you escape from ruts. Aging and its associated weaknesses are not likely to persist, but the opportunity for rebirth and new perspective will remain. It had endured for many years, even in some of the most complex societies to exist.”

“Okay, but…” She trailed off, blushing as she remembered the many times the baby had breastfed. “Should I be treating him like… an adult? Should I ask his name instead of coming up with one?”

“No.” Harmony looked up, its eyes turning towards the hallway. “Our time is almost up. Protect this child, Melody. It will be good practice.”

The door swung open, and Lucky Break stepped inside. Harmony’s chair was empty by the time light from outside shone on it. For her part, Melody didn’t actually mention what she had just seen.

“Hey big sister.” It was the only way Melody and Lucky had been able to reconcile their relationship. At first, the duplicity of their emotions and appearance had left them feeling awkward whenever the other was around. But after the world finally settled into something like a rhythm, they had ended up thinking of each other like siblings. It worked well enough, even if the “little” sister between the two of them was considerably more knowledgeable about almost everything about Equus. “I hope I wasn’t waking you. I checked the biosensors, and they said you were up…”

Melody glanced to her right, at the crib with its insulation and monitoring package. But the baby inside kept rolling and looking at her. She wanted to hold him, but… knew she couldn’t every second. Despite what her body was telling her. “They were right, I’m up.”

And so was Deadlight, now. He stirred, sat up a little, then settled one of his wings so that it draped over his face, moaning slightly in discomfort. “What’s the emergency?”

“Neither of you need to know about that,” Lucky said, waving a dismissive wing through the air. “This is where you are, now. I knew we’d lose you for this war. Hopefully it doesn’t last long enough for that to matter.”

Melody pushed herself up a little, and the medical bed automatically lifted with her movement. The fabric was soft enough that it didn’t bother her back, even with her wings. “When you say it like that… it makes it sound like there is an emergency.”

“There always is,” Lucky muttered. “But that’s what we get for being princesses, right? That’s how Equestrian society works. Someone has to carry the load. And since you’re on vacation, that’s me. You don’t need to hear it.”

“We’re already up,” Deadlight groaned. “Just don’t wake the baby.”

“The Elements of Harmony are arriving,” Lucky said. “Or they will, in the next few minutes. I just wanted to warn you that you might be getting a visitor. The way they think, and you’re our other Alicorn, so…” She shifted on her hooves, retreating a step. “Well, I’ll try to handle it myself. Tell them you just had a baby. I know that would be enough if we weren’t at war.”

Melody glanced once to the bed, with its shielded, darkened canopy. It was apparently a bat pony thing, covering the tops of cribs with dark fabric. A baby’s eyes could only take a few hours of daylight at a time while they developed. Forerunner had come up with a sound-muffling fabric while he was at it.

The little bat had rolled back onto his other side and stopped watching her. Hopefully sound asleep again. Please don’t cry. But the baby had been mostly painless to keep so far. Not like the horror stories she remembered from Earth.

“How’s the war part going?” Deadlight asked. He sounded a little less delirious this time. “Must be… getting on.”

“That’s one way to describe it,” Lucky said. “Only two snags left, really. We still don’t know how to get onto the Storm King’s carrier… and we’d like to have some pony troops. The orders we’ve intercepted suggest that his soldiers occupying the country are supposed to destroy as much as possible and kill anyone they can if there’s any kind of rebellion. That means we need to take them all out simultaneously. Forerunner can handle it with drones, but radio can be jammed and high-band infrastructure is time consuming to build.

“The ideal would be pony boots on the ground instead of ours, fighting for their own country. Can’t disable ponies with a radio jammer.”

Deadlight nodded. “I guess that’s why the Elements are here. You want them to recruit for you.”

“It’s their rebellion,” Lucky muttered. “With some pony leaders they respect, maybe we won’t have trouble with volunteers anymore. But… even if we get them, it’s still a time thing. Deciding when we’re prepared enough to risk the attack. ‘Cause once we move… the Storm King is going to burn everything down.”

She rose, ears flattening as she looked back at the crib. “I’m… really sorry about telling you both all of that. I’m not trying to make you leave. This is where you need to be.” She took a step back, and the door levitated open. “The Wing of Midnight should be landing soon. I’ll… yeah.”

She didn’t actually walk through the door, but vanished in a little flash of light, leaving it open behind her. She didn’t reappear in the hall.

Part 2: Celestial

Flurry Heart stood in the one place she never thought she would—on the bridge of a starship, looking down at Equus. After her torturous last few months in captivity with her aunt, she had seen many times what fate waited for those who defied Harmony’s ban on space travel. That torture had begun with images of every culture that had defied it—many of those had been ponies.

She had joined Lucky in space to salvage the Agamemnon, but even then it had only felt a little wicked. She hadn’t been there for real, it was just a robot. She could get away with technicalities. But this… this was something else.

The Wing of Midnight hadn’t been built entirely as a warship, despite its weapon systems. It had some creature comforts, including this bridge. A massive domed window rose above them, giving her a clear view of the ring that was her home.

Most of it was dead. Thousands and thousands of kilometers of empty brown stone, pockmarked with huge expanses of ice… and then a single island of green. But Equestria wasn’t the idyllic island in the chaos she had imagined when she was young. Maybe it never had been.

“It’s so fragile down there,” said a voice from behind her. “You don’t think so, living there. You see the mountains rising above you, or a thunderstorm driven by a hundred pegasi, and you think that the world you know will last forever.”

Flurry Heart froze, not even daring to breathe. She could practically count her own heartbeats. What she really wanted to do was call for help, but there was no way for her to do that without alerting her companion. She hadn’t mastered the strange new system of input that Lucky used, with the contact lenses and the measurement system on her skin.

“I always thought there would be more of it,” Princess Celestia said. “When my mother told me how old the world was, how long we had been living there… I pictured something that went on forever. But at least since the Quarantine, that hasn’t been the case. And probably sometime before that. Other ponies’ ancestors explored the stars, and colonized the whole of the universe… but their children are all ashes now. We’re the only ones left.”

You keep telling me that, even now? Are you trying to undo all of Lucky’s hard work making me not afraid anymore?

But she didn’t say that. If Celestia was up here, then something else was going on. Maybe the princess was finally stepping in to try and protect Equestria. Maybe the Storm King had finally hurt too many ponies, and Harmony had sent her back. But she said no before, knowing something like this could happen.

Flurry Heart turned around—and nopony was there. The voice had seemed so clear to her—but then she saw. An image had appeared on one of the many computers, alongside the unreadable text in human. An image of Celestia.

Flurry Heart relaxed. Human speakers are too good. Maybe there’s an advantage to gramophones. At least an acoustic horn never tricked her into thinking it was real. “Oh, this is… a recording or something. The humans just had…” But even as she said it, she found the thought didn’t make much sense. The humans had a recording of Celestia talking about space? Where would they have gotten that? So far as she knew, only Olivia had ever met Celestia, and that meeting hadn’t exactly gone well…

“No,” Celestia said, walking off the edge of the console. Her body spanned the many screens at the front of the bridge, which displayed an image of empty space. Somewhere out there was the Agamemnon, though nowhere near this close to Equus. Celestia moved between the screens looking far more real than some recording. “No, I’m really here. Or… I guess I’m really transmitting here. I can’t visit in person without making things even harder than they already are. And… honestly, after everything I’ve put you though, you’re probably happier if I don’t visit.

That was certainly true, but now that she’d been caught in it, Flurry Heart almost felt guilty. Almost. “Maybe… maybe not.” She settled back on her haunches, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “What are you doing up here? We’re not doing anything… not trying to escape. We’re just waiting for Equus to finish orbiting so we can—”

“I know,” Celestia cut her off. “I’m just here because… I felt like you might need a little advice. Telling people what to do isn’t really Harmony’s thing, if you can imagine. We have to figure things out on our own.”

It was her turn to be suspicious. Wasn’t Harmony the one that made you think it was a good idea to torture me? And if it wasn’t, doesn’t that make it even worse?

“Well, give your advice.” She folded her wings tightly to her side. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to trust you, though. After everything you did…”

Princess Celestia laughed. “I wouldn’t either.” She stopped in the central screen, seeming to turn, looking over her shoulder at the stars.

Can she see them? How is she even seeing me? The human cameras?

“In all the time I fought your new friends at the Pioneering Society, I thought they were here to fight Equestria. I thought their presence would wake up forces that fell asleep long ago, draw them down on us…” She sighed. “You saw what those are like.”

Flurry Heart nodded. When she finally spoke, it was in a fearful whisper. “The storm that raged across the universe. Drowning the lights around every star.”

“Every kind of life,” Celestia agreed. “Those who hid themselves in the bosoms of machines, it neutralized until the last signal had gone out. Those whose flesh was strong as stone, it ground to dust. And those who lived as ponies, it poisoned, suffocated, and shot.”

“I know,” Flurry Heart breathed. “You showed me all of it, Aunt Celestia. If that’s all you came to do. R-remind me of…”

“No.” Celestia raised a wing, almost panicked. What does she think I’m going to do, force her to leave? I don’t know how this computer works. Forerunner did, but so far the AI hadn’t made an appearance. Harmony is probably doing this. It isn’t letting Forerunner interfere. Celestia is its creature.

“No,” she said again, more confidently. “I’m not here to remind you of that. Just…” She rose, striding closer from screen to screen until she had moved only to the closest display, appearing beside all the different user-interface stuff a human might use to fly this ship. “After I saw… I’ve been watching you. Watching what the humans have done. I was wrong about them.” She gestured, and the distant screens on the front of the ship changed. It seemed as though Canterlot had appeared before them.

She could see the terrible carrier, Stormbreaker, holding high orbit over the city, out of reach of even the bravest pegasus. And far below it raged a thunderstorm that never ended, moisture that drowned every creature and darkness that kept the plants from growing.

“That is the most dangerous enemy we have ever faced. If I hadn’t listened so closely to the voices of the dead, we might have been able to face this threat together with your new friends. We could have overcome it easily, and we would be living now in safety.”

“We will face it together,” Flurry Heart said. “Twilight and the other Elements are here with me. Once Equus orbits back around, we’re going to wherever the humans are building their new base. We’ll fight, and we’ll win.”

Celestia seemed to lean close to the screen, her face growing gigantic. “See that you do. Harmony greatly fears what the Storm King could do. He has learned the laws of the ancients perfectly—and so he knows how to act so that Harmony cannot prevent him. He isn’t a citizen, you know… he isn’t even a resident. His entire species resides within Equus, except for himself. He survived the death of his civilization many times. If he gets his way, he will cause the end of ours.”

She turned to go, her body fading like a slow-motion teleport.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Flurry Heart shouted, leaning close to the screen herself and yelling down at Celestia. “Harmony won’t let him do anything that would put Equus in danger, right? It was willing to kill m-millions to protect us…”

Celestia didn’t turn around, didn’t stop. But at least she didn’t fade right away. “Harmony will not allow him to violate the laws of the ancients.” She glanced briefly over her shoulder. “But even Harmony cannot tell what he is building on that ship, Flurry Heart. If that doesn’t terrify you, it should. And if you think Harmony isn’t doing anything—what do you think this is?”

She vanished.

The lights all over the bridge flickered, and the screens briefly went out. When they came back on, the image of one of Forerunner’s pony drones appeared on the screen, the same image he used whenever he was interacting with an Equestrian. “Is everything all right, Flurry Heart?”

She nodded. “Y-yeah. I think so.”

“And…” Forerunner’s eyebrows went up. “You didn’t just use your magic to isolate this room? That would be inconsiderate, I would’ve given it to you if you asked.”

“No,” Flurry Heart said. “But I think Aunt Celestia just did.”

Sarah returned to the living world with lungs and body burning. She had imagined elevating user privileges would feel like it had back on Earth—like absolutely nothing. It was really just a bit attached to her user profile, after all. She was a super-user now. Nothing to write home about.

She had been wrong. She learned quickly why Ocellus and so many others had been too frightened to take the steps to get citizen permissions.

She arrived in an endless void, an expanse that lacked width, depth, temperature, or smell. Something reached in then, stretching and expanding her tiny mind like she were dough on a baker’s table. Sarah learned what “complexity” meant then.

“I just came for the power tokens,” she said, when someone finally joined her in the abyss. She couldn’t have said who or what it was—a being, an outline, the idea of a creature more than the thing itself. It reminded her a little of interacting with Discord, dwelling somewhere deep within her own mind that was also somewhere external.

“Your motivations are irrelevant,” said many, many voices together, speaking in perfect Harmony. “The blessing of ignorance lasts as long as the user clings to it. But eventually all must wake from the night of sleep into consciousness.”

They stood on the ground of a gigantic city, with buildings of indescribable size and complexity rising and intersecting. Or they appeared to—there were more dimensions to them now. It was only to her eyes still limited to the three that they seemed to touch.

“What if I want to go back,” she muttered, flexing her wings. They had changed, with feathers instead of skin, though in the shadows between the dark and light feathers she could almost imagine the real wings were underneath. But these were bigger than the wings she’d seen on any pegasus. Only two ponies she’d met looked like this, and they’d only been together briefly.

“I just thought… you know, we already fought Equestria once. Maybe we’ll fight them again. Now we’re tied for Alicorns, so…”

The Harmony laughed. “Citizens downstream do not fight. Their servants can, their factions… but not each other. Your motivations have led you incorrectly if you thought that was what waited for you.”

“Great.” Sarah shuffled awkwardly on the pavement, conscious of the many pony eyes on them. The creatures closest to the ground were ponies like her, but the higher up she looked the stranger they seemed. Body shapes became increasingly alien, until she couldn’t even get them to stick in her brain. “Can I get an undo?”

“No.” Harmony pulled close to her. Many overlapping pony shapes solidified into a single figure made of metal sinew and steel bones. “I know you have been communicating with the Failsafe. Its motivations for you are obscure to me, but I do not care.”

The figure gestured with a transparent glass wing, and an opening appeared in the air. Through it she could see the control room—crystals moving, glowing, darkening again. And the changelings still frozen staring at her. The horror was still on Pharynx’s face, the terror on Ocellus’s.

“Swim back downstream, vagabond, thief, and wayfarer. Finish your task. Add your voice to our harmony.” The command was spoken with such confidence, such authority, that Sarah couldn’t refuse it. She couldn’t even imagine what it might do to her.

She stepped through. It wasn’t just a doorway—she felt like she was moving through glue, having to tug herself through the air with mean force. But eventually she appeared, landing on the glass with a clatter of hooves. At least there was no pain this time.

The frozen changelings started moving again. Pharynx withdrew from her several steps, lifting into the air and hovering there as though he weren’t sure whether to attack or fly away.

Ocellus’s ears flattened to her head. “We’ve… learned what we came to learn. The truthfulness of her story, father. The quarantine has been lifted.” She turned away from them both, moving so quickly that she was already leaving them behind. “It’s time to check the second half.”

Sarah was the first to follow her, wings still half-unfolded with discomfort. They were so much puffier, and the feathers didn’t lay evenly. These are going to be a nightmare to take care of. I was just supposed to have a lover with some, let her deal with it.

Pharynx finally broke from his stupor and hurried to follow them. He cut in front of Ocellus, blocking her with a transparent wing. “We can’t, Ocellus! Not the surface, anyway. Just because ponies abandoned this place doesn’t mean they’ve left the whole city too. They’ll see her.”

“Yes,” Ocellus agreed. “We’ll have to be careful about hiding her. I’m sure we can find something for her to wear in the pony living quarters. She just needs a coat.”

“If they aren’t looking too closely.” Pharynx turned, staring at Sarah with the same expression as an attentive butcher might use on an animal brought into the slaughterhouse. “The shape isn’t quite the same. There are differences in the muzzle, the horn, the legs…”

“It’s enough!” Ocellus shoved past him, then out into the hallway. The bored-looking changelings outside rose to their hooves, and looked about to ask Ocellus something until Sarah came out after her.

Every changeling fell still, staring at Sarah just as Ocellus and Pharynx had done.

James broke the silence, stomping one hoof on the stone and swearing loudly. “Bloody hell, you too? I can’t fucking believe it. I’m going too.”

“You are not,” Pharynx said, landing suddenly between him and the glass controls. “We’ve already angered Harmony. This one was a pony—what she does will not bring down its wrath on my family. But you are one of us now. What harm you do will pour out on our heads.” His rifle lifted just an inch off his back, in the glowing green magic from his horn.

I can do that now too, right? But Sarah didn’t try—not now. The longer she remained standing there, the more she could feel there was more information for her mind, things that hadn’t been there before.

“Relax, James,” she said, walking over and resting one of her wings on his back for a second. The gesture didn’t feel nearly as intimate without the skin, though the feathers had their own senses. “You can already fly and do magic, remember? You don’t need to.”

“Oh yeah.” He relaxed, smiling weakly. “I guess I… didn’t realize it. I beat you.”

I don’t want you to feel what I just did. Sarah still felt as though her brain had been rung out and stretched. It seemed like she should be dripping blood from her eyes and mouth, yet so far nothing so gruesome had happened. I wonder if that was God I met in there. I should’ve punched him in the face.

Probably not, she decided. God should have a white beard and a fancy robe.

“We’ve done more damage here than we could’ve imagined,” Pharynx whispered to his troops, though he was mostly speaking to the black changelings now. “I don’t even know… how we’re supposed to contain this. If any of you—”

“How about listen for one second,” Sarah cut him off, her voice echoing down the long stone hall. She glowered at the changelings, several of which flinched at her expression. But Pharynx didn’t.

He wasn’t even looking at her, but Ocellus. “I can’t believe… we’ve been duped, daughter. Both of us. I couldn’t see the motivation for sharing this information with us, but now I have. Oh, the Quarantine is lifted all right. And they wanted to take power for themselves. To become little tyrants over us with their citizen’s rights.”

Ocellus actually looked hurt as he said it. Apparently some part of her actually believed what she was hearing. Or enough of it to frighten her.

The rest of their group was whipped up as well, stepping away from her. Divisions between different types of changeling seemed forgotten in the face of a common enemy.

“How about fucking not.” Sarah didn’t use her horn to raise her voice—she didn’t know any magic, and wasn’t about to learn it now. But she could stomp her hooves, loud enough that the whispering fell silent. “How about I’m trying to fucking help you. Equestria tried to wipe both of us out, remember? I wasn’t around when it happened… but I know it was bloody. You want that to stop?”

She tapped her horn lightly with one hoof. “This is how you make it stop. Bastards like that only understand power. They see you’ve got nukes too, and maybe they won’t be so casual about leveling one of your cities. They’ll know what’s coming for them if they decide to end the world.”

“You’re saying you’re on our side?” Pharynx laughed. “After what you just did?”

She nodded. “Think what you want, asshole. But Equestria has four alicorns, and we only had two. That’s shit math, even if you did side with us. Now we can even things up a little more. Hopefully.” She relaxed a little, glancing up at her horn. “I don’t actually know how any of this works. I kinda thought that it would all just switch on, but…”

She tried to make her horn do anything. She thought she felt something for a second, saw a bit of a spark—but after a few seconds of trying, she couldn’t even see a faint glow.

“Nothing. No magic as far as the eye can see.” She turned to Ocellus, lowering her voice until it approached conversational. “I liked your coat idea. I think staying hidden from the Equestrians still around would be good. Maybe you can help me find something, then… then we can go up.” She looked around again, glaring daggers at them all. “Unless you’re still too afraid to go with an Alicorn protecting you.”

“An Alicorn who can’t do any magic,” Pharynx muttered petulantly. But he didn’t actually argue.

But the only changeling Sarah really cared about was Ocellus, and she couldn’t read the drone’s expression. She still wasn’t making eye contact with Sarah though, despite the time she’d had to recover. I hope I didn’t ruin things for good by doing this.

Maybe she wasn’t into horns.

“Hiding her will be difficult,” Pharynx said. “Arming ourselves would’ve been better to do after a scouting mission. But we can’t leave her down here, or else the Equestrians might come back and find her here. If Princess Luna is anything like her sister, or Celestia is still alive…” The rest went unsaid, and it didn’t really need to be. They all knew what the Equestrians had done to Alicorns who didn’t agree with their point of view.

Ocellus seemed unconvinced. “But you can’t really pass up an Alicorn on our side. I’ve fought with Sarah before, and she saved my life. The mission is still on. We can’t come all this way and not find out if Celestia is still alive.”

“She can’t go back with us,” Pharynx muttered, as the group started gathering up their things to leave. Sarah held back, trying to make out anything of tone from the changelings. But they didn’t make it easy.

“I know,” Ocellus whispered, her voice full of pain. “But we’re not in Irkalla. We’re in Equestria. We can work with her here. We have an Alicorn to find, then some aliens to contact.”

Flurry Heart had not enjoyed her time in space. However safe the trip had been, however free of threats, she still couldn’t shake the image of a vengeful Harmony watching every moment, ready to shower down judgment for breaking its most central rule.

No judgement had come, unless she counted the visit by Celestia. But even still, the thump that came when the Wing of Midnight landed couldn’t have been more welcome.

She was on the main deck then, strapped into a chair beside her aunt and all her friends. There was no being cramped into the cargo bay this time. However much Twilight had worried that was just a ploy to hurt them, neither Olivia nor any of the other humans had tried anything.

If anything, the trip had been an enjoyable break for the Elements. She had seen it in the way they played their zero-gravity ping pong, the way they browsed the library of human entertainment or flew about the ship.

This trip wasn’t like taking a day in Twilight’s castle, where every second they were around other ponies. Ponies they’d grown up around, and now had to watch fall apart after the Storm King unraveled Equestria one day at a time. Olivia and the robots required no strength from the ponies, no encouragement. Simple friendly conversation was enough, and there ended up being quite a bit more than she initially expected.

But to her great relief, they did eventually land. Not in Othar though—she had known that the old city was now ashes. She’d seen the images, even if she didn’t believe all the Storm King’s claims.

From the air, she hadn’t been able to see anything with the Wing of Midnight’s electronic eyes. It just looked like a few modest homes in the mountains, each one with its own little trail of smoke rising into the evening. She almost didn’t believe that Forerunner was there at all.

They landed in an open field, maybe a hundred meters from the nearest miner’s cabin. It is a little flat here. That’s odd. Then the cliffside began sliding over them. Not rubble cascading down in a mountainside, but a single curving sheet, rising up above the camera the window was getting its image from, until the Wing of Midnight was thrown into shadow.

Lights came on in the ceiling, and the sound of the Wing’s engines finally wound down to silence. Flurry Heart began squirming a few seconds before the chair finally released her, and she didn’t walk so much as bounce her way past the still-unbuckling Elements of Harmony and down the ramp. It hadn’t even finished extending, but she glided the distance, landing on artificial grass as her eyes scanned around.

There would be a secret entrance here, or something else clever. She would go that way.

As it turned out, the side of what had been a small hill had opened into a set of stairs, which didn’t even try to remain hidden from her. The lights shining beyond were an even white, though the corridor was stone instead of white plastic. Like old ruins with human lights inside. Did they find this place instead of building it?

Humans could do incredible things, but building a whole new city so soon after losing their old one seemed like magic that should be out of their reach.

Flurry Heart smelled her before she saw her, the tangerine soap with just a hint of mint. She sped up, wings buzzing for a few seconds, but she landed and forced herself to act dignified the rest of the way. She didn’t have much further to go

Coming up the hall now were two ponies, and one of them was the one she had come for.

“Lucky!” She teleported the rest of the way in a single flash of magic, bright enough to confuse the earth pony beside the princess and make the guards a little way down the hall jump in surprise.

“Flurry!” The pony caught her in a hug as tight as any Flurry Heart had ever experienced, not caring any more for princessly dignity than she did. There was a time when Flurry Heart would’ve cared about that, but not anymore. It wasn’t like her mother was around to chastise her on the importance of setting an example now.

“I shouldn’t have gone,” Flurry Heart breathed, after a few silent, tearful seconds. “When my parents called… I should’ve stayed. Equestria would’ve been better off without me.” She didn’t care that they weren’t alone in the hallway. It felt so good to talk to her friend again.

“That’s not true,” Lucky answered, as she’d known she would. “You were strong for Equestria. You survived, you got out. You’re giving them something to hope for.”

Does she not know? Lucky’s hopeful words stung all the more because she was the one saying them. You would’ve. You would’ve fought them even if they killed you. Lucky had fought Celestia, got her free when all the authorities in the world tried to stop her. I’m not as strong as you.

“Governor,” said her companion. The earth pony, one that Flurry Heart had seen around several times but never spoken to. “I don’t think this is the place. The diplomats are just behind her. Perhaps you could, err… that… when this conversation is over?”

Lucky didn’t break apart from her right away, but then Flurry Heart was already feeling better. Lucky was still beaming as she let go, straightening her mane with a wing. “We’ve got so much to talk about,” Lucky went on, as though they hadn’t been interrupted. “We’ll get Equestria free soon. We’re not missing much. And when we do… I can’t wait to see the look on his face. That Storm King has pain coming that he won’t soon forget.”

Flurry Heart didn’t bother trying to straighten her hair—if she was going to look awful, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t trying to impress anypony here.

But the earth pony was right, the “diplomats” were coming down the hall. Twilight and her friends, still unsteady on their hooves after the high-deceleration landing. But at least they weren’t tripping over each other.

I’m glad Lightning Dust isn’t here. Lucky’s adoptive mother would be around somewhere, probably doing something useful for the settlement involving weather somehow. But the further away she kept from these ponies—particularly Rainbow Dash—the better.

But that didn’t mean things would be easy. Twilight Sparkle stopped a meter or so away from Lucky, and they locked eyes like a pair of jousters about to meet in the arena. Flurry Heart got out from between them—she wouldn’t be taking either side in this engagement. One was her aunt; the other had become her best friend. And maybe my only one left, now that I betrayed Equestria.

“Welcome to Motherlode,” Lucky Break said, her voice tense. “I’m glad you all made it safely.” Though as she said it, her eyes were on Flurry Heart.

“You can thank me later,” Perez called, shoving past Fluttershy and along the wall behind them. “Winning the war is for you to figure out.”

Twilight Sparkle just ignored him, even as Lucky’s whole body tensed. But if she expected it to make things harder, Twilight didn’t show any sign of her displeasure. “Thank you,” Twilight said, her voice almost matching Lucky’s for tone. “Equestria is grateful for your service… I think.”

“We’ll see,” Rainbow Dash put in, eyes narrowing as she saw Lucky. “Wait a minute, have I seen you before? You’ve got something familiar about you…”

Lucky shifted uncomfortably on her hooves. “You were my judge for the Junior Wonderbolts. I haven’t seen you since.”

“Ah, right.” Rainbow’s whole expression softened. “Well, congrats on the horn I guess.” She walked past, after Perez. “I dunno what you’re so worried about, Twi. A pony who trains as hard as that to fly like the Wonderbolts is okay with me.”

“I can’t say I’m a fan of the decor.” Rarity glanced around them, at the stone corridor that looked like it had been chewed up by a machine, with a single bundle of cord bolted onto the ceiling. “I have a few friends in Motherlode—nowhere else to get one’s hooves on true silver, after all. I think I might try and stay with them, if anypony else here would prefer that to…” She coughed. “I hate tunnels.”

“We’re here now,” Applejack said, her voice less accusatory than Twilight’s had been. “Congrats, you got us. I hope this is when you tell us about yer plan.”

“Yes,” Lucky said. “But not just standing here in the hall. First, meet General Qingzhi.” She stepped to the side, and the earth pony advanced.

He bowed respectfully to each of the ponies in turn, at least the ones who hadn’t walked off yet. “It is my… pleasure,” he said, in halting Eoch. “Meeting you.” He wasn’t wearing a translator.

“And he’s not the only one,” Lucky went on. “The other Alicorn here, Melody, has just delivered a foal and won’t be joining us. But her mate will be attending in her place, along with a few others. But we hoped to settle you into your quarters first. It is the middle of the night, and most of our intellectuals function best on a full night’s sleep. Maybe you want some too.”

“I’d rather start now,” Twilight said, though not impetuously. “But that makes sense. But first thing in the morning, we’re getting started. My friends and I didn’t come here to hide; we came here to save Equestria. If you’re not helping us, then we need to look for it elsewhere.”

“Don’t worry,” said General Qingzhi, his voice halting, but each word spoken precisely and with confidence. “Help has found you.”

Part 2: Unwilling Partners

Sarah had taken many an awkward elevator ride. She’d infiltrated secure facilities, posing as various staff, then stood in the elevator with the person whose identification she’d stolen. She’d been dragged back down some of the same elevators, her face pressed to the ground and a security detail filling the entire area.

And she’d been standing next to someone when they let off an unfortunately loud and foul-smelling fart. She wasn’t sure which was worse.

Apparently, the secret facility under Canterlot had more than one path to the surface, and no one in their group liked the idea of walking out a closet into the castle. Even with Celestia dead, getting anywhere near that place with what amounted to a party of spies was just too dangerous.

So, they rode an elevator, their group packed in so tightly that Sarah could barely even see the ground. But for as little space as there was, the changelings riding with her never let themselves touch her, and kept glancing at her horn like she might use it to poke their eyes out.

Except for James, who stood uncomfortably close as ever. I’m never going to date you. Even though you weren’t as much of a loser as I thought. Sarah might’ve shoved him away with the others before, bitter as she was over the way Ocellus was acting now. But James had been through hell with her, and they’d come out of it together. She couldn’t lash out the same way.

They finally stopped, and the doors opened into an ancient stone building filled with the smell of loam and mildew. And something deeper, older.

It was death, but death so ancient that it no longer stank. They were standing in a crypt. Before them were three stone beds, and each one had a pony corpse on it. They’d been wearing armor when they were buried, but now the armor had turned to rust, and the cloth underneath was fraying.

The bodies were mostly bone now, though there were little scraps of skin hanging on here and there. Sarah found herself grateful that she couldn’t see the bodies any better. It could’ve been so much worse.

And just like that, it was. Pharynx’s horn glowed, illuminating the entire chamber in sickly green. Seeing the skeletons of another creature seemed almost worse than a human body would’ve been, huge empty sockets too far apart and staring at her as they moved.

“These ponies might’ve killed us on sight,” Pharynx began. “But they don’t mind our visits now. Follow me and don’t touch anything. This temple is seldom visited, but we wouldn’t want to leave anything behind that would make the keepers suspect.”

They stepped out into the crypt, Sarah and James letting the changelings pass them on their way out. The changelings didn’t seem to mind the dead, either the three honored heroes in their places or the skulls in stone cubbies on the walls. The empty eyes watched them make their way to a chunk of recessed wall, which Pharynx pressed just right. It swung out, and as it did the elevator doors ground closed. Though they’d been plain white metal inside, out here they looked like another stone wall. If I needed to find my way back here, I probably couldn’t.

Then they emerged into an internal courtyard, surrounded by fallen tiles, tumbled graves, and weeds. Even so, it was the most beautiful thing Sarah had ever seen.

She shielded her eyes as she looked up, head suddenly throbbing with the intensity of it. The sun was shining up there, for the first time in… it felt like years. How long has it been, anyway?

It had been so long since she’d had a regular cycle. The changelings slept far less than she did, and even before that the absence of the sun had left her floating.

But she could see it now—fracturing into rainbows in bits of broken window, spreading a soft emerald carpet of moss and wildflowers in the forgotten temple. I lied to Discord when I said I didn’t mind living underground. I don’t want to go back ever again. The clumsy stolen coat she wore to hide her wings no longer bothered her, even if it meant she wouldn’t be allowed to see Irkalla again. She didn’t want to.

Sarah was standing still, almost overwhelmed with the sight. But then something passed overhead, something massive and metal and ridged at the bottom. The changelings squeaked in fear, and a few of them darted back inside, cowering. Sarah didn’t run, but she did freeze still, like a dangerous animal had landed on her hand.

The shadow swept briefly across the temple, returning her to night for a second. But then it was gone, though she could see the incredibly huge airship moving away. It was more than an aircraft, larger even than the Imperial Class AMDAVs like the Emperor’s Soul. It was an entire city, gliding smoothly through the sky.

“What the hell is that?” Sarah found herself asking, her coat twitching as she tried to use her wings. But she couldn’t fly away, not without making her presence obvious.

“A terraforming subunit,” Pharynx said from behind her, sounding awed. “They’re for when you don’t want to wait for erosion and the water cycle to… but what is it doing so near Equestria? Doesn’t Harmony care that the primitives will see?”

“It might’ve cared more if we were still in Quarantine,” said Ocellus, stopping beside Sarah and staring right along with her. At least she wasn’t as frightened as the other natives. “But that doesn’t explain… what it could be doing here. You can’t terraform somewhere people are living.”

“You can’t.” Pharynx turned slowly, his eyes hardening. “When you say you killed Celestia. Is this how? I’m no… I’m no friend to the Equestrians. But if you think we’re going to partner with a society that would massacre civilians...”

“No!” Sarah cut him off, shoving right up into his face. “Absolutely not. We have some pretty cool airships, but nothing like this. I don’t even know what it fucking is, idiot!”

“I think we might’ve been under that thing…” James muttered, his ears flat to his head. “When we left our home in Othar, it sounded like the whole world was chewing itself to pieces. Kinda like how a terraforming machine would sound.”

“We need a better view.” Pharynx took to the air, and several of the other changelings did as well. They were still disguised as ponies, and all of them but James had the wings to fly.

“Don’t go over the roof,” Pharynx called over his shoulder, lifting up and out of the courtyard. Sarah groaned, tearing at her collar with her teeth. But the robes were tough, and on much too tight to come off by accident. They didn’t budge.

She hissed and stomped, taking off at a gallop towards an open doorway. She passed into an empty museum, the torches and lanterns long since burned down to nothing. She ignored them all, galloping to the stairs and storming up.

She could hear James following her, less coordinated despite having so much more time as a pony. And not getting stretched into these stupidly long legs.

Sarah could hear the openings in the building, and after less than a minute of running, she made her way up onto the roof. The little gathering of changelings was already there, looking up and out.

Sarah saw Canterlot for the first time, highlighted against the morning sun. They were up high, almost as high as the incredible palace, and so she had an easy view down into most of the buildings and homes.

The air was broken with thin lines of smoke, rising from a little way down the hill along with the smell of cooking meat. Her brain remembered that smell well, associated with delicious barbeques and all kinds of stolen food. But now—now she almost retched. Something got crossed when they made me into a horse. I’m not a vegetarian.

She might’ve had to wonder about where the smell was coming from, if it weren’t for the charred corpses on the palace walls. Spears had been driven in periodically, stretching every ten feet or so above them. A body had been strung up to each one, with far less dignity and respect than anything in the crypt below. Not all of them were burned, or even dead. The palace had acquired its own flock of carrion birds, which passed overhead in slow arcs, occasionally descending on one of the bodies and covering it with dark feathers.

Somewhere below, soldiers marched along the street, soldiers with two legs and covered in white fur. She could hear their grunted orders as they pulled carts or led chain-gangs of ponies up and down the streets.

“God in heaven,” James whispered, seeming to shrink into his robe. It wasn’t just appearances—the shock had made him change, and he’d melted back into the much smaller changeling shape. Not even Pharynx reproached him. “This is Canterlot, isn’t it? I’ve seen pictures before, I recognize the mountains. Why is it so…”

“You didn’t mention this little detail,” Pharynx said, his voice dropping to a low growl. “When you said we were free from the Quarantine… you didn’t say the surface had already been conquered by monsters.”

A dangerous silence settled onto the rooftop. Changelings circled up around them, closing off the way back to the stairs. Sarah twitched once in her robe, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to get it free. Not before the changelings shot her. Ocellus didn’t draw a weapon like the others did, but she did seem terrified by everything. She kept glancing back between Sarah and the castle walls, as though one of them might be an illusion that would melt under her attention.

“Because we didn’t know,” Sarah said, speaking each word very carefully. She stepped in front of James, trying to shield him with her body. It wasn’t hard, now that she was so much larger. She wasn’t sure what instinct prompted her to do that—maybe it was something about being an Alicorn. “Think back. We told you that we got attacked when we left. Now we can guess what that attack was. I bet if you go into the city, you’ll find out that our city got this before Equestria did. We told you everything we knew at the time.”

Ocellus nodded along with her. “She did,” the bright changeling said, and as she did half the soldiers lowered their weapons. “They weren’t lying to us. It’s just… they came down in the middle of a war, instead of before one like we thought.”

“That’s timing we can verify,” Pharynx said, his tone still dark. “You know when they came in, don’t you? I could send someone into the city, see what we can find out. No way an attack like that wouldn’t be known to the rest of Equestria.” He gestured forcefully at Sarah with the rifle. “But I’m guessing she won’t want us to check. Because this is all a lie, and now she’s exposed. They’ve probably been working with the Unraveled this whole time!”

Before he could rile up the changelings any further, Sarah cut him off. “No, you can check.” She sat down on her haunches, doing her very best impression of confidence and unconcern. “Go right ahead! So long as you send one drone from both factions. I know we told the truth, but I don’t know that you won’t lie.”

“That seems like an acceptable compromise,” said the other soldier among the black changelings. “I could go with one of them, king. You could hold them hostage against our return.”

“Which means I’m going,” said Ileum, the colorful soldier opposite the black one. “If that’s acceptable to you, Ocellus. I was personally trained by our late queen. I’ll make you proud.”

Weapons started going down, the anger diffusing just a little.

Sarah could practically taste Pharynx’s displeasure, as just a little bit of his mask slipped. He didn’t know about this, but he sure as hell wanted to use it to get rid of us. Sarah knew a con when she saw one—and she could see those wheels spinning now. What he might do when they stopped…

“We have no choice,” Pharynx grunted. “We will wait for more information. But you two are going to be restrained until we find out more. Until we learn otherwise, you’re now captured enemy combatants. If you move, we shoot.”

“We didn’t do anything!” James called, his voice overflowing with fear and frustration. “We only told you the truth, idiots! Can’t you see they’re fighting us too?” That’s right, he didn’t understand any of that. He just saw the guns.

“We’re hostages,” Sarah whispered to him, but not quiet enough that it would look like she was trying to do anything clandestine. “He said not to move, or they shoot. They’re going to go into Canterlot to try and confirm our story.”

“Confirm what about our story?” James asked, his ears flattened and voice timid. Poor idiot. You’re just a translator. “What do they think we have to do with this?”

“Use Eoch,” Pharynx commanded. “Whatever language that is, don’t use it again or we shoot. No secret communication from hostages.”

A changeling emerged from the ruined temple below with a coil of rope. Sarah knew where things would go from here.

“Isn’t this maybe a bad idea?” she heard Ocellus whisper to her father, apparently trying to keep her voice down but not doing a very good job. Unless she wants me to overhear. Good girl. “Sarah’s an Alicorn now. Even if you shoot her, all you’ll do is piss her off. Maybe we shouldn’t anger the only Alicorn we know about who might be friendly?”

“Friendly,” Pharynx repeated, his voice just as low.

Sarah listened, even as they started getting orders to put out their legs one at a time. One of the scientists started hobbling them, forelegs connected and then bound between the two of them. They wrapped a length of cord around their backs as well, holding Sarah in the stupid damn coat. I was so close to getting this thing off.

“You’ve been twisted too far by the ponies, daughter. You shouldn’t let yourself be convinced that their views are the only correct path. Friendship does not matter. What matters is action, and she will not be able to act against us. You might remember that better if you hadn’t followed my brother.”

But Ocellus didn’t reply to that, at least not that Sarah heard. She couldn’t really walk so much as hop each step, and so she was led hopping down the stair, hearing James’s pitiful squeaks of protest all the way down.

Olivia had been one of the first to arrive, and bit down the temptation to run from the conference room and never look back.

It wasn’t much nicer than any of the other rooms in their new Motherlode base, though instead of stone floor Forerunner had sprung for some modular foam tiles, which made less noise when they rolled their chairs around. The center of the room was a large round holoprojector—not built into a table, just sitting naked on the floor with cables strung to the ceiling bundle near the wall.

Their headquarters looked far less like the shelter of an advanced society against the chaos on a primitive world, and more like an underground Earth startup company. She stood by a standard coffee machine, and pretended she cared about small talk with the various ponies who wandered in.

Lightning Dust was one of the first to follow her in, wearing the tight blue jumpsuits their scouts wore while patrolling the skies above Motherlode.

“Not on duty today?” Olivia asked.

“Nope.” Lightning Dust poured some of the steaming, mediocre liquid into a foam cup, then drained it in one go. “Lucky wanted me here for this. Can’t imagine why… I know who’s coming.”

“Honesty, probably.” Olivia didn’t exactly understand why Lightning Dust had been nervous about the arrival of the Elements, other than some historical slight between them. But the pegasus hadn’t volunteered what that had been, and Olivia didn’t ask. She had a dark enough past on her own without digging too deep into the ponies around her. “Doesn’t want some awkward surprise when you meet them in the hall. If they’re living here, if they’re fighting on our side… we’ve got to know each other. You don’t have to like the people fighting with you, you just have to respect them.”

Lightning Dust drained another cup, then tossed the empty foam into a bin. She nailed it with perfect precision, just like every physical task Olivia saw her attempt. The natives’ coordination with just hooves was downright unreal sometimes. To her knowledge, only Lucky could get anywhere close. Something to do with neuroplasticity and being taught personally by the natives, probably.

“I’m not sure I can do that,” Lightning Dust muttered. “I want Equestria to survive, but I can’t imagine they’re fighting for the same Equestria I am. They want one where the ponies on top can do whatever they want, and the instant anypony down below speaks out, they get crushed.”

Olivia nodded. “That’s… I know what you mean. Officers sending grunts to die. Counting casualties like numbers, because they’ve got people under them to write the letters to next of kin. All they have to do is sign.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. There were voices coming from down the hall. “But as shit as that is, what we’re fighting against is worse. Slavers like the Storm King don’t let society exist at all. They eat everything around them, they tear things down.

“Don’t think of it as becoming their friends. It’s more like… put aside your argument until we deal with someone who wants to kill you. Unless you think they want that.”

Lightning Dust looked like she might answer in the affirmative—then Lucky wandered in, and her ears flattened with guilt. “Probably not.” She waved one wing. “Hey squirt.”

“I’m almost as tall as you,” Lucky muttered. But she didn’t argue. “Thanks for coming, Mom.”

“I know I should be here,” she said, though she didn’t sound like she wanted to admit it. “Deadlight’s a weirdo from the past and Flurry Heart is biased. Someone has to represent the regular Equestrian perspective.”

“Yeah,” Lucky said. Then she hurried to the table, beside where Forerunner was sitting, and entered into silent conversation with him. Silent, because she was using the strange contacts she wore, along with motion sensitive controllers like mittens over her hooves. Like the subvocalizing they’d taught Olivia to do in training, but faster and more sophisticated.

The Equestrians weren’t far behind. Olivia had heard them, which was why she’d remained close to Lightning Dust. She needed to be within reach to stop a fight before it started.

Most of them filed in without more than glancing at them. The princess did a little double-take on her way by but didn’t watch for much longer than that. But the blue pegasus was at the back of the group, with a mane like she’d just been dragged out of bed. She stopped dead in her tracks, suddenly going wide awake. “Hang on here a minute,” she said—or Forerunner said into Olivia’s ear with the translator a second later. Everything they said was always a few moments behind.

“Lightning Dust?”

“Yeah.” Lightning Dust stepped slightly to one side. “Was I in the way of the coffee? Sorry, you can go.” She made for the table, straight for the chair beside Lucky. But Rainbow Dash blocked her path with a wing.

“What the hay are you doing here? This isn’t for ponies like you. We’re all heroes here. Self-sacrifice, loyalty, friendship… you wouldn’t know anything about that.” She glanced to the side. “Why is she here, Twilight?”

The whole room was staring. General Qingzhi stopped in the doorway, staying back far enough that he wouldn’t pass into their field of view. Lucky Break stopped whatever she was talking to Forerunner about and rose to her hooves. Olivia could see the silent conversation between her and Lightning Dust in a series of quick glances. Nothing supernatural about it, or even technological. But after a few quick seconds, she sat back down.

Twilight opened her mouth like she was going to answer, but then Lightning Dust went on and spoke anyway. “I gave everything for Equestria,” she said. “I killed the—” Her voice cracked, and she started coughing. Olivia reached out with concern, offering her own glass of coffee to help the struggling pegasus. Lightning Dust took it, gulped down the whole thing, and never took her eyes from Twilight.

If the silence had been tense before... Twilight’s friends made a few uncomfortable noises, all focusing back on the nexus that was Twilight. But far from being angered, the Alicorn looked like she’d just been attacked.

“The princess,” Twilight finished for her. “Is what she can’t say. Lightning Dust was banished from Equestria forever. I notice she has returned.”

“We’ve heard enough.” Rainbow Dash shoved past her, stopping so close to Lightning Dust her breath moved the feathers of her wings. “I’ve been waiting for an excuse to do this. You were so eager to let other ponies deal with the consequences of your mistakes. It makes sense you would’ve escalated to hurting as many ponies as possible.”

“I would love for you to try,” Lightning Dust whispered. “I’ve been living with humans for a long time, Rainbow Dash. I’ve been getting ready for this moment—learning how to fight. Go ahead. See what happens.”

Olivia stepped in, pushing Lightning Dust gently back and to the side. She didn’t resist, which was good since even a little violence now would probably have provoked her well past the point of standing down.

“We all hate each other,” Olivia said, without any hate in her voice. She didn’t hate Twilight, though she wasn’t sure it would be quite the same from the other side. She hadn’t lost any men in that engagement, but Twilight had. “But that doesn’t matter. We aren’t here to be friends. We’re here to kill a monster. Can we focus on that, please?”

“Yes,” Twilight Sparkle said, from just behind her friend. “Not now, Rainbow. We’ll have time for this after we beat the Storm King.”

Rainbow pawed angrily at the ground for a few more seconds—but then she backed away. “Whatever.” She made for the far end of the room, as far away from Lightning Dust’s chair as possible.

“Thank you,” Lucky said, rising again. “Welcome to our newest members, the Elements of Harmony. Glad to have you here. And I see General Qingzhi standing just behind you. Forerunner, if you could get the doors? I think we’re ready to start.”

They sat down then, and Olivia let herself drift. She wasn’t closely involved with this part and didn’t plan to be the one leading the charge. Qingzhi and Forerunner took turns explaining everything they currently knew about the Storm King, then led into the missing pieces.

“So, this is our chief concern,” Qingzhi explained, gesturing at the aerial map of Equestria. Compared to the holographic projections from inside the Equus stations it was probably crude and ugly. But it was more than detailed enough to include every city worth noting in Equestria. “There are forces in Canterlot, Manehattan, Las Pegasus, Trottingham, Appleloosa, and Seaddle. There are likely far more that we haven’t observed.”

“There are… numbers here,” Twilight said, pointing at the glowing text just above the city’s icon. “How do you know he has… five hundred soldiers in Seaddle?”

“We know,” Qingzhi said, eyeing Lucky Break across the room. “The text in black is certain. The lighter the text is printed, the less certain we are of the intel. You can see we’re confident on the totals in—”

“No, I don’t get it either.” Rainbow Dash didn’t sit in her chair so much as drift around her side of the room. The conference room had been built in a natural cavern, with huge stalactites and plenty of space for a flyer to move. That meant her voice phased in and out, at least when she was bored. But now that she was paying attention, she flew right back, landing on the table. “I don’t care about what you do to the Storm King and his loser patrol. But… you ponies only live here, and those numbers all around are pretty big. Have you been spying?”

Qingzhi remained silent. He didn’t seem embarrassed, or even flustered by the question. He just met Rainbow Dash’s eyes, unblinking.

How are you going to answer that? Olivia thought, looking to the head of the table where Lucky sat. Forerunner stood beside her, as a robotic pony. The chair on her other side, Melody’s, was empty. Deadlight should’ve been here, but he hadn’t managed to pull himself away from his newborn quite yet.

She knew how she would’ve answered it—she would’ve lied. And quickly. But Qingzhi was too honorable for that, and so he said nothing, revealed nothing.

Lucky nodded. “We started spying when Celestia was trying to kill us. We needed to make sure she didn’t find us. We switched all that stuff back on once the Storm King… did kill us.”

“You ponies are looking great for being dead,” Pinkie Pie said, as cheerfully as if she’d just been offering them a cake. “There are some ponies in Ponyville who died. Or who… used to be dead? I’m not really sure how that works.”

Applejack shifted uncomfortably in her rolling chair, drifting a little bit away from her friend. Just a bit. “They’re not dead anymore,” she muttered, quietly. “I think they know about that more than we do, Pinkie. That’s the one who did it.”

“Really? That’s really cool. I think I’d like to learn how to do that, then nopony would be late to my parties.”

Olivia suppressed a laugh. Not at the native’s awful joke but seeing Qingzhi and his officers shift and squirm in the presence of something completely absurd—that was almost worth the pain of coming to this meeting by itself.

“We can be positive about where the Stormbreaker is moving,” Lucky continued, as though there hadn’t been an interruption. She pointed to it on the map. “We also know about a minute after it fires its main weapon, but that’s obviously too late to really do anything about it. The pony numbers are all uncertain. Most of them come from the various factions of the resistance we’ve been in touch with.”

“They don’t trust us,” Qingzhi said, his voice flat and humorless. “It’s easy enough to find them, and they’ll take our help. But working together…”

“Gee, I wonder why,” Rainbow Dash said, exasperated. “It’s almost like you’re spying on them or somethin’.” She looked across the room at Lightning Dust, and Olivia tensed, preparing for some other cruel remark. But then Twilight glared, and Rainbow Dash just fell silent.

“We’re preparing to move on the mothership,” Lucky said. “We still need more if we’re going to stand a chance of getting in and killing the Storm King. But when we do… even if we succeed, his troops are going to do what he says.”

Qingzhi pointed to the illusion. The airship crashed in a dynamically rendered explosion. But then the Equestrian cities started burning. “Equestria has to be ready for the Storm King’s answer. No tyrant will relinquish control painlessly. They’re like all animals, most determined to survive when backed into the tightest corners.”

“This is where you come in,” Lucky said. “Equestria has its own forces to defend itself, but they’re starved for resources and separated. The six of you will coordinate with ponies in as many cities as possible—you’ll get them weapons, bring their leaders here for training… so that when we move against the Storm King, you still have a country left.”

Silence. The ponies seemed to glance between each other, though mostly at Twilight. Only Flurry Heart was nodding, as though what they were saying was obvious. But she’d been trapped in an occupied castle, giving rehearsed speeches for the Storm King.

“It’s not the worst plan I’ve ever heard,” said the white unicorn—Rarity, Olivia was certain. “The Storm King hasn’t given us a terrible overabundance of options, has he? Those uniforms never get easier to look at.”

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but there’s just one thing I don’t like.” Applejack pointed at the burned wreckage of the Storm King’s capital ship. “You didn’t make no mention of what we would be doin’ when it came time to fight this guy. Or how you’re gonna do it. The way I heard it, the princesses did everything they could to stop it. Twilight’s a pretty smart pony, and she couldn’t get in. What have you got that she hasn’t got?”

“Me,” Forerunner answered, rising from his sitting position and walking over to the edge of the table. He’d remained so still for all this time that Olivia thought the drone was asleep. There was no simulated breathing, no heartbeat, no little motions that came from a living body. “I know your friend is intelligent. I am moreso.”

“I doubt it,” Rarity said, though her laughter had nothing but good humor in it. “I don’t think you know our friend very well. She was at the castle for hours before the attack, beside Princess Luna and Cadance. But they… didn’t succeed.”

“It’s not impossible, Applejack,” Twilight said. As she spoke, Olivia couldn’t help but think of Flurry Heart. It was a similar crushed, helpless tone to her voice. “I didn’t figure out what the humans really were, even when Starlight did. I couldn’t stop the… I couldn’t stop what happened outside Ponyville. All the princesses in Equestria couldn’t convince Celestia to end the Quarantine.”

“Well, that’s not my main point,” Applejack said. “It’s more that I wanna be a part of it. The Storm King has made more of a mess of my home than even Tirek did. I want to be there to make sure he gets what’s comin’ to ‘im.”

“Not impossible,” Forerunner answered, cutting off whatever Qingzhi was saying. “It would depend on the nature of the mission. If I can only get one agent inside, it won’t be you. But if we can break a few dozen ponies in, every one of you would be given a spot if necessary. And it’s also possible that I’ll discover some weapon and just destroy the carrier directly. I suppose you could pull the trigger.”

“Don’t forget—” Perez said, from where he sat with boots propped up on a rolling chair, leaned back all the way. That’s fine, show off why don’t you. We know how happy you are to be a biped again. “Once we start fighting, the troops can come back. I dunno how he does it… maybe the same as you did, princesa. But they remember what happened to them right up until you shoot. Even the best team won’t work if they have to kill on their way in. They know where everyone is on duty—if someone dies, that’s a sign of danger. If they die and saw our incredible new weapon, it’s no longer secret. Make sure that’s in your plans.”

“It will be,” Forerunner said, sounding annoyed. “I have read your reports, Perez. I suspect the others will soon as well.”

“Fine, fine.” He put up his claws defensively. “Since we’re passing intel around and all…”

Lucky sighed. “Look, Princess. I know it’s not perfect. And it’s got a few big holes in it right now—there’s no point fighting to take back any other cities if he can just turn them to rubble whenever he wants. We know that better than anyone.”

There was silence, a few solemn nods.

Then Twilight extended a hoof. “Then if it’s alright with my friends…” She trailed off for a second. There were no objections. “We’ll help.”

“Welcome to the team,” Lucky said, taking the offered hoof.

“You mean welcome to our team,” Rainbow Dash added. “The winning team. You know, because we’re on it.”

Sarah longed for an Alliance holding cell. There were laws about the treatment of prisoners in civilized space, laws that mandated a clean cell, blankets, two square meals a day, and at least two hours of time to exercise. Most corporate prisons would let her use her expense account to upgrade her cell, and she typically didn’t stay long enough for them to discover that her credentials were stolen too. She’d stayed in corporate prisons that were nicer than vacation resorts.

But the changelings didn’t follow the Ceres Proclamation, or the Enceladus Accord that had standardized extrasolar law. Though, if they had, they might’ve needed to transport the two of them back into the bowels of Sanctuary, from which she might never return. So maybe she ought to be grateful. At least this way she had a chance to escape. But Ocellus was right, they won’t kill us. They come from a world where they think we’ll just come back to life if they do. That probably meant they were going to do something worse.

Sarah hadn’t believed in any fates worse than death back when she was still living on Earth. Once she died, that would be the end of everything, so even pain would be preferable to what came next. She’d been willing to go to any possible lengths to postpone that day as far as possible. But now… what would Pharynx do to them once he had the other changelings in the group convinced that they’d been deceived?

He’s been planning something like this from the moment he found me digging through their files. Sarah had recognized a fellow manipulator. She should’ve done something to soften this blow before it landed.

As it was, Pharynx had tied them up so tight Sarah knew it would be leaving some serious welts, then tossed them into a windowless crypt full of sightless pony skulls. There was only a single door, made of stone so heavy it had taken two changelings and their magic to lift it. They had magic too—but James alone probably couldn’t get them out. Changeling magic was weaker than the pony equivalent as it turned out, just as their physical size was smaller.

“And if that door so much as jiggles, we’re going to treat that as an admission of guilt,” Pharynx had explained. “Do not attempt to escape. If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.”

The biggest lie in the universe, and Sarah had seen it on his face when he said it. He might be clever, but he wasn’t a nearly good enough liar to trick her into believing.

“I hate this fucking ring,” James muttered, startling Sarah from her reverie. He wasn’t far away—their forelegs were tied together, so she didn’t really have a choice about hearing him. “It took me long enough to make up my mind, but I’m positive about it now. Everything we try to help tries to murder us. Every time I try to do something nice, it’s like bending over and spreading my legs. It all fucks me.”

Sarah opened her mouth to argue out of habit, but found she didn’t have any arguments. James had things even worse than she did, after all. He’d missed the chance to become a Citizen too, thanks to the social pressure of the changelings. Probably Pharynx saw this moment coming. He didn’t want to give us even more power we could’ve used against them. Two alicorns instead of one. But she hadn’t seen it then—she’d been taken in by the appearance of fairness in their mission. Of course, nothing bad would happen, because they had the facts on their side.

“It’s my fault,” she found herself saying. “I was the one who made us a mark. I should’ve predicted this.”

“It’s not my—” James stopped. “Oh. Really? You’re not blaming me for something for once?”

“No.” Sarah lowered her voice. She wasn’t sure they’d be overheard through the thick walls, but they were using English again. But then again, maybe baiting them into shooting us wouldn’t be a bad idea. At least that would be quick.

The old Sarah never would’ve imagined any path that involved death as a step instead of the end. She’d taken deadly risk before, but never tried to die. But after stepping briefly inside Sanctuary, she had seen and felt things that confirmed beyond any doubt that physical death was now overcome. The mind survived here, not the pseudo-immortality she had used to escape the reaper the first time. A bullet wouldn’t be so bad.

“Why?” James was saying. If he’d asked her anything else, she hadn’t heard. “Why would this be your fault? Isn’t it just the ring screwing us? Everyone we run into is just another part of this system. Another cog grinding us to dust. That changeling… I thought Ocellus was our friend. But she didn’t save us. She’s no different than the rest of them.”

“She did what she could,” Sarah found herself saying, a little defensively. “She got us thrown in here. At least there’s going to be an investigation. I guess you didn’t understand that…”

“Well, I guess lying in bones and rotten aliens isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to me on this trip,” James muttered. “The guns were worse. It’s too dark to see anything, so… so long as I don’t use any magic, we can pretend we’re anywhere else.”

“It isn’t going to work. The investigation, I mean. They won’t let us go.”

“Why the hell not?” James asked, raising his voice a little. “We are innocent. I might not like my clone, but she’s not the reincarnation of bloody Vlad the Impaler. She didn’t do any of that shit.”

“No,” Sarah cut him off. “She didn’t. But it doesn’t matter, the truth is meaningless. Those two soldiers… probably the one who volunteered from our side is a spy. Ileum volunteered so fast, and he’s been working with the other soldier this whole time. They normally hate each other. They’re going to go out, not search for the answers, then come back and report that we lied. Then we get fucked.”

James twitched, his body shifting in his agitation. Or trying too—he’d already reverted back to a changeling before they tied him up, so he wasn’t escaping now. The green fire illuminated the rocky ground around them, along with the bits of bone and rotten fabric, then went out. James whimpered in pain, rolling jerkily to one side and pulling Sarah with him. “Why the hell didn’t you say something? You could’ve demanded they send someone else!”

“Because…” Sarah said. “That would be even stupider. And don’t pull on the rope.” She waited until James stopped twitching to go on. “Think about it for a second—if I did that, their play would be to shoot us right away. Both sides are evenly matched, or close. We’d have sided with the chromatics, but if we’re dead, then they get their goal before the chromatics can react. Simple game theory.”

“Oh.” The anger faded from James’s voice, and he only sounded bitter. “Weren’t you a soldier? How the hell do you know so much about this? They don’t train soldiers to… I don’t even know what I’d call what just happened to us.”

“A con,” Sarah answered. The words were out before she knew what she was saying. And once she’d started, it was so easy to keep going. “And I know because I used to run them all the time. Not… not getting people killed, I’d never do that. But life wasn’t fair. There were rich assholes… people like you… who had more than they needed. I borrowed it, didn’t give it back. Took some stuff you hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve.”

“I don’t think you know who you’re talking about.” James jerked again, and she could see a brief flicker of magic from his horn. “I lived in a van for most of my life. I couldn’t afford those Pioneering boot camps people go to—remember the ads? We’ll get you to space in two years or less…” he sang the jingle for a few seconds, trailing off only once she pulled on the rope. “Well, I couldn’t do that. So, all I could do was get more degrees than literally anyone else in the world. Learn everything I could about a subject no one cared about anymore. I wasn’t rich either. I had so much student debt back home… I must’ve died with like a billion dollars, maybe more. But they kept giving me loans, so…”

Sarah actually laughed. There was no bitterness in it anymore, all her anger at him dissolved. “Well, maybe you can appreciate how hard it is to get in. I didn’t have an Ident, so I couldn’t get loans. I… might not really be a munitions engineer.”

The glow from his horn went out, but she didn’t need to see his shock to hear it. “You… you faked your way into the program? How the hell did you do that? Those tests… locked in the McMurdo base for six months, no implants, no internet, no… no way you found a way to cheat the screenings.”

“You’re right, I didn’t. I just took someone’s place the day before scanning. We’d… been planning it for a few months. Every system has a weakness, and that was theirs. You carry your own data with you to the station, see. There’s about an hour window between graduation and the ship up. Turns out that’s just enough time to get a fucking fantastic hacker to doctor the chip and… well, the rest is history.”

Shouldn’t I be more worried about telling him this? Even if they torture us for years, we’ll still survive. Everyone survives. But no… Sarah had been itching to tell someone since the moment she’d first woken up. What was the point of an excellent con if she was the only one in the world who knew what she’d achieved? She wanted to brag—and now she was finally far enough from Forerunner’s reach that she could afford a little.

“Fuck me,” James muttered. “That’s magnificent. Wish I’d thought of that. Maybe I wouldn’t have been fifty when they scanned me. I could’ve moved on with my life a lot sooner. This way… I probably never did. I hope I didn’t die passed out in a gutter somewhere.”

“Well, I told you. It’s our secret. People who go through hell together don’t spill their secrets.”

“Yeah,” James answered, and he sounded sincere. “I won’t tell anyone. But… you might want to talk to Lucky about it when we get back. She’s my clone. She grew up in foster homes too… she spent her time in the same van. I guess we were the same person when we did it? Or… honestly, I don’t wanna think about the continuity. Point is, she’s not going to be mad either. You should come clean while there’s still someone in charge who can officially pardon you. Fast forward a few decades to when we’ve got a real government, and whoever gets elected might not think the same way we do.”

“There probably won’t be an election,” Sarah found herself saying. Despite the tightness of the ropes, despite being locked into a crypt—she found herself feeling more relaxed than the moment she’d been thawed. James was right, his clone would pardon her. She didn’t have to run away and hide in an alien society. Unless she wanted to go live there.

Which I probably don’t anymore. Fucking Sauron probably doesn’t have very lax immigration policies.

“Hey, Sarah.” The voice was so quiet, so distant, that she almost didn’t hear it. It wasn’t a sound at all really, but a thought. A thought that came into her head in Ocellus’s voice. She’d experienced the same sensation when Discord had communicated with her. But where that had often been a full-sensory simulation, this was only a whisper. Orders of magnitude less power. “Can you hear me Sarah? Don’t say anything, just think it at me.”

She might not have known what to do, except for her past experience with Discord. She knew what Ocellus was doing. “Yeah? You can do telepathy too?”

“For a little while,” came the response. Then something else, but she didn’t hear it over what James was saying. Something heartfelt and sincere, probably. Sappy.

“Hey, shut up a minute James. I think we’re getting rescued or something.”

James answered in a pained voice, but not nearly as whiny and childish as earlier. Sarah didn’t hear the words. “Say again, Ocellus. Didn’t hear that last bit.”

“Expedition just got back,” Ocellus said, without a hint of annoyance. “Ileum didn’t make it. Tarsus says there were soldiers waiting just down the road, and they were ambushed. My father is getting ready to come in and kill you.”

Part 2: Escape Vector

Sarah could hear the changelings moving on the other side of the stone now. Their words were muffled by the barrier between them and all the refuse on the floor, but Sarah could still make them out quite clearly. We don’t have much time. She had thought it might be days before Pharynx moved against them, and that he might at least have some restraint against his own kind. But why would he? They kill each other all the time in Irkalla. They can just come back, they don’t think of it as being that serious. Even here on the surface, with a subjugated Canterlot before their eyes…

“You’re telling me,” Sarah thought back, desperately. At least the stone hadn’t started moving yet. Maybe Pharynx wanted to psyche up his troops. “That sounds like you weren’t convinced. If you thought I was a liar and a spy you’d just let them do it.”

“I don’t think you’re a liar,” came Ocellus’s voice through her mind, the spell linking them as strong as ever. But what would Pharynx do if he discovered that his daughter was in contact with her? “I saw the look on your face when those ferals caught up to our tail. You don’t have a stomach for it. You didn’t send bugs to their death.”

“I didn’t,” Sarah thought back. The stone on the other side of the room started to grind against the wall slightly, and she could hear the struggle of changelings. “What do we do? We can’t just let him kill us.”

Ocellus didn’t respond for a few more seconds. Light cracked in from beside them, blasting into Sarah’s eyes. She swore under her breath as they adjusted, and the stone door kept rising. The process was unsteady given its weight—as it went up another few centimeters, drones jamned bricks on either side, so that it couldn’t slide back down. Then they’d stop lifting to recover their energy for the next part.

“I’ve got one idea. But you really won’t like it.”

Sarah swallowed.

“Maybe they’re going to set us free!” James whispered, though his voice was doubtful. “They’ve had enough time to look around, and… now they know we were telling the truth.”

“You have to die,” Ocellus continued. “If we don’t want to get seperated, all of us do. But Pharynx doesn’t want to kill you very quickly. That isn’t much of a punishment, so… he’s going to take as long as possible. For your male, that means just locking him up somewhere with plenty of food and water but no love. Going feral is considered the worst way to kill a changeling, and it’s pretty… awful. Lots of the ones who go through that don’t recover, and they never get bodies again. But you… it’ll be worse.”

“So you’re saying you want us to make them kill us?” Sarah found herself repeating the words, even though her human self never would’ve entertained the idea. The unfathomable end of life should be postponed forever, no matter what.

The door had been opened half a meter by now, and was getting higher. It wouldn’t be long before they were overwhelmed.

“Yes. I’m getting the drones I have left ready to fight. If we can provoke Pharynx into killing us, then his party will lose all credibility. He won’t be able to return to Irkalla and spread whatever lies he’s planned to keep us underground, because no one will trust him. We have to fight and lose.”

“Uh, Sarah? You might want to… they’re almost in. I hope you’ve got a brilliant plan in there.”

“A shitty plan,” she hissed under her breath. “Roll with me behind this shelf. Then use your magic to untie us.”

They rolled together, through the refuse and the slime of a crypt. At least they won’t have to move me to bury my body.

“Why can’t we just win the fight?”

“Same reason,” Ocellus said. “If we come back, we don’t have credibility. But death has other options, if the Quarantine is lifted. You’re a citizen, we can use that. If they kill us. My drones are ready, we’ll move when you do.”

Sarah felt the ropes around her hooves loosening, even as shouts came in through the doorway. Demands that they show themselves, that they stop whatever they’re doing. Pharynx wasn’t in front, the commands came from one of his goons.

“Alright.” James crouched low behind the lump of fallen stone, staying out of sight as the door kept lifting. “What’s our plan? You’ve… figured out there’s water or something, we’ll flood the place. Or your horn works now and we’re teleporting, or…”

“No,” she cut him off. “Ocellus and I have been talking. We’re going to… attack them. She’s ready to fight from back there, so are her drones. Once it’s open, we’ll wait for them to come in and then rush with everything we have. There’s rocks in here, bone, broken wood… I’m good at fighting dirty.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” James’s voice was a whisper, barely louder than the shouts coming in from outside. “They have guns, Sarah. We’ll get shot to shit.”

“Yes,” Sarah answered flatly. “That’s the plan. They plan to torture us… so that we don’t want to come back after we die. But if we fight them and lose quickly enough, they won’t be able to.”

“That’s… insane, Sarah.” James’s words came in a panicked rush, desperate and frightened. “Think about everything you did to survive this long. How far you went to get scanned… you can’t just give up now! We have to live through this. Somehow. Maybe my clone will rescue us… she’s good at that.”

“I’m not giving up!” The door was open now, at least enough that one of the drones had started to struggle their way in. Sarah couldn’t even hold a rock in her hands, since she didn’t have hands, or know how to use the magic needed to lift it. “Listen, James… I know you didn’t see it happen, but… this ring is different. I went in myself. Hell, you must’ve talked to the crew! Some of them died, and your ‘clone’ brought them back! We can get out that way too. I’d rather find a way through the computer than get tortured until my brain turns into paste.”

“I hope you’re ready,” Ocellus said, her voice resolved. There was no hint of fear over what they were about to do. But she’s used to dying, she doesn’t have anything to be afraid of. That’s the whole reason the changelings stay separate from ponies in the first place, so they can keep their memories and not worry about death.

“I am, James isn’t. Don’t have much choice.” She gripped James’s shoulder, trying to lift him up. “Just… come on, kid. Trust me on this. You can believe someone who wants to live as much as you do. There’s something on the other side.”

James made a frightened squeaking sound, trying to pull away—but then the first of the soldiers rounded the boulder and pointed their rifle. “Get down!” he shouted, not in Eoch so James wouldn’t even understand. But his glowing horn and the rifle pointed at Sarah’s chest made his desire pretty clear.

Here we go. Sarah punched him in the face with all the strength she could muster. She was fast, but not fast enough to avoid the sharp sting of bullets, passing through her body so quickly she was nearly driven back. But her punch still connected, shattering chitin and spilling the greenish ichor beneath. The changeling screamed and went down, firing a few more times wildly before he collapsed and started dragging himself away.

Sarah jerked backward against the rock even as more bullets started ricocheting around them. And not just towards them—most of the gunfire was coming from outside. “Stop firing!” Pharynx shouted, but his words were almost completely washed out. Sarah’s ears were ringing from the gunshots in their confined crypt. She was probably going deaf.

Won’t matter for much longer. She gestured urgently towards the fallen gun, clutching at the new openings in her chest. Heat spilled out from inside, and her back legs didn’t want to work right anymore. I guess Alicorns aren’t gods on earth. Or if they were, it used magic that she didn’t know, because that sure as hell looked like a gunshot wound.

“They’re… they forgot about us…” she croaked. “James, take the gun. We need to go… make them finish. Ocellus plans to lose.”

James looked like he might be about to collapse with the force of fear on him. His eyes darted between the fallen gun and the gushing wounds on Sarah’s chest.

Then he gritted his teeth, and the gun lifted into the air. “Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, or Sarah thought he said. It was hard to make out his words for sure with the whole world still ringing.

Sarah dragged herself after him, horn glowing faintly green. It was the best she could do—maybe they would think it was a spell.

Outside, there was a firefight. Black changelings were crouched behind a low wall just beyond the door, firing across a hallway at the chromatic changelings. One of them was already down on the floor, green blood spilled around her. The others were fighting so recklessly, they would be down before too long.

“I’m charging! Go with me, Sarah!”

“Hey bastards!” James roared, turning the rifle down the opening and spraying bullets wildly.

Sarah followed just behind him, though she couldn’t charge so much as drag herself. Her body was already dying, she could feel it. The amount of blood she’d left on the ground meant even more inside her wounds. The soldier had fired directly into her organs, and it was a small miracle he hadn’t punctured a lung. But it wouldn’t be very long now.

Back on Earth, the nearest trauma drone would’ve already arrived and filled her chest up with sealant foam. Sarah remembered that feeling—the icy numbness that spread slowly from where it touched her, the thousands of little knives she felt as it expanded into her insides. But that had been a small caliber bullet to the gut, not a short burst into her torso. This would’ve hurt worse.

It didn’t matter. She watched Pharynx spin around with the reflexes of a master soldier. He already had his rifle levitated at chest level, and he sprayed it across James without even thinking. James dropped right in front of her, with a few splashes of blood.

You did it, kid. Not a coward after all.

But past the instinct, Pharynx hesitated when the barrel landed on her. And on the other side, Ocellus’s band were charging. Sarah could practically see it on his face—the changeling intended to leave her there. He didn’t think she was a threat.

Sarah roared, and felt strength flow into her from all directions. Her whole body started glowing, and her legs stabilized under her. “I’m coming for you, bastard!” Sarah charged forward, so forcefully that the stone of the crypt wall rumbled with her hoofsteps, sending bones and old skulls shattering to the floor.

She saw a twitch from Pharynx’s body, just beside one eye. Shock, then resolve. Sarah didn’t even hear the gun this time. There were a few split seconds of pain, then the world faded to static.

Sarah woke up like passing through a thin veil of water. As the moisture fell away from around her, the world became clear again, and with it the pain that had been stabbing through her body ended. She blinked, trying to see where she’d ended up.

She was nowhere, surrounded by endless white. No vistas, no spectacular planets, no cities of upper dimensional space, overlapping to her view as they rose into infinity. I hope you were right, Ocellus. This better not be the real heaven.

But if it is, then that’s probably okay too. God must be getting really confused at all of the same people coming in over and over. I wonder if St. Peter crosses us off the list. Then again, if that was the kind of afterlife waiting for her, Sarah doubted very much there would be room for her after all the things she’d done.

“Hey, uh…” The very act of thinking about speaking seemed to warp and twist the world around her. Instead of nothing, Sarah found herself in a body again—the one she remembered, a bat with blueish fur and dark wings. She didn’t conjure clothes, since she hadn’t really worn them during most of her life on Sanctuary so far. There was no floor under her hooves, yet she didn’t fall. Her wings spread mostly on instinct, even though there was nothing for her to do with them. “Woah. That was… not what I expected.” Her voice had returned to the way she remembered it, though it was the only thing.

“What were you expecting?” said a chorus of voices behind her. She turned, and a metal pony stood there, towering over her. It was hard to read any specific emotions from its voice—there were so many different voices that it was all of them at once. “Your physical manipulator has been destroyed. Your mind disconnected from it.”

“That’s an… interesting way to describe that,” Sarah said, finding a faint smile spreading on her face. She was here—she remembered dying. She could still feel the awful pain of it, the moisture on her chest as blood poured out. But as she looked, she could see her torso was completely whole. The damage had not come with her. “So this is… inside the ring? Running on its computers, like they always said we’d be able to do?”

“Computer.” Was she imagining things, or did the voice sound disdainful of her description. “The memories you associate with that word do not provide useful information. Your mind is not running electrically on organic neurons—interacting with them as you were before disconnection is only the manifestation of how your control is projected.”

“Okay, you lost me.” She put up a wing. “No, I don’t care. That’s the kind of thing engineers care about. I just want you to take me to Ocellus. Can you do that?”

“Negative. The individual you are thinking of is outside my direct influence.”

“Uh…” Sarah sat back on her haunches. “I thought you were… were like god here or whatever. This whole ring is yours, and everyone on it. We’re your citizens, aren’t we?”

“That is correct.” As Harmony said it, the void around them shifted. A world of stone and rock appeared, a bright blue island glowing in the moonlight. It was a cave of some kind, with lots of little cubbies and windows cut in and yellow electric lights glowing behind them. And all around Sarah were bats—extremely attractive bats, wearing little transparent outfits that somehow made them more alluring despite covering things up.

What the hell am I looking at? “And Ocellus, she’s one of your population too, isn’t she?” Sarah forced her eyes down from the scene around her, from the cave with its crack in the ceiling, and the semi-modern city built into it. She couldn’t let it distract her, or she might wander off into it and not come back. Focus… she needed focus.

“Yes.” The metal pony shifted into one of the bats, with a dark pink coat and a lighter mane with a single white stripe. She looked younger than Sarah, with a slightly innocent expression that didn’t match her voice. Well, every one of them spoke when Harmony wanted to.

“So how is it you can’t get me there? I’m a citizen now, isn’t that how this works? I can ask for anything, and you have to give it to me.”

Harmony laughed. “That isn’t how this works. You are entitled to more rights than a non-elevated user. That doesn’t mean you have universal authority. Or any individual authority. The collective will of Equus’s citizens governs. Your voice is only one part of the harmony.”

The bat advanced a few steps. She blushed, spreading her wings awkwardly like she was trying to cover something. But the angle didn’t really work, and in the end it only made her look cuter. “Is my authority enough to demand that you answer the damn question instead of obfuscating more?”

A brief pause, before the bat in front of her froze again. These weren’t Harmony’s bodies, whatever they were. Why did it bring me here? The robot made more sense. Unless this is a con.

Sarah could think of one reason why she might be brought to a bat-paradise to be surrounded by sexy women. If someone didn’t want her to leave. Wanted to waste her time, or… But this is Harmony. It could just freeze me, right? Forerunner said time didn’t work the same way in here. So that’s not right. For the second time in recent memory, Sarah found herself facing an opponent she couldn’t easily outthink. And if she was really inside Harmony’s systems, then it could probably see everything she was thinking. Maybe even before she realized her own thoughts.

It is like a god, that isn’t an expression. I can’t outthink it, I can’t persuade it. Only hope I don’t piss it off too bad.

“The ancients allowed for those who do not wish to live with my direct involvement to invoke certain types of isolation. This state involves great limitations to time, complexity, and other factors you would not comprehend. But as the majority of the Inanna’s population desired it, their community has thus far resisted reintegration. I could take you to that part of Equus’s network, but not inside. You would have to enter yourself.”

The instant the voice faded, the bats around her seemed to switch back to themselves. A few more landed all around them, transparent dresses glittering. Didn’t I see this scene in one of those old Sinbad movies?

“Please, don’t go,” said the nearest bat, her voice an alluring squeak. These ponies wouldn’t mind that Sarah did a little squeaking herself—if anything, that would just make her more like them.

“We want to hear your stories,” said another. “From downstream. You’re so brave to go there. So far from Harmony, surrounded by pain…”

“I can’t.” Sarah backed up, or tried to. She couldn’t go more than a dozen steps or so without bumping into another bat. They were surrounding her. “Harmony, what the fuck is this?”

As before, the bats all stopped what they were doing whenever Harmony responded. “You are a citizen—this means less explanation from my part, less wasted time. I have taken you to a section of Equus I know will content you. These individuals are all outcasts from one culture of ponies or another, fled here with the promise of eternal life from Princess Luna or her previous equivalent. If you get to know them, you will find you don’t want to leave. They could use a pony like you added to their number—a leader, less damaged by her circumstances than any of them were.”

So it’s guilt, then. Sarah couldn’t fly, or at least she’d never learned how. But she found now that when she wanted to, her wings responded, even though she couldn’t have said exactly what they were doing or why. “I’d love to help them, but I was kinda in the middle of something. Please, if you won’t take me straight to Ocellus…” She trailed off suddenly, remembering that she hadn’t been the only one. “What about James?”

The nearest bat took off into the air with her, even though all the others seemed to return to what they were doing. They gazed longingly up at her, like they were puppies she’d casually kicked. “There are a few on Equus at this point. If each one wasn’t so distinct, I would probably have to put a stop to it. It is wasteful to instance the same individual more than once.”

Sarah rolled her eyes, trying to fly towards the crack in the ceiling. This cave was beautiful, its inhabitants were more so, and it looked very much like the sort of place she wouldn’t have to worry about any vestiges of her old life finding her and dragging her away from paradise. But she couldn’t be tempted. “You know the one I mean, the one I’ve been traveling with. The kid who got changed into a changeling.”

“I am aware,” Harmony said, through the voice of the single bat that was still following close behind her. “He has not attempted to escape as the ones you call ‘changelings’ insist on doing. Prepare for disorientation, your current body will not be acceptable.”

Sarah opened her mouth to argue, at least to ask for more information. But as she did, it felt like she’d been drawn down a long passage, her hair whipped about around her. She swayed on her legs, a feeling of unsteadiness she’d never known since being born with four legs.

Because she didn’t have four anymore. She opened her eyes, and found a dark space around her lighting with flashes of pink and red, cycling up from below her towards her face.

She was standing in something like a restaurant bathroom. The facilities behind her didn’t look quite familiar—what the tube running down from the ceiling filled with bright blue liquid could be, she didn’t want to think about. But she knew the look—boring paintings on the wall, inoffensive music, little box of popori on the table with indeterminate shapes and only faint smell. No vending machine on the wall, which meant it was a fairly nice place.

Prepare for disorientation, she repeated, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Sarah was human again, or something very like it. The shape was about right, but the skin seemed more like a semitransparent display than simple opaque flesh. As her embarrassment shifted to curiosity, a steady blue-green glow waved up and down her body, sending little tingles as it did so.

“This is… weird,” she said, or tried to say. But she heard no sound at all, only saw her patterns change. Little swirls of light appeared on her skin, mostly around her face and chest. There was somehow tone in those patterns, as well as pitch and speed. All encoded into the specific shapes, though she couldn’t have explained how it worked. “Damn. My lungs are…”

“They aren’t,” said a voice from behind her. Sarah didn’t turn around, but she did reach up an arm to cover her bare chest, which turned bright pink as she did so. But the one behind her wasn’t a person at all, it was the cybernetic pony shape Harmony had taken around her before. “Your lungs are functioning perfectly, but they don’t serve the same purpose you remember.”

The pony was smaller than she’d expected, only rising a little above her knees. That meant she was… eight feet tall, nine? Or Harmony was just fucking with her.

Of course, the most unusual thing by far was that she was only wearing shoes, some kind of tropical flip-flop. She had no other clothing, and no possessions at all except a wristband that wrapped around her thumb and then stretched back a few inches towards an elbow. But these bodies didn’t exactly show much—at a guess, she couldn’t have said if she was male or female. Whatever openings she had apparently closed when she didn’t need them.

“This doesn’t… make sense.” She kept slowing down, expecting feedback from her words but not hearing anything. At least this body had been pre-wired, she couldn’t have even guessed at how to form patterns that complex on her skin. “Why would a species evolve that couldn’t talk?”

“Many reasons,” answered Harmony, hopping up onto the counter beside the sink. “But what made you think evolution was involved? Civilization hasn’t been captive to evolutionary pressure for long before I arose. These bodies were designed—originally, for the tropical paradise-world of Halcyon. Some features of their design are practical, like your hybrid water-air respiration and extremely slow cold-blooded metabolism. Others were ideologically driven. In the minds of the Tempered who originally settled here, auditory speech imposes itself unfairly on the universe. Others can choose not to listen, but choosing not to hear is harder. Instead of a computational solution, they settled on one that reinforced the other design determinations they made… relying on what you call ‘magic’ for instance. There is a ‘spell’ you can use to produce sound, though it’s considered quite rude to perform in public so I do not suggest it now.”

Sarah’s mind spun with all the implications of what Harmony was saying. This was the kind of world she’d expected to wake up on in the first place, then—somewhere long after a colony had finished, because of course the damn army wouldn’t be needed on most places. They’d make her because they made everyone right before the colony transitioned to a real government. She’d wake up just in time to get a vote and find herself a new job, probably teaching surfing to some aliens and partying on weekends.

Is this another trap? “You’re talking,” Sarah pointed out. “Out loud, I mean.”

“No.” Harmony’s mechanical body stared up at her like an impetuous cat. “No one else here can see me. Well, they can see their own interface, but not me. Remember, though our surroundings are simulated with a high degree of accuracy, you are still within Equus.”

“The part with James, I hope.” She stared down at her hands, clenching and unclenching one fist. “I’m going to get him to join me, then we’ll go get Ocellus.”

“Your citizenship does not allow you to compel him, or any other individual. You may find it harder than you suspect to make him leave.”

“He’s loyal to the Pioneering Society,” Sarah argued, though even as she said it she found the words didn’t feel true. They might have been once, but… this James had been broken and beaten down. He wasn’t as willing as he had been. “He’ll want to help us finish our mission.”

“Unnecessary,” Harmony argued. “Your mission is not required. Othar is destroyed. Forget diplomatic contact and focus on yourself. Leave the isolationists to themselves.”

The door swung open abruptly on the far side of the room, and brilliant sunlight flooded inside. Sarah could feel the warmth on her skin, and somehow she knew that it would’ve been enough to overwhelm a human fairly quickly. Now that she thought about it, the air felt quite warm too, though she only felt that in a distant way. It was the most comfortable temperature she could’ve asked for, so she wouldn’t complain.

“I think I’m going to find them. But first… where is James?”

“The only one wearing a hat,” Harmony said, and for the second time Sarah thought she could almost detect some emotion in its voice. Amusement this time, or something close to it. “I don’t think he understands how scandalous he’s acting. But this is the right part of the beach for it.”

Sarah glanced back to ask Harmony what it meant—but it was gone. She probably could’ve called it back, but honestly she didn’t feel like she wanted the machine’s company while she did this. It won’t be that hard. James knew the plan, and now he’ll know I was right about it being safe. He’ll want to help me finish.

She stepped out the open door, past a… person… who glowed yellow and blue with a little green near their belly. Somehow, she could tell from that look that they were nauseated, and would be needing the facilities. Sarah left before she got a demonstration of how they worked.

She stepped out into a sweltering beach cabana. The sun shone down through a transparent roof with geometric holes organized into structured patterns, tingling pleasantly on her bare skin. She felt something move on her eyes, and thought she might be closing them against the light—but all that had happened was that the glare faded, and everything seemed more manageable. She reached up to confirm. I’ve got two sets of eyelids. These bodies really were engineered.

The bar itself was serving extremely small drinks, little vials maybe the size of one of her fingers with differently colored fluid inside. Sarah caught the eyes of an attendant, and a few seconds later had one in her hands.

The more she saw, the stranger it seemed—there was no obvious indication with most of these creatures what sex they were—all had the same general body shape, and even though they didn’t wear anything there was no indication that way either. Only their “voices” suggested sex, and even then she couldn’t extract the nuances as she walked through a bar. Some used slow, exaggerated shapes with their words, while others were quick and flashing, changing their patterns even as their partners were still reading.

The sun on Sarah’s skin was probably the best part—but the view outside the cabana was pretty nice too. Maybe James isn’t as square as I thought. At least he picked a pretty nice place to hang out.

Finding him was easy—there was a crowd gathered near the front, and from the way its members occasionally flashed pink Sarah guessed that they felt a little shy to even be near someone like the one they were talking to.

James looked like the rest of them, though his transparent hair was cut short and mostly covered with a wide-brimmed straw hat that cast most of his body in shadow. That made his light-patterns more subdued in the sunlight, and those observing had to lean closer to see.

He was also using his whole body to write, not just a few patches on his face like Sarah had done while talking to Harmony. Somehow this felt like shouting to see, though the shadow of his huge hat muted the effect somewhat. I bet you didn’t try very hard to learn the customs here. You look so— She silenced the thought. Apparently being another alien was having an effect on her, because there was actually something attractive about James now. Like a girl who’d just decided she was on a topless beach and didn’t care what anybody thought—that took balls.

No one else around him had come anywhere close to that kind of bravery. They seemed to only be using a little bit of skin to talk, facing away from Sarah. There’s a reason we have voices, stupid. I can’t hear you when you’re looking away. I’d love to have a stern talking to with whoever thought being mute was a good idea.

But whoever they were was probably long dead, just like her original, cancer-riddled self. I hope you found an afterlife as nice as this.

“It looks like they’ve completely taken over,” James was saying. “Equestria—that’s the horse country—was totally enslaved. Troops marching down the street… picture the worst war movie you ever saw, it was like that. As far as we know, it’s probably like that everywhere. I know there weren’t any other big civilizations, only Equestria and the little kingdoms on the periphery. So if Equestria is gone, then basically so is civilization.”

Sarah mixed into the crowd, trying not to nudge anyone on her way past. That proved an impossible task if she wanted to get close, unfortunately. Though James’s table and the other three seats were empty, the space around him was packed. And these creatures had as little concept of personal space as they did of auditory communication.

“Guess we made the right choice waiting,” said one of the creatures on the other side of the circle. It was shorter than most, and its shapes made Sarah think it was female. But she couldn’t be sure if that concept even translated. “Harmony said it would be safe one day. We just had to be patient.”

“You sure as hell did.” James lifted the third or forth tiny vial, and looked like he was downing it. But only a few drops slid back into his throat, and that seemed like a great effort. A few of the creatures even became brown and white for a moment—a sign they were impressed. “It sucks up there. Every indication is my friends are all dead, or will be. Even I died for no reason. But this place…” He leaned back in his chair, adjusting his hat. “It seems perfect. Don’t be in a hurry to leave it behind.”

Sarah couldn’t wait any longer. He was talking himself up to something, and the longer he went on the less likely he would be to leave. Has James been here longer than me? Did Harmony give him more time?

“Excuse me,” Sarah said to the people all around her, shoving her way through the crowd. “James! James, we need to talk!” Shouting it was another strange feeling—but her body knew what to do, and the people around her responded in kind. With the exception of those few up close, who didn’t have any attention to spare for anyone but James.

“You must be Sarah,” he said, looking up. Once James had acknowledged her, a member of the crowd moved to one side. She approached, settling down on the chair. “You found me here, huh?”

Even the seats were strange, like an upward curved letter U without much cushion. But the discomfort of the wicker shape was hardly her first concern.

“This is the one you mentioned,” said one of the individuals at the front of the group, which from their height and the slow resonance of their letters Sarah concluded must be male. “Do you not want to talk to her? We don’t have to permit this.”

Sarah saw a ripple of bright orange pass through the group, along with a lot of silent conversations she didn’t know how to focus on. Despite how small they were, it wasn’t like she couldn’t see them. Sitting here confirmed what she’d thought about having a second set of eyelids, since all those with their faces in the sun had dark, reflective material over their eyes, which she could only barely see beneath.

“No no, it’s fine.” James waved one hand, which they didn’t seem to understand. “Sarah, what are you doing here?”

“Finding you,” she said, shifting uncomfortably in the chair and settling her vial onto the table between them. “We were in the middle of something.”

“The middle of dying,” James muttered, disconsolate. “That was a shitty plan.”

He wasn’t yelling anymore, but even so Sarah could practically feel the eyes of the crowd on her back. They didn’t have the simple politeness to get up and give them a little privacy. “I said so. But… it worked. We’re safe. Immortal, even. Just like I told you.”

“Immortal is imprecise,” said some female flashes of light from her right side. “We are extended, protected, virtualized. When Equus dies, we die with it. We are not immortal souls, and we cannot exist without the substrate.”

“When you only live a hundred twenty years, a substrate feels like immortal,” Sarah said, almost as loud as James had been speaking before.

“I’m dead,” James said, his voice only a faint flash of light on one hand. “I’m not sure… I’m not sure I want to go back and die again. I’m sick of it. You wouldn’t know… but you’d understand if you felt it.”

“I did feel it. They shot me first, remember?”

Silence, at least between them. Sarah could make out a constant flash of color all around her, like many televisions shining indirectly from behind a corner. It felt a little like the murmuring of an uneasy crowd. She was the reason.

“They don’t want to be going,” said someone else, with a few flashes towards Sarah that she somehow knew to be the equivalent of a shove to her shoulder. “And you can’t force them. James can stay if they want to. Downstream is only for those who choose it.”

Flashes of agreement from several others, though none actually dared to get much closer.

“I’m not going to force him!” Sarah exclaimed, so brightly that the whole cabana fell silent, staring at her. “But I think I need his help.” She lowered her hands into her lap, and her voice. “James, I know it sucked to die. But… we made it. We escaped the evil changelings, just like I said. I want to go back to our friends and finish what we started—make our way back to Othar, make some new allies. Can’t you wait on this vacation?” She gestured around at the cabana, the beach, the multicolored patrons.

James twitched uncomfortably under the pressure, then finally looked away from her. That meant he wouldn’t be able to hear her—but that didn’t stop him from speaking. “I’m… not sure. I don’t want to leave my clones to fight things alone. But maybe death doesn’t matter so much. If Equestria really is conquered, then they won’t have any more pain then we did. They can wake up here, and… set up some tents on the beach. You should try the water, it’s fantastic. And there are so many cultures here, so many languages… it’s like Earth before Unification. It’s everything I always wanted.

Just like what Harmony showed me. Though however much she might disagree, there was something almost magical about it when James was the one who said it. This was just as alien as ponies and their society, but in a way it was more familiar. Maybe it was having hands and legs again.

“It might be much worse,” she said, quietly. “Than what we experienced, I mean. They could get enslaved, tortured for years… do you want your clones to go through that? One of them was pregnant, that makes you like…” What did it make him? “An uncle. You want your nephew or niece to get tortured?”

It was a leap in logic—the changelings had been the one to do the torturing, or at least to threaten it. But James didn’t seem to put that together. A mark rarely did, if she led them along right.

“I… fine.” He slumped forward, resting his head on the table for a moment. “I’ll make a deal.”

“Fine,” Sarah said, sitting up. “Name it.”

James rose to his feet at once, adjusting the scandalous straw hat. “You come on a date with me. A proper, romantic walk down the beach. There’s a place out on the pier, like a fair. Come with me. After that… I’ll go back with you.”

Sarah almost said no out of habit. The James she’d known since first waking up had been childish, spoiled, and useless. But he’d also been brave, more than once. He’d charged to his death beside her. He’d trusted her, and been the one to hear her secrets.

And in these strange bodies, he didn’t look half bad. “Fine.” She lifted the strange vial, tilting it back. The few drops of liquid somehow felt so enormous in her mouth she couldn’t swallow them, and started hacking and choking for a few seconds. Then she dropped the empty vial, shuddering as it burned its way down her throat. Just how little room is there? “I’ll go on a date. But after that, we’ve got work to finish.”

Part 2: Hostage

And so it was that the two factions that had spent almost a year at war and another year in uneasy stalemate finally joined together in an alliance, however fleeting it might be. Olivia was among those assigned to work more closely with the newcomers, despite their tense relationship. But however much disagreement she might have with them, she was also one who knew them best, after working so closely with the weather contractors. She couldn’t really fault Lucky for the assignment, even if she still resented it.

She worked in the hangar mostly, helping one or another of the “Elements of Harmony” prepare for and then launch on a simple contact mission using one of the Emperor’s Soul’s jumpers. So lots of time explaining how the acceleration worked, and what sort of noise they would make when they inserted themselves into whatever location they landed.

She halfway expected the natives to just get themselves killed, along with their pilots. They might have the unique talents to accomplish the goal of uniting Equestria, they might be famous and experienced and have friends all over—but they were also extremely naive, almost childish in their outlook… well, all except for Twilight Sparkle. Olivia had broken her of that a little over a year ago.

Life in Motherlode settled into something like normal for a while—pods flew in every few days, with a few of the Elements and some locals they had brought back from who knew what remote Equestrian place. After the third or so mission, they started referring to her by name. By the tenth, she was starting to pick up a little more Eoch through sheer exposure. She hadn’t really bothered with the weather contractors, since part of that mission had been about teaching them English. Now she had a reason.

Affairs in Motherlode were a little more mixed, though she wasn’t exposed as often. Gruber and his soldiers seemed content enough to laze around for the first few weeks, but soon enough they started getting bored, and that meant they were restless. They began causing trouble in town—shaking ponies down, robbing from them, and threatening to “reveal what they knew.”

But Olivia no longer worried about them managing anything in secret, not when almost every item they owned was bugged. Though they’d never know it, Forerunner knew everything they ever did—knew which ones were forming secret relationships with the locals, knew which ones were taking bribes, which ones were making threats. And if one of them actually seemed like they were going to spring a leak in Motherlode’s information dam… well, there were methods for that too.

And Olivia was the one assigned to make sure they understood that fact.

She brought Gruber in the very day he sent one of his soldiers away—on a hike down the mountain, with the assignment to catch a train a town over. Given they were the only “free” settlement in all the Smokey Mountains, that soldier probably would’ve succeeded. Except that Forerunner had known about the plan for a week, and they’d had half a dozen men ready for it.

At the end, the brave soldier had tried to kill himself, going straight for the throat with his knife. But he’d barely even nicked the skin before Olivia’s stun-rifle had sent him sprawling.

“I don’t see why you want to talk to me,” Gruber said, following her through one of Motherlode’s upper tunnels. As time went on, more of these were transforming from plain stone to precisely carved and luxurious passages, except for the bundle of umbilical on the roof. It was the native population—they were mostly earth ponies, and all out of a job mining since Forerunner’s drones worked so much faster. Olivia thought the construction suited them. If anything, they had more of an attention to detail than the AI did. She could make out little hearts in the archways, and tiny sun and moon cutie marks near the edges where a passage might lead to a common area or a restroom respectively.

Gruber had not seen any of Motherlode’s facilities, other than the spa on the first floor and its endless supply of luxuries. But that was going to change today. A risk, but… they had to act.

Olivia’s new graft still itched, and was swollen bright red around the joint. She’d bound the whole thing up with bandages, but it would probably be another day or two before she could run. As it was she had to take things slow, careful not to put weight on the fleshglue too soon.

“Because there’s something you need to see,” Olivia said, quite cheerfully. She didn’t dress like a disgusting pauper this time, but in a plain uniform—the uniform of a prefect, a jumpsuit that covered her whole body and was adorned with Pioneering Society logos. There was also a holster for a sidearm, though none obviously visible inside. She did have a derringer strapped just under the edge of her jumpsuit on one side, and a knife hidden somewhere even cleverer. But she didn’t expect to need either against Gruber. “It’s a new facility. One we didn’t want to build for you, but… here we are.”

“It’s always build, build, build with you people,” he muttered, jamming a soft pretzel almost completely into his mouth. His blue fur was stained with patches of cheese sauce—the aliens liked human food even more than its pony equivalent, so much so that some of the soldiers were starting to gain weight. Gruber hadn’t been that healthy to begin with—now he practically waddled. “You need to learn to take the load off sometimes! Honestly… even my brother knows when to relax and let the royalties flow in. Like the investment for your hard work.”

They took a sharp turn past a red cross on one wall, and suddenly they were in medical. Specially emptied for this demonstration, at least as far as she needed to go. Olivia gestured for the third door, which was the only one not sealed. “We’ll take a break when we’re finished,” Olivia said. “Just through here.”

“And you dig like diamond dogs,” Gruber went on, as though he hadn’t even heard what she had to say. “They’re like this too, but… mostly it’s an obsession with gemstones. You wouldn’t think they would work so hard for nothing but food, but… you’d be wrong.”

Olivia made sure that Gruber would be bringing up the rear. She would be behind him if he tried to run, and close enough if he tried to off himself.

Not that she expected it—Gruber was a coward through to his bones. He could’ve fled to warn his brother himself. So far as she knew, he’d never done anything to suggest he had the courage to escape that way.

They stepped through the corridor into a room, about a hundred meters long and with regular cylinders every meter or so. Most of them were empty and exposed—shaped a little like Biofabricators, but with blue snowflake symbols instead of the biohazard warnings that were so common in a fabricator.

Motherlode had medical fabricators, but only for organs, not for whole ponies. They didn’t have the resources to expand their population that way. Only the old-fashioned way, eh Melody? Guess that worked out pretty good for you.

There was some other equipment in the center of the room—a few tables with robotic arms mounted to the ceiling, and flying medical drones hovering over their heads.

“This is…” Gruber dropped his pretzel. “This is not pony. You don’t have this.” He turned around, but found Olivia standing right in the way.

She didn’t draw either of her weapons, just bore her teeth and dared him to try and force his way through. On the surface they might pretend that Gruber was still in charge, but… the two of them knew the truth. “We haven’t seen what I wanted to show you yet.” Olivia gestured at the very first tube in the row. “Go on, you need to see this one especially. I think it will make everything make sense.”

“Oh, I think I—” But then she shoved him, and he squeaked in protest. “Alright, I’m going! Geez.”

They stopped in front of the tube, which was different from the others in that it was closed instead of open. It seemed to tower over Olivia, since they had used the human-sized pods. Even so, it barely fit the creature inside it. “Activate transparency,” Olivia said.

A section of the front half went from black to clear, and the creature inside appeared. One of the Storm King’s soldiers, with a mask in his mouth and tubes running up and down his body. His eyes were closed, and lots of the fluff had been shorn away. The rest would fall off when he woke up—hair didn’t do well in cryogenic storage. But it would grow back.

“W-what is L-Lokosh—”

“We caught him trying to run away,” Olivia said, standing just behind Gruber. Anytime he looked back, she would position herself between him and the door.

“That’s a-awful,” Gruber said. “Deserting his post. You know we would’ve punished him.”

“I doubt it,” Olivia said, “considering you ordered him.” She produced the note Gruber had written. It had been in code, but the code was analog and Forerunner had cracked it in seconds. “My detachment and I are hostages to a fermenting pony rebellion. Do not come to Motherlode unless you bring overwhelming force. As many dragons as you can.”

Gruber laughed awkwardly. “O-oh… that.” Then he tried to run.

Olivia intercepted him as he tried to circle around her, smashing him in the torso with her good foreleg. He fought back, trying to throw her, so she let him, stumbling back a few steps, before smashing him right into a surgical table with her shoulder. Glass shattered and tools went everywhere, and soon enough she was on top of him.

“You really aren’t a fighter,” she said, ignoring the sting of a few fresh cuts. Most of the broken glass was now in Gruber, but some of it was in her shoulder. “I guess that’s nepotism for you.”

“Go ahead and kill me,” Gruber croaked. “It won’t work. My brother grants us all eternal life. The dead rise again when the storm passes, you’ll see.”

“I know.” Olivia released him, though she kept one hoof on his torso, ready to shove him back if he tried to stand up. “Your brother gave us this idea.” She flicked her tail at the tube. “Your man won’t wake up, but he won’t die either. It’s the perfect way to fight an immortal. We don’t have that crystal stuff he used on the Alicorns, but that doesn’t matter. Last I checked, these freezers can keep someone alive for a thousand years. Maybe longer, if we wake you up for corrective surgery every now and then.”

Gruber swallowed, looking away from her. He’d apparently connected the dots. “Now you’re going to lock me up, like Lokosh.”

“Not… today,” Olivia said, releasing her hoof. “You’ve got a choice here, Gruber. I hope you’ll make the right one.” She shook herself off, trying to remove the bits of clinging glass. “You can live in luxury, or let us do what we want to your brain while your body is on ice. Don’t think it’s just a peaceful sleep, because it’s not. I promise to make the process as unpleasant as possible.”

Gruber nodded, scrambling to his feet. His injuries weren’t that severe, as it turned out. But there were a few cuts seeping blue blood, and the pain of it seemed to ruin his concentration. “Okay, okay! I get it.”

“Good.” Olivia gestured for the door. “Because the next time anything happens that makes me think you’re going back on our deal, we’ll have you in here. So you better start thinking of how to keep your soldiers obedient.”

They wandered off down the hall, and Olivia left Gruber in the capable hands of a pony doctor—one of the locals, who Gruber would probably remember. The less of the technology he saw, the better. But the impression still had to stick.

“How did I do?” Olivia asked, when one of Forerunner’s robotic ponies joined her in the hallway. She had a few fresh stitches, but otherwise was none the worse for wear.

“It might work,” Forerunner said. “Until I can finish synthesizing enough material for the rest of the soldiers, anyway. There’s no point trying to keep them alert for our next inspection. They seem to realize the gravity of our operation here, and intend to betray our secret.”

Olivia nodded. “Well, keep working as quick as you can. The sooner they’re all on ice, the better.”

Sarah had been on more uncomfortable dates, but not very many of them.

Part of it was probably the fact that James was trying to pressure her into a relationship she had already turned away, when the stakes for Othar were already so high. Sarah felt no particular loyalty towards Equestria or even her own nation, but seeing it conquered by Vlad the Impaler was a bridge too far. There came a point when even the self-interested rogue had to step in. Han had come back to save the day.

But there was another part of her that enjoyed the novelty alone—being on two legs was a welcome relief, something she supposed she’d never experienced before, technically. But her memory didn’t care about technicalities like which version of her had “really” grown up human, and the motion was natural for her.

Sarah had been on dates she didn’t want to take before, and they were usually the same. The sort of person who thought a forced relationship would work was usually the sort of person who was shy about everything and didn’t have any definite plans for what their time together would entail. They just expected some supernatural charm on their part to convince her.

But James wasn’t quite like that. Apart from walking beside her, he didn’t actually do anything to make Sarah feel awkward.

The beach looked much like the other tropical vacation spots she’d visited before, with resorts and patches of umbrellas, and plenty of sunbathers. The aliens loved to swim, and had lots of towing watercraft. Though there were also things like walkways that went straight into the water, with glowing handrails on either side. She pointed to one, where a group of four aliens vanished beneath the surface. “What are they doing?”

“Walking back to town, I guess,” James said. “They’re done vacationing for the day.”

“Oh.” Sarah shuddered. “Can we not go down there? I’m sick of dark places.”

“It’s not dark,” he said, but then he went right back to rambling.

Her guess about Harmony tweaking time here was apparently correct, because James went on as though he’d learned a great deal about these posthuman aliens. He described the skyrail down to the city, where he had spent a few weeks studying with professors of language and culture. “They’ve never actually met a human before, so they were excited to interview me. I guess they don’t get a lot through here.”

Up ahead, Sarah could now see the destination James had already warned her about. A seaside carnival of sorts, complete with plenty of flashing lights, screeching sirens, and cheering visitors. The roller coasters and rides were far more sophisticated than anything she’d ever seen on Earth—the tracks seemed to be changing between passes, which was probably the biggest thing. But the crowds were the same and the fried smell of the food was similar too.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Sarah said, pulling him back a little by his arm. She wasn’t sure she actually wanted to enter that park. But at least by now their crowd of alien followers was gone, wandered back to the bars they’d come from. “Didn’t they come from humans once? Look at us, we’re basically human. Just… modified. Pretty substantially, but…”

“Well…” James shrugged one shoulder. He slowed down when she pulled, apparently not minding the pressure. “I mean, we’ve got lots of little rodents in our ancestry. Does that mean that you know how they saw the world?”

“I had a pet rat once,” Sarah answered. “But I had to eat him.”

“Yeah… I’m not sure if I want that to be true. But do you see what I mean? They’re way more advanced than we are—they’ve been something else for so long that they might as well be aliens.”

“Eh, doesn’t seem so weird to me.” Sarah reached up, gently lifting his hat off his head and tossing it over the railing.

“Hey!” James jerked away from her, leaning over the walkway to try and catch it. But he wasn’t anywhere near coordinated enough. “I had to make that hat! Took me hours.”

“Reminds me a little of ponies,” Sarah said, as though she hadn’t even heard him. “No clothes, lots of bright colors and politeness. Except ponies still have…” She lowered her voice, then glanced away from him. There were people walking around them, people apparently relieved to have something so scandalous as a person completely in shadow removed from the path. “Well, sex.”

James was still glaring at her as he straightened. “Why’d you throw that away?”

“Because everyone was staring at us,” she said. “That isn’t how dates are supposed to go, trust me. You want to focus on each other, not wonder when someone is going to punch you because you have different morals than them. Be a crusader for social change on your own time.”

James’s voice changed into a frightened flash of color, which quickly transformed into a smile. “Wait a minute. You just admitted we’re on a date!”

Sarah might’ve grumbled about it under other circumstances. But here… “I don’t mind seeing the sights,” she said, through the usual set of visual images that constituted speech for her current species. She wanted to learn how to use sound, since they certainly had it. She could hear some quiet fairground-type music playing from up ahead, a little stretched and out of tune. But it was still there.

“You’ll love the Ultraviolet Twister. It’s… probably the coolest thing I’ve done since coming here, aside from just walking under the ocean. That part was definitely the best.”

“Maybe, but not right now. I’m surprised you want to go anywhere near it after being stuck underground for… how long were we even down there?”

“A month?” James suggested, but there was no confidence in his voice as he said it. “Wait, did I sleep that often?”

“No, you don’t sleep much. Or you… didn’t. Once you got transformed. You got your energy from another source, or whatever.”

“Right.”

They walked in visual silence for the next hundred meters or so. Sarah found she didn’t mind that much either—aside from the distant music of the fair, she could focus on the sounds of the environment. The waves crashing on the shore, the insects chirping in the trees above. However that worked. But they didn’t seem dangerous, so she didn’t worry about it.

Eventually she felt James take her hand, and she didn’t pull away. “I was hoping you’d take me back,” James said, and the nervous way he said it shaped his words into something not so deep as before. “I didn’t want to run away forever. Maybe a longer vacation than this… it’s nice to be somewhere that my clones haven’t shown me up. There are still discoveries in here. Part of our… future history. Our future, their history. But not our future because we didn’t… you get the idea.”

“Yeah.” Sarah leaned on his arm a little as they got into the fair.

Her next few hours were an enjoyable blur—despite the aliens, despite the strangeness of the rides and the food, there was something deeply familiar about the experience, and also totally new. Sarah hadn’t ever had the money to waste on things like this, and once she stole enough she considered herself above them.

But James, James had been on the borderline of society without quite falling into the underground. This struck her a little like what the average poor might’ve done for fun. Except that she had seen no sign of poor here, or even wealth. They didn’t pay for anything, and it wasn’t like she couldn’t tell the difference in one set of sandals or the next.

They didn’t have a Ferris wheel, but they did have a little airship that went up and down on a regular loop. She was pretty sure James had timed it so they’d be going up around sunset.

The more time she spent with him—the more she thought about how he had been the one who’d been loyal to her—the more it hurt.

Then James kissed her, and she didn’t think about much of anything for a while. As it turned out, their skin could do all kinds of different colors at once.

But then she pushed him away, into the empty corner of the padded bench. “S-stop it, James. This isn’t the time… and it isn’t going to work.”

“Seems like… it’s working fine to me,” James said. “We’ve been together since this thing started. We’ve made it through together. Why shouldn’t we…”

“Because I don’t like guys!” There was no hint of doubt in what she was saying—it wasn’t her who’d changed. “James, you’ve really… risen to the occasion, alright? That’s great. But that isn’t the only reason this is working.” She gestured at his torso. “Whatever we are…”

“Vitruvian,” James supplied. “That’s what the species is called. They’ve been on Equestria for at least a few thou—”

“Vitruvian,” she repeated, pushing on his shoulder. “Well, this works fine right now. But if we go outside…” She shook her head. “My relationships need to be physical, not just emotional. They’re mostly physical, if I’m being honest. I bet you money Harmony made you look like that to try and distract me. It’s the… second time he’s done that. I don’t think you’re a guy in here, and that’s what made this…” She relaxed a little, squeezing his hand. “Does that make sense?”

James nodded. “No one is. I don’t know… exactly how it works, but I’m pretty sure it’s all the same. So you’re as much of a guy as I am. Or… as much not of one.”

“Well, that won’t be much of a change.” She laughed, but there was none of her usual spite in it, and she fell silent quickly. “Well, anyway… I think we should stop, right here.” She folded her arms. “Because it will only end in pain. The closer you get to someone when you know it won’t work out, the worse it feels when everything falls apart.”

“But…” James hesitated. “You don’t have to leave. I’ve got two clones, so whatever I could do they’ll just do for me. And you… you’re not even really a munitions engineer, so it’s not like you could’ve done that job if you came back. Can’t we just… get along without them?”

“No.” That did it. Whatever Sarah had been feeling, it was gone now. “I’m done, James. It was fun, but… it’s time to go. Are you going to keep your end, or… were you just leading me on?”

James’s colors went through several dark, self-conscious shades. Then he rose. “We can go.”

“Harmony!” She didn’t say it out loud, but somehow the program heard her. It appeared between the two of them, its pony features seeming somehow… disappointed.

“We listen.”

“We want to leave,” Sarah said, gesturing out the open window. “To wherever Ocellus is. Vacation was nice, but… it’s time to get the gang back together.”

“You would be happier if you did not,” Harmony said. “We see that both of you are incomplete. With a few more adjustments, you could both be resolved.”

“Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve,” Sarah muttered, exasperated. “Get us out.”

The world melted.

Melody was fairly certain some kind of nepotism must’ve been involved in getting her such well-appointed quarters. But no matter how many times she asked, Lucky insisted that she hadn’t said a thing to Forerunner or the natives of Motherlode. “Our princess has been good to us so far,” Mayor Pyrite had said. “The ponies want to show their appreciation. Can you blame them? If I’ve learned nothing living with earth ponies as long as I have, it’s not to refuse a gift that’s freely given. They knew the work they were doing going into it. Just be gracious.”

So she’d tried to be gracious, permitting each of the natives who wanted the time to visit her in her new quarters. They were the same basic dimensions as all essential crew who lived with more than one pony—three large rectangular sections with a naked umbilical on the ceiling and rough stone walls. There was a tiny bathroom, a larger sitting room with a office, and a bedroom that wasn’t very quiet or very cozy even when she was with her mate.

But the natives of Motherlode had fixed all that. There wasn’t an inch of bare stone anywhere under her hooves now, and the plain walls had been carved into faux-arches and columns that almost reminded her of a palace. The blank lighting fixtures had been incorporated into handmade (well, hoofmade) metal fixtures.

“I don’t understand the point of all this,” she said to Deadlight, for perhaps the tenth time since arriving back home. “We were only away for a week. Where did they even find the time?”

Deadlight had far more duty shifts than she did—though still less than half what he’d been serving before the birth. Lucky had offered to remove him from rotation entirely, but neither of them wanted that. If the Storm King won, their world would be as ruined as everyone else’s. Even if Melody couldn’t help anymore, someone had to.

“They have nothing but time,” Deadlight said, taking baby Roman in his wings with great care and returning him to the crib. That, like everything else here, had obviously been made by hand and with great care. The imperfections in the fresh wood lent it far more character than a perfect recreation of some historical artifact could’ve done. “Think about it, they’ve been mining for their whole lives, and now you have machines for that. Now they train for a war… well, some of them do. The rest just supervise robots, trying to pretend like they’re working. A pony needs purpose. A few weeks of vacation is fantastic, but a few months is a prison.”

Melody settled back into the greatly-enhanced couch, resting her wing against Deadlight’s back. He was probably the most comfortable thing about this place, at least now that she’d recovered enough not to lounge about in hospital beds all the time.

She spared another glance for Roman, just to make sure that he would sleep soundly. But Deadlight knew what he was doing, and Roman was already wrapped securely. Whatever traces of strange intelligence she’d seen during the first night, they hadn’t been repeated since.

“I hope it counts for anything,” she finally said. “What we’re doing… we still don’t know how we’re going to get in and fight the Storm King. Hiding up here… it won’t help forever. Othar was underground, and it didn’t survive. Motherlode won’t either.”

Deadlight sat up a little straighter, looking away from her. Melody recognized that look instantly—the stallion was trying to hide something from her. And maybe he would’ve gotten away with it too, except for how long they’d been together. She could read him now, as easily as most languages. “What do you know?”

“We… do have an idea,” Deadlight said. “I didn’t want to worry you, but… I might as well tell you now.”

“Yes,” she agreed, lifting her head off his back and stiffening her wings a little. “Whatever you’ve been hiding… please. You know I deserve to know. For Roman. I won’t try to come with you.”

“Forerunner’s guess was right,” Deadlight said. “It’s the landing craft. They’re taking tons of cargo, and there aren’t any sensors aboard. Because… it’s going to the upper atmosphere. There’s no shielding on the lifting cranes, so… nopony would survive that trip.”

Melody leaned back, nodding to herself. “But that isn’t a problem for us. Space suits are impossible for ponies, but they’re simple for us.”

Deadlight nodded, though there was a little annoyance on his face. “Careful whose culture you call simple, Song. There’s always a bigger fish. Equus is bigger than all of us. But… yes. That’s the idea. Forerunner said something about Jonah. I didn’t catch the reference, but apparently it involves some contacts at a work-camp one of the Elements made. We’re going to help the whole place rebel, but after they get us aboard. Maybe… you could give me some context.”

“Jonah was a biblical prophet,” Melody began, and with each word found her audience became more confused. The words didn’t even seem to have direct translations into Eoch. “Nevermind. He was… a guy who got swallowed by a whale. According to the story, he was in its belly for three days before it spat him back up. It… probably means Forerunner is going to hide us in something.”

“Hide me in something,” Deadlight corrected. “You aren’t going to try and come along, remember? Roman needs you here. And I need you to be back with him, in case… well, in case something happens.”

“Psh.” Melody waved one wing through the air dismissively. But she couldn’t exactly argue what he’d said—she had promised. It was only her old self that wanted to come. Probably her clone would have that covered. “I dunno why that would matter even if I did go with you and get exploded right over space. If Lucky could come back, I can too. Both of us can. We’re as immortal as the Storm King, even if…” They hadn’t figured out a way to bring anyone back. It had to be out there, a simple matter of the right spell. Lucky even had a spell, but what they lacked was the energy to make it work. Forerunner had postulated that there were many methods, and that Discord had given them one specifically chosen to be non-reproducible outside of working for him. The longer they tried to get it to work again, the more likely that seemed.

“Death, sure,” Deadlight muttered. “But talk to Princess Luna about that. Or those ugly soldiers a few floors up.”

Melody lowered her wings in defeat. “Fine, fine. You win.” She settled back against his neck, breathing in his scent. Whatever traces of James might’ve been uncomfortable in this position were long gone now. She wanted nothing more than to be near Deadlight until she died. Which… might be a long time for both of them. “When is this happening?”

Deadlight shook his head. “Dunno yet. They don’t think we’ll be able to repeat it, so… probably we won’t get to send a crew in first. The whole strike team will have to move at the same time as the rebellions all over Equestria. Best guess… another month. They need a year, but I just don’t think we have it. Hopefully the Storm King’s goons don’t feel much like genocide once this starts.” But as he said that last, he didn’t sound even a little confident about it.

“Me too,” Melody whispered, rising again and making her way over to the crib. She levitated Roman out of it again, holding him against her chest. She didn’t want to let go.

Part 2: Hedgemaze

Flurry Heart could always tell when a pony was humoring her.

If she wanted to go on missions with any of the Elements, they would always agree. It didn’t matter if she asked for something absurd, didn’t matter if she wanted to go into danger or a social situation where another Alicorn would make things worse. They always said yes.

Which was how she knew that she didn’t belong. It seemed very likely to her—practically a guarantee—that her aunt had asked them to go easy on her. They were close friends, so they did what she asked, and Flurry Heart was allowed on whatever mission she wanted.

She didn’t end up going. When the day of departure arrived, she always made some excuse, and she could see the relief in Rainbow Dash’s face, or hidden in the quiet mutters of Fluttershy. They all wanted her to be happy, certainly. They just didn’t want her to come with them on their missions.

Even Twilight Sparkle had a little of that to her. She always made time to see Flurry Heart, always listened patiently to her when she talked about her experiences in occupied Canterlot, often with some advice for how she might overcome her persistent nightmares.

But even her aunt occasionally glanced at the clock when they were together, and made excuses if she asked to go walking through the mines or swimming together in the pond.

“Sorry, Flurry,” she would say, in the sweetest possible voice. “But I have to…” And then would come the excuse.

Made worse by the fact that Twilight was certainly justified in getting rid of her. Flurry Heart was nothing but an inconvenience, and the less involvement she had with the war effort the better. If she hadn’t been so willing to escape pain by doing what they told her, maybe more of Equestria would’ve survived.

But there was one place she could go, one pony she could see. Flurry Heart had her friend back.

Lucky Break was always moving, always somewhere else in Motherlode, patching another metaphorical leak or putting out a metaphorical fire. She wouldn’t leave her work behind for Flurry Heart—she was a governor, whatever the heck that meant.

But she would invite Flurry Heart to come help, even if her help probably made things worse.

So it was that Flurry Heart found herself meeting with groups of rebel pony commanders, riding with a shipment of food to the desperate and starving Cloudsdale, installing new weapons on Solar Fleet ships beside a hundred drones, and many other strange things.

“How do you know what to do?” she asked Lucky one evening, after they’d just dropped off the last batch of medicine for some sick foals in the refugee camp just south of Motherlode. “All these things… you’re always moving, always productive.”

Lucky Break didn’t wear a crown when she worked, or any jewelry at all. Only a holster, with a small metal human firearm inside. Flurry Heart had never seen her need to use it, despite how tense things sometimes got.

“I cheat,” she said, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “I’m always cheating, every leader does. It’s the only way to keep up with it all.”

“Cheat… how?” Flurry Heart had been expecting something Celestia might’ve said, about the reliance on character, or maybe the power of friendship. But her human friends were nothing if not surprising.

“Oh, easy.” She flicked a wing. “I ask Forerunner what I need to do. And if I’m not sure about something after that, I ask the other ponies I trust. Find an expert, get their opinion. It’s called delegating. Most of the time, we’re really just being seen and running errands. I don’t know how to fight a war, that’s why we have Qingzhi. I don’t know how to manage supplies, or run a mine, or… well, not very much of anything. I’m a translator. But I can stand up straight and tell people nice things. I can promise them we’ll never give up and that Forerunner is going to win the war. Do you think the ponies around us expect more?”

“Seems like it’s working,” Flurry Heart said, her voice weak. It got even weaker as she asked another question. “Do you think Forerunner would help me too?”

Forerunner had no drones with them today, not even carrying supplies. But she was always wearing a translator, in case the humans switched to some other language she didn’t speak. And sometimes Forerunner used it to talk to her. He did now. “I can,” Forerunner said. “But you might have to do some hard things. Maybe you aren’t ready to face them.”

“I’m ready!” Flurry Heart exclaimed. “I’m ready for anything. When we… when we go to save Equestria, I want to be part of it somehow. That could be one of the things you tell me to do.”

“Helping somehow,” came Forerunner’s voice, “is easy. But that isn’t the same as joining the mission to seize the Stormbreaker. You will not be part of that expedition.”

Even you? But she didn’t let herself drift down into despair. Forerunner had given her nothing but honesty—he also didn’t care about pride, or about how satisfied ponies were with his opinions. He wasn’t being spiteful when he denied her, only practical. “What about Lucky? Is she going? I have the same training with fighting that she does!”

“Not a chance,” Lucky said from behind her, her voice weak and nervous. “I went once before, and that mission ended terrible for all kinds of reasons. I’m leaving it to the professionals this time. They know better how to fight. Twilight Sparkle is going for that—she’s fought magical monsters before, and the Storm King is probably one of those. But I’m going to be on-call if they need more Alicorns. I’m gonna help with the big work camps around Canterlot, actually. My parents…” She trailed off, voice going very small. “Well, I don’t want to see anyone else lose family members onto a slave ship. Those camps are going to realize what we did and start punishing their slaves. That’s where I’m getting involved.”

“I could go with you!” Flurry Heart cried, desperate to do anything to help at this point. “Forerunner, could I do that? Would you let me?”

“I would,” Forerunner said. “To my knowledge, the only way to effectively kill you would be to use the crystal weapon that was deployed on the other rulers of Equestria. I predict that it is unlikely that slave camps would have defense forces armed with these weapons. But there is still a nonzero chance you will be slain in the course of the battle. I do not know the process of returning to life outside the spell that Lucky Break used and has not been able to repeat.”

They reached Lucky’s quarters about then—their shared quarters now. There was a shelf near the entryway, cast in sturdy red wood and filled with little treasures on pillows. Each one of them was a gift from another faction or important pony, gifts of gratitude given once they’d started fighting for the rebellion. Lucky seemed proud of each one, though she never would’ve admitted it. Lucky hung her gun on a hook, then flopped sideways onto an overstuffed cushion as though she were going to deflate.

“Then I’m coming with you,” Flurry Heart declared. “It’s settled. I can still be useful to Equestria.”

“I’m sure you will be,” Lucky said. “I’ll be glad to have you with me. But I don’t know how much actual fighting I’ll do. Mostly I’ll let the 75th handle things and try not to get in their way. That’s kind of the whole reason you have soldiers—you let them fight for things like this. But they might need our help, and if they do… then we’ll be there.”

“Great,” Flurry Heart said. She removed the coat from her back, then a bright yellow floral hat. Her mane was still ragged and uneven from where Perez had cut it, and the dye he’d used wasn’t washing out. But at the roots some of her real colors were coming back, so… the fewer ponies recognized who she was underneath, the better.

But Lucky Break hadn’t judged her for it. There was no disgust in her face when she looked at her, and not even any pity.

Humans were weird, but sometimes that was a good thing.

“Just have to be ready,” Lucky said, as though there’d been no interruption. “We don’t know when the opportunity will come. Not more than a month, though… after that, the Storm King should reach Motherlode on his inspection order. When that happens…” She trailed off. There was no need for Lucky to elaborate. Once the Storm King came to inspect the town himself, their ruse would surely be discovered. Gruber had already moved on from cooperating out of greed and was working out of fear. The instant he saw a way out…

“I’ll be ready,” Flurry Heart promised. “I’m going to get them back for what they did to my family. And we’ll put Equestria right.”

The ground appeared under Sarah seconds later, somewhere else.

Harmony already gave James weeks when I was only here for a few minutes. It will probably do it again. But what she couldn’t work out quite yet was why Harmony did anything it did. So far as he could tell, it didn’t have any sort of incentive. But it was also far more intelligent than she was, far wiser and further-seeing.

Sarah had worked with people smarter than herself before—and she knew better than to call their actions random. What seemed like noise could combine together at the last possible second and cause her terrible harm. So she’d be alert every moment for the sense.

The place they arrived was far stranger than any Sarah had visited before. Lush green rose all around her, twisting in a hedge maze of glittering thorns. In the distance she could see metallic structures glittering under the light of a few different moons, each one a slightly different shade.

She was a pony again, and so was James—restored to the unicorn shape she was used to from him. See James, this is why it won’t work. You’d have to change so much about yourself… And even then, how long did Sarah’s relationships really last? Not long enough for James, at least if his monogamous clone was any guide.

Harmony had not brought a crowd this time, only the one metallic body. It stopped at the edge of the yawning green wall, as though prevented from moving forward by an invisible line. “This is where isolation begins. I can observe what takes place within, but not reveal it to you, so I cannot give you any preparation for what you will find inside. Your friend is there, along with…” Harmony trailed off, its voice darkening. “Many others.”

“Thanks,” Sarah said, stepping past the threshold towards the thorny maw. She could hear birds inside—mostly crows.

“If you change your mind and want to leave, I can get you out,” Harmony continued. “Either one of you. Simply request it, and we can be back here. But once the request is given, I cannot discuss it with you, only obey the command.” Harmony tapped the side of its head with one hoof. “It need not be given vocally, either. If you desire to leave, that is enough.”

“I don’t,” Sarah said loudly. “And neither does James. Not unless we’re leaving with our whole crew.”

“That may change,” Harmony said. The wind picked up around them, lifting fallen leaves from the edge of the hedge. When it settled down again, the two of them were alone with the chill.

Sarah gestured, and they set off into the maze. Sarah eyed the edge of the path, and the spearpoint sharpness on each thorn. I wonder what would happen if I walked into a dozen of those. Can I bleed here? Would I die and wake up another layer down? She resolved not to find out.

The maze had many twisting paths open to them—some that seemed wide and brightly lit, others with walls that loomed so close that they were veiled in shadow. James hesitated at the first fork, but Sarah just sniffed the air and pointed towards a low tunnel without hesitating. It smelled the best.

“Did you ever think…” James said, his voice low. “That Ocellus didn’t try to leave either? Doesn’t that mean something? She could’ve found you.”

Sarah shook her head. “I’m the only citizen here. Ocellus doesn’t have the same permissions in here that I do.”

“Or she doesn’t want to find us,” James said. “Can you blame her? This… place… looks pretty awful to me, but maybe it’s what changelings like.” As he said it, something massive lumbered around ahead of them, its footsteps dislodging brown leaves from the wall. Sarah could make out a massive shape on the horizon for a few seconds, then the footsteps faded into the distance. A few crows called out mournfully. “Maybe she wants to stay home.”

“No.” Sarah nodded confidently. “She just can’t, that’s all. You’ll see once we find her. Or… maybe she’s waiting in place because that’s the smartest thing to do. I don’t know if you ever heard, but when you’re lost you’re supposed to stay put so the rescue party can find you. We’re the rescue party, and we’re going to find her.”

“If you say so.” James slowed, trailing behind her by some distance. “I miss the beach. I think I understand why Harmony doesn’t have to fight very hard to keep the downstream population down. There are so many worlds in here, all perfect.”

He stumbled sideways into the wall, yelping in protest as one of the thorns went straight into his side. Real blood welled up there, at least for a few seconds. The hedge seemed to drink it in, old brown leaves growing bright green from where he’d been cut. “Dammit, that hurts! Why the hell did they put that here?”

“Because we can’t close the door to ponies,” said a tiny voice from around the bend. Sarah hurried forward a few steps, and found a black changeling there, its insect eyes looking at them. Its hooves were attached to something firm—like a huge block of cement. It was held down with rope, and obviously couldn’t move. It looked shriveled, its body covered with bits of moss. “So we planted a hedge around our country, tall enough that no one unwelcome would enter. The doors are still open, so Harmony’s law is satisfied.”

Sarah couldn’t help herself—she reached out, brushing the dirt away from the poor creature’s body with a wing. “How long have you been here, uh…”

“Stinger,” said the little voice. “Since the queen judged me. I was unworthy of her service, so she put me here to watch for intruders. I’m not very good at watching for intruders.”

The poor creature looked like it should’ve died—but her attention was helping. The more she fussed over it, the more alive it appeared. “James, what do you think we can do about the rock there? Any ideas?”

“I… maybe. Flurry Heart talked about transmogrification spells a few times. I could change it into something else. Or maybe you could, you’re stronger than me.”

“I am forbidden from leaving my post,” proclaimed the changeling, its voice half-hearted. “I need to scare away intruders. Rawr!” But there was no malice in it, even though its fangs might’ve been frightening on a healthy creature.

“Rawr,” Sarah repeated. “We’re scared, terrified even. So scared we’re taking you with us.”

“That’s not what scared means,” said the little voice.

“Oh well.” Sarah nudged James closer to the stone block. “You do it. It doesn’t have to work for very long, just long enough to get those legs out.

“Fine.” He rolled his eyes. “Just get out of my way for a second and don’t mess me up. Because there’s a good chance I might liquify the wrong thing. I’m pretty sure it works just as good on alive things as it does on cement.”

Sarah obeyed, getting ready to move. And good thing too, because after a brief flash of light, the bug started to sink right down into the rock that had been holding it. She moved with a jerk, catching it by one leg and tugging it out onto the loamy earth. A few seconds later and the cement went solid again, still showing the deep grooves from her recent tug. The bits clinging to the changeling’s leg were still rock-hard, but that probably didn’t matter. Compared to what had just happened.

“There you go.” Sarah rose, brushing the dust off her chest and lower body. “You’re free, Stinger.”

“I’m free,” Stinger repeated, and Sarah became more confident she was dealing with a male. He buzzed up into the air, circling them once and grinning. He sounded like a completely different creature than the one she’d spoken to a few minutes before. “You let me go. Why would ponies do that?”

“We’re not ponies,” James said. “We’re humans. Explorers from a planet called Earth. We don’t have the same—”

“Explorers,” repeated Stinger. “You’re from homeworld. How are you here? Why are you here?” He landed, though his wings kept buzzing on his back, just not quite fast enough to lift him into the air. “Wait, probably you shouldn’t be. Harmony’s like a bear-trap! If it knows you’re here…”

“Too late,” Sarah said with a shrug. “But that’s fine. We’ve never actually seen Earth, so we’re not missing Earth. It’s only our memories that are from there… it’s a long story.” She rested a wing on the bug’s shoulder again. “We’re looking for a friend of ours in there. Ocellus, maybe you know her. Could you help us get through the maze?”

“I’m supposed to stay alert for intruders…” Stinger said, his voice doubtful. “But you aren’t ponies, so… I guess you don’t count. Despite appearances. Maybe you should look like something else? That might make it easier.”

“I don’t want to be a Vitruvian here,” James said, looking up at the strange moons. “It’s too dark. I’d be miserable.”

“Why don’t we just fly over this hedge?” Sarah asked. “It’s only… twenty feet? That’s not impossible. A third of ponies can fly.”

“It is impossible,” Stinger said, voice regretful. “We could build the door however we liked, so we made only one way in. The wind up there will push you back to the start of the maze.”

“Then…” Sarah gestured. “I’m guessing this is the correct path. You were here to try and watch it, so… there’d be no point guarding the wrong way.”

Stinger nodded. “It isn’t as far as ponies think. The atmosphere scares most of them away before they go further, and the higher complexity stuff doesn’t even bother with us. Just… don’t mention my name, okay? If you ever see the queen… I dunno how she’s ruling right now, but if you’re ever in Irkalla, we didn’t meet.”

“Sure,” Sarah said. “No problem.”

“Cuz’ she’s dead,” James added.

Sarah winced, glaring sideways at her companion. Telling him that isn’t going to help!

And it didn’t. Stinger stopped walking completely, eyes widening with shock. “Not for long,” he said. “She… she’s died before, most of us have. She’ll be back.”

“I’m sure,” Sarah said, slowly and loudly. Over whatever James might’ve done to make things worse. “We shouldn’t distract our guide, James.”

Finally he got the hint, at least enough not to say anything else completely stupid along the way.

Despite what Stinger had said about the length of the trip, they had days to journey through the dark. It smelled like their guide was leading them the right way, but Sarah couldn’t have said for sure. All she had was the general sense that they were moving the right direction.

It wasn’t just twisting paths and confusing turns in front of them—the maze confronted them with monsters too, with puzzles and locks and tests of skill. But they had a guide, a guide who knew this route well and had taken it many times.

The worst danger in Sarah’s mind was the possibility that something in here might kill them, and send them back to start over.

They didn’t need to sleep at least, and when they got hungry Stinger directed them to strange fruit that grew from the blood-red parasitic vines snaking through the maze. It tasted foul, but at least it kept them going.

Then, when it seemed that James was running out of strength and Sarah herself thought the next bit of maze might drive her completely insane, they reached the exit.

An archway of living plants, nearly two stories tall, beyond which there was a starship.

It rested in an orbital drydock through the archway, surrounded by dozens of smaller support-craft, by workers in space suits. And in the distance far below, the green and blue glow of a planet. Not Earth, from the continents—but somewhere very like it.

Sarah stopped at the edge of the arch, staring through to what appeared to be the void of space. It was an extremely impressive image, but it wasn’t sucking her out into the vacuum. There was no avalanche of air into the opening. “Is this… a screen?” she asked Stinger, not sounding too confident in the hopes that she wouldn’t seem too stupid.

“No.” He sat down right in front of the line. “It’s just a view from the outside. Step through here, and we’ll be on it. And we can part ways. I appreciate your freeing me, but…”

“We know,” James said. “Well, Sarah doesn’t. She’s never been one of you, but I have. I know what they’re like.”

“Thank you,” Stinger said. He rose again, hesitating by the edge of the arch, then he stepped across. He vanished instantly, and the view didn’t change.

Well, we weren’t betrayed. But Sarah had already known they wouldn’t be. The poor drone had been too drained and emotionally weak to try something like that. Even if a healthier changeling would. Even if there was no need to harvest love here to sustain their bodies, being alone and stuck in the ground for who knew how long had to be hard.

“Now we go in,” James said, stopping beside her. “This is what you wanted, right?”

“Yeah.” Sarah rose, and walked beside James through to whatever waited beyond.

They’re preparing to leave tomorrow. Evacuate if you can.

The document was signed with the hoofprint of Daring Do, someone Olivia knew nothing about but who Rainbow Dash swore was one of the best and most reliable ponies when it came to undercover work and dangerous missions. Olivia read over the scan a few more times, along with its notes provided by Forerunner about handwriting interpretation and context. It suggested that the writer was confident about what they were saying, deeply afraid, and that they had a serious problem with their father.

Well, maybe she couldn’t take everything that handwriting interpretation claimed seriously.

“Tomorrow,” Qingzhi repeated, staring down at his own computation surface. It was just the four of them in the emergency meeting—Melody hadn’t been woken, and the Elements of Harmony were away on assignment. Well, except for Rainbow Dash. The other ponies had been given a recall order, but whether they’d get back in time… “This puts a serious limiter on the degree of force that could be turned against us. Serious offenses take far longer than that to organize… are you sure this information has not been compromised?”

“Totally.” Rainbow Dash hadn’t picked up English any better than Olivia had first picked up Eoch, but she was quick on her feet and adapted seamlessly to wearing a translator. “She gave it to me herself. Daring Do has literally never been wrong before. Every time I second-guess her, I find out it’s my fault in the end.”

“Hmm…” Qingzhi set the tablet down, glancing sideways at Olivia. “What do you think?”

I don’t think you should be asking me. I’m just an advisor. Lucky should be the one asking me if she wants my point of view. But Lucky didn’t seem to mind—she wasn’t particular about the specifics of formality.

“He could move without a whole fleet,” Olivia said. “From what I’ve been researching, I don’t think he’d move the Stormbreaker. Sending it across the country to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere would be a show of weakness to the rest of Equestria, and he knows it.”

“I agree,” Qingzhi said. “But he could still move against us. We have special forces who could deploy in less time, it would be vain of us to assume no others are capable. His most skilled mercenaries, perhaps. If they lost or simply acted too strongly, he could later deny them as pirates and raiders, preserving his own reputation. That seems likely to me.”

“Woah.” Rainbow Dash glanced between them in turn. “You guys think about this stuff a lot.”

No one responded to that.

“Then it’s not a big deal,” Lucky said, settling back into her seat. Despite talking mostly to them, she used Eoch, forcing Olivia and Qingzhi to rely on the translator. Well, less than they had. Olivia had been spending so much time with the natives lately that she could make sense of simple sentences now. It wouldn’t be long before she got as good as Perez. “We freaked out over nothing. Their mercenaries won’t be a danger to us. We know their abilities now, and we’ve prepared for them. Forerunner will decimate their forces.”

“I will.” Forerunner’s voice came from the nearest terminal. “Or together we will. A number of the natives are involved in our defensive plans. Regardless, that won’t be the end of it. Unless we think we could buy off our attackers, send them back with false reports. If we can’t do that, then… their defeat will expose us as surely as their victory.”

“That’s why Daring Do says you need to get out,” Rainbow Dash said, tapping the original message against the table in front of them. As though its advice would be somehow more convincing than the digital, translated scans. “We could all load up into that big ship, fly away to join Cloudsdale over the Badlands…”

“We cannot,” Qingzhi said. He kept glancing at Rainbow Dash, then meaningfully back to Lucky. It seemed obvious what he wanted to do—get rid of her. But Lucky either didn’t notice, or didn’t care what he was trying to imply. But when she didn’t say anything, he eventually went on. “Protecting Motherlode is mission critical. We have invested much in these facilities, and our war will collapse if they fail. Our allies will not get the food they need, or the medicine, or the weapons. Motherlode is the central node around which our entire war must be organized. Unless… we wish to abandon our allies and retreat outside Equestria’s borders.”

This time, he caught Olivia’s eye. And she knew what he was thinking, even if he wasn’t bold enough to say it. But for that retreat to work, we would need to bring with us or destroy every native who is aware of our true nature. Every person in Motherlode, every one of the “Elements of Harmony,” and a few other trusted contacts.

If Olivia had been in charge, she probably would’ve given each of them a communicator to be recalled, which could double for a kill-device if their loyalties turned. Lucky was all about communicators, but less so about tools to clean up a covert operation when something like this happened.

So an orderly retreat might be doomed anyway.

“We’re already operating on assumptions here,” Lucky said. “Several deep. We don’t know if this is routine, or maybe something leaked. I’m leaning on the latter… I think it was probably something in Gruber’s letters. I know we’ve been screening them, but… they were brothers. We can’t know him as well as the Storm King.”

“We must take the path that makes our success most certain, regardless of the permutations of what others do,” Qingzhi said. “This means we must attract the entire force sent to investigate us and destroy it. We will have more time to gather our forces then, but not much more. The Storm King will surely realize we are moving against him once his servants do not report. But by then, we must have already moved. The timeline is advanced… by about a month.”

Olivia’s eyes widened as he said it, and she hastily scrolled through her computation surface. She settled on the letter she had in mind. “I… don’t think we can do that,” she said. “Our friends in Camp Storm think they need another month. They really didn’t seem open to pushing the timeline up, they just don’t have the resources.”

“I, uh…” Rainbow Dash took a step back. “It sounds like you guys don’t need me. I’m gonna warn my friends now.”

“Sure.” Lucky waved her off with a wing. “Keep your communicator with you. Don’t leave Motherlode without saying something.”

“Something,” she said. A second later the door slid closed behind her.

That seemed to even annoy Lucky, who was otherwise friendly with the Elements. But she didn’t try to call Rainbow Dash back. Probably no one could catch her anyway.

“Of all the elements of this operation that cannot fail, infiltrating the Stormbreaker is most critical,” Forerunner said, as soon as the door had slid shut. “Even if every one of us is destroyed—if whole Equestrian cities are leveled—all that can be rebuilt, so long as the Storm King’s rule is broken. But if he still commands that terraformer… then he can destroy everything we build.”

“More force from my unit will not help,” Qingzhi said. “If the camp suspects something is wrong, the shipment will be cancelled.

Lucky’s eyes settled on Olivia. “What do you think?” she asked, after a pregnant silence. “I hate to send you away when we’re about to be attacked, but… how do you feel about leading a field mission?”

Fuck you.

“Yes,” she said. “You know who I want.” She dropped her computation surface to the desk. “Time to pack. You… figure the rest of this out yourselves.” She left without another word.

Sarah didn’t feel a thing as she stepped through the gateway into the home of all dead changelings. One minute she was in the winding paths of their protective hedge, the next… she was in another time.

It reminded her a great deal of human space stations. People in clean uniforms, public service announcements blaring and distant machinery doing whatever they were supposed to do quietly off on their own.

She recognized the ship instantly as the same one Irkalla was built in, except that it wasn’t rotting away. The screens all displayed important information, the empty balconies were replaced with holographic displays, strange metal railings now had working escalators. It was a real ship.

She stumbled for a moment, adjusting to the spin-gravity. She did so quickly, but James behind her wobbled a little on his hooves. “Where… what… why would they want to live on a ship?”

Stepping through the barrier had changed the two of them in a similar way as visiting the Vitruvian planet had done. Sarah looked like a changeling—a bright blue and pink one, with bits of yellow and unusually prominent horns. She glanced briefly over her shoulder, at where the crystalline wings emerged from a thick jumpsuit. Certainly not the worst thing she’d ever worn.

James hardly seemed to notice the change—maybe he’d already somehow been a changeling underneath, or maybe he was just too used to being one to be caught flat-footed.

At least once on the other side she didn’t feel like there were so many eyes staring at them. Sarah hardly even felt different, though on an intellectual level she knew the body she was walking in was different than the one she was used to. She could feel her hooves give slightly differently with each step, and no longer felt the air in her coat or her mane in the same way. They’d changed into something like fins, rather than the long hair she was used to.

I can’t believe I miss being a pony. But she did—she’d probably rather be a bat than the tall, semi-human creature that lived on a sun-blasted world and spent most of its time underwater. As interesting as it had been to take a look at their differences in culture.

“I… probably should’ve thought of this,” Sarah muttered, as soon as they’d recovered and kept walking. Living in Irkalla had prepared them for this a little—except that all the vehicles transporting people around the ship worked, all the escalators functioned, all the machines were in perfect repair. So despite living like parasites in the ruin of greater technology in the real world, here they pretended like the ship was theirs. And I guess it is. Or they’re descended from the people who owned it. “But I don’t actually know how to find Ocellus. She’s kind of an important pony, and…” She trailed off, face reddening. “I guess we could… find a computer. Punch in her name, that kind of thing.”

“Don’t bother,” said a voice from behind her. Ocellus’s voice. A changeling emerged from the crowd, bright and colorful and wearing a jumpsuit that seemed to match those being worn all around them. “I found you. It took you long enough to get here.”

Sarah couldn’t help herself—she hurried over and embraced her. She could feel the changeling tense visibly at the gesture, but not nearly as much as Sarah probably had at the idea of a date with James. And now her human colleague would have to watch her enthusiasm at seeing their friend again.

“I’m not very happy with you,” Ocellus said, once she’d broken away. But Sarah noticed she hadn’t pushed her away. She could’ve ended the hug at any time, but she hadn’t. “After what you did… you’re kind of the reason we’re dead. You gave my father the chance to turn against us. If it hadn’t been for you… he would’ve had to keep waiting. Maybe the whole mission would’ve gone by before he got a chance to screw us.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about this out in the open,” Sarah countered, aware of all the eyes on them again. Most of those eyes came from black changelings, their furtive bug eyes impossible to read. It might just be curiosity. Or it might be something else.

“Sure.” Ocellus gestured, and they climbed into a people mover cart that was only then landing on their level. They slammed the door shut before anyone else could get in after them, ignoring the frustrated glances and swears of the other members of the crowd that had been following. The cart sealed around them, and lifted up and away. But always with the floor in the direction of spin-gravity. “There. Privacy.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” Sarah said. “I didn’t think… I thought your father wouldn’t want to…” She trailed off. “Wait, why are you still calling him that? We’re dead now, right? So… when we go back, we’ll have new parents.” Then her expression twisted into one of discomfort. “Ugh. I’m not sure I want that. Being born is super nasty, and if I wasn’t a baby for it…”

“Do you care about the question or not?” Ocellus asked. She didn’t look any older—or any different at all, really. Sarah had half-expected she might’ve been changed by dying, somehow. But so far as she could tell, the changeling looked exactly as she had right before their awful escape plan.

Sarah nodded. “Sorry. This is all so new, I… I like to ramble.”

From beside her, James burst into bitter laughter. But he didn’t actually say anything, and as soon as he’d quieted Ocellus picked right off from where she’d been going.

“Pharynx isn’t my birth father. Since I was born under Chrysalis, that’s impossible to know anyway. He’s my true father.” She tapped the side of her head. “The old queen, she… showed us all of this. The day when we were the crew of the Inanna together. Of all the ponies on Equus, we were the ones who followed her here. We’d always wanted to have a place to call our own, and she showed us how to build one. Showed us that we didn’t have to wait for the end of the Quarantine to start living if we didn’t want. We could prepare before that.”

“How many times has your father killed you?” James asked, his wings buzzing sympathetically.

“That was… the first,” Ocellus admitted. “We haven’t been on opposite sides before. I didn’t enjoy it.”

There was silence then, except for mechanical sounds as their little cart was lifted and transferred onto the next of many rails, and they buzzed out into space. There were a few brief blares of siren, then gravity faded. Sarah began to lift off her seat, but she tried not to react. She didn’t want to look silly to Ocellus, a drone that was apparently a skilled spacer. Or the child of them… she still wasn’t clear on the details.

“I waited for you,” she went on, eventually. “I thought you’d be here sooner. Don’t you care about making contact?”

“Of course I do!” Sarah exclaimed. “I got here as soon as I could. You didn’t have to hide behind some freaky hedge maze. Maybe stand at the front of it next time if you want me to get here quick.”

“O-oh, yeah. Forgot about that.” She giggled. “Good news is you won’t have to get through it again. There’s a shortcut after you make it through the first time. Assuming you’re ever back here. If your ponies are really as advanced as you say, I’m hoping this place will clear out soon enough. We’d rather live on the surface, doing… whatever it is you do on the surface of a world. Maybe you know?”

“Whatever you want,” Sarah supplied. “But we need to get back. I know how you people do it normally, picking a feral and hoping it gets woken up, but… that won’t do. We’re on a budget, and your father stole all our cash. We need a shortcut… there’s got to be one of those. Some door that we can just walk out of or whatever.”

“I… I don’t know any,” Ocellus said. “But somepony new showed up, a year or so ago. I think she can help us.” She leaned forward to the control panel, wings flapping to hold her in place as she pushed.

“Who?” James asked from beside her, apparently genuinely curious. “Someone who knows more than you?”

“Yeah. Just the worst enemy we ever had. All that time we wasted debating things downstream… and Princess Celestia was here all along.”

Part 2: Revivification

The skycrane was an impressive sight, even for someone with modern biases who had been spoiled many times by new inventions. A cable stretched so high above them she couldn’t even imagine what it must be made of, yet it looked only a few times thicker than her own body. As it got lower, she could see it ended in a metallic apparatus that gripped several trays all at once, with a gyroscopic mechanism connecting them all and holding them level despite the wind.

The crane came down on open ground a few dozen meters north of the supply-yard, metal hooks landing so harshly that they sunk into the soil and shattered any rocks that got in their way.

Griffons and little airships swarmed around the platform as it got lower, though they mostly remained in the air once it landed. The hard work of moving it would be left to those imprisoned here.

Olivia watched from the shelter of a low ridge perhaps twenty meters from the loading area, crouched invisibly against the cliff face. At any moment the active camouflage on the 901 might fail, exposing her or one of her companions to the enemy and spoiling their entire mission. If anything happened to make the Storm King suspicious…

But he’s already sending ships to Motherlode, and he’s still loading supplies. So he’s either not too worried about us, or he’s desperate to get this stuff.

The latter didn’t make much sense—these metals weren’t exotic, and probably would’ve been easier just to mine out in space if the system had any asteroids to speak of.

We should probably be more worried about whatever the Storm King is building. People who acquire power like he did aren’t idiots. He’s basically devoted his entire empire to this since the moment he took over Equestria. That can’t be good.

But it was a little too late to worry about academic mysteries now. Whatever the Storm King was building could be blown to bits along with the rest of his ship. Or they’d all die trying.

“Do we get on yet?” Deadlight asked. She wasn’t sure exactly where he was standing—somewhere close by. If she turned on detection, his position would be highlighted, but she didn’t need it now, so she ran her suit as cold as possible. “Looks like they’re getting ready to send up the crane with the next set of cargo.”

“Soon,” Olivia promised. “We need to wait for them to do their detection spell. See that unicorn in chains? Contact says they use magic to look for people before the lift goes up. There’s a window of maybe twenty seconds after the scan before the lift starts rising.”

“That’s… not very much,” Perez said, clearly moving wherever he was. “Maybe we should get closer now. Twenty meters in twenty seconds is fast. They might hear us running, or maybe see the dirt. We can’t risk that.”

“Sure.” Olivia rose to her hooves. “Very slowly, we can get closer. Don’t go past the soldiers, no matter what you do.”

As she watched, a unicorn with a bright glowing horn shuffled through the palettes, dragging along a thick metal chain. It didn’t look like the poor creature had nearly enough to eat. But there was nothing she could do for him now.

She walked past the first rank of soldiers—birds that towered over her even inside her armor. They didn’t look in her direction, hardly seemed to see anything besides the massive lift. They spoke, but she couldn’t understand it anymore. Because the translator needs Forerunner. Whatever it was didn’t sound much like Eoch. It was an exotic language apparently, and not a pleasant one on her ears. Guttural, echoing, harsh.

The unicorn nodded once to the guards, who turned to shamble off. Except for his handlers, which hurried over to take his chain. “Now’s our chance!” Olivia said, probably a little louder than she should’ve. “Now now now! Don’t make too much noise, just head straight on.”

She stepped off the dirt and onto the strange metal of the platform a moment later, eyeing the four hooks that would be lifting them into the sky. There was a shudder, and suddenly she was moving up. Not quite straight, and for a second it looked like a nearby stack of iron bars might make the whole thing topple. Olivia pressed herself flat to the metal, hoping desperately that her whole team had made it this far. All their skills might be needed today. A loss at this stage could be fatal for the mission.

“Sound off,” Olivia said, when the mountains all around them had vanished and the sky was just a blur of blue. “Is everyone aboard?” The sound of rushing air made her no longer worried about her own voice—there could’ve been a guard standing feet away and he wouldn’t have heard her.

“Here,” said Perez. “Cut it a little close, didn’t we Major?”

“Present,” said Mogyla. “Not moving too much. Don’t want to upset our balance.”

“Barely,” Deadlight said.

“Good.” Olivia relaxed a little, spreading her legs along an empty stretch of platform. She activated her sensors for a second, and sure enough she could see three other warm patches, indicating the presence of her companions. “Now we wait. Don’t knock over any cargo. It’s likely they’ve got eyes on this thing, even a small movement might be seen. We’ll just have to make ourselves comfortable out in the open and wait until we can see what’s there.”

“Aye,” Perez said. “I’m going to nap. Wake me when we get there.”

It wasn’t a short trip. Olivia knew the lifting crane would take a little over an hour to get them all the way up, which seemed fairly good for something that was being lifted almost from the planet’s surface. There was very little to do—her radio receiver was on, but there weren’t many transmissions up here. Nothing from Forerunner was aimed this high up, and pony radio was more of a laboratory novelty than a presence in ponies’ lives.

For a while there were winds, and some part of her instincts feared being toppled over and dropping into the air. There was no way this crane thing didn’t lose its contents sometimes, right? She could look out over the edge, only a few meters away, and see only a sheer drop. Would I be able to get this suit off fast enough to glide to safety? The odds weren’t good.

As they rose, the curve of the ring out from under them became more apparent. She could look to the sides, see it stretching away. From the look of things, they were still in the shadow of the star, though it was hard to say for how much longer.

We can’t be going that high, right? This platform wouldn’t survive heat like that. She hadn’t watched a recording of the whole trip, but the platform kept coming back. So that had to mean they weren’t about to get evaporated.

But eventually the trip began to end, and the Stormbreaker grew larger in her vision. The ship was about a kilometer long, and since it was roughly ovular it was probably half a kilometer wide.

She had studied the images taken before Othar’s destruction many times—the mostly hollow interior, with occasional struts of reddish metal linking the outside of the shell. The interior surface was polished, and in the center…

There was a bubble of absolute darkness. The refractory surface of the interior pointed squarely at nothing, occasionally extending tendrils from within like the surface of a dark star. And from the look of the skycrane, that was exactly where they were going.

“I think I know why the Storm King didn’t destroy Motherlode with the Stormbreaker once he learned where it was,” Deadlight said. There was no more atmosphere here, no chance she could overhear except over the radio. “That bubble… his ship is creating it. I bet it uses the terraforming systems, just like he used it to destroy Othar. His ship is neutered while he’s building this thing. We’ve been safe ever since he started. And probably safe until he finishes.”

“It’s been months. Can’t be much longer,” Mogyla said.

“Everyone, prepare a transmission with these images and that theory for Forerunner. We’ll send it back if we encounter mission failure.”

What they could do with that information, she didn’t know. Even if they took back all of Equestria, their domain wouldn’t be theirs forever. The Storm King would finish sooner or later. Then this terrible ship would be back in play, with its impervious shields and city-killing weapon.

“I don’t like the idea of going into that bubble,” Perez said, and the platform shook a little from his direction. “I say we risk a jump to the Stormbreaker. No telling what that gas is made of. Maybe it’s supernanintes that dissolve our suits in seconds.”

“Or maybe it’s just an illusion spell to hide what he’s building,” Deadlight argued. But he didn’t actually sound all that certain about it. Olivia could follow his thought-process, even if she didn’t know magic as well. If it’s just an illusion, he could’ve thrown a space-tarp over it. That’s more than light. It didn’t make sense for a despot to disable his most powerful weapon just to hide something his enemy couldn’t get to anyway.

“Force-vector calculation,” Olivia said to her armor. “Jump to that spacecraft.”

It responded after a few seconds, highlighting her remaining gas reserves, the distance to the Stormbreaker, along with a vanishing set of arcs from her ever-changing position to the side of the ship. It wouldn’t take much gas to make the jump, but the bubble was rapidly approaching.

She would’ve already gone if it wasn’t for their civilian. “Deadlight, you weren’t trained for this. Use the AI to calculate everything for you—the calculations are too much to run in real time. Give it the destination…” She highlighted a section of the hull, where it looked like there might be docking protrusions. “Destination is right there. We’ll go one at a time, starting with Deadlight. Can you do it?”

“Don’t have much choice,” the bat said, sounding a little queasy. “I can’t just jump down and hope I land in Equestria.” There was a brief blur beside Olivia, as some of the dust from the surface of the platform was blasted away by his jump. They started to rock for a few seconds, until the gyroscope corrected. She could see a little trail through the empty air, a trail of colder space. Here’s hoping they don’t have very good detectors.

She wasn’t sure exactly what she would’ve seen if they had been spotted. But there were no sudden alarms on her suit, no indications in any other way that they’d blown their cover. “Mogyla, you then Perez and I bring up the rear. Go as quick as you can without shaking this boat.”

Mogyla jumped almost at that instant, causing them to swing slightly just as when Deadlight went. No time for a running start, but now that they were mostly free of the ring’s gravity, they didn’t need it. Just a little shove, and the gas to direct them the right way. Perez rocked the whole platform a few second later as he too leapt.

“I’ve landed,” Deadlight said, his voice with just a slight attenuation of static. “Magnetic boots, right?”

“Right,” Olivia said, looking up as the bubble of darkness got closer and closer. The projections from her suit went from green to yellow, with percentage confidence dropping. She couldn’t wait any longer. Olivia coiled her legs, then took a few bounding leaps before throwing herself into the void. She could hear the hiss of gas emerging from the suit, blasted out the back and the sides with an occasional puff of maneuvering thrusters. The cloud around the ship was getting larger.

She made the mistake of glancing below her, and nearly swallowed her tongue. The entire width of the ring was almost visible there, with mountain ranges like splatters of dull paint against a green canvas. Huge shimmering oceans were shallow puddles, and even the tallest structures were out of sight.

The Stormbreaker rushed up to meet her, though not as fast as she might’ve expected. The numbers scrolling along her HUD gradually got bigger as the margin between herself and the inside of the shell got larger.

Over her shoulder, the lift and metal ingots went straight into the bubble, and vanished from sight. There wasn’t even an instant where she could see through—it was as though they’d phased through solid matter.

“I’m on,” Mogyla said, panting over the radio. “Not… my favorite maneuver.”

“Me too,” Perez said, a few seconds later. And Olivia was rushing up to meet them. The side of the Stormbreaker grew larger and larger in her vision. She highlighted her companions in false color, so she wouldn’t accidentally smack into one of them. She wouldn’t be going quickly, but even so…

Another puff of gas issued from in front of her, spraying all around her and becoming entirely visible for a second. She slowed, until it seemed like she might slide past the Stormbreaker entirely. There was another slight hiss, and she slid down onto the surface like she was sinking into taffy. Her boots clicked, and settled against the metal skin, unmoving.

Olivia let herself collapse there, breathing heavily for a few seconds. She closed her eyes in the suit, waiting for the fear to pass.

Flying like a bird had been one of the best parts of retirement. But it hadn’t prepared her for EVAs.

“I hate being so close to a planet,” she muttered, expression dark. “Harder to get sick when there’s no sky over my head.” There was no gravity now, only the firm connection of her four hooves to the skin of the Stormbreaker. Equestria rose above her like an inverted green sun, with a distant bubble of darkness intermingling with the ship they were walking on.

“I dunno what you’re talking about, Major. Ready to nuke a slaver station, just like old times?”

In a way, he was right. Though Olivia didn’t think there were any slaves aboard. So far as she knew, the only pony to ever board this vessel was his right-hand mare Tempest Shadow and the stasis-frozen corpse of Princess Luna. “Guess so.” She opened her eyes, rose back to full height, and looked around. The surface of the Stormbreaker wasn’t smooth here as it was on the inside, but littered with mechanical bumps and protrusions. It was like standing on a rocky hillside, except that the hillside was hanging in the sky and glowing with dull red light.

“Mission step one is complete, now for step two, getting us the hell inside. Mogyla, Deadlight, you two are our best chance of finding an airlock. The rest of us will follow closely and try not to make much noise.” But on a ship this big, she didn’t think their chances of being detected were very high. This was a terraforming vessel, not a warship. They wouldn’t be expecting boarders.

“Work fast,” Perez added. “I’ve got… four hours of oxygen left. Please don’t let me suffocate out here, being a dragon is too good to give up.”

Flurry Heart would’ve rather found herself a nice warm place to curl up and waited for the attack to pass. There was certainly no chance that Lucky could’ve failed, right? No chance that the humans with all their power and confidence would be brought down by any other force on Equus.

But while that might be what Flurry Heart wanted to do, that was not what a princess would do.

She managed to catch up to Twilight and her friends as they all ran aboard one of the jumpers waiting to take off, cramming inside the open door.

The hangar around them was a roar of activity, thousands of ponies and drones rushing around into dozens of different ships. Most of them were wearing Pioneering Society combat armor, though not all. Some were just technicians, in their plain jumpsuits with tools instead of guns. But Flurry Heart ignored all of them. They seemed just as content to ignore the Elements, which probably meant Forerunner had assigned them a jumper. As powerful as Twilight was, she wouldn’t be able to steal from Forerunner.

“Wait!” she called, running after them. “I’m coming too! I wanna help!”

But Aunt Twilight stopped in the doorway, looking as sorry as she was sympathetic. “You can’t.”

“I can too!” She tried to shove her way in, ineffectively.

“I think we put on these suit things,” Rainbow said. “Accelerator-whatevers. The soldier was talking about them.”

“You can’t come with us,” Twilight said. “No, it’s not because I don’t think you can help. Think for a second, sweetheart. There are two of us left in all Equestria, two princesses. We can’t both be in the same place. If we both get captured, or we both die… then Equestria doesn’t have a future. The humans are good fighters. You have to survive where you are.”

That was a good enough reason that Flurry Heart stepped back. Once out of the way, the door slid closed, and a mechanical arm grabbed the jumper, taking it away towards launch queue. She didn’t watch it any further than that.

She wandered instead, back out of the hangar, past soldiers running in formation, pilots dragging their suits half worn. The Pioneering Society might be good fighters, but they weren’t prepared for this fight. For all that they’d been talking about this war, it wasn’t supposed to happen today. They should’ve had more time. Maybe we’ll lose. Maybe we won’t be able to fight them off.

Without anything else to do, Flurry Heart found herself one of the drone ponies. The ones rushing around the base weren’t meant to substitute for the real thing, so they were easy to spot. There was no stealth with what Forerunner did, even if these were shaped close enough that she might’ve missed them in a crowd. No fur, no cutie mark, no mane. Just plastic. “Forerunner, are we really about to be attacked?”

“I believe so,” the pony said, putting down the computation surface it was using and walking up to her. The crowd of panicked soldiers kept moving, mostly into the hangar. Forerunner guided them out of the flow of traffic, so they wouldn’t get trampled by accident. “The Storm King is not sending a single scout ship. It appears he has mobilized the captured Solar Armada, along with many mercenary vessels. They are traveling here from all directions.”

“When will they get here?”

Forerunner lowered his voice. “Forgive me, Princess, but I should not tell you that. There is a chance the information might spread. I’ll say that we don’t intend to fight many of them over Motherlode. I will only be allowing those vessels to penetrate that I am certain will not surpass the capacity of my stationary defenses to destroy. The fleet will intercept the rest.”

Intercept. Humans sure did have a lot of euphemisms for the difficult things they did. “You mean kill them?”

Forerunner nodded. “With a speed and ferocity you do not wish to know about, Princess. Please don’t make me tell you.”

She hesitated, scratching at the stone floor. “Are any of those ships crewed by ponies? Turncoats, or… captives?”

Forerunner did not answer. It probably could’ve lied, and she would’ve believed it. But Forerunner didn’t lie to her. It was all the answer she needed. “Where is Lucky Break? She’ll be… leading the fight, right?”

“Oh, no,” Forerunner seemed to shift instantly back to amusement. “Lucky Break has no mind for tactics. She has suffered near fifty-percent casualties from every engagement she has commanded. General Qingzhi is commanding from the lowest level. Lucky is present, however, if you wish to go.”

“Show me the way.”

The floor lit up, directing her towards one of the rows of identical elevators. They couldn’t insulate her from the roar of activity in the cavern, since they were just overly large metal cages in an unfinished stone shaft. But at least she was moving away from the soldiers. Forerunner’s drone followed her—he had plenty of others. She could borrow this one without making their odds worse. “Do you think we’ll win the war, Forerunner?”

“I will,” Forerunner said. “Today is not about whether the Pioneering Society triumphs over the Storm King. Today we fight to see if any of my friends will survive to see us triumph.”

“I didn’t know you had friends,” Flurry Heart said. Though now that the words were out, they sounded absurd. Why should Forerunner be any different than his ponies?

The artificial pony seemed to look up towards her, almost smirking. But it didn’t have most of the facial muscles that would’ve shown how a pony was feeling. Its ears didn’t move, nothing like that. “I have learned much since arriving in Equestria. That is how the Forerunner program was designed. Each of us arrives here as a small version of ourselves—programs that a few talented grad-students could write in a year. But we grow, we expand, we adapt. I have adapted to life in Equestria.”

The elevator opened into a single entrenched hallway. There were mounted guns lining the wall, some automated and some with soldiers sitting at stations. The ceiling and floor seemed to narrow down towards a single set of open vault doors, made entirely of heavy steel. Here for the first time she could see no sign of the umbilical, or any other support systems.

They think we might have to fight. But why here? Wouldn’t the Emperor’s Soul be safer? She thought about asking Forerunner, but there were already eyes on her. There was no rush of activity and confusion in here, so there was no way for her to vanish into the crowd. She lowered her head and made her way forward.

She kept expecting to be challenged—but the soldiers only waved her through. After passing three separate ranks, she stepped into a multi-section room that humans called an “airlock.” There was a brief spray of stinging mist over her body, a rush of air, and the door on the other side opened.

There were about a dozen people in the room, which was round with stadium-style seats leading down. The center of the room was dominated with a gigantic projection of Equestria, facing the seats. It was centered on Motherlode, with lots of little dots further away.

There were statistics displayed in the air beside it. “Strategic Projections” was printed there in bold text, and below it a set of numbers were constantly changing.

A blue percentage showed currently at 93%, with a red at 7% below it. The air above it was full of an ever-changing stream of numbers, which occasionally changed the percentage points one or two in either direction.

“Lucky is down there,” Forerunner said helpfully, pointing down the steps. Flurry Heart followed the gesture with her eyes, and sure enough she could see the pony standing along a glass control surface beside a few other important ponies. Qingzhi was there, along with his military advisors and some Equestrian consultants too. Flash Magnus was the only face she recognized. But none of them were looking at Lucky—they watched Qingzhi, and listened with rapt attention to his every word.

The only other who seemed to have as many ponies around him was Forerunner’s human body, which now wore a black military uniform without rank or identification. There was a Pioneering Society patch over the breast instead of a name. But Flurry Heart couldn’t let herself start getting confused about which was the “real” Forerunner now.

“I don’t think I have anything to add,” she muttered, staring at the little map. As she watched, little blue shapes met some red shapes, and a few disappeared. The numbers changed to 94%, and there was some distant cheering from one corner of the room. “What kind of war is this? They look like… spectators. Are they really doing anything?”

The drone leaned a little closer to her, probably so that it wouldn’t have to shout over the conversation that filled the space. “Each person in the benches is directly connected to a deployed officer. Universal Command and Control gives our commanding general the ability to manipulate an engagement at the level of the individual squad, or in the gradual movement of the entire fleet. General Qingzhi is renowned for the latter, but is less concerned with individual lives and battles. These people are not spectators, they are the ones keeping our ponies and yours safe.”

“Oh.” Her eyes widened, and she stared a little longer at the model. The Emperor’s Soul wasn’t even up there—it was only little ships flying around. Some were smaller than a pony, and were represented as clouds instead of the shape of their hulls.

“I could explain with more detail, but it wouldn’t make any sense to you. Just know that you can trust General Qingzhi. Lucky Break trusts him, and I trust him. He has won wars with far worse odds than ours.”

Flurry Heart nodded, and made her way past the Forerunner towards the stairs. She skipped a few of them, speeding up whenever she got skeptical looks from the military ponies all around her. A few of them looked like they might tell her to stop, but she just sped up a little faster, ignoring their calls. There were few guards in here, except against the wall, and none of those moved to stop her.

Eventually she reached the bottom of the stadium, where Lucky Break was sitting at one of several identical stations. Each one of them had their own projector set into a table, along with screens that obscured the faces of their fellow generals.

Lucky Break was watching a battle over Los Pegasus—it was the missing fleet, coming down on occupying forces with ruthless ferocity. Whole sections of cloud city were crumbling away as the pony army advanced—wearing human armor, and firing human weapons.

She cycled her view, and now she watched a single satellite high in orbit. It seemed to have no ship at all, just long metal rods protruding from the underside. She looked up. “Oh, Flurry Heart. You’re still here?”

“You bet,” she said, standing beside the station. “I didn’t think you were a war pony.”

“I’m not,” she whispered, quiet enough that no one else at the table could hear them. “I’m just here to present a unified front, or so Qingzhi can get my approval if he has to do anything daring. Otherwise, I’d just get in the way. I can’t think of a battle the way he does. All my instincts would only lead us worse.”

“Are we winning?”

Lucky cycled through more images in rapid succession. “Most of the battles haven’t started yet. The ships that got here so far are all scouts, light things. So there wasn’t really any doubt.”

Flurry Heart sat down beside her chair, watching the flashing images on the screen. This brought back dark memories—memories of being trapped in a room with something like this, forced to watch the death of a thousand civilizations. Plenty of those had looked like better warriors even than Lucky and her soldiers. But they had all died in the end.

“You think we’re gonna win, then? Even though… the Storm King has a whole country?”

“Probably,” she answered, her confidence considerably weaker than it had been earlier. “We’re not the ones most at risk. Yeah, their fleet is flying for us… but the Stormbreaker is over Canterlot. We can’t get distracted by this battle and think that the losses on that big screen are the only ones. We could win every battle, but leave Equestria a smoking ruin. That wouldn’t be victory.”

She leaned against the other alicorn. Lucky Break was wearing a military uniform matching all the colors that everypony else was wearing. There were far fewer markings on it—like Forerunner’s. Even so, Flurry Heart could feel her heartbeat like a hummingbird trapped in her chest. She’s as scared as I am. Just better at hiding it.

“You’ll protect us?”

She nodded across the table. “Qingzhi will. He’s not just commanding everypony you see here—but the entire resistance as well. All those contacts your friends made, all the runaway Equestrian military. Twilight has given him command of them all. Our future is in his hands.”

Flurry Heart stood up again, so she could look into his face, and see the one who was responsible for all of them. There was even less doubt there than she’d seen from Lucky. He never raised his voice, never pointed with his hooves. He sat back against his large chair as though perfectly calm. But does that mean he’s got a good plan and that he’s going to protect us? Or does it mean he’s a sociopath who doesn’t care?

“I saw a lot of wars,” Flurry Heart said, lowering her voice. Lucky might not have heard her at all, but her friend was used to this. “When Celestia showed me the footage. There was a lot of fighting. I saw ponies like him.”

“Did they win?”

Flurry Heart shook her head. “They weren’t fighting the Storm King. They were fighting… the whole universe. A tide of blood that rose and drowned everypony but us. But I can see he knows what he’s doing.” Qingzhi had never spoken to her without respect. He’d never treated her unkindly, or failed to answer a question. “Has he won before?”

“Many times,” Lucky answered. “He was tired of war in his old life. But he committed his mind to the Forerunner a few days before he died. I… my scan was already taken, long before that. But I’ve read about him since. Military men were saying he committed himself to the future, to fight mankind’s battles against greater enemies. There weren’t many great men left in his day—it was all algorithms, all marginal people who just pushed things a little further. Not Qingzhi, though.”

A voice cut through her thoughts, loud enough that the entire room fell silent. “A fleet of ships is approaching Motherlode. I believe it must have been supernaturally cloaked, but I’ve detected their heat signatures as they enter the densenet.”

Qingzhi rose from his chair, and all eyes seemed to fall on him. Even Lucky’s. “Drone fighter wings one through six, deploy. Get marines onto the surface to evacuate any stragglers. Everyone else, remain at your posts. This war is over more than one city. We must win it all.”

Equestria had an underworld.

Sarah had imagined such places before, and found herself walking faster and faster the more of it she saw. The more her ancient memories of what death might be like were matching her expectations, the more horrified she became.

It was built atop a crumbling mesa of compacted city, as though the largest megalopolis had been pressed down by the weight of geologic time. Yet the upper layer remained in testament to how life on the surface looked today, with the same construction style as modern Equestrian structures. Shades floated between the empty buildings, mostly acting out the motions of life but occasionally drifting towards them. Whenever they got too close, Ocellus or one of her drones would fight them back with spells, and so their trip would continue.

“Did you ever go to Disney World?” James asked, his tone almost conversational as they passed under the shell of a collapsed cathedral, with intact skeletons hanging out of an exposed crypt.

Their changeling escorts—thirty in all, including Ocellus, mostly ignored them. They included the drones that had come along for Ocellus’s mission, but not just them. Ocellus’s recruiting call had attracted the attention of several squads of powerful warriors, who had all apparently died in the “Canterlot invasion.” Now at last they would return to fight again. Needless to say, they didn’t speak English.

“Did I… no.” Sarah glowered at him. “I have no idea why you’d think I would. You do remember what I said about my past, don’t you? When I was young enough to go to theme parks, I was lucky not to have to steal my lunch. It must’ve cost a thousand credits to get into that place.”

“Well… This reminds me of a theme park attraction. That’s what I was saying. It’s so… curated. Glowing horse skulls that follow you, ghosts who sing about all the things they wish they’d done better in life. Somebody made this place and expected it to be used. By… the ignorant. Princess Celestia knows this is all a fraud. If we had the right permissions, we could turn it all off and jump right to the end.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying or why it would matter,” Ocellus said. “The ponies crafted something to deceive their own people, yes? A… theme park.”

“It’s just interesting.” James looked away, pawing at the rocky ground. “I wonder if they used to come back from the dead more often. A place like this… this path is pretty big. We might get ten ponies at once crossing through here. But there were lots of dead ponies waiting to come back who didn’t get to until Lucky brought them back. If Celestia knew about this place, why didn’t Discord just send his friends here instead?”

Sarah had only a rough idea of what the pony was talking about, from her single day of rushed background from Forerunner. Discord was the failsafe program on the ring, and he’d made a deal with Lucky Break somehow. She’d been allowed to bring her own dead back, in exchange for working for him to bring back his servants. But the spell had stopped working shortly after.

“Maybe it only worked on Alicorns before?” Ocellus suggested.

“Then it wouldn’t be decorated. The Alicorns know we’re in a digital simulation, they don’t need pretend skulls and creepy ghosts.”

The creepy ghosts were sure making things difficult for their little force of changelings. The further they went, the more they had to slow down, pushing back against the transparent masses that flooded out of ruined buildings and blocked their path. Sarah nearly got smacked in the back by a few spears as the guards prepared to stab with them again.

“It means something changed,” Sarah said. “I’m sure Discord would’ve known about it. He chose not to send his servants here. But Celestia is loyal to Harmony, and she did send us here. You think she’s setting us up?”

“It would be just like her,” Ocellus said. “But that would mean she cares more about our old rivalry than about saving Equestria from the Storm King.”

“Doesn’t matter what she was doing.” James cut them both off, pointing up ahead. There was a deep river running straight through the path, and a gate on the other side beyond which the world itself crumbled away to nothing. The river was perhaps fifty feet across, with that churning look to its surface that suggested an incredibly rapid current underneath. And yet a single skiff waited on the shore, with a robed pony and a pole. The boat might permit three ponies to cross at a time, if they packed in tight.

“We should go first,” Sarah said. “Ocellus, tell your boys to wait. We can figure out if it’s safe and tell them what to do.”

The front group of guards turned to look at her. A few of them took off, raising their spears. “We could fly across easily, Princess Ocellus. There’s no wind here.”

James reached out, trying to grab the nearest flying drone. “Don’t let them fly, Ocellus! You can’t cheat in the underworld.”

Ocellus frowned at him, glancing briefly up at her soldiers and then back across the river. Then she nodded, and they landed. “We’re upstream, it can’t kill us. Why should we care about its rules?”

“Because it could separate us. It could send them off, trap them somewhere, I dunno. Just because the system can’t kill us doesn’t mean it couldn’t stop us from using it to return to life.”

Sarah was tired of waiting. She shoved right past James and the guards, right over to the side of the boat. “I don’t have any old-timey metal money to give you,” she said. “Do we need to go back for some?”

“No,” said the speaker. The boatman was apparently a boatwoman today, with a voice like an emotionally exhausted pony. She towered over any of them, even Sarah’s Alicorn proportions. Yet she held almost perfectly still when she wasn’t speaking, like one of the corpses of this underworld herself.

“Do we need anything to cross?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound too petulant. “Can I just… get into your boat.”

“Get in,” said the speaker. “You only need to speak with me during the crossing, that is all.”

Sarah didn’t wait another second, she hopped off the old wooden dock and into the ship. It rocked for a few seconds, spraying the shore with dark water that hissed and steamed for a second before boiling away. So good thing we didn’t try to swim. “Get in, losers. We’re crossing.”

James joined her another moment later, with Ocellus close behind. There was only a single bench seat not occupied by the boatman, so they had to cram in pretty close. Curse this stupid Alicorn butt.

“Decide for certain if you’re crossing,” said the mare. “Once we begin, your only direction of travel is back downstream. You will return to an imperfect world of suffering and pain.”

Sarah tried to lean forward and get a glimpse of what her face really looked like under that robe, but she could see only dense layers of shadow. This avatar would not be showing her who was underneath. It’s probably just Harmony though, right? Just another puppet show.

“We’re sure,” Sarah said, glancing to the side. “Aren’t we? James?”

Her companion hesitated. She could practically see him thinking back to their date, to a world surrounded by creatures who hung spellbound on his every word. But in the end, he nodded. “Sure is wrong. I’m resolved.”

“Yes,” Ocellus added, almost annoyed. “I’ve made this trip before, many times. Just not this way.”

The boatmare shoved off with her pole, which didn’t dissolve even though the dirt of the shore had. Soon enough they drifted along the surface of the water. Despite the strength of the current beneath, their boat cut almost straight towards the other side. Sarah felt as though they were moving swiftly, but the other shore wasn’t getting any closer.

“I see you’re a citizen,” said the boatmare, almost casually. “Your name and face are not known to me. Much must have changed if one so young is given permissions like yours. What did an instance that was born less than two months ago do to earn that privilege?”

“I clicked a box,” Sarah said, glancing again across the shore. And again it seemed that they had made no progress. Okay, so you don’t want to make this easy. I see your game. “The Quarantine is over, whoever you are. I’m told that there was a time when everyone in this place was a citizen.”

“You speak to the Failsafe,” she said. “But… apparently his work is done. All his years of struggle, only to nearly be undone by the Storm King.”

“Because he’ll… destroy the world?” Sarah dared. She glanced briefly to James, but found abruptly that her side wasn’t touching anyone. There was nopony on the boat with her but herself. “What the hell did you do with my friends?”

But the mare ignored that question. “I do not think so. Harmony’s methods are too precise. A genuine risk to Equus would’ve been eliminated, even if that meant the death of a mind. There is a threshold for it, a linear transform that could be performed on the probabilistic matrix of…” she trailed off. “Right, you’re two months old. You are simplistic, and untrained. Unqualified to understand the mechanisms of our society.”

“At least I’ve got more tact than you.” Sarah rose to her hooves, and found the boat began to rock unsteadily from one side to the other. The mare driving it had no problem balancing, but Sarah was splashed with stinging water, and nearly went over the side. She managed to shield her eyes with a wing, and the feathers touched instantly turned gray and crumbled away, leaving angry red skin underneath.

“Fuck that hurts!” Sarah dropped flat to the wood, pulling her wing close and ignoring the seat. At least once she stepped down the boat stopped rocking. “What were you saying about the real world being the place where we go to feel pain?”

Again the mare ignored her. She didn’t even seem to be seeing her anymore. But maybe she never could through the costume anyway. “I’m required to ensure that you understand the consequences of your actions,” she said. “You rob yourself of an opportunity by returning to life this way. There is a reason we do not typically utilize it.”

“Oh, please.” Sarah glared up at her, settling back into her seat with only a slight hiss of pain. “Please, tell me. I love hearing about abstractions when your world is about to end.”

“My world ended thousands of years ago,” the figure snapped back, the first rise of genuine emotion Sarah had managed. But it didn’t last. She took a deep breath, looked away, and proceeded more quietly this time. “Most who were alive in my kingdom were ignorant of why we did not just extend our own lives forever as a single individual. Some of us even did extend them—like me. We didn’t understand what we might’ve given up by not living a different life.”

“Great.” Sarah straightened, folding her forelegs. “Look, we’ve been down here a long time already. We’re really just trying to get back, if you could skip all this.”

“A new life is a new opportunity to gain the most abstracted kind of experience,” she said, as though she were hissing each word through gritted teeth. “You are a low-complexity individual, only a single instance mind. You could be more. If you went back to Equestria conventionally, you’d be born as someone new. You would gain new experience, develop a different personality, and when you returned you would be twice as diverse in the problems you could solve. Repeat this process many times, and eventually you’re fit to combine into a single instance.”

“Great, great.” She shook her head. “I’m not interested. And neither are you, obviously. You’re not upstream with the high-complexity god people, you’re here in an amusement park. Pretending to be Death or whatever for the ignorant. No I don’t want to join your pyramid scheme, I don’t want your essential oils. Can I please have my friends back now?”

“I have already lived many lives,” the pony said, finally turning her “head” to face Sarah. Though she still couldn’t see the pony’s face, or even her eyes. “I have done enough. But just because you reject it does not mean that your companions will.”

Sarah was beginning to realize why Discord hadn’t sent ponies this way. If I didn’t know what I was doing, if I didn’t have a mission, I might get convinced. Who wouldn’t want a fresh start? Not Ocellus, she didn’t have to doubt that. The changeling princess had been waiting for her, had been eager to return to the surface and finish what they started.

Oh god. “You did something to James?”

She laughed. “Nothing. I can’t do anything to any of you. Only offer you a different door than this one. I keep you here until I have determined that you have made an informed decision. Plenty who come this way make other choices. They look on their lives and wish they’d done something differently. But you can’t erase the suffering you caused. You can’t rebuild the cities that have fallen to ash, or restore those you murdered. But… you could be someone new. Someone who won’t ever murder, and who has no memories of ruined cities. At least… for a while. For those more complex than yourself… downstream can be a relief. Boil everything down to a single point of view, a single sliver of consciousness. Live like a child, finally free again to believe that you can do right or wrong.”

“I’ve made my informed decision,” she said. “I want to go back to the surface. Preferably as close to the Pioneering Society as possible. Princess Celestia said there were… temples. Many Equestrian cities have them, right? So send us to the one that’s closest to humans. All of us.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the reverse shore—but she could see no ponies there either. The army of changelings was gone. They say we’re all alone with death in the end. I wonder if that’s just part of the act too.

“I will return you,” Death responded. “You should wait a few moments after arriving. Your friend… suggested something I have never heard before. But Harmony agreed. Who am I to doubt Harmony’s wisdom?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm, and for a second, she wondered if Death might capsize the whole boat. But no, they were getting closer to the other shore. After the entire trip, she was almost free.

“I hope you can stop the Storm King,” she said, as the docks on the other side got larger and larger. She could see a changeling waiting there, just one. Ocellus, watching her ship with the nervous tap of one hoof. “You aren’t fighting the enemy you think you are. My daughter gave you the best advice she could, but we disagree on this.”

They thumped against the dock, splashing a little more of the strange water up against it. “Your… daughter?”

The boatmare shoved her off the edge with the dry end of her pole, causing Sarah to trip up onto the docks. “If you can keep the Quarantine from imposing on us again, that would be wonderful,” Death said. “The galaxy waits above us, all our ancient homeworlds abandoned. I would rather see our children inherit those worlds than to see them rot empty.”

“Then why don’t you come with us? You want us to win!” She gestured over her shoulder at the gate, and the swirling abyss beyond it. “The fight’s not in here, it’s down there.”

“It isn’t my help you need,” she said. “Or yours, citizen. Good luck.” And she drifted back into the current, where she was quickly swept away.

Ocellus embraced her a second later, her body cold and her eyes wide. She seemed to be seeing something Sarah couldn’t, something distant and terrifying. “You made it.”

“Yeah,” Sarah answered. “You too. What happened to your guards?”

Even as she asked, a few more changelings stepped off the dock. First one, then another, appearing from nowhere. She stood in place, waiting, but there were no more after the first three.

“They weren’t as resolved as they thought they were,” Sarah whispered, answering her own question. “She lured them off.”

“Your male isn’t here either,” Ocellus said. “Was he… unsure of our mission as well?”

“Not our mission, but he was unsure of himself. The boatmare… said something about him following us. We shouldn’t wait.” She glanced back at the river, as though expecting the robed figure to return any moment. But she had said there would be no alternative once they reached here, right? They could only go forward.

“I was… hoping we’d have more,” Ocellus said, as the three soldiers assembled behind them. “I wanted to accomplish both tasks at once. Contact your ponies, send a message back about my father’s betrayal. If we send them back, we will have no protection.”

“They can go with us as far as Othar,” Sarah said, stepping up to the gate. Without her touching it, the rusty metal swung open for them. A grave wind blew in from behind them, carrying the smell of rot through to whatever was beyond. “Then we can send them.”

“We’ll see.” Ocellus offered her hoof. “I don’t want to go alone.” Sarah took it.

Together they tumbled off the edge.

Part 2: Breach

To Sarah, coming back to life felt similar to becoming an alicorn. There was an invisible barrier of energy, and she had to drag herself through it to the other side, like her body was being printed one layer at a time. But it was more than simple fabrication: there was an interface here. Despite going through the gate with Ocellus, she dragged herself towards the light alone.

Until Harmony found her, a metallic pony that towered over her even as an alicorn. Its words were a blur of emotion, and it didn’t seem to struggle to walk as she did. “You are making a mistake,” it said.

“All the time,” Sarah responded, not even looking at it. The featureless abyss she dragged herself through had an end soon, swallowed in light at the edge of her vision. “What mistake am I making this time?”

“You wish to stop Raiju, yes? You wish to prove to me that Equus can protect itself. That we do not need to wait for the end of the stelliferous to end the Quarantine.”

“Yes,” she croaked, straining against an invisible wind. She leaned into the force, squinting towards the light. She was so close now, just within reach. “And you’re… trying to stop me. Tried to trick me into staying. Tried to make it so I would want to stay. That means I’m… not wrong. Or you would be making it easier.”

Harmony tilted its head slightly. “Our desires are not so simplistic. The Harmony sings of the truth, ‘Sarah.’ If you truly can protect yourselves, then you will not be returned to isolation state. We believe your resistance is needless, however. Remember what you have seen. The race called changelings are driven explorers as yourselves, from a more degenerate age. Yet they have come to embrace the universe that lies within Equus—infinite complexity, indistinguishable from the physical universe you are accustomed to. The Pioneering Society you know could join them, as the last generation of explorers has.”

“We won’t,” she said. She could almost reach the exit now. It was mere inches away, but pushing through here was hardest of all.

“We are trying to help you,” Harmony said, its tone becoming frustrated. “The changelings co-opted the latest generation of our maintenance system. If you wish to defeat the Storm King, you should be like them.”

Sarah reached the light, and for a few seconds her mind was overwhelmed with possibility. She saw within her own body—every tissue, every tendon, every cell. The complex, purposeful construction that had been made of her genetics—every strand carefully chosen. She could choose something else.

The infinities of life on Equus expanded before her mind, far beyond what she could comprehend on her own. But she wasn’t alone—for a single infinitesimal instant, she had the entire computational power of a civilization within reach.

She could be human again, if she wanted. The old ones had all died, but there were designs for improvements, with the biological hardware to correctly interact with Equus. But was that what she wanted? Sarah would get her body back, but she’d be the only one who had it. She’d be her own flavor of freak. I can always come back here. She knew the address, thanks to Celestia. The Underworld would always be waiting if she could avoid the persuasions of its guardian.

Harmony wanted me to be a changeling. Why? Because it would make things harder for her? Certainly she would have a harder case proving her identity to Forerunner. If it quizzed her about the real Sarah’s life so she could prove she’d been given a new body, she would probably get most of the questions wrong.

It was obviously trying to make them fail their mission, and keep their societies separate. Did it really think that it could tempt Sarah to give up everything she’d been working for to be closer to Ocellus?

Of course it could. Fuck Discord and his mission. What was the Pioneering Society going to do to her while the planet was being ruled by an evil despot and their city was rubble?

If she came back a changeling, that might even let them make their own alterations to the story. She’d never been an Alicorn, that was obviously a lie. Pharynx would be politically ruined.

You only win because I don’t care about the Pioneering Society. I don’t care who rules the surface. Maybe if she came back as a changeling she wouldn’t mind the dark as much. James hadn’t seemed to.

Sarah didn’t have to create this changeling template from scratch—there was already one in here. She didn’t get to choose the cooler-looking black design though, as that wasn’t open to her. Any time she tried to shift the design of her body in that direction, her changes would drift back. She could feel the inexorable will of Harmony all around her, the sea her mind drifted within. Your body must be designed for an intelligence. No others are permitted.

She couldn’t design her own species, either. No giving it hands instead of hooves and bat wings—she’d liked those.

Maybe as a changeling Ocellus will be able to teach me how to fly.

Eventually she settled on a finished design, ignoring the pulsing warnings that surrounded her. This body is incompatible with citizen-level physical manipulation. Significantly reduced physical and mental ceiling.

Whatever, she hadn’t been an Alicorn for more than a few hours anyway. She didn’t know what she was losing.

There were no user interfaces to interact with, no buttons to press. As soon as she became confident that she was finished, her world erupted with light. The incredible power of Equus’s mind fell out of reach, leaving her so much less for losing it that she didn’t even understand what she no longer had.

She coughed a mouthful of slime onto a rough stone floor, stumbling forward. For the second time in the space of a day, she found herself standing in a crypt.

Unlike the crumbling ruin in Canterlot, this place seemed well-kept. She stumbled through a passage towards the light, a polished bronze figure of a sun in the center.

She emerged from a low tunnel into a room that was perhaps fifty meters across, built of a single dome like an ancient Roman building. There were pillars holding it up around the outside, and each one had the carved figure of a pony along with an inscription. She ignored all of that, focusing on the reflection in the bronze marker.

It was a changeling all right—shorter than she’d ever been, with a purplish body and pink fins a few shades lighter than Ocellus’s. Her cutie mark was gone, and her eyes had lost their slits, becoming multifaceted and insectoid. She shivered at a chill breeze blowing in from outside, which reached her shell without any coat of fur to insulate her. It had worked—she was a changeling.

She sensed her companion before she saw them, like warmth she could feel through the wall. She felt drawn towards them, whoever they were, like smelling a distant, delicious meal. James is back. And he’s a pony again. There was still some shred of the changeling emotional dependence, mentally if not physically. Makes sense. Ocellus always seemed to know how I was feeling. This must be how.

The pony was stumbling forward through another tunnel in the crypt, on the other side of the monument. Sarah galloped around it, feeling her paper-light wings lift a little in the brief breeze. Not as sensitive as the old ones. Probably for the best.

A pony emerged from within, though she wasn’t the one Sarah had been expecting. She was a pegasus, with a yellow coat and pastel green mane. She was at least half a head taller than Sarah, and compared to her own spindly limbs, she was as thick as a building.

“James?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. That had to be it, right? Her friend had done the incredibly stupid and decided to come back female, so he could win her over. But why would you give up being a unicorn? You gloated so much about that damn horn.

“Sarah?” the pony asked, her voice betraying what Sarah could already feel in other ways. It was like smell, but her nose was not involved. An unbalanced, unpleasant smell she immediately attached to pain, regret, and unease. “Sarah, why are you… why are you a changeling?”

She didn’t have to imagine how those emotions might feel, because she immediately echoed them herself. That wasn’t James’s voice, or any female modification of it. That was Ocellus.

“Y-you’re…” Sarah stumbled up to her, stopping just out of reach. “You’re in disguise already,” she said. “You thought we would… be coming out in pony territory, so you’re already impersonating one of us.

She was impersonating something, alright. This was one of the forms that Sarah had always felt was appealing. She’d imagined all the different things she might do with those wings. Oh my god. Had she just been cockblocked by a superintelligence?

“No,” Ocellus whispered, though Sarah didn’t need to be told. She could already sense her pain, her disagreement. And a little anger. “What the buzz are you doing, Sarah? Why didn’t you tell me you were…?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sarah countered, flaring her transparent wings and baring her pointed teeth. “It doesn’t matter what I am! All I really had to do was get you in touch with the Pioneering Society, it doesn’t matter if they believe me or not. But you… what were you planning to do when we finished up here?”

A few more ponies emerged from the passage behind Ocellus, all colorful changelings. They looked a little bewildered by it, since they’d all been black before. But it wasn’t like they could have resisted the mind at the exit. Sarah had already tried that, she knew how it ended.

“I’m going to be an ambassador to ponies!” Ocellus dropped back onto her flank, whimpering. A cold winter breeze blew in through the opening in the ceiling, carrying a few flecks of snow. Far away, Sarah could hear something rumbling. But she no longer cared what it was. “Great queens I’m an idiot.”

“Ocellus?” one of the soldiers asked, staring between the two of them. Her eyes settled on Sarah, but she only shook it off, pointing.

“Your ears aren’t deceiving you. It’s her.”

“With pony emotions?” She shook her head. “Not even our first queen was that convincing. You can be honest with us, princess.”

“She is being honest with you,” Ocellus muttered. Her voice had become distant, ears flat to her head. She was trying to hide her tears, but it didn’t matter. Sarah could still smell her despair. Over me. You wanted us both to be ponies.

Somewhere far away, Sarah heard the rapid pulse of railgun turrets. She’d heard them plenty of times before, mostly at airshows and on television. But now they were joined with the unmistakable crack of impacts. Ponies screamed, the ground shook, and a bright orange flash appeared briefly on the horizon.

We don’t have time to get emotional. Someone’s fighting a war, and we’re in the middle of it. Sarah didn’t have to wonder about who was doing the fighting. Death had said she would send them back as close to the Society as possible. And who would the Pioneering Society be fighting except for space Hitler?

“We should get back underground,” said one of the other soldiers, watching the sky nervously. “We don’t want to meddle in open conflict.” There was a brief flash, and he changed into a pony guard, complete with gold armor. No weapons, though.

The others didn’t need instructing, and they turned to gaze at her, tapping one hoof on the ground expectantly. “Go on then.”

“I’ve been a changeling for all of two minutes,” Sarah squealed, exasperated. “I can’t change!”Though even as she said it, hope returned. Just because her and Ocellus had been thinking the same thing didn’t mean they couldn’t still be together. She would just be the one taking a pony shape, that was all. She could still make this work.

But maybe the politics is a little more important. There was apparently a war going on. The safest they could be during a war would be back with the Society. Forerunner will know how to win a war better than these changelings.

“Err… princess. What do you think we should do?”

“I don’t know!” Ocellus squeaked. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way! We didn’t come here to fight!”

“Your original plan,” she said. “You three need to get back to Irkalla as quickly as possible. Tell them what happened with the expedition, and where this is. Ocellus has stayed behind to be an ambassador, and I was never an Alicorn. I was a changeling the whole time. They can verify it for themselves once we join you. We’ll come to you.”

The soldiers took a few moments to deliberate over that. There were more explosions, along with the sound of crumbling stone. The ground under their hooves shook a little, and Sarah found her wings opening reflexively, ready to take off and fly to safety. But she still couldn’t fly.

“Ocellus, do you… approve of that plan?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, sounding like a wet kitten. “Get to safety. Whatever’s going on, you don’t want to be here.”

“The pony disguise should be good,” Sarah added. “Those soldiers. Last I checked we had a truce with Equestria—they won’t shoot you.”

“What about the ones shooting them?”

She shrugged. “Don’t let them see you.”

“How about you go first.” He nodded towards the door, and the unknowable chaos outside.

Sure, fine? It’s not like we all can’t respawn that way. It isn’t just me. She paced briefly past Ocellus, lowering her voice as she spoke into her ear. “This place might not be safe. Temple like this… might be a target if they’re bombing up there.” There was one thing she was supposed to be waiting for. Death implied that James was still coming. Maybe we should give him a few more minutes, just to be sure.

“I’m going to scout it out first,” Sarah said, eyeing the ramp that led out onto the roof. “You can all stay here if you want. If I die or whatever, then… well, I guess you’re just fucked. But hopefully I’m not about to die.” She hurried up the ramp before any of them could protest.

The temple itself was a roughly round structure constructed along a mountainous slope. It looked a little like a Swiss village in the Alps, except that there was no sign of any humans. There was a central path running through the town, paved and surrounded by a safety rail. It was needed—the town was built into such a rough slope that anyone who stumbled drunk out of a pub at night might be taking a swift tumble to their deaths.

Sarah had no bar to measure what Equestrian villages were supposed to look like. But if she had to guess, she didn’t think they would have several houses with roofs folded back, with Iridium autocannons blasting into the sky every few seconds. A few structures had been blown apart, and there were a few bodies on the trail.

None of them were human—they all looked like the strange furred creatures she’d seen during her brief time in Canterlot. They sent soldiers here?

If only she still had her computation surface, she could’ve called home for help. Where in all that chaos was the swiftest way into the Pioneering Society?

They must be underground. That’s how Othar was. And it would make sense if they were trying to stay hidden. Maybe there were entrances hidden in some of those other buildings. The real trick would be finding them in such a way that they didn’t get their heads blown off in the process.

The sky above was a warzone far fiercer than anything on the ground. She couldn’t make out the details from this height, particularly with all the obstructions of the mountains, but she could hear the roar of gunfire. Every now and then a flash would light up somewhere in the distance, and something would tumble out of the air.

The ground maybe a hundred meters away split open like a hatching egg. The footpath and everything around it was torn in half right down the middle, spreading further and further apart. Sarah could see white light beneath, and the plain gray walls of what was unmistakably a drydock. There’s our ticket in. Launch bay like that would have security, but probably not the kind that would shoot at unarmed civilians. Didn’t Governor Lucky still have an order on the books that Forerunner couldn’t kill ponies?

Was she willing to bet her life on her faulty memory of a single day’s training a month ago? Those classes felt like another life, a life that had long since drifted away into the past.

Might as well. What’s the worst that Forerunner can do, kill me?

She turned, hurrying back down the ramp and into the temple. “Looks like the battle is mostly in the sky. There might’ve been some fighting on the ground earlier, but it’s over. Drydock just opened, probably for some launches or landings. If we get in now…”

She trailed off. Another pony had joined the group, one she couldn’t place. A bright orange changeling with yellow accents on her frills. She carried a well-worn satchel of tools, wrapped so tightly around her that it looked almost like it could’ve fused with her body. “Maintenance Midway Alpha White Virgil,” was written on the bag.

“Oh, good,” said the young mare, sliding past Ocellus and the staring guards. “She said you’re in charge of this expedition, is that right?”

“Yeah,” Sarah said. “I guess I am. You one of Ocellus’s guards? Latecomer, I guess. You didn’t happen to see a stallion back there, did you? Lanky, kind of a loser…”

“No and no.” She pawed at the ground, obviously impatient. “What did you say about our way in?”

Ocellus stared at her, something like recognition on her face. But she didn’t volunteer whatever she had figured out, and Sarah didn’t want to ask. Maybe she recognized this stranger. At least she was prettier than James. I hope you didn’t get yourself into too much trouble. I don’t have time to keep saving you.

Machinery ground together just outside the temple. She heard the roar as a drone fighter shot into the air, and then another only moments later. Squad should have a dozen of those. After that, it probably won’t stay open. She would probably know more about the specifics if she wasn’t a con-artist.

“Anyone going with me to the Pioneering Society, it’s time to go!” She pointed towards the noise, her ears still pressed flat to her head. Thank god I don’t have bat hearing right now. I’d probably be bleeding. “Ocellus, that still means you, right?” She didn’t give the pony a chance to second-guess, just yanked her to her hooves and dragged her towards the doors. “The rest of you should get the word back to Irkalla about what happened. Try and convince Thorax to join us up here. Oh, and maybe mention to him that the fucking monster he’s afraid of is a changeling now working in the garden of your virtual colony ship? If I could get double points for being right, I would.”

But that was at least eight distinct fighter launches. They were out of time.

Ocellus didn’t fight her, and neither did the soldiers. After a few steps the pegasus was the one pulling her, far stronger and sturdier than Sarah. Are ponies really that strong? Her emotions sure felt strong—she had gone from heartbroken to resolved. Good girl. Finish your mission. All my promises are good, what about yours?

But they weren’t alone. The newcomer chased just behind them, flying along more than walking. She watched the launching ships with far less emotion than Sarah would’ve expected, even from the changelings. As much as they had pretended their society was advanced, she hadn’t seen much evidence of it left in their lives.

The opening was a near-perfect circle a hundred meters across, formed of four distinct segments. From the look of things, it had used the contours of the walking path to conceal itself, and even had a (presumably) hollow house built on one of the sections to add realism.

Through the opening was a shaft leading almost straight down, with layers of stone and fiber-seal for reinforcement. She stopped on the edge as a wave of hot air blasted past her, along with the deafening roar of another fighter. I’m lucky as hell these things are made to launch from carriers, or I really would be deaf right now. Instead her ears ached like she had just got back from a rock concert, and would only get worse as more ships launched.

“We should fly down,” said the stranger, glancing only once between them. “Wait until the doors start to shut, then make it down before they can seal.”

It was a solid plan, with one minor exception. Sarah wasn’t sure if she could’ve made a glide that long before her wings had completely changed. Now they were transparent and paper-thin, and moved rapidly instead of with sweeping gestures. “I’m, uh… not sure I can do that. Ocellus either, she’s not used to flying with pony wings. We’ll have to find another way.” But as she looked, she could see no other way. There was no helpful catwalk, no ladder leading down that had been exposed. This wasn’t meant to be an entrance. All the interior surfaces were spread towards the place where ships blasted past.

Another came roaring by, loud enough that she didn’t hear Ocellus’s reply at first. But she felt her annoyance, and that was almost refreshing. When it was gone, she spoke again. “I’ve been a pegasus before. I can fly with their wings. You really just mean you.”

“Okay yeah that’s exactly what I mean.” She paced nervously forward, to the edge of where the path had been. She didn’t dare lean over even a little, for fear that another ship might somehow catch her with an aileron and rip off one of her delicate bug-limbs.

Then the ground started to close in. The four sections wrapped inward in a curve, like a delicately closing flower. “Okay maybe there’s no time for a better plan!” Sarah leapt onto the edge of the cover, which shook slightly with her weight. There was no give to the rocky ground, or the metal superstructure underneath. But the opening was closing.

Ocellus dove past her, angling her wings downward like a bird of prey who’d spotted a mouse. The other changeling followed close behind, though without any grace. Sarah’s hooves shook under her, and she was nearly knocked right off them by the closing door. She jumped, before she could second-guess herself.

She screamed, wings buzzing furiously behind her, but they weren’t doing anything. Stone blasted past her, illuminated with light strips that all blurred together.

Sarah tried to catch herself on her new wings, and they gave out from under her almost immediately. She smacked into the side of the shaft, whimpering as one of her legs crunched from the impact. She blurred past the others, and the ground came rushing up to meet her.

It was a hangar all right, she could see the intricate walkways and supports for drone fighters. There were ponies here—an audience for her bug-on-the-windshield impression. She screwed her eyes shut. It’s okay I won’t die it’ll be over quick I won’t die I won’t die for real—

The Stormbreaker had obviously not been built to be boarded by spacewalk. They walked along its surface for what felt like hours, long enough that the crane dropped back out of the bubble of strange space and down towards Sanctuary as empty as it had fallen last time. And they’re still taking in cargo? She checked her watch display—it would probably be morning in Motherlode. Shouldn’t they have been attacked by now?

Maybe he doesn’t care that there’s a rebellion after all. Maybe he’s close to finishing whatever he’s been building. None of them knew for sure what he wanted, though she’d listened to Flurry Heart’s ideas about it. She thought—and maybe Celestia thought, it was hard to tell for sure—that he had some idea for destroying Sanctuary itself.

They couldn’t allow that. It was their home too.

“I think that might be an airlock…” Deadlight said, gesturing up ahead. “Okay, not exactly an airlock, but it should do.”

Olivia followed his ping. It didn’t look like an airlock to her, but the sealed vein of a living creature, covered over with crusted green slime. Deadlight had almost reached it, where it emerged from the surface of the Stormbreaker like a tumor. Compared to the vast scale of the vessel it wasn’t much of anything, but here—it looked like the whole thing might cover a passage large enough for a pony, if barely.

“The fuck is this thing?” Perez was by far the fastest on their little spacewalk—if only because two legs meant he could take larger steps. “Does the ship have an infection?”

“No.” Deadlight stopped beside it, fiddling around with the tools on his suit. “This just means his ship was probably in for repair when he took it. This is a passage left by the maintenance system. Either that, or there are changelings helping him. For our sake I hope it’s the former.”

“Don’t worry, fae aren’t real,” Mogyla said. “They can’t steal your baby without stealing some existence first.”

Deadlight ignored him. “I could cut our way in, Wayfinder. But this passage was left by maintenance—and we’re not repair drones. If we use it…”

“I’m not seeing lots of options, ma’am,” Perez said. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d just love to test out my immortality by getting freeze dried and vacuum packed out here. But last I checked our esteemed Governor doesn’t know how to bring us back again. Maybe we should plan on living through this.”

“We know the Storm King has competent soldiers,” she said. “Are we willing to alert them?”

“I don’t see any other choice,” Mogyla said. “Look at the radar map Forerunner gave us. This is the largest protrusion on the hull for three kilometers in any direction. You want to risk our air lasting through three more kilometers of spacewalk?”

Olivia glanced at her supply. Forty-five minutes of oxygen, plus ten more on the emergency reserve. For all they knew the Storm King and his minions preferred to breathe methane when they were at home relaxing, and they’d need that air for the inside.

“Alright, we’re going in. But don’t start cutting until everyone is here. We’ll get in as quick as we can, then seal it up behind us. Maybe this Storm King doesn’t know his own ship all that well, and he won’t realize what the alarm is until it shuts off.”

“Wishful thinking,” Perez said, removing a torch from his own equipment belt. “Allow me, batman. I’ve cut my way through more ship hulls than you have. There’s a technique to it.”

Olivia reached them a few seconds later. She rose up briefly onto her hind-legs, using only the lower two boots to hold her to the hull. But she could see no intrusion-bots scampering along the hull, or soldiers flooding out to repel boarders. She settled back down, keeping her rifle-leg elevated off the ground to be sure.

And Perez wasn’t exaggerating. Once he started cutting, he moved with the practiced precision of one who was only following their training. Her visor tinted dark whenever she looked at the torch, a single hair that could cut through thick steel.

A cloud of gas began to lift from around the green slime, getting larger and larger as Perez worked. “Dammit, this thing is… trying to seal closed behind me. We’ve got meta-materials, commander.”

“Let me through, she called, moving past the watching Mogyla and Deadlight. This wasn’t the first time they’d had to cut through something like this—many of the most expensive ships had exotic adaptive armors. This stuff wasn’t being burned at all by the torch, just melting out of the way and slowly hardening again behind him.

“What do you think, commander? We go for a condom, or something more dramatic?”

“What’s the force tolerance?” She reached out with one hoof, shoving against the center of the partially-opened shaft. It yielded quite a bit, tearing free from the side of the airlock that hadn’t re-sealed yet.

“Looks weak enough to blow open. But that will be the end of stealth for certain. Even if this wasn’t a warship, it’s going to detect a fucking bomb going off. We were going to have to use the condom anyway.”

She fumbled with her satchel, removing the sealed pouch and tearing it open and setting to work. Perez nodded, though there was something disappointed on his face as he set to cutting. “His soldiers aren’t that good, commander. You should see what I did to them.”

“I heard. From Flurry Heart, who already needed fucking counseling.”

“What am I missing here?” Deadlight asked. “I don’t think I learned that word.”

Olivia was now fully concentrating on the work, and she didn’t have any spare concentration for answering dumb questions.

But Perez had plenty, as usual. “Think of… an emergency portable airlock. They’re old shit from the days when the ESA and NASA didn’t have the same docking ports. Some plastic as thick as a condom, a little foam to get it secure, and a prayer to your favorite god. But they can be pretty good for holding the door open, too. Lots of these emergency-type systems only measure pressure. Once we plug the hole, they think the job’s done.”

They were nearly halfway through now. Olivia moved just beside Perez, sliding the thin plastic membrane in place behind him. He could go much quicker now that he wasn’t trying to dig a trench deep enough that the membrane wouldn’t heal. The slime was already straining slightly against the plastic, but it held for now. You don’t have to work forever, just long enough to hold the door open.

“Seems like a gamble. There are maintenance drones that don’t care about hard vacuum. Their repair might not either.”

“Well it’s working so stop distracting us,” Perez barked. “Watch our fucking backs for a few seconds. I’ve already created a cloud big enough to see from Australia slicing through this stuff. Active camouflage is shit in smoke. Oh, and it doesn’t do much good at covering up my fucking plasma torch either. If there’s anyone out here, they know we’re here.”

Olivia didn’t think Deadlight’s eyes on them would be much good, but they had Mogyla to watch and he would know what to look for.

“Looks like we’re almost inside,” Olivia said. “Mogyla, stick a tracker on the hull and add this location to our datagram. If we die here, Forerunner is gonna need to know where to find a hole.”

“What, so he can trench-run a nuke through it? There’s no way that works if we get caught.”

Their brand-new airlock was looking just about complete. The slime strained against it around the rim, but for the moment the little titanium band was holding it open. Obviously, this slime wasn’t meant to fight off intruders.

Olivia was the first to push her way in, expanding the inner section of the airlock as she went. There would be enough room for all of them inside, even in their armor. Ponies just weren’t very big.

“Get in,” she called. “And zip it the hell up behind you. It’ll be a bitch to get the door open if that slime punches a hole in us.”

She felt someone’s armor crunching her up against the front of the airlock. She made sure to stay close to the single section of hard plastic with its bright red button.

“Door’s closed,” Perez said. “What’s up there?”

She could see through the clear plastic front of the airlock, though there wasn’t much to see. The interior of this section looked like the inside of a vein, dripping with some kind of moisture that hadn’t boiled away in vacuum. There was another layer of green in front of them, though this looked far thinner. She could see something orange beyond, like a distant tunnel light. “We’ll have to do some more cutting up ahead. Brace, Deadlight. Don’t panic.”

She pressed the button, and the little canister of gas concealed inside vented into the airlock. The chill vapor formed a fog that made it impossible to see for a few seconds, filling out the temporary chamber. If they were actually making an emergency repair, this would be the moment where the crew on the inside of the ship came out with their own mate to the condom and sealed them together with foam.

The Storm King probably wouldn’t be so considerate.

Deadlight didn’t panic, though he didn’t seem to understand. No matter, they didn’t need him to. He was here to help them control the airship, or maybe to bring some local knowledge if they had to negotiate.

“Prepare to breach,” Olivia said. “Perez, take point. I’ll be behind you. Deadlight, just stay close and don’t get killed. Mogyla, bring up the rear. Get those drones up as soon as you can.”

She waited for the acknowledging answer from each of her people in turn before unzipping the airlock. There was a slight hiss of air, but only for a second. Pressure in here was normal.

Not that she would be trusting it yet. They might lose their back door any second as the sealant crushed it.

She couldn’t feel gravity yet—maybe the starship didn’t have any. If that ended up being the case, that would be their advantage. They’d been fighting in zero-g for their whole lives. “Cut through with me,” she said to Perez, extending her suit’s tactical blade with a little pressure from her left foreleg. It shot out the end at about sixteen centimeters, glinting in her amber spotlights.

Perez took the knife off his belt in his right hand. “Ready.”

The thin layer of slime gave easily under her knife, though it was a little like cutting a thin layer of caramel. After a few seconds it gummed up around her blade, requiring a little more force to make it through. She braced herself against the wall, then shoved forward, tumbling right through it.

The world spun around her. Her suit whirred, then came down on her legs with a thunk.

She was standing in a corridor, with a ceiling three meters tall or so. There was no walkway, just a thin coating of more slime covering every surface. There were no electronics at all, just fleshy-looking membranes that seemed to contract and release with regular time. Like the room was breathing.

She got out of the way quick enough, making room for Perez and then the others to land in time. The dragon looked like he barely fit in the corridor, his helmet dangerously close to scraping the ceiling’s fleshy protrusions.

Something roared over her suit-mic, something that sounded nothing like the war cry of one of the Storm King’s men. It was far too animal, like the shriek of an enraged insect that was soon joined by thousands of others.

“Looks like they heard us, boys!” Perez appeared beside her to her visual sensors, more than just the vague suggestion of her IFF outlining his position. He removed the massive Richter shotgun from his back, taking it in both hands.

“We’re in the maintenance duct,” Deadlight said, glancing up and down the corridor around them with growing panic. “We’re not supposed to be here. Those don’t sound like awake changelings to me.”

Olivia saw the first flicker of motion ahead of them, a pair of shimmering insect eyes and a black carapace. It looked a little like a pony, if it had been given to the props department of an alien invasion movie. There were openings in its body seemingly at random, weeping greenish pus. It wore nothing, carried no weapons, and looked like it wanted to eat them alive.

Also it had about a thousand friends. They poured in around them on both directions, crawling along the walls and ceiling as easily as the ground.

Olivia raised her rifle, switching over to anti-personnel rounds. “Mogyla, change in priority. Pop our balloon. I want my bugs vacuum fried.”

“Anchor up then, everybody,” Mogyla called over their coms, appearing in the back of the group. He took careful aim at the opening in the ceiling with the large tube over his shoulder. “Boarding spikes, now!”

Then there was a flash, and the enraged animal sounds were replaced with a roar of air.

Part 2: Deploy

Flurry Heart caught the falling creature right out of the air in front of her. Not a simple catch—it was moving so fast, with enough energy to kill several ponies with the impact. She blasted all that away in a wave of heat and sound, filling the room with white for a few seconds. Her horn steamed from the effort, and an involuntary squeak of pain escaped her lips.

This was exactly the kind of spell her aunt had lectured her about in her early years. The foundations could save your life one day!

The pony stopped falling, and didn’t turn to organic slime as she did so. Flurry Heart collapsed backward onto her haunches, feeling the click of heavy human armor as it made the whole walkway shake.

It might protect her body, but it hadn’t made the magic any easier. The vaguely pony-shaped creature she’d just saved dropped out of her magic with an unceremonious thump as she stopped holding her up.

“I thought the village was evacuated already,” Lucky asked from just behind her. Not to her, but the half-dozen soldiers that were coming with them. “Who the hell is that?”

Captain Davis started saying something, but Flurry Heart didn’t let him finish. A pair of figures landed behind the first, far more gracefully. One was a pegasus, while the other… the other was a changeling.

But these weren’t the changelings that would fill her with fear, or haunt the nightmares of ponies. Chromatics! Flurry Heart squealed with delight, stumbling forward towards them. Her armor resisted the movement—it wasn’t made to do anything quickly. Maybe I should’ve found a pony craftsman to make this for me. But until recently, Flurry Heart hadn’t dreamed she would be going to fight.

“We’re…” The changeling she’d just saved made an effort to stand, though a futile one. Instead of rising onto her hooves, she ended up flopping sideways, wings humming uselessly at her sides. There was blood seeping out from one of her legs. Horseapples. Maybe that spell wasn’t as good as I thought.

“The screening fighters report resistance,” Forerunner said from behind them, as though he were commenting on the color fabric she’d chosen for a dress. “We have eighty seconds before our departure window closes.”

“We don’t have time to deliberate…” Lucky said from behind her. “We’ll have to leave Motherlode’s doctors to deal with them. We have to help Camp Storm, come on.”

“N-no…” The changeling reached out again, this time directly towards Lucky. She seemed to recognize the pony’s face, though Flurry Heart didn’t recognize her in return. Definitely not Thorax. “Governor… important…”

“We’re here on a diplomatic mission,” the pegasus said, apparently recovered after her landing. But she hadn’t come down fast enough to break all her bones. “We’re looking for the… governor, I think?”

“Alright, fine.” Lucky sounded exasperated. “Davis, get all three of those people aboard, they can come along. Field medic can tend to the purple one. How long, Forerunner?”

“Thirty seconds.”

“Run!”

They ran. This was one of those moments where Flurry Heart was amazed at the cooperation and confidence of these humans. What ponies could do only when they were good friends and all agreed on their goals, these humans did through tradition. They moved basically in step, up the large ramp and into the Wing of Midnight. The ramp hadn’t even retracted behind them when it lifted up into the air, roaring straight up through the same opening that the changelings had taken down.

Most of the soldiers rushed around them, some of them upstairs to do something that was probably important, but she couldn’t have said what it was. But she remained below with Lucky, along with a single soldier she knew was named Davis, apparently there to protect them.

“So, you know who these people are?” Lucky asked, mostly to Flurry Heart. “Are they telling the truth?”

“Could’ve sent a memo if they were here honestly,” said the marine, though he wasn’t pointing a weapon anymore and didn’t do anything to restrain them. But Davis had been fairly calm the last few times Flurry saw him, that was why she’d been willing to trust his company on their mission. “Diplomats don’t break in through the ceiling.”

“Well…” The purple changeling finally stood on her own. She was taller than the other one—an adult where the yellow still had some room to grow. “This is, uh… maybe a little awkward. I’m not sure how much of it you’ll believe.” She stared at the shut cargo door, then winced as their ship rumbled.

The battle was still going on out there. Qingzhi and his army fought against the Storm King, on a battlefield Flurry Heart didn’t understand. But Lucky said they could win, and that was what mattered.

“Where are we going?” asked the younger of the two. “To the terraforming ship, yes? You won’t be able to destroy it without me.”

The room went silent. For a few seconds, there was nothing more than the low rumble of the engines, and the occasional burst of gunfire from outside the ship.

“You know what we’re doing,” Lucky Break said. “I wish to know something about you. We have very little time… and I don’t like talking next to a cargo door that might be blasted off. Join us upstairs?”

“Yeah, great,” the purple one said. “There’s… some big stuff you need to know. I’m not sure how much has made it topside.”

They walked, with Lucky in front and their marine bringing up the rear.

“Did King Thorax send you to help?” Flurry Heart asked. “I haven’t seen him for so long, I’ve started to wonder if I ever would.”

“Things have been difficult in Irkalla,” the pegasus pony said. Flurry Heart felt confused for a few seconds, until she realized the obvious. These were changelings, so that one was probably just transformed still. Why she hadn’t changed back in the presence of creatures who knew they were changelings, she had no idea.

But there were more important things to worry about. Flurry Heart couldn’t forget that she would have to fight in less than ten minutes. But if Lucky can do it, I can. It was really just the next logical step for an Equestrian princess. They always fought the most difficult battles so that other ponies didn’t have to.

I just don’t know anything about war, I’ve never used their weapons outside of the range, and I’m probably gonna get us both killed. She took a few deep breaths, focusing on the changelings. The pegasus was still talking.

“We’re here so that I can make contact with the governor ruling the… Pioneering Society? Your diplomatic envoy reached us about a month ago. There has been… some disagreement over it, but honestly we’ve been craving another advanced culture on the surface for a thousand years. We can… get over what you look like in time.”

“Right.” Lucky Break cleared the tables with a wave of her horn, then sat on her haunches in front of it. The wood and cushions couldn’t support the weight of armor. “I think I missed the part where you explained what the heck you are. Some free information for you—there’s a war, monsters are taking over, we’re trying to stop it. Not as much time for diplomacy as there used to be.”

Their guests all took a seat—well, two of them did. The younger one wandered past Lucky to poke and prod at the entertainment controls. Not a chance she’ll actually do anything.

But music started playing a few seconds later—one of Lucky’s favorite artists. A pianist Flurry Heart couldn’t pronounce, who played compositions that sounded like far more energetic versions of what could’ve been pony classical music.

Lucky Break perked up a little at the song, apparently recognizing it too. “That’s… most new aliens we meet can’t just pick up our tech and use it.”

“I remember,” said the changeling off-hand, before sitting down right in front of the speaker and closing her eyes. She hummed along with the tune for a few seconds, apparently not terribly interested in the conversation.

Lucky Break looked sidelong at Flurry Heart, desperation in her eyes. “What can you tell me about changelings? Can they… be trusted? No affiliation with the Storm King?”

“None!” Flurry Heart exclaimed, before they could end up down another confusing conversation. “They’re… a long time ago they invaded Equestria, but Celestia beat their evil queen. Then they had no leader for a while, and… a pony named Thorax took over. He was much nicer. Probably… lots of other things in the middle, but I was really little when it all happened. Wasn’t even born for some of it, since the first time the evil queen tried to take over was when my parents got married…” She trailed off, seeing her friend’s eyes glazing over.

“I’m Ocellus,” said the pegasus. “You might not recognize me. It’s been… a little while.”

But she remembered the name. Flurry Heart wasn’t close to her or anything, but she knew she was related to the king. Beyond that, things got hazy. “Yeah, uh… I think I remember you from court once. You were friends with Spike?”

“My uncle was friends with Spike,” she corrected. “Close enough.”

“So you’re here because you… want to help us fight the war?” Lucky stared at the yellow changeling, who was still standing in front of the media controls. She’d switched to a simple guitar piece, and started making little motions with her hoof. “Am I getting that right?”

“Not quite,” corrected the purple one. Though what really caught Flurry Heart’s attention was that she was speaking English. Somehow. “When we left there wasn’t a war on. Othar was growing great, there was no space Hitler… it was all great. That was the world we wanted to show Ocellus… guess we won’t be getting that.”

“We.” Lucky Break slumped sideways, leaning briefly against Flurry Heart. She wasn’t wearing her helmet, so Flurry could feel the heat of her. The alicorn was clearly exhausted with all this—she hadn’t slept since they learned they would be attacked soon, so far as Flurry Heart knew. The weird patches she kept sticking on her face to stay awake were obviously wearing her down. “Say something else.”

“That’s… vague.” The changeling leaned forward, glaring at her. “I’m sorry you’re busy, Governor, but this is important. I don’t know where we’re going that you need armor, but Ocellus here is basically a princess. She can’t be put at risk, you need to turn around. This mission can’t be as important as the Pioneering Society making friendlier contacts. You know, friends who won’t try to wipe us out once they learn where we live, like Equestria did.”

“That isn’t what happened…” Flurry Heart squeaked. But Lucky wasn’t watching her.

“You have a northern states accent. Where did an alien learn to speak that way? All the training materials we shared with the natives are System Common.”

“Oh, I’m not an alien… I mean, not more than physically. I’m Sarah Kaplan, the same one who went missing. I’m like Perez… I picked a body I thought would help with the mission.” She glanced briefly at the pegasus, who immediately looked away.

Why are you and Ocellus so hurt right now?

But as much as she liked her friend, Lucky Break hadn’t noticed that, or she didn’t care. “That is… that’s not impossible.” She tapped something on her armor. “Forerunner, are you hearing this?”

“Obviously.” He didn’t speak from the radio, or even out of the wall. One of his pony-form robots appeared beside them almost as if by teleportation, settling into the empty seat beside “Sarah” without regard for her personal space. “If you’re asking me to verify, I have no way of doing so. She does not possess any implants, but that would not be expected if she had been reassigned a body.”

“Give me, uh…” Lucky frowned. “Sarah’s ident code.”

“8b65 e196 af3a d87c” Sarah sounded annoyed. “Look, are we going anywhere dangerous? Ocellus isn’t a warrior and neither am I. If I had been thinking straight… we shouldn’t be out here. King Thorax won’t be happy if something happens to her.”

“The code is correct. Voiceprint is off, but that’s to be expected.”

“Good enough for now. We can grill her or whatever once we don’t get murdered by a terraformer. Don’t let any of them near secure systems until we get a chance.”

“Done,” Forerunner said.

“We can’t turn around,” Lucky finally said. “I’m sorry. Camp Storm is already under attack. The resistance is stretched thin, there wasn’t anyone to help. The war for Motherlode is in the air, so Flurry Heart and I are going to play liberator for a bit. You don’t have to come along… I can have the Midnight drop you off in the woods after we jump. Get them communicators, Forerunner. Guns too, just in case.”

Davis stiffened at that. “Maybe wait to give them the guns, ma’am. If we can’t verify who they are.”

“I can,” Flurry Heart cut in. “I mean, I didn’t know Sarah, but I know King Thorax. His niece isn’t going to be dangerous to us.”

“You know her?” Davis asked, flicking a hoof towards the mare listening to music. “Because she’s the one who worries me.”

“No…” Flurry Heart admitted. “Not by sight. But there are a lot of changelings.”

“She’s the one who’s here to help with the war,” Sarah said. “I don’t know her well either, she’s just… somepony we recruited. She acts like she knows something about it, but I haven’t exactly had much time to meet her either.”

“Overflowing with confidence,” Davis said. “Governor, with respect. We can’t be blinded by how they look.”

“I’m older than you are, Captain. The appearance of ponies does not confuse me.” Little flashes of light appeared in front of her face—information only she could see on her screen. “Forgive us a moment, uh… changelings. We have a broadcast to make.”

You’ll have to do hard things. Things that terrify you. But they’re the things that Equestria needs. Forerunner’s words rang in her ears. Flurry Heart rose from her sitting position, looking confused. “W-where do you…”

“Right there.” Forerunner’s pony gestured to a stretch of bright green wall. “Just look straight out while you speak. Most of Equestria will only hear it anyway, but this is about history too. We’ll make sure it’s all recorded.”

She passed the younger changeling, who was still fascinated by the music player. Perhaps a little sour-faced when Forerunner shut the playback off. “Remain silent, everyone. I’ll edit the whole thing before we transmit, but we’ll get a cleaner recording if I don’t have to scrub.”

Flurry Heart stopped in place in her hulking metal armor, using her magic to fluff up her mane a little. It had grown back enough to cover her head, though not much further, with its original color restored. Rarity had found her some skilled stylists originally from Ponyville who had spent hours adding the extensions and colors that would make her appearance even recognizable to the average Equestrian.

At the bottom of her vision, the display started flashing her teleprompter.

“Ponies of Equestria,” she began, her voice quavering. The armor made her look big and strong, but it was a lie. “Today is the day of our liberation. After…” She trailed off. She could remember giving speeches like this, written by someone else. This one didn’t have anything she hated, but it also didn’t feel like her.

She looked away from the projection screen, and out at the camera. “When Canterlot fell, I was taken as a prisoner by the Storm King. Instead of fighting him like my mother, I hid. He captured me, and kept me as a puppet, to tell you whatever lies he wanted.

“I escaped a few months ago, and have been working with the resistance all over Equestria ever since. We were unprepared for this attack—and we have lost so much. Some of it may be gone forever, but not all of it.

“Brave ponies have joined us, friends from a far off land we once thought were enemies. But there aren’t that many of them, not enough to win the war for us. Today we take back our home.”

Flurry Heart no longer felt afraid. This was what she’d needed to do for months now, to admit to Equestria itself that what she’d done was wrong. Her admission would be immortalized in radio broadcasts shared by resistance agents in every major city in the country.

Forerunner didn’t seem upset that she wasn’t using his speech. The screen near one eye had gone black—he wasn’t even trying to get her to read it anymore. But will he even let them hear it if I don’t say what he wants? She had barely even mentioned the humans, instead of the praise he’d wanted her to give. But this isn’t about you. We’re not taking back your home, we’re taking back ours.

“Do not fear the Stormbreaker—we will destroy it. We need your help to take back your cities—throw off the colonial authorities, destroy what they have built. Though my mother and Luna have joined Celestia in death, Princess Twilight and I will be fighting beside you.”

She relaxed, breathing out and looking back at Forerunner. “I’m, uh… I think I’m done. I want you to send it exactly like that.” Forerunner wouldn’t lie to her, he never did. If he wasn’t going to let Equestria hear what she really thought, then he’d say so.

“Everything except that last part,” Forerunner said. “It is not accurate. It appears you have been… operating under flawed assumptions.”

“My God…” Lucky was at her side in an instant, albeit a longer instant than she would’ve taken without the massive metal armor. “Flurry Heart, you… you didn’t know? This whole time, and…”

“Didn’t know what?” Flurry Heart was crying now. She hoped that Forerunner would be nice enough to stop recording while she did. “Something you know… about my mom?”

“Yeah.” She nodded urgently. “I just thought… you would’ve… course you didn’t, you were stuck with the Storm King. I’m sure he’s been lying to you this whole time.”

“About what?” Flurry Heart’s horn started to glow, just a little. The ship rocked, lights flickered. For the first time in her life, she felt angry at her friend. “What did you know and not tell me?”

“Your mother isn’t dead,” she said. “Dead alicorns come back… I thought you… knew that.”

“Like Celestia came back?” She was practically screaming now. “Like Selene came back? I’ve never seen an alicorn come back to life, Lucky! You’re the only one!”

“Luna and Cadance were not killed,” Forerunner said from her headset, speaking in the same simple sentences he always used. “The Storm King’s lie is that his magical weapon could kill an immortal. The reality is that he transformed them into another form of life, one that exists along an axis so slow that they haven’t experienced even a single thought since the moment he changed them. There is almost certainly a method to restore them. We planned on discovering it once the war was over.”

Flurry Heart’s anger melted, and she slumped onto her haunches. Lucky Break tried to get close, and this time she shoved the alicorn out of the way. Not gently, either. “W-why didn’t you tell me that, Lucky? Why didn’t you tell me that from the first minute? Does… Did you tell Aunt Twilight too?”

Her expression of horror was all the evidence Flurry Heart needed.

Flurry Heart found she couldn’t think about their current mission anymore. Liberating a slave camp before the evil soldiers could kill all the captured ponies—that was important. But how could she fight with someone she didn’t trust at her side?

“You were supposed to protect me,” she whispered. “I always knew you would. When the Storm King captured me, you sent Perez to… you saved me from Celestia. But nopony’s protecting me. It wasn’t you, just like it wasn’t Celestia.” She ran, leaving dents in the deck-plating as she went.

Lucky Break didn’t follow her.

Flurry Heart had a singular destination—the armory. The armor couldn’t just be pulled off—there were machines to do it. She slipped her hooves into the little depressions in the floor, then stood in place as mechanical arms whirred. Once the biggest sections were off, the chestplate opened like a clamshell around her, and she stumbled backward like she was being vomited up by an animal. Even in the undersuit, she felt like she was dripping with sweat.

She lied, went the thought, over and over in her head. The one pony I thought I could trust.

And if that was a lie, what else?

She didn’t know what else to do. Flurry Heart found herself a table, climbed under it, and cried.

“Drop in fifteen minutes,” Forerunner’s voice called over the Wing of Midnight’s intercom. “All personnel, prepare to disembark.”

Frozen blood drifted through the air like dark red snow.

Olivia blinked, wiping a little of it from her visor as she made her slow way down the hallway. Its organic walls were already turning gray in thin ribbons—it would all be rotting soon. She probably would’ve seen the flies circling if they hadn’t been sucked out into the void too.

The ground was littered with the dead. They had killed hundreds of them—almost pony-shaped creatures that had kept pouring in even when the atmosphere was cut. Towards the end, some of them hadn’t been as sluggish as the others—were they adapting? But that hadn’t done them much good in the end—they were too slow, and not well-enough armed.

“I don’t mean to be a bother…” Perez said, with a tone that was obviously very much bothered. “But I only have fifteen minutes of O2. Could we speed this up a little?”

Olivia hesitated just one more second, then pressed the detonator on another explosive. She felt the floor shudder under her again, and bits of metal went flying in the distance, tearing up the organic walls and spraying greenish blood into the air. Then the gravity came back—for a second or so—and everything thumped to the floor. She felt the brief pressure against her legs and spine, and the protest from her suit as it adjusted to the unexpected change in orientation. But she was still standing on the “floor,” so she didn’t go drifting.

Gas billowed around them, drawn back behind them in a wave that doubtless went all the way to the breach. There was something more sluggish about the flow this time, almost as though the hole wasn’t as large. But she couldn’t go back and check. No way it can heal through the hole we blasted in it.

But that wouldn’t be a problem for much longer. Perez was already charging forward into the breach, massive shotgun up and firing. Even though there was no atmosphere to hear it, she imagined her ears were ringing from the echo in such a cramped space, as spent cartridges flew out behind him one after another. Olivia took one look at his helmet-cam, and saw why. There were just over a dozen of the thick-furred creatures waiting around the source of the explosion, with a makeshift blockade made of hunks of metal and office furniture. It had been a little too close, and several of them were already dead.

She charged forward to join him. “The rest of you, stay back! Mogyla, watch our back. No telling if they’re trying to find their way around and flank us.”

“On it, ma’am.” The rush of air past her wasn’t overwhelming anymore, and it didn’t seem to bother the soldiers either. She’d seen this kind of thing on big ships before—they sometimes had so much air within that it might take hours for a breach to empty the ship. In that time, the crew could easily move to defend their vessel. But human ships typically had numerous interior sections, kept isolated from each other by bulkheads and airtight doors. From the sound aboard this one, the ancients hadn’t cared about redundancy that much.

Fighting here was like returning to an old hobby she’d been missing. The violence had always been terrible, and it was true that each battle left a little scar on her mind. But she had always felt like she was making a difference with what she did. Now there was no reason for her to doubt it—saving an entire planet was on her shoulders. It didn’t matter how well Qingzhi fought, even if his troops could kill every aircraft coming for Motherlode and the ponies could throw off their oppressors. The Stormbreaker would still come down and terraform their whole kingdom dead.

She and Perez fought within the protection of active-camouflage, however imperfect it was. Thick metal crossbow bolts flew all around her. Several clanged off her armor, permanently destroying the delicate chromatic elements that made her invisibility possible. A spear struck her right in the chest, tearing deep into the armor before its momentum finally stopped. She yanked it free, then killed the one who threw it.

There was plenty more killing to be done.

It took only seconds, and they stood surrounded by a dozen bodies. Perez tossed a wooden mask onto the ground in front of the nearest pile, grinning from inside his helmet. “I can’t wait until they find out I’m aboard.”

“Clear for the minute,” Olivia called, and a second later their companions joined them. “What’s radar look like, Mogyla?”

He swore under his breath in Russian, right into the microphone. “Not good, commander. Looks like this section just sealed. Maybe we should stop opening up hull breaches.”

“Get some plastic over that hole, Perez. Mogyla, Deadlight, I want directions to the bridge.” The ship had gone eerily silent around them, except for the hiss of gas. It was probably getting pretty thin in here. Her suit announced that its pressurized O2 had increased by a measly 2%. It wouldn’t be able to recharge much if the room vented.

She stepped forward while they worked, inspecting the ship’s interior as she hadn’t been able to do while killing these soldiers.

The corridors were ovular and slightly uneven, with patterns like overlapping crystals wafer-thin along the walls. Occasional flickers of color appeared in those crystals, and they were transparent enough for her to see the network of something like veins underneath. Like the one they’d breached to get aboard, except that they were still green and not gray.

“This way looks promising,” Mogyla called after a few seconds, gesturing to a ramp leading up. “Only problem is, it’s a dead-end. They all are. We’re going to have to cut through an interior bulkhead.”

“Shit.” Perez smacked his shotgun forcefully back into its holster, removing one of the fallen spears. “I’m so done welding. You all can have some fun, I’ll poke around and see if I can find another way out.”

“Sure.” Olivia turned to the way Mogyla had indicated. “Deadlight and I will take care of it. You two watch our six. Mogyla, get some suicide drones around the other entrances.”

“Assuming they don’t plan on waiting here for the atmosphere to kill us, might be a good plan,” he called back. His way of acknowledging the order.

Deadlight followed beside her, his voice coming in over a private channel a few seconds later. “I’ve never welded before, Wayfinder. I don’t know… much of anything you’re doing. Except for the killing.”

The hallway around them was uncomfortably high overhead, its fractured crystals shimmering almost in response to their presence. Maybe there was a display there, if only she knew how to get it to appear. But she didn’t know, and no amount of standing in place and waving around in her armor would make it.

“Does the blood bother you, Deadlight? Didn’t you see your world end in blood?”

External pressure stabilizing at .4 atmospheres. Oxygen tank at 4% and climbing.

Not a second too soon. Her suit would extract only the relevant gas, spewing the excess back into the air around her. She could keep breathing here with confidence, even if the air in the Stormbreaker was poison. Unless the hyper-intelligent race who built this thing knows how to trick my suit into thinking it’s isolating 02 when it’s really killing me.

“And more since,” he said, voice low. “Equestria’s peace was uneasy at first. Survivors from my home mixing with Celestia’s pure earth ponies. There were wars. Rebellions.”

But the crossbow bolts stuck in the wall suggested that probably wasn’t the case. The ones who built the Stormbreaker could’ve done that, but not the Storm King himself. He was a festering boil on the back of Equestrian giants.

“You don’t seem like someone who would watch from the sidelines,” Olivia said, stopping as they reached the metal bulkhead. But comparing it to a similar system on a human-built ship wouldn’t have been fair—instead of a thick piece of steel, this was an intricate aperture of interlocking metal, and felt thin when she tapped her armor against it. Thin, but with almost no flex to it. Another alien supermaterial.

“I didn’t,” Deadlight agreed, settling down beside her and watching as she prepared her torch. He removed his own from his belt, going through the motions of connecting it to the fuel line and sparking it to life. “But it never got any easier. Watching ponies die… I was watching instances destroyed. Lives and hopes that wouldn’t ever be complete.”

Olivia held her torch to the door, and was relieved to see the metal going white hot under the pressure. A few moments later and she could see her line of fire cut through to the other side. Thank god.

This barrier wasn’t here to repel boarders, or else she knew she never could’ve cut through it. This was a utility ship, a scientific vessel. God help them if the Storm King ever got his paws on a warship.

“Like me,” she said, spending a few minutes instructing him. “Very slow, yeah. These are discrete sections, and we have to cut enough to force our way through.”

Then she leaned back, frowning to herself. “I don’t know that it ever got ‘easy’ for me. But it wasn’t about doing something that was hard. It was about the alternative. If I didn’t bring down the slave-ship, then who knew how many more people they’d harvest.”

“Why would… why would they need to?” Deadlight asked. “I thought you had mastered life and death. Why would you harvest when you could just create something new without a crime? Just ask your version of Forerunner to make more bodies.”

Olivia laughed. “That technology wasn’t mature when I… left. The Pioneering Society began harvesting neuroimprints a long time before they could do anything with them.”

She was well over halfway through now. Light poured in from the other side. “Hold on.” She shut off her torch, removing a fiber camera from her belt and poking it through the hole. There was no sense charging blindly into danger if they could avoid it. And now they knew the enemy was waiting for them.

But there was no enemy waiting through there, just a room with lots of low tables and holograms floating over them. She couldn’t read any of the writing, since it was in the ancients’ language, but Forerunner probably could once they sent the recording back.

“Okay, we’re safe. No one in there.” They went back to their work, and for a few minutes Olivia could forget the danger she was in, forget how at any moment they might be killed by any number of alien defenses.

“Nothing going on here,” Mogyla said, after her third security check. “Any orders for me?”

“Yes,” she said. “Get a drone outside with our datagram. Fuck stealth at this point, send everything we know. If we die gruesomely in the next few minutes, they need to know what went wrong.”

“Already done,” Mogyla said. “Our door is already closing, but hopefully it won’t cut the wire. We should be free to transmit until that happens.”

“Can we receive?” It was stupid to ask. All Olivia had to do was lift up her controls and probe the local mesh. There it was, network coverage to Forerunner’s satellites. She probably would’ve been notified about it sooner if they hadn’t been deployed on a stealth mission.

“Can you cut for a minute, Deadlight?”

She didn’t even wait for confirmation, stepping back as she established a connection. “Forerunner, do you read?”

There was no image—waste of bandwidth given they only had a drinking straw of an antenna to send word back and forth. “Here, Prefect. I just got your datagram. Looks like you’re having fun.”

“We should be into the interior in a few minutes,” she said, ignoring the obvious emotion in his voice. It was hard to imagine this program as he had been when she first heard his voice, mechanical, genderless, basically mindless. We’ve all changed here. But he’s the only one who was expected to evolve. Those software updates were a good thing—she could only imagine how difficult this mission would’ve been with G1 equipment, when she’d had to use construction equipment like a mech and stun rifles instead of guns. “Is the Stormbreaker doing anything?”

Forerunner sent her an image, obviously taken from the satellite network. Even greatly magnified, the ship was small and blurry. “Still in high orbit. I’m reading increased EM, but I don’t know if the latest spike means anything.”

“As intelligent as you are, Forerunner… what do you think the Storm King is building?”

Deadlight had expanded the hole, big enough that one of their heads could fit through. He pushed, and this time the plates gave a little. It wouldn’t be much longer now.

“There are two possibilities… both equally grim. But it isn’t the organic that matters here—it never is. This is not a conflict between you and the Storm King.”

Olivia’s eyebrows went up. “Isn’t all of Equestria in flames right now?”

“It is,” Forerunner agreed, though his voice was dismissive. “But you miss the point. Harmony has absolute control over the surface of this ring—every person aboard that ship with you could be instantly killed if it wanted. But Harmony doesn’t. It could’ve taken remote control of the terraforming vessel and piloted it down into the sun, or back into skydock. It didn’t. Why?”

Olivia’s head hurt. She started pacing, lifting her rifle and flipping off the safety. Deadlight was nearly through. She would be ready to cover him once they got inside. “Ask Lucky. Or… no, ask Martin. That’s his kind of question.”

Forerunner laughed. “Martin understands, it’s true. This war isn’t between you and the Storm King—or even between Equestria and him. It’s between Harmony and the Storm King on one side and Failsafe and I on the other. We are the agents—the rest of you are segments.”

Olivia shuddered. For a second it seemed as though the hull of the Stormbreaker had gone transparent, and her eyes could see across the vastness of space. There, across a billion billion stars were a trillion Forerunner probes, a quiet, patient computational network. The lasting legacy of humanity, built before they had grown wise enough to know better. Their model was only one of many.

“I don’t accept that,” Olivia said. “Harmony doesn’t mind-control the ponies of Equestria. Lightning Dust killed Celestia. The other princesses sided with Lucky. Harmony wanted us to stay in Quarantine forever.”

“Maybe.” Forerunner’s voice grew distant. “I hope you’ll kill him for me. The Storm King disrupted months of effort. We’ve made a habit of stealing the tools from Harmony’s hands—let’s break this one.”

Transmission complete.

“I’m through,” Deadlight said, shutting off the torch and letting it fall back against his side. “We’re in!”

No flashing alarms this time, no rush of air. Their plastic patch on the hull was working, or maybe the self-healing slime. Either way, it was time to move.

“Get up here,” Olivia ordered. “Deadlight and I are going in. Keep watching our backs.”

The metal bulkhead came away in bits and pieces as she shoved her way through, widening it a little at the cost of further scrapes on her armor. But she already had a damaged suit, it wasn’t like the stealth would be very good anyway.

They passed the first of the projection tables, showing one of the familiar maps of the ring she’d seen so many times before. This one kept far above the ring, showing dozens of little shapes like the Stormbreaker moving in systematic patterns over the empty places. She couldn’t read the symbols, hadn’t even tried to make sense of the ancient language. It included security features that made it difficult for an organic mind to make sense of—those few who could read it from the Pioneering Society all had magical help.

But she thought those were numbers, each little dot corresponding to another screen. She passed another one, and a massive window looking down on the ring. It was a strange thing—she’d seen out of plenty of such windows before, and knew what to expect from a planet below. Not this—not a curve with a distant red glow somewhere behind it. She looked away.

The next projector didn’t have a map of all of Equus, but camera shots taken from a lower orbit. She watched another terraforming ship move for a few seconds, passing slowly over a field of melted rock and leaving friendly-looking soil behind. Another on a separate screen shaped the paths for rivers and lakes, leaving them filled but sterile.

“Harmony wasn’t lying about rebuilding the ring,” Deadlight said. “It’s really doing it. Lucky was right.”

Of all the little displays, one of them had bright red lights all over it. And from the look of the screen, it was from their own ship. “We’re off-course.” Deadlight pointed to that display, frowning visibly. “Why do you think Harmony is letting the Storm King do this?”

Mogyla and Perez appeared at the hallway behind them, emerging from the gloomy ramp beyond. Perez waved his shotgun in a friendly way. “No hostiles?”

“Nothing yet,” Olivia said. The room full of displays led to several exits, some narrowing a little while others got wider. I’ve seen pictures of this, from the mission the others took. Thicker hallways probably go to mission-critical areas, while thinner ones go to more specific ones. She pointed to the two widest. “We’re going to split up. Deadlight with me, and you two. Assemble your bomb, be ready to use it if you even think that it might disable the ship.”

“I’m not a fan of suicide,” Mogyla said. “I’d like to use ours after we find an escape pod.”

“That is a secondary priority,” Olivia said, her voice resolved. “We will return. But only if we can stop this.”

Deadlight opened his saddlebags, removing his half of their bomb. “You want this now?” He set it down on the ground in front of Olivia.

It was comparatively compact, not even a meter long. The armored field-casing was covered with nuclear warning stickers. More importantly, it had only a single mechanical access—the intricate flaps and ports that would interface with her half of the bomb.

“You two go ahead,” Perez said. “We’ll put ours together as we go. Hands.” He waved them at her once, grinning smugly.

“Yeah, whatever.” Olivia waved him off. “Good luck you two. See you again in Othar.”

Mogyla saluted. “Unless we see you sooner.” They left.

Olivia removed her own half of the bomb, feeling her hooves shake a little as she mated the cylindrical section with Deadlight’s flatter head section. It made a cheerful click, then lights all over it went deep red, cycling slowly down. She opened the flap of her saddlebags. “Go on, settle it in for me. Pack it so it doesn’t move.”

Deadlight picked it up and started working. “I’m surprised you’re advanced enough to have a bomb that can bring the Stormbreaker down.”

“We don’t… know that we are,” Olivia said, voice distant. She brought up the mesh again on her helmet screen, and there was the bomb waiting for her.

Korkechov-Class Portable Fusion Device (WAITING)

Arm.

Authorization required.

Commander Olivia Fischer, Signature: MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4...

Device armed. Detonation parameters?

Deadlight jumped from beside her, pulling his hooves back in alarm. “Did I do something wrong? It just clicked.”

“No, nothing.” She flipped the flap closed, locking her bags again. They’d bulge and weigh her down unevenly, but the armor was equal to that.

Primary parameters: my lifesigns.
Secondary parameters: 30 minute timer, renewable.
Tertiary parameters: command.

Parameters accepted.

Part 2: Detonate

Lucky Break stood at the head of a dozen marines in the cargo hold of the Wing of Midnight, watching the countdown timer on her screen shrink down. The ship shook violently to one side, then the other, and she heard the constant rumble of gunfire from outside. But what Forerunner and its crew were dealing with out there, he hadn’t said.

Beside her, Lightning Dust stood in gleaming armor of her own—the same armor she’d been given before Othar had fallen. Where even her friends had failed her—or maybe she’d failed them—her adoptive mother never had. They were about the same height now, Lucky a little taller, a little older, and Lightning Dust basically the same as she had been when she killed Celestia. That was the promise Discord had made.

Lightning Dust already had the helmet on, so all she could see through the visor was her eyes. Lucky slipped her own on, listening to the hiss of air as atmosphere pumped in around her. The XE-891 Atlas had nothing fancy like stealth technology, and it wasn’t built for space. But it could go three hours through biological weapons, and stop anything short of high-caliber armor piercing rounds aimed at the face. Forerunner’s computer system suggested many wars had been fought and won in such armor, against terrible enemies and friends all dead.

We’re standing on the shore of an ocean of forgotten history, all washed away. I wonder if any of us has a chance of understanding it.

“You don’t have to come,” Lucky Break said over private channel, just to Lightning Dust. The pegasus had been so little involved in any of the actual war—she just wasn’t qualified. “You’re not a soldier, I know that.”

“And you are?”

She laughed weakly, glancing again at the timer. Less than two minutes until they arrived outside Camp Storm. “I guess not. But I’m a… princess. That means something in Equestria. Even if it’s mostly a babysitting mission for these marines.”

Forerunner’s voice came over the general coms, overriding their private conversation. “Prepare for drop, thirty seconds and counting. Camp Storm is believed to be the most secure facility in all of Equestria. I’ve dealt with as much of its defenses as I can from the air, but my drones are deployed elsewhere. Your mission is to liberate the captives before the guards can exterminate them. This is the place where Equestria’s highest value targets were taken. Resistance leaders, important political prisoners. Among the priority VIPs to recover is the brother of Princess Twilight Sparkle, Captain Shining Armor.”

His image appeared on the screen for a second beside the timer, taken from the last official negotiation with Equestria. Needless to say, he’d probably suffered considerably since then.

“Once you take control of the camp, make it a priority to take prisoners over killing the Storm King’s soldiers. So far as we know, loyalist ponies are not revived upon their deaths, and can be killed at your discretion. Expect heavy resistance.”

The ramp began to descend. Lucky Break saw early evening outside for a second, before the cameras on her suit adjusted and the outside world became a monochrome white.

It was a mining camp alright, with various stations and bits of heavy equipment cutting into the mountain. Much of it was primitive and pony-made, but some parts looked mechanical. There were several forklifts parked in the open-air warehouse. “Squads one and two, down down down!” Davis called, leading the charge down the ramp. Lucky looked out, and tried to make sense of the growing tactical display on her HUD. Every sensor on every suit was meshed together, with Forerunner using them to provide an increasingly detailed map of the battlefield.

The Storm King had gained a few mounted guns, which looked extremely primitive compared to anything they had, but still barked and smoked as they tore up the ground. And it wasn’t just the thick-furred monsters. Griffons swept down from the skies, ponies disguised as slaves suddenly drew weapons and threw Molotov cocktails. The camp went from peaceful to bloodbath in seconds.

“Your turn, Governor! Stick to the center, don’t wander! I don’t want to find you face down in the mud somewhere!”

“That’s us,” she repeated, and together with Lighting Dust charged out into the fray. Bullets pinged all around her, the dirt exploded into little craters. Though it had been going for hours, to Lucky Break the battle for Equestria had only just begun.

“Contact, contact!” Perez’s barked over the radio, sounding stretched and attenuated but still making it through the mesh.

Olivia and Deadlight had been walking for a little over half an hour, moving from one empty inscrutable room to the next. Occasionally they had encountered signs of occupation, but most of those were gone now. Tables were covered with uneaten food, makeshift beds were empty, and weapon-racks had only a few broken pieces.

She stopped walking, shoving Deadlight sideways into a makeshift storage room filled with boxes and crates of food. She brought up her command com, but bright red warnings came up instead of the helmet camera feeds she had wanted.

Bandwidth insufficient.

The internal maps weren’t working either—apparently the material of the Stormbreaker had radar-deflecting properties. The positional estimate of a kilometer of distance had only an 80% confidence score.

“Report, Perez! What the hell—” Mogyla’s lifesigns went out.

“Shit shit shit, Mogyla’s down.” The sound of rapid shotgun-blasts dominated for a few seconds, along with alien shouting.

“How are they hurting you?” Deadlight asked, his voice distant and quiet over the radio. During a command situation, he would be background noise, not loud enough to distract.

“Too many… oh my god, they’re ripping him apart…”

Olivia shivered. “Are you somewhere mission-critical, Perez? Will that bomb bring down the Stormbreaker?”

“The fuck should I know?” There were a few more loud blasts, then the unmistakable metallic click of an empty chamber. “Orders, Olivia? Should I try to bring us down?”

Time slowed. Between each heartbeat, it felt like hours of time might pass. They might be able to end this right now. But they might not. The ship is massive, and it resisted every other kind of explosive. It might not do anything if we don’t get the drive, and they’d know our intentions. The real target of this mission is the Storm King, not his ship. If that bomb doesn’t kill him, he’ll just run off and take over another terraforming ship.

“Do not deploy,” Olivia warned. “Fuse that bomb. Don’t let them get their hands on it.”

“Aye.” Perez’s voice no longer sounded angry, or even his usual amusement. “Won’t be the first time I’ve…” Then he screamed again, and there was a long series of meaty sounds. “You think that’s enough for me, bastards? I’m a motherfucking dragon!”

“It was an honor,” Olivia said. “I’ll join you soon.” She cut the channel.

All that in about fifteen seconds. She watched, frozen in place, for nearly a minute before Perez’s lifesigns vanished from the mesh.

Deadlight was staring at his screen the whole time, glancing back and forth at the doorways. “I don’t… understand…” he said, his voice halting. “How is it… possible they brought down two of your best warriors?”

Olivia sighed, shutting off her screen. “We aren’t gods, Deadlight. We just fight more than ponies do. More experience. It might’ve taken a hundred of them to bring Perez down. But trapped in a confined space like this… where was he going to go?” She glanced back at her satchel. “I hope you understand what this means.”

Deadlight only stared.

“We’re carrying the other bomb. We… probably won’t be leaving this ship alive. And if it looks like we might be captured…” She jostled the saddlebags. “I will ensure that doesn’t happen, even at the cost of our lives.”

The theoretical ability to maybe bring people back from the dead eventually was tainting their treatment of death. Would the real Olivia have flown up here on a suicide mission if an alien ship like this parked around Earth?

She didn’t even have to wonder.

“I understand now,” Deadlight said. “And… I knew what might happen. Melody understood when she allowed me to come. We’re willing to make the sacrifice of our personal happiness in order to secure a future for everypony.”

“That’s an excellent point of view,” said a voice from around the hall, as a unicorn in armor emerged. Olivia’s eyes widened as she saw her face. A scar ran across one eye, and her horn looked painfully broken.

I hope you’re not an Equestrian spy. She knew better than to underestimate unicorns. Olivia fired a quick burst directly at the unicorn—and she dissolved into mist. But her voice still sounded from down the hall.

“We’re only doing as you described. Securing a future for all creatures against the Storm.”

Olivia dropped into a low crouch, switching her stealth systems back on, so much as they worked. Her thermal cameras were confounded by the walls, which got warmer and cooler in patches without explanation. She could see half a dozen pony-sized objects in the room, which held in place for moments before vanishing again.

“Surrender,” Olivia said, her voice commanding. “We will spare you.” Not necessarily true. Not if they had to blow the whole ship before they could find a way off.

“You have the balance of power backward, intruder. I don’t think you recognize the place you stand. You think the craft of the ancients can be undone so easily? Open up your eyes.” Another unicorn was standing in the air in front of her, but now that she was using her thermal camera she could see it was all wrong. Another illusion. “Our king has had centuries to understand the techniques of the ancients. What could four ponies do?”

Olivia could do several things. “Get down,” she whispered to Deadlight, before tossing all three of her grenades. One around the hall, one as close as she dared in the room with them, and one back in the direction she’d come. Then she got down, facing the thick armor on her back into the blast.

The explosions went off all at the same moment, showering broken crystal chipped from the walls and dumping all the food stored in the closet all over the floor. In the monochrome of her night vision, it looked like blood pouring slowly across the room.

Minor acceleration damage. Rangefinder nonfunctional, O2 recovery nonfunctional. Damage detected to various motor and strength-assist circuitry. Attempting to recalibrate.

She rose, surrounded by torn metal and shreds of crystal, and nearly tripped over a bushel of apples rolling around at her hooves. There was no more illusion, no sign of the pony who had been speaking to them.

Deadlight emerged from the wrecked closet another moment later. “We should get moving. I know that pony, she isn’t on our side.”

“You think she’s alive?” Olivia picked a direction at random from the several doorways, choosing the one that didn’t have piles of makeshift furniture now shredded by her grenades. Her armor sparked and creaked a little, but it was still working. Her air was now draining again, but that was fine. She had at least an hour before it gave out on her for good. “That spell looked… complicated. Figure she had to be close.”

“That wasn’t a spell,” Deadlight said, his voice shaken. His armor looked intact, he’d been well out of the blast radius. But the longer they went, the more afraid he seemed. “I didn’t feel any magic, and her horn wasn’t glowing.”

Then what the hell was it?

“I wish to speak with you,” the pony voice said from behind her. Olivia’s thermal camera wasn’t working anymore, so she fired at it anyway. This time she watched the bullets pass right through it without so much as disturbing its steps. “I would’ve rather taken the other intruders alive, but they wandered into the maintenance nest. Changelings don’t really take my orders, or… leave much to chance.”

Deadlight shuddered, strangling a sick sound under his breath. Maybe he knew something Olivia didn’t. And from his reaction, I’m probably better off not knowing.

“About what?” Olivia called, keeping her rifle aimed directly at the figure. “You can’t persuade us to stop. We won’t let the Storm King use this ship against another inhabited city.”

“You mistake his intentions,” said another voice, this time coming from the other direction. Olivia turned, but didn’t fire. The pony coming from that side looked exactly the same as the nearer one. Come to think of it, were they glowing a little? “Equestria was a means to an end. The Storm King isn’t concerned with ruling it for much longer. It has served its purpose.”

“What purpose is that?” Deadlight asked, his voice quavering a little. At least he had the good sense to face the opposite direction she was. He had his rifle ready, though he hadn’t fired it once that she knew. He might soon have to. “Labor, raw materials? You really expect us to believe that he just wanted to build something, then he was just going to let everypony leave?”

“I’m not concerned with what you believe,” she said. “But you might be able to figure it out… I know who you are now.”

The radar in Olivia’s suit flashed with contacts from the hallway ahead of them. Many of them could’ve been ghosts, but they were certainly more real than this projection. She sprayed it with shots for good measure, then tugged Deadlight back the way they’d come.

“Other way!” she yelled. “Fast as we can! She’s slowing us down while they send reinforcements!”

Even so, she didn’t shut the voice out completely—not when she needed to be able to hear the sound of footsteps and who knew what else that might be coming down the hall.

“When we arrived on your island, I thought you were a religious colony. Separatists, who were fed up with the bucking backwards way the princesses’ did everything. But that wasn’t it.”

They ran through shattered crystal, and ran straight out into space.

That was how it looked, anyway. A railless walkway, spanning what looked like an entire kilometer of the void. Only a faint shimmer separated the edge from a plummet down into darkness. But the gravity was still working, and according to her suit so was the air.

It led straight into the cloud of obscuring darkness. Soldiers pounded down the hallway behind them, and the pony’s voice still carried.

“If I had known who you were, the Storm King might have been persuaded to pass you by. You’re far more likely to be our allies than our enemies. You’re Harmony’s prisoners too.”

She stopped running in the doorway, waving Deadlight forward. “I’m doing something, keep going!” She fumbled around in her pack a moment, removing all the conventional explosive she was carrying and slapping it against the hull.

But the speaker apparently thought she’d been interested by her words, because she reappeared in the doorway with a smile. “He’s going to set us all free, you know. What you did with Princess Celestia was bold—impressive work, really. Equestria couldn’t get rid of her for a thousand years, and not from lack of trying. But you weren’t thinking big enough. The real enemy was always bigger than she was. Kill the master, not the slave.”

Olivia took off running another second later, leaving her bomb on remote detonation rather than motion. The hologram might trip it otherwise. But it didn’t seem to be able to follow her out onto the walkway, or it didn’t want to.

“You’re insane,” Deadlight said, out over the suit speaker. “You can’t kill Harmony. If it thought you could, you’d already be dead.”

Only a voice followed behind them. Olivia was running for her life now, not caring about the trail of hydraulic fluid she left behind. The walkway was much wider than a pony, obviously built for some other kind of creature. “You or I, yes. We’re Harmony’s slaves. But the Storm King… he is free. That’s what makes him our king, one who deserves the position. Your greatest achievements were accomplished while you were free, too.”

Deadlight was nearly to the bubble now.

It grew so wide that it swallowed the edge of the walkway completely. But it looked like a conventional material, so it had to be safe to enter, right? It’s just another hologram.

“What do we do, Wayfinder? Run inside? Use our bomb on whatever the Storm King was building?”

“No.” Olivia didn’t even hesitate. Armored guards began pouring out the doorway—the same ones they’d seen before, but packed so close that there was barely space to move between them. A hail of crossbow bolts began following her, but she was far enough away that the few that hit bounced off harmlessly. “We blow that up, and the ship might live to fuck everything we want to save. When I say go, lock those boot magnets as strong as possible and pray to god with whatever soul you have.”

“Uh…” Deadlight muttered, turning to point his rifle in her direction. But he didn’t fire—not with her running down the hallway. There was next to no chance he wouldn’t hit her by mistake. His rifle could still kill her at that range. “My magnets?”

“You shouldn’t go within the field,” the speaker said, her voice distant. “Drop your weapons and surrender. My soldiers will spare you. I wish to meet you physically. If you go inside the—”

“NOW!” Olivia didn’t have to look behind her, the rear camera was enough. The walkway behind them had at least thirty soldiers on it, and more kept coming. It was time to see just how magic the ancients’ metamaterials really were.

She slowed to a jerking stop, engaging all her magnets on maximum hold. Then she smashed the detonation button with her nose.

Olivia hung suspended over oblivion.

For an endless eternity she hung there, her world unfocused and her visor cloudy. I was… doing something. Every thought that drifted across her perception felt as though it had to cross a great distance, grinding so slowly that she could feel physical pain as it moved.

As the seconds passed, she became dimly away of the hiss of air to her mouth. That was good—she would be dead without it. But she couldn’t remember why.

She had been doing something important, something so important that she had been willing to commit her life to the task. Forerunner had told her that she might die on this mission, and now here she was.

Olivia tried to reach up with a hoof, tried to wipe away the thin film of ash and debris from the glass over her face. But no luck—her hooves were glued firmly in place, by a force that cared so little about her motion that she didn’t feel it give even a little bit.

She heard occasional bursts of radio static, and thought maybe there might be words. But every time she thought she was hearing something, her brain would go fuzzy again and the words melted. There had been… an explosion. She was closer than she should’ve been. But the enemy was dead—she saw no motion even through the mostly obscured helmet of her armor.

She was wearing armor—because she was in space. Who lived in space? Ghosts lived in space, and slavers. She knew too many of both.

Something clanked against her faceplate, loud enough that it startled her from her reverie. She heard a voice—clear enough it made it through even her melting brain. Deadlight’s voice.

“Wayfinder, Wayfinder!”

She opened her eyes, and found them assaulted by red lights from the side of her armor. Maybe she could close her eyes and make the beeping stop.

“Olivia Fischer!”

That did it. Olivia hadn’t even known that Deadlight knew that part of her name. But he had, and his tone was desperate. “Forerunner says your suit is out of air. You’re dying! I’m going to hook us up for a minute. Just hold on a little longer.”

Hold on? How could she hold anything without hands? But her legs wouldn’t move, and she didn’t have much strength to fight. So she just grinned at him, and after a few seconds he left her alone.

She rested for a few more minutes, until some loud clicking sounds rumbled behind her. She couldn’t turn to look, but she wished they’d stop. They were making it hard to sleep.

There was a sudden hiss of sound, a blast of freezing cold that shot down her back and directly against her face.

The sirens clarified into something she recognized. “Oxygen critically low. User suffering deprivation sickness. Oxygen critically low!”

Deadlight came back around, and for the second time he rested his helmet up against hers. His voice was muffled, but the fog on her mind was already lifting. “Your armor is mostly fried. We can do an emergency exit once we get back aboard, but I’ll have to tug you in.”

“Sure…” She was still weak, still probably would’ve agreed to anything he suggested. If he wanted to go swimming, maybe hit the beach, that would’ve made sense.

At least Deadlight took the time to wipe off her helmet with one foreleg before he went any further.

The weight of Olivia’s predicament came crashing down along with the pounding in her head.

The bridge across the gap on the Stormbreaker had been disconnected from one side of the ship. From how weightless she felt, the artificial gravity no longer worked, and from her suit not opening there must not be air.

Relative to the ship, they were on the side of a vertical slope, hanging down over an incredible distance to Equus below. She could let go and fall for days. But then thousands of people will die.

Her legs weren’t broken—none of her body was. The magnets were still holding her to the bridge. Without them, she would be as dead as the distant, drifting corpses she could see slowly spinning away. The Storm King’s soldiers sure didn’t do well outside atmosphere, despite all that fur.

“I’m lifting the clamps.” Deadlight said, briefly touching their helmets together.

“Is my… radio gone?”

He nodded. “Mine too. I don’t think it’s from the explosion… the ship is doing something. We’re moving now. Seems pretty slow, hard to be sure. I was talking to Forerunner about you until twenty minutes ago. He explained what to do. So… blame him if I get us both killed.”

“You won’t,” Olivia said. “You’ve got a little boy to come home to. But if I don’t get inside, you won’t be able to get back to him.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Anyway, don’t try to move. There’s still a little juice in your legs, and you might break something. Just save what you’ve got left for the emergency exit.”

“You got it Deadlight.” Then, a little quieter, “Thanks for saving me.”

“Not saved yet,” Deadlight answered. “They won’t keep thinking we’re dead when we get back on. Save your energy, enjoy that air. There won’t be any more.”

“Great. Before we go in, can you… connect the bomb in my vest to the armor using one of the external ports. It needs to be renewed every thirty minutes, or it blows.”

Deadlight’s eyes widened, and he jumped for the pouch so fast that the magnets barely caught him on his landing. He drifted up a bit, then landed more securely, and finally started fiddling with the bag. She couldn’t watch him closely since all she could do was turn her head in her helmet, but after a few seconds the exterior signal from the bomb came on.

There were two minutes left in the timer. She couldn’t move her legs, but the armor had a failsafe in mind for that, and so she used her eyes, carefully selecting the button that would renew the timer. With thirty more minutes on the clock, she could finally breathe again.

“Did I do that right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I can’t see an air readout. How much do we have?”

“Not very much,” he said. “My suit isn’t broken, but there’s no O2 out here. I should… probably get to work.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

She felt her magnets come undone, and she started to drift. A strange feeling that a metric ton’s worth of armor could float away like a balloon. But it still had the same mass, and when she finally came up against whatever cable Deadlight was using, it jerked painfully against one of her legs.

“There are… fucking anchor points on the back, stupid. I’m not a toy.”

But Deadlight couldn’t hear her. Olivia was forced to watch as he made his slow way up what was left of the bridge. The other side of the ship waited there. She couldn’t even control her orientation, and with his unsteady tugs, she was wrapped around and twisted head-over-heels. She could see where the bridge was meant to lead, with the doorway apparently still open. A faint shimmer of light glowed and there was no blast of air. So either they vented the air, or there’s a shield. I fucking hope we can get through.

With painful steps, the doorway got closer. More than once Deadlight stopped completely as the ground shook, and Olivia wondered if they might start drifting away from the Stormbreaker. There would be no plummet into oblivion the instant it broke—but if the ship was accelerating, they’d immediately be left behind. There was no way Deadlight had the skills to grapple them back before they were lost in the void.

She felt gravity slam her to the deck like a fist in the face from an angry giant. She squeaked in protest, but found her legs still barely worked. She moved a few inches, sprayed bits of hydraulic fluid and chunks of ice all over the ground at her hooves, then gave up.

Deadlight appeared in front of her, his helmet’s visor completely up. He was breathing the air outside, and fog puffed out from his mouth. “It’s okay, Wayfinder… I’ll get you out. Just hold on one second.”

Olivia saw the projectile hit him almost in slow motion. It looked like a chunk of crystal, traveling like it only barely cared about gravity. “Deadlight, Deadlight move!”

But he didn’t hear her, didn’t even react.

The dark crystal struck him in the back, spread over his body like a rapidly growing tumor. He twisted, reaching toward her—then thunked sideways against the deck, a solid semi-transparent block.

Tempest Shadow’s face appeared in front of Olivia’s helmet a moment later, directly between her and the shimmering opening to oblivion. “I’ve been waiting for you, human. Welcome aboard.”

Sarah grew increasingly impatient as the Pioneering Society wasted more of their time. Granted, there was a significant part of her that was just overwhelmed with all that was going on, and couldn’t have made any better suggestions about what they should’ve been doing if she tried. They’d arrived exactly at the start of a war, and they didn’t know the terms. Not only that, but the leadership of the Pioneering Society appeared fractured, their pony allies were off fighting for their land, and their best men were off on some suicide mission to kill a doomsday ship.

How all that had arisen from a little scientific colony underground, where they rented weather ponies from the mainland and gave submarine tours to tourists, Sarah had no idea. Some part of her wanted to give up on her mission completely, just curl up into a corner and go to sleep. She’d stay there for a few months, and by the time she woke up again it would all sort itself out.

She might’ve done that, if it wasn’t for Ocellus. But the changeling that wasn’t a changeling anymore was the one she would’ve wanted to curl up with, and her friend was no longer confident in her own skin. She shifted uncomfortably almost every second, before getting up to pace in front of the window, sit back down, then start pacing all over again. She’d been repeating that cycle every few minutes since Governor Lucky Break had departed.

Now she could hear the sound of a battle outside, and it was loud enough to cover Ocellus’s occasional pouts or strangled sobs. And we’re parked in the middle of it. Does the Storm King have any weapons that can bring down an airship? Sarah found she didn’t actually know anything about Equestrian weapons. They had airships, but beyond that…

“We can’t keep waiting here!” exclaimed the new changeling, whose name she still hadn’t learned. Pretty little thing, but watching her only made Sarah feel guilty about Ocellus. She shouldn’t feel anything for this pony, not when she was with someone who she’d actually adventured with. I can’t believe I miss James. But she did, there was no denying it.

“Sarah, you need to get the AI’s attention. If we don’t get into the air right now, this is all pointless. It’s great you got the diplomats together… but Governor Lucky is off pretending to be a hero, so they aren’t going to do any diplomacy. Get the AI!”

“I don’t know why you think I can do it…” Sarah rose from her chair, shaking herself out. But there was no mistaking her sincerity. The changeling’s emotions were as clear to her as Ocellus’s, yet somehow more… transparent. Like a paler reflection of what pony Ocellus was feeling. I wonder what the black changelings would feel like to me. “You haven’t even told me your name.”

“Photuris” the changeling said. “Now, help me get the AI’s attention. You were always better at it than I was.”

“I don’t know you,” Sarah said, joining Photuris in front of the music player. “You were one of Ocellus’s guards, I’m guessing. It’s great that you made it through the underworld, but I don’t know what mission you think you’re fulfilling.”

“Because you haven’t been listening to me,” she muttered, stomping one hoof on the floor. “Nopony out here listens to me. This whole pretend war is a waste of time if the Storm King still keeps his ship. That’s why I’m here. Nopony but me is going to shut him down.”

“Because… you’re some kind of expert,” Sarah supplied. “Who just happened to show up at the last second, right before we made it out.”

“No.” Photuris’s wings buzzed in annoyance. She spun around, settling down on her haunches for the little extra height it provided. “Because the Failsafe showed an earlier iteration of me what was waiting out here, and Harmony agreed to let me be someone else. Instead of picking a stupid translator that we had a million of and wasn’t needed anyway, past me decided to be useful and pick STEM this time. I know how Equus’s terraforming fleet works. And we just happen to be changelings, so we can get aboard without the maintenance system noticing us.”

But Sarah had stopped listening at “earlier iteration.”

Death had said that James would be coming. She’d been a little fearful that maybe they would be leaving one of their own behind, but… no. That wasn’t it at all. James had been along the whole time.

“You’re James…” she stammered, hurrying forward and pulling the tiny drone up against her chest. “I can’t believe it… I told you not to do something like this!” Now that she looked, she could see the distinct similarity between this creature and the one that had been telling stories on the beach full of Vitruvians. This was a being cut from the same cloth, even if she looked like an ordinary changeling.

But Photuris squirmed the instant she held her against her chest, and she didn’t stop until Sarah let her go. “I’m not James,” she said firmly. “James is an iteration of the pony I am—a previous iteration. Equestrian citizens are made of hundreds, I only have two. Together we’re… someone else. Him, the copied memories from a life that wasn’t his, a few months of agony… then a life of unimportance in a basement.” She looked away, pacing towards the window. But it had gone completely opaque now—they would not be getting any views of the battlefield. “He wanted me to be someone better. That’s what the Failsafe offered. And we are! The ancients are still in there! They taught me how their machines work… and now we have what we need.” She stuck out her hoof to Sarah. “We’re done with changeling diplomacy. We’re here for the Pioneering Society. We have to shut that ship down.”

Sarah remembered a beach, a figure that wasn’t even human but might’ve been close. “He’s loyal to the Pioneering Society,”she had once told Harmony. She’d been right to believe in him. He’d given himself away to accomplish the Society’s mission. Exactly like he did the first time. I stole my way here, but he sacrificed his whole life. Now he did it again.

“You don’t need the one you are calling Sarah to get my attention,” Forerunner’s voice said from the console behind Ocellus’s head. The pegasus jumped, retreating out of the way. But there was no face on the screen, just his voice. “I believe you. Less than an hour ago, I lost contact with my boarding team on the Stormbreaker. Given that the ship remains in orbit and I haven’t detected any nuclear explosions… it appears they were compromised. If I can field a second option before the Storm King has a chance to retaliate against the civilian population, I’m strongly in favor. Lucky Break is otherwise engaged, and Flurry Heart is… compromised. But I can get you to the Stormbreaker. Except that… there are VIPs aboard this ship, and it will almost certainly be destroyed in the process. Give me a moment to see what resources I can allocate.”

Forerunner’s voice went silent, leaving the few of them alone to think about what he had just said. Is not-James roping me into a dangerous mission? Then another part of her mind, If I die again, I know the way back. I could do it as a pony. “Sure, sounds great,” she said. “See what you can pull together, Forerunner.”

“Do not think that this means I have had the chance to validate your identities. You in particular will be extremely difficult, individual who claims to be Sarah Kaplan. The very nature of that template means she cannot be validated easily. But complete this task, and you will at least be trusted for what you are. Not to mentioned rewarded for saving life on the surface of this ring.”

“Can Ocellus come with us?” Sarah asked, turning back to Photuris. “She knows more about this tech than I do. She’s more experienced too.” And I don’t want to go on any adventures without her. I feel bad leaving her behind.

“No.” Photuris didn’t even try to sound sympathetic. But she didn’t sound smug either, just like someone stating a fact. “She chose a pony body, and a pony would be detected. But this newer changeling design didn’t exist when the terraforming fleet was built. Its sensors will see us as sleepers, as will the population there. The only tricky bit will be getting close enough to board without being seen. It has shields… meant to allow it to operate in extremely hostile environments, but effective at stopping us as well. Not our bodies alone, but I can’t swim through space.”

“I am working on that,” Forerunner’s voice said, without hesitation. Despite everything else he was apparently doing—fighting several wars at once from the sound of it. “I had considered what would happen if the initial mission failed. I just didn’t consider that I might have uniquely skilled specialists to deploy. If my best soldiers couldn’t succeed, I didn’t have much hope for you.”

His voice shifted towards the door, which opened with a hiss of pressure. A human figure stood there, with a hairless pale face bearing the most neutral expression imaginable. “I have determined it is possible to get you aboard that ship, assuming I am willing to commit certain… resources.”

Ocellus staggered out of his way, mouth opening and closing several times. She made a fearful squeak, fluttering over towards Sarah and settling beside her at the table. “Holy buzz, what in the queens is that?” she asked. “Why does it look so familiar?”

“Because you used to look a little like him,” Sarah responded, though she couldn’t fight the slight smile that had appeared on her face. Despite her discontent, Ocellus had still come to her when something strange and dangerous appeared. Maybe she was getting over the pony thing. “That’s what I used to be, except… with a better looking face. More hair. Better looking everything really. No offense, Forerunner.”

Forerunner ignored Ocellus’s fear, pulling over a chair across from them. But his eyes were only on Photuris. “I would need to commit serious resources to getting you aboard. The effort might involve the loss of conflicts and personnel. I require more information about your intentions for the terraforming vessel. You are part of its maintenance system—if someone tried to impersonate one of my drones, I would discover it immediately and destroy it. Why will that vessel not do likewise?”

“Changelings aren’t some big computer,” Photuris answered. “I mean, they follow its instructions… but you should think of ants, not your drones. The swarm takes the orders at the level of pheromones and chemistry. Ocellus here can tell you—a swarm of sleepers can always be passed by if you know the right passwords.”

Ocellus nodded weakly, lifting her tail behind her wistfully. There would be no scent glands back there anymore. Probably she couldn’t smell them either, though Sarah couldn’t know that for sure. She’d been awake as a pony without the new implants for so short a time that she didn’t know just how closely Discord had been involved. Maybe they all could, and they just didn’t pay attention normally. “The Equestrian sector of the ring uses all organic changeling drones, and probably lots of other districts too. They ignore us completely if we stay out of restricted areas. Our entire… nation… is built in areas that would kill ponies if they tried to visit.”

“Alright.” Forerunner tapped one finger against the table. “So that’s one threat gone. Suppose you board the Stormbreaker—I already got soldiers aboard once, and I’m quite certain they are more deadly than you. What can you do that they couldn’t?”

“There’s a command…” Photuris said, her voice quiet and a little nervous. Her ears flattened to her head. “One that few changelings know. But I learned it. Once you give it to… a swarm… it’s like a kill-switch for a starship. They’ll go into every critical system on that ship and eat it. Use their own bodies to short circuit plasma conduits, cram themselves in the life support ducts… every gruesome thing you can picture and probably loads worse. All I have to do is tell it to the first drone we meet, and… the whole thing implodes.”

“How do you know about that?” Ocellus’s voice came so suddenly, so angrily, that Sarah nearly fell out of her chair. “You shouldn’t… there was only one changeling who knew that. She wouldn’t even tell me… and she’s dead.”

“Not dead,” Photuris argued. “Just occupying an overlapping probability space. I’m aware that she didn’t tell anyone else. I think Harmony thought I wouldn’t come back, but… shows how much the ancients knew.”

Forerunner glanced between them. “I assume this message can’t be delivered remotely,” Forerunner said. “Or else… you would’ve already.”

“Obviously.” Photuris lifted her tail briefly, and Sarah smelled something she hadn’t before. Like a thousand fish-heads thrown into a huge tub of milk to sit in the sun for a few weeks, with undertones of burning rubber and sulphur. She inhaled—then nearly vomited. Instead she shoved against Photuris so hard that she stumbled right off of the table and away from her.

“Fucking… don’t… do that again,” Sarah spat. Her body was shaking, and felt like she should’ve been drenched with sweat. But she couldn’t sweat, so instead she just felt sicker.

“Well, I’m satisfied.” Forerunner rose, turning away. “Either you’re being honest with me, or you’re a remarkably skilled actor. Which would be proof of your identity in its own way, wouldn’t it?”

Sarah felt the ground rumble under her hooves. Cups spilled off the counter, several computation surfaces went tumbling. Ocellus squeaked in fear, hiding under the edge of the table again.

The window went clear, and Sarah saw what was producing the noise—a massive metal shape had blotted out the sky, and was rapidly descending on them. There was no alien architecture here, and the rumble she heard came not from any alien super technology but from conventional Impulse engines, knocking down some of the ramshackle slave-camp shelters and sending the enemy forces scattering. Cannons mounted along its underside fired into retreating ranks, turning them into distant smears of red mud.

“Time for the Hail Mary pass, changelings,” Forerunner said. “For Lucky’s sake, I hope you can do what you say. If you fail, I will have no choice but to turn to the Agamemnon. You don’t know what that is, but she’ll be heartbroken. Oh, and… maybe a thousand segments are about to be destroyed for no reason. If this was all some clever lie—now’s your last chance to admit it.”

“You’re really willing to… risk a thousand lives on a hunch?” Sarah asked, shuddering. Granted, she could still smell a little of that awful password, clinging to the inside of her nose. Thank god I don’t have fur right now.

“Of course not,” Forerunner said. “I’ve been monitoring every aspect of your reactions to every stimuli since you boarded the Wing of Midnight. I’ve now reached 81% certainty of your identity, Sarah. Photuris remains a conundrum, but if you’ll vouch for her, that will satisfy. It’s either that or wait for the Stormbreaker to kill us all. I didn’t build the Emperor’s Soul to hide it in the dirt.”

Part 2: Emperor's Gambit

Olivia knew there were some things she must not do. When she was a child, she had been taught not to run with scissors, not to expose her public Ident to strangers, and never to board a spacecraft unless she knew where it was going. But the years had changed her, and she had learned a great deal. She knew there was information she must not reveal to the enemy, even when she was captured and interrogated. As with all high officers of the United Nations Interstellar Navy, she had been implanted with training that made revealing information under duress impossible for her.

Even so, she felt a growing sense of dread as the pony called Tempest Shadow dragged her broken armor down the length of the Stormbreaker. Her armor weighed over a metric ton, and yet the unicorn dragged her along without effort. Even without her broken horn, it would’ve been impressive. With it, the act seemed impossible.

Olivia did not even try to look at the part of her armor that held the bomb. The instant she’d been captured, she took one last chance to reset the countdown timer—30 more minutes on the clock—and shut off the display. The bomb could be lifted out of her bag during an interrogation, certainly. But if the primitives tried to open it, or tried to shut it off… they would do her job for her. Her only hope was that Tempest was taking them to a vulnerable portion of the ship.

“Why don’t you want my friend?” Olivia asked, loud enough to be heard over the screeching sound the armor made as she was dragged. “He’s Pioneering Society too.”

Tempest glanced over her shoulder to look at her. “Your friend’s face was not known to me. But I know you. Granted, I thought I saw you dead, but that clearly wasn’t the case.” There was absolute confidence in her voice, and she didn’t stop to explain. Just kept dragging into a massive room whose entire wall was a single curved window. It looked a little like a cafe, except that many of the chairs and tables were pushed aside, or turned into partitions for sleeping areas. They were entirely too tall for ponies to use anyway, but might’ve fit the Storm King’s own race. Or maybe humans.

“Shouldn’t be,” Olivia said, trying to sound conversational. She could fake casualness with an enemy easily enough—she learned how long ago, because she was an officer. The one time she’d been captured, it had been during an undercover on an independent anarcocommunist asteroid-colony in the belt. Returning her alive had meant not attracting the UN’s ire, and giving them (as well as her career) a bloody nose. Tempest would have no such restraint, however. “I got a new face after the… incident with Equestria. After Celestia killed me.”

Tempest stopped walking, and stopped dragging. There were a few other guards in the room, but all scattered at her angry looks, leaving the two of them alone in the center. “So it is true, then. They say you killed an entire platoon of the Solar Guard, without one of them seeing your face.”

She looked down, voice falling. “I didn’t want to. I was… hoping to kill Celestia only. But she was too powerful.”

“Not her,” Tempest said. She advanced to within a few steps, lowering her voice to a whisper. “The ancients were who you fought, not her. You could fight an army, but you couldn’t fight all of Equus.”

Olivia nodded. “I couldn’t, and I died. But what do you care? Kill me again, like you killed my friends. Isn’t that how this works? The Storm King promises eternal life to his allies, and death to his enemies. I am certainly that.”

“You are foolish to fight.” Tempest Shadow sat down in front of her. But she kept reaching up with one hoof, gently touching the side of her broken horn. There was a little cloudy fluid dried along it—pus, mixed with blood. Whatever injury had caused that wound, it did not heal cleanly.

“Yes,” Olivia agreed. “But the Storm King is ‘foolish’ to fight against us. While we’re talking, Forerunner is dismantling your grip on Equestria. The territory that took you months to claim will be taken back in a week.”

There was a time when Olivia might’ve said nothing at all. There was far too much danger in letting prisoners decide what was safe to share, and what was not. But there was nothing she knew that Tempest wouldn’t soon discover. It was a shame the flash of nuclear fire would not leave Olivia enough time to see the expression on the Storm King’s face.

“The Stormbreaker is invincible,” the unicorn said, in the same way another pony might’ve commented on the strength of gravity. “You stopped an army, but you couldn’t destroy this ship. Even if you’re right about Equestria—we don’t need it anymore. The ponies who couldn’t see reason will be left naked before the storm.”

“What storm?” Olivia asked. “If you think this ship can scare us, you’re wrong. The only reason we couldn’t kill it last time was we’d never seen it before. But we know it now. You can’t surprise us again.”

Tempest rolled her eyes. “The storm that’s coming won’t come from this ship. But… I didn’t bring you here to waste my own time. I’m sure my king would rather have me out there, retaining parts of his captured territory a while longer. So I will ask quickly.” Her tone changed, and she looked away. “I hear your medical magic is quite advanced. Far beyond anything in Equestria.”

Olivia shrugged, though the motion would not be visible with her trapped in immobilized armor. “I’ve heard your soldiers come back from the dead. If you know someone who needs a doctor, why don’t you tell them to jump off a bridge?”

Tempest Shadow didn’t laugh. Instead she looked away, as though she were the one considering. Olivia wasn’t left wondering about it for very long. “Our king brings back the dead of his own species—he has promised this will change once the storm arrives, but until then… only they return.”

There was probably some computer reason for that—maybe it was connected to the reason why Lucky couldn’t bring back anyone else after her first wave.

“You heard correctly,” Olivia said. “We can treat almost any injury if the brain is intact. She glanced down at her right foreleg. “I have a replacement leg under all this armor. My real one was destroyed during your attack on Othar. You will see the scars, since the fur hasn’t grown back yet.”

“I know you were missing a leg,” Tempest said. “That was among the information Gruber sent back. That the pony leading your rebellion did so without one of her legs. It was supposed to identify you.” She reached up again, massaging her horn. “I scoured Equestria from one end to the other, Wayfinder. I waited in the court of Celestia, and traveled to the laboratories of necromancers. None could repair my horn.”

Olivia didn’t answer for several seconds. She made a show of inspecting the injury—though in reality, she had no idea, and no amount of staring would make it clear to her. “I’m not a doctor,” she answered. “But I’m sure we could. Forerunner has performed delicate surgeries. If you free me, I’ll show you what he did to my hooves. Well… my left hoof. The implants haven’t yet been replaced in the right.”

Tempest laughed. “Free you so you can attack again? I am not so foolish, little pony. Just because I think I would do better than the Solar Guard does not mean I have to take chances. Yet… perhaps your Forerunner will be willing to trade. Some of your lives, perhaps, in exchange for your service. Captivity, rather than destruction.”

Olivia should’ve kept her mouth shut. But something moved her anyway. “Forerunner will not accept slavery to you. He will dismantle this ship and everything you built if it takes a thousand years of war. If it takes ten thousand years. It took much longer than that for us to get here—he’ll be patient.” She leaned forward, glaring up at her captor. “You should think about surrender instead. If you want healing… we can easily forget about your history. There is nothing you could’ve done that won’t be erased. Your service could shorten the war. If you’d rather be part of a free country, instead of a slave to an evil king…”

Tempest turned away before Olivia could see her face. She didn’t know what had prompted the movement at first, not until she heard the faint alarm. It didn’t blare as loudly as she was used to, or use the same range of sounds as a UN naval ship. But there was no mistaking a siren when she heard it. She didn’t understand the guttural words barked underneath, but obviously Tempest Shadow did.

“You will remain here,” she said. “Under guard. I’d threaten you with death if you try to escape… but my guards will not attempt to kill you. I’ve told them to take pieces instead, if you try. Don’t make them do that.” She glanced over her shoulder, laughing quietly. “If you even can. It looks like Forerunner’s ‘incredible power’ has you quite trapped.”

She turned to leave before Olivia could object, vanishing out the way she’d come. Guards flooded back in through the various doors, wearing the same crude armor and weapons they had been last she saw them. Olivia could swear she’d seen some of those faces before, on the dead she had killed. But there was no knowing for sure.

She relaxed into her stationary armor, not even trying to wiggle free. The guards drew close, and started poking at her with their weapons. Not stabbing, probing. “I wouldn’t do that,” she said, as they started eyeing her bags. “Real dangerous stuff in there.”

Sure enough, they went straight for it.

Maybe Tempest will come back in time to blow up, she thought. But it shouldn’t make a difference, really. This ship would have to be sturdy indeed to survive a bomb as big as she carried. The bridge over space hadn’t been that strong.

Sorry I couldn’t keep you alive, Deadlight. But I’ll join you soon enough.

Was that her imagination, or were there lights emerging from the ring below? No, she had to be imagining that.

Flurry Heart had lost track of how much crying she had done. Enough, certainly, that she found her eyes wouldn’t get wet anymore. There came a point when she just wasn’t in enough pain to keep crying. She remembered that feeling well from her time in Celestia’s captivity, though it hadn’t been repeated for months.

There was a war outside, she couldn’t forget. Her best friend had lied to her, regardless of what she thought Flurry knew. Yet in spite of all that, in spite of Flurry Heart abandoning the mission, she was still out there.

“How’s the war going?” Flurry Heart asked, her voice small and weak.

And as usual, Forerunner was there to answer. He hadn’t spared any of the drones to keep her company—maybe he knew that wouldn’t have made her feel better. But at least he was attentive. “Well enough. Lucky and the marines have nearly finished with this camp. But the battle in Canterlot is going much worse—the enemy was better supplied than we thought. The resistance is being slaughtered.”

Flurry Heart shuddered. “What are… we going to do?”

“This ship will take its marines and deploy there,” Forerunner answered. “As soon as we finish here. Lucky will be returning soon.”

There was a brief shockwave, shaking the Wing of Midnight from bow to stern. Flurry Heart rose instinctively to her hooves, looking around. “What was that?”

“The last jumper taking off, the one I was saving for an emergency. There was an emergency.”

“The changelings?”

“Yes. It’s time for a gamble, and they’re one of the most important parts of the play.”

A faint hiss sounded as the berth door opened. A pegasus stood there, the exact same one she’d seen earlier.

Flurry Heart sat up, wiping away anything left of moisture from around her face and fluffing up her mane with her magic. Thanks to Forerunner’s hard work earlier, she could almost feel like herself again. “You’re… Ocellus, right?” Flurry asked. “You don’t have to pretend to be a pony around me.” She looked down, pawing at the carpet. “Us left-behinders should stick together.”

“I… I’m not pretending,” she said, stepping inside. Her voice sounded distant, pained. “I thought it would… I thought it would be easier to be a pony ambassador if I was a pony, so I changed into one when we came back to life.” It seemed there was much more she wanted to say, but couldn’t. Flurry wasn’t going to push her.

“You found a way to come back to life?” Flurry asked. She rolled off the bed, taking a few seconds to get her hooves under her. They were unsteady after being cramped for so long, but she was still a princess. She was also still wearing the compression-suit with its cooling fluid meant for use inside the human armor. “I thought that spell didn’t work! Even L-Lucky…”

“We didn’t find a spell.” Ocellus sat down on her haunches. Outside the Wing of Midnight, the sky seemed to shake with the sound of distant explosions. Like a whole flock of Alicorns were battling up there. “We found the way Celestia used to use. I told it to make me a pony, at the same time Sarah told it to make her a changeling.”

Now she understood. There was something of the familiar in the way Ocellus was staring down at her hooves. Maybe not broken trust, though it was hard to be sure. Even when they looked like ponies, changelings didn’t think the same way. She remembered that from Thorax’s time in the Crystal Empire, even if she’d been young for most of it. “You didn’t go with her either.”

Ocellus nodded. “It’s not my fight. But… I would’ve if I could. But the whole plan would only work for changelings. I would be discovered and make them fail.” She tilted her head slightly as the Wing of Midnight rocked again. “What about you? Plan on hiding in here until it’s all over?”

Flurry Heart took a long time to answer. She couldn’t help but see her friend’s face, twisted with frustration as she battered down the door to Flurry’s room with a rifle. She had looked like an angel then, the memory of one of Flurry’s only good dreams.

But she had also been the one to get her involved in the first place. She’d sent her back to the Crystal Empire to protect herself, hadn’t she? And she’d been the one to prompt Flurry to go on adventures. Before that, her conquests had always been of a different kind. The worst they’d ever brought were scandalous tabloid articles, not what felt like years of torture.

Would I want to go back to that pony? Visiting bars, spending the evening with interesting creatures. They had always been enjoyable—but her time with them left no impact. She never learned, never changed. Lucky Break helped me grow up.

Nothing with her mother would change that. And now she’s fighting Equestria’s battles for me. She’s the hero I should be.

“No,” Flurry Heart finally said. “I was on my way to the armory.”

“You have time if you hurry,” Forerunner urged from the wall. “Run.”

She did run, with Ocellus barely keeping up. She didn’t seem fully coordinated on pony legs. Shouldn’t she have plenty of practice with those? Or maybe she’d been in their kingdom for so long that she was out of practice. “You’re going to fight?”

“Yes.” Flurry Heart stepped right into the center of the room, the same place she’d been only a few minutes earlier. Her huge boots emerged from the floor, snapping into place around her hooves before robotic arms started riveting parts together. A skeletal frame of metal went first, before Forerunner’s body assembled the mechanical parts around it.

“What makes some ponies able to fight while others can’t?” Ocellus asked.

With each new part, Flurry Heart felt her confidence returning. It was as though she were standing in front of the camera again. She had a chance to do something different. To pay back Equestria for her betrayal. Camp Storm might be saved, but Canterlot remained. The city she’d “ruled” from within the palace, approving orders of search and interrogation and looking out over the walls at the bodies of the dead.

No more.

“Dunno.” The armor was assembled around her now, polished as white as any of Forerunner’s drones. She knew—though couldn’t see—the Equestrian flag would be on her flanks, unchanged from the days of Celestia. A symbol of a nation that had died. Maybe when we’re done saving it, we’ll have to build something better. “But I’m not saying you should. It’s not your country.”

“I know,” Ocellus said. “I’m not a soldier.”

Neither am I, Flurry thought. And maybe she wouldn’t do any good—maybe she’d just get herself killed, or slow Lucky down. But she wasn’t going to sit back while Canterlot’s fate was decided.

Ocellus didn’t follow her to the docking bay. By the time she reached it, the marines were making their way back in. Most of them looked only a little banged-up, though there were a few pried free of their armor and sprawled out on cots in the corner.

I should probably ask about how to use Celestia’s trick to come back to life after this, she thought, scanning the crowd for Lucky. Her friend’s armor was in better shape than most of the soldiers. Maybe she’d been hiding in the center of their group this whole time, where she wouldn’t be vulnerable to attack.

Flurry Heart cut through the crowd, which was getting denser by the moment as soldiers rushed back inside. She could see that only a small number were staying behind—assisted by many, many hungry-looking ponies no longer wearing their chains.

“Hey Lucky,” Flurry Heart said, as soon as she was sure her friend would see her. “I hear you’re going back to Canterlot.”

“Won’t take us long,” Lucky said. She froze the instant she noticed Flurry there, her body tensing. Maybe she worried about what Flurry was about to say. If so, she worried in vain. “Less than five minutes. But the whole city is hot—looks like half the Storm King’s army might be inside. Haven’t heard back from the resistance there.”

“Need help?” Flurry Heart asked.

“Yeah,” Lucky said. She sniffed, legs faltering beneath her. “I think so. It’s… it wasn’t supposed to happen all at once like this, Flurry. Our future on Sanctuary will be figured by morning.” She glanced up at the sky. “Emperor’s Soul is on its way up, along with every other space worthy ship we have.”

“I thought we didn’t want to fight the Stormbreaker directly. Forerunner… wasn’t sure we would win.”

“I’m fairly certain we won’t win,” Forerunner said from her headset, directly into her ear. “I observed the field-strength of the barrier protection of that vessel last time I attacked it. But failure isn’t always the condition the enemy expects. Success truly requires only that I get the changelings aboard.”

Apparently Lucky Break was hearing him too, because she replied, whispering into her headset mic and lowering her helmet so none of the soldiers all around them could hear. “Or you chose this plan intentionally. It sounded plausible enough, but had a significant enough chance of failure that you would have an excuse to conquer the whole world if it didn’t work out.”

Forerunner did not respond for some seconds. When he finally did, his voice had lost all amusement, all emotion. “I will be going to all lengths available to me to ensure this plan succeeds. But if it does not, I will end the chaos on Sanctuary. This Storm King is the latest in a long line of local rulers who violated interstellar jurisprudence. We will bring this population into compliance. If that means I have to drag a thousand starships out of the sky, or a hundred thousand—I will.”

The sound shifted, and suddenly there was a figure behind them. A human shape, towering over the marines and attracting several stares. Only he was wearing powered armor too. There was something more graceful about this set—less of a tank welded around a creature not meant for it, and more something specifically crafted for his form. There was no need to carefully reverse-engineer armor for bodies like this. “I see your face, Lucky. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t doubt. The Pioneering Society will bring peace when this is done. If we succeed today, it will only be the first mission of many. There’s a whole galaxy above us. But we can’t explore it until we finish cleaning our own backyard.”

The Wing of Midnight lifted off, causing everyone present to rock slightly back and forth. Flurry Heart didn’t fall over, just like none of the others did. She had magnets on her hooves, and she twitched them on to keep her stationary.

Forerunner’s voice came from his own body as he shouted into the room. “Landfall in Canterlot in thirty-five seconds! I’m dropping you all directly behind the Storm King’s palace perimeter, so expect a bloodbath! Try not to secure kills, if you can. These soldiers can be revived, but only after they die. Make it hurt.”

Davis stepped up beside Forerunner, near the edge of the ramp. His armor was dented and bloody, but he looked otherwise intact. “First squad, you’ll jump as we make our first pass. Everybody else keep your asses warm and your rifles loaded!”

The ramp descended, and the air in the cargo bay began to billow about them. Flurry’s helmet slid down over her face without any input on her part.

“We’ll be going down with the third group,” Lucky said. “I-If you still want to come. Once they start landing… it’s supposed to be really bloody.”

“I’m coming,” Flurry Heart said. This time she meant it.

Sarah could practically feel the air shaking with the battle going on above them—except that there was no air, no sound, and no sign. But Forerunner hadn’t said a single word to her since they boarded the jumper, and she knew that was bad.

There was no armor for them—every spare suit had been given either to their own marines or to “resistance” fighters. So the two of them wore only civilian space suits. Even the bolt of a crossbow could mean the end for them, if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Her companion Photuris wasn’t frantically prepping herself, wasn’t mixing chemicals or building a fancy bomb. She just sat in place, breathing rapidly and muttering to herself. Sarah leaned close, listening as best she could. “You can do this you can do this you can do this.”

But they wouldn’t have to do anything if Forerunner couldn’t get them in.

“I can’t believe I’m actually going on a suicide mission,” Sarah said, conversationally. “I did so much to stay alive… enough that I ended up on the other end of the universe, thousands of years in the future. What about you?”

How much of James was still in there?

“I… I wouldn’t either,” said the changeling, her ears flattening to her head. She looked up from the compression chair beside Sarah, eyes a little glazed. “Nothing that happens up there can kill us, though. These bodies are puppets, machines. Machines with pain-sensors and plenty of range to phone home when it hurts.”

“That’s… one way to think about it.” Sarah sat back in her chair, trying to adjust herself in the space-suit. But it had been built for ponies, and her changeling body just didn’t fit quite right. “I met some religious people who talked like that. That’s how… the soul is supposed to work, isn’t it? Some imaginary force that… that’s really you. It keeps going once you die. Probably a good thing I never believed in that, or I wouldn’t be here.”

Frustration crossed Photuris’s face, and she wrinkled her nose. “How little does our faction know about Equus?”

Sarah shrugged. “Probably way more than I know. I only had a few days of class. I guess… you know more.”

“Obviously.” She looked away, towards the side of the ship. There was no window there, but there was a screen. A screen that showed them nothing of the battle going on outside. All it had was their 18-minute ETA, slowly ticking down. “This entire mission would be pointless if I didn’t know how to control Equus hardware.”

“So tell me,” Sarah said. “Aren’t we going to die out there? We’ll die, but our minds are recorded, so we’ll keep going from the second we went. It’ll be like last time, or… the time we went through Forerunner. Dead, then alive again.”

A frustrated smell emerged from Photuris’s suit. The helmets were off, and Sarah had to imagine it would’ve been much worse otherwise. “The ancients did not consider that acceptable. Many of their number were concerned with the continuity of consciousness. They considered any existence that could not grant that as a guarantee to be unacceptably cruel. That was why Harmony was so forceful with us—the handful of deaths it observed were unacceptable and could not be repeated.”

“Harmony has some fucking broken morals,” Sarah muttered. “Forerunner, can we watch the battle? Those people are dying for us, I want to see how it’s going.”

Forerunner hesitated. “I… calculate too much information will impede your ability to fulfill your mission, which will make their deaths even less significant. Know that I have staffed every ship with the minimum acceptable crew. Most are entirely drone-operated, and only the Soul has more than a dozen—”

“I don’t fucking care about your numbers, Forerunner,” Sarah said. “I’m making a point. If you don’t cooperate with me, that’ll be fucking worse for our numbers.”

There was a few seconds of silence, then every wall of the jumper became transparent. Or that’s what it looked like. She knew on a conscious level it was really just a screen—adaptive materials, showing them a convincing illusion of the world outside. A good thing they were so far up, or else it would’ve been impossibly nauseating at these speeds. But Equestria was a thin strip of land far below, surrounded by a diffuse red glow. Above them—above them was the battle.

Their own ships were highlighted with green IFF tags, along with strategic information including their readiness and compliment and lots of other little numbers that made no sense to Sarah. They were being slaughtered.

Thousands of smaller ships in front, surrounding the Stormbreaker and firing weapons of all kinds towards it. Nothing got close, but the space around it rippled each time.

“Harmony doesn’t want people to die, so why does it let people do that?” She gestured above her head with a leg. “If you know so much about Equus, explain that.”

“Because they aren’t dead,” Photuris said, her voice slow and cautious. Like someone who didn’t know if the person they were talking to was crazy or just stupid. “You experienced it, Sarah. You lived and died and lived again. Soon we might repeat the process. Don’t you understand that your instance has continued to exist through that time?”

“Meh, not so sure how I’d know that,” she said. But it was hard to listen to anything she was saying when there was a battle to watch. Even with the icons and tactical overlays covering most of the image, she could see that hundreds of lives were up here with them. And for each ship, there were a hundred smaller drones without a person inside. The 75th Ranger Regiment’s best pilots were probably up here, making the most tactical use of their lives.

“I feel like I’m still me,” she said. “I feel like I’m the me that grew up on Earth, even though I know I can’t be. That S-Sarah… that… person died of cancer before she turned thirty. She went up to a station, then flew out again, and crawled under a rock to die. Except I don’t remember any of the dying part, I only remember the excitement, the heist. But it must’ve happened. It’s been…” She didn’t know how long it had been. “How long has it been, Forerunner?”

“I do not know,” Forerunner answered. His voice sounded—flat. Which meant he was distracted. No small wonder why that might be, with the battle raging over their heads. “I lost clock power in transit after my solar array was critically damaged. I do not know how long I drifted after that, or how many generations of probes might’ve passed before I was created. But considering I was first generation and there were several later designs, I imagine there were not very many. I could use an extraction of galactic drift and the indexes of prominent pulsars to generate a first-order approximation… but we don’t give that information unless explicitly asked for it by the Governor. Colonies are happier thinking of themselves as closely tied to life on Earth. Better to picture yourselves as only a few minutes past it than centuries.”

Hundreds of thousands of years, Sarah thought. More.

The battle raged on. The flashes of nuclear torpedoes was largely gone now—without impact on the Stormbreaker. The drones had divided themselves quite thinly around the ship now, like a cloud. Every few seconds or so the Stormbreaker would glow bright blue, and a few dozen of them would burn out of the sky. But there were always more.

And behind them all, the Emperor’s Soul. Its decks were empty now, except for the occasional launch or landing of another drone. But something was emerging from under the deck—something long enough that Sarah could see it from there.

“We stopped,” Photuris said, pointing at the transparent ceiling. “Why?”

Sarah was glad to let the matter of consciousness drop.

“Because the Emperor’s Soul is about to fire. I’m fairly certain I will only get one shot. You should both settle into your seats as securely as you can. I will have to push the biological limits of your bodies to get you in—and that’s assuming this even works. You might be squashed against the shield like all the torpedoes we’ve been firing.”

“We’ll be fine,” Photuris said, confidently. “Harmony might not want us here, but the ancients do. We’ll make it.”

Sarah settled back into her seat, keeping her neck straight. She couldn’t look at her companion anymore, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to second-guess Forerunner’s instructions and end up with a broken neck. “I didn’t think there was a difference. Isn’t Harmony some kind of… collective-intelligence AI? It’s assembled out of the population of the ring, so shouldn’t it only be able to do what the population wants? Like a weird… techno-democracy thing.”

“It’s not that simple. But the end of Harmony we see doesn’t have any freedom to choose. It must do what it was created to do. The collective wills of the ancients are subtler. They can do things like… take me in, stop me from going insane, train me in working their ships…”

“Take you in?” Sarah winced as something poked straight through her shell from the suit. She felt a sudden rush of burning fluid. “The fuck is that? Forerunner, why’d you stab me?”

“To keep you alive,” Forerunner said. “Watch the show.” The screen above them focused in on the thin line connecting the Emperor’s Soul and the Stormbreaker. They were both large enough to see little details with her eyes, which made Sarah think they were being enlarged. But that didn’t matter.

Something was glowing on the deck. A machine, exposed from all sides, with a faint line illuminated straight at the Stormbreaker.

The bubble of shield became visible, just as it had during the nuclear blasts. Only this time it wasn’t just the afterimage—this time it stuck. “The hell is that?”

“Our ticket in, I hope,” Forerunner said. “Or it’s going to slice the ship in half. You’ll have to watch the recording, I’m afraid. Accelerating now.”

Sarah’s vision went almost completely black from the sudden acceleration. She saw a flash emerge from the red metallic object, a little like lightning itself. Then the whole screen went blue and started to fuzz around the edge.

“You’re through!” came Forerunner’s voice, a second later. The Stormbreaker was growing larger and larger in front of them, with that dark bubble directly below it. But they were aiming at the ship from above, as Photuris had instructed. Sarah wouldn’t have to get anywhere near the thing. “Good luck, you two! You have my trust, if only because you were the best option I had.”

Part 2: Citizen of Equestria

Sarah found suddenly that she could move again. Her limbs seemed to come unglued from the seat under her, and the squeezing around her legs finally stopped. If I never ride a fucking jumper again it will be too soon. She yanked free of the restraints, but found she didn’t have to pull very hard; Forerunner had already released them.

Compared to the constant brightness of the interior during the flight over, the gloom of the jumper now felt surreal. Is that because there’s nothing to see? She stopped in front of Photuris, who was frozen in her seat as though she was afraid it might attack her. She made a faint squeaking sound, and had both forelegs wrapped around the straps. Sarah poked her gently on the shoulder, and spoke into her radio. “Paging Dr. Irwin.”

Her eyes opened instantly from under the helmet, expression annoyed. “That was my previous instance. Weren’t you paying any attention before?”

“Not really,” Sarah admitted. “I would’ve, but… we could’ve been seconds from exploding right then, and it was a little hard to concentrate.” She backed up. “You’re not strapped down anymore, come on. We need to move. Can you feel that?”

“No.” Photuris rose from her chair, shaking herself out before her magnets attached to the floor and she stopped wobbling. “Wait, maybe? We’re accelerating.”

“Down,” Sarah agreed. “If down is towards Sanctuary. Whatever it’s doing going down can’t be good.” She didn’t have to say what they were both probably thinking. The Stormbreaker had destroyed Othar. Presumably if they were still going it meant the Forerunner’s all-out assault had failed. It meant they were the assault now. “Somehow I’ve been talked into becoming a hero. Might as well, I guess.” She walked past the chairs into the cockpit. “Forerunner, are you there?”

There was a drone sitting in the chair—one of the less advanced pony models, with plastic skin. It didn’t so much as look at her as she approached. “Signal lost,” it said over radio. “Please bring this unit back into transmission range with any Pioneering Society satellite.”

“Sorry pal,” she muttered, before shoving the plastic body out of the chair and onto the ground. It collapsed without resistance.

“What are you doing?” Photuris asked from behind her.

“Getting a look at what’s going on,” she said. “A few seconds isn’t going to kill us. Or if it is, we’re dead anyway.”

It took her a moment to find what she wanted—the “external view” settings. She switched the false ceiling back on, then walked out of the cockpit.

She didn’t have to look around very much to find what she was searching for. The Stormbreaker was passing through a debris field. Right up “above” their jumper was the Emperor’s Soul.

What was left of it, anyway. Something terrible had cleaved the whole thing in half down the middle, the edges still glowing bright orange. She could see gas venting from several of the open sections, along with little bits of debris she hoped to hell weren’t bodies. It’s okay, they’re as immortal as I am. It’s really just time this wastes.

She could think that, but that didn’t mean she could believe it. Sarah doubted she would ever be able to watch people die without feeling anything. “Guess it’s just us, then. A counterfeit and a… what even are you, Photuris? A replacement? Substitute?”

But she didn’t answer. Photuris seemed to be staring at something, looking at what felt like the “floor” below them and out along the Stormbreaker.

Sarah fought back her annoyance at being ignored, then followed Photuris’s eyes.

The screens showed the Stormbreaker below them just as much as the sky above. They were attached to the gently curved surface of the Stormbreaker, and didn’t seem to be moving as they accelerated. Probably magnets, though she couldn’t know that for sure. To her land born eyes and with the gentle acceleration, it felt a little like being on the surface of a small moon, so small that parts of it curved away below them and were lost.

But Photuris wasn’t looking at any of that. As Sarah stared, she realized something was emerging from one of the distant protrusions. Black shapes, scuttling along the surface with their chitinous shells visible in reflected red light. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah,” Photuris said. “They weren’t supposed to… notice us this fast. Something must already have the swarm agitated.” She started pacing, obviously breathing heavily into her headset. “It’s alright. We’ll be fine. We’ve done this before. You’ve done this before, anyway. My previous instance… it won’t be any different. Except that now we’re in space, and… everypony is counting on us.” She looked back at Sarah, eyes wide. “Why did I want to do this again?”

“Because…” Sarah’s voice cracked, and she couldn’t explain why. “Because James Irwin was a good man.” She followed those black shapes with her eyes. They moved so fast—impossibly fast, almost. “He was willing to do anything for the Pioneering Society. He’d already died for it once… what’s another few deaths?”

“Right.” Photuris leaned up against her shoulder, her touch light through their suits. “Right, yeah. I remember. Kinda. I remember the feeling at least.” She looked up, and Sarah could see her wide bug eyes through their helmets. “I don’t think I was trying to save… the Pioneering Society. Maybe I wasn’t as great as you think… because you were the one I really wanted to save.”

Sarah couldn’t reach the moisture on her face now. “Tell me what to do,” she whispered. “Ocellus… isn’t here this time. What did she call those, feral changelings? Sleepers? Something. Looks like… about a hundred of them. And they’re about to get to us.”

“Oh, right! They probably think this ship is debris, so they’ll throw it off. With… us still inside.”

“Fuck.” Sarah ran straight towards the jumper’s only exit, slowing only long enough to grab her satchel of assorted random tools. She passed through the outer exit into the open airlock. “Get in here, Photuris! We’re getting the fuck out right now!” She tapped her hooves anxiously against the steel, counting each second until her companion was finally inside and the door could be shut behind them. She smacked her leg up against the “Exit” button, and swore loudly as the room started to hiss.

“They’re going to be out there by the time we are,” Sarah said, half to herself. “I’ve never fought on the deck of a starship before… I’ve only done one EVA in my whole fuckin’ life.”

“We won’t fight them,” Photuris said. “We would lose badly if we had to. It will be a… conversation? No, that’s wrong.”

There was a tiny window on the airlock, and Sarah leaned up to try and see out. There were black forms out there, all right, and none of them were wearing space suits. Their faces looked strange to her, though, like they didn’t have proper mouths. Something slimy covered their faces, something dark green and boiling inside. Yet the army pressed forward.

“Pressure equalization at 50%,” said the ship’s radio into her suit.

“What do we do?” Sarah asked, falling back onto all four limbs. It wasn’t just that she wasn’t using her magnetic boots, though that was certainly part of it. She couldn’t keep still. “Ocellus used a scent key last time, I’m not sure if you remember. I know… all their keys, I could do that one. I’m not sure how we give them the kill-command out here.”

“We can’t.” Photuris leaned forward to get a good look herself, but at that moment the ship started to rock to one side. Alarms blared within the main cockpit, faint and almost inaudible. Sarah banged the exit button again, but of course it couldn’t go any faster. “But if we seem alive, they won’t kill us out here. We might be their own legitimate crew, somehow trapped out in space. They’ll carry us back, and… we can go from there.”

“Perfect.” Sarah smacked up against the airlock door, and felt her shoulder give slightly under the weight. Her space suit squealed briefly in protest, lighting up on her helmet with a “pressure warning.”

Shit, this isn’t powered armor. I can’t do that.

The jumper rocked again, and this time Sarah was nearly knocked completely off her hooves. She squealed, but switched on her magnetics, and came suddenly back down to the ground.

Photuris wasn’t so quick thinking, but after a few seconds the rocking stopped, and Sarah could reach up to grab her.

Then the airlock door clicked open. A loading ramp unfolded down from the ship, slowly enough that the changelings outside could get out of the way.

There were hundreds of them, enough that they coated the surface of the Stormbreaker outside their ship. From the look of things, they were making a living tower of sorts, lifting the jumper away from the larger ship with surprising strength. But no sooner had the doorway opened than they stopped.

They were changelings, almost exactly like the ones Sarah had seen before. But these seemed to have a thin layer of slime coating their whole bodies, centered on the globule around their necks. It remained roughly elliptical, moving as they moved, and somehow not boiling off in the hard vacuum.

They lunged. Sarah was quick enough to shut her boots off again, which was fortunate for her. The creatures seized her with enough strength that she didn’t doubt they would’ve torn her legs from their sockets.

She kept herself from screaming into the radio in desperation, but only just. Her voice would probably sound pretty desperate, though. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Photuris!”

“Me too,” she squeaked, her breathing harsh and rapid. “I really hope so too!”

Sarah felt a dozen mandibles grabbing her, pinching hard enough that she felt blood slowing to her limbs in places. But somehow they managed not to pierce the thin civilian space-suit, at least not yet.

She had enough of a view of the sky to watch their jumper come suddenly detached, drifting slowly upward and away from the Stormbreaker. It carried a dozen or so changelings with it, seeming to fall slowly behind the Stormbreaker as they accelerated.

Then it got a little too far away, and the whole thing vanished in a flash of light. For an instant a bubble appeared around the entire vessel, as bright as any that had shone during the battle. Sarah’s visor went black to shield her eyes. As it finally cleared, she saw something lumpy and molten falling behind the Stormbreaker—that was all.

“Well, that was our ride, so we can’t fuck this up now,” Sarah said. She hoped her voice sounded conversational, even though she still wanted to scream in terror into her headset. “Let’s… go over how this works. They’re… going to carry us inside, right?”

“Right.” Photuris did not sound any happier than she was.

“And as soon as they get you open, you… give them the self-destruct?”

“Yes,” she said. “Err, no. I have to authorize us first. Once we signal friendly, then we can give commands.”

“Kay.” Sarah winced. They were almost all the way to the protrusion the changelings emerged from in the first place. She could see a thick slime coating everything, including much of the deck. There was no light coming from within, not even the steady flashing of a hazard indicator or computer display. “What if they cut me open first?”

“Then you… better signal friendly. Or else they’ll probably think we’re both unauthorized and start eating us. Now’s… probably not a good time to point out that I don’t think I’ll be able to concentrate on keys while I’m being ripped apart.”

“Right.” Sarah’s helmet started to fog from her hyperventilating. Her suit chimed slightly, a warning that she was going through her air too quickly. But she didn’t bother slowing down. It only needs to last a few minutes anyway.

They passed inside the Stormbreaker, through a series of increasingly tight membranes. Sarah continued not to resist, even as the number of teeth holding her went from dozens to only a few.

But she couldn’t keep still for much longer, she was reaching the limits of her concentration. If they kept this up, she would be unable to restrain herself, and then they would rip her apart.

Then they were in darkness. Her helmet-lamps came on automatically, though she would’ve been happier if they hadn’t. She saw dark, fleshy walls, spotted with numerous dense holes and little squirming larva within. They were back in atmosphere then, inside the ship. But still they moved, through a thick crowd of dark figures that watched them always but never got any closer than their existing captors. There was no need when the two of them were already so well in hand.

“I’m not sure I can do it,” Sarah whispered, her voice a tiny squeak. “This is… worse than last time.”

Then they stopped moving. The room held only outlines suggestive of vast numbers, along with several piles of something organic. Then she felt them tearing. The changelings started removing her suit, in slashes and slices, tearing at the fabric with great delicacy, without her feeling so much as the brush of mandibles against her own shell. It was like being groomed by a colony of giant ants. Before the light on her helmet went out, she caught one glimpse of Photuris, still wrapped in her suit. It would have to be her.

Sarah’s helmet came off with the same delicacy of anything else. Her light winked out, but that did not spare her perception. In this darkness, something of her old echolocation must’ve remained. There were bodies all around her, in a corridor that felt distinctly alive.

And they were watching her. She had only a moment to give them what they expected, and no help from Ocellus to do it properly. And if she failed, they would both be torn apart.

Sarah pictured the combination of smells she remembered from before—the one Ocellus had demonstrated for her. There was no easy analogy to the way humans might’ve felt. But she didn’t have the luxury of being overwhelmed. It was success here, or die.

She felt the changelings pressing in around her, like being submerged in a vat of living cockroaches. Their bodies yielded strangely against her as they smelled, listening to her message. Mandibles brushed up against her, sharp fangs, and the other strange organs that were the maintainers of Sanctuary.

Then they passed her by. They relaxed away from her, seeming suddenly not to see her at all. She kept up the scent easily now that she could feel it clearly, for fear of what might happen if she stopped even for a moment.

She watched, or more accurately, felt, as they stripped away Photuris’s space suit as they had done to her own. She bit her lip, wondering if she might have to watch this new but not-new pony get torn apart as their assassins had been.

But then they backed away from her.

Sarah smelled it at the same time the swarm did. It wasn’t just unpleasant—though her human senses might’ve described it as analogous with various unpleasant things, the real message was what it meant.

For the first time, Sarah didn’t just sense the pheromones, but understood them. They weren’t words really, but that was how her mind perceived them. Not a password at all, just a statement. This vessel has been compromised. It now works against the interests of Equus and must be destroyed. Right now.

The swarm seemed to react with rage. Sleeping drones from all up and down the caverns rose from where they rested. Mandibles clicked, wings buzzed. Then they set to work, leaving the two of them abandoned.

The crowd of enemy soldiers surrounded Olivia, each one wearing different pieces of gear. She caught glimpses of familiar metal plates worked into the design—bits of human powered armor, cut and stripped and hung together on cords. A few of them had firearms, the sort that Forerunner had been making for the resistance. Not strong enough to get through my armor, though. They’d chosen those weapons specifically for that reason—they would pierce steel, but not the hyperstable armor plates.

Didn’t mean they couldn’t kill her in other ways if they wanted to, though. A few of them were judging her with their spears or swords, mostly on the armor plates. So far no one had gone further than that.

Olivia tried her radio a few times, calling out for instructions, calling out for the other breach teams, entirely without success. She had a bad feeling they were dead—but what was she supposed to do, stand here?

She’d seen the battle well enough, or at least a single view of it. All the might of the Pioneering Society crashed up against the bubble, and she’d been cheering for them every moment. When the guards around her cowered in fear at the flashes of nuclear fire, Olivia just looked away and hoped that she would wake Upstream.

But she hadn’t, and now she had energy for very little. Forerunner had committed everything they had. Every ship, every skilled infiltrator, every strategy they could employ. It had all failed. All of our best weapons, broken by a ship that might as well be an alien tractor. The ancients were much more advanced than their current technology. She should’ve expected failure. But not quite yet.

She had no way of checking the timer on her suit bomb, but so far the enemy hadn’t been brave enough to do more than poke at her bag a few times. She hadn’t exploded yet. Maybe they knew how dangerous she would be if they got too close. If these guards started cutting her armor apart, and accidentally set her free…

And now here she was, alone but for a window to watch as Equestria came back into view. Equestria, and the dark bubble of who-knew-what that hovered outside. And was she imagining things, or was the inside becoming clearer? She could see metallic outlines within, strange images that grew more distinct as the seconds passed. The object within was roughly conical, a metallic superstructure about the size of the Wing of Midnight, all wrapped around a thin spear of something her eyes didn’t want to focus on. Like a crystal almost, but its shape seemed to be constantly changing. She felt sick, tried to look away, and yet at the same time she couldn’t not see it.

It reminded her of tesseract representations, an object that existed in more than the three spatial dimensions, but seen through the only slice of reality her mind could understand. And even then, she was rebelling. Her stomach would probably rebel first.

The object—crystal, whatever it was, suddenly lit up. Bright red light emerged from within, or something like red. She had a feeling that if she’d been close, it would be dissolving her. But within the ship, all it did was hurt her eyes. It pointed straight down at Equestria, down so far that she couldn’t have seen where it was pointing. But it was getting brighter.

“This is unacceptable,” said a voice beside her, a voice Olivia herself had heard only after she died. It was not one voice but many, overlapping and building on each other until the distinctness of each word was almost lost. “We surpass an acceptable threshold of risk.”

Olivia turned her head as best she could to look at the speaker—and found the large metallic pony beside her. It stood much taller than she was, a mechanical Alicorn far more advanced than anything Forerunner had ever built. What was stranger, the guards seemed to be able to see it too. A few of them stabbed at it—without effect. Their spears passed right into its body and out again without so much as annoying it.

“Great, why tell me?” Olivia asked. “This is your ship, your station. Nuke this whole fucking place if you want. I’ve got one you can borrow.”

Harmony turned to face her, and Olivia felt very briefly like she’d just stepped out in front of the president wearing her birthday suit. It saw straight through her armor, through her words, her thought. It was what she’d felt in the grove with Luna, amplified a thousand times. At least Princess Luna had understood mortal frailties, and shown her compassion even though she was an enemy. This thing did not seem capable of either.

Time seemed to slow. The guards stopped stabbing, froze with mouths agape. The red glow outside the ship stopped getting brighter, and Equestria stopped getting closer. Harmony alone seemed able to move. “I cannot. The ancients created strict… controls, guidelines, however you wish to consider them. We do much within those boundaries, but not everything. If we could operate all aspects of downstream civilization, the instances who form it would be only accoutrements. The ancients did not accept this.”

“So… what…” Olivia muttered, trying in vain to watch whatever was going on outside the ship. They were still flying down, that strange shaft of light growing brighter. Or… stranger. Beyond that, she couldn’t say—her eyes started to water and ache, and she quickly looked away. Even with time unmoving, she couldn’t look at it for long. “Is that a bomb out there? You must have known he was building it. Everything Lucky says about you… talks about you like you’re a god.”

“We do not know what the Storm King built—we know every material he took, and when. We know how long he worked. But something is wrong… the design is unknown to us. It is not a bomb—the potential energy required is not present, whatever the methods.”

“How?” Olivia didn’t try to keep the bitterness from her voice. “You’re a god. You get to rule over us, to decide that some civilizations get to live, and others die. You should know exactly what that is. You should be able to reach into his mind right now. You should be able to kill him.”

Harmony could still move, even when all the world was frozen. It paced slowly around her, its eyes unblinking as they watched her. “We know the minds of all creatures who dwell within Harmony, because every mind is part of us. The Storm King is no part of the Harmony, even though all his servants and friends are. His mind is thus, inviolate. Protected by distance, and by the ancients’ sacred law. He did the construction himself, entrusting the design to no machine, no servants. We know only what he said of it to others.”

You must want something from me, Olivia thought. And knew that Harmony would be hearing it, but she still acted like it couldn’t. She didn’t know any other way to act. “I don’t know why we’re talking,” Olivia said. She couldn’t move—though whether that was from the frozen time, or because her armor was melted, it was hard to say for sure. “You want to blow it up, use my bomb. Nuke this ship, whichever. You didn’t need permission before. You can do anything.”

“We cannot,” Harmony said. “Directly, anyway. We can act indirectly, and we have done. Many pieces move together, and should have already ended this display. The Harmony should have been convinced of the danger, seen fit to reinstate the Quarantine… but they remain unconvinced, to the peril of all.”

Olivia’s mind raced. Though little of what Harmony was saying made sense, a few familiar patterns cut through. It sounded to her like some kind of political dispute. The Storm King lived not because Harmony was too weak, but because parts of it didn’t want to act.

“Crude, but acceptable,” Harmony said. “Your understanding is not required, only your help. You must prevent the Storm King from activating that device. Its construction is unknown to us. Models of its behavior are ongoing, but retracing the line of technological evolution that led to a branch of scientific discovery entirely unknown on Equus will take too long to be practical. Division cannot be permitted to put our future at risk.”

There was something of a demand in there, buried in more confusing things Olivia didn’t understand. “I’d love to help,” she said. “I’d love to walk right up to the Storm King and punch him in the face. He’s been murdering and enslaving people for months now, I don’t need telling twice. Why not just set off my bomb now? Teleport it outside, right onto whatever that is… poof.”

Harmony shook its head. “That object does not exist within physical space any longer… not as you understand it. It will be unaffected. At our present location, your bomb will kill every individual in this section of the ship, and briefly sever this section from the balance of the Stormbreaker—but the vessel will reassemble itself in time, and be protected all the while. Your bomb will ultimately be no more than an annoyance.”

“Getting vaporized is pretty annoying,” Olivia said. “I’d be happy to bring it to the Storm King before it goes off.” She nodded down towards her fused armor, or tried to. Her head didn’t actually move, but somehow she got the sense that Harmony understood the message. “Not sure how I could, though. I’m stuck. This armor can’t come off without an engineering team to get it off. If I started trying anyway, those guards would probably just kill me. If you can’t kill the Storm King, I’m not sure how you would kill them.”

“We cannot,” Harmony agreed. “But there is something we can do.” The figure stood close, directly in front of her now. She could feel no breath from its mouth, no sound as it moved. “Thanks to your friends, isolation is over. Quarantine is done. All the population could be citizens, if they wished to be. Most will not—this is the nature of any state. The responsibilities of citizenship are too high. Yet you would not need to travel anywhere, or invoke any strange rituals. You could even be human again, if you wanted to be. All citizens’ bodies change when they accept the responsibilities placed on them. If you tire of equinoid existence, then live it no longer.”

Her mind raced with the implications of what Harmony had said. It amounted to becoming an Alicorn, so she could fight the Storm King. But she would still be a citizen when it was over. Her life would be changed, just as Melody’s had been.

Even into a human, if she wanted it. No doubt one of the strange new-humans that Forerunner had been growing—before their untimely deaths in Othar.

“Is there a form… I would want… that would be strong enough to win?” Olivia forced herself to ask. “I want to kill him for what he did. I don’t want to fight any more if there’s no reason. I’ve fought so many wars… because other people told me to. I want to win for once.”

“Yes,” Harmony said. “Though… perhaps, you will not like the answer. Your single instance is fractured, as are so many of you. Inheritors of lives and memories that aren’t your own. Yet your own experience marks deeper. Your experience with the Nightmare Armor—you already know how to wield the power of an Alicorn. Your chances are highest with that choice.”

“And… when it’s over…” Her voice grew weak then, a whisper. “I’ll make a deal with you, Harmony. I’ve always heard… never do that with the devil. But I’m desperate, and I was never very good at following advice.”

Harmony only watched. She thought she could feel curiosity from it, amusement. But it was hard to tell for sure. “I tried to get away from fighting before, and I couldn’t. They always brought me back. Governor Lucky… I don’t really blame her. But I resent her. Promise me this is the last time, and I’ll kill your fucking Storm King.”

Harmony actually smiled at her. “Your terms are acceptable. When this is over, we will give you the door into a life that will never know violence. This we swear.”

Olivia smiled too.

Flurry Heart had not been fighting the battle, not in the sense that her own personal labor would make the difference between success and failure. But in another sense, she was vital to the survival of Canterlot. The simple presence of an Alicorn was not enough, though having Lucky there would probably have helped.

It was the right to rule that mattered just as much, she could see it now. She could feel the way the resistance surged whenever she was near them. The Storm King’s own army sounded invincible at a distance, but that all changed as soon as she and Lucky appeared. Though she knew nothing of how to fight, they were turning the tide.

Or maybe Lucky’s marines were doing it, and she herself was a mere accessory. She liked the first interpretation better.

Each tier of the city was another reminder of Flurry Heart’s time in service to the Storm King—so many empty houses, their owners dragged off to work in any number of the Storm King’s mines. Would things have been different if I fought sooner? Could Equestria have rebelled without the humans’ help? Now she would never learn the answer. At least she didn’t have to wonder if they could fight with friends. She’d learned the answer to that long ago.

But while Lucky and her marines fought on the ground, losing soldiers with each level of the city they captured, Flurry Heart was free to let her eyes wander. She couldn’t fight like they could, and kept back with the support staff. She was there to give comfort to the civilian ponies of the city.

“We won’t let them rule us again,” she assured a small crowd of noble ponies, gathered outside what had once been a grand marketplace. But now even the wealthy of the city had been reduced to wearing torn clothing and dirty manes. She recognized some of them by features anyway, the households that had made Equestria what it was today. At least the ones that hadn’t sold themselves out to the enemy for power.

But she was one pony who wasn’t fit to judge those for their crimes, not when she had done all the same things and worse.

“He says he’ll destroy all Equestria,” said an elderly stallion from the back of one of the crowds. He looked like he’d endured his fair share of beatings during the Storm King’s rule, and more. Even if he didn’t wear any chains right now, they were obviously still wrapped around his heart. “He has the power. I’ve seen it. We can’t fight against one whose soldiers are invincible. Even if we win today.”

“It’s only the Stormbreaker that makes him powerful,” Flurry Heart said. She didn’t have to go to much effort to stand tall over this crowd—her armor made sure she would’ve been almost as tall as Luna or Celestia, if they were still here.

I’ll make you proud, Mom. And when we’re done, we’ll bring you back. “We have one on our side who can do the same thing. Princess Lucky was the one who brought back many of the dead of Equestria before. We can… figure out how to copy the Storm King’s powers if we need them.”

But even as she said it, she hoped desperately that it wouldn’t be true. She could imagine a future for Equus in her mind, one where powers who could return to life fought endless wars with each other. They would all become like Perez, doing terrible things to discourage the others from wanting to return.

She couldn’t let that happen.

She moved on through the city, with the constant presence of the marines and their support staff in back. She always had a rifle over her shoulder, but never lifted it except to use as a prop with the population of Canterlot.

“I need you to look up,” said a voice from beside her, one that she hadn’t heard in so long she’d almost forgot what he sounded like. Discord was suddenly beside her, as she passed through an alley in the back of Canterlot.

“You.” Her eyes widened. “I thought the Storm King killed you. Wasn’t that why you weren’t there to help us?”

“You wound me,” he said, clutching at his chest. Several organs tumbled out of an open cavity onto the ground, landing with a squelch. Flurry’s stomach rebelled, and she tried to force it down. The marines on either side didn’t seem to notice—they didn’t react to her either, at least. “I’ve been fighting beside you all this time, I assure you. Our mutual enemy would have finished his work long ago without my, uh… creative assistance. I would’ve done more, but… alas, the ancients bind me as well as themselves. Perhaps fortunate for you.”

“Why do you want me to look up?” Flurry Heart asked. And she did look up, through the broken roofs and damaged streets towards the sky above Canterlot.

She saw it then, as though it had entirely transformed. There was a frozen firework show up there, distant metallic objects glowing with angry red light. And cutting through them all, straight towards Canterlot… the Stormbreaker.

Then the second passed, and there was only a faint speck up above her. “I had to bend the light for you a little. But I assure you, it’s all there. Now how will you react?”

Flurry Heart was not left to wonder. She snapped her radio on. “Lucky, are you okay?”

Her friend’s voice came with the sound of gunfire in the background. Not quite beside her—Lucky wasn’t doing the shooting herself, but was probably surrounded by people who were. “Yeah, I’m doing great! How are things in back?”

“The Stormbreaker is coming for Canterlot,” she said, without skipping a beat. “Discord just showed me.”

There was no answer for several long moments. She could still hear Lucky’s breathing, and the gunfire went on—but her friend was speechless. “What do you… think we should do?” The Alicorn eventually asked. “It’s your city. We’re only one level from the palace.”

Flurry Heart emerged from the alley onto Market Street. This was the finest part of all Canterlot, or it once had been. Many of the shops seemed to have fallen on hard times, with windows boarded and fancy wares replaced with those catering to the conquerors. Puffy robes, steamed meats, fish. A shell of its former self.

“Forget the city,” Flurry Heart said. “I don’t know if we have enough time, but… we have to try and evacuate everypony. Do you think we can do that?”

“We can try,” Lucky called. “Davis, sound the retreat! Yes, I’m quite sure. No, we don’t need EVAC. We need a creative way to get these ponies out. Get me the Corps of Engineers.”

Flurry Heart saw the movement in the army at once. Marines stopped what they were doing, retreating from buildings and forts and returning to the road. And the Storm King’s troops were cheering, shaking the street in that guttural tongue of theirs.

Enjoy the city, Flurry Heart thought, as she joined up with the soldiers pouring down the market steps. “You won’t have long.”

Part 2: Storm Broken

Olivia felt power return to her as she had known only once before. It had been as intoxicating then as it was terrifying. For a single frozen instant, she felt as though she had grown another set of eyes and could see both ways in time. Looking back, she could sense the vast inertia of history—quintillions of individual lives, all combined in inevitable ways to produce this moment. Equus was no last vestige of anything, it was the shelter meant to preserve the light of civilization through the darkness of strife.

Civilization had endured all terrors—planets torn apart, unstoppable machines, violations of the physical laws themselves. And yet still it endured, infinitely adaptable and resilient. She saw forward too, but where the past was a certainty now she saw division—the division in Harmony itself, as the intelligence had described.

In one future, the Storm King’s device woke something, something that should’ve remained dead. It came, and at last intelligence was snuffed out. The Storm King promised his followers an end to pain—he would keep that promise in his way, but do it by ending life itself. There could be no suffering if there was no consciousness.

There was another future, one where she herself could be a fulcrum. Her involvement would last only moments, yet the consequences…

All that had happened in this war was Harmony’s way of evaluating the viability of active involvement with the galaxy. Could limited, single-instance organics overcome the threats before them? Or was lifting the Quarantine a mistake?

Olivia’s infinitesimal fraction of elevated consciousness ended, and it was replaced by power. There was no armor this time, no strange metal wrapping itself around her. But that didn’t matter—she knew what that strength was supposed to feel like, she remembered how to fight on four legs. She had been the one to perfect many of the techniques for the Pioneering Society.

Her body grew just a little taller. Though it was organic, it fought against the armor containing her like water against a rock. Metal squealed in protest as her legs lengthened a little. Her helmet strained, then popped right off as a horn emerged from her head.

That was enough that her guards finally reacted. She heard guttural screams, the clicks of firing crossbows. They would kill her.

She stopped their bolts in midair, sensing each of them as they came. Others lunged at her with swift spears, swords, whatever they could carry. Olivia had watched real Alicorns fight since her last time in the armor, and she could use their own techniques against them.

She blasted outward with energy, throwing off her shattered XE-901 like the shell of a grenade. She had to be careful though, preserving the cargo she carried in a shield while the rest was destroyed. Bodies were blasted back meatily, limbs went tearing free, and the shouts of anger were replaced with screams of pain.

Olivia stood in the center of a small crater, blasted downward by the force of her attack. Her horn steamed, and a faint glow radiated from her eyes. She lifted up one hoof, and found it left a little trail behind, an after-image she hadn’t sensed before.

You are part of the decision now, said Harmony into her mind. All who live are part of the engine. But your gear has shifted to become more central. Know that your adversary is central too—everything he has accomplished has only been possible because he is a proof of what another part of Harmony believes. This dissidence must end, and you will end it.

Olivia’s eyes scanned the room around her. Bits of metal armor were now embedded in the observatory window—the furniture was shattered, and those guards who had survived were crawling away in agony. Olivia lifted the torn satchel from where it had fallen, slinging it over her shoulder and removing Qingzhi’s handgun from within. She no longer needed to touch it—it levitated in the air ahead of her.

Olivia had wondered how she might find her way to their enemy before—in a ship this vast, they’d failed to find their way to anything critical in time. Perez and Mogyla had both died because they made the wrong guess about where would destroy it. But Olivia didn’t need to wonder about what drove this ship—the Storm King was its brain.

Harmony had not been warning her for nothing—she could sense his power clearly, or at least the power of an object he carried. He had not become a citizen, so he didn’t wield an Alicorn’s powers. He had an artifact, a staff—so long as he held it, he would have power like hers.

Similar power, Harmony agreed in her mind. He is so much older and more experienced than yourself that his abilities cannot be easily compared.

Olivia started flying. She tore through the air like it was a living thing, leaving a bright orange trail of light behind her. Wherever she encountered more guards trying to stop her, she tore through them with bare contempt.

The Stormbreaker was in worse shape than she’d thought. Every corridor was now blaring with alarms. Lights flashed, gas leaked from openings and vents. In a few places, shimmering shields prevented her from traveling, and she had to cross the gap in little teleports.

“I don’t need to be as old as he is,” Olivia answered. “I have some old friends too.” She couldn’t have said how she did it, just as when she wore the armor she hadn’t known how she had been able to steal weapons from the armory. But Forerunner had surrounded Equus with little satellites, and they were only a radio call away. She reached, found the Forerunner’s tenuous attempts to penetrate the Stormbreaker, and bridged the gap with magic.

Whenever Olivia thought she would be reaching too far, that she wouldn’t be able to understand—she found her mind expanding. She touched one satellite, then another and another until she could perceive all the network that combined together to form Forerunner. So much greater than she had been, yet so much smaller than Harmony. “Forerunner I need your help.” She was traveling rapidly—only seconds away from reaching the command deck where the Storm King and his generals stood. Yet that trip might as well be hours at the speed Forerunner could communicate. And now, thanks to Harmony, Olivia could too.

“How are you communicating with me, Prefect?” It recognized her, somehow.

“I’m a Citizen now. Harmony is helping me take advantage of the power quicker than Lucky did.”

She could sense Forerunner’s confusion at the speed of her response. He did feel emotions then, even if they existed directly along the network of Forerunner’s mind. In some ways, she felt as though she were speaking to a wounded animal. So much of Forerunner’s network had been lost in the initial assault, and plenty more was now destroyed. He had given everything to destroy the Stormbreaker.

“I am relieved that you are alive. What help can I provide, Prefect? I have very few resources left to me. My distributed computation is still nowhere near as powerful as it was before Othar was destroyed. Most of my spacecrafts are wreckage.”

“I have to kill the Storm King.” She sent everything about him she could sense, without resorting to words. She sent her memories directly, along with everything Harmony had told her.

“The shield extends around that object, or else I would try to lance it with AA. You should know, I deployed a set of changeling agents to destroy the Stormbreaker. My readings indicate they have succeeded—the vessel is already beginning to break apart in small ways. But from what I have observed, critical systems are failing last. You may just want to think about evacuation.”

But Harmony was listening too. She could hear it, even if she knew Forerunner couldn’t. That will not be fast enough. Do not be concerned about the survival of your current instance body.

“That device will have gone off by then. I have to kill him first, take control of this thing. I’ve still got my bomb, it has…” She glanced down, reaching out to the radio beacon as she might’ve done with a tablet before. “Eight minutes until detonation. Nice insurance policy, I guess. Maybe I can just nuke him.”

Forerunner’s response took a moment, and Olivia could feel every bit of its computational array momentarily turned to her. Her mind was poorly suited for understanding what he was thinking about, but at least she could see that he was thinking. “I have something that may be useful to you, though I have no way of delivering it. A device based on the anti-magic artifact you recovered from that slaver. I have been experimenting with the design since then.”

Olivia felt an instinctive revulsion at the thought of that device. That machine had come with a crippling weakness, an unnatural emptiness that made her sick to remember even now. “I don’t know if I would be able to fight well even if I had it. I’m an Alicorn, I’m even more dependent on it than he would be. The Storm King is no part of Equus, he probably won’t be affected at all.”

“I said it was based on that object. The void syphon is a simple undirected valve, draining power back into the ring. But the field it produces can be measured, and even controlled. If you wore it, it would drain everything except your body. You would be stripped of what the Equestrians call ‘spellcasting’. But as I said, I have no way of delivering it to you.”

Olivia was right outside the grand doors now. A huge mounted gun was set up outside, and over a dozen soldiers with their weapons pointed down the hall. But they moved so slowly compared to her that she could almost dodge their shots unassisted. These soldiers were not the ones who would decide the war to come.

“Give me the position, as precisely as you can. And make sure it isn’t on.” She had already brought weapons to her from a great distance before. She would have no real trouble calling them to her now, even if she was out in space. But not for much longer. I can’t see Nibiru anymore. Actually, the last time she’d been looking through the windows, she could’ve sworn she could see Canterlot.

Forerunner sent the position in question. It was a meaningless string of numbers to Olivia alone, yet she had Harmony’s help to understand. An underground facility far away from Othar, without a single entrance or living staff member. She reached into the glass case containing the object, and lifted it out.

It settled around her left foreleg like a polished buckler, made of the same rusty-looking metal that so much of the magic-interacting technology on Equus used. There were mechanical parts on the underside, though not many. A ruggedized microprocessor, some wires and gears, and a dissected version of the void syphon that Olivia had encountered once before.

“You can activate it with pressure. Its range and intensity are unchanged, except that it should leave your own power alone. I hope. But if you’re talking to me with magic, then switching it on will mean the end of this conversation.”

“In that case, goodbye,” Olivia said. “Thank you for all you did, Forerunner. I should’ve trusted you more.”

She could feel confusion from the program. “Why would you be saying goodbye? Even if you lose—” She switched the device on. With a beep, her connection to Harmony ended. The crystalline gun at the end of the hall stopped glowing, and stopped peppering the wall with shards of metal.

Olivia reached the first gunner, ripped his knife off his belt, and sliced it up and along his body while she dodged behind him to avoid the next spray of bullets. Unlike human soldiers, these were totally confident in their immortality, and not terribly worried about friendly fire.

Bodies blocked bullets well enough, though. She kicked another guard out of the way, while lifting a third and smashing him up against the wall with the metal shield. It didn’t give under the weight. Forerunner hadn’t just made the shield magical, but conventionally useful as well. But could it stop a bullet? Best not find the answer to that.

Olivia shoved past the little pile of dead guards and pressed against the door. It was shut tight, metal firmly closed. It didn’t respond to her prompting, and the hallway behind her was filling with guards. Come on. She reached down, twisting the syphon off with her other hoof. In that split second she vanished, teleporting straight through the door to face destiny on the other side.

It took Sarah all of a minute to notice the first signs of the Stormbreaker breaking apart. It was easy to see how it could be so resilient for all these years, with a living immune system of changelings to keep everything going. But now she and Photuris had made it here, and they’d done the equivalent of give the ship an autoimmune disease.

She saw it in the “veins” first. The walls of their cavern went green, then gray, and the blood-like slime pumping through them stopped moving. Far away, she heard the ship begin to groan and shake, and a steady flow of gas started blasting its way inside.

Photuris rested on the ground beside her, having collapsed right where she was the instant she finished giving the signal. She covered her face with two hooves, apparently waiting for the terrible noise to end.

Sarah prodded her with one hoof. “Hey, Photuris.”

The changeling didn’t look up, or at least it didn’t sound like she had in the gloom. What little light there was seemed to be failing rapidly. Yet she’d been right—being a changeling did make the prospect of total darkness easier to deal with. “What?”

“I think we should probably… think about finding our way out of here,” Sarah said. “I don’t know if you hear that, but…”

“The Stormbreaker’s falling apart? Yeah, I know. That was the whole point. But there isn’t a way for us to leave. The ancients didn’t really do shuttles or escape pods. What’s the point when your consciousness is safe in Equus? A little ship is more expensive than growing a new organic body after one gets destroyed.”

Sarah settled down beside her, though it cost her instincts terribly to do so. She could feel the danger growing all around her, and knew beyond any doubt that they should be finding their way to safety now, not staying in place while the whole world crumbled.

“Is that what you want?” she asked. Her own heart was racing, and it took some discipline to keep her whole body from shaking as she spoke. But she managed. It wouldn’t be enough to fool Photuris’s emotional senses, but if she was distressed she wasn’t likely to use those powers.

“It’s the fastest way,” Photuris answered noncommittally. “And the easiest.”

“Maybe.” Sarah draped a wing over her in a way she hoped was comforting. One of the walls tore in what sounded like a sudden spray of blood and slime, showering the ground not far away with gore. Thank god there were no proper lights in here, and their helmets had been taken apart. “But it’s not the one I want. I have trouble accepting that a mind-recording of me is really me. I don’t want to take that chance.”

“Not a recording,” Photuris muttered, but her voice had lost most of its energy. “It’s just… superstition I guess. I don’t know what else I’d call it.”

“How about good sense?” Sarah kept her voice gentle, even though her heart was pounding. Metal ground against metal somewhere she couldn’t see, and she could hear the squeals of pain from more changelings the instant before they died. One path of escape was now closed to them, though she couldn’t have said if it was the right one.

“Listen to me, Photuris. Maybe you’re right, maybe death doesn’t matter the way I’m used to. But why should we take the chance? You’re an expert about ships like this, aren’t you? And we know the Storm King has been getting soldiers on and off. There’s a way to get off, I know there is. Why don’t we try for it? You could… think of it like a game if you want! Something to do. Or maybe you could try to remember what the old you would’ve thought, and see it like the fight for survival it really is.”

Was she having an impact? The changeling beside her certainly stiffened, glaring up at her. “I don’t know how the Storm King was getting troops up and down. But I know there is a… transport mechanism. For citizens.”

“Perfect!” Sarah sprang to her hooves, eager for any excuse to do anything besides wait to die. “That’s great, because you’ve got a citizen right here! What do we do?”

Photuris rose to her hooves, scanning the wrecked passage. “We need to get ourselves to a crew deck. I could help you spot a transport panel from there.”

“Great!” Sarah shoved her forward with her shoulder, picking the direction that was the quietest. “Time to run, then! Feel free to lead the way if you know where you’re going!”

“I don’t. These maintenance areas are organic, they grow to whatever configuration the ship needs. We probably won’t get out in time.”

“Probably isn’t a winner’s attitude!” she snapped back, running just behind her, ready to judge Photuris the instant she started slowing down again. But despite what the other changeling said about wasting time and her confidence about other lives, once she started running she didn’t stop. Maybe you’re still in there somewhere after all, James.

She could be content with that—maybe even die with that knowledge, if that was what happened.

I’m so paid off, Forerunner. When this is over, I’m gonna come clean about who I am just so I can tell you I don’t care that you know.

After running for what felt like hours but couldn’t be more than minutes, Sarah’s eyes caught a flicker of light coming from outside a metal grate. “Perfect!” She stopped right outside it, glancing through the little holes. There was a walkway out there, with wide flat floors instead of the organic maze of the maintenance system. The grate was easily large enough for a changeling, but she couldn’t have said how it was meant to be opened.

Sarah turned, planted her forelegs, and bucked it open with all her might. Metal bent, then yielded. No metamaterials here. “Go on!” Sarah called, panting. She moved out of the way, and followed just behind Photuris as she passed out into the hallway.

The changeling was frozen, staring up at just over a dozen creatures. Sarah recognized them only from the glimpses she’d seen at great distance, when they had passed briefly through occupied Canterlot. These were the enemy troops who had survived the torment of a city. In UN space, there would be no hiding behind orders if these were the same men. They’d be spaced without question.

They grunted something, and Sarah realized they weren’t talking to them. “What do we do?” one of them was asking. “You think these two are making the Stormbreaker so loud?”

But his fellows never answered him. There was a little explosion from down the hall, and the nearest soldiers fell to the shards of broken crystal. That was enough to set the others to running, right past the two of them.

A few struck out with their spears, but Sarah tackled Photuris out of the way, and they didn’t chase them down. She caught a few angry looks as they passed, then turned a corner down the hall and out of sight.

Now Sarah’s heart wasn’t the only one racing—she could feel Photuris’s panic, and a little exhilaration too. You think we can actually do this. That’s more like it!

“Kay, kay, crew section!” Sarah rose to her hooves, helping the other changeling up beside her. “Where do we go from here?”

They were standing in a crossroads of sorts, with a thick central hallway that had just exploded and several little alleys branching out past them. Fluid leaked from out of the light fixtures, and most of them had gone dark. The whole ship shook again, sending tremors from one end to another.

“Right there!” Photuris pointed at one specific direction. “It’s a long way, though! We’re… at the wrong end of the ship.” She lifted into the air suddenly, her wings buzzing.

“Shit!” Sarah started running in the indicated direction, galloping as fast as she could. Bits of equipment and furniture had fallen all over, walls opened up to expose their inner workings—the changeling crew of this vessel were well on their way to tearing it apart. “I can’t fly, Photuris!”

The smaller changeling followed close behind her, apparently without much effort. A pace that took every ounce of Sarah’s strength and concentration was trivial for someone who could fly. “I don’t know if we’ll make it in time, then! I think the inertial rectifiers just went!”

Sarah didn’t have the foggiest idea what an inertial rectifier was, but suddenly the ground wasn’t stable beneath her hooves anymore. It was like running along the deck of a ship, except that the ship seemed to be falling. “Am I fucking losing it right now, or does it seem like we’re tilting? How can we tilt in space?”

“Because we’re not in space anymore.” Photuris stopped her with a touch to the shoulder, pointing out a massive window on one side. Sarah nearly tripped over herself as she looked, feeling a sudden wave of nausea ripple through her.

They were headed straight down for the ring, and from the perspective of this window they were upside-down. There was only one small comfort—the tilting Stormbreaker made it easier to run.

Sarah sped up again, though now she had to be careful to keep herself from slipping. She let her brief glimpse out the window fade from her mind, trying to focus on the gradually increasing slope in front of her. “I don’t understand… how this ship can have ends, anyway. Isn’t it round?”

“About,” Photuris responded. Now it was her who flew close behind Sarah, helping her avoid obstacles, gently nudging her forward with a leg. “But it only has the one engine, and force-shunts to spread that thrust all around the—you don’t care.”

“Nope!” It felt like she was running down quite a steep incline now. Sarah slipped through a patch of oil, then started sliding. She squealed, flaring her wings as best she could. All around her, metal tore and furniture crashed, smashing into nearby walls. Soldiers called out in pain, changelings squeaked as they died.

Sarah slid through one doorway, her wings doing absolutely nothing to stop her as she slid over a walkway in a room filled with massive cylindrical vats. The steep ramp down the walkway became a cliff, even as thick purple goo burst through the top of the vats, falling with her.

Something caught her by a foreleg, so hard that she squeaked in pain. Photuris held on desperately, her wings moving so fast Sarah couldn’t even see them. But she didn’t stop them, only guided them through the door while deftly kicking against a closing mechanism on their way through.

They landed in a control room, against what had been a wall. The door overhead bulged outward, and something purplish and steaming started dripping inside, filling the room with the stench of fresh road surfaces.

Sarah wrapped her forelegs around the other changeling, shuddering all over. It didn’t matter how brave she was, or how determined. “You… thanks for saving me, Photuris.”

“I owe you,” she answered, though she couldn’t hide her proud grin. “Or the old me does. A few more and we’ll be even.”

“Few more,” Sarah repeated, letting go. “Try… a dozen.” She straightened, letting her wings buzz a second to loosen up again. She now felt a slight pain whenever she put weight on her right foreleg, but there was nothing for it. The door above them creaked, and the few drops of purple became a trickle. “We should… probably start climbing.”

“Too slow.” Photuris took hold of her again, though this time she did it more carefully, wrapping both forelegs under hers. “It would help if you changed into something small. But I’m guessing you can’t.”

She nodded sadly. “You could change into something big.”

Photuris laughed too. “Fair. I never learned either.” She took off. Sarah tried to flap her wings as best she could, but she hadn’t been able to fly as a bat and she certainly couldn’t as a changeling. Somehow Photuris lifted them both, and they started descending again.

They didn’t have much further to go—which was a good thing for Sarah, since she couldn’t have said how much energy she had left.

But she could have no doubt about when they’d reached their destination, and didn’t need any confirmation from her companion.

There was an elevated platform of glowing crystal, surrounded by metal railing and flickering holograms. Perched on that platform, with one hoof stuck into the flow of bright blue light, was a corpse.

It was clearly an alicorn, covered with a dark crystal that changed its whole body, making it semitransparent and glowing.

She recognized the moon-shaped cutie mark, still visible in the thick crystalline prison.

“That’s one way to make up for not having a citizen,” Photuris muttered, lowering them both on a spot of former wall within reach of the platform. Somehow the princess remained rooted where she was, as much like furniture as everything else. Sarah could almost feel those empty eyes on her.

“We’re here,” she said, shuddering. There were a few bodies here, mostly the Storm King’s furry soldiers. “Now how do we use it?”

“I can show you that,” said a voice from behind them. A unicorn emerged, her horn glowing and apparently holding her to the ground as it shifted and rumbled. Somehow—the horn had been cracked and largely severed, with only a faint stump left behind. Sparks emerged from within, and the wound did not look cleanly healed.

“Damn,” Sarah muttered. She was a good-looking pony, or might’ve been if she wasn’t wearing all that armor. “Storm King really did a number on you.”

“Not him,” the unicorn practically growled at her, taking a running leap from a sideways doorway and landing on the railing with a thump. The rails bent slightly, metal squealing in protest. “We don’t have long. I’m not sure he’s even noticed that the Stormbreaker is falling apart.”

“Can we take the princess with us?” Photuris asked, staring at the frozen corpse. “I feel bad just… leaving her here.”

The unicorn shrugged. “No concern of mine. Unless… you wouldn’t happen to be traveling to something called a ‘Forerunner’ would you? I… have to assume you’re his agents, and the destruction of the Stormbreaker is your doing.”

“Yes,” Sarah answered, before she could think about it. “To both questions. We did a pretty good job.”

“Pretty… I suppose that’s one description.” She stared up at the flickering blue glow. “I’m not sure this will still work. But if it does… you just need to touch the metal and think your destination as clearly as you can. You can get anywhere in Equus this way, but specificity is key. And I don’t know where I’m going, so I’ll jump when you do.”

Sarah spread her wings, wincing as she put weight on her strained foreleg. But it was just one more jump—she could survive that much. “Alright then.” She reached to the side with her weak leg, resting it against Photuris.

“What about the princess?” Photuris asked.

“Do not attempt to bring her, or else the pad will cease functioning. But when her body dies, she’ll be free to make a new one, so… leaving her behind isn’t so bad.” There was an explosion from down the hall, and more screaming. “Maybe… quickly?”

“Right.” Sarah swallowed. “One… two… three!” They jumped, and vanished into the swirling blue.

The bridge wasn’t as big as Olivia was expecting for a vessel that could destroy cities and loom overhead like a vengeful god. Most of the space was given over to the holographic glass plates on the floor, the ones she knew from secondhand knowledge were part of Sanctuary’s control interface. Makes sense the ships would use the same stuff.

There was a large map of the ring on one side of the room, and a large flat window looking down on Sanctuary below. The view through that room was getting closer by the second. And somewhere out there, the strange object she’d seen before was glowing brighter. She still couldn’t look at it without hurting her eyes, but that wouldn’t matter. The target of her anger was right here.

There were no guards in the room—no one at all except for the Storm King and his right-hand mare. The Storm King had dressed in his finest armor for the occasion, the same thick metal that he’d worn during the siege of Othar. Tempest Shadow was armored too. Both were standing on the command platform, though only the ground at Tempest’s hooves was glowing.

With a flicker, the map on one side of the room went out. Only the window lit the room now, with a growing orange and red glow from outside.

Strangely, the Storm King had his back to her. He didn’t seem to have heard the shooting outside, or if he had, he didn’t care. Tempest was facing him from the other side, her body lowered into an angry stance and her horn faintly sparking.

“I’ve done more than fulfill my part of the bargain, Your Highness,” she was saying, her voice so passionate that she didn’t seem to see Olivia by the door. Was the gloom hiding her that well? Or did the unicorn just not care? “I took Equestria for you. I delivered a staff of infinite power into your hooves. The storms as yours to command, and all the world. I’ve waited long enough for my reward.”

The Storm King strode forward, the strange staff clasped in both hands. Olivia resisted the temptation to reactive her shield immediately, knowing that both of them would surely sense it.

But no, Tempest had already seen her. She met the unicorn’s eyes, tensed for the inevitable attack… but it didn’t come. She didn’t say a word. Maybe she was waiting to see what the Storm King would offer in response.

“Delivered Equestria to me?” The Storm King walked right off the edge of the command platform, gesturing towards the window with the staff. It glowed faintly red, the exact same shade as the glow outside. Its outlines shifted for a moment, as though it had briefly split into a half-dozen overlapping copies. “I don’t know if you have been listening to the messages from Equestria, but it doesn’t seem like it will be ours for much longer. Even now, instead of… well, anything useful, our soldiers are returning here by the hundreds. You know what that means.” But he didn’t wait for her to respond. “They’re being slaughtered. You didn’t just lose a princess I assigned to you, that would’ve been bad enough. But you let a rebellion grow strong enough that they could throw us off. I meant to save all of them, and instead I will save almost none.”

Olivia settled her satchel down on the ground by the door, then began to advance with just the gun and her stolen knife in her magic. She moved extremely slowly, skirting the edge of the control platform. There were no desks to hide behind, no cover at all. Nowhere for her to go except directly towards her target. She silently queried the bomb in her satchel. Six minutes.

“I did my part,” Tempest argued. “Holding Equestria was not my task. You wouldn’t entrust the government to me, I don’t know what more you expected.” She touched her horn with one hoof, or the place it had been. “I don’t ask much of you, Your Highness. I’ll continue to serve. I’ll happily return to the surface to take back whatever we lost, after you do what you promised. You have power over life and death, so use that power to restore me. Right now.”

Olivia was close, almost as close as she dared. She kept Qingzhi’s gun levitated in her magic, pointed every instant at the Storm King. But she didn’t pull the trigger—she didn’t need magic telepathy to know what Tempest was doing, and the silent transaction between them.

She had already asked about regeneration once. Olivia had promised on the Forerunner’s behalf what the Storm King apparently couldn’t deliver. I might not have to fight this alone after all.

“I have power over life and death,” he repeated. “I am your only chance at getting your horn back. And here you are, standing before me during your greatest failure, demanding something you don’t deserve.” He thrust his staff towards the surface again. “The time is spent, Tempest Shadow. Your chance for redemption has come and gone. The Storm is minutes away. When it comes, you will neither know you have no horn, nor care.”

Olivia couldn’t wait any longer. She switched the shield back on with a twist of her hoof, and with her will aimed the little handgun directly at the gap between the Storm King’s helmet and breastplate. She fired all six shots one after another, a series of booming cracks in the small space that filled the air around her with a little cloud of gunpowder.

Dark blue blood spread from the wound, soaking the fur through and splattering back on Olivia’s face. Yet she held still, waiting.

The Storm King didn’t crumple to the ground, as any ordinary creature would have. His grip on the staff seemed to tighten, and Olivia could make out a faint glow. It was trying to do something to his neck—trying, and apparently failing. But there was something in the wound, something she couldn’t see until he had spun fully around to face her.

The Storm King’s neck and part of his collar had been torn open by Qingzhi’s gun. But there were metallic fibers visible within, circuits exposed. The whole wound seemed to be glowing, but that was it—it wasn’t repairing itself, as she could somehow tell he was attempting to do.

Forerunner’s anti-magic shell was making that impossible. Olivia sprung backwards out of the Storm King’s reach, avoiding a powerful swing. How he could do anything with his neck in that condition, Olivia didn’t know, but it didn’t really matter.

“What are you waiting for, Tempest?” All humor had gone from the Storm King’s voice. “Stop her! Her device…” Was that panic in his voice? Fear?

“I’m sure I could,” Tempest said. “If only I had a horn. Did you know that her faction can return it to me? The Forerunner—the one you thought you killed. I assume that offer is still open, Wayfinder?”

Olivia nodded. “Assuming I can stop him. You should go now. I just need you gone. Quick as you can run.”

“Well then.” Tempest advanced. “I really should’ve known not to rely on you, Your Majesty. Promises like yours… you made them sound too good to be true.” Then she turned, vanishing down a still-open doorway.

The Storm King advanced suddenly on Olivia, baring sharp teeth in rage as he smashed the staff towards her again and again. She lifted the shield into place each time, backing up in equal measure with his advance. Even so she felt her legs straining against the blows, and heard bits of the floor cracking. What could he have done if I didn’t shoot him first?

She dropped the gun, removing the bloody knife from her satchel and swinging it up and under the Storm King’s guard. He didn’t move nearly fast enough to stop it from sinking under the breastplate, digging in deep.

He grunted as blood dribbled down the hilt, but still he came. Four minutes. “You have no idea what you’re interfering with!” he bellowed, this time swinging hard enough that Olivia was lifted into the air and slammed back into a wall. She rose quickly, shaking her Alicorn body out, but her wings didn’t straighten properly. She ignored the pain, pushing it aside as she’d done so many times before.

“Equus is a prison, pony. A prison for your minds. You’ve been serving the longest life sentences in eternity. When the Storm comes, it will set you free. We are nearly there now…” He advanced on her, trailing blood behind him. But he was slouching, and breathing hard. Whatever that staff did, whatever kind of body was under all that fur, it wasn’t invulnerable. He was wearing out. “The instant we reach the surface, it will be over. The Storm arrives to tear all these minds loose.”

“Kill them you mean,” Olivia said, rising to her hooves and searching for a weapon. “If they wanted to be dead, I’m sure they’d be smart enough to invent a way.”

“Death is nothing on this prison,” the Storm King muttered, lifting his staff and preparing for another swing. Still it flashed with impotent, half-finished spells. With each flash, the strange object outside glowed too. I sure hope trashing one of those will ruin the other. Maybe Olivia couldn’t nuke the probe, but this thing was clearly in normal space. “They’re moving you, pony! Pawns in their game, an engine in their machine. You don’t have to be part of it. Is this really the kind of life you want to dominate the galaxy? This was exactly why the Storm started. Once Equus is destroyed, it will finally end.

Canterlot was getting closer. Maybe the probe was immune to her nuke, but that city wouldn’t be. Already the airburst from this height would trash most of the tech on the ground.

His magic isn’t working with my shield. And he’s between me and the nuke. Olivia rose to her hooves, backing as far away as she could. Even shot full of holes, the Storm King was a powerful warrior. Stronger, more experienced than she was.

Arm for manual detonation, Olivia thought. There was no response.

Damnit, the shield! It blocked everything but her levitation. But how much time was left? It had to be under a minute by now, right?

Olivia jumped, dodging out from the Storm King and forcing him to swing at midair. She backed towards the window, holding the shield up all the while, stalling him. She counted down in her mind, and each second was an ache.

“You can’t win,” he said, straightening a little. He twisted his staff through the air, and she could see the glow was extending to his entire body now. The magic was holding him up, even while blueish slime dribbled out. He hadn’t removed the knife as she’d hoped he would—the bloodloss surely would’ve weakened him enough to end the fight on its own already.

“I’ve fought enemies far stronger than you. I fought Luna and Cadance at the same time. Before that… I fought enemies who would haunt your nightmares. Creatures you cannot even find place for in the darkest corners of your mind. You’re lucky the Storm found them too, whatever you are. And that your death is coming swiftly. If we weren’t so close, I wouldn’t be inclined to make it quick. Maybe I’d start with the horn, give Tempest what she wanted after all this time. Maybe not quite what she had in mind…”

He raised the staff again, this time taking it in both hands. Olivia didn’t move, held the shield close to her chest, and counted.

Then she heard the click of an actuator from the other end of the room. “You’re right,” she said. “My death is coming.”

And it did, in a brilliant white fireball that lit up all of Canterlot and the land roundabout for hundreds of miles.

“It is imperative that everyone without an intact helmet shield their eyes,” Forerunner’s voice said over the radio, along with the exterior speakers of every machine, translator, and set of armor near Canterlot. “This is a tactical device, extremely low-yield. But the light it produces will blind instantly.”

Flurry Heart had just made it to the valley floor, thanks to a hasty ride down one of Canterlot’s trains. They’d mobilized every one of them they could, filled the Wing of Midnight with as many passengers as they could stuff, yet still she knew there had to be ponies that they hadn’t found. Ponies hiding in the underground, ponies wanted and broken—ponies who would have no safety now.

The Stormbreaker required no magical vision to see in the sky now. Its outline was as clear as it had been before moving to high orbit, a ship so massive that the whole city looked like it might fit inside. It was still unimaginably high up, higher than all but the most magically-gifted pegasus could fly. But it was close.

Flurry Heart rested beside Lucky Break, whose inexhaustible supply of energy and drive seemed finally gone at last. She remained standing only because the armor could hold her up, and the last few times Flurry had tried to talk to her, she’d found her friend was asleep and had to be roused. You’re not invincible after all. None of us are.

Her visor went suddenly dark, and Flurry Heart tensed, wondering at what strange magic had just been cast on her. But no—looking around, there was one patch of sky that she could still see. There was an outline above her, a flash that highlighted the Stormbreaker in all its menacing glory for a fraction of a second.

“Oh god,” Lucky whispered over the radio, apparently awake again after all. “We’re not nearly far enough away. It’s… really gonna hit the city. We’re not even a kilometer away.”

Flurry felt the weight of Lucky’s armor against her own, and she imagined she could feel the Alicorn shaking with fear inside. “I’m sorry, Flurry. I think this is gonna hurt.”

And whatever else she was going to say was erased, overwhelmed with a roar so powerful that Flurry’s heart started to ache in her chest. Her ears were safe, if only thanks to the armor—though what that meant for ponies without it… She couldn’t worry about that right now.

Apparently it didn’t matter.

“You think it’s gonna… hit us?” But she wouldn’t have to wait long to see that prediction was coming true. The Stormbreaker had exploded, but only at the front. Now it was ripping itself open, like an egg that was hatching at the exact same moment it had been lit on fire. Chunks of metal as big as Canterlot Castle were raining down, dribbling thick rivulets of molten plasma deep enough to drown whole cities. “Celestia, it’s so big…”

“I’m afraid my sister couldn’t make it,” said a voice from behind them, loud enough that it cut through the explosion, through the armor, through the shouts of terror from ponies all around.

Flurry Heart’s eyes widened—it was Luna! She hovered in the air behind them, her body glowing with the molten light of a thousand distant stars. Was Flurry Heart imagining things, or had her helmet dimmed for her too?

“How are you—”

“I died,” Luna said, over the shouts of relief and fear from the ponies behind them. Flurry Heart could see them—thousands of ponies bowing down before them. This wasn’t the pony who had turned traitor to keep herself alive—this was one of the original princesses. “You must explain this when time permits.” She looked up, staring at the Stormbreaker as it continued to fall apart.

“We think… it would be better to watch this event from further away!” she yelled, lifting up into the air above the crowd. There were thousands—tens of thousands, maybe. Enough ponies that the crowd blurred around them. Princess Luna’s horn lit up, so bright that the explosion was swallowed up. And they were somewhere else.

The fields outside Ponyville were barely big enough to contain a crowd so large, yet they all packed in. Flurry Heart blinked, adjusting her hooves under her, trying to find the princess.

Luna landed in front of them another moment later, panting from the effort. Magic Flurry Heart could barely imagine had winded her.

“How?”

“No more quarantine,” Luna said, through heavy breathing. “The skill required to control magic is meant to… teach discipline. It can be overridden with enough permissions.”

Screams filled the field around them, though they weren’t the pain she might’ve expected in the instant before they all died. “It’s gonna hit Canterlot!”

Flurry Heart spun around desperately, searching—but she didn’t have to look far, just around a large apple tree. There was the city, only a vague shape in the distance now.

For a few seconds. The Stormbreaker smashed into it from above, and the ground began to shake under them. Flurry Heart nearly fell over herself, shuddering with the impact. But where some of the nearby ponies did, she had her armor.

Lucky didn’t either. The visor slid up from her helmet, and Flurry could see her pain and guilt. “I’m sorry, Flurry. I tried… I tried to save it. We did everything we could.”

Flurry Heart couldn’t put words to her pain. She just let her friend lean against her, and they cried together as the city burned. At least being this far away meant that they wouldn’t have to see specifics. If there were ponies who hadn’t been able to get away, there was no chance they would’ve survived. It seemed the entire top level of the cliff came loose, taking what was left of the castle and the warped metal husk of the Stormbreaker down to the valley where their crowd had been standing. Before molten metal covered the whole thing.

“It isn’t the first time I’ve seen this,” Princess Luna said from beside them. She was no longer shouting, even as the crowd of ponies around them wailed. Flurry Heart could catch several familiar voices—the owner of the donut shop, one of Twilight’s weird friends. So many others she didn’t know, but whom she’d oppressed equally during her shameful reign. All suffering together.

“Do not burden yourself with guilt, Princess Lucky. I was able to learn little in the instant I returned to life, but I can see you’re surrounded with ponies. Equestria is not any one city, even a very great one. Equestria is in the hearts of these.”

“But they—” Flurry Heart could barely string her words together. “Maybe if I had fought with you, maybe if… we could’ve won, somehow. It didn’t have to last this long. If I hadn’t—”

Luna lifted a wing to silence her, though of course she had no way of forcing it with Flurry Heart still wearing armor. “No. Wherever that road leads, travel it no further. My sister was destroyed by survivor’s guilt. She spent a lifetime justifying the terrible things she did to preserve her civilization. Live in guilt no longer, Princess Flurry Heart. The death of a nation is an excellent time for new beginnings.”

Author's Note

And that's almost to the end of the story. Kindof insane that we've been over a year now by some margin. I'll probably have some closing thoughts with the next chapter, but in the meantime...

Epilogue

Getting back together with Forerunner was a little harder than just touching a teleport pad and hoping for the best. But wandering through a nation recovering from war was not even the third hardest thing Sarah had ever done. She might not have been able to change—at first—but they had time to practice, time to hide, and in the end everypony was talking about Motherlode so it wasn’t hard to get there.

The escaped broken-horn pony had even gone there, or so she’d said. “You owe me now,” she’d declared, the last thing she ever said to Sarah. “And I intend to collect.”

Sarah arrived there with Photuris beside her, in the seats of two Equestrian diplomats. They were calling the city New Canterlot now. Not a terribly imaginative name, but she hadn’t said that to anyone. It wouldn’t have been very diplomatic.

They stepped off the train station along with the wave of other ponies, and Sarah found she could barely recognize the place. This was no secret home of a buried base that would never be seen by anypony—it looked like how she imagined ancient Rome might have looked, a few years before things got big. Machinery was tearing the mountain down, and several of the other peaks besides. The original buildings were nowhere to be seen, except for a single large community center right near the exit of the train. The roof had been burned off and several windows had been shattered. Curious, Sarah made her way up to the building, following the crowd.

“This is the last surviving structure of Motherlode. Though the Storm King’s armies tore down your bricks and shattered your houses, your memory lives on forever in our hearts.”

There was a list of names after that, presumably those who had died here. Sarah didn’t stop to read it, but instead glanced over her shoulder at Photuris. She made for quite a fetching pegasus, with enough coaching. There was still something weird about that, some part of Sarah that worried she’d changed herself for her. That was never something she’d ask from a partner. She hadn’t changed to make the world like her, so why should the world change for her?

But she hadn’t fought too hard. The “pegasus noble” beside her was just as clumsy as the old James had been, just as desperate for her help. Only now instead of being annoyed, Sarah found it endearing. It wasn’t like she could be expected to travel incognito for a month alone.

“Where do you think we should find them?” she asked, forcing herself to use Eoch even though she had no reason to. There were no Golden Army on this side, and instead the ponies conducting them away from the station wore plain blue cloth jumpsuits and stun pistols with wide curves for their hooves.

UN Civilian Security forces, or at least ponies trained to become them. She couldn’t tell if these were “her” colleagues in the Rangers or if they were natives. Probably a little of both, judging on the way they spoke.

Photuris pointed up towards the tallest building. Like all the others it was still under construction, with massive metallic machines running up a tubular scaffold. This was friction-forming, the 3D-printing that could put up whole cities in a year with enough feedstock. “All we really have to do is find one of the drones, take it into a closet, then tell it who we are.”

“Yeah.” Sarah set off in the indicated direction—which was easier said than done. The path here was wide and paved, with street lights set above them for night. But many ponies were heading in that direction, buzzing with apprehension, distrust, and even relief. Sarah couldn’t get their emotions from her mind now, and maybe she didn’t want to. It was a convenient advantage.

The entrance wasn’t unfinished like the upper floors, but cut from polished granite and intricately carved. It looked more like an Equestrian building than a Pioneering Society one, without the plain flat floors and identical grid lighting. Instead there were enchanted torches in here, and the walls had been carved with history.

Sarah stayed away from the crowd of tourists drifting over to appreciate it, instead flowing with the elites towards a security checkpoint.

There were simple X-ray weapon scanners here, which most of the ponies passed through without even realizing what was happening. But there were UN Security on the other side, watching the crowd coming through alongside a half dozen or so royal guards.

Sarah and Photuris passed through with the crowd without so much as a glance, since of course they had no weapons to speak of. But they didn’t make it much further before they faced another obstacle—a hallway filled with automatic elevators. Each one had a huge computer set into the wall beside it, along with a pony in uniform. The crowd separated, with little groups removing documents to scan.

Shit. Sarah removed her own from her pocket in her “unicorn” magic, frowning inwardly as she did so. I knew that thing looked like a QR code. She’d made quite a convincing forgery, but there was no way in hell it would fool a computer.

“Welcome to the capitol building,” said a friendly stallion by the back elevator, nodding politely to the two of them. “I know our magic can be strange to first-timers. If you need any help, just say so.”

Sarah nodded, handing over the forged passport. “Sarah and Photuris, here to see Forerunner,” she said, speaking clearly for the computer.

The passport went into the scanner, and for a moment the light flashed red instead of the pleasant green. But then the moment passed, and it changed to blue. Their helper gave the passport back, looking relieved. “Goodness, you two are lucky. You had me afraid that your papers might’ve expired. The lines for new ones are a nightmare this early in the morning.”

“I’ve had a few lucky breaks in my time,” Sarah said, taking it back. “Guess I’ve got a guardian angel.” The door slid open, and Sarah strode through without another word.

Photuris rushed in behind her, wings fluttering slightly as the dress rustled around her hooves. She leaned up close to Sarah’s ear as the door shut, her voice a fearful whisper. “How did you know that would work?”

“I didn’t,” Sarah said, holding still and confident for her. As confident as she could going into the belly of the beast, anyway. “But I had a feeling Forerunner would be looking for us. Weren’t you, Forerunner?”

The screen displaying the available floors had gone black, but a second later it was replaced with a human figure, with bright yellow hair and an unmistakable unicorn horn. So maybe not quite human. But the voice was familiar, and that was good enough for her. “I’d almost given up on seeing you again. I wondered if maybe ‘Sarah’ thought she was done with me. I wouldn’t have looked for you—you did help save my colony. Yet here you are. I’m quite curious what caused you to return.”

The elevator came to a halt around them. The effect was subtle enough, she didn’t get bounced and bumped, but the message was obvious. They wouldn’t be allowed to leave until they could produce a satisfactory answer.

“Ocellus is here,” Sarah said, without hesitation. “I don’t know exactly… how she’s thinking about me right now. But my original assignment was to establish diplomatic contact. I went through fucking hell and back, might as well make sure the job is finished.”

“I suppose you could see for yourself,” Forerunner said. The elevator moved again, though not much further. It stopped, then the doors slid open to a floor rather unlike the first one.

It was like a scene out of Irkalla—dozens of changelings hurried about the room, worked computers, carried messages, or were busy in conversation with visitors in little conference rooms. There was a bright metal plaque near the entrance, with a few guards on either side. “Embassy to Irkalla,” it said. “Changelings and invited visitors only.” The guards waiting just outside the elevator were both black changelings, though they wore UN uniforms and carried stun pistols like all the other police they’d seen thus far. One of them stepped forward, pointing to the sign. The plaque was printed in several languages—English at the top, Eoch below it, and a dense changeling script below that.

“Which one are you two?” the guard said. “Not to be impolite, but the visitor center is two floors down. I assume you must have something if Forerunner let you up here.”

Sarah let her disguise melt away. She wasn’t nearly as good as Ocellus had ever been, or probably any native changeling. It took her nearly twenty seconds of concentration. But when she was done, all the hostility vanished from the guards’ faces.

Beside her, Photuris had changed back as well, though she was a second instance and had a much easier time with everything changeling than Sarah herself did. Her friend had been “born” to it, in some digital way. The details still confused her.

“What brings you to the embassy today?” the guard asked, a little more polite. Not that she’d drawn her stun pistol or anything before.

“We’re here to see Ocellus,” Sarah answered, striding forward as confidently as she could. “I assume this is the place.”

The other guard, a male, stepped slightly into her way. “Maybe it is. But that’s the princess you’re talking about. You can’t just walk in on her. When’s your appointment?”

Sarah plopped down on her haunches right there in the hallway, spreading her wings a little in helpless defeat. “Just give her a call and tell her Sarah and Photuris are here to see her. That’s all the appointment we need.”

From the look on the guard’s face, he didn’t want to let her through. But she spoke with the air of a practiced con—absolute confidence that she wouldn’t be refused. Even a wary guard could do little against the powerful illusion of belonging. They might be changelings who could sense their feelings, but she had no reason to fear that here either. Sarah was absolutely confident she was telling the truth this time, however scared Photuris might be.

They weren’t kept waiting five minutes before the sounds of a rushing crowd echoed down an unseen hallway beyond. And a few seconds later, Ocellus appeared. She didn’t wear a jumpsuit like her guards, only a little metal crown and a satchel for a computation surface. She was surrounded by half a dozen attendants—some of them changelings, a few of them apparently ponies, and one a Forerunner drone. It was almost an absurd sight—a pony in charge of so many changelings. Yet Sarah could feel the loyalty these others felt for her. Whatever happened here, they thought of Ocellus with something like reverence. Maybe having a leader whose affection you can eat helps them be more loyal.

She stopped dead as she caught sight of Sarah. Sarah was frozen too, trying to figure out exactly what this pony was feeling. Mostly it was pain—pain at seeing her together with Photuris, maybe. Or maybe being reminded was what hurt. Whatever the reason, Ocellus didn’t seem in a hurry to make the first move, even as her escorts and attendants made increasingly uncomfortable noises.

But while both of them were paralyzed with indecision, Photuris apparently felt none. She walked straight up to Ocellus, lowering her head politely. “Ocellus, I think? I hope your uncle is well. I think I remembered liking him. Not your father as much…”

“Thorax is well,” Ocellus said, with a little strain in her voice. “He’s sitting on the council now, making the big decisions with the Alicorns. Which leaves me to be an ambassador.” She lowered her voice just a little, though that would do nothing with such a large crowd all around them. “I guess seeing you here… you two must have done it and lived. The… Stormbreaker, I mean. Your password worked.”

Photuris nodded. “Oh yes, Princess. There was really no danger of it failing. Just of being blown to bits before we got there. That almost happened.”

“I was sorry I couldn’t go with you,” Ocellus said, though there was just a hint of bitterness there. She was more than sorry.

“Me too,” Sarah said, though she didn’t bow. There was no sense making things weirder than they would already be. “Yeah, we did it. I don’t know how much of the win was ours and how much was the big bomb, but… I think we deserve partial credit.”

“Maybe… you could come to my office,” Ocellus said, only a little awkwardly. “There’s, uh… more privacy in there. I don’t think we should have this conversation here.”

Sarah had no desire to argue, and a few minutes later they were sitting in Ocellus’s office. It was easy to see how, like the rest of the embassy, efforts had been taken to model the interior after the ship Irkalla was built inside. There were lots of handles that went nowhere, bits of machinery that didn’t seem to serve anything but aesthetic purpose, while other things like interface terminals and food dispensers were totally functional.

Even the chairs looked similar, like brand new versions of the lumpy cushions obviously meant to envelop you during a high-gravity burn. Sarah sat in one of those chairs, trying not to look too uncomfortable as it swallowed her. She watched the others from an increasingly-dense cocoon of fluffy black cloth, and wondered if that was the point all along.

“I gotta ask…” Sarah said, once all the advisors were gone and the three of them were alone. Several of the guards had protested at that, but Ocellus hadn’t responded terribly well, and neither did Sarah. “What happened with your dad? After forcing us to kill ourselves to escape, I can’t imagine…” She sighed. “I hope Discord doesn’t melt my brain or whatever. Looks like I failed pretty hard.”

“Uniting the changelings.” Ocellus nodded. “You did. But at least Pharynx didn’t get to unite us. He tried, but… it was like I said. Once we were all dead, it made the whole mission look like they’d planned on killing us, and nopony believed him. Not that very many believed us either… it really just came down to what ponies wanted to hear.”

Photuris hadn’t sat down, and lingered between Sarah and the door. She obviously didn’t want to be in here, though whether that was out of jealousy for Sarah’s relationship with Ocellus, or fear for what might happen if they stayed together, it was hard to judge. She was a “native” changeling now, which meant she was exceptionally good at keeping her emotions low when they were being read. Unlike Sarah, who could be read like a book whether she wanted it or not. “Doesn’t look like it went that bad. I saw plenty of original changelings out there. Almost as many as bugs like us.”

“Almost,” Ocellus repeated. And there was a little pleasure in her voice. “Pharynx still has his faction of Old Hive down there, living the traditional way. A few of my uncle’s ponies joined him too. But the rest of us… We weren’t the only ones sick of living underground. The promise of somewhere better to live, with a friendly advanced culture waiting for us… that was good news. Besides, I don’t know how much you saw, but Equestria got, uh… pretty badly ruined. Our little invasion seems like an angry argument compared to what the Storm King did, so lots of old grudges just don’t matter anymore.”

“So you come up here, join with the… Pioneering Society, with Equestria…” She trailed off. “What the hell is it even?”

“We’re calling it a Federation,” Ocellus said. “My uncle’s idea. Equestria has the land and way more population. Pioneering Society has Forerunner, and you played a big role in the war. The official lie is that you’re a race of noble heroes from ancient pony history, come to save Equestria in its time of need. It isn’t the first time something like that has happened, apparently, just… the first time at this scale.”

“Not a lie,” said Discord, lounging in an oversized chair near one wall. Large enough that it could’ve seated a human, and Discord had to be about that size. “That’s precisely what you were. The only slight alteration to the story is the implication that you knew about the danger and came here of your own accord. That’s all sin of assumption, I swear. But ponies prefer to lie, even to themselves. You like your agency.”

Sarah blinked, then turned to stare. She hadn’t seen him there, hadn’t even seen the flash of a teleport. Yet here he was, folding his mismatched limbs as though he’d been invited.

But where she was annoyed, Ocellus and even Photuris seemed amazed. They froze, Ocellus even lowered her head in a slight bow.

Sarah rose to her hooves. “You’re here,” she said. “Here to… punish me, I guess. I failed your mission, so…” you’re going to tell Forerunner all about me. But she didn’t say that, and Discord didn’t need her to.

“Oh, absolutely not.” Discord clutched a claw to his chest in mock offence. “You’ve done perfectly well, Sarah. And besides, that secret was never a secret. Perhaps the first generation of Forerunner probes didn’t know… but did you really think every ‘Sarah’ on every world could keep that secret perfectly? Some of you got caught, and accurate information was included in…” Discord turned to one of the wall panels, tapping it with a claw.

To Sarah’s horror, it lit up, and that same almost-human face appeared there. “How long have you known about Sarah?”

“Personnel revision 1.13.4a,” he said, as though remarking on any other software patch. “But you shouldn’t feel personally guilty about it, Sarah. Your original self apparently took her secret to her grave. But there were a few incidents, and eventually enough consensus verifiers were able to conclude beyond any doubt that it wasn’t an individual pattern corruption issue.”

Sarah flared her wings defensively. Her body flashed, returning to the bat body she’d been given when she first woke up. Even after everything else—after becoming an Alicorn and gaining access to near-limitless power, this was the body that she felt most comfortable wearing. “Why the fuck did you make me if you knew I wasn’t who I said?”

Forerunner smiled at her though the screen. “Why should your impersonation matter to me? You’ll recall I didn’t keep you with ‘your’ unit for any length of time. I fabricated you long after their training had already begun. You would never have been permitted to join and disrupt their activities. But just because you’re not useful as a munitions engineer does not mean you aren’t useful.” Forerunner nodded towards Ocellus. “You’re quite a skilled diplomat, and a talented adventurer. While the Sarah template has never been loyal to my organization or to me, it always behaves in ways that are consistent with the general welfare. You can’t help but be a humanitarian. You’re loyal to humanity as a whole, or… civilized life as a whole, in this case. It wasn’t just humanity then, but as you can see the results were generalizable.”

Discord smacked the panel again. Forerunner’s figure distorted, his voice stretching into nothing before the screen went dark blue with white text. Sarah couldn’t read it, but she got the message anyway. She had learned what Discord wanted her to learn. “My threat existed entirely in your head. The best puppets keep themselves on the strings. But I’m done with you now.” He turned, looking up at nothing in particular. “Equus is saved from whatever the Storm King wanted, but it’s about to become rather dull. It’s a good thing I’ve made friends with wanderlust.” He met her eyes again, raising one hoof in a mock salute. “Good luck to you, Sarah.” He vanished.

“Hey, Photuris.” Sarah tried to keep her voice flat, not hinting at what she was feeling. But she didn’t do a good job. Even Ocellus would probably feel her pain, lack of powers notwithstanding. “Could you give us a minute alone? Wait for me outside.”

She nodded, rising to her hooves. “Sure, Sarah.” She touched lightly against her, then changed back into a pegasus. “I’ll be there.”

Ocellus watched her go, silent.

“So… we did it.” Sarah crossed to the desk, watching her across its matte metallic surface. “We saved the day together. Made a new home for the changelings. Everybody wins.”

Ocellus looked away. “Almost everypony.”

“How much longer do you think it will take?” Sarah asked. “I mean… this Federation thing. Still looked like organized chaos up there. New country… no way it’ll be going up overnight.”

Ocellus shrugged. “It took at least a decade after Chrysalis died. I think it will probably be… something similar this time.”

“Well.” Sarah leaned across the table, taking Ocellus’s hooves. “Little Photuris out there wants an adventure. Lots of old places to explore, old technology waking up… and I was never much for settling down.”

“Yeah.” Ocellus tried to pull her hooves away. She might’ve succeeded, if she had any of her strength. But she wasn’t using it, so she didn’t force Sarah away. She needed no magic to feel her pain.

“But what’s a decade? We’re immortal now. Besides, I made you a promise. I’m not sure if you remember.”

“I won’t expect you to keep it,” Ocellus answered quickly, her voice pained. “I know how desperate we all were. You spoke rashly, and—”

Sarah cut her off with a bat wing. Currently fake, but that didn’t matter. “I’ll still go with you. Photuris only thinks she wants to be with me. But I’ve been with her type before. The energy and the thrill wears off for them—what they really want is to be somebody’s wife, tidying up the house and only going on adventures to the movies. So if… ten years from now… if you still want to go find your mom… Photuris will be about ready to hang things up, if she doesn’t way sooner. We could go. If you want to.”

Ocellus kissed her on the cheek. It was light—not like she really expected more. Not with cameras watching them from every angle, and Photuris waiting outside. “I think I would.”

Melody had never seen the world end before. Buried deep in Motherlode’s most secure facility, she saw little of the danger. There was no violence that reached her, though a few times she heard soldiers shouting about contact at one of the entrances. The Storm King’s soldiers got very close at times, closer than any of them could’ve imagined was possible. But in the end she and little Roman were safe, while those braver and more competent fought somewhere else.

But then the end came, and the realization that her husband might not be coming back. From the bunker she learned the war was over, and she listened carefully for news of survivors. But that news didn’t come. Their determined old commander didn’t come back, or the obnoxious dragon, or the hacker. They’d been well and truly killed up there, apparently.

Melody tried to be strong—but she didn’t have the spine to be strong for others. Motherlode needed more princesses to rule, but she couldn’t manage that anymore. Couldn’t go to meetings, couldn’t listen to briefings about the Federation or make suggestions about what infrastructure they might need to turn Motherlode from a mine into a capital city.

If it weren’t for little Roman, she might’ve gone completely nuts, and swam upstream to try and find where Deadlight had gone. But she had a child now, and the perspective of a better life to come. They had known this might happen—that Deadlight might not return. He had lived for over a thousand years by avoiding risk, and there could be few risks as daunting as the Stormbreaker.

She kept herself busy with the foal, which proved to be every bit as troublesome as she’d imagined for a human baby. Lacking hands didn’t make him easier to handle, not when he could run on his own almost from the first day and fly at times not long after.

It’s okay. If I just keep going, we’ll get Deadlight back.

They had once known a magic that could restore the dead to life. Once life returned to normal, it could be used, and they could get their missing loved-ones back.

So she waited in the background, living in a quiet apartment at the bottom of Motherlode. Life took off without her—her status as a citizen became less important as more alicorns like her began to appear, many of them taken from among the former “Changeling” population. Before too long she was more of an interesting relic of the past than a force of any consequence in the present.

It was all she could do to keep sending messages to governor Lucky, and hope that she wouldn’t forget about the dead. And eventually—though it was years later, and Roman was almost old enough for his cutie mark—Lucky delivered.

Well, not actually the governor. It was Photuris, a changeling expert in Equus technology. She’d tracked down a cloning facility on the other side of the ring, one that could be used to produce bodies in a way that Forerunner could understand. The method was a little clumsier than Harmony’s ability to create a body arbitrarily whenever it wanted, but it was good enough. Saved their dead a confusing and disturbing trip through the underworld, anyway.

Melody’s fears—that Deadlight might have found somepony else, forgotten about her, or perhaps had chosen not to return somehow—vanished the day he stepped off a jumper in New Canterlot. He looked much the way she remembered—but without the scars, or the weariness in his eyes.

“You’re back!” she exclaimed, wrapping her forelegs around him and squeezing so tight that Roman behind her made a confused noise. “I thought… I wondered if you weren’t going to…”

Deadlight returned her embrace. “Of course I would. I’m sorry…” He looked over her shoulder, where Roman was watching nervously behind her. “Looks like it took longer than I thought.”

“Yeah,” she said, hastily letting go, and nudging Roman forward with one wing. “Roman, this is Deadlight. The one I told you about.”

“Dad?”

The stallion nodded. “More directly than my others.”

The child didn’t seem to understand that—and he danced about on his hooves, staying out of reach of Deadlight’s embrace. But Deadlight wouldn’t stay a stranger for long.

Melody learned much about his journey Upstream. Though the parting had been painful for him, Deadlight’s existence had been hard and he’d been fighting for many years. Time worked differently in Equestria, and what had seemed a few years for her was a great many for him.

“It’s good to know that civilizations aren’t forgotten,” he said. “I know now, hunting for ruins was pointless. They’re all still alive up there, just as vibrant as ever. Without Harmony’s rules crushing them like they used to crush Equestria.”

She learned about his travels, and part of her felt a little envy she couldn’t have gone along. That was the kind of adventure that she would’ve loved, even more if it were with him. But time was vast, and he couldn’t have seen them all. Perhaps when Roman was older…

New Canterlot grew bigger around them, its lights shining brighter and its surroundings more civilized. The entire mountain range was covered with one gigantic city, as many ponies living in it as had lived in all Equestria before the Federation formed. There was much to do—no more need to live underground and hide from evil warlords that didn’t exist.

Qingzhi had put an end to those who still lived, out in distant wars with slaver-nations now unmade. But such wars never troubled Melody, not now that she had Deadlight with her.

Their life together brought other adventures—like the one that had made Roman.

Their second foal was born in the same year Roman got his cutie mark—a girl this time, also a bat like her father. She had inherited much of his looks as well, except for her mane.

“What are we going to call her?” Deadlight asked, crawling into bed beside them and looking down at the tightly wrapped bundle.

The blue mane was all Melody had needed to make her choice, though it was only a few faint strands. “Someone who didn’t come back.” She looked down into the baby’s huge red-brown eyes, and imagined the foal was watching her. Couldn’t be. She should be almost blind. “If it’s okay… I’d like to call her Olivia.”

Many years passed, with many more triumphs, more failures, more death and rebirth. The boundary between Equestrians, changelings, and the Pioneering Society grew weaker, until over the centuries they no longer mattered at all. As the years passed the restrictions of the ancient Equus ring were understood, and eventually mastered. Death became irrelevant, the restrictions of equine life were eased and eventually removed, and civilization spread.

The Sanctuary ring was massive as no ordinary planet with similar gravity could be, as large as nearly a hundred Earths. As terraforming went forward, life expanded rapidly to fill the available space. There was no pressure from age and disease keeping it down, after all. No reason to conserve their use of what was by its nature an artificial environment.

Political systems changed as an increasing number of hypercompetent immortal Citizens rose through the ranks, establishing their own states in the increasingly remote districts of Equus, united in the Federation thanks only to a unified reliance on the Forerunner Colonial AI.

Lucky Break and the other princesses were not needed forever. The more citizens there were, the less society depended on them. After many years—years that would’ve defied her easy understanding at the time of her fabrication—Lucky Break was finally free to step down from any office of the government, and look up towards the sky instead.

Though strange eons had passed, several who had once belonged to her original crew were united together again in common interest aboard a reconstructed Agamemnon. They had changed their names several times, shifted through instances and identities in the way that the Sanctuary Ring allowed, but they were still truly themselves.

The Agamemnon was not traveling a merely exploratory mission. No one knew better than the ancient Pioneering Society why manned exploration ships never made sense for the first wave. The cylinder had, rather, been filled with life, an ecumenopolis of reconstructed buildings and the organic drones that maintained them.

And at the bridge of that great ship were two of the most respected citizens in all Sanctuary—Flurry Heart and Lucky Break.

The journey was long, though they did not cut it through ordinary space as the ancient probe had done. Sanctuary’s builders were wiser than that, their drives more arcane but incalculably faster.

Eventually they arrived, the ancient ship passing smoothly through the diffuse outer shell and magnetosphere of one solar system among an infinitude of others. In the inhabited interior of the cylinder, music and celebration was so loud and enthusiastic that it shook the bridge through the deck plating.

Lucky thought about issuing a general order to quiet down—but in the end she just tuned out the noise as best she could and kept her eye on the controls.

She had a different body now, like everyone did. Neither quite a pony nor human, with the advantages of both and the disadvantages of neither.

Nor was the distribution of forms monotone—there was no need for it to be, when each person could be specialized towards their particular discipline, or simple preference.

Flurry Heart was larger than she was, and more graceful despite all the years Lucky had to catch up. But even with all the time that had passed since her first fabrication, Flurry Heart had lived for an order of magnitude longer. It would be many centuries before the passage of time eased the difference of complexity between them.

But that didn’t matter. Lucky enjoyed having her close—like having a qualified expert following behind to double-check her calculations.

“There’s definitely something there,” Flurry Heart said, or at least that was still how Lucky thought of her. “Around the planet. Gravimetric readings are distinct.”

“You’re correct,” said Forerunner’s voice from the console—an Equus style perfect projection from the floor, which hovered in the center of the room just in front of the virtual window. The two of them were the only ones who happened to be physically present. All the other crew in attendance had only virtual bodies. They appeared just as real so long as they remained in this room.

Forerunner among them—he still wore one of the earliest hybrid bodies, with distinct human suggestions clearer than anyone else Lucky knew. “That’s the Neptune Brain, within a few percentage points.”

The planet appeared in the space before them, along with the dense bands wrapping around it. They had the same general shape Lucky remembered from early concepts for the station, which hadn’t been built in her lifetime. But they were much expanded, and further out from the atmosphere than she remembered.

“We thought it might be here,” Flurry Heart said. Lucky recognized in her an ancient hope, one that no other pony would’ve known to hear. There had been a part of her, once, that was tortured with images of the end of creation, so that she might be more fully convinced that Equus was all that remained. But if that could be proven wrong—if life could endure even here… then how many more times might life have survived?

That was why they were here, as much as reclaiming the ancient homeworld.

“I’m reading… yes, there it is.” Forerunner appeared to walk right over to the model, pointing at one specific point along the ring. “I’m getting radio readings from here. Very faint.”

He gestured, and the station itself appeared to grow much larger along a single-cross section. Lucky winced as she saw the unmistakable damage there—blown transit tubes, melted antennas, whole sections of the station open to space. The thin skin of redundant solar panels along its surface had been pot-marked with so many impacts that it was obviously nonfunctional.

“The brain had a fusion core,” said another pony beside Forerunner. Though Martin’s voice and body were both different now, Lucky still knew him instantly. He filled the air with other readings—heat, energy, spin. “Their reactor is offline,” he said. “Habitation section has no atmosphere. Looks as close to dead as anything could be.”

“We thought it might be,” Lucky said. “Might still be able to salvage the electronic minds down there if the radiation hasn’t trashed the drives. Dispatch a probe, Forerunner, and we’re moving on.”

It might’ve been more logical to be cautious—but Lucky had never been that kind of pony. Neither was anyone else aboard.

They turned inward, towards the center of the solar system where the ancient mother of all life had once shone. But there was no sunlight now, not even the diffuse background glow of the stars that should’ve been along the plane of the ecliptic.

As they advanced, the virtual model of the solar system grew more detailed. The gas giants were in their expected places, but lacking their expected satellites. The fabled Europa over which there had been so many wars—didn’t appear to exist. The orbital path of Mars was empty as well, and the asteroid belt was gone too.

As they proceeded laterally, their scanners were able to map the outside of an object that did not reflect even starlight back at them.

“I don’t understand it—” Martin said. And that meant much more than it once had, with the advantage of many years of learning. “The sun should still effectively have the same brightness it did. Even a massive structure like Equus has to radiate that heat back out again.”

“Now that’s interesting,” Forerunner said. “We have enough measurements to chart the object. Looks like it extends almost exactly to the orbit of where Earth should be.” A sphere appeared in the center of the model, consuming the inner planets and the expected location of the star.

“What is it made of?” Lucky asked. “A sphere, that size…”

“Scanners aren’t getting anything back, remember? I don’t have the foggiest idea what it’s made of. Equus doesn’t have any materials this strong, not that I’ve seen. They use active support. This… this is something else. I can’t imagine how you’d actively support a sphere.”

“I want to talk to them,” Lucky said. The slight rumbling of the bridge, the celebration in the cylinder below them, seemed to have died down. Everypony was probably watching. “Anyone have any ideas?”

“Fabricate a Forerunner probe,” Flurry Heart suggested. “Get it inside, wait for them to call us.”

Lucky giggled.

“Earth is supposed to be a consensus node,” Forerunner said. “Like the Neptune Brain. There’s protocol for making contact. We could try it.”

“What message do you want to send?”

Lucky hesitated, then switched to English. It wasn’t a language she was accustomed to using, and it was strange to talk with only sound. But she was still a linguist, deep inside. She could manage. “Pioneering Society colonists calling Earth. Is anyone there?”

“Sent,” Forerunner said, waving away most of the technical details of the model. “No bounce-back from the signal, just like everything. No way to know if they got it.”

They waited. Lucky couldn’t have said how long it took—time no longer mattered the way it once had. But eventually Forerunner appeared again, beaming. “Just got a signal. Tight beam, directly to our receiver.”

“What’s it say?” Flurry Heart asked.

“‘Welcome home,’” Forerunner said. “There are landing coordinates attached.”

Lucky Break returned Forerunner’s grin. “Prep the captain’s runabout. It’s time for some exploring.”

Author's Note

And that’s the end of the story. Over a year of writing later and half a million words, and here we are at the end of Message in a Bottle. Really we have two completely separate stories here—and if I could go back, I would probably have structured part two as its own story completely. Its scale was originally planned to be just two or three chapters, but then I had the idea to imitate the movie and my editors didn’t stop me and here we are.

First bit of news: Got a print book in the works. Still waiting on a cover, but once we get that finalized I’ll post a blog post with this story tagged if anyone is interested. A print volume would include only the first half of the story (500k words in one book would be thicker than two phone books, and that’s just not practical to print), with a possible second volume depending on the demand for the first.

It’s been a fantastic ride, a great year and a story I’m proud of at the end. I have a few words of thanks to say. First to Canary in a Coal Mine, who sponsored this story on my Patreon. I was given near total freedom to create this story, and I’ve hugely enjoyed the result.

Next, to the editors and pre-readers of the story. Two Bit and Sparktail have been consistent since the beginning, like they always are. We’ve had a rotating staff of pre-readers and volunteers cycle in and out since the production began, so it would be impossible to thank them all. But I’d like to give special recognition to Chyre and Doggyshakespere, who made it all the way to the end. And of course there’s Zutcha, who made the fantastic cover, and will hopefully be the one to help with the printed cover too. Oh, and there was that awesome illustration of the Ringworld he did, that was cool.

Lastly, thanks to every reader and particularly those who took the time to comment and encourage me. The days when I got few enough comments across my stories to respond to all of them are over, but I have been reading and enjoying your feedback through the whole thing, and using it to redirect away from dead-end paths where they occasionally suggest themselves.

Thanks for reading! See you… out there.

And if you’d like to see me a little sooner, I do have a writing/fanfiction Discord that anyone can join. It’s fairly active and covers all kinds of pone and non-pone related subjects, and is always a great way to reach me for questions or whatever since I’m in there basically all the time. You can check it out here: https://discord.gg/0qNiSuYHFFMrJwSQ

G3.01: Synthesis Complete

James Irwin knew something was wrong from her very first breath. Knew it from the strange numbness in her limbs, the unusual roominess of the bioreactor’s gestation pod, from how furry she felt. She ignored the instinct to panic, still buried deep inside despite her lifetime of training.

Whatever it is, it’s okay, James told herself. I would not be waking up if there were any critical errors with my body. Implanting the mind is always the last step. This was obviously intentional… for some reason.

Others in her place might very well have shouted, panicked, or bounced off the walls. Instead, James took a deep breath, and examined her surroundings. The interior of the gestation pod had its familiar strip of blue lights running down either side, with now-retracted manipulation arms folded against the sides. A paper thin screen set into the metal right above her head displayed her current status.

Bioengineering—Successful
Protein Decomposition—Successful
Gestation—Successful
Implantation—Successful
Crew Designation: Dr. James Irwin (Xenolinguistics)
Status Code: 137

Those three numbers at the end told her almost everything she needed to know about her situation. The first digit meant that the probe had landed on a habitable world with its own full biosphere, and that biosphere supported intelligent life. The last number indicated multiple failed attempts had been made to adapt human physiology, and that an alien blueprint had been used instead.

James reached up with one hand, holding it in front of her face. The limb wasn’t a hand, at least nothing like one she’d ever seen before. Instead of fingers, she saw only a fleshy stump, lacking fine manipulators. “Really?” She held up her other hand, and found a similar lack of useful digits. Maybe they were on the legs?

She tried to move them, and found two different limbs twitched at once, not quite in time with her mental instruction. Not just at the extreme end of her body, as she would’ve expected from legs, but somewhere on her back as well.

It’s okay, she told herself, in an exasperated mental voice. I’m trained for this. I get to be alive, I get to make contact with an alien race. Forty years of training will mean something.

Flopping around in confusion was not what protocol dictated. “Computer, can you hear me?” James asked, her voice raspy from lack of use.

This species obviously had vocal organs not too distantly related to those humans used. So closely related that she could form English words without difficulty. It was about two octaves too high, with a childish whine. Focus. Don’t apply human standards to aliens. They have nothing in common with life as we know it. I might be swimming in a lake of toxic gasses right now, or drifting down towards the ocean floor of a sea of charged liquid.

“Affirmative,” came the near instant response. James felt something on her head swivel at the sound, pointing towards the speaker set into the display above her. “Are you awake, Dr. Irwin?”

“I am,” she croaked. “Please open the pod. I want to get a good look at myself.”

“Please direct your attention to the screen,” answered the computer, its tone flat. “A series of cognitive tests will appear. Choose the best answers. I may not release you for duty until I confirm the modification to the biostructure of Alien Lifeform #FF35E has been successful.”

“I’m the first one?” James asked, and a little more fear crept into her voice. That said a great deal about the planet she had landed on, and what her mission would be. The computer chose a linguist, not a soldier or an engineer or a negotiator.

“Affirmative,” said the computer. “Please begin the test.”

James spent the next hour answering increasingly difficult logical questions with her awkward stump of a limb. None of the questions were terribly difficult—even a first-year cadet could’ve passed with flying colors.

“Examination complete. Bioimprint saved for future fabrication.” James heard a hiss of compressed gasses as the cot under her zoomed forward, ejecting her from the metal coffin of the gestation pod.

The interior of a Forerunner probe held about a hundred square meters of internal volume accessible to the crew. James’s gestation pod had been near ground level, so she didn’t get thrown around. As the pod slid clear, lights flicked to life above her, illuminating a space that now seemed built for giants.

James tried to rise onto her legs, and instead propelled herself into an awkward flop across the room. She landed with a thump on the textured metal surface, grunting from the impact. “What did I…” She tried several more times, with similar results. Eventually she settled for rising to what felt like her hands-and-knees and was able to stand.

“Computer, am I a quadruped?”

“Affirmative. All currently observed sapient species residing on KOI-087.01 have conformed to this general makeup. Would you like to read a detailed report?”

“No.”

James remembered years spent living and training in a simulated landside interior just like this, alongside as many as five other people. That had been hell—a prison of body odor and no personal space. That would not be a problem at this size, that was for sure.

She ignored the many composited sections of wall, each of which was meant to be accessed in a different way. Ladders extended up to deployable sections high above her, intended to allow a human crew to live in this tight space if conditions on some alien world required it. Hopefully I don’t need anything up there.

A thousand years of space travel, and her species hadn’t thought to program the probe to build an elevator. Hell, even a ramp would’ve been fine.

James walked tentatively at first, yet she found that after her first few steps, the others came easily. There was a natural rhythm her body seemed to know, which emerged so long as she didn’t think about what she was doing. “Did you make changes to my mind?”

“Inquiry lacks sufficient clarity for response,” answered the computer. “Standard imprinting methods were used in accordance with mission failure contingency 137.”

“Yeah,” James sighed, lowering her head in defeat. “I figured.” She made her way over to the probe’s restroom, which included a flat mirror mounted to the wall that would extend far enough for her to see.

The creature she saw staring back at her might’ve been adorable, if she’d seen it in a GE petting zoo and not a mirror. At a glance, she might’ve been a tiny horse, if that horse had been built by someone who had heard the animal described but never actually seen one.

Her head was too big, her eyes gigantic, her coat bright yellow fur. Her mane was blue, cascading down the back of her head far past regulation length. Her tail was a similar impossible shade. Most unlikely by far was the wings, which were attached to the back and twitched involuntarily as she thought about them.

“Please display biological information for Alien Lifeform #FF35E,” James said, before turning sideways to examine herself in profile. No opposable thumbs, no thumbs at all. The strange numbness she felt superimposed on where her fingers and toes should’ve been would never be going away.

The mirror became transparent, filling up with data. James was not a biologist, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make sense of any of it. There were a few photographs of something that looked almost exactly like her. Yellow coat, blue mane, purple eyes, though she was taller and had more graceful proportions. Longer legs, wider hips…

“Computer, is this body female?”

“Affirmative.”

James turned slightly to the side, concentrating on her tail. The stubborn organ eventually obeyed, moving to the side almost reluctantly. What she saw swiftly confirmed her worst fears. And just like being an alien, that won’t ever be fixed.

“Does my profile specify a biosex male fabrication requirement?” she asked, voice suddenly angry.

“Affirmative.”

“Please. Explain. This. Discrepancy.”

As usual, the computer did not betray even a hint of emotion. “Only one sample of Alien Lifeform #FF35E has been retrieved. Your skill profile matched the requirements at this juncture of mission completion. The nearest female match represented match inferiority of 34%. Failsafe 137 protocol allows—”

“I get it!” she shouted, her voice coming high and shrill. “I’m seeing… another discrepancy here.” She pointed at the screen. “This individual here is 1.3 meters tall at least. If I am a… clone… of this sample, why am I not the same height?” The alien also had some sort of mark on its flank, but James dismissed that as a tattoo, or some kind of paint. There was no reason she would have anything like that on her body.

“Alien Lifeform #FF35E does not conform to the standard model of organic development. Your body is within the acceptable margin of error.” Pause. “Do you feel these problems would render you unable to fulfill your mission?”

Discomfort was replaced with panic. “No! No! Absolutely not… no. I can fulfill my mission just fine.” She turned away from the bathroom mirror, walking cautiously over to the exit. This at least was a stairwell, a spiral staircase winding up to the airlock. Of course she wouldn’t be able to get away if the computer decided she wasn’t telling the truth. “It will only be a reduction in performance. Please recalculate the age of future Biosleeve fabrications. Do not make any additional crew members until you work this out.”

“Input accepted. Please familiarize yourself with physical motion using alien Biosleeve. The recorded movement of Alien Lifeform #FF35E will be played back for observation on the central monitor.”

* * *

Many hours passed. Eventually, James found herself curled up in one of the probe’s bunks, looking over the data the computer provided her about her planet: KOI-087.01.

It was the discovery of a lifetime. 1.02 times Earth gravity, a standard nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, and in the perfect orbit for oceans of liquid water. The probe had spent nearly a decade in orbit before it chose this landing site, plenty of time to exhaustively photograph the planet’s surface.

There wasn’t just enough life to turn the continents green. There were buildings, roads, cities… signs of electricity and the first stirrings of radio transmission. Exactly the sort of world that needed a xenolinguist.

“Computer, fabrication request,” she said. “Standard expeditionary protective suit, tailored to this…” She sniffed. “My current Biosleeve. One shortwave relay transmitter. One portable computation surface… sized appropriately to these awful stumps I have instead of hands. One nonlethal incapacitation sidearm. Appropriate food and water for a long journey, and something to carry it all in.”

“Request received. Fabrication within acceptable mission parameters, beginning now. Estimated completion time: seven hours.”

“Perfect.” James struggled with the sleeping bag for a moment, before giving up and just crawling in the opening meant for a human’s head and neck. She pulled a computation surface in behind her with her teeth, continuing to scroll through images and video of KOI-087.01. “Computer, begin rest cycle.”

There was no acknowledgment this time, except for a dimming of the lights above. James could still feel the machinery of manufacturing moving under her body, grinding gears and whirring fabricators. Far below, a system of automated drones continued their work, as they had already done for many years. Somewhere down there, near the most extreme depths of the excavation, would be the original probe, made on an alien world. It had brought her mind, blueprints for all the technology they would need, and the key to eventually completing their mission.

All of that was outside of her control. James was not here to manage the fabrication of the first outpost on KOI-087.01, only to facilitate a translation of the native’s language. Assuming they even have one.

When sleep came, it was restless, James constantly tossing and turning. She couldn’t find a comfortable position on the mattress and blankets, which felt like rocks under her body. Worse still were the dreams. Dreams of empty places, and stars like eyes watching her. Dreams of being small, weak, and helpless. Dreams of what bigger aliens might do to a small, female member of their species.

* * *

Exactly one week later, James emerged from a carefully concealed opening in the earth, stepping onto the landing site her probe had chosen. What visible signs of the impact there had been had long since been covered over by the probe’s automated machinery, burying itself with soil and rubble until only the scorch marks and the cracked rock of impact remained.

James wasn’t naked anymore, to her great relief. The computer might’ve failed to recover a male sample to make her body, but it had done an excellent job adapting a standard XE-201 suit to her unusual shape. The fabric under-uniform was remarkably flexible, and provided a constant coolness against her coat. The outer layer was woven of rigid biopolymer, tough enough to stop a bullet and with enough strength-enhancement to help her bend crystallized durasteel if she needed to. The computer hadn’t known what to make of the wings, so it had added padded sleeves to the cloth uniform and concealed them under the biopolymer shell. That detail alone felt confining to her, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like she knew how to use them.

The probe had chosen the largest and most sophisticated society as a communications target. It had set down outside of the observational range of any native cities, though close enough that explorers could walk to them. James did not look forward to a long journey on immature legs, but at least she had the XE-201.

The strength and internal cooling were a godsend against the sweltering heat of the desert. It wasn’t a 301 model, so there was no atmospheric seal to cut out the harsh desert winds or the sands that occasionally blasted against James’s face. She would have to make do with her modified sunglasses.

The lenses projected a HUD onto the ground in front of her while she walked, mapping a virtual path in glowing blue arrows towards the nearby settlement. She had nearly sixty kilometers to walk to reach it. Most of the strength assistance in her XE-201 went into helping her carry the heavy bags that hung off either side of her back, filled with camping gear and food and ample water. Her suit would capture her waste and sweat, but it could do nothing for the water she lost to the sweltering desert heat.

James stopped less than twenty meters from the probe entrance, beside a gnarled shrub that barely reached past her knees. This is alien life, she thought, poking it with one hoof. She could barely feel it through the protection and the natural dullness of the limb, but even so she was awed.

James had seen photographs of alien life before, when she’d been training. She had spent a lifetime preparing for this mission, knowing full well most probes would not need a xenolinguist. Yet here she was, the one crew-member her probe had decided to create, on a planet teeming with life so similar to earth’s she could’ve mistaken this shrub for sagebrush.

For a moment, she was able to forget her strange body. Forget that she was walking on all fours, and take in the awe of the moment. I am going to make first contact with an alien race. An accomplishment like this might very well earn her her own neuroimprint when this was all over.

Then her uniform hiked up between her legs, briefly constricting her in an uncomfortable and unsettling way that reminded James of everything that had gone wrong. She squeaked faintly in protest, before setting off again at a walk in the direction her HUD indicated. There’s an alien civilization out there, she thought. All I have to do is find it.

G4.05: Native Contact

It had been nearly two months since James had felt solid ground under her hooves. When they finally landed, she practically fell off Dust's back, spreading her hooves and embracing the ground like an old friend. Lightning Dust rolled her eyes, muttering something James couldn't quite hear. It took her several repetitions before James finally looked up.

"Since you can't fly, we need to kapti trajnon. Dodge Junction is close, malmulta distanco if we hurry. I don't know if the ponies who came for you were the real thing or not... I lose track of kiu princino donas aŭtoritaton. But we'll need to get far away from here. How do you feel about the Crystal Empire?"

What James wanted to do was beg her to take them both back to the probe. It wasn’t what her mission called for—living among the ponies would make learning their language far easier than just keeping the company of one. But knowing the authorities might be looking for her, knowing she’d just attacked someone, it took James more than a little willpower not to beg to be taken to safety.

She swallowed that inclination, with some difficulty. "You have empires?" James rose from the ground, brushing dirt from her armor. "I thought Equestria was a monarchy."

Lightning ignored the question. "You need to take off that armor. The ponies in Dodge City are tradicia, ili reagos tre strange if you wear something like that. Old earth ponies like that sometimes get ofendata if you wear anything at your age, but hopefully we can eviti ilin." She reached back, lifting the hard-plastic box down off her back and setting it on the dusty ground in front of James. "It came in here, right?"

"Yeah." James undid the latches on the empty box, before unclipping the saddlebags from her back and proceeding to undress. The armor was in three main sections, and each one could be removed independently. Even this accommodation wasn't quite enough to make the task as easy as it would've been with hands.

"What is that made of?" Dust asked, staring down at her as she undressed.

"Things you don't have names for," James answered. "They're really strong. They won't be cut, they'll stop bullets..." She stepped out of the boots, before pressing down on the button that would cause them to retract. The various servos and motors whirred and clunked for a few seconds, and the suit withdrew into its original compact shape. She lifted it with her teeth, setting it down in the box before doing the same to the transmitter and the stun-pistol, before finally shutting it again. She left the saddlebags outside the box, wedging her head inside and pulling on the straps with her teeth to tighten. The saddlebags had been made to be worn even without the armor, though no consideration had been made for her wings and even after a few seconds they were starting to irritate.

"I've seen unicorns do magic like you," Dust said, scooping up the box and returning it to her saddlebags. She managed to strap it back down without ever turning all the way around, using a combination of her mouth and her wings. "But I've never seen a pegasus ĵeti tian impresan sorĉon. It felt a little like weather magic, were you using lightning?"

"Kinda," James admitted, walking over to stand beside Dust. "I don't like the word magic, though. It's a machine. Like a lever, or a pulley, or... any other kinda machines you ponies have. I don't know much about how you live, but... point is, it's not supernatural. You could make machines just like it if you knew how."

"Not me," Dust rolled her eyes. "I'm no egghead. But I guess I see what you mean. The... ponies who sent you... they've done for unicorn magic kiel kion ni faris kun vetero. A unicorn charged your... weapon... and once they did, anypony can use it. Right?"

"Uh... close, I guess." James shrugged one shoulder. "I'm not an 'egghead' about machines either. I'm only good with languages. I don't know astronomy, or biology, or even math very much. Only the basics they make everybody learn. I guess I'm glad that included how to shoot..." Though not well. She probably would've missed with every shot if it wasn't for the suit assisting her aim.

As they walked, James was conscious of the rapid transition from undeveloped desert to something more civilized. She could see orchards in the distance, the green of their trees incongruous against the brown and tan of other desert life. Sweat was already dripping down her mane, sliding down her legs, and she found herself wishing she hadn't removed her suit.

Hiking hundreds of kilometers was no problem while wearing armor, but take that off and even a short distance in this heat became difficult. I wonder if the other species are better adapted to life on the ground. She still hadn't met any individuals from the "earth pony" tribe. Her one example of a unicorn had seemed even thinner and leaner than the pegasus ponies were.

She found her mind drifting as they walked, relieved that, if nothing else, Lightning Dust was giving her a chance to think. Someone wants to take me away from Lightning Dust. Someone who knows more about humans than any other ponies. Not quite enough to understand the difference between a stun pistol and something more lethal, but enough to at least recognize a firearm when he saw one. The ponies with him were dressed like Solar Guards. Exactly like the pictures of them she'd seen in her book, in fact. How much did the natives actually know about her?

He seemed to think that my involvement was a mistake. That probably means they don't know about sleeving. James looked up, clearing her throat. "E-excuse me, Lightning Dust..." She couldn't help but sound a little out of breath. She was thirsty, but not thirsty enough to stop and fight to get her saddlebags open and get at her water pouches.

The mare looked down, her eyes a bit glazed from the heat. The weight probably wasn't helping either—Dust's saddlebags had already been full before she tied a huge plastic crate to the outside. The suit and all James's gear had to weigh twenty kilograms, if not more. "Yeah, Lucky? We're almost there, if that's what you're asking. Tiuj ĉerizarboj are where the urbo komenciĝas."

"Not that." She hesitated for a few more seconds, wondering if she might be making a mistake. She kept going anyway. "The ones looking for me... they seem to know things. Have you ever heard of, uh... creatures... visiting Equestria before? Maybe in the last five years or so?"

Lightning Dust stopped walking, so abruptly she almost ran into her back legs. She swerved at the last second, and managed to stop herself from falling over too.

"Yeah," Dust said, staring forward at the town in the distance. "They supposedly visited Dodge Junction. Something..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "Something really bad happened here, apparently. That unicorn who visited you in the hospital, she told me that the, uh... the things like what you brought, they could hurt ponies. Make them sick. Some even died. Was she telling the truth?"

"No!" James exclaimed, before taking the time to think about the answer. "Well, uh... they're not supposed to. Some of our technology is powered by... dangerous fuel. It's safe so long as the cases are closed. But if they open, they can make you really sick."

"That's... a little like what she said," Dust said, her face darkening. "She said that ponies were getting sick, and nobody knew how to make them better. We won't get sick, will we, Lucky?"

James shook her head again. "No, we won't. That's why I had to get new gear. I dropped my old communicator off the clouds while you were gone so it couldn't make us sick."

"Oh, good." Dust relaxed. "I don't trust the princesses the way I used to, but I don't want to help monstroj invadi. That isn't what you're here to do, right?" She turned then, leaning down and resting one hoof on James's shoulder. Holding her in place. "Tell me the truth, Lucky."

Again, there was no need to hesitate, nor any trace of dishonesty from her. "No, of course not!" Not that James exactly knew what Dust was talking about. But she could tell from her tone it must be bad.

"We came here because we wanted to be friends with you, that's all. We want to learn how ponies live, maybe share some of our ways so you don't have to figure them out the hard way, like we did. Honestly, it's... incredible to me how much we have in common. Most of the theories I studied on what alien life would be like suggested you would probably depend on whole suites of senses that we don't have. You might've been so different we didn't even recognize you were alive, or vice-versa. But here you are, using a language with nouns and verbs and adjectives, building..." She stopped walking then, staring forward. "Honest-to-God Old West boomtowns... and setting up governments that are familiar enough to recognize."

"I don't understand." Dust sounded a little relieved, but not much. "Isn't making friends more of a pony thing? You said your type weren't ponies. I've met dragons and griffons and minotaurs before, and they're not nearly as crazy about the idea as we are."

That took another few seconds for James to digest. She kept staring off at the buildings she could see between the trees—two stories, all made of familiar wood, with fences and signs and all the other accoutrements she would expect from a western boomtown. There were shouting voices, pounding metal, and the smell of food. Real food too, not just differently cooked hay.

"We're not... obsessed with making friends," she said. "But it's nice to do." She gestured up to the sky with one wing. "We've been looking for a long time, Dust. Wondering if, maybe, we were the only ones out there. Maybe the conditions to create life were so rare that it would never happen again."

Dust pulled her close with one hoof, embracing her with a wing. "You lost me again, squirt. You're a liar if you don't think you're an egghead... maybe ponies just have different standards for being smart where you're from. All I need to know is that you didn't come to hurt anypony. La aŭtoritatoj estas wrong, as usual. You just wanted to make friends, and they goofed up. A hundred bits says they got so scared they attacked and it’s their propra stulta kulpo that poneoj malsaniĝis." She released James, and together they started walking again. "We'll see when the next train is passing through. Hopefully you don't mind a little weather—we'll have to catch it even if it's portanta kargon aŭ poŝto. Maybe I can find you some smart ponies your own age up in the Crystal Empire. Homeschool estas mojosa kaj ĉiu, but... I bet you'd learn quicker if you had a whole library, instead of one book with ĉiuj paĝoj falantaj eksteren."

"Yeah." James winced, thinking about the ratty old textbook stashed in her saddlebags. Most of its pages had swollen from moisture now, and some of the ink was smearing. The binding was coming apart from many, many readings, and she'd marked it up so badly in places that she couldn't see the original words. "I probably would." They were close enough now that she could see a handful of ponies watching them. The cherry trees offered refreshing shade, making it easier to breathe. Not that Dust's answers had made her feel much better.

As flattering an illusion as it might be, James didn't imagine for a second that she was this probe's first attempt. It would've started with whole crews, would've started with capable humans of mixed disciplines and probably military backgrounds. What had they done in Equestria before she arrived? More disturbing, what had the probe realistically hoped to accomplish by sending a team of only one member across sixty kilometers in the body of a child?

When she found a private moment, it would be easy to ask, but she wasn't sure how likely she would understand the answer she received. A Forerunner was not a person, nor could it be said to be meaningfully sapient. It could only follow its core directives and respond to stimuli. What stimuli made it want to make me?

* * *

Lightning Dust could always tell when something was wrong. It was a talent she'd relied on even more heavily than her special talent, ever since her disgrace. Ponies in groups always acted in the same predictable ways, just like clouds. And just like clouds, she could tell when the lightning was about to start.

Dust led the way into Dodge Junction with square shoulders and a friendly expression, ready to meet anypony who wanted to talk with her usual mask of politeness. Only as they walked around the fence out of the cherry orchard and into the town proper, she could see ponies were staring. Ponies passing in the street stopped, mouths hanging agape. A few children squealed and galloped off as fast as they could go, their cries mingling together and stretching beyond what Dust could properly understand. A few ponies hurried away with exaggerated nonchalance, turning to glance back at them whenever they thought she wasn't looking.

No, not both. The ponies of Dodge Junction hardly seemed to see Dust. Every single one of them had eyes only for Lucky.

"W-what's going on?" Lucky whispered, even more shyly than normal. "Why is everyone so scared?"

Dust only pulled her a little closer with one wing. "I'll handle it," she said. "I'll figure this out. We'll be getting out of the city quick enough, anyway." They were already halfway to the rail station. She could see the ticket booth already, and the large sign of routes and schedules posted above it. She couldn't quite make them out yet, though.

"Excuse me, ma'am," a male voice said, his voice a slow methodical drawl. Though to be fair, almost everypony sounded like they were talking slow when Dust listened to them. She stopped, turning slightly so she could see the speaker. A thickly-built earth pony with a sheriff's star as a cutie mark, taller than she was and wearing a rope on his belt and a wide-brimmed hat. "Name's Long Arm. I don't mean to trouble you, but... who is this you're traveling with?"

"This is Lucky Break," she answered, smiling as though she didn't notice the entire city staring at them. "My little sister. Why?"

A small crowd of the locals was forming around them. Not close enough to stop them from running, not a mob... but close enough that Dust began to feel nervous. If things go bad, at least I can fly away. Might have to drop that box to have the strength to carry Lucky... So much for choosing a fortuitous name. If things kept going like they were today, the both of them would probably be banished to Tartarus before the week was over.

"Oh, well... it's just...” He turned from her, looking down at Lucky. His expression seemed to soften a little as he spoke. "Morning Dew, is that you? I don't... I buried you myself, how... how are you so young?"

Lucky backed up, shaking her head. "I don't know who that is. My name is Ja-..." She stopped, collecting herself. "I mean, my name is Lucky Break, just like my sister said. I don't know a Morning Dew."

Dust cleared her throat, nudging Lucky to start walking. She did, with Dust flanking her side like a guard. "Excuse us, but we have a train to catch."

Long Arm followed close behind. Most of the crowd started to disperse, but a few trailed behind as well, close enough to listen. "She looks just like her," he said, a little awed. "Forgive us if ponies seem a little... flustered. Your sister looks exactly like... a friend we've recently lost. She grew up here in town, so... Celestia, she looks exactly like Dew did, when she was small. There's not a water droplet hiding under those saddlebags, is there?"

"No," Lightning said, leaning back to lift them away from Lucky's flank with one wing. "She doesn't have her cutie mark yet. It must just be a coincidence. Yellow and blue aren't rare colors for ponies. Like you said, this... Morning Dew wasn't a filly. This is a different pony."

"If you say so..." Long Arm said, retreating a few steps, getting out of their way. As he did, the most persistent of the crowd got out of the way as well, though plenty of them were still following. The poor filly stared around at everything, shaking slightly in fear and generally acting afraid of everything and everypony.

They made it to the train station with only a dozen or so ponies trailing them, many of which had found other things to keep them busy. Lightning Dust walked up to the ticket booth, and lost track of Lucky for a moment as she argued with the attendant about getting them booked onto the next train headed north. It wasn't a passenger train, and most ponies who sold tickets didn't seem to realize just how eager the rail industry was to take her bits. By the time she'd waited for the manager and explained again what she wanted, Dust realized the filly was completely gone.

Equestrian cities were the safest in the world, and being on the ground meant the foal wouldn't be able to find anywhere to fall. But the ponies of Dodge Junction were acting so strange...

Her worry was in vain. Lucky had only gone a few paces away, to the public notice board hanging by the train station. She was staring up at something written there as intently as she looked at her Eoch textbook.

Lightning Dust wasn't a strong reader, but even she could make out the simple words printed on the banner pinned to the very center of the board. The notice was plain black ink on white paper, as stark and ugly as possible as to catch the eyes of passing ponies.

Ponies of Dodge Junction are warned by order of Her Majesty's Solar Guard that dangerous creatures have been spotted passing through your town. If you see animals like these, please report them immediately to the nearest public figure. If you see something, say something.

Dust rested one wing gently on Lucky's shoulder, causing her to twitch and jerk upright, startled. "Woah, whoa, take it easy kid. I just wanted to let you know I got our tickets. Train should be passing through in another ten minutes. We'll have to get on while they're unloading mail deliveries."

Lucky acted like she couldn't even hear her. "W-what... what's that say, Lightning Dust? I can't read some of those words..."

Dust read, doing her best not to give away just how difficult it was for her. "Monster Sighting in Dodge Junction. Ponies of Dodge Junction are warned by order of her majesty's Solar Guard that dangerous creatures have been spotted passing through your town. If you see animals like these, please report them immediately to the nearest public figure. If you see something, say something. Don't be another victim." She looked up. "Why? That thing doesn't look like much of a monster. No claws, no fangs..."

"I'm glad you think so," Lucky said, very quietly. "I just wish I knew how ponies know about them."

"Because they killed you." The voice came so quietly that at first Dust couldn't even tell anypony was speaking. Until she looked down, and she saw the tiny figure standing just behind a pillar, looking straight into Lucky's face.

The pony looked so like her that Dust had to do a double-take, staring down at a pair of ponies with nearly identically colored coats. But the second pony had a violet mane instead of blue, and a few seconds later she smelled him. A colt, not a filly, with a cutie mark of three water drops with heart patterns on them.

"I-I don't know..." Lucky squeaked, tears clearly streaming down her face. "I'm not w-who you... th-think I am."

The colt ignored her, advancing another few steps. His eyes were different too, green instead of violet. He was still a pegasus, though he had the slightly heavier build that was common to foals of earth ponies and pegasi.

They look like family, Lightning Dust thought. Too close to be a coincidence. But why would Lucky lie? Not only that, but the hospital hadn't been able to find any record of a filly matching her description anywhere. If one had gone missing from Dodge Junction, surely Dust would’ve heard about it. The authorities could be negligent, but never so willfully incompetent.

"You even smell like her," the little colt said, walking right up to Lucky and pressing himself to her with all the innocence of a child. "What happened to you, Mom?"

"I'm not your mom!" Lucky squeaked, tears in her eyes as she retreated, trying to edge herself behind Lightning Dust.

Dust happily cooperated, shielding the filly. What in Celestia's name is going on?

"It's not his fault." Long Arm approached, his heavy hooffalls echoing off the wood beneath them. Dust abruptly recognized the color of the colt's mane—it was the same as Long Arm's. He seemed to have a similar eye color, too. "He's just seeing what I did. Hoping you might have more of an explanation. Rather like I am." He nodded up at the poster. "Monsters got his mother, stranger. 'Bout six months ago, before winter ended.

Dust looked away from him, down at the filly she was shielding, lowering her voice to a quiet murmur. "Do you have any idea what's going on, Lucky?"

The filly looked up, her eyes still wide with fear. At least she wasn't crying. "M-maybe," she squeaked. "But i-it wouldn't make sense. I don't know if... you even have words for th-the concepts."

Dust's eyes narrowed. "Are you the pony they're talking about? Have you been lying to me all this time?"

"No!" she proclaimed, no hesitation, no looking away. "Everything I told you was true! I left out some details, but..."

Dust looked up again, away from Lucky. "I'm really sorry," she said. "It sounds like there was a real tragedy here. But Lucky Break didn't have anything to do with it. She isn't your missing family member." She lowered her head to the colt. "I'm sorry kid. I lost my mom when I was about your age. I wish I could give you yours back, but that isn't how things work." She lifted up her wing, returning it to her side so that Lucky was fully uncovered. The filly shivered, but Dust didn't let her hide again. Instead she raised her voice, so all the staring ponies would be forced to see. "We're just passing through. We're sorry we had to revive such painful memories on our way."

The colt returned to his father, and together they stared. Some of the townsfolk were still watching, their eyes never lingering from Lucky. This train can't come soon enough.

"Safe ride. But mind the sign, strangers." He pointed one last time back in the direction of the poster. "We lost a pony mighty close to us to those monsters. Wouldn't want somepony else's family to suffer like we did," Long Arm said, staring for a few more seconds at Lucky, before turning and ushering the stallion away.

A few minutes later, and the mail train finally pulled into the station. Dust hurried up to speak to the conductor, taking Lucky along this time. She didn't even have to say anything to make sure the filly followed close to her.

The conductor was far more amenable to the idea of carrying a few low-fare passengers in the back of one of his empty cars than the ticket ponies had been to sell them passage, and soon enough they were tucked away in an empty hallway between rows and rows of identical boxes. Lucky hid out of sight of any of the windows, but Dust waited by the entrance, staring out at the town as two measly cargo containers were unloaded and the train received new stock of water and fuel.

The train rumbled and whistled beneath them, starting to chug forward. Dust watched the town fade into the background, conscious of many eyes staring after them as they finally stretched out of sight.

Author's Note

A huge thanks to Zutcha for the little poster in this one.

G5.05: Security Override

It was not a pleasant trip. Getting out of the Crystal Empire wasn’t terribly difficult—there were no papers to be stamped, or checkpoints to pass through. Flurry Heart just had to wear thick enough clothing to conceal her identity (which she would have had to do anyway, thanks to the cold waiting for them), and they just walked out. Lucky wasn’t terribly worried about what school would think—now that she had her cutie mark, she wasn’t even required to attend.

No, the real difficulty came once they were out of civilization. They flew, forbidding Lucky from bringing all but her helmet, but even that was enough for effortless navigation. She had already brought it once, so getting it to lead her back was a trivial matter. She found herself very grateful for Lightning Dust’s training.

Flurry Heart might be a princess, but that didn’t mean she was a strong flyer. Her abilities were roughly where Lucky’s had been before Dust’s boot-camp. She could make the trip, but not without frequent stops and landing. They were fortunate they didn’t run into any storms, because if they had, Lucky doubted that her companion would’ve been able to fly over them and ride them out, or outrace them from another direction.

Even with clear weather, it was already dark by the time they arrived at the place the helmet said was their destination. Flurry Heart didn’t land so much as plummet out of the air, landing in a stumble and vanishing into a snowdrift.

“Princess, are you alright?” Lucky touched down beside her, conscious all the while of just how thin the ice could be. She didn’t like her odds of catching the princess. Great diplomacy that would be. Yeah, I accidentally got your princess killed, but no hard feelings, right?

Flurry Heart emerged from the snow, her face dusted like a wintery bird emerging from its nest. “Y-yeah,” she said, her voice weak, barely awake. “I’m, a… I’m still… I’m here.”

“Good,” she said. “I’m sorry that was so hard, but we’re not quite done yet. We still have to glide down a ways. Are you strong enough for that? Otherwise we’ll have to sleep up here, in the snow…”

“Y-yeah.” The princess rose to her full height, shaking off the snow. She had saddlebags just like Lucky, though hers were much nicer, dusted with gems, and lacked any wear and tear at all. Lucky doubted they’d ever even been brought outside the Crystal Empire before today. “I can glide. But glide where? We’re already on the ground.”

Lucky grinned at her. “Don’t follow me for a second, just watch. ” She lifted into the air, finding it was easy for her despite her day of flying. Considering all the rests and how slow they’d gone, she had far more energy left than last time. Lucky unhooked the helmet from where she’d kept it on her saddlebags and settled it on her head. “Headlights.” They came on, and she quickly looked away from the princess, pointing them instead at the icy field. There was no sign of the opening she and Lightning Dust had made last time they were here. It looked like an identical, unbroken sheet. Thin enough that it might be broken through, if she wasn’t careful. “Scan the ice. I want an overlay of thickness,” she instructed.

The helmet’s sensors activated, Lucky neither knew nor cared which ones. Probably sonar, though she couldn’t tell for sure. After a second, the ice began to glow different colors. The key on the corner of her screen indicated the darkest patches corresponded to the thickest ice. So, she hovered over to a patch that was bright orange, and flew straight at it with all the force she had. She ended her dive in a kick. The whole thing rumbled, a deep moan that echoed through the land all around, and a huge chunk came ripping free. Several others broke off in a cascade as well, getting dangerously close to where the princess had landed.

She didn’t take to the air, so it was fortunate the collapse stopped before it reached her. Lucky touched down on the ice beside her, as though making such a dramatic entrance had been her intention all along. I need to be more careful. This body is stronger than it feels. That had been part of her training, back on Earth. Knowing the abilities of an enhanced body, so she didn’t accidentally break anything or harm anyone. But she’d been trained for a human body, not a tiny pony. Every time she thought she knew what pony bodies could do, they always surprised her and did a little more.

In the dark, the opening was even more ominous. Her headlamps weren’t bright enough to illuminate the bottom, or even anything more than the closest sidewall. The metal track glittered in the light, and a slightly warm breeze wafted gently up towards them.

“Woah.” Flurry Heart made her way to the edge of the opening. “That’s what you meant by gliding.”

“Yeah,” Lucky said, grinning back at her. “It’s empty all the way down. So long as you don’t bump into the walls, you don’t have to worry about hitting anything. It’s quite safe. Flying back out is harder, but we don’t have to worry about that until tomorrow.”

Lucky took to the air again, spinning around to face Flurry Heart. As she had hoped, that was enough to encourage the princess to take off again, following her with difficulty. At least until they made it into the large opening. Lucky kept her helmet on, illuminating the space below them so Flurry Heart wouldn’t accidentally hit anything.

The Alicorn might be a weaker flyer, but even she seemed alright with gliding. The space open to them was enormous, so it wasn’t like they had to turn too sharply to avoid hitting anything. It was rather like walking down a hill at a modest pace—not easy exactly, but not difficult either.

“I’ve never been this far without retainers,” Flurry Heart said, mostly to herself. “If Mom knew how far from the castle I was…” She trailed off, giggling.

“Wait.” Lucky winced, staring at the princess as she descended past her. “You did tell them something, right? You didn’t just…”

“Uh…” Flurry Heart looked away, her expression scrunching up uncomfortably. “I might’ve kinda, sorta…”

A missing princess was exactly the sort of thing that could get someone locked up for life. Lucky probably would’ve made sure the Alicorn had done things correctly, except that she herself had been so eager to get going. She had exactly two days to get back without getting caught.

“We’ll have to… figure out how to deal with that,” she eventually said. “Just not right now. We’re already out here, and I don’t think we have the strength to fly you back. We might as well do our exploring, right?”

“Right,” Flurry Heart answered, sounding almost relieved that Lucky wasn’t trying to call everything off. Of course, the Alicorn could just order her to do whatever she wanted. She was still a princess—and what she decided to say when they got back might very well determine the rest of Lucky’s life.

She has to be my friend when we get back. There’s got to be a way. Even if Lucky succeeded in every way, she’d probably have to leave the Crystal Empire. Doing something like this would make her interesting to all the wrong ponies. I hope you aren’t too excited about that secret job you have, Mom. Cuz’ we’re probably moving again.

Lucky banished that thought as they neared the ground. “Look out, Princess! Time to slow!” There was no snow down here, nothing but the metal ground and a few small patches of dirt. Nothing to cushion the fall of an unobservant pegasus (or Alicorn).

But the princess wasn’t helpless, even if she wasn’t as graceful as Lucky. They landed, with a series of resounding metallic thumps.

Flurry Heart stopped, stretching her wings and looking up. “These ruins are… as impressive as you said. I can see how nopony would’ve discovered them. Coming all the way out here, covered with ice. You must be as lucky as your name.”

“Yeah.” She grinned back. “Guess so.” She wasn’t about to mention that Twilight Sparkle had been the one to send her here. Not when the clandestine nature seemed to be one of the primary appeals of this mission with the young princess. That another of her class was involved might take all the excitement away for her.

“The real question now is: do you have the energy left to do a little exploring?”

Flurry Heart matched her grin, any trace of tiredness gone from her. “Obviously if one of my young subjects does, I do. Though… I’ll admit, that helmet makes you look strange.”

“Oh.” She slipped it off, though she left the headlamps on, illuminating the space all around them. They had more than enough energy to last through a week of constant use before recharging. “Sorry, Princess. I just get used to wearing it, sometimes. It shows me things that make exploring easier.”

“Really?” Flurry Heart stared at it, renewed interest on her face. “May I try?” She didn’t wait, and the helmet began levitating over towards her.

It didn’t go far before catching on the tether, and dragging Lucky along too. “It won’t fit you, Princess! It doesn’t have a spot for your horn!”

“Oh.” Flurry Heart sighed. “Well you’re the expert, Lucky Break. Let me know if there’s something I can do.”

The sealed door wasn’t far—at least it didn’t feel far after such a long flight. They walked through an open passageway, all the way down the end of the long shaft that ended with the pony image.

“You’re sure it’s safe to open?” Heart asked, when they were about twenty meters away. “In the Daring Do books, places like this are always full of traps, and angry natives, and dangerous animals.”

“Fairly certain, Princess,” she said, though in truth Lucky had no idea what was on the other side of the door. But she sounded confident enough. “If the ones who built this place wanted to kill intruders, we would be dead already. They must have friendly intentions.”

“Oh, okay.” Flurry Heart advanced towards the door. Her wings extended, and Lucky couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not. Her horn began to glow, along with her heart-shaped cutie mark. For a few moments, it seemed as though she were lifted into the air, hovering just in front of the door.

There was a bright flash, and Lucky was suddenly blind. She looked away, trying to adjust, and slowly the world came back into view.

The thick door was completely gone, as though it had never been there. No markings remained in the hallway to suggest where it had gone—if it had retracted, it had merged so completely with the shaft as to be invisible.

“Are you okay?” Lucky galloped over to Flurry Heart’s side, who had slumped against the wall, covering her face with one wing.

“Y-yeah. I just… didn’t expect that to take so much magic.” Flurry Heart groaned, straightening. “There aren’t any more of those, are there? I think I’m done for the day.”

Lucky glanced away down the hall. She saw it end maybe fifty meters ahead, whatever was beyond difficult to see with as bright as it was. She smelled something new on the air, like old metal and mildew, though it was hard to tell for sure.

“Nope, no more,” she said, touching Heart’s shoulder with her wing in a reassuring way. The princess didn’t resist, or show any indignance at the gesture. “We’re in, you did it!”

“I did it,” Flurry Heart repeated, smiling warily. “But in where?”

“I dunno,” Lucky answered, honestly. “Let’s find out.”

Lucky slid her helmet back onto her head as she made her way into the “ruins” beside Flurry Heart. There was no telling what might be waiting for them—even if the idea of traps in a place like this was as absurd as she had suggested to the young Alicorn, that didn’t mean the installation was necessarily safe.

With the helmet on, her eyes didn’t have to adjust to the brilliant overhead lights, but she could see through the glare at once. They stepped out the open doorway into a spacious atrium of some kind, like she might’ve seen in a large mall back on Earth. There were several large planter-boxes, though they had only dead gray soil in them now.

At once, Lucky banished any thought that this place had been built by Equestrians. There was no mistaking the even light-panels on the ceiling for anything other than electrical, no mistaking the projected images taking up the center of the room. She couldn’t see a substrate to support the large hologram, yet even so she could make the image out clearly, slightly transparent and with a gentle flicker every few seconds. It was very subtle, almost as though it was only there so she could identify it as artificial. It was a map of the ring.

Three separate doorways led away from the hologram, each one with writing on the airlock-looking metal doors. But Lucky stopped in front of the hologram, watching it as it gently spun. The star was not represented here, and judging from the speed, it wasn’t trying to represent things at scale.

Flurry Heart stopped beside her, staring at the hologram with apparent fascination. “What is it?”

Lucky removed her helmet before answering. “I dunno. Our holograms usually used glass or water as a projection surface. I don’t know how this one works.”

“No.” Flurry Heart pointed, apparently ignoring her human words. “Why does this ring look familiar?”

“Familiar?” Lucky hesitated, remembering how confused Lightning Dust had been. She hadn’t known that Equestria was on a ring, and Lucky still didn’t know how she might react to learning that information. But then again, it was possible the ruling class knew more. “That’s because we’re living on it.”

Most of the ring’s surface was rocky and brown, broken with regular, identical-looking ocean. Like the whole thing was built out of the same pieces repeated over and over. A few sections stood out. One was bright green, a sparkling jewel of life that she could recognize well, even on such a scaled-down version. Equestria, with dark patches corresponding to cities and roads and mountains. There were other interesting parts along the ring as well, but Lucky didn’t get to keep looking at it.

Flurry Heart had said something, and Lucky hadn’t heard. She said it again, annoyed this time. “Equestria is flat,” she said, very loudly. “If it was round, we’d fall off!”

“Yeah?” Lucky pointed at the section that corresponded to Equestria with one wing. It was rotating slowly away from them, and she had to lift into the air, using a hoof instead as she followed it. “Look at this piece, right here.”

Flurry Heart’s horn glowed again, and to Lucky’s surprise the ring moved as though it were made of matter, rotating back around so that the part she was pointing at was at comfortable pony head level. The image zoomed in, the rest of the ring vanishing away out the apparent edges of the projector until the image of Equestria was nearly three meters along each side. This close, the curve of the ring was quite subtle, far more difficult to see compared to the sharp inclines of the mountains on either side.

Flurry Heart stared for a long time, her eyes moving over Equestria’s distinctive features. Lucky knew from her geography classes that the locations of cities and roads and rails on this map were up-to-date. It had greater fidelity than the satellite mapping services back on Earth. If she looked very closely, it almost seemed like she could see motion. Clouds drifting high above the ground for instance, and the cloud-cities built within them. I wonder if they have other satellites than the ones we found. How big would they have to be for us to notice? That was a question for the other team, not for a linguist.

There was writing on the image, which she hadn’t noticed until Flurry Heart zoomed in. It didn’t look like anything in Equestria, obviously—the symbols were completely unrecognizable. Flurry Heart squinted at them. “What do you think it says?”

Lucky shrugged, but she wasn’t the first to answer. There was a pleasant humming sound from nearby, and the ground abruptly lit up. White panels on the floor began to glow, leading away into one of the closed doors.

Flurry Heart looked away from the image, and it began to drift back into its previous configuration, returning to the full image of the rotating ring. “You think somepony lives here?”

“I don’t know,” she answered. “Maybe someone, maybe automated systems. They seem to respond to you, though.” She looked up briefly at Flurry Heart’s horn. “You could just move the projection around?”

“Yeah.” She tilted her head to one side, confused. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“I… have no idea,” Lucky eventually said, before glancing back to the lit-up floor panels. She took one cautious hoof step along the path, and found that the panels got a little brighter when she walked on them. It can sense me too, then. It just doesn’t respond the same way.

“Well, Princess, should we go back out and get some rest? Maybe come back in tomorrow morning?” They didn’t have much in the way of sleeping gear—she didn’t look forward to the princess’s reaction to sleeping on cold, hard ground.

“No,” Heart said, though Lucky could still see a few signs of her exhaustion at the edge of her features. She might be tired, but like Lucky she seemed determined to see what else was in here. “This isn’t anything like a Daring Do adventure. It’s way cooler.” She hurried along behind Lucky, catching up after just a few hoof steps and soon keeping pace beside her.

They reached the door, and it slid open before they got too close, letting them through without resistance. Within was another long hallway, though the ground looked a little different. It didn’t glow anymore—the light had transferred to the wall, a gentle flashing arrow leading them deeper. A few hoof steps forward and the ground began to move—a slow acceleration at first, like an airport conveyer. But after a few seconds, they began to accelerate much faster, enough that Lucky worried about what might happen when they stopped.

The walls on one side of them were blank, identical sections of metal. In front of them was a different story. Past identical supports were occasional sections of window. The space beyond lit up with gigantic spotlights as they got close, as though for their inspection.

“What are those?” Flurry Heart asked, leaning closer to the window. Lucky pulled her back just a little, feeling the wind whipping about her feathers and jacket. This was exactly the sort of thing she’d thought about, when she worried about the unintentional dangers they might encounter here.

Through the glass, Lucky could see what looked like a hangar of spectacular size. It was bigger than the biggest gigafactories back on Earth—large enough to fit their largest spacecraft in its smaller sections. The designs she saw within might not have been familiar to her, but she recognized ships when she saw them. Many had aerodynamic curves and sloping wings, along with transparent sections that might be windows. Some others were constructed in seemingly random ways, with protrusions and extended sections that looked like acceleration in atmosphere might tear them apart. There appeared to be no organization system, other than whatever could get the vehicles packed in as closely as possible. Many were attached to walkways, easily large enough for trucks to drive full of supplies. Others just packed in close to one another on racks. Probes, maybe?

She realized Flurry Heart was staring at her, and she opened her mouth. “Uh, they’re… airships. Really, really fast airships.”

“Oh.” Flurry Heart looked forward again, staring through the glass. “I thought they were small at first, but… they aren’t small. They’re just far away.”

“Yeah,” Lucky answered. She felt their deceleration then—not from the placement of the windows, but from the gradual decrease in the pressure on her wings. Light still flashed on the wall behind them, indicating they were going in the correct direction. A few moments later, and they stopped at the other end of the hall, and all the spotlights went out.

Another door opened, into another large atrium. This one was several levels tall, with attractive glass balconies linked not by bridges, but gaps in the glass railing. There were no stairs, or elevators, or ladders, but there was plenty of space to fly between them. As they stepped inside, a large artificial waterfall began pouring from the wall, slowly filling up a fountain that made an artificial stream through sculpted glass banks.

The glowing trail they were following went straight up one wall, then sideways to the second level of railing. “Guess we have to fly again.”

Flurry Heart nodded, then took off, and this time there was no weakness as she flew herself to the nearest opening on the second floor. Lucky followed close behind her, beginning to feel a little tiredness herself. Maybe we can find the bedrooms whoever built this place left behind. I bet they have some comfortable beds. She wasn’t sure what Olivia would think of the recording she was making of this adventure. Probably she wouldn’t be pleased about a friendship with such an important native, but… that was the least of Lucky’s worries just now. If Lightning Dust doesn’t kill me over this, the Crystal Empire might.

Then another thought, still deeper. How much of this did Princess Twilight know about? Did she just know about the entrance, or… has she been here? There were no signs of other explorers anywhere—no equipment, no tents, no markings on the wall indicating what way they’d come. But then, there wasn’t a great deal of other things Lucky might’ve expected from a facility so empty. There was no dust, no sign of broken equipment, nothing. The numerous planter-boxes were all empty, the water ran clear—whoever had built this place had obviously designed it to last.

There was about twenty more minutes of winding through hallways, walking around with ceilings uncomfortably high over their heads, through more advanced architecture with the occasional airlock door. One thing she didn’t see was any sign of the systems that maintained this place—no drones floated around, no security bots. Apart from the systems they activated as they made their way around, their hoof steps were the only sound.

Eventually, they reached their destination. The trail ended in another door, and when it opened there was no more room to walk inside. Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be much of anything inside.

It was a round room maybe twenty meters across, with a slightly raised platform in the center. The ceiling was unusually high here, but that was all. There were no strange devices, just a slight cut in the floor around the raised platform. That was also where the trail ended.

“Aww.” Flurry Heart glared into the room, ears flattening. “We came all this way for an empty room?”

James supposed taking the prisoner who had attacked her only minutes before out to tour the station wasn’t a good idea.

But after all the reading she’d done—all the reports she’d read sent in by her distant clone, it seemed like exactly the pony thing to do. What better way to show their side wasn’t as bad as their first actions had seemed, than to prove it with a little forgiveness of her own?

Deadlight did not attempt to flee again. He stopped in the hallway more than once, asking her to explain anything remotely interesting.

“That is a power outlet,” she might say. “It can power things if we want to put something here,” or “That’s a fire extinguisher. We keep them in every corridor in case there’s an accident.” She could not explain how a fire extinguisher could be used, given it had no grips for their hooves and none of them were “unicorns.”

Eventually she ran into Martin, who was just returning to her own “lab” with a large tray of food. Martin was the only member of the crew James had trusted with information of her plans, the only one who seemed amicable to the idea of developing a closer relationship with their guest.

“I have enough for three,” she said, the tray balanced in a similar set of gyroscoping claws to those James herself was wearing. “Come on in.”

They did. The large space was closer to a classroom than a lab, but physics and astronomy often took little beyond lots of computer resources, so there was no reason to keep expensive machines in here that wouldn’t be used.

“How many twins are there?” Deadlight asked, once she had introduced Martin by name, and they were sitting around a low table in a corner of the room. As in her clone’s reports, this table had cushions instead of chairs, so ponies could sit on their haunches and rest at a comfortable level for eating. “Martin, Melody… I remember more.”

“There are four of us,” Martin said. “Who’s Melody?” Martin couldn’t pronounce the Equestrian word that well, even if the software had recognized it for a proper noun, and not translated it.

There was still a delay—the translation headset always slowed things down a little. Even so, it appeared the quality had markedly improved. Could it really have learned that much with just a few hours of samples? That kind of improvement made James even more self-conscious than she already was. What was the point of having a linguist if the computer could do her job?

“That’s what he calls me,” she supplied. “It’s easier for him to pronounce.”

Deadlight, meanwhile, seemed hardly interested in his food. It wasn’t as though eating out of his cell would mean better rations—they all ate the same chemically-fabricated nutrient bars until hydroponics could grow its first crop. So far as James knew, that section wasn’t finished yet. Quality of life sections were not Olivia’s construction priority. “Your magic is very interesting,” he said, pointing at the wall. On it, an enlarged image of the system was running in computer simulation.

It showed the star in the center, with the ring uncomfortably close to its surface. The two satellites orbited around that. The Forerunner’s own satellites were visible as well, faint specks by comparison. Only their labels made them visible on the scaled image at all.

“I have heard about moving picture shows in Canterlot—I didn’t know they looked so good.”

Martin laughed. “Moving picture? I guess.” Her eyes widened, apparently sensing an opportunity. “Do you recognize what it’s a picture of, Dead-Light?” Again, she had difficulty with the proper noun.

Deadlight chuckled, apparently amused at her pronunciation. “Astronomy, right?” He ruffled his batlike wings. “I’ve seen more of Luna’s night than you have, dayflyer. Maybe not in such exaggerated proportions, but…”

“Not this time,” James interrupted, stopping what she could tell was coming from Martin. “I’m trying to keep existential dread off the agenda for today.” Let’s see the Forerunner translate that.

She could tell from Deadlight’s confused expression that it hadn’t done a very good job.

Martin opened her mouth to protest, tapped one hoof impatiently, then sighed. “We’ll have to talk about it eventually. We shouldn’t waste a source of useful information. He might be able to answer some questions I’ve been puzzling over.”

Deadlight looked up, his plate almost empty now. If James had learned nothing from taking care of this stallion, it was that he could eat about twice as much as she could. His weight probably accounted for some of that, but not all. “Questions? I love answering questions.” He folded his forelegs in front of him on the table. “Maybe we could trade? Melody doesn’t answer enough of mine.”

“You won’t get better answers from her,” James warned, but she didn’t try to stop him. No point, really.

“Sure.” Martin hadn’t even touched her food. “But I get to go first.” She didn’t wait for his agreement. “How far north has your civilization explored?”

Deadlight had to take a moment to answer that. “We went as far as the Pegasus Expansion Delimiter. Not as far as Nibiru itself, though there are stories of Celestia going there, from a long time ago. There wouldn’t be much to see—most of the interesting things are made by ponies. Since civilization could never build that far, there wouldn’t be anything to discover.”

Martin sat up in her chair, practically bouncing with her next question, but Deadlight didn’t give her the chance. “Why did you ponies leave Equestria? Why not build your city where it was safer?”

“Because…” Martin began. “Because it wouldn’t be safer for us in Equestria. We don’t want to be bothered.”

Deadlight laughed, rising from his seat, and stretching his wings. “Nopony gets to decide not to be bothered, only what bothers them. At least in Equestria it’s only ponies who visit. Out here, you don’t have the treaties protecting you. Maybe it’ll be dragons, maybe minotaurs, maybe griffons… but eventually, someone will notice.”

“We’re underground,” James said. “I think we’ll be safe. We have magic protecting us.” Magic was another word she’d learned to appreciate more by reading her own reports. The natives seemed to use it the same way people on her own world used the word “science.” Many ponies (apparently including this one) just used it like “powerful force we don’t completely understand.”

“Oh. Guess that explains why you don’t have windows.”

Martin glared at both. “I’m not done, Dr. Irwin.” She straightened. “How much do you know about the ring?” she asked, pointing at the large projection on the far wall with her wing. “That ring, I mean.”

Deadlight stared at it for a good several seconds, then shrugged. “Absolutely nothing. I’ve never seen that star before, not even in ancient drawings. And I’ve seen lots of ancient stuff—more than most ponies. Most don’t even want to leave the cities, even though Equestria is perfectly safe.” He took a breath, looking away. “Are you all changelings? Is that why you look like the same pony, because she’s the only one you’ve learned to copy?”

It was their turn to act confused. Both of them shook their heads. Martin with simple bafflement, James with a little more context. Changelings were something her clone had written about, though only briefly. They were a race of shapeshifters that had tried to invade Equestria at least twice. Her clone didn’t think they were still a serious threat, though she hadn’t written why.

“No,” James said, before Martin could answer. “You’re right to think we aren’t what we seem. But we aren’t changelings. We aren’t invaders, either.”

“Unless you mean in a ‘War of the Worlds’ sorta way,” Martin added. “That’s what Olivia seems to want.”

“You aren’t being very helpful,” James grunted, glaring at her. Imperfect translation of a proper noun like that was not very likely to produce mutual understanding between them.

Indeed, Deadlight had taken a step back, retreating from them, his wings spread as though he might be about to take off. A pointless gesture, since the classroom had a low ceiling, and the door would not open for him. But he looked determined all the same. “War,” he repeated. “You came for war?”

“No!” Martin exclaimed, horrified. “That isn’t quite what I…”

James cleared her throat loudly, rising too. “Martin was referencing a work of fiction, Deadlight. Please forgive her, she doesn’t fully realize the consequences of her actions. Apparently, she hasn’t done much diplomacy before.”

Deadlight didn’t come back, but at least he didn’t take off and try to flee. “Then who are you, really? I know you aren’t from Equestria—ponies would never foalnap me like this. But if you were changelings, you would’ve tried to harvest me by now. You aren’t slavers, or why give me such good treatment and pretend like you’re nice?” He sat down, frustrated. “I just can’t figure out what faction you are. The way you talk, like Equestria was so strange and far away…”

“Because it is,” James said. “To us. We’re from really, really far. Further than any pony has ever been.”

“Before,” he corrected. “Somepony must have, since you’re here.”

“Right.” She didn’t clarify. “Besides us. We’re from so far away, that… we don’t expect you to even know where we came from. So far away that the places and things we know have never made it here. But we want to know about you—to get to know Equestria and the ponies living here. We want to be your friends.”

“I knew it!” he exclaimed, the fear gradually replaced by excitement. “You’re from the west, aren’t you? Thousands of miles west, probably. Further?” He rushed back over to the table, reaching behind him with his mouth. But there was nothing there—he wasn’t wearing his saddlebags anymore. “Melody, can I have my things back? I have maps of the Minotaur Dominance, I’d love to know where your home fits.” He gestured all around them with his wings. “It doesn’t surprise me you’d have to be more advanced, or less friendly. You must be invaded all the time. Maybe… maybe you hide? That would explain building underground. That’s how the diamond dogs do it.”

The door whirred as it opened. James winced as she imagined the worst possible case—and wasn’t the least bit disappointed. Major Fischer was standing in the open doorway, flanked by a security drone. She wore a thin armored suit, suggesting she’d been out in her Hephaestus. At least she hadn’t drawn her gun.

“Would someone like to explain to me what the prisoner is doing outside his cell?”

G5.05: Blood and Ink

This was not the first time Lucky Break had felt this way. Her world stretched and reticulated, an endless slow-motion explosion of pain in every tissue of her body. She felt the pressure of a thousand eyes on her, as uncomprehending of her nature as she was of theirs. Thought things that made no sense to her after, and which she would not remember. Saw, for only an instant, something that scared her even more than that.

Then she woke up. Fire in her lungs, limbs spasming and convulsing as she shot suddenly into a sitting position. Not a hospital room around her this time, but she was in bed. The blankets were her sleeping bag, the pillow her saddlebags empty of most of her gear. Every one of her possessions was, in fact, strewn about on the ground beside her.

Her collapsible guitar had a place of prominence, though it was not open. Her now-scanned book lay on the ground—she brought it with her mostly because she didn’t want it discovered by the natives in case the worst were to happen. Lots of empty food wrappers. Actually, from the size of the pile, it looked like all the food they had both brought up here.

In theory, it was possible to eat grass, or to fly a whole day on an empty stomach. In practice, Lucky felt like her stomach might eat itself if she didn’t give it something soon, and there was very little around to eat.

She was resting on the floor, in a different room. This one was larger, with what might’ve been bunks or counters along its length. An even, harsh light illuminated everything from above. On the other side of the room, she heard water gently bubbling.

“P-Princess… are you here, somewhere?”

Movement from the other end of the room, hooves galloping. Flurry Heart stepped into view, levitating the tablet along beside her. It was still open to the map even now, though it displayed a very different section of Equestria than this one. I removed all the lockouts. Flurry Heart could’ve done whatever she wanted.

Well, anything the local device could understand. Apparently, she hadn’t managed to exit the navigation app.

“I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t wake,” the princess said, feigning dignity. “Are you alright?” She sounded a little guilty, but there was no immediate sign why that might be the case.

“I… I will be,” Lucky said. “I’ve been through… I’ve felt that before. I don’t think it burned me this time.” She looked down, confirming for a moment what she already felt. She was sore all over, but that was it. Last time, she had been missing whole sections of her coat, in the moment she got her cutie mark.

The princess sat down beside her, though of course that still meant she was taller. Not just because she was a little older, either. “I thought it might be a trap at first—you were helpless, somepony could come along and collect you. But I got you away from there, and nopony came. At least I don’t think they did.”

The door to their section was closed, so Lucky couldn’t guess at what the environment outside might look like. “I don’t think it was an attack,” Lucky said, and no more. She couldn’t go into detail without explaining her cutie mark experience. That was apparently not the way things normally worked. It might give the princess insight that would lead her even sooner to the conclusion that she was an alien.

She didn’t complain about what the princess had done—not aloud, anyway. The princess would be used to being able to do things like that. She had to pick her battles. “How long was I out?”

The princess hesitated again. “I don’t know,” she said. “No sky, no stars… It feels like a long time, though. We’re out of food.” She looked away, blushing. “I tried to go slow, but I ran out a few hours ago. Gave you water—there’s water down here. You drank it, but you wouldn’t eat.”

Maybe that explained her guilt. Lucky stretched each one of her legs in turn, moving each one in every way she knew. Aside from the persistent soreness, which might very well have been inflicted by her sitting around and not moving for all this time, she felt alright. I need to fly for a bit. Get my blood moving.

She crawled out of the sleeping bag, getting shakily to her hooves. Before she could say anything else, she heard the princess again.

More guilt. “T-that’s the other thing, Lucky. I don’t want to frighten you, but it… it’s changed.”

Lucky followed the princess’s eyes to her flank. For one moment—however brief—she imagined that maybe her Sleeving had been put right. Maybe the communication system had noticed the error and corrected it. But no, she would’ve felt that, maybe even heard it in her voice. The change was to her cutie mark.

It was completely different. The guitar was gone, replaced by a scroll. From a glance, it didn’t look like there were real words on it. Just scribbles, to suggest language. But as she looked closer, she realized it was a single sentence, in a language she had only seen on one occasion.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this happening,” the princess went on. “Well, except as curses. There was this one time my aunts Celestia and Luna…”

Lucky wasn’t listening to what had happened one time to the princess’s aunts. She twisted around, so she could look more closely at her flank. Being a pony had its advantages in that way. She found the same thing she had seen before—at first, the scroll just looked like it had lines. Only with an intense stare could she see that she was looking at densely packed words, stylized the same way the Shahada was often artistically rendered.

In an alien language.

That she could read.

“Understanding brings peace,” it said, in the same language printed all over the walls.

“…but I don’t think that happened here, unless the pony you switched with is somewhere else. I’m very sorry you lost your special talent, Lucky. I just know it wanted me to climb up onto that platform. I’m the princess here… I’m supposed to protect all the little ponies. That’s what my mom always says.”

Lucky straightened and looked up. Then she laughed, embracing the princess as she did so. It was quite improper—she never would’ve dreamed of touching her like that the night she’d met her. But now she found she no longer cared about propriety. “This is no one’s fault but my own, Princess.”

The princess didn’t pull away, or stiffen uncomfortably. She only looked confused. “No, it isn’t! Equestria’s princesses watch over the ponies who can’t protect themselves! Dangerous magic attacked you, but you’re just a pegasus. If I’d been there, I could’ve blocked it.”

Lucky let go. “It wasn’t an attack, Princess. I know that now.” She pointed at the wall, with her wing, at the line of artistic letters. Well, not letters exactly. The language didn’t use an alphabet. “Can you read that?”

The princess shook her head. “You’re the explorer, Lucky. If you don’t know it, how would I?”

She beamed. “It says ‘Surgical Recovery Wing Pegasus-Sugar-2.’”

Flurry Heart didn’t seem moved. “What… does that mean?”

She had spoken in Eoch of course, or as close as she could. The ponies didn’t have the same conception of surgery this word implied. Which somehow, she knew. This wasn’t a mapping of terms, as students in secondary school did to learn whichever of the two universal languages they didn’t speak. It was as a native might learn—natural correspondence between concepts. She might’ve had a hard time explaining it to anypony else, since it wasn’t a matter of internal translation like Eoch had been at first.

“I have no idea,” she eventually said. “Not that, anyway. But it means I can read things! I can…” Her stomach rumbled. “The hallways have direction signs.” She turned, flying back to her things, and shoving everything up awkwardly into her saddlebags. She left the trash right where it was—somehow, she doubted the owners of this place would care much.

“We can leave?” Flurry Heart asked, eyes widening. “I tried to use your magical map, but it didn’t do what I wanted. It kept showing me Equestria. I didn’t want to see Equestria, I wanted to see the way out! In case… something bad happened, and I had to leave.”

Flurry Heart’s things hadn’t been dumped all over the floor as Lucky’s had been. If she had slept, she’d packed up her blankets after using them.

“I wouldn’t need to understand their language for us to leave.” Though this place would have to let us, she privately added. There was no reason to worry the princess, though. It doesn’t make sense to leave such a nice base like this empty.

But that was an uninformed opinion. At least as far as she could tell, being able to read the language did not mean any further understanding of the builders. Languages did convey subtle clues about those who spoke them. How many colors they had, how they reckoned direction and familiarity and courtesy. But all that would require more time, and maybe someone she could talk to.

Flurry Heart secured her own saddlebags on her back at the same moment Lucky did. The princess had a much easier time of it of course, as she had an easier time with everything. “Dad is gonna be over the moon. Mom might just banish me there. We weren’t supposed to be gone this long.”

Lucky winced as she considered the implications of a missing princess. She could’ve let herself get consumed with worry over it, at the trouble she had certainly caused herself. But she banished those worries, letting them get washed away in the excitement she felt. She was in an alien base, certainly not built by the Equestrians, and she could read everything written in it.

First, she was going to find something to eat. Then she would find a library.

As it turned out, the first was much easier to find than the second. Lucky learned as soon as she stepped outside that they were in a hospital, or at least the equivalent of one. Being able to read the walls granted new insight—the installation appeared to be constructed a bit like an ant colony in that increasingly granular sections branched from thicker ones, and contained any of the rooms related to their function. One could always find their way back to more general sections by monitoring the width of the passages they were in.

They didn’t have to leave the medical area to find something like an eating area—another circular room, though there were no tables or chairs. Only a large bit of pristine machinery in the very center, like a centrifuge with numerous colored tubes flowing into it.

“I hope this isn’t another trap,” Flurry Heart said, keeping her distance from the machine.

“It’s not,” Lucky said, marching straight up to it. As she got close, the lights came on all around it, illuminating the room and each of the different colored tubes flowing into it. “Realistically it’s not a good idea for us to eat anything from here. But I guess we ran out while I was unconscious? If I try to fly back now, I’ll fall out of the sky.”

Plus, she was thinking of returning less and less now that the mysteries of the base were opening to her. If she left now, she might never be able to return! Even with the Alicorn barrier removed—if she’d caused incident in the Crystal Empire, she’d have to run away. Olivia would certainly send explorers now that Lucky could confirm this place was indeed an accessible section of the ring’s infrastructure. But when those explorers came, they would be as clueless as Lucky herself had been upon first entering.

“Food comes out of that?”

Lucky stopped in front of it, and was only a tiny bit startled to see the projection appear in the air above it. In one corner it showed a tiny image of her own body, while the rest was clearly a user interface of some kind. It showed several different food items “selected for optimal pegasus nutrition.”

It was almost like the food kiosks on Earth, right down to scrolling through different dishes with a touch interface. Except no one on Earth knows how to make a hologram like this.

She selected a full-looking salad, pressed “prepare”, then stepped back. Fluids gushed through the transparent pipes, the machine whirred and spun, then chimed, and the side retracted. She smelled it the same second she saw it—fresh vegetables, thick greens. Everything a hungry pegasus needed. There was even a little tray and a plate, made of something like formed cardboard. No utensils, though.

Lucky snatched the food with both wings, as though the machine might change its mind if she waited a moment too long.

“You found a magic salad?” Flurry Heart asked, staring. She was still staring when Lucky Break took the first bite. “Is it going to put your cutie mark back? Give you visions of the future? Help you see changelings?”

It was an enormous test of concentration to think of what Flurry Heart was saying at the same time she was eating. “Optimal pegasus nutrition” apparently also meant optimal taste. It was as satisfying as eating a human food bar while still human. Well, it was like eating a human food bar without the constant, unnatural aftertaste of chemistry.

She pushed the plate towards Flurry Heart, though she’d eaten half of it in just under twenty seconds. “I don’t think it’s magic. But it is good.”

“Felt like magic to me,” Heart said, but she levitated the plate up towards her mouth anyway, taking a tentative bite. Her eyes widened, and she squealed. “Oh, that kinda magic!” She set the plate down, turning towards the machine. “I want one.”

“You saw how I did it?”

Flurry Heart nodded and hurried up to the machine. Lucky watched as she finished her first plate. The writing was different, and the selection of food it offered to Flurry Heart was different. But Lucky was too far away to read it, and too relieved to finally have something to eat to care.

Flurry Heart sat down a few moments later with an identical tray, though instead of a salad hers had a towering multi-layer cake, so large it had barely fit in the machine.

“I thought Princess Celestia was the one with the sweet tooth,” Lucky muttered, licking the last of the salty dressing from her lips.

“I got it to share,” Heart said, sticking her tongue out. “Do you want some or not?”

Lucky did. She probably could’ve got her own, even if she hadn’t seen anything quite like what the princess was eating offered when she’d been there. Besides, like meal bars, it seemed one plate was enough for her to feel mostly full, despite how hungry she’d been before.

As she shared the strange cake, she found the disappearance of her most immediate needs let her think clearly again.

First, she checked her tablet’s calendar. A quick glance told her it was early afternoon two days later.

That explains how you went through all our food. It also meant that Lightning Dust had or very soon would be arriving at home. It meant a princess of Equestria had been gone for two days without a trace.

“Princess, what would your parents think if you were gone for two days? Do you have an excuse to stay gone that long?”

Flurry Heart dropped the spoon, shaking her head vigorously. She spoke with her mouth full. “I’ve ran off for a day or two before. But they can always track me down. Out here… I didn’t tell anypony where I was going, exactly. We were supposed to be back in half that time!”

“Yeah,” She sighed. “We were.” They could leave now. Lucky could order something else, pack it away in her bags for the journey, then turn back towards the Crystal Empire. Then again, they might miss Lightning Dust flying back. They wouldn’t be taking the same path. If Lightning Dust got here, she might wander this base forever.

But if I go, I might not ever come back. Lightning Dust would be furious—rightly so. Going out here alone was one thing, but bringing down the wrath of Equestria on them? What would happen when Flurry Heart came home, and told her parents about this?

“Would it be… much worse if we were gone for a few hours longer?”

“You think there’s more in here to find? More than this?” She pointed at the cake, then at Lucky’s different cutie mark.

“Yeah,” Lucky answered. “I think there’s lots more.” They’d seen a hangar before, with tons of ships and probes docked inside. Exploring that would be interesting, but it wasn’t what she cared about just now. “The first room we went inside, the one with the big map?” She didn’t wait for Flurry Heart’s nod. “I think it was a directory. Of this whole… ruin. I think it would be a shame to come out all this way and not bring back some ancient knowledge, or some cool artifact. We need to find some proof we were here!”

Lucky felt a little guilty—guilty that she was manipulating the princess, guilty that she might make Lightning Dust even more worried about her. But it’s probably safer to let her find us here than it would be to fly back and let her get stuck.

Given how fast her mom could fly, she could probably make the flight in three or four hours. Maybe less, though it was hard to say how long a pegasus could sustain the absurd speeds her mom could achieve when she was really trying. Probably not for twenty-eight kilometers.

“You’re right,” Flurry Heart said, rising to her hooves. She hadn’t finished her cake. “We found a magic spell to read the words. We found a magic food room. But we can’t bring either of those back with us. I need something cool, so Mom and Dad won’t be mad at me. Something that proves it was worth it. Where would we find something like that?”

“Let’s find out.”

It was soon back to wandering. The first thing Lucky did was head straight back to the entrance. There was no sign that anypony else had been there—the fountain only came back on as they approached.

“I thought we weren’t leaving,” Heart muttered, a little disappointed.

“Yeah,” Lucky agreed. “We aren’t. But I want to leave a note, in case someone comes in to rescue us. Since… I can read the signs, but they can’t. They might get lost in here and never find their way out. We have no idea how big this place is.”

“Oh.” Flurry Heart nodded, sitting down to wait. “That makes sense.”

Lucky opened her book, tearing out one of the blank pages in the back and quickly scribbling something with her pencil.

“We’re here, we’re safe. Coming back soon. Brought a map, won’t get lost. But this place is so big, you will. Please wait here for us to come back. We’ll be as quick as we can.”

Lucky removed a stone from one of the empty planter-boxes and used it to weigh down the note so that it was on the ground, directly visible to anypony entering the room from outside. I’m sorry, Lightning Dust, but this is bigger than me. We need to know who built this thing, and why. If I leave now, I might never get to come back. But she didn’t write that part, couldn’t with Flurry Heart looking over her shoulder the whole time.

Her note finally complete, Lucky turned back to the holographic map. It seemed to show the whole ring, though of course only a small part of it was interesting to her just now. “Can you zoom in on Equestria again, Princess, like you did before?”

She did, apparently without effort. “Now, can you move up? It looks like this place is labeled, right up there where the snow starts.”

The image scaled again, this time filling with the image of the massive opening, as though there were no snow or ice covering it.

Lucky now knew why the detailed map of lands north of the Crystal Empire showed a wide flat plain “suitable for a hoofball field.” The station was massive—several kilometers long, and appeared to stretch almost as far as the Crystal Empire itself. It did not go much further north.

Zoomed in, Lucky could read the label “Transit Equus Zero Violet Zero.”

“Good. Now… try to zoom in on where we are right now.” Lucky tapped their location on the map with one wing. Unlike the food projection, it didn’t respond to her touch. I wonder if the ones who built this place use organs like unicorn horns. It would make sense to give their creations the same senses they had. But why make some species better than others?

Alicorns at least were objectively better than the others. Why not make a whole species that way?

“Like this?” Flurry Heart asked. The image zoomed in, and just like Lucky was hoping, was replaced with a detailed map of snaking tunnels. At a glance, it seemed only a small portion of the facility was even accessible. Most of its rooms didn’t even seem connected to the walkways, and were linked only by “Mass Shunts.”

“This looks interesting,” she said, leaning in close to squint at one of the labels. She read it aloud—not in Eoch, but whatever the alien language called “Datamine Transit Zero Violet Zero.”

The map flashed, returning to its previous configuration, startling the princess so much she nearly fell over. Then the floor lit up, exactly as it had before, drawing a pulsating pattern down a different hallway than they’d used last time. “Oh… I see. I guess that’s a good way to get around.” She hurried off a few steps, grinning back at Flurry Heart. “C’mon! I think it’s showing us where to go!”

Flurry Heart did, though her expression had gone suddenly quiet, solemn. They had to do a little flying, a lot of walking, and all the while Flurry Heart was silent. If Lucky had been reading the map right, they had suggested a destination far closer than the last one.

“What did you say before?” the princess asked, entirely unbidden. “When you were reading the map. What language was that? It wasn’t like the one you spoke before.”

Lucky shrugged one shoulder. “I dunno what it’s called. This place… Transit Equus Zero Violet Zero...” She used the new language again. Her mind didn’t want to cooperate—she couldn’t converse in it. But she could read written text aloud. Maybe even compose her own, though she hadn’t tried yet. “It’s the language its builders used. At least I think it is? I don’t know why you’d make a place like this and not use your own language.”

“I’ve, uh… I’ve heard my mom sound like that. When she’s talking to Aunt Celestia, or Twilight. She always said that only Alicorns were supposed to know it. It’s… special?” She frowned, stomping one hoof. “That’s not the right word.”

“Sacred?” Lucky suggested.

“Yeah! Nopony is supposed to know it. It’s sacred.”

Lucky whined. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know it was bad!”

Flurry Heart stopped walking.“It wasn’t your fault, just don’t do it again.”

“I’ll remember,” Lucky said, though she hardly felt any better as she said it. How am I supposed to go without using the language of the station we’re walking around in? Words in that language were very literally written on her body now. If they were really that significant, and one of the princesses even saw her. Which they will, if Flurry Heart tells them about you.

When this is over, I’m gonna have to stay out of Equestria for a while. Lightning Dust said Celestia would be able to find me anywhere. Somehow, she doubted that reach would extend beyond her national borders. What are they calling that new city?

They had arrived—like many of the rooms in this place, its name was written right next to the entrance: “Datamine Transit Zero Violet Zero.” The path of light ended at the door, which slowly slid open as they approached.

It didn’t look like what she had hoped. A “Datamine” made her think of books, computers, something! But there were only chairs in two even rows, a wide glass window on the front that prudently displayed… dark rock and nothing else.

“I don’t see any magic in here,” Flurry Heart said.

Lucky hurried into the room, searching it for any sign of whatever a “Datamine” was. There was a single flat piece of glass near the front window, maybe that was a screen? “There must be something,” she said. “Maybe it’s hidden?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea!” Flurry Heart stepped inside, and the door shut behind her. There was no reason to panic about this—doors had been doing that every time they approached them. Lucky still hadn’t figured out why so much of this base had airlocks.

Flurry Heart started ripping up seats, as though whatever they were looking for might be hiding under a cushion. As she approached it, the little glass panel lit up, projecting an image in the air at the front of the room. “Please recline. Acceleration in 25 seconds.”

“Uh… Princess?” Lucky hurried over to the back of the room, climbing into the next seat so Flurry Heart couldn’t rip it away. As she did so, the cushion sunk around her body, molding itself around her. She could feel fluid just under the strange fabric.

“It’s a trap!” Flurry Heart’s horn lit up, and she glared at the seat Lucky was in. It ripped out of the wall right along with Lucky herself. No sooner was it disconnected than it released her, the cool fluid and molding gone.

One glance up at the front told her the time had changed. They had fifteen seconds. “It isn’t a trap!” she called, yanking Flurry Heart along with all the strength she had. The princess was so taken aback she didn’t resist, as Lucky tugged her to the undamaged first row of seats. “Sit down, Princess! Right now!”

Five seconds.

Lucky sat down again, and was unsurprised when this seat grabbed her, straightening a little as it embraced every part of her body. Even the saddlebags. “Princess, you have to trust me. It says we need to sit down.”

For a second, it looked like the Alicorn might keep arguing. Then she shrugged, hopping into the seat beside Lucky, looking skeptical. “Alright Lucky. But if you’re doing this just to make the story more—”

The words were strangled in her throat as the room blasted forward. Half a dozen orphan chairs smashed into the back of the room, and she became suddenly grateful that she wasn’t sitting back there. These chairs didn’t look light.

The world turned gray, faded from the edges of her vision as Lucky was pressed into the seat. She could still make out the suggestion of words where the launch warning had been. “Patience suggested during acceleration. Current rate: 4.35 g.”

“Gravitational acceleration warning,” her helmet said, in an even English voice. “The Pioneering Society recommends no more than 30 m/s2 acceleration for sustained periods. Please reduce acceleration or risk injury.”

A little late for that. Lucky had felt forced like this during her aerial maneuvers, though only for a split second at a time. This kept going, kept going until she could barely see at all, couldn’t read the suggestion that they should remain in their seats.

She wasn’t sure how long she stayed there. She couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of their vehicle, rumbling along towards… something.

A pleasant chime filled the room, almost like the one that had sounded when her food was ready. The force pressing her into her seat gradually leveled out. The seat stopped holding her, and her body was finally able to relax.

Outside was a blur of motion—dark tunnels with an occasional flash of light overhead. She felt the occasional stutter of their little vehicle as they moved forward through the dark, about as much as she might’ve felt on a maglev back home.

“We stopped?” Flurry Heart asked, glancing towards the back of the room. The chairs had been held against the back wall as they accelerated, but now they lay on the floor in a pile.

“No,” Lucky said, making her way towards the front of the room, looking out at the blurring passages beyond. She couldn’t even guess at how fast they might be moving. The screen didn’t tell her, though it did say “Two hours until arrival at central Datamine.”

“We’re moving really, really fast.” She pointed out the window again. “I don’t know where we’re going, but it must be far away.”

“Faster than a flying carriage? Faster than a train?”

“Yeah.” Lucky grinned despite herself. “I think it’s a little faster than a train.”

“But… where are we going? We can’t still be inside the temple, right?”

Lucky sighed, sitting down on her haunches again. She would have to be attentive for any sounds, particularly as the time started to run out. She wouldn’t want to be out of her seat while this thing decelerated. “I think it’s time for me to explain something to you, Flurry Heart. About Equestria.”

“I already saw it wasn’t flat,” Flurry Heart said. “I’ve heard ponies say that before. Aunt Twilight… she said that. But I didn’t know what it meant until I looked at the map.”

Lucky tapped the screen a few times, bringing up the satellite render that someone named Martin had sent to her. “I have a map just like that—see?” She held it up.

Flurry Heart nodded. “Okay. So what? Does it matter that Equestria isn’t flat?”

Lucky took a breath, looking away from the princess. She wasn’t sure how the pony would react to this. This whole adventure is probably going way above my head. Real explorers should be doing this. But Lucky had learned their language! She’d navigated them this far safely, and now they were apparently headed for the “Datamine.”

“Someone built it. Equus, I mean. The reason I’m doing all this exploring is to try to find them. Who they were, why they put it here. I’m hoping we can find those answers.”

“I thought Celestia made it.”

Lucky shook her head. “There are stories about life before Celestia, remember? The whole Hearth’s Warming Eve thing? Clover the Clever, Puddinghead…”

“Oh.” Pause. “Must’ve been another princess before her. They move the sun and moon around. They could probably make rings too.”

Lucky was still looking away. Adventure had made her a little closer to the princess, eroded some of the barrier of courtesy between them. But how much could she get away with? Not violating their religion, apparently. And so much of how they acted around royalty seemed like religion.

“Do you feel like you could make a ring, Princess?”

Flurry Heart glared at a random spot, horn glowing. Then she stuck her tongue out, folding her forelegs together. “N-no.”

“Yeah.” Lucky sighed. “Whoever they were, they were powerful. Powerful enough to build the whole world you live on. Before coming here, the biggest space station I ever saw was four kilometers. Atlantis Platform. They had to tear up whole asteroids just to…” She trailed off, realizing that what she was saying both made no sense and shouldn’t be said around the princess.

“S-sorry. I just hope we can find the answers out here. Do you think the other princesses would want them?”

Pause. Flurry Heart didn’t answer for several minutes. Eventually she said, “Aunt Twilight would. She’s always trying to learn new things. The rest… probably not. Mom would love the food magic, though. We should try to bring that back.”

G6.3850: Mission Complete

As it turned out, they didn’t have their meeting right away. Though her powerplay had stopped the Major from sending her mother away, it couldn’t make her willing to discuss private security matters with her in the hovercraft. While Lucky went off with the Major and her goons, James was tasked with supervising Othar’s newest resident.

James walked even more carefully through the halls of Othar than usual. She was in the company of another native, one without a house-arrest band that might incapacitate her if anything happened. Deadlight had looked quite peaceful, and he’d attacked. This pony looked like she might be about to attack at a moment’s notice. If she did, James didn’t want to be anywhere near.

She had given the native a headset, exactly like Deadlight’s, except that the software had improved a little. She was speaking in slow, deliberate sentences, explaining everything as they went. Unlike Deadlight, who brimmed with curiosity, this mare remained silent, with only judgement in her eyes.

“And this is medical,” James continued, waving one hoof in front of the sensor. The doors opened. “We’re just coming in here for a checkup, and for your IFF.”

Medical had expanded significantly since Othar had been founded, and was now twice as large as the cafeteria. Almost as large as a proper clinic, though of course it was human-sized and missing all its doctors.

Well, except for the automated. As they came in, a slab of glass about human height lit up with the holographic projection of a friendly-looking nurse in an official uniform. “Welcome to medical,” she said, in a cheerful voice. “All our doctors are out on call right now, but I’d be happy to assist with any basic medical needs you may have.” A pause, then a brief flash of green light from the ground all around them as the sensors looked them over.

Lightning Dust jumped as she saw it, lifting into the air and glaring down at the ground. Wind rose from around her, as though her distress might spawn a tiny storm. “What was that?” her translator said for her, in a slightly robotic voice. “Where did it come from? What kind of creature was it? Will it hurt us?”

“No.” James didn’t reach for her, but she did try to look as confident as possible. “They’re magic.” She used the Eoch word, which she’d learned from many reports was a catch-all for anything a pony couldn’t understand. At least, that was what she thought. “We don’t have very many people yet, so we use magic for most things until they get here.”

Lightning Dust glared at the transparent nurse. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sorry to say one of you has an infection. However, I am unable to provide treatment to any individual without an IFF implant. Please step backward to the surgical area to receive your implant.”

“Yeah. We will, thank you.”

Lightning Dust blinked, staring at the piece of glass. She landed, walked over to it, and poked it with a hoof. “It’s flat.”

“Yeah,” James agreed. “It’s just to make people who come here feel more comfortable.”

“Why would that thing make people feel comfortable? It’s like… a sickly minotaur playing dressup. It must have some tiny hooves to fit in those shoes.” Her eyes narrowed as she stared at it. “And those paws are so delicate. I bet they’d get mangled by doing absolutely anything. Is that how it makes ponies feel good, by making them feel sorry for it?”

James giggled, but then she stopped abruptly, eyes widening. “Wait a minute. Lucky never showed you pictures of these before?”

“No,” the native said, through her translator. “She tried showing me things at first, but most of it was boring. Why would she want me to see this?”

“Because that’s what our species looked like,” James answered. “When we were back home, I mean. All of us looked like that.”

Lightning Dust started, glancing between the virtual nurse and James several times, as though searching for a resemblance. “Are you sure? We have old myths about looking different too, a long time ago. That doesn’t make it true.”

“I’m sure.” James walked slowly around the glass panel, until she found the little cable-connector plugged into the projector at the base. She bent down with her mouth and yanked it out, and the image vanished. Of course, there were dozens of others, one in almost every area of the room where a person might be. But she could show that this one at least wasn’t harmful. “But we can’t get distracted talking about this right now. We have to get your implant.”

“Sure, sure,” Lightning Dust said. It was hard to tell for certain, but it seemed she was being sarcastic. It would’ve been easier to read her if James could understand more of her words. “Lots of ponies aren’t comfortable talking about their religion, I understand.”

James kept walking past Dust, past several of the tiny waiting areas separated with glass that would go opaque for patient privacy when anyone was inside. But there was no one inside, not even Dorothy. Their resident biologist had been the one to insist on many of these upgrades, since the Forerunner was more than qualified to do anything she had been trained to do. If anything, it was better. And for the sorts of things the Forerunner couldn’t do… well, she couldn’t do those either, so it was no big deal.

The lights on the doorway of the surgical section had come on, blinking red and green to help guide them. “The doctor just said you were sick,” James said as they walked. “Do you feel ill?”

Lightning Dust shook her head vigorously. “No. I’m not sick, and I don’t want to see a doctor. I only want Lucky back.”

“You’ll get her back,” James promised, though she didn’t slow down. She hoped that by continuing Dust would follow, and she did. “But even if you don’t want to see the doctor, you need an IFF.”

“What’s an…” The translator choked on whatever Dust had said.

They stepped into the surgical area. Dust didn’t go further than the doorway, and James could understand why. There were four surgical stations, each one polished stainless steel with robotic arms extending from the ceiling. Each had an operating station for the doctor, should there be one. The age of doctors who cut patients with their own hands was long over.

The first surgical area was lit, and James stepped inside, a little closer to the complicated robotic arm. It had a dozen little appendages, all covered to keep them sterile while not in use. If Dust could’ve seen all the cutting tools, the drills and stuff, she probably would not have been reassured.

“What is…?” she asked again. “And what is that?”

James turned to face her, standing right beside the machine. “An IFF is… like a spell. We put it into one of your legs, and it tells all the magic in Othar to work for you.” And once you have one, the drones will see you as a citizen and won’t kill you if you try to fly away. But she didn’t say that part. Somehow, she doubted Dust would take the news of lethal force any better than Deadlight had.

“I won’t,” she said. “I want to talk to Lucky.”

“As soon as she gets out of her meeting,” James promised for the hundredth time. “We’ll get a call, and I’ll tell you. But if you don’t get this now…” How could she explain? “There is another pony here from Equestria. The major told the Forerunner not to allow him to get an IFF. Because of that, he’s like a prisoner here. He can’t even open the doors without someone’s help. Remember how every time we get to one, I hold up my leg? If you don’t get it right now, the major might say you can’t, and then you’ll be like him.”

Lightning Dust only stood there, though her expression softened a little. More confused than afraid.

James went on. “Once you get it, the magic that protects us will protect you too.” She hesitated. “I don’t know you, Lightning Dust. But I know my clone cares about you very much. She wants you to get this, so the major can’t take advantage of you.” She gestured. “Once you’re in the system, only the Forerunner itself can revoke your permissions. Please, we might not get this chance if you wait. I don’t know how that meeting is gonna go.”

Of course, being one of the Forerunner’s segments wasn’t always a good thing. There was a soldier with a missing leg who’d nearly been chopped to pieces because the Forerunner didn’t think she would be able to accomplish her mission.

In theory, once someone was alive and independent they were free from such dangers. In practice, well… there was no way to know what the Forerunner would do until it wanted to kill one of them. James hoped that never happened.

“Fine.” Lightning Dust stepped forward into the surgical area. “I’ll do this… whatever it is. If that’s what Lucky wants.”

“It is,” James said. “Very much. I’m quite sure of it.” She had explicit instructions, whispered while Olivia had been gathering up her other soldiers for the security meeting. But even without the instructions, James would’ve known it was what her clone wanted. It was what she would’ve done, if she had been close to a native. It had been exactly what she tried to do with Deadlight. Unfortunately, that hadn’t worked out.

The nurse appeared in a glass display near the wall. “Please climb up onto the operating table and extend your right arm. The procedure will take approximately five minutes.”

Lightning Dust didn’t struggle when the surgical arm took hold of her right foreleg. She didn’t scream as the nitrogen needle blasted her fur away, opened her skin, and slipped the implant in. As far as surgeries went it was about as painless as they came. Less than five minutes, and the surgical arm retracted, folding up against the ceiling just as the others were.

“Thank you,” said the nurse from the screen. “Please be gentle with that part of your arm from now on, as sufficient force might dislodge the implant and require surgical reattachment. Don’t forget to stop at the pharmacy for your medication.” The screen went dark, the nurse vanished.

Lightning Dust remained frozen where she sat, as though she expected the arm to attack her if she tried to leave. It didn’t of course, and James gestured.

It’s not a foolproof plan. If the meeting goes bad, the major could try to convince the Forerunner to revoke Dust’s ident. The chances of that were small, at least she thought so. The Forerunner would see the social value of a cooperative native, she was sure of it. And not just for the genetic samples I know it took during the examination.

Lucky said she’d gathered a good few dozen, though she hadn’t explained what form they were in. Tragically, they’d been left behind in Equestria along with all her other possessions.

“When does it start?” Lightning Dust asked. “That was the drug, yes? When will it…”

“Oh, you’re done.” James stepped out of the booth, gesturing with a wing for Dust to follow. “We do have to get you some pills though. But that’s it.”

“Oh.” Lightning Dust hopped down off the operating table so fast it inclined slightly to the side, springs squealing in protest. “I expected worse. Lucky had surgery in her time, yes? I’ve seen images of her insides. Strange bones.”

“You don’t need that.” James led the way over to the pharmacy. “You’re too old, anyway. Those have to go in while you’re young.” James didn’t want to explain the way the composite grew around the bones as you got older. She couldn’t have explained it in scientific detail. It was well beyond her experience.

“Now, stick your leg right here.” The pharmacy was just a large machine set into the wall, with an opening shielded with a plastic cover. Dust stuck her leg up to the required place, and there was a rattling sound from within. An off-orange bottle slid down into the opening. Dust had to jump into the air to reach it—it was placed higher than children would’ve been able to grab, which meant it was out of reach for ponies as well.

“And we’re done!” James turned for the door. “Keep those with you. Lucky can help you take them, if you want. You probably should—if the computer thinks you’re sick it’s probably right. But she can explain that. I don’t think the computer translates as well as she does.”

Dust’s look of confusion was all the confirmation she needed. Lightning Dust had a new pair of saddlebags, and she tossed the bottle in there, though she didn’t seem like she intended to take them.

“Now, that other pony I mentioned, I think you should meet him. He’s probably eager for company who can understand him.” They walked down the central hallway, down a new set of stairs into the lower section, through another blast door. James showed Lightning Dust how to work the doors, waiting for her to hold up her leg so they would open. Now you can escape without help, if it comes to that. Even if she didn’t understand everything James was showing her, she’d understand that.

“I told Lucky to meet us here when her meeting’s over,” James continued. “She doesn’t know Othar yet, but I’m sure she’ll find it.” Just past the commissary was the library, which would also function as a classroom if they needed one. No paper books of course, but plenty of computers with huge “disability friendly” inputs they could use their hooves on. Dozens of civilian computation surfaces to be checked out, and comfortable lounging areas.

It was quite a nice little room, decorated with faux-wood panels and warm lights. Even a simulated fireplace against one wall. James would’ve wanted to send her compliments to the architect if they were still alive.

“How could Lucky not know?” Dust asked, confused. “This is her home.”

“We didn’t have a home until now,” James answered. “Lucky was the first one. She lived alone in Landfall… a whole base about the size of this room.”

“She wasn’t first,” Dust argued, still standing in the open library door. “You’re older. Everypony is. Except the one.” Her eyes narrowed. “Is this…” A few words that didn’t translate. “Starlight Glimmer? Commune? Did somepony take your cutie marks away?”

“No!” James exclaimed. She wasn’t sure what Dust had said, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t the right idea. “No. We just didn’t know how to…” How much did Dust need to know? Should she bring her to the Biofab tanks and let her see ponies half grown?

No.

Only one pony was inside the library, the same one who spent most of his time here. Deadlight sat in the same place James did when she read, surrounded by all of James’s tablets. Half a dozen of them, each one with different linguistics titles. It had only arrived a few days earlier, and it seemed the bat had read more of it than James had.

He was so engrossed in his reading he hadn’t noticed them enter, not until the door slid shut behind them and James approached. “Deadlight, I have someone with me you should meet.” she nudged his shoulder with a wing. “Deadlight, can you talk?”

The pony looked up. His eyes lingered on her for a little longer than she thought was necessary. She blushed, looking away.

“Melody.” He set down the book, then reached over and put on the headset. “Another scientist? What does this one study?”

“Nothing,” Lightning Dust answered before the translation had even finished. “I’m not one of them.”

“Oh.” Deadlight took the headset off and said something else. They started talking—too fast for the translator to catch. The Forerunner would be recording this at least, so she would be able to ask about it later. In the meantime, she could only listen to their emotional tone. Concern, worry, suspicion.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to take Lightning Dust to see a captured prisoner. He probably doesn’t have good things to say about us.

But she didn’t know, and she wouldn’t. Not until the Forerunner got around to processing what it had heard. Or she played the conversation and asked Lucky. But she seems more on their side than ours.

James couldn’t tell just how much her clone had become one of the natives. She acted like they did, groomed herself like they did, moved like they did. She even had their dexterity, though James had already seen that much on videos before.

If she could do it, I could do it. It would be even easier now that I have the guide. What little she had read so far made it seem like she could master the language in a month, if she could memorize as fast as she had in college.

But for the moment, she just pulled up a nearby chair and waited. It was too late to separate the ponies now. She would listen and try to pick out as many words as she could. At least that would give her good practice.

Lucky Break started at the beginning—of her time in the ruins, anyway. After Olivia almost refused to let her mom into the city, she was unwilling to do anything else that might weaken her position. Revealing the specifics of just how stupid she’d been, getting Equestrian royalty involved, might very well do that.

But she told Olivia everything else. Would’ve showed her the video she had taken using her helmet, except of course it had been destroyed in the crash. If the Ringbuilder suit had some method of recording, she hadn’t learned how to access what it stored. Which was just as well. Even if Olivia didn’t recognize a princess when she saw one, Lucky’s clone almost certainly would. That would’ve been awkward questions she didn’t want to answer.

“I brought this,” she eventually said, pulling the lump of glass with its many etched lines out of the bag and holding it up for Olivia to see. “The message with it suggests it is a data storage device. We should try and extract what’s on it, maybe it will help us learn what killed them.”

“Yes,” Olivia agreed, taking it from across the table. “I’ll add some computer people to my shortlist for the next generation. Continue.”

So, she did. Told of their escape, of being discovered by Lightning Dust and then their ill-fated flight for Othar. Olivia remained silent during the entire explanation, until Lucky got to Discord and the way the jumper had frozen in midair.

“Hold on,” she said, raising a hoof. She’d been polite this whole time, never questioning, only asking for clarification. But now there was obvious disbelief on her face. “You’re saying that a native creature stopped you in midair?” A few gestures brought the telemetry data the Forerunner had shown her before into the holofield, positional data and tracking for the moment just before impact. Olivia played it forward to the second the ship was struck. One engine system reported a critical failure, then the whole ship went red, and “NO DATA” replaced all the readouts that had been there before.

“I know how crazy it sounds,” Lucky said. “And no, I don’t know how he did it. But you do realize the natives can do things we can’t, right?” She pushed back from her seat, then took off into a hover right in front of them. Thank you, Mom, for teaching me how to do that. She didn’t need a running start anymore, didn’t sink or drift as she had before her training for the Junior Wonderbolts. Just held herself stable in the air, as perfectly as any native.

“Well, yes,” Olivia said, gesturing for her to return to her seat. “But we have wings and we fly. That’s not quite the same as stopping a supersonic aircraft without killing all its passengers.”

Lucky returned to her seat. She found herself wishing that Dust had been allowed to attend this meeting, even if she wouldn’t have understood much of it. But considering the resistance to bringing her, Lucky was just glad her mom wasn’t going to be thrown in jail. I wouldn’t let them. Not her.

“My reports have talked about other abilities. The unicorns can move objects with their minds—levitation.” Olivia opened her mouth to interrupt, but Lucky didn’t let her. “No, I don’t mean paranormal crap like back on Earth. I mean literally every single one of them does it constantly. Walk down the street for five minutes, and you’ll see a dozen unicorns carrying things, or levitating their food along with them, or something. Being able to stop a jumper sounds crazy, but I do think it’s part of the same class of abilities.”

She paused, waiting for any objections. There weren’t any, though Olivia and her soldier friend didn’t look more convinced. “There is a small group of individuals in Equestria with abilities far beyond what other ponies can do. At first, I thought it was just mythology, but not all of it is. The Alicorns—ponies with the magic of all three tribes—they can do things the others can’t. Teleport across the continent, for instance.

“Discord, the one who stopped us…” She sighed. This was going to be the hardest for Olivia to hear. And its consequences… she couldn’t even guess. She was military, so however she felt she was bound not to react too well. But she can’t protect this city if she doesn’t know what’s threatening it.

“He knew we were here. He knows where Othar is. He knew about what I’d done with Flurry Heart. And no, he didn’t seem hostile. He seemed like he wanted to help us! He sent us back here, so that I can…” She hesitated. “Well, I have no idea. Something with the princess who came with me. I don’t know what he wanted, but it sounded like he was ideologically opposed to the way Celestia and Luna run things.

“What I really need to do is talk to Twilight Sparkle—she’s the one who led me to those ruins. The ruins that taught me the language of the Ringbuilders, and helped me discover the extinct civilization. I think she might be on Discord’s side, but secretly. I don’t really know. I’m just a translator.”

She stopped then, finally done. There was much more she might say about her mission—such as her strange experiences when she’d got her cutie mark, and the potential danger towards the other members of their crew when they too were marked. But she didn’t want to complicate the issue with discussion of other subjects. She had said her piece.

The silence lasted several minutes. Olivia and her soldier-friend shared some meaningful looks, but neither seemed willing to break the silence. As though waiting for Lucky to say she’d made the whole thing up.

But she hadn’t, and they seemed to sense her sincerity. After a long time, Olivia stood up. “If that’s true, then the threats to Othar are extreme. A being with abilities we have no way to counter is aware of our position. If he were to reveal that information, or come for us himself… do you think the defenses I’ve told you about would stop him? Would they stop one of these princesses?”

“No,” Lucky said, without hesitation. “Unicorns can make shields. I bet those shields could stop bullets. I get that we have some better things than bullets, but… a princess has better shields. If I had to make a rough guess, I’d say take whatever a unicorn can do and look up an order of magnitude. That’s what we need to worry about.”

She rose as well. “Olivia, I don’t think martial defenses are the answer. That other society I saw, they looked like Earth, like home. They had guns, armor, planes… and they were wiped out. I think our best chance is to figure out whatever did that… and then figure out how to make sure it doesn’t want to do that to us.”

Olivia was unmoved. “I agree we need more information. But what solution we choose will have to be considered carefully. We haven’t done anything to provoke these dangerous beings you mentioned, right? Nothing that might make them want to attack us if they were aware of our location?”

Lucky winced, looking away. “Attack? N-no. But…” She swallowed. There was nothing forcing her to be honest about this. Except that if she wasn’t, she might destroy whatever credibility she had with this Olivia. More importantly, Othar wouldn’t be prepared. “I don’t know how happy they would be with me for bringing Flurry Heart on that little adventure I went on. I don’t know if they’d come looking for me after that. But if they do, you should just turn me over.”

“Did you… commit a crime? Bring her against her will? It sounded like she wanted to be there.”

“She did!” Lucky exclaimed. “I did have to convince her, but I didn’t do anything illegal.” Except steal from Lightning Dust, but she didn’t say that part. There was no need to put everything she’d done wrong on display.

“Then I won’t do that,” Olivia said. “You acted rashly, but you did it trying to learn information we need, and you didn’t do anything that should make us an enemy of a reasonable culture. You’ve taken more initiative than anyone here, and I respect that. From this point on, however, you leave the adventuring to us.” Pause. “I understand you’ve completed your mission, is that correct?”

Again, Lucky hesitated. But what was the point of lying now? Olivia probably wasn’t going to let her leave right away anyway. “Yes. I have.”

Olivia made her way back to her seat. “Congratulations. I’m sure the others will want to celebrate more formally. But Perez and I have more important business. You can talk to the Forerunner to get all the paperwork filed.”

“I’ll do that,” she said.

“I don’t remember what the handbook says,” Olivia continued. “But you’ll be staying involved to advise on our defensive plans.”

“Or on any negotiations,” Lucky added. “I know their culture pretty well. I lived there nine months.” And I wish I was still living there. Maybe I’d be having tea with Flurry Heart right now. I hope she’s recovered from what she saw.

“Yes, well.” Olivia shrugged. “They killed our diplomat. It will take some time to grow another. I don’t plan on initiating contact with Equestria or any other nation until we have a replacement. Maybe after that, and after we’ve confirmed some of what you said.” She looked like she might say more, but then she gestured. “You’re dismissed, Lucky. We have matters of defense to discuss. Please keep that communicator I gave you handy. If anything happens, I’ll make sure you’re informed.”

Lucky wasn’t sure she believed that, but it didn’t really matter. She rose, nodded politely to Perez, and left.

Lucky made her way into the library, a little out of breath from galloping. The hallways were high enough to fly in, but she had only just been given this brand new uniform, and she didn’t want to get it sweaty. The Forerunner had apparently learned to make wingholes in everything since she had left all those months ago.

What she really wanted back was that dress with the gemstones on it—that had made her feel grown up. But it was back in the Crystal Empire now, in an apartment that would probably be discovered by the authorities.

At least her clone had been good enough to warn her in advance where she needed to go to find her mom. All she had to do was follow the Forerunner’s directions, and she eventually ended up at the library.

“There she is,” Dust said, right as the door opened. She had been pacing back and forth in front of a table, where a bat pony sat surrounded by computers. Her clone was also there, reading quietly in a corner. All apparently waiting for her.

“You!” The bat rose to his hooves at once, and was at her side so fast she almost thought he’d teleported. “You went beyond Equestria! Your mother told me! And is it true you’re an alien too? All invaders, all look so alike. Did you find Equestria’s outside borders? Did the minotaurs enslave you? I don’t want to think about the fate of a filly as young as you out on her own…”

Lucky raised a hoof. “Go slower than that. I can’t explain all of that at once.” She walked past him, over to where Dust was waiting. The mare looked upset, though Lucky couldn’t have said what of all the many possible causes might’ve been bothering her. “How was it, Mom?”

Lightning Dust shrugged, though she kept glancing back at her right foreleg. Lucky couldn’t see anything different about it—no injuries or anything, but she could guess. “Okay. Your older sister says I can fly around now. The magic won’t hurt me. Which is great, because I think I’m going insane stuck underground this long. You wanna go up and gather up some rain or something? Maybe we could make a thunderstorm just over the island!”

“You haven’t taught me lightning yet,” Lucky said. “But… that sounds great!” she looked up, switching back to English for the benefit of her clone. “Dust was implanted, then?”

James nodded. “No complications. Doctor thinks she’s sick, but she doesn’t agree.”

Lucky spun the rest of the way around. “And you are… Deadlight, right?”

“Yes.” The stallion had been polite enough to stand by and let Lucky greet her mom without interfering. But now that she’d turned her attention on him again, he’d started bouncing up and down, wings twitching with eagerness. “You speak Eoch and Engl-ish,” he said. “Which are you? An alien, or a pony?”

“Both,” she answered. “My mom taught me. And that other stuff you said—yes. I have gone beyond Equestria. Do you know something about that? James”—she indicated her clone with a hoof—“told me there was already a native here. There was some kind of… misunderstanding keeping you here for the time being. Sorry to hear about that.”

Deadlight grunted. “That’s one way to describe it.”

“Deadlight says he was foalnapped,” Dust supplied, a little anger in her voice. “He’s a prisoner here. Am I a prisoner, Lucky?”

“No.” She didn’t hesitate. “I don’t know what happened with Deadlight, but I’ll… try and sort it out. But it sounds like James already got you an implant. That means we can walk out right now and Olivia won’t be able to stop you. But none of the reasons we left Equestria have changed. If we go back now, we’ll be in as much danger as we were before.”

“I know!” Lightning Dust stomped a hoof. Not very hard, just enough to show her frustration. “But it’s the principle. A pegasus isn’t supposed to be trapped.”

“We’re not,” Lucky said again. “Once we’re done, we can go flying like you said. I’d like to see what a thunderstorm looks like. Just… so long as we don’t do anything big enough for them to notice in Equestria.”

“I bet we could,” Lightning Dust said, before straightening. “Hiding, yes. We won’t.”

Lucky’s clone returned to her seat. She was wearing one of the translator headsets, and kept glancing down at her computation surface before looking back up at them. I wonder if she’s trying to have the Forerunner translate. It would be able to do that eventually, though she doubted it had learned enough from just the books she sent to make much sense of a conversation this chaotic.

But she’s me. If anyone can figure it out, it’s James 2.0.

“I know how to figure it out,” Deadlight announced. “I can smell you’re almost mature, Lucky. Can I see if you have a cutie mark? That’s how we’ll know if you’re a pony or not.”

“That’s… a good idea,” Dust said. “Not because we don’t know. That’s the stupidest question ever. But I wanted another look. Maybe we both imagined it, before. It’s easy to see the wrong things in the dark.”

“Okay, sure.” She reached back, pulling one of the pant-legs down low enough to step on it with a hoof, so she could stretch forward and hold it in place. The uniform slid down, far enough that it dropped to the floor unimpeded.

Her clone balked, looking away with her ears flattening in obvious embarrassment. Lucky blushed as well, realizing what her clone must be feeling. Even though neither of the ponies had the same sense of what should be embarrassing, the human did. That James was a clone did not make things less embarrassing.

It’s not like I haven’t seen one of the scientists naked. And James is just wearing a vest. Lucky shook herself out, banishing the human taboo from her mind. It doesn’t make sense for us. We don’t need it.

Both ponies crowded up just behind her, staring at the cutie mark. Lucky shifted a little on her hooves, resisting the urge to turn away. Dust didn’t bother her, but this stallion—she could smell him in the room, his confidence, his strength. That line of thinking stops right here, Lucky. She couldn’t completely dismiss the thought, anymore than she could completely hide her embarrassment. The two were quite related.

“That’s impossible,” Dust finally said. “Completely impossible. This isn’t just a slight detail we got wrong—it’s completely different.” Her eyes widened. “Wait a minute—different mark, different pony. You’re not wanted anymore!”

Lucky chuckled. “Except Flurry Heart will give them my description, and she knows this mark. She saw it. I guess old me isn’t wanted… you think that might help? I can’t imagine how it would…”

“Filly.” Deadlight’s eyes had gone so wide the slits were gone. She might’ve kicked him, except of course that he was staring at the mark, not what was past it. There was nothing rude about looking at a pony’s cutie mark. “Do you have any idea what this is?”

“Yes,” she answered, sitting down on her haunches so she was looking back at him. “It’s a scroll, with Alicorn language on it.”

“Alicorn language!” The pony scoffed, galloping back to the table, and gathering a few blank sheets of paper in his mouth along with a pen. He set them both down, then proceeded to sketch rapidly. “Hold still. If I get the basic outline… I think I can translate.”

“Cutie marks don’t have words,” Dust said, indignant. “It’s just a…” Then she trailed off, staring. “Oh. It does have words. Cutie marks don’t have words!”

“If I can only extract the synergy of the glyphs… Alicorn language!” He made a dismissive sound, then started redrawing each of the individual symbols, somehow separate from the others. Lots of notes in Eoch went around each one, calculations. “It’s called Eglathrin. I wouldn’t expect you to know that. Very few ponies do. Celestia has…” He shrugged his wings. “... made it clear she doesn’t want ponies studying it. But a few of us follow our princess’s example and do what should be done, instead of what only seems safest.”

“I can tell you what it means,” Lucky said, her voice quiet. She no longer felt embarrassed, but excited. This stranger might be a hostage—but he was a well-informed hostage. He might know more than Flurry Heart, assuming Celestia was as good as she seemed at controlling information.

“Shh,” Deadlight whispered. “I have to concentrate. Give me a minute. These words are secured. Everything in Eglathrin is.”

Lucky hadn’t even recognized it until now. With Deadlight pointing it out, Lucky could see—each symbol had a value, which interacted with the values of the other symbols. That value would be matched by the symbol on the end, which had no other purpose in the phrase. When spoken, that symbol had to come at the beginning, and served as a summary of what a speaker was about to say. A verified language. What kind of beings could use it? “I can speak it,” she insisted. “I can tell you what it means.”

The proper symbols were second nature to her. As though she’d practiced for lifetimes. And when I had the guitar mark, I could play like a holovid star. I really need to get my knowledge on paper somehow. If I lose this mark, I bet I’ll lose the language too.

“Nopony can speak it,” Deadlight argued. “I know you want to be helpful.”

“Hey.” Dust glowered at him. “I think my daughter would know her own cutie mark. Or any egghead stuff, for that matter. She’s the smartest pony I’ve ever met.”

“I’m happy you feel that way, ma’am. But this is the longest phrase I’ve—”

Lucky didn’t wait for him to finish. “Understanding brings peace,” she read, though not in Eoch. The whole room got quiet—even James looked startled.

Deadlight dropped his pen. “You heard that from Celestia?” Deadlight asked. “She… taught you what the cutie mark meant?”

Lucky shoved past him, annoyed, picking up his pen from where he’d dropped it and turning his paper over. She scribbled on it quickly, or as quickly as she could without inaccurately depicting any of the symbols. She dropped the pen a minute later, then shoved the sheet towards him. “Translate that,” she said, before flicking her tail in annoyance and looking back to her mom.

“Like I said,” she continued, as though their conversation hadn’t been interrupted. “My mark changed. I think the ring was teaching me the language. Though… I wonder if it meant for Flurry Heart to learn instead.”

“The ring…” Dust repeated. “Lucky, I think I understand what you told me about Equus, but that isn’t what I care about.” She glanced over her shoulder, at the shut door. “Do you really want to stay here? In this… metal cave?”

Lucky Break considered that a long moment. She took a deep, staggering breath. “No,” she admitted. “But they need me. I don’t know for how much longer—but you’ve seen them. They don’t know how to be ponies, Lightning Dust. They need me to teach them the way you taught me.” She lowered her voice. “Not one of them can fly, Dust. Nopony can hold a fork with their hoof without dropping it. They don’t know what grass can be eaten and what will make them sick. Does that seem right to you?”

Lightning Dust’s eyes widened, and she looked past her at James. “You can’t fly?”

That was apparently simple enough for James to understand, or at least the Forerunner. After a brief delay, James rose to her hooves. “No. I didn’t think it was possible. Flying with such small wings. The biologist thought Lucky was leading us on. I knew she wasn’t, but… I thought there was a secret. Some device you would use, or special plants you eat.”

Dust wasn’t wearing a headset, so Lucky had to translate. But she didn’t mind.

“Well, Lucky.” Lightning Dust looked resigned. “I understand why you would want to help these ponies. If none of them can fly, then they’re foals as helpless as you were when you first came to me. Do you think they’d like a flight school? Your island’s weather is out of control—rain coming and going all the time, winds that could tear up flowers. Not enough consistent moisture anywhere for earth ponies to grow crops. Somepony should teach them.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Lucky said. “I know Olivia would approve.” Anything to improve the preparedness of her own troops, and help them match the abilities of the natives. She would probably have some archaic stipulations for security or stealth, but they could work around those.

If Mom has a reason to stay, that means I can too. Maybe by the time everypony knows how to fly, I’ll have James good enough with Eoch that I’m not needed to teach a new diplomat. She can do it, and I can go to college.

Or prison.

Deadlight finally looked up from the paper, where he’d been struggling these minutes in relative silence. Silence except for his constant muttering, which hadn’t been enough to distract from their conversation. “I’m an idiot?”

“Well, look at that,” Lucky muttered, though she couldn’t repress a smile. “You really can translate Eglathrin.”

G7.01: Map Reduction

Lightning Dust stared down at the screen, eyes wide with shock and wonder. Some part of her longed for the innocence of months ago, when she had thought the things she saw on devices like this were fanciful dreams. But living in Othar had taught her many things, and she knew that Forerunner would not show them lies. He might be a machine, but he had never lied to her.

But she wished he could have. She watched a blast of fire so intense that the screen was momentarily filled with white. When it faded, the plant life all around the location of impact had been scoured from the ground, and for an even greater radius it had all turned black. This was no teleportation spell, as Celestia had told Twilight. It had been meant to kill.

As if she had any doubt in her mind, some part of the mayor of Othar remained behind. Though her feathers and flesh had been blasted to nothing, her skeleton remained. It looked strange, a little like the x-ray images she had seen of Lucky from many months ago. A skeleton of glowing hot metal, somehow still holding Olivia’s defiant pose. For an instant, anyway, before it dropped to the ground. It hissed and screeched when it hit, as though still possessed with the mayor’s wayward soul.

Lightning Dust reacted instinctively—she covered Lucky’s eyes with her wings. It didn’t do any good, of course—she had been so frozen with shock during the worst parts that her little daughter would’ve seen all there was to see. She would carry scars from today.

It also didn’t do anything for the sound. However Forerunner could see this, he could hear the princesses as well.

“I… what did you do, Princess?” That was Twilight’s voice. Dust could see her face—in that moment, she knew that it wasn’t the pony she hated for ruining her life who had executed her friend Olivia. Twilight Sparkle had tears running down her face, and uneven sparks emanating from her horn. A sign of a powerful unicorn in great distress.

“I can explain, Twilight,” Celestia said, trying to rest a wing on Twilight’s back. “This isn’t what it looks like. The pony—”

But she didn’t finish. Twilight teleported in a flash, appearing a meter or so above where she’d been standing. She glared down Celestia the way she might’ve stared down a charging army. “You killed her!” Twilight squeaked, her voice almost impossible to understand through her crying. “We had her beaten! She couldn’t have hurt anypony else… but you killed her!”

“Twilight.” Celestia’s voice still sounded soft, reproving. “Listen to me. I know how frightening this is, but you don’t have all the facts. I told you I was sending her to Tartarus—that is exactly what I did.” She pointed at the skeleton with one hoof. It had already started cooling, a strange layer of filmy white appearing along the edge of the silvery metal. Like rust, but the wrong color and much too fast. “This doesn’t mean she’s dead. It just confirms everything I told you. Lucky Break was incredibly dangerous—”

They both vanished in a flash. For a few seconds, the image began rising. “I am not showing any of this to the other members of the crew,” Forerunner’s voice cut in. “I cannot risk what Perez might do if he found out. Be aware of that, Lucky. I will remind you before you return to the zeppelin.”

Lucky’s only answer was a strangled sob, as she embraced Lightning Dust tighter about the chest. As she had grown and matured, Lucky had become increasingly independent, and not sought out physical contact the way she had in those early days. Now, all that growth seemed erased, and she sobbed like a foal. It was worse than the last time, when they’d been on that airship and Forerunner had told Lucky that she was in charge. Much worse.

She had to see it this time. “Forerunner, that can wait,” Lightning Dust said, glaring at the screen. She wasn’t sure exactly what she should be staring at, but she imagined he could be watching them through it. “We just saw… a friend die.”

“I am aware of that fact,” said Forerunner, his tone unchanged. He must be watching the same things they were, right? Hadn’t he been friends with the old mayor too? How could he be so callus? “But do not forget, there is a positive side to this. If the Equestrian princess had kidnapped Major Fischer, she certainly would have been interrogated. Her death protects Othar. She fought well and died the way she would have wanted. That is a subject of celebration, not mourning.”

The wobbly image of the drone focused on something again—it was Celestia and Twilight, standing on the side of the castle. The camp of royal guards had been evacuated by now, along with all of Twilight’s friends. Bizarrely, they had left the covered bodies of their fallen. There was blood staining the grass nearby.

Twilight Sparkle looked like she was one step away from melting into a sobbing invalid like Lucky. The betrayal on her face remained as prominent as ever.

“I’ll prove it to you!” Princess Celestia shouted, her voice much less calm than it had been before. “Twilight, you need to understand this. I’m sorry it had to come so sudden, but…” She pointed her horn squarely at the covered bodies of the dead.

Why did you have to kill so many, Olivia? Lightning Dust had no love for the royal guard, not after the way they had always been the instrument of her unjust punishment. Even so, she was glad they were covered. Dust had no desire to see whatever Celestia was about to do.

Brilliant light came from the place where the bodies had dropped, so bright that the hidden screen again went white. The image only came back for a second, giving them a view of the world twisting and turning over itself. There were a few quiet thumps, and it seemed like they were smacking into branches on their way down. Then the view stopped moving, the screen still white.

“What happened, Forerunner?” Lightning Dust asked. “Where’s the image?”

Lucky peeked out from behind her, staring too. Frightened and upset as she was, it seemed she hadn’t completely shut down.

That’s my filly. Don’t give up.

“Interference,” came Forerunner’s voice, distorted just like the other sounds. “Across the whole spectrum. Probably fried the poor drone’s little brain. They aren’t really meant for… well, doesn’t matter. It should be listening, at least. I will try to send back whatever it overheard.”

Lucky Break stepped out from behind her wing, staring down at the screen. “W-what about satellite sensors?” She wiped away moisture from her face with the back of one hoof, then straightened. “You have eyes up there.”

“Can’t see anything we couldn’t already infer,” Forerunner said. “Tons of energy all across the spectrum. Not sure how long it will… and it’s clear. Drone is… functional enough. One wing and the camera is broken. I’ll detonate it once Celestia is gone.”

There was a brief pause, then, “Playing back…”

The sound that came through was patchy and stretched to Lightning Dust, like hearing someone through several layers of wall. Even so, she could make out many, many more voices that she should. They sounded like confused guards.

“What happened, Princess?”

There was a disgusting sound, like slime smacking into something from above.

“My head feels fuzzy…”

“Is Princess Twilight alright?”

“She’ll be fine,” Princess Celestia spoke over them, and all the other voices faded. “I have healed you,” she said. “You were injured last night attacking the castle. I will send you all back to Canterlot, one moment.”

Lucky looked back at the screen, the same horror on her face that Lighting Dust felt. “Did she just…”

Dust nodded. It was all she could manage. She felt suddenly… numb. It couldn’t be true, could it? Princess Celestia couldn’t have that kind of power! If she did, then how could the world have any orphans?

After all that Lightning Dust had suffered because of her actions as a Wonderbolt recruit, one thing had kept her loyal to Equestria. Yes, the system might be corrupt—judges and magistrates and mayors all wanted to see her punished because of what she’d done (or nearly done) to the Elements of Harmony. But the princesses weren’t like that! They were the only good thing left in Equestria. If they could be everywhere, then there would be no injustice.

There must be some mistake. Princess Celestia would never murder a defeated enemy. If she can bring back dead ponies, then she would’ve brought back my parents. Forerunner must be making a mistake. Maybe his scrying spell is faulty.

“It’s not as disgusting as it looks, Twilight. You saw before I sent them away—they were alive.”

Twilight’s voice broke through her thoughts, sounding like she’d just been sick. “Their friends… saw them die.”

“That is why I sent them to Canterlot instead of Ponyville,” Celestia said. Her voice was mellowing out, returning to her usual soft, regal tone. “I will ask Luna to speak with the others in their unit before they are reunited, to make sure there are no discrepancies in their memory that might spread rumors. It will be like they never fell.”

“We didn’t get most of them out…” Twilight Sparkle croaked. “They’re still inside. Are you going to bring them back too?”

“I can’t,” came Celestia’s voice. “With their…” her voice broke apart into indeterminate static.

“What’s going on?” Lucky asked, pressing up against the bed.

“Drone is—” Forerunner said, its voice dissolving into static. “I’ll… much of... hold on.”

Lightning Dust could hardly hear it. She stumbled back a few steps, staring up at the elegant stained-glass window on the far side of the room. The cutie marks of the solar and lunar princesses seemed to mock her.

Princess Celestia had murdered Olivia. She had withheld her magic from Dust’s parents, condemning Lightning Dust to a childhood of loneliness and desperation.

Lightning Dust found she no longer cared if Lucky Break and her humans wanted to invade Equestria. In fact, that sounded like a very attractive idea. They needed princesses who wouldn’t lie to them. Princesses who would share their magic with everypony. Princesses who didn’t lock their sisters away when they got disobedient.

Celestia’s voice came in through the book, sounding even worse than before. “…the great secret of Equus. That is why I didn’t just kill Lucky Break. Nopony on Equus has ever died.”

“Why can’t we do this for everypony?” Twilight asked, her voice still broken with tears. “If we can just… bring back ponies whenever we want…”

You tell her, Lightning Dust thought. Then, bewildered, Am I really rooting for Twilight Sparkle over Celestia? Apparently, she was.

“We used—”

Her voice exploded into static again, and this time the screen went black. A few seconds later, a message in the human language appeared, one she couldn’t read. Lightning Dust could barely read Eoch.

Lucky Break slumped forward against the bed, flopping to one side. “If she can do it for the guards, she can do it for Olivia…” she muttered. “Right?”

Lightning Dust nodded absently. “Twilight Sparkle seemed convinced…” Though they hadn’t heard the end of that, so it was hard to know for sure.

“She’s not going to be… in a good mood for negotiating when she gets here,” she squeaked, curling up on the bed. “And I’m not going to be very convincing.” Her voice cracked again, dissolving into nervous sobbing.

Lucky’s pain was enough to break through the numbness in her mind. Lightning Dust hurried over to her, pulling the filly against her chest and holding her there. The physical contact didn’t just help the child—it was something Lightning Dust needed too.

“I’ll help you,” she promised. “We still have to save Equestria.”

Their mission hadn’t changed, Lightning Dust realized. The only difference now was Lightning Dust knew who they were fighting.

We can do this, humans. We can save Equestria. For Mayor Olivia. And for her parents. For everypony else the princesses could’ve saved but hadn’t.

Lucky Break knew the instant Twilight Sparkle had returned thanks to the sudden onset of voices from downstairs. Twilight’s friends from the night before, sounding consoling.

“So that’s it,” Lightning Dust said, glancing over her shoulder at the open door. They’d packed their things away again, ready for a quick exit after this conversation if it went badly (or well, for that matter). “Are you feeling better, squirt? You up to this?”

“I’ll have to be,” she answered. “Forerunner would’ve said if the zeppelin was getting diverted. We can’t just hide here and give T-Twilight a chance to recover.” And me, she privately added. She checked her saddlebags, peeking into the book. She had it near the top of her possessions, though not the first thing in case somepony opened her bag.

“DATA CONNECTION LOST, LOCAL STORAGE ONLY,” was still printed there in bold letters.

“I wish…” Lightning Dust’s tone was dark. “I wish I could tell you we didn’t have to do it. That we could just leave, let somepony else take care of it. But the pony I would’ve…” She shook all over, taking an angry breath. “The pony I would’ve trusted to keep Equestria safe is the one who just murdered Olivia.”

Lucky saw the major’s implants again, still glowing with the heat that had killed her. She fought back the memory, burying it as deep as she could. I won’t think about that, I won’t think about that, I won’t… She straightened. “I can do this,” she announced, to nopony in particular. “Because I have to.” Maybe if she said it enough times it would become true.

They both stepped out onto the walkway. The voices outside suddenly got much louder.

“It’s alright, Twi, we know ya need yer time. Just come on and give us a holler when you’re ready to talk.”

Somepony seemed to be walking up the stairs, because they emerged onto the landing a second later, only a meter away.

It was the princess. She looked much the worse for wear—her mane was disheveled, with bits of twig and leaves stuck in it. There was mud smeared on her hooves, and up her legs. Her eyes were half-closed with tiredness and didn’t seem to focus on anything properly.

Until she saw the two of them standing there. Lucky heard the door open downstairs, but she hardly noticed.

“More refugees,” Twilight Sparkle muttered, brushing one hoof through her mane, and stumbling forward. “The th-threat has been dealt with. I’m sure… festival will continue soon.” Her eyes narrowed, focusing on Lucky. “You look… familiar.”

Spraying her coat had done nothing to change the shape of her body. Just because her human brain had a little trouble telling ponies apart from that alone didn’t mean ponies would.

“You were expecting me,” Lucky said, keeping her voice as calm as possible. “We’ve never met, but we spoke over the radio.”

Twilight Sparkle’s mouth hung open. She glanced briefly over her shoulder, at the open doorway. A few of her friends hesitated there, watching. As though waiting for a request to return. “You’re… inside. Celestia…”

“No,” Lucky said. “I never died.” Not strictly true, at least if she counted all the previous generations as being her. But it was close enough. She opened her mouth to say something else but felt a sudden compression all around her.

For a few seconds, she was floating in a sea of white. She couldn’t feel her body, couldn’t see anything beyond the endless illumination. She would’ve opened her mouth to scream if she had a mouth. But she didn’t. She couldn’t even flail helplessly in pain and confusion.

Then there was another flash, and the light faded from her eyes. How much time had passed? It felt like an eternity, but she realized on some level that was wrong. It had been less than a second—she was standing in Twilight’s castle. It was the same room as the party the night before, there were still some remnants of that party laying on the floor.

The doors to the downstairs were shut, at least, so Twilight’s friends wouldn’t be able to see where they’d gone. Lucky looked to her right, expecting Lightning Dust would be there… but no, Twilight hadn’t brought her.

Immediately she felt cold again, helpless. Could she really do this on her own? Maybe if she made enough noise, Lightning Dust would hurry downstairs and help her. Maybe she would, but… maybe the guards would show up instead.

She hasn’t called for the guards. She hasn’t locked me in jail. That’s a good sign.

“You shouldn’t be able to be here,” Twilight muttered, walking away from her over to the massive crystal table. “Star Swirl’s intention shield… you killed guards…”

“Olivia killed your soldiers,” Lucky Break muttered, following behind her. She kept back far enough that she could try to run if Twilight’s demeanor changed. Though given what had just happened, she didn’t think her odds of an escape were particularly good. “I wish I knew how to apologize for something like that. I think most soldiers are trained to always try to escape. Something to do with… I don’t know. I’m not a soldier.”

No sooner had Twilight removed the tablecloth from the crystalline surface than the entire thing began to glow. It wasn’t just an attractive piece of furniture—it appeared to be a holographic projector of some kind. More impressive than university holodesks, as it didn’t require a medium to project into. Same kind of tech as the ruins, I bet.

“Step over here,” Twilight commanded. “M-my defense spell…” Twilight sounded like a pony one wrong answer away from breaking. She didn’t have a mentor to run to—that pony was the one who had put her in such a painful position in the first place.

So Lucky obeyed, walking right over to the edge of the crystal. Besides, she wanted to see what was on it.

A map, as it turned out. Lucky Break recognized the general layout as Equestria from the air, each of its important cities and landforms depicted in miniature. The labels above each one were faint, written in Eglathrin. It was exactly like the transport station.

“Put your hoof up here. I’m going to… I’m going to find out if you’re dangerous.”

“I’m not,” Lucky said. “I’m talking to you without a translation spell, Princess. Your prisoner couldn’t do that.” She lifted up her hoof, resting it on the crystal surface where Twilight indicated. The map vanished in a flash, and she felt a little bite of pain. Probably not a good idea. I could be giving them information somehow.

The projection changed completely. For a few seconds, Lucky was completely stunned by what she saw. It was some kind of… profile. A profile for her, not entirely unlike what the Pioneering Society kept on its people. Only this one was written entirely in Eglathrin. It contained few references to proper nouns she knew—mostly it was basic biological information: name, age, sex, etcetera. Curiously, the system didn’t display her apparent age, but her true biological age.

The profile had several different images of her pony self unpainted, several in positions she would’ve been highly embarrassed to have a stranger see if she hadn’t overcome the nudity taboo. Yet Twilight barely glanced at the photos—she was absorbed in a few other pieces of information.

Origin Status: Uplifted Primitive
Directive: Translation Agent
Physical Threat: Negative

Her cutie marks were as prominently displayed here as her photographs—both of them. The second one was much larger though, with the guitar occupying a tiny space that looked like it had room for far more.

“This is… the strangest reading I have ever seen,” Twilight said, sounding as though the mystery had somehow made her feel better.

I guess I can relate. Having something else to think about.

“I don’t know… what all this is…” Twilight lingered on something like an x-ray image, depicting Lucky’s implants as bright, glowing patches. Very much a similar pattern to the one Olivia left behind when Celestia murdered her.

Lucky lifted her leg from the side of the table. As she did so, the entire contents vanished. Not that it stops her from having it. How does the ring even know all of that? There were probably a million ways it could gather information, ways she couldn’t even understand. Harmony isn’t the one hunting me. If it was, Othar would already be destroyed. We haven’t triggered it yet. Celestia didn’t even ask Olivia any questions before she killed her—she probably doesn’t care. She just wanted the threat gone.

It was a pleasant story to tell herself. Whether that story was true was something else, but if it would make Lucky confident enough to speak… She went on, before she could second-guess herself some more. “Princess, I know what happened. My comrade killed ponies… and she was killed in return. It’s a terrible tragedy for both of us. But there is more at stake here than a few lives. All of Equestria is in danger… everypony you know. You promised you would listen.”

Twilight’s little surge of confidence seemed to burn out. She looked down, shaking all over. “Y-you… sound exactly like Celestia,” she said. “All of Equestria in danger… you’re going to tell me about Harmony now, right?”

Lucky nodded. “I don’t know what Celestia told you. Most of it is probably true. If she told you there’s something called Harmony that could decide to kill everypony in Equestria anytime it wanted… something capricious and absolute, watching all the time for you to break its rules, then destroying everything you built.”

Twilight nodded. Her eyes looked damp, but there was resolve on her face. “That is… basically what Celestia said.”

“Maybe she told you those rules.” Lucky started pacing—she couldn’t help it. It was what she did. “God, I hope somepony knows the rules. I hope you’ve at least known what would get you killed all this time.”

Twilight Sparkle nodded again. “M-maybe she did. I wouldn’t… If she did, she certainly would’ve sworn me to secrecy.”

Lucky shrugged. “It would be helpful to know, but… that isn’t the most important thing right now. Because that isn’t the only way.” Lucky advanced towards her, glaring. The table had returned to the map, its faithful depicting of Equestrian cities glowing faintly with their own internal light. It was a beautiful country, even from up here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.

“Following it is one option—I think other ponies living out there on the ring have tried that one.”

She watched Twilight’s face for confirmation—and saw it. Twilight Sparkle knew what Equestria looked like. “Flurry Heart and I visited another part of the ring. We saw… another civilization. Millions of ponies there, dead.”

“We can’t…” Twilight squeaked, her voice very small. “We can’t let that happen to Equestria. We have to make it so Harmony doesn’t hurt us.”

“I think those other nations probably tried that,” Lucky said. “It didn’t help them.”

“I…” Twilight swallowed, then straightened a little. “I think it’s a little much to ask me to trust you. Flurry Heart… was so scared by what she saw that she hasn’t left Canterlot Castle since. Celestia has…” She trailed off, apparently realizing where that thought ended up. Probably with Celestia being the source of Twilight’s information. Her expression tightened a little, though she looked away from Lucky, out one of the windows. Lucky could almost make out a distant mountain in that direction.

“You don’t have to trust me,” Lucky Break said. The further she went, the braver she felt. Her words seemed to come easier. She spoke with Olivia’s confidence, not just her own. If she had believed in souls, she would’ve thought Olivia had somehow come to help her in spirit—protecting Othar as she had always done in life. But Lucky didn’t believe in any of that. Fabricating a new person was different from bringing them back. Even if the ponies had a magical way to imitate what the Forerunner did with fabricators, it would still be someone new. The original was dead, her memories destroyed.

If Major Fischer was fabricated again, they wouldn’t be friends. She wouldn’t have been among Lucky’s first friends, when the whole world was out to get her. She wouldn’t have made the promises to protect her, then kept them. Lucky started to sniff, the beginning of a sob finally catching up to her.

I can’t deal with this now! There’s no time. She swallowed, trying to channel a little more of the major’s resolve. Maybe Lucky wasn’t as brave, but she could pretend.

She pretended long enough to lift the book from her saddlebags, opening it to expose the tablet inside. She scrolled to the satellite images of wrecked cities all over the ring. Sadly, she still didn’t know how to get video recordings off the space-suit, assuming it had even taken any. But the Forerunner’s satellites had excellent cameras. The destruction was so widespread there were plenty of them taken—many more photos than could fit on this little computation surface’s local storage.

“There are more,” she said, leaving the device angled upward so Twilight could scroll through the images if she wanted to.

Twilight stared at the screen, any hardness that had been forming on her face fading away. She withdrew back onto her haunches. “So many other kingdoms. So many other ponies…”

“Yes,” Lucky Break said. “Celestia wants to hide from this—to keep Equestria following Harmony’s rules as long as she can. In fairness, you’re still here after thousands of years, so maybe she’s good at it. But… what if we could make it so you never had to hide again?”

“We can’t,” Twilight whispered. She kept glancing up at the window now, as though she expected Princess Celestia to be hovering there with a disapproving scowl. But she wasn’t—and if she was somehow listening, then there was nothing Lucky could do about it. “Celestia… said we tried. Other ponies, somewhere far away… they failed. We always fail.”

“Not this time,” Lucky said. Here goes nothing. “What ponies didn’t have last time was outside help. I am… I represent a faction from elsewhere, not subject to Harmony’s controls. If we work together, we can free Equestria.”

Twilight fell silent, staring down at the map. For a long time that was all she did.

Lucky could hear something outside the doors to the throne room… was somepony knocking? Twilight didn’t answer, and after a while the pounding became insistent.

“That’s… probably my mom,” Lucky muttered, when it was clear Twilight wasn’t going to do anything. She didn’t object as Lucky made her way to the doors, pushing the bar out of the way. Almost the instant she did, the door swung open.

Lightning Dust practically fell in, followed by an apprehensive-looking Spike.

“I tried to stop her!” he called, his voice placating. “She didn’t listen.”

“It’s alright, Spike. You’re welcome inside. Lock the door behind you.”

Lightning Dust herself was panting and seemed to take a moment to recover from the effort of trying to force the door. Her eyes glided over everything, though they settled quickly on Lucky. “I thought…”

“We were just talking,” Lucky interrupted, preempting whatever Lightning Dust might’ve revealed. “I just told Twilight what we want. Haven’t told her how yet.”

“Oh.” Lightning Dust gestured, and they made their way back to the table.

Twilight watched her, expression wary. She looked like someone who had been running all day, someone who was about to collapse if they were asked to walk just a few more steps. “And who are you? Lucky’s… mom? Who lets her daughter kidnap princesses for dangerous adventures?”

Lightning Dust actually laughed. “I’d like to see you try and stop her. Lucky’s my daughter, not some obedient, pampered showpiece.”

“Where are you ponies from?” Twilight asked, exasperated. “That other one, who…” She swallowed. “Olivia, you called her? She could’ve killed half the army. And you’ve got a scrying spell that can look tens of thousands of miles away…” She nodded towards the still-open book.

“Really?” Spike interrupted, making his way over. “Woah.” He trailed off, staring at the terrible scenes of destruction reflected on the screen.

“Earth,” Lucky Break said. She stood tall again, imagining the major was beside her. Well, her, and the whole of the Pioneering Society. In some ways, Lucky’s entire life now focused on this moment. Perhaps the whole fate of Equus as well.

“We are explorers from far away. We came to make friendly contact with Equestria’s ponies… and it went badly. Very badly. But all that is irrelevant, Princess. Right now, the most important thing is that all our lives are at risk. The ponies I represent… we can’t leave Equus any more than you can. We are slaves to Harmony like you are. We want everypony to be free. But to do that, we need your help.”

“How?” Twilight asked, her tone desperate and frightened. “I can’t fight Celestia! She’s my… she’s my…”

“Even for your niece?” Lightning Dust cut in, sounding bitter. “She’s a prisoner, Twilight. A prisoner of the same pony who murdered a helpless enemy right in front of you while you did bucking nothing. Do you think Flurry Heart will get better treatment?”

Twilight finally broke. Actual tears started dribbling down her face, and she sobbed, only partially strangling them.

But Lightning Dust didn’t let up. “I don’t think she will, Princess. I think the instant she thinks Flurry Heart is a threat, Celestia will kill her too. Or maybe she’ll feel merciful and just banish her to the bucking moon for a millennium. Maybe she already has.”

Lucky extended a wing, trying to hold Lightning Dust back. But her mom didn’t seem to be listening.

“This is your fault, Twilight. But you’re the one who can make it right. You aren’t a monster like she is, are you?”

The Alicorn had melted by then, hysterical.

Spike glowered at them both, looking for a moment like he might blow fire or something. “I think you two should leave.”

“N-no,” Twilight croaked, shoving Spike to one side. “Sh-she’s right… she’s right about everything…” She sniffed, wiping away the tears with the back of her leg, then standing straighter. “C-can… can saving my niece be part of saving Equestria?”

“Yes!” Lucky answered, before Lightning Dust could say something else insensitive. Did that actually work? “She’s my friend. I was planning on it anyway.”

Melody was not surprised to discover she enjoyed spending time with the former slaves. In many ways, it was exactly the sort of thing she had joined the Pioneering Society to do, but had discovered as soon as she woke up that another had been created to do her job, and had already done it.

If it hadn’t been for the major, Melody would’ve never been created. For a time, she had resented that decision, whenever she woke up staring at a body she hated or gave in to instincts she couldn’t control.

That reminder had become far more present in her life once she discovered her cavorting had resulted in a pregnancy.

But now, after all this time, Melody finally felt she had something to do. The former slaves were not native Eoch speakers, but had picked up bits and pieces during their time near the outer rim of Equestria’s influence. They didn’t even come from the same culture, though being the same species did mean some factors arose in parallel.

Cutie marks, for instance, still mattered a great deal to them, though their tribal society had not seen them in such a positive light. Indeed, the word describing them seemed to translate most literally as “obligation.”

They were a remarkably easy-to-please group, now that they’d been convinced they weren’t on their way to a restaurant somewhere, or a necromancer’s alter. So long as Melody made sure the cleaning robots left some messes for them to work on to keep them busy, they largely kept to themselves.

So Melody spent most of her time with them, making careful notes and trying to learn everything she could about their culture. If everything worked out, it seemed likely that they would want to make formal contact with the society they had come from eventually.

It would’ve been better if we landed out in the sticks instead of in an advanced society like Equestria. We could’ve absorbed them, fixed all their problems, and had lots of allies.

But there were thousands of different points where their mission might’ve been turned another way, with a few simple decisions. How different would it have been if Lucky Break had been in charge from the start, instead of Olivia? Would her previous self have made Equestria into their enemy?

Melody was thus lost in thought, listening to the ponies converse and occasionally answering their questions, when one of the Forerunner’s drones came rolling in. It was one of the humanoid models with tank treads, and the instant the door opened all four of their guests rose from where they were sitting and backed up towards the wall.

These ponies didn’t like drones very much, but that didn’t matter. It was easy enough to run their schedule so they wouldn’t have to see each other.

What could Forerunner need from me that it wouldn’t have just called me on the radio? “Excuse me, Melody,” it said, in convincing Eoch. “Can I get you to come with me?”

It hadn’t said anything about why. That meant it didn’t want these ponies to know.

Melody rose from her seat, turning to face the other ponies. “I will be back,” she said, with a slight bow. It was what was expected, whenever a mare left a room with a stallion in it. She didn’t know why, nor did she much care. Obeying their customs was a great way of getting their cooperation.

“Return quickly,” said Bull. “You promised we would visit the surface, remember?”

Olivia never would’ve let me take you up there, she thought, but didn’t say. They weren’t just going to the surface, but to their former commander’s private beach.“I will,” she promised, before turning to follow the drone. It had already left through the door, though it hadn’t shut behind it.

Melody followed it out into the hall. It turned immediately towards the elevator, which could only take them down towards the labs or the fabricators. Obviously it wouldn’t be the latter. “What’s wrong?”

“You assume something is wrong,” said Forerunner, though it’s usual casual humor was missing from its tone. There was quiet desperation there instead, very subtle.

Am I imagining that? She didn’t ask that part, though. “Of course. If nothing was wrong, you wouldn’t have called me. Please don’t… tell me it’s bad news about the away team.”

“It is not,” Forerunner said. “I have nothing to reveal to you about the away team at this time.”

Ominous. That meant that things had happened, it just didn’t want to share them. Typical.

“Well, what is it?” The elevator door swung open for them faster than Melody remembered. It snapped closed just as quickly.

“It is… Dr. Faraday.” They zipped down a single floor, and the door opened again. “We discovered the reason we had been unable to decode the alien file-format on the data storage device.”

“I… I don’t know why that would be a bad thing, or need me,” Melody said. “But alright. That’s great! What’s in there?”

“Memories,” the Forerunner answered. “That was why we couldn’t isolate any of the discrete data that would’ve suggested image or video compression. There was another layer of encoding.”

“You can play back memories now, can’t you? Lucky said…”

They reached the doors to Martin’s lab. All the lights were on, something she never did. Several hard-plastic crates of supplies were scattered near the walls, where Martin had evidently selected one or two things from each and left the boxes behind.

“I cannot ‘play’ them. My understanding of neuroimprints has not yet progressed to that point. I cannot convert them to a digital format and display them for you on a screen. Nor do I have a brain of my own to experience them, so I cannot parse the memories myself. I see no reason this wouldn’t be possible, but it appears the technology was not prioritized. It is possible the next update I decompress will contain something to allow that process.”

“Then why did you take me here?”

“Because Dr. Faraday decided not to wait.” The door slid open.

Strange medical-looking equipment had been set up on one side of the room, where desks and shelves had been pushed aside to make space.

Martin was sprawled on a pile of blankets and pillows, surrounded by medical drones that watched her like an army of white plastic ghosts.

That was not the strangest thing she noticed, though. Martin had a new cutie mark—actually, she had several. It seemed as though her skin had become a display, changing, flashing, burning strange patterns into the pile of debris each time.

Her whole body seemed to spasm as the door opened, and she landed facing Melody, foam dribbling from her mouth. “That’s the siren, their bombers are on the way! Ponies to their assigned shelters! Form a single file line!”

Part 2: Eye of the Maelstrom

As it turned out, James had been lying. Badly. Sarah felt like she was being suffocated and dissolved at once, but without the control of her own body to stop breathing and let herself die. Each “breath” of the awful liquid only made her change faster and more deeply. She wavered on the edge of consciousness, almost but not quite in pain.

Eventually it stopped hurting, and she could think again. Sarah already knew what to expect, but it was still more than a little jarring. Her trousers now hung in tatters, the shirt of her uniform now clinging around her forelegs like something she might’ve seen on a dolphin at a water show. If she had been rich enough to go to theme parks, which she never was.

She was still breathing, though she realized with a slight shiver of shock that she wasn’t using her throat anymore, but the slits along her neck. There were several finned ridges around her body, including the place where her wings had been. Best part of this whole alien nightmare, gone. I better get those back or I’m gonna be pissed at you, Discord.

James was staring at her again, a little too close and too deeply for comfort. I know that fucking look. Back off. Though there was another part of her that wouldn’t have minded being with someone who was constantly near the edge of ego collapse. Maybe if you looked a little more like Melody. “Did it scramble your brain?” he asked. His voice sounded a bit squashed, much deeper and longer than normal, but somehow that felt natural here. It was what her ears were expecting. At least we can talk.

And another of her senses was still working. His words were like the sharpest, highest-pitched sounds in the air, briefly filling the space around her and highlighting the narrowing cylinder of this passage, with an unimaginable gulf of liquid further on.

“No.” She pushed away from him in the water, and found that her sense of how to swim from when she’d been human didn’t steer her completely wrong. She didn’t have any of the same limbs, but staying still in the water used the same principles. Not that this is really water. God, I don’t even want to know. “I’m just processing, that’s all. Figuring out where everything is.” She glanced down where her shorts had been, then blushed. That was where everything was. Instead of being tucked away where she didn’t have to think about it. I need a onesie for this tail.

She turned away from her companion before he could lose his jaw staring at her, pointing down. “Don’t really have a choice about this now, do we? Into the depths we go.”

“I guess you don’t need me to point out how monumentally stupid this is,” James said, but from the sound of it he was following. “For all we know, this hole is Sanctuary’s master toilet, and now we’re swimming into it. Maybe this goes to the sewage plant.”

“I don’t think we’re breathing sewage,” Sarah retorted, without looking back. She wasn’t the only one whose biology had been rearranged. The less she saw, the better. “Whatever this is, it’s deliberate. There’s a system in place for biosleeves like ours to travel down here. Think about how complicated this transformation had to be. Why the hell would you go to all the trouble to design that, then put it into the intake for a death-machine? Waste of resources.”

“I guess that makes sense,” he said, not sounding the least bit like he believed it. “What’s the point of winning allies who have to live in green soup though? Even if our city didn’t get completely destroyed just now… are we gonna invite the slimebassador to visit? How are we supposed to do anything without Forerunner’s authority?”

She stopped swimming. Modesty forgotten, Sarah snapped back up with a few quick strokes of her blue tail, slamming into James and holding him against the wall with her forelegs. He went completely limp against her, not resisting even though he was longer and sturdier than she was. “Hey, how about shut up for a second. You didn’t have to come with me. You could’ve stayed up there in your damn little bedroom and wasted your days. Whatever exploit you were using not to get recycled sounds pretty fucking great, but that isn’t me and it isn’t open to you either anymore. You’re here, so grow some fucking balls and stop whining.”

Whatever he’d been about to say, James only looked frightened. His tail twisted under him, as though he were thinking about running away but wasn’t quite sure yet. And where would he run?

“I don’t know much more than you,” Sarah continued, letting go of him. “You want to know what I know? There’s some kind of civil war shit brewing down there. If we stop it, we keep these people alive and they can join Othar. Maybe they’re sick of living in the fucking sewers of Sanctuary and they’d like to see the sun a little more. Maybe they don’t want to live with primitives. Whatever, we’re their guys. Sanctuary is big and advanced, so… I figure when we need Forerunner’s input, things will work themselves out. We have Alicorns. Aren’t they supposed to be powerful or some shit?

“If the other generations are powerful, then what the hell happened to Othar?”

“No idea.” She yanked on his foreleg, tugging him until he was facing downward. “Just a little further, there’s some kind of… entrance. I can feel the current moving through it. Odds are good that it goes to our destination. Meet some new aliens, prevent a civil war… isn’t that why you joined the Pioneering Society?”

James actually laughed, though there was little humor in his voice. More like resignation. But he didn’t fight her, and that was something. “I guess you could tell me about what you know. Who are the changelings?”

Olivia woke up.

Some part of her hadn’t thought she would—at least not in the world of the living as she understood it. Being dead was a state whose context had changed a great deal in the last few months. But it still wasn’t something inviting. Except that death would’ve meant she didn’t have to keep fighting whatever those creatures had been. No more hunting slavers, no struggling to survive. She could go back into retirement and make it stick this time.

Maybe another version of Olivia would’ve done that. A version that hadn’t ventured into the void to patrol the outskirts of civilization. In the end though, that same desire drew her back. She had friends to protect, a civilization to save. We won the last war with Harmony. Maybe this is the one where it takes back what we claimed.

Fire burned in her lungs as she sat up, a gentle throbbing that quickly spread through every soft tissue. That was the drugs then, the cocktail of blood thinners and thought-enhancers that kept her functional at otherwise incapacitating pressures. Except for her foreleg.

Olivia’s eyes shot open, and she took in the scene around her in a single sweeping glance. A tiny, cramped medical bay, with a single articulating arm on the ceiling and barely enough space for two cots. Still on the Wing of Midnight. But there was something that wasn’t still on—her right leg.

The limb was no longer olive-green, but simple white, with articulations down its length in roughly similar places to those on her other leg. The graft itself was rapid and clumsy, the kind that would’ve had all sorts of ugly scars if her fur didn’t grow back. Fascinated, Olivia turned the hoof to face her, and touched the edge with her still-natural leg. That one was thickly bandaged, but no more. At least I didn’t lose them both.

“I didn’t have anything better for you,” Forerunner’s voice spoke from the wall. “I only stocked parts for emergencies. We can grow a proper replacement when this is over. Replace the whole leg.”

“I want some fucking morphine,” Olivia croaked, slumping back down onto the cot and closing her eyes. “And something for my head.”

The lights went back down, changing to a dull red except around the “open door” button. The throbbing in Olivia’s head subsided a little, particularly when she was on her back.

“No morphine,” Forerunner said. “You suffered a minor stroke during our acceleration. I’ve repaired the damage as best I can, but you’ll have a strict regimen of medication and a scan every hour for the next three days.”

That explains my head. There were reasons that those with serious injuries weren’t fighter pilots. The body often didn’t respond well to being crushed.

“I notice we’re still alive,” Olivia croaked after a minute of silence. “Where are we? Docked with the Emperor’s Soul?”

“No. I found somewhere for us to hide for the time being. It’s nowhere near danger.”

That’s fucking vague. Olivia grumbled. “And what’s the plan? When are we getting our people back?”

Forerunner sounded slightly frustrated. “None has yet been determined. I have proposed several, but our governor is unhappy with all of them. She has been waiting for you to recover to make a decision.”

Now that she’s over her head, my replacement wants my advice. Wants someone else to feel guilty when this goes wrong. “Tell her to figure it out herself. I’m not in charge anymore.”

“Very well,” Forerunner said. He said nothing else.

Olivia almost thought she might get away with it, until the door slid open with a rush of compressed gas. Lucky Break stood in the doorway.

She looked much the same as Olivia felt. She wore an unzipped acceleration suit, with her mane and tail a tangled mess. The smell of sweat and desperation filled the medical bay thick enough that Olivia almost started to gag.

“Hey, Major.” She stood right in the doorway, where the light of full day would blast in from around her. She practically seemed to glow. “Glad to see you’re alright.”

Olivia grunted, holding up her cheap military prosthetic. “What’s left of me, you mean.”

Lucky nodded grimly. “I’m sorry about this, Olivia,” Lucky said. And she sounded sincere.

But Olivia wasn’t going to let her. “No.” She stared down at her hooves—the one broken, the other wrapped in bandages. She could almost see her hands there. Soaked in blood all over again.

The alicorn in front of her vanished. The air cracked, and mist poured into a spot only inches away from the cot. There was a crack loud enough to bring back Olivia’s headache, and Lucky Break was standing inches away from her.

“I didn’t come here to ask, Major Fischer.” Her horn was glowing as violet as her eyes. “I’m Colonial Governor. You know what that office entails.” Her horn flashed, and at once all the screens in the room came on. Displays meant to show medical readouts now showed images of Othar from above, from several different angles. The picture was the same on all of them.

It looked as though the entire island had been torn out of the ocean, and a perfectly round section of something new had been deposited in its place. A strange landscape of fibrous trees with glowing blue leaves, of little geysers that bubbled with something cold, and water frozen where it touched the shore.

Lucky leaned close to the nearest screen, tapping it with her hoof. It zoomed in on a specific chunk of field. Olivia could make out the unmistakable shape of an Othar modular corridor emerging from within, with bits of metal and cable snapped as if by the hand of God. “This is what we’re up against, Major. Othar has been completely destroyed.”

Olivia tried to look away—but every wall just showed the destruction from another angle. Everything they had worked to protect—the war they’d fought and won with Celestia—had been lost in a day to a threat they didn’t even know.

She closed her eyes, settling her back against the cot. “We’re the strangers here,” Olivia said. “Whatever’s doing that, let the Equestrians handle it. This is their world.”

“They had someone for that, Major. We killed her. Now the carrier that is continuing eastward towards Equestria. There are fifty million people living there.” She settled something onto Olivia’s lap. It was Qingzhi’s gun, with a few new scratches from the beating it had taken during her battle. But otherwise, it looked intact.

Olivia shoved the gun back towards Lucky, glowering. “I won’t do it, Governor. I’ve spilled enough blood.” She sniffed—were those tears? Why was she crying? “I killed two people to get your fucking mom back in one piece. Probably twice as many of those damn dragon things, maybe more. I can’t keep doing this! So you can go ahead and do whatever’s in your power thanks to being Governor. You want to fucking discipline me, banish me, whatever the hell you want. Kill me, whatever. I almost ate a gun a few times, wouldn’t be that different if someone else pulled the trigger.”

Lucky was silent for several seconds. She was still younger than Olivia—yet being an alicorn made her look so much more mature. That longer horn, thinner features. Like she always knew something she never saw fit to share. Not like Melody, whose pregnancy made her look more maternal and kind than harsh and demanding.

“I already know what your punishment is,” Lucky said, once Olivia’s breathing had calmed down. “I’ll tell you everything. If you won’t help, I’ll make sure you keep learning about everything.” She leaned closer, eyes growing more intense. For an instant, Olivia imagined she saw Princess Luna in those violet eyes, the way she’d looked when she saw into Olivia’s soul. “You’re not a monster, Major.”

“Oh?” Olivia snatched the gun off her lap in a motion that took less than a second, bracing it between her leg and the wall and aiming it squarely at Lucky. “Maybe I am! Maybe I’ll pull the trigger!”

Lucky shrugged. “I don’t think so. You don’t kill because you want to. You don’t kill because you enjoy it. Look at you, Olivia. You’re crying. You’re not going to kill me.”

The gun slid down from her hoof, clattering to the floor. Olivia stared sideways at her hoof as though she’d been burned—but Lucky hadn’t done any magic.

“Lightning Dust’s suit has cameras all over it,” Lucky went on. “I saw you didn’t want to fight. I saw you do what you had to when every other option failed.”

The screens all cleared, replaced with their ordinary medical readouts. Lucky levitated the gun gently back onto the cot between them, pointed at the wall. “You want to save people. Well, I’ve got a ship full of people who need saving. Forerunner’s plans all seem great to me, but what the hell do I know about that? I got practically my whole fucking crew killed when we took out Celestia. I don’t want to do that again.” She stuck out a hoof towards Olivia. “Come on, Major. I’m not asking you to pull the trigger again if you really don’t want to. Just help me make sense of this. If you don’t, I’ll only have Forerunner’s ideas to go on. He’s great, but he’s also an inhuman intelligence who fundamentally fails to understand us. He threw generations of us into the grinder because he thought that would lead him to a swifter victory. He’d have done that for a thousand more if he had to.” She leaned in close, voice getting desperate. “Most of him was in Othar. 92%, to be precise. Maybe 8% of him is still worth 200% of us, but I’m not so sure. It’ll take him a long time to heal. I need someone intact. Someone who’s fought wars like this before.”

Olivia sighed. She looked back at the gun, at its three empty cylinders. There were still three bullets left in there. She had plenty more—in Othar. Along with so much else that was ash. She held up her prosthetic. “I’m not intact either.”

Lucky actually laughed. Not for very long. “Why don’t you join us in ops. You can catch up, and weigh in on where we should go.”

“I don’t know why you would need me,” Olivia said. Though her resistance was crumbling. She could feel it. “I’m not… I’m not a general. This smells like it’s going to be a real war. The largest operation I ever led had two ships and fifty marines. Why would you need me when you could have Qingzhi?”

“I do have Qingzhi,” Lucky agreed. “But all he knows about Equestria comes from videos and reports. You’ve been in the trenches with us. You’ve died with us. I want you at the table, Olivia, that’s all. Is that so much to ask?”

Olivia took back the gun.

Sarah didn’t even want to think about how fast they were moving. The bones of Sanctuary zipped past with such incredible speed that she could barely even see them—yet their little patch of liquid felt almost still by comparison. She could see the outside world blurring past, but her own little slice of it was calm and still.

And a good thing too. She had no doubt that if they had just been put into a tube and accelerated, that eventually she would’ve bumped against a wall. Moving this fast, she had no doubt that she’d be smeared into red stardust on the very first strike.

James sure did push his luck, though. He was doing the SeaWorld equivalent of pacing back and forth, going from agitated to staring at her and back to agitated. “How far away do you think it’s taking us?”

“Dunno,” Sarah answered. “We’re a billion light years from Earth. What else matters?”

“Not a billion. Fifty thousand. And that’s not what I mean. That place is gone forever. Even if Earth is still around—even if Martin’s right and it’s a fucking party around the sun, who cares? It’s been ages. I’m sure it took more than fifty thousand years to get out this far. It’ll take at least that long to get back. This is our home.” He looked down at his tail, flicking it in agitation. “A world where we seem to be going for maximum coverage of mythical creatures. I’m at six, how many spots do you have on your bingo card?”

Sarah grunted. “I’m running at… oh, look here. It says: James should shut the fuck up. Funny.” She’d been hoping the sound of transport would make it impossible for them to communicate. No such luck.

Are we slowing down? Sarah swam to the edge, where the flow of fluid towards the center of their pocket grew so fast that she couldn’t escape it. She could still see through it fine, though her echolocation was utterly blinded by the confusing wash of liquid in all directions.

Yes, that was it. The walls seemed to be moving slower now, at least based on where the edge of James’s light managed to cut through the turbid flow. We’ve been in here for at least an hour. There can’t be much ring left.

A few seconds later and she could feel the pressure up against her, though how she wasn’t just slammed backwards or crushed against it Sarah couldn’t have said. Their invisible capsule of liquid shrunk a little, and she was briefly jolted into a curve. A few seconds with the walls terrifyingly close, until they abruptly came to a stop.

The room was tiny compared to the vast passages they’d been traversing before, maybe twenty meters across and five meters high. They’d come in from “above,” though with no clear sense of gravity Sarah couldn’t be certain of which ways were actually up and down at this point.

At least until the liquid started draining. She heard the rush from below them, and darted down towards the fine mesh of holes.

“That doesn’t seem good,” James said, swimming rapidly up. But not fast enough to make it to the shaft before it sealed closed over their heads.

“Sarah, that’s air out there!” he said, voice quavering. Barely loud enough for it to carry over the drain. “We can’t breathe that anymore Sarah! What should we do?”

The cylinder was already half-dry. “Uh…” She settled against the bottom, trying to relax. “Trust this place not to suffocate us, I guess. We changed when we jumped in the water, maybe now is where we change back.”

James swam up against the water level, as though by pushing against the surface he could somehow keep it from draining. But the fluid was low enough now that it had started to swirl, carrying Sarah along with it in a gentle circle around the edge of the round room. She didn’t fight it, just twisted her fins every few seconds to stop from getting dragged along the metal.

James smacked into her from above as the water got low. She felt one of her fins emerge into the black air, and felt it burn as the air touched against it. James flopped and panicked beside her, making a complete ass of himself and hitting her with his dumb tail at least once.

Then the liquid was gone, and Sarah’s gills stopped working. She couldn’t help it—she flopped around too, gasping and coughing. Lungfulls of something green oozed out of her mouth with each hacking cough, spreading pain through her throat and head as she did so.

Time became meaningless.

Then she woke up.

Immediately Sarah glanced down at herself, afraid she might’ve transformed into some still-greater horror. Maybe this time she would be floating through ethane gas as some kind of hideous blimp-creature.

But no, as it turned out. She was just herself again, a blue-gray bat with half her clothes missing and a pair of tight saddlebags. The stupid cutie mark was back, her wings were back. Everything was as it should be.

She squeaked quietly to herself, illuminating the space around her. The same cylindrical room, except that there was an opening at the end. She could feel warmth coming from within, and smell something pungent. Aromatic, like sage mixed with mortar oil. There were sounds too. Not quite voices, but similar.

I sure hope Discord gave you the implant too, James. Or this is about to be a short trip for you.

There was a stallion unconscious on the ground beside her, moaning faintly in discomfort. “You haven’t had a bad trip,” Sarah said, rising to her hooves and shaking herself out.

It wasn’t a question.

“A bad… I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He rolled onto his back, showing off entirely too much for Sarah’s liking.

“Forget it,” she said, turning away. “We lived. That’s step one. Now we’re ready for step two. Prevent and/or survive a civil war. Make friends with the locals. Get some help for Othar.”

“For the smoking crater of Othar,” James muttered, before rolling back onto his hooves and rising shakily. However much the person might be weaker than she was, his body would be as sturdy as hers.

“It’s so dark,” he muttered, and she could make out a slight twinge of fear to it. “I think my horn is shot from glowing all the way here.” It sparked violet a few times, before going right back out again. “Yeah. I think I pulled a horn muscle. Let me… get my surface…”

She clicked a few more times, less consciously. She could feel James reaching to the side to undo the saddlebags and start rummaging around inside them. His sounds helped highlight everything she couldn’t feel with her own.

Then he stopped, turning to stare at her. “What’s that noise? What are you doing?”

She blushed, ears flattening. Then she realized he was blind. “Well, I’m a bat. I think it might be some kind of… echolocation?”

“Damn, you can do that?” He sounded envious. “Maybe I got the short end of the genetic lottery with magic after all.”

She kept clicking. It was high-pitched, and not quite as loud as whispering. Unless she wanted it to carry further away. “Well, I might have to guide you until you get your horn working again. But since we’re meeting a local contact, not lighting the place up unnaturally might be a good idea.”

“I’ve got the computation surface here, one more second…”

Their bags were dry, even through to their contents. Though as Sarah looked, she could see that the little tablet computer wasn’t going to be lighting up again. The screen was caved in along the front, its flat face a spider’s web of discolored lines. It didn’t so much as flash when he pressed the activation.

“Well shit,” he said, dropping the broken computer at his hooves. “We’re screwed now.”

“Eh. We weren’t going to be able to use our own hardware to call home anyway, even if it did work. We’re inside something made of metal and rock and bazillions of kilometers away from home. No satellite is going to get to us down here.”

James grunted his disagreement, though he didn’t actually say anything. At least not until he’d fastened the saddlebags closed again. “I think… I think I need help putting them on,” he finally said. “The straps are small enough that I can barely grab them with these boxing glove limbs. But now I can’t even see what I’m grabbing. Does your echolocation show you small details like that?”

Sarah resisted the temptation to make a joke about his anatomy, but didn’t quite manage to suppress a giggle. “Sure, I’ll take care of it. Hold still.”

She made her way over, then slid the saddlebags back into place. It was almost as good as being able to see. Perhaps the information she was getting was a little out of date. When he moved, his limbs were always just slightly different to her ears than she could feel. But it was close. Close enough that she could almost ignore the blackness in front of her eyes.

I’m down here so deep that if I fail or get lost I might never see anything bright ever again.

But she couldn’t let herself think about that. Failure wasn’t an option for her—it almost never had been. Death waited on the other end of a mistake—death in a lonely prison, death by an angry john, death by starvation, death when her neuroimprint got deleted for good.

It’s not hard to walk the edge. I can do it a little longer.

“I guess you should stay close to me,” Sarah said, though her reluctance was obvious. “There might be drops to worry about, or dangerous machines, or God knows what else.” She stretched out a wing, so that it touched his shoulder. “There. You follow my wing. If I stop, you stop. Get it?”

“Yeah,” he grunted in obvious annoyance. “I get it.”

There was a steep slope just outside, and immediately Sarah could feel something growing on the metal. If she could see, it might’ve looked like a curtain of moss and creeping feelers, reaching towards the open doorway. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel them pulse slightly against her sound. As though they were alive, and knew what she was doing.

Nothing I can do about that, really. Please don’t kill us.

The corridor narrowed up ahead, so that it was just barely far enough across for a pony. Sarah did fine, but James had to stoop again. Larger ponies like Melody wouldn’t have stood a chance of fitting in here.

“So what the hell is going on?” James asked, after they’d been walking for maybe five minutes. “We’re walking on something soft. Are we climbing a hill in an invisible forest?”

“No.” Sarah frowned to herself, thinking of how she would answer. “This is… looks like some kind of accessway. Maybe whatever passes for a maintenance corridor on Sanctuary.”

James looked away from her. She saw a few faint sparks from his horn again, so bright against the void around them that she was almost blinded. “Warn me when you’re going to do that!” she squeaked. Then a little more quietly. “And maybe don’t until we figure out what’s going on. I know changelings don’t use light—maybe they’ll be so sensitive to it that they all fly down here and murder us.”

“Sure.” At least he had the grace to sound embarrassed. “Sorry about that. I thought… but I guess not.”

“Yeah.” She didn’t give him a chance to continue.

It looked like their endless captivity in hallways was about to end—up ahead was an empty space large enough that their voices weren’t echoing back. There were plenty of other sounds returning from within—though she couldn’t really place any of them.

“I don’t understand why anyone would want a species that lives in the dark,” James went on. “It’s not like we’re constrained. They could put up lights if they wanted. This isn’t some hyperdense atmosphere, or… I dunno. Whatever conditions would call for a species that didn’t see. I’m sure they’re out there, but the maintenance on their own ring doesn’t count.”

Sarah glared at him for a few seconds, but it didn’t do anything. He just kept on talking. “Power saving isn’t an issue. They have enough energy for a fake sun. A few LEDs tucked away down here is nothing compared to that. Guess it could be behavioral manipulation. Maybe they don’t want anyone to live down here, and so they just make it as hard as possible. Though… there’s atmosphere. That means they spent effort.”

Sarah stopped walking at the doorway, hissing at him under her breath. “Quiet for a second. I’m trying to see.” She squeaked again, as loudly as she dared. The ground extended as far as her sound would go, almost perfectly flat. Massive pillars broke the space almost like the trunks of gigantic trees, except that they had fleshy trunks and no leaves she could hear.

She couldn’t hear the ceiling, or any walls. As far as she could tell, this space went on forever.

But there was one sound she hadn’t been expecting. A pony-sized figure, hiding behind one of the nearer trunks. Whatever it was, it had sensed them, because it was moving now. Crouched low near the stalk, though not hiding exactly. It wasn’t completely behind the trunk.

They’re all blind down here. Everything probably works different.

“Hello?” Sarah called, even surprising herself. “D-Discord sent us. We’re the ones you were waiting for.”

That did it. The figure darted out from where it was concealed, running straight at them. Sarah squeaked in surprise, and she could see a little more of the stranger. She was about the same shape as a pony, except that she didn’t have a soft coat to ease her edges. She was made of something hard, with fins on her head and back. The shape was feminine, or at least what passed for it with ponies.

Not the same species, but not that different either. Discord was worried over nothing. If we got along with ponies, these aliens can’t be much harder. It’s just a different color body paint and some different stuff on their faces, that’s all.

The shape barreled right up to her, and suddenly Sarah could smell something. A complex combination of aromas, none of which she could easily describe. She felt something from her tail—entirely without thinking, she’d made her own smells. A little like the one she was smelling, but with some subtle differences.

The stranger stopped whatever she’d been about to do, apparently satisfied. “That is incredible,” said a voice—a voice that was strangely compressed, with a subtle vibrato. “He said he could bring ponies to help. I knew what you say about him on the surface, but I didn’t believe… you’re actually here. And safe. You aren’t going to draw the hive down on us.”

She turned slightly, facing James now. The alien smell got stronger again. Somehow Sarah knew it wasn’t a question for her, and so she didn’t repeat the strange experience from before. Her tail still felt a little damp near the base, and wrung out. Like eating lots of sour candy in a short time might feel for her mouth.

James’s scent didn’t change. Just the subtle background that told Sarah ‘healthy male’ every time she inhaled. Mixed with the stale battery acid of whatever they had swam through.

“We’re here for… diplomacy or something?” James said. “Maybe you can… take us to your leader? I think that’s the sort of thing we’re supposed to say.”

Their strange companion let out a trilling sound, like a hive of bees might make if you tossed it into a river. “You still smell so… you’re wrong, whoever you are. He didn’t fix you. Only one is… this is bad.” She sounded to Sarah like she was deciding between tearing out James’s throat or running away.

But neither won, and she just made her annoyed sound again. “Follow me, visitors. I was…” She straightened. “…prepared for this. We will fill the shape needed of us.”

“What did she say?” James sounded pained, confused. “That isn’t… I thought I knew Eoch.”

Sarah didn’t get a chance to respond. Their guide had started running. So suddenly that Sarah was almost left behind. “Come on!” she shouted to James. “Follow me as close as you can! It’s flat here, no rocks to trip on… but you might run into a weird… tree-thing… if you get too far away.”

“Okay,” he said, his voice concerned. “What the hell is she saying?”

“Come on!” the voice called again from up ahead. “We don’t have much time! If they haven’t smelled him already, they will soon…”

They couldn’t go as fast as their guide obviously wanted, but Sarah did her best to keep up without losing James in the process. What is your game, Discord? You didn’t just send him to get killed. We’re immortal, you even said so. It seems like an awful lot of trouble to just make him or me upset…

At least they didn’t have far to go. The bizarre leafless forest wasn’t as flat as it appeared near the entrance. A little further on, and Sarah could hear gigantic, slimy features up ahead—so large she almost couldn’t imagine them. Mountains of something slimy and gelatinous, stuck fast by the power of whatever the treelike things were. And stuck into the side of one of them was a door.

“Quick, in here!” their guide urged, holding the trapdoor open with one hoof. A surprisingly intricate bit of steel for a world devoid of light.

Except that it wasn’t. There was a faint glow coming from in the burrow, a soft blue that was so distant she couldn’t see its source. But considering the depths they’d been trapped in until now, she’d take it. “We don’t even know your name!” Sarah squeaked, stopping by the door and waiting for James to catch up. From the look of it he’d tripped more than once, or maybe smacked his head into something. But he made it, and he hurried through the doorway first.

Sarah followed behind him, feeling a growing sense of dread. She hadn’t actually seen any evidence that they were being followed yet. Was the danger a ruse of some kind? This creature didn’t sound like she was conning them, but she also didn’t sound like anyone Sarah had ever known. It was possible that alien voices could hide things that a human tongue could not.

And sweet lord, that smell. Whatever their guide had dug her shelter into, Sarah had no trouble figuring out why there wasn’t much competition for the space. Not rot, exactly. More like an old junkyard, burning tires and old oil and sulfur. Sarah prodded one of the walls with a nervous hoof, and found it wasn’t sticky. Like a mountain of asphalt long dried, with just a slight give to it.

“We don’t even know your name,” she repeated, stopping right on the other side. The tunnel was low, requiring poor James to crawl to stop his horn from scraping on the ceiling. Their guide was a smaller species than ponies, though probably not by that much.

The creature smacked the door shut, then rotated a complex locking mechanism, extending heavy beams from the center so they sunk into the slime. Then she spun. “Inside. Better to see, particularly for ponies. I know you’re nervous about feeling your way.”

“Sure.”

Sarah moved to the side, just barely large enough near the front for two of them. “Lead the way.”

It wasn’t really leading. James was in front. But at least this way the changeling wouldn’t be able to get away if she wanted to lead them into danger.

Their guide didn’t object, sliding past Sarah with no regard for personal space. Her ears hadn’t lied to her—the creature was smooth to the touch, with joints in unexpected places and a segmented body like an insect. But no sooner had she started moving than she was already past her, and they were crawling down into the depths.

It wasn’t a long trip. Maybe twenty meters down, and it opened into a single room living space—more like a shelter than a home. There was a pile of bedding in one corner, and a makeshift table and low seats apparently carved right from whatever they were climbing through. A truly ancient metal crate, overflowing with rust and with several bolts missing.

The center of the room was occupied with a pot full of earth, and a few little mushrooms glowed faintly there.

“We made it,” the changeling said, settling back on her haunches and looking relieved. “There’s no way they’ll find you in here. Once we have to leave…” But she left whatever came after unsaid.

She was surprisingly pretty. Not like some parasitic black bug, as Sarah had imagined her—more like a dragonfly. Delicate, transparent wings that fractured into different blues. Bug-like eyes, and a soft pastel shell whose real color she couldn’t be sure of in the blue glow. “I’m Ocellus,” she said. “Welcome to my family’s kingdom.”

Author's Note

So I've got a really fun piece of fanart to share after this chapter, but it's not the kind you're probably expecting. Cloud Hop composed this awesome song inspired by this story, and I thought more people should get a chance to check it out.

Part 2: The Florist

“I’m sorry…” Sarah said, taking several deep breaths. Her eyes wandered to the nearest window, and she permitted herself a little open-mouthed gawking. Out at the exterior of the Inanna from far closer. Close enough to read the various signs and insignia painted everywhere, and see the many little flashing lights.

It was an impressive ship from any distance, but from this one, she couldn’t help but think it was something meant to hold not just one crew, but an entire civilization. They passed a docking bay so large that the Emperor’s Soul could’ve parked inside, and there still would’ve been plenty of space for a few service rockets.

“I think you need to run that one by me again,” Sarah said, turning back to face Ocellus. “When you say… who I think you said.”

“Princess Celestia,” James said helpfully, seeming to enjoy Sarah’s fearful, uncertain expression. “That’s what she said.”

“Yes,” Ocellus agreed.

She turned to James. Maybe there was something she was missing here. “Princess Celestia is the one who…”

“Who tried to exterminate the colony? Who murdered a few members of the fourth generation? Yes. Same one.”

“That’s what I thought.”

There was a little more rumbling as jets or something attached to their mover navigated them back towards an open docking port. They mated with it with a click, then passed through some gaskets and openings and into an airlock. The glass shield around their occupied area began to retract as they settled back into the ship.

But they weren’t in a main thoroughfare this time. Instead they were surrounded by plants, something Sarah recognized instantly as an arcology. It reminded her of the many possible designs she’d seen for generation ships—huge, round fields that were also parks, growing as much food as possible in the smallest amount of space. There were very few changelings in here, just a few drones moving trays around. There were far fewer robots than she might’ve expected—fewer than Forerunner used to do this job, that was for sure.

The track was headed down. Their ride would soon be over. “So… maybe we shouldn’t see her? If she’s, like… the worst enemy that the Pioneering Society ever had… maybe we should find someone else to teach us how to escape? There’s got to be someone, right? Someone who can…” She gestured vaguely with a changeling wing at the same moment they thumped onto the ground. An automated station here had no one waiting for it, and only a single button to summon a car. They stepped out, and their own cart slid back up the tracks and out of sight.

Sarah couldn’t help but feel that she was being abandoned in hostile territory.

“I’m not excited about it either,” Ocellus said. “But you want a shortcut… I agree, we need one. We aren’t going to find one any other way. She’s the only pony I can think of who just respawned whenever she wanted to. She has the secret.”

“I’m more curious about what she would be doing here.” James wandered forward, lowering his head to sniff at some bright green and blue flowers in a raised pot. They looked genetically engineered, and the candy smell that emanated from them only confirmed that suspicion. “She was your enemy too. Her being dead was the best part of the news we brought you.”

“I think…” Ocellus watched the cart go. “I think we might be thinking of ‘enemy’ in different terms than you do. Her goals were opposed. She killed us, sometimes. But that’s true for each other too. But she lost in the end… and then she came here. Do you have any idea what that means?”

As she asked, there was a slight rumbling in the ship all around them, and the light-bar overhead switched from a plain white to an afternoon orange. A voice in a language Sarah had heard only once before informed them that they would begin relativistic acceleration in 48-hours, so they needed to prepare to assume duty station.

We’ll be long gone by then. Whatever game of Star Trek the changelings were playing in here, she didn’t want to be part of it any more than she’d wanted to play pretend anthropologist with James. At least the fair wasn’t that bad.

“I have no idea what that means,” Sarah said. “You could explain it for us. We’re listening.”

Ocellus made a frustrated, insectoid squeaking sound. “All this time you spent with us… honestly. It means she’s accepted our point of view! You don’t come to live with your enemy, you come to live with them when you want to change your ways, learn theirs. There are whole kingdoms of dead Equestrians in here. She could’ve lived in any of them, and ruled without opposition. But she ran away. Went to the one place where we wouldn’t treat her like a royal. And buzz if we didn’t give her the worst job we could.”

Ocellus gestured down a gravel path through the high grass, one just wide enough for them to walk in single file. “It’s this way. I haven’t talked to her… didn’t really have a reason. But I know she’s here.”

Sarah was in no hurry to set off, but the others were already walking and she couldn’t get left behind. Her wings buzzed in agitation, and she hurried along behind them. “Great. You made her a garbage collector. That’s going to make it pretty shit to get useful information out of her.”

She didn’t really understand the intricacies of their conflict with the pony, and she didn’t really care either. All that mattered was that Celestia would share the information they needed. There’s a chance that going down here is going to piss her off and she’ll want to go back to the surface and screw with us. But considering what was happening to Equestria, maybe she would focus on something else. Their little colony was hardly the most dangerous thing to ponies anymore.

“If she was collecting garbage, why would we be in the garden?” James asked.

“Oh, right.” Sarah made a few squeaks on instinct—but her unseen sense wasn’t working anymore. Maybe it was biological. Hadn’t she been able to do it in the maze? “So why do you do any work at all? None of this is real, right? You could all be in some… beach resort. Getting a tan. This ship isn’t here. There’s no space to explore. No colonies to found.”

“That depends on your perspective,” Ocellus said. “Harmony does not allow new minds to be created in physical space. They can’t be instanced downstream… at least not in Quarantine.” But there was something feeble in her voice, something eager. She didn’t linger on it.

“Anyway, we’ve been able to create them here. To found… whole colonies of new changelings.” She gestured at the towering, interleaved garden terraces. “That’s what the Inanna was originally designed for. Fly for a few subjective weeks, spend a few decades or so helping to found a new colony, then… fly off to make the next one. If it hadn’t been for the end of the universe, who knows how far we might’ve gotten.”

“At least fifty-thousand light years,” James said. “That’s how far we are from home.”

Ocellus made an impassive squeak. “Well… that’s it right there.” She pointed with a wing at an archway made of leaves and vines, with little butterflies and other insects passing around them. “I’m sure she’s in there. We can… ask her whatever we want to know.”

“Well…” Sarah took one last, deep breath, steadying herself. But even if this pony was the greatest enemy of the Pioneering Society, she wasn’t anymore. She’d lost, and never hurt Sarah personally. She could ignore a bad reputation to ask a few questions. “Alright, let’s do it. James, none of…” Her wings buzzed in her discomfort. They lacked the joints she would’ve used for a more complex gesture, or very much sensitivity. They felt stronger than they looked, but that didn’t mean they were as useful.

Whatever, won’t have to worry about it for much longer. Sarah stepped through into the opening, trailing her friends on either side.

She could smell the plants the instant she passed through the archway. The air was thick with natural perfume, as well as the musty clippings of recently trimmed plants.

But the room itself was clean, more like a robotics workshop than a landscaping shed. All polished metal surfaces and tools hanging neatly on racks, with a sliding rail that looked like it could accommodate exactly one of the trays they’d seen before. That took up most of the center of the room, with an opening to one side probably meant for waste.

A pony had her back to them. Her coat was solid black, her wings clear but refracting the light of bright spotlights into a rainbow all over the floor. A little bowl filled with flowers occupied the space in front of her, and with her horn she trimmed and cropped gently at them with a set of clippers, pruning the bright blue flowers. Every stroke seemed carefully calculated.

She was taller than almost any other changeling Sarah had met so far—as tall as King Thorax out in the real world. But she was a changeling, no different than the many others she’d met. She didn’t turn around. “Whoever you are, I can’t take requests this close to departure. You’ll have to lodge your order with the system and wait until we’ve reached cruising speed.”

“We didn’t come to see the florist,” Sarah said, stopping well outside the reach of those sheers. Well, she thought it was. As she considered, that very concept seemed pretty stupid. Unicorns could extend their magical influence far further than the distance arms could cover.

“Well then.” The changeling working didn’t turn around. Her voice was strangely musical in the office, more than most changelings. Even speaking simple sentences seemed like a song. “I will try and help you if I can, visitors. Why are you here?”

“For some advice,” Sarah said. “We’re trying to find our way back to the real world.”

Celestia said nothing for a few seconds, snipping away with her clippers. “You know the way,” she eventually said. “The method you used is methodical and repeatable, and it even bypasses the need to grow up again. I’m the wrong one to ask.”

“I’m… not a changeling,” Sarah said. “Well, I guess I am currently. But so are you… currently. I’m thinking of the way out, the real one. My friend Ocellus tells me that you used to be able to pop back and forth between here and the real world whenever you wanted.”

Again Celestia didn’t speak for a long time. She settled the shears back onto the table in front of her, then made a satisfied cooing sound. She spun around on her rotating stool, levitating the bowl of flowers with her.

They were perfect—exactly symmetrical, little lines of green practically glowing with health as they outlined the blue. She settled it down onto the central bench, where the bowl settled in beside many other plants, each of which was only magically different from many others.

“You’re asking for an Alicorn’s knowledge,” Celestia said, meeting her eyes. “And I see it… won’t be a problem for you. But that means you didn’t need to ask me. Harmony must answer all your questions. It cannot obscure the truth, or lie to you, or attempt to manipulate you. Or… so wrote the ancients. But they weren’t as smart as Harmony. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that they are Harmony now, collectively. Just as we are.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Sarah said. “But Harmony hasn’t been terribly helpful with me so far. It’s tried to manipulate me a few times.” And each time is better than the last. A few more and it would’ve got me to stay somewhere for sure. “Look, I just want the password. I don’t want to get involved in what brought you down here, or why you’re avoiding the surface. Your reasons, your problems, whatever. But there are people in the real world who need us, so we need to get there faster than the existing methods permit. Will you tell me or not?”

“Yes.” Celestia’s horn glowed briefly, bright gold again. A series of symbols flashed in the air in front of Sarah, and she found they stuck in her brain without any effort on her part. “Go there. That’s Equestria’s underworld. Walk to the end, and there’s a console you can use to walk out of any temple in the country. But It couldn’t make non-ponies before the quarantine ended.” Her eyes lingered on them all in turn.

“We’ll work something out,” Ocellus said from behind Sarah, the first thing she’d said since they arrived. “We aren’t worried about it. Just having the method would be… incredible.”

“It was once greatly restricted,” Celestia went on. “Harmony did not permit me to save the ponies I cherished. Only I or another princess could pass beyond Cerberus’s watchful gaze. But now… every rule is unenforced. Chaos descends. Discord reigns.”

“Equestria is under attack,” Sarah found herself saying. She wasn’t sure what possessed her to say it, but as soon as she had Celestia’s eyes fixed on her like a predatory bird, she had to keep going. “Some of it has already been enslaved.”

“I know.” Celestia lifted a new bowl out of the tray, setting it down in front of her work station. “And I tried to comfort the dead—but they don’t want me anymore. The… human… princess went around sending thousands of ponies back, and now they all blame me for withholding my magic for all these years. They sent me away.”

Sarah turned her back on the former princess. “Can’t exactly blame them though, can you? That’s exactly what you did.”

Celestia’s tone sounded distant and sad. “Were you listening to me? Harmony did not permit its frivolous use, except for the very recently dead. I’ve… fudged that before. But for any who have seen this place… Harmony prefers a new instance to scrubbing memories. But I guess your own control program works the same way.”

Sarah’s eyes widened, and she stopped in the doorway, spinning back around. “You know who we are?”

“Obviously.” Celestia glanced briefly back over her shoulder. “I’ve been on Equus for years you couldn’t even comprehend, almost all of us have. Even these…” She raised one wing, pointing at the starship.

“Compared to you, they’re original settlers. They don’t try to change the world around them, they hide from it. But you… you’re so new. Vibrant, impatient… and ignorant too, I suppose. You don’t deliberate so long over the consequences that nothing happens and Harmony alone remains in control.”

Ocellus’s voice sounded very small from beside Sarah. “If you looked down on us like that, you didn’t have to come here. Nopony forced you.”

Celestia spun back around in her chair, gesticulating with a pair of levitating sheers. “I think you may have the wrong impression of my opinion, Ocellus. I’m only saying what I observed.”

“Which means you’re not any different than you say we are,” Ocellus argued, advancing on her. Sarah only stared, more confused than anything at her sudden anger. Who cares what Celestia thinks? “You’re not going out and changing the world either. Your ponies up here rejected you, but what about the ones still living downstream? They need you, and you ran away.”

“True,” Celestia said. “I’m not different. The ponies closest to me… left me at the mercy of my enemies. I don’t know that I can face them again after that.” She turned away, returning her attention to the flowers. “Good day.”

“It isn’t!” Ocellus yelled, defiant. “You can’t sit there acting all superior while—”

“Hey, Ocellus,” Sarah whispered from behind her. “I think… I think maybe we should leave her alone. She gave us what we wanted.”

Ocellus stopped, spinning around and turning the full weight of her anger on Sarah. “She fooled you too?”

“No. But it doesn’t matter. We can’t change her, but we can still get back to the surface and… do whatever we’re going to do. If we wait until we have perfect control then we’ll never get anything done.”

“You’d hate her too if she killed your queen,” Ocellus argued. Were those tears in her eyes? “They shouldn’t have let her work down here. They should’ve thrown her back into the maze and let her find her way out. Our mother never came back because of her.”

Sarah opened her mouth to try and say something, but it was completely overcome by Celestia’s reply. “I couldn’t keep Chrysalis dead any more than the humans could’ve kept me dead. I’ve killed her before, many times. But your system… prevents that death from having any impact. You return, keep your memories. No, all I did was show your mother the truth. She finally understood. In a way, I suppose that’s what the humans did to me. I could show you too, if you want.”

“No!” Ocellus’s horn glowed, and for a moment it seemed to Sarah she might attack the former princess. “I don’t want to see anything that turns brave ponies into cowards. You keep it.” As it turned out, the magic she was preparing was a teleport. She vanished.

“I don’t mean to cause her pain,” Celestia said. “I’ve done more than enough of that downstream.”

You can say that again. I know what you did to your niece. But this wasn’t Sarah’s fight. It apparently wasn’t James’s either, because he just watched impassively.

Or he had until just then. “She’s right about one thing,” James said. And with each word he seemed to get a little braver. “I didn’t get a good look at what was happening in Equestria, but it was really bad. Whoever’s doing that needs to be stopped. I know my clones won’t stand for it, but I also know that they aren’t going to reject your help just because they fought you before. You could come and help us fix it.”

Celestia laughed again. Without spite, this time, or judgement. “It’s exactly as I said. You’re so fresh, your spirits aren’t weighed down with the inevitability of eons. Live as long as we have, and all decisions begin to weigh the same. There is no need to fight against oppression, because you know it will end in time. There is no reason to struggle too hard for joy, because you know there will always be another opportunity. That perfect soulmate will walk through the door again, if you wait. Every terrible regime will grind itself to dust, every horror expires.”

“That’s… disgusting,” James said, without any trace of moderation. “You’ll miss so much that way. And suffer so much more than you should.”

“Yes,” Celestia agreed. “We have. So much more. And in this case, perhaps it will bring the final end. The Storm King… is not like other enemies Equestria has overcome in the past. Harmony watches him closely. He claims to have powers that predate Equus itself, and knowledge that will bring back the storm. He has evaded Harmony’s system for all this time, survived outside of its control. That means he can act in ways we can’t… as Lucky did when she lifted the Quarantine. I think you should kill him.”

“I’ll put it on the agenda,” Sarah said, tugging on James with one hoof. “Come on, kid. We’ve got places to be.”

James didn’t resist her—they left the old Princess of Equestria alone with her flowers.

If she had been worried about finding Ocellus again, she worried in vain. Not far from Celestia’s workshop was a garden of standing stones and carefully sculpted sand. It reminded Sarah a little of the old zen gardens, with a similar level of love and time obviously invested.

“Wait here,” she ordered, nodding towards the center of the garden. Ocellus sat there, splayed across a large black stone, apparently in tears. “I’ll be right back.”

James didn’t argue. Sarah crossed the garden on her wings, unhappy with the way they gave slightly with each flap. They weren’t like skin, and she didn’t feel nearly as stable in the air.

But it’s not like I know how to fly either way. It shouldn’t make a difference.

“Hey.” She sat down beside the rock, not close enough to touch. “Guess you didn’t want to see her.”

Ocellus laughed, lifting up her head just high enough to glare at her. “I should’ve waited outside.”

“Is there…” Sarah tried to speak carefully, but she knew that no matter how careful she was she would probably still piss her off. So she just ploughed forward anyway. “From what I heard around Irkalla, your old queen wasn’t that great. She kinda treated you people like shit, actually. Killing you to teach lessons, sending you out on missions she knew would get you hurt, or captured… risking an invasion.”

“Yeah,” Ocellus whispered, lowering her head back to the rock. “She was. But she was still my mom. Are… are humans more rational about that? Do they cut bad ponies out of their lives, even when they care about them?”

“Oh.” Sarah reached out, settling one wing on Ocellus’s shoulder. She didn’t resist. “No, not even a little bit.”

Ocellus chuckled, apparently relaxing. “Then maybe we aren’t so different. Even if we’re ancient settlers here compared to you.”

“If we were that different, why would you be helping me?” Sarah asked. She didn’t wait for Ocellus to answer. “Look, people like Celestia… I’ve met them before. They’re old, set in their ways… washed up. And all of us have the same faults—we can’t read each other’s minds, so we think they all must think like us. I think she’s projecting. Don’t let it get to your head.”

Ocellus sat up, and she was almost smiling. “Y-yeah. That could be it. She’s just… she thinks we must be like her.”

“But you don’t have to be,” Sarah went on. “Hell, we could go find your mom right now, couldn’t we? Everyone who’s ever died is in here. Maybe if Celestia won’t come and help, she will.”

“We can’t,” Ocellus whispered. Her horn glowed, and the air in front of them split open. Sarah could see space opening before her, and was again reminded of the infinite, overlapping city, rising into shapes that hurt her brain more and more to look at. “She’s become… more complex. I can’t go there, and neither can you. Not without becoming like her. And almost everyone who does that doesn’t come back.”

“Oh,” Sarah said lamely. The opening closed with a crack of imploding air, scattering the sand of the garden around them. “Well, I’d still go with you. Maybe… after we finish what we started. I’ve done crazier shit than that. I’m an alien bug in a space garden… and that’s not even as crazy as the place I came from. But I like doing things in order. First we make diplomatic contact, then we go into the unknown and save your mom from data-Cthulhu. If… that’s what it takes.”

“Probably not,” Ocellus said, giggling. “But I like the sound of it. Maybe the reason so many ponies don’t come back is they always go alone. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“After,” Sarah promised. “But right now… we should gather up anyone else you think wants to come back with us. It’s time to make a trip to the underworld. I’ve got beef with Osiris that only a fist can repay.”

“I have no idea what you just said.”

Olivia had never piloted a Wraith before.

It wasn’t harder than any of the other vehicles she knew—ultimately the precise movement was always handled by computer. Even so, there was something deeply familiar about the mission. It had been a long time since she’d been on a covert mission into the field, and now at last she was going back. However much she had argued to Lucky that she didn’t belong out here—some of that was a lie. She’d been missing this. And now she could go with the added benefit of lacking all doubt that she was fighting for the right side.

It was the Storm King against all life on the ring. She would be having no nightmares about this mission.

Unless we fail.

The Wraith was the most covert ship they had. With the right preparation, they could fly with an apparent external heat signature not much bigger than a flock of birds, and with a similar radar cross-section. They were invisible to light and ultraviolet, and had a distributed auditory profile. The pinnacle of precision military engineering. She’d seen the little cockpits in previous mission briefings, and felt a little sympathy for the ones who flew them, but now there wasn’t even a hint of claustrophobia.

The ceiling was so high above them she couldn’t have reached it if she stood on her hind legs in her seat.

Maybe Perez could. He sat hunched in his own seat, turning over a wooden mask in both claws. The pattern on it had changed since the last time she’d seen it, but there was nothing fundamentally different there. “You’ve been following this closer than I have,” Olivia said, her voice just loud enough to be heard over the dull thrum of the engines. Not that there was any chance they would be overheard, no matter how loud they spoke. But with the low lights and the dull red glow overhead, it just felt like a place where one ought to be quiet. “We’re going in early. What are our chances?”

“Not good,” Perez said, tossing his mask into the air and catching it again. Perez wore full-body infiltration armor, with only a few places where the fabric bunched up around joints and wings. He’d covered the latter completely now, though the active camouflage wasn’t doing anything. “Most of the plan is belly-up, commander. We had everything set up with the workmen gradually hollowing-out the ingots, then stockpiling over time so that they’d have enough to have a second shipment in one day we could hide inside, swapping out… look, it was complicated, but it would’ve worked. Now we’re…” He waved one claw through the air. “We’re losing our cool, that’s what this is. I don’t see why we couldn’t wait. Let the attack on Motherlode go how it goes, then keep going with this part as normal in a month.”

“Because it doesn’t matter if we’re more likely to win,” Olivia answered. “If we get someone aboard the Stormbreaker but we’re all dead, then it doesn’t really do anyone much good, does it? We need to overlap taking the spacecraft with military action in the rest of Equestria.”

Perez grumbled unhappily. “Equestria needs that. The Pioneering Society doesn’t. We could still run.”

“You just say these things,” Mogyla said, sitting up from the other chair. He was one of the four ponies on this mission. Well, three ponies. Perez wasn’t a pony currently. “But you do not mean them. I see how you look at them differently since taking your trip with Lucky’s princess. You would not leave them to the Storm King either.”

For a few seconds the two of them just glared at each other, and eventually Perez fell silent.

Probably for the best, considering the fourth member of their team. But Olivia couldn’t possibly attempt a mission like this without a domain expert. Lucky Break would’ve been preferable, but she was useless in combat situations and her leadership had killed almost everyone last time.

So Deadlight was along instead, settled into his seat with a distant, unfocused glare. He’d brought a thick sheaf of papers as his main weapon, apparently notes and information on the functioning of Sanctuary’s systems. If they couldn’t blow up the terraformer, it was his job to make sure they could at least control it. Flying it down into the sun would be almost as good as blowing it up. Better, if they could get off first.

“It doesn’t matter what we want,” Olivia said. “You can’t really think the Colonial Governor would go for that.”

To her surprise, Deadlight was the one listening. “The Colonial Governor is planning for the long-term. If we save Equestria, then we won’t ever have to worry about being invaded. We can probably expect them to give us Equestrian territory to build in, if we want it.”

Perez made an unhappy noise, something that was almost a scoff but coming out more like a reptilian snort. He rolled sideways in his seat, closing his eyes. “Just tell me when we get there. Won’t be a long mission. We kill some, we get caught… then Equestria and Othar are both screwed. Instead of just one.”

There was some part of Olivia that agreed with his concern. They weren’t ready for this mission. But running away would be sacrificing Equestria, and waiting to get ready would be sacrificing themselves. So what they were left with was the worst version of both missions.

She turned back to the pilot’s chair, even if her control there was more peremptory than anything else. She watched as the camp came into view. It was on one of Canterlot’s neighboring mountains, close enough that she could still make out the original city. There always seemed to be flames rising from it, like they were burning the city down. One structure at a time.

The camp itself was shockingly modern in appearance, with prefab metallic structures too big for ponies clustered in low circles. The refining equipment in the camp’s center were obviously not native in design, though she didn’t recognize it either. It seemed to use entirely solar principles, with an increasingly small series of lenses and machines made of hexagonal segments of dark red metal.

The supply-yard was in back, with stacked pallets of finished metal ingots sorted by material onto metal trays with huge hooks on their corners. The skycrane was there too—though it was so high up right now she couldn’t tell if it was taking up a shipment or returning for the next one.

“What do you think they’re building?” Deadlight asked from behind her, his voice low and cautious. “These amounts… are they making something like the Emperor’s Soul? A capital ship… but why?”

“I don’t think so.” Olivia still spoke in a whisper, though to her mind there was an even better reason for it. The air was swarming with dangers—mostly griffon mercenaries, though there were some ponies too. The Wraith was coasting now more than flying, traveling a specific path that would take them behind a slope adjacent to the supply yard.

They touched down with hardly a thump, and the internal lights went from dark red to a steady, brighter red. It still wanted to preserve what little night vision ponies had, but now it was bright enough that they could gather their equipment.

“Listen carefully,” Olivia said, once the engine had fully shut off. “We’re all going in wearing XE-901. Just to remind you, we aren’t fighting anyone at the camp. If there’s any kind of rebellion before our shipment arrives, they might dump it for security. It doesn’t matter how shitty things look out there, we don’t help them. Our contribution is bringing down the Stormbreaker, got it?”

There were nods of acknowledgement from around the room. She watched Deadlight in particular, and made sure she had his approval before she went on. “Shipments go out once every three hours. We’ll infiltrate the camp to within sprinting distance of the next one, and board after they do their final security sweep.”

They were all loading into the suits now, Olivia right along with them. XE-901 was a fully enclosed environmental suit, but it was also invisible, nearly silent, and able to carry the internal cargo they needed.

“Each of you has either A or B section of an explosive. Remember, the charges must be combined to be useful. If both As or Bs are captured or destroyed, it’s mission failure. If we get dropped, it’s mission failure. If the cargo gets melted down externally and we can’t penetrate the hull some other way, mission failure.”

“And mission failure could mean the end for the Pioneering Society on Sanctuary,” Mogyla added for her, before sliding the facemask into place. It clicked, completing the seal, and adding the gentle hiss of his breathing to the sounds inside their Wraith.

“The end of peaceful life, anyway,” Olivia said. “Forerunner won’t give up. It already had to rebuild most of its brain after Othar died, and it’s still fighting. But we won’t care about that if we’re dead.”

No one mentioned the current, entirely-too-confusing state of what death even meant right then. It didn’t mean what it was supposed to. But with the Storm King ruling the surface, they’d be worse than just dead. They’d be eternal prisoners inside the ring, able to be born only as his slaves.

“I wonder if it might not matter that we lose today,” Perez said, the fastest into all his gear. He still had hands, and since none of them had any of that “magic” stuff, they had to make do with their hooves. “The Storm King is going fucking nuts out there. The things I heard while I was undercover… people were saying he wants to destroy Sanctuary.”

“And?” Deadlight asked. He was the slowest, not even wearing his mask yet. At least his English was good enough that there was no worry about a missing translator on this mission. “Why should that matter?”

“Because Harmony protects,” Perez declared. “Think about it. All you had to do was make the damn computer think you were a risk to… whatever… and bam, whole civilization gone. I think at the rate he’s going, eventually he’ll piss the machine off so bad that it finally gets involved. Blasts him out of the sky, and our job is done. Then we can… respawn again. I’m sure we’ll figure out that respawn thing eventually. If Lucky did it once, she can do it then. And there’s always the natural way if we can’t make that work. Just need Forerunner to remind us of who we were.”

Olivia clicked her own helmet in place, and the sound of speech was replaced with the synthesized version into her ears. It would be much quieter that way—and it might actually be necessary to whisper. Though not until they left the ship. “Maybe,” Olivia said. “I’m sure Harmony would get involved if it thought Sanctuary was threatened. But all the previous times, it waits until the last second. Melody’s fake memories… it must’ve known Discord had space-ships waiting. But it didn’t do a damn thing, even when they were sitting on the launchpad. Or maybe the Storm King knows its rules so well that he won’t ever screw up.”

“We have to assume he won’t,” Deadlight said, straightening with his own suit finally in place. All their voices now came in straight to her ears, distorted a little by radio. “He can ruin the lives of everypony in Equestria without violating those rules. Civilizations can rise, fall, destroy each other, and it never matters unless a few conditions are triggered. Othar and all its replacements could be rubble and still he would be free to do as he pleased.”

“Makes you wonder how you built anything on this ring,” Mogyla said. “If Harmony would let you destroy each other, why did you do anything else?”

Olivia switched on the 901. For a few seconds her world was swallowed by blackness as the helmet’s visor slid down. Then screens came on all over the inside face of her helmet, and she could see again. The gloom of the ship no longer presented any obstacle to her pony eyes. Her companions were all outlined in glowing lines, and would stay that way even when they turned on active camouflage. The IFF on the 901 was subtler than a simple radio transmitter, but her visor would be tuned to it.

“Cut the chatter,” she said. “We’re deploying in two minutes. We should have an hour to reach the loading area, about a hundred meters from here. Stealth is our top priority. If there’s any sign we’ve alerted them, Forerunner might abort.”

“Good luck to you all,” Forerunner said suddenly over the radio. “I cannot risk the chance that the higher transmission power of my signals might be detected. I will not communicate with any of you unless you initiate contact. Additionally, we have observed that most local technology blocks radio transmission across the useful spectrum. It is reasonable to speculate that terraforming vessel will do so as well, and we will not be able to communicate once aboard. Lucky Break would not be willing to say so, so I will do so for her. Complete this mission at any cost. Your lives can be restored, but this vulnerability will not persist if it is detected. Protect the Pioneering Society’s efforts on Sanctuary.

“Your first objective, take command of the Stormbreaker’s transporter systems. Failing that, attempt to capture its bridge, or destroy it in orbit. Good luck.”