Chapter Nine

Diplomacy

Snowflakes billowed across the violet bubble moving with us, and I idly tapped my forehooves on Night Cloud’s shoulders while she carried me above the fields of snow. The cloud cover was grey and calm, the fields were white and smooth, and not one pony walked across them in the gloom.

The steel giant waited beyond the outskirts of Bellenast, resting silently amid the snowdrifts, like a grey island on a ghostly lake. The sloped and recessed windscreen at its front stretched across the breadth of the hull, not unlike a tinted helmet visor. That windscreen sat easily three meters up from the ground, the hull rose up about four, and the broad tower at the rear stood nearly twice that at its top, barring some antennas and radio dishes. On each side of the tower on a reinforced portion of the hull there hung a powerful crane tipped with three grasping prongs.

A trio of cannons stuck out from mountings on top of the main roof, two above the windscreen at each corner, one farther back and centered in front of the tower. Each one pointed up and away from the city behind us. The entire machine was a uniform dull grey, scored and scratched, and a jagged, molten gap showed in the steel skin of its dome, just beside the trio of lenses.

One of its ten ancient wheels laid on its side could encircle an equally ancient oak tree twice over. Snow had piled up around them, rising a quarter up their height, and more clung to the sloped, toothed plow mounted low on the hull below the windscreen.

Blitz and Eagle descended, and Night Cloud followed them to the ground. Zephyr somewhat clumsily slid off Blitz’s back and plunged stifle-deep into the snow. Night Cloud landed at a canter behind them, tossing up powdery snow, and Ivory Point gracefully touched down as Blitz began to telekinetically plow a path through the whiteness.

“Stay behind me,” said Blitz, “And close. Remember: I can’t teleport you if you’re far away.”

“Why land so far out?” I said, pulling my blanket up to my neck.

“Keeps us below the guns,” said Ivory Point, glancing up at me. She jerked her head backward. “On the wall.”

I squinted back at the ramparts kilometers behind us in the morning gloom. The silhouettes faintly stood out from the round turrets along the city wall beyond the sprawling outskirts.

I shivered. “They, um… look big, so that’s nice.”

“I doubt we’ll need them,” said Blitz, “But when it comes to perforating things, Ivy doesn’t settle for ‘I doubt it.’”

“I must say,” murmured Night Cloud, “When you described a giant steel beast bringing a building down on your head, I would never have imagined an observatory tower crossed with a, um… a large passenger carriage, I suppose.”

I sighed and bumped my head on the side of her neck. “I had to run from that thing on three legs,” I murmured, “And at the time, it looked like a giant doombot trying to kill me.”

“Fair.” She telekinetically brushed my mane between my ears. “You won’t have to run from it again while I’m here.”

I thumped my left rear hoof on her armored side, and she shifted her wing slightly to rub my leg. -Feels good to have that back, by the way. Still pretty sore and tingly, though. Wings, too.-

-That will pass.-

“Is it just me,” said Ivory Point, “Or do the guns look tacked-on?”

Blitz flicked one ear toward her. “How so?”

“Cloudy’s right. The whole thing looks like a big transport carriage… you know, other than the tower and freaky arms. The windshield’s a huge weak spot, the hull’s distended, the cannons don’t have a lick of depression, and I don’t see a single machine gun.”

“In other words,” said Blitz, “It’s a sitting duck up close.”

“Yeah, but what I really mean is, I don’t think it’s a robot or a combat vehicle at all. More like somebody’s science project… the first draft of it.”

“Looks like design by committee to me,” said Eagle, “And the weapons were an afterthought.”

“Crystal?” said Blitz, “Did Carbide tell you anything about it on the way out of Spannerworks?”

“He was kinda busy helping me not die… but he said Max was some kind of fancy power plant on wheels. Maintains itself or something.” I glanced down at the diamond and metal ball resting between my forelegs, halfway under the folds of my blanket. “Hope there’s a speaker for you in there, Carbide…”

“Power plant, huh?” said Ivory Point, briefly making eye contact with me. She hopped out of the snow and flapped her wings, coming back to hover off to my left. “So what fuels it?”

I sighed and thumped my head on Night Cloud’s neck. “I don’t know… he said it was, um… the same kind as the backup power plant for his lab. The main one broke, or had a leak, and it irradiated part of the lab. That’s why they abandoned it. Carbide stayed behind to manage cleanup, and something put him into stasis.”

Ivory Point whistled. “A radiation engine, maybe? I thought those were a pipe dream.”

“Turning a normal pony into an alicorn was once a pipe dream,” said Blitz.

-Many things we take for granted today were once thought impossible. I often wondered what secrets lay hidden in Spannerworks… until I wrote it off as a deathtrap, at any rate. It is sobering to know that I may have been a few sealed doors away from dying to an unseen poison.-

Quick wing flaps came from above us, golden light lit the snow, and Night Cloud stopped mid-stride as the ground shook.

Ivy landed on the platform behind the blast shield at the rear of the gun carriage and its cannon twice the length of the aircraft that had carried me from Cloud Loft Peak. Sturdy outriggers unfolded from the sides of the angular, steel grey frame and stabbed their teeth into the earth beneath the snow, and Ivy’s golden glow around the gun vanished.

She stepped on a yellow pedal on the deck, and with a whir of motors, the mechanical loader grasped a massive shell from the rack beside the cannon, slid it in line with the breech, and pushed it in.

Ivy glanced down at us from the gunner deck, levitated a pair of earmuffs onto her head, and turned back to the fire controls. The immense gun swiveled slowly away from us, pointing slightly past its vastly more immense target in the distance.

Blitz looked back and forth between Maximillian and the cannon. “When did you make that?”

“And how much does it weigh?” I mumbled.

Ivy gave nary an eye to us as she pushed another pedal on the deck, which caused the gun to decline by several degrees.

“Okay,” said Blitz, “Ivy, just hold on a minute, will you?”

“Blizziera, I have enough cause for headache amid all this foolishness without that machine parked at our front door. Appease it or send it on its way, whichever you prefer, but I shall not abide its presence absent a leash.”

A loud, purring hum came from the gun carriage, and from the panels of the already-substantial blast shield in front of the breech and fire controls, a translucent barrier of white-gold magic appeared, extending in a parabolic oval three meters to either side of the barrel and two meters above.

“All right, then.” Blitz strode forward through the snow again, plowing away at the drifts. She ruffled her wings and said, “At least keep your hoof off the fire button…”

Zephyr jumped over a stone buried halfway in the packed snow, and she said, “If you have the guns, why do we have to talk to the thing?”

I nickered and said, “Because Carbide asked us to, that’s why.”

“Because I would rather talk than fight any day of the week.” Blitz folded her wings again, nodding toward the machine that grew larger in our view. “Maximillian has been peaceful thus far, and was willing to ask politely for an audience. He also took care to avoid driving over crops and houses—and ponies—on his way here. Every guard report from every town he passed corroborates that this machine has gone to great lengths to avoid conflict and collateral damage on its way here.”

“Okay,” said Zephyr, “That doesn’t sound like your average death bot… but it doesn’t change that it tried to kill us.”

“Whatever reason he had to attack you before, something has changed. I want to find out what or why before we just blow him to pieces.”

I frowned and swallowed. Maximillian’s silent, frozen form loomed in the grey, growing ever larger. “So, um… why does Ivy still want to shoot him?”

“She doesn’t want to, Crystal,” said Blitz, meeting my gaze, “But beyond his self-proclaimed objective, this thing appears to have motivation. An interesting quality in a machine… and potentially very dangerous, as well.” She shrugged her wings. “I can’t just ignore him as long as he’s parked out here… and he asked for you. If having a friendly chat removes a threat to Bellenast, then a friendly chat is on the table. The guns are a last resort. A contingency. I hope to Tartarus and back we don’t need to use them.”

-About twenty tons.-

I chanced a look over my shoulder at Ivy, far behind us and the glowing shield of the gun carriage.

-I was preoccupied. Since you asked, Fomalhaut weighs about twenty tons. It’ll be self-propelled, once the motor chassis is done. First proper cannon I’ve designed since fifteen-eighty-nine.-

-Um… Fomalhaut?-

-An ancient lord of dragons, named after a star… or given that he was already ancient when the astrolabe was invented, perhaps we named the star after him. He lived in this very valley, many thousands of years ago. It is said that with one bite he could devour an elephant, and that with his flame he could melt a castle of solid stone. I was inspired.-

Blitz stopped no more than ten meters away from the grey giant, which rose in my view higher than the forested hills to the southwest. Frost covered the hull, and icicles hung from the entire front edge of the plow.

“Maximillian!” Blitz hollered, her voice deadened by the snow. “I have done as you asked! Crystal Dew is here. Speak what business you may.”

A low hum came from the giant, the dome atop the tower spun, and the three lenses tilted downward to face us directly. A panel to the right of the lenses, past the melted hole in the hull, slid back to reveal an array of grey parabolic dishes recessed within the dome. The smallest of the lenses moved independently of the other two and shifted between us in minute adjustments, moving seemingly from Blitz, aside to Night Cloud, and again ever-so-slightly to me on her back.

From a loudspeaker recessed in the hull above the front windscreen issued a stentorian voice, deep, buzzing with modulation, and unmistakably male.

“Curious.”

I shivered and clutched Night Cloud tightly.

“Are you aware that toxic quantities of Balefire-class thaumic contaminants are present in your cardiovascular, lymphatic, and endocrine organ systems?”

Night Cloud cleared her throat, and said, “We are aware. It isn’t toxic for us—for alicorns, that is. It is intrinsic to our biology.”

“Interesting; I have no record of such phenomena occurring in ponies. Such contamination is almost universally incompatible with known lifeforms.”

Blitz shrugged her wings and said, “We aren’t exactly a… commonly known lifeform.”

The smallest lens once again shifted from Night Cloud to Blitz and back again, and then the hull panel covered the grey dishes again.

“Crystal Dew, please bring Chief Engineer Carbideto my port entrance at your convenience.”

“How can he even tell that?” whispered Zephyr. “Just by looking?”

“It’s easy enough to detect with the right tools,” murmured Night Cloud. “A spectrographic imager can do it, or a thaumograph, or a sufficiently sensitive radiation detector. If his purpose is scientific, he may well have all of those and more.”

Zephyr looked straight over at us. “Wait—does that mean you’re radioactive right now?”

“Mildly, yes, but you don’t need to—”

“I want some Rad-Away,” said Zephyr, leaping up from the cleared path to stand farther away in the snow.

Night Cloud sighed. “It’s in our blood, not pouring off our coats; we’re nowhere near saturation, and Blitz has a containment talisman. You’re perfectly safe.”

“I’d feel safer with a hazard suit.”

“I havea detector built into my barding,” said Ivory Point. “So does Cloudy. I’m around her all the time, and it’s never made a peep. If one of them goes off, we’ll let you know.”

“Right…”

A mote of golden light flashed in front of my snout and tickled my nose. I glanced back at Ivy and her enormous gun carriage again.

-The sooner we deal with this, the sooner we can deal with the Kekalo, Crystal Dew, and the sooner you can go back to sitting by the fireplace.-

I snorted, jumped off Night Cloud’s back into the chest-deep snow, and wrapped my foreleg around hers, levitating Carbide close to my breast. Night Cloud immediately pushed aside the snow and set her wing across my side.

“Um…” I cleared my throat and raised my voice. “Maximillian, um… do you know if Carbide is okay? My, um—the suit of armor he made me is broken. Is that the only reason he can’t talk? He isn’t hurt, is he?”

“As far as I can determine, his anchor housing is undamaged. Without an intact interface unit, however, he has no means to communicate and no perception of his surroundings. There is a rudimentary unit for such purposes in my forward compartment. I must attempt to link him to it before I can determine whether he is ‘okay.’”

I swallowed. “Right.” I took one hesitant, shaking step away from the comfort of Night Cloud’s wing and lingering warmth.

Zephyr stepped in front of me. “Hold up.” She turned her gaze up to the three lenses high above. “What guarantee do we have that you don’t have some kind of trap in… yourself?”

“The purpose of my hull is to protect a crew from adverse conditions, not to harm them; deliberate placement of hazards of any kind in the crew spaces would be anathema to that purpose. Furthermore, the armament present is more than sufficient to cause me catastrophic damage.” The dome spun and the lenses aimed right back at her. “I intend no harm, and Her Highness’s contingency is sound.”

“My contingency…” Blitz laughed and stomped the snow. “Then you know Ivy will blast you straight to robot hell if you give her a reason.”

“I will not give her one. I do not know whether such a place as ‘robot hell’ exists, but I am familiar with the concept of oblivion, and do not want to experience it.”

With a suddenness that startled all of us into jumping back, Maximillian rotated almost completely in place on his ten wheels, keeping his three lenses aimed straight down at Blitz the entire time; the tremendous humming of electrothaumic motors made my ears twitch, and the tinkle of colliding icicles sounded briefly before being silenced beneath those titanic wheels. He faced ninety degrees to our left and stopped. The dull hum returned to silence.

Between the front two and rear three wheels on his port side, a hatch slid open, and set of shallow metal stairs extended and lowered from immediately below the opening. A translucent barrier spanned the doorway.

Blitz stomped once more and strode forward, plowing aside the snow as she closed the final distance to the to ramp. Night Cloud kept pace with me for the short walk, and Blitz stopped beside the ramp and faced us. “Crystal, Ivory, Night, you first. I, uh…” She rolled her eyes and said, “Don’t think I’ll fit.”

I clasped my blanket tightly to keep my legs unhindered and climbed carefully up the steps, only to be tugged back by cerulean light around me.

“Crystal, let me go first.”

“Fine.”

Night Cloud hurried up the ramp and overtook me, and she ducked her head slightly to clear the doorframe. She paused halfway through the barrier, which produced a dancing light on the surface of her barding. She stepped the rest of the way through, obsidian tail and cobalt wingtips vanishing beyond the barrier last.

For several seconds, there was utter silence.

-It’s cramped, all right. Come on in.-

I gasped as Ivory Point bounded nimbly up and disappeared through the barrier. Zephyr put her wing across my back, rubbing my shoulders, then walked up to the barrier with me. My skin tingled where I intersected the plane, and I shivered and looked around the red-lit compartment. Grey paint peeled off the walls in a few places, showing brighter grey metal underneath.

“Can’t believe we’re doing this,” muttered Zephyr, stopping with only her head through the barrier.

“It lets me talk to Carbide.” Our voices rang loud and close against the metal walls. “That’s all I want. Come on.”

“Right, right… he saved your life, I know, I get it. I’m just a bit spooked.”

“Me too.”

“This thing did try to kill us.”

“I know, Zephyr.”

I looked between Night Cloud on my left and Ivory Point on my right, and barely any space between them. I glanced back at Zephyr as she bumped against my side.

I turned my head and shuffled completely under Night Cloud, back pressing firmly to her armored belly. She gasped and shifted her hooves in place, and one of her hind legs bumped against my rear.

With a strained laugh, she hissed, “For goodness’ sake, Crystal!”

“Really?” Zephyr snickered, squeezing herself into the scant remaining space beside me and Night Cloud. The outer door slid closed behind us, and humming fans in the ceiling whirred to life, forcing air down and through the grated deck paneling under our hooves.

“Well, how else would we all fit?” I nudged my head on her foreleg, just below her armor. “Look, it’s the one good thing about being small: I can fit places nobody else can.”

“Few years ago, I could have done that,” said Ivory Point, peeking around Zephyr. She pushed her helmet’s aerodynamic, tinted visor up. Her snow-white coat turned red under the airlock lights. “Nothing wrong with being small,” she said, standing straight again. “Lets you sneak around and wriggle out of tight spaces. Plus, your girlfriend can carry you around when you’re sick. Or just for fun. Life goals.”

Night Cloud groaned. “Ivory. Point.”

“Life goals, Cloudy. Life goals.”

“Just warn me next time, Crystal,” said Night Cloud, still giggling. She raised her head again, and her horn scraped clashed on the inner door, leaving a scrape in the paint. She jolted and brought her head back around. “Surprised me, that’s all…”

“Takes this long to open a door, huh?” muttered Zephyr, restlessly shifting her wings. She nuzzled my cheek, whispering, “I don’t like this one bit.”

“It must be a decontamination cycle,” said Night Cloud, keeping her voice low. “Why, I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect something like… well, like this to be built to clean-room standards, not unless it’s a mobile laboratory of some kind…”

“Maybe it is,” murmured. I glanced up as the ceiling ventilation shut off and the round red light above the inner door turned dimmed. Five seconds later, a green one next to it brightened. The door slid aside to reveal another translucent barrier.

Ivory Point moved first, then Zephyr behind her. The barrier hugged their forms and cast an odd light on their coats.

I shuffled out from under Night Cloud, and she shivered. I nuzzled her unarmored leg. “Sorry. Just wanted to make room for Zephyr.”

“I understand, baby.”

“Hey.” Zephyr poked her head through the barrier. “Lovebirds. Giant robot waiting on you, Crystal. Let’s do this and scram as fast as possible, got it?”

I sighed and stepped through the barrier and into air slightly warmer than the frigidness outside, and looked around the faded orange cabin, blinking in the warm, sunny glow coming from the square light panels flush with the ceiling.

Every surface sported a thin coating of dust, and the air was stale and metallic. Cracked, brittle-looking mats covered the floor unevenly. The orange paint on the walls had peeled and cracked in places and settled on the floor, leaving the same shiny metal visible throughout.

To my left at the front of the cabin was a kitchenette, complete with a sink, range, and small refrigerator. Between the fridge and the cupboards across from it was a sliding door to the forward compartment; there was barely enough space in the kitchen for a pony to turn about. To my right on either side of the chamber were padded benches, a low folding table that had broken off its hinge on the wall, and a computer terminal built into the wall, close to the airlock hatch.

To the left of the broken table was a door to another compartment. Farther to the right was a door like that of the airlock with a porthole above my head level.

Night Cloud stopped beside me, standing with her leg against my shoulder. The airlock door slid closed behind her. “Definitely not a war machine,” she murmured, “At least, it doesn’t look like one to me…”

Zephyr scuffed her hoof on the deck, kicking up flecks of paint and dust. “Guess he hasn’t heard of a maid…”

“My original maintenance crew evacuated from Spannerworks in the year fifteen-hundred and fifty-four, shortly before the worldwide megaspell strikes.”

Zephyr jumped, staring up at a round speaker grill on the wall. “Oh. Is, uh, that right?”

“In all likelihood, they have been dead for more than a century. I have had minimal opportunity for cabin maintenance since my operating matrix was forced offline.”

“Sorry. No disrespect to the dead…” Zephyr stepped way from the wall, shuffling her hooves again. “But hey, at least the heat works…” She sniffed and frowned. “Ivory, the air smell funny to you?”

Ivory Point turned from the door across from the airlock, inhaled deeply and stuck her tongue out, then gently pushed her gun’s control bit down from her snout.

“Oxygen, lot of it. Not enough to explode—probably—but still a lot.”

“If there is an excess buildup of oxygen, the atmospheric regulator may have malfunctioned. I was unaware of this problem.”

“Excuse me?” said Ivory Point; her high, airy voice was a stark contrast to the deep, modulated tones coming from the speaker. “You mean you can see radiation in that filly’s organs, but you don’t know there’s a gas leak in here? What’s going on, big guy?”

“I apologize. My access to crew compartment systems is restricted. I cannot initiate a reset of the regulator myself, but if you believe these conditions hazardous, I can guide you through the process. The atmospheric regulator console is in the control room above my reactor chamber, which is accessible via the sternward airlock.”

The door behind us opened again, Night Cloud stepped aside, and Eagle walked through the barrier to stand by Zephyr, black boots clunking on the steel deck panels.

His armor’s speakers crackled. “What’s up?”

Zephyr sighed and strode toward the rear cabin door. “This might be right up your alley, hon. The air system is spitting extra oxygen out for whatever fucking reason.”

Eagle chuckled. “I’m impressed anything still works at all. This thing is two centuries old.” He tapped his boot on the deck. “Have you looked at this alloy? Not a single spot of rust anywhere!”

“Yeah, yeah, maybe you can ogle its guts later if you ask nicely. Crystal, hurry up and go put Carbide in that whatever-interface-thingy in the front, and Mister Brainiac here will fix the air.”

I giggled made for the door at the front of the kitchenette. Night Cloud followed closely after me. “Sure.”

Then a frenetic clicking noise came from behind us. Night Cloud spun about in the tight kitchen space, and I jolted sideways against the steel cabinets to avoid being struck by her legs.

“Close it!” shouted Ivory Point, “Close the door!”

“I hear you!” Eagle pushed Zephyr away from the open door and kicked the switch panel next to it as Ivory Point’s barding let out a loud, buzzing warning. The door slid quickly shut again, and only then did the harsh, continuous clicking slow.

The nearby, slower clicking from Night Cloud’s barding continued.

“What the fuck?!” hissed Zephyr, trotting away from the rear door. “Hey!” she shouted, looking to the ceiling. “Maximillian, are you trying to kill us?! That room is radioactive!”

“Please exit the crew compartment immediately and seek medical treatment. I apologize; my internal sensor network does not detect a fault in the compartmental seals or reactor shielding layer.”

“Then your sensors are fucking broken, genius! For fuck’s sake!”

Night Cloud lit her horn and pushed the wall switch by the exit airlock. “All of you, out! Go to the hospital straight away. Blitz can fly you there fastest; she’ll need to shield you. Crystal and I will stay here.”

“What?” Zephyr made straight for us from the airlock. “No fucking way!”

Ivory Point bodily blocked her path, flaring her white-and-green wings. “They’re immune! Relax. Now move your ass into that airlock. This room’s still hot. We can come back with suits if you really want to, but you need treatment first, got it?”

“Zeph,” said Eagle, pulling on her leg, “She’s right. You were right in the doorway. Come on.”

Zephyr stood stock-still, wings shaking at her sides. “Alicorns,” she muttered, “Right…”

I trotted quickly up to hug her. “Go,” I murmured, nuzzling her cheek. She squeezed me tightly with both wings. I pushed off her and backed away. “We’ll be fine.”

She nodded, then spun and darted into the airlock, becoming a vague, pale violet shape behind the translucent barrier.

Eagle faced me directly, though his golden visor hid his eyes. He let out a soft laugh and brought his head down to touch his helmet to my neck. “You look good with wings, you know.”

I giggled and shoved against his chest, barely budging him. “Thanks. Now scram.”

“Be careful.” He backed through the translucent barrier.

“Cloudy,” said Ivory Point, trotting past me to rear up and hug Night Cloud, “Hang tight, okay? I’ll be back with a suit.” She cantered back to the airlock and disappeared.

Then Zephyr poked her head out one more time, glaring at me. “You’d better not be glowing when you come out.” She vanished again, and the door slid shut. Her muffled voice carried through the door.

“Of all the stupid horseapples… fucking radioactive crew quarters…”

Three metallic thuds sounded through the door.

Night Cloud walked up to my side and sighed, setting her wing across me once more. “Well… we came here for a reason, didn’t we?”

I snorted and trotted straight for the rear compartment door. “I want to talk to Carbide, but Max said it himself: His sensors aren’t working. If there’s enough extra oxygen in here, then we may as well be standing inside a friggin’ bomb.”

I stopped in front of the door and pointed my hoof at the walls and floor. “Look at all the paint flecks, the dust in the air. We’ve been stirring it up with every step. That’s just more fuel.”

Night Cloud sniffed and looked all around, shifting her wings and legs in place. “I suppose a vacuum cleaner is in order.”

-Crystal, the sooner I can put the cannons away, the better.-

-Right.- I stomped, looking to the ceiling. “Maximillian!”

“Yes?”

“You said you can guide someone through resetting the air system, right?”

“That is correct.”

“Great. That’s what we’re doing first.”

“You are certain that you are wholly immune to the harmful effects of Balefire-class thaumic contamination?”

“Absolutely certain,” said Night Cloud. “It is actively beneficial to our health.”

“Very well. Please enter the reactor chamber via the sternward airlock and take the lift to the second level.”

I pushed against the wall switch with flaring emerald light as Night Cloud stopped next to me. The door before me slid open, and an instant later, a hair-raising clicking came from Night Cloud’s barding.

At first, my skin tingled. Then, a pleasant warmth spread through my chest and down through my legs, from my hooves to the base of my tail to the tips of my wings under my blanket.

“Whoa… that feels nice.”

Night Cloud gently nudged my hindquarters, pushing me into the cramped chamber. “Yes, it does, and that’s the dangerous part—dangerous for others around you, that is. Absorb too much, and you’ll reach your saturation point.”

I pranced in place as the door shut behind us. My hooves made a racket on the steel deck and fans in the ceiling spun to life, blasting forced air over us. “What happens then?”

“Then, darling,” said Night Cloud, rubbing my back with her wing, “In order to maintain homeostasis—that is, to keep your body’s natural state of balance, of equilibrium, you begin to bleed excess energy out as radiation… and you become a walking fountain of poison, at least to everyone who isn’t an alicorn or ghoul.”

I stopped prancing. My every muscle tingled pleasantly. “Oh… so that’s why Ivory has a detector. To protect her from, um… from you. If you’re ever that hot—um—” She chuckled. I rolled my eyes. “Okay, look, you know what I friggin’ mean.”

She patted my back, still chuckling. “If Blitz or I ever reach saturation, yes. I have never done that, but Blitz did just a few months ago. It’s worst when you cast spells, but even just standing still, resting… when Blitz was saturated, she released enough radiation in five minutes to fatally poison someone standing beside her. I got a heavy dose just by being a wingspan from her. If this takes very long, you just might reach that point, and we’ll need to get a containment talisman for you before you can go back into the city safely.”

“Great… so let’s do this quickly.”

I stepped out of the airlock immediately after the door had opened, looking down the narrow hallway that curved along outside edge of the chamber. Night Cloud’s barding emitted a constant buzz at a fever pitch. The walls were bare brushed steel, yet just as in the crew compartment, there wasn’t a single spot of rust in sight. Armored conduits in different faded colors ran along the outside wall, snaking into the grated deck and beneath it under my hooves. A small lift platform waited just past the airlock on our right.

An immense, rounded square column of steel several meters in breadth rose up through the ceiling on my left. A low, distant roar like that of a furnace came from it, and a constant humming came from beneath the deck plates.

The frenetic clicking moved up beside me, and Night Cloud unfastened and lifted away one of the plates on her back. She twisted her head around to peer at a narrow yellow panel resting on a mesh behind her wings, then disconnected one of several colored cables snaking away from it it. The buzzing and clicking stopped.

She reattached the plate and flashed me an awkward grin. “I don’t think we need the warning right now.”

“I want to look at that later. The control circuitry, not the detector.”

“Later, darling.”

“Right.” I looked over the compact lift platform tucked against the inner hull to our right. “You first.”

Night Cloud sighed as she stepped onto the platform, holding her head up and back somewhat just to fit inside the cramped, wire mesh cage. “All right… baby, I really don’t think this was built for someone my size.”

“Well, they should have built it for someone your size.” I stood close to her, pushed the upper of the two faded yellow buttons on the control panel built into the wall of the cage, and with a soft hum of hidden motors, the grate door rattled closed and the lift gently rose.

Night Cloud laughed quietly and patted her wing on my side. “I appreciate your sentiment, darling, but I don’t think alicorns were especially common back then.”

“Do you think the buildings in Canterlot would have been tall enough for Blitz?”

“Um… why would they be?”

“Because of Princess Celestia. She was pretty big, wasn’t she?” The upper floor slowly appeared beyond the grate. “Wouldn’t she want tall doors and stuff?”

“As far as I know, she was quite large, yes… probably about Blitz’s size. I suppose Canterlot Castle was rather spacious. The Amber Palace certainly is, but most of Bellenast isn’t like that. There’s no point.”

“Mmm… I guess.”

“If you make the ceiling higher, you have to make the walls higher, as well. I’ve built a house before—making everything taller would mean a lot of extra material and effort, believe me.”

The lift stopped, and the door opened upon a brightly lit room dominated by the roughly-pyramidal cap of the massive, rounded structure. Several thick steel loops protruded straight up from the corners of the pyramidal cap.

I walked from the cramped lift over to the row of dim screens and consoles along the front wall, all covered with switches, gauges, and a layer of fine dust. “You built a house?”

“Well—I helped my father build it.” Night Cloud followed me to the row of consoles, hooves clacking loudly on the steel deck. “And it was more a hut than a house, at least compared to any house around here. Just one room with a roof, made of fired clay bricks and tiles, but it would keep the rain off you well enough. Levitating it all into place was a real workout.”

“Huh… okay, right.” I reared up and braced my forehooves on the middle of the row of consoles. “Hey, Max! There are a ton of buttons here. Which ones do I need press?”

“The reset control for the atmospheric regulator is on the second console from the left.”

I sidestepped to the assortment of gauges a meter to my side, then glanced up at the ceiling and around at the curved wall panels. A single circular speaker grill stood out on the wall above the consoles.

“Can you see in here?”

“I cannot. Portions of my data network are minimally responsive or offline. Open the yellow, plastic shroud at the top-left corner of that console and pull the lever toward you. Wait thirty seconds, then push it back to its original position and push the black, square button directly below the lever. This will trigger a soft reset of the atmospheric regulator subsystems, and purge excess oxygen. A complete cycling may take up to ten minutes.”

“Okie dokie…”

A row of lights ran along the upper edge of the console, most of them red or green. I swept my telekinesis gently over the panel, brushing away the fine dust to reveal faded labeling below every switch and dial. I lifted the transparent, barely-yellow cover up on its squeaky hinge and pulled the molded lever. The row of red lights blinked five times, then turned off; five seconds later, they lit red again. The ventilation fans in the ceiling briefly spun up and blasted air through the chamber, sending dust all around in chaotic vortices. I held the corner of my blanket across my snout. One by one, the console’s red lights turned yellow, until the entire row blinked regularly in front of me.

The warmth in my chest had spread to every hoof, and for the first time in hours, I was free of the pervasive aches in every muscle. It was as though I had sunk into a hot bath, but instead of steaming water, it was a torrent of purest, caressing magic, flowing freely through me to rejuvenate me and leave me suffused with a heat and distinctive headiness.

Night Cloud massaged my shoulder with her wing, and I jolted, looking across the vast array of readouts and switches.

“Sorry,” she murmured, “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s all right. I’m just… I feel, um… kind of… I don’t know, just, um… really, really good. Relaxed, but jittery at the same time, I guess. Warm, but not actually warm. Does that make any sense?”

Chuckling, she said, “Blitz has said it feels like being intoxicated, but without the cognitive impairment. Euphoric.”

“Euphoric, yeah, that’s, um… yeah, I guess.”

I tapped my hooves on the edge of the control console frame while I peered at the rows upon rows of labeled diagnostic readouts. “Max, how long have all these systems been, um… turned off? I assume red means off.”

“That is correct.”

“Well, there are more yellow lights than green. Climate Control says it’s in a test cycle, Internal Monitoring is mostly yellow, External Monitoring is half green, half red, Drive Motors are half green, half yellow, Engine Core is all green, Engine Core Shielding is all green… wait, if the shielding is good, then why is it so radioactive in here?”

“According to my system clock, after you disrupted my superstructural data network, my protocol cores remained offline for seven hours, fifty-two minutes, and sixteen seconds. Given this disruption and the current status of reactor compartment shielding, it is reasonable to infer that the primary shielding systems suffered a temporary interruption of power. My reactor core, however, remained operating in its lowest power state with minimal active shielding; therefore, during that period, the reactor compartment became contaminated.”

“The airlock,” murmured Night Cloud. “Our detectors went off when Eagle opened the door. This compartment is contaminated, but the crew compartment was perfectly safe… so the door, the shielding on this side, must not be enough to completely block radiation.”

“Or at least not when the main shield is off,” I said. I sidled over to another console. “Max, um… you said that… I disrupted you. What does that mean?”

“To be more precise: As far as I can determine, your weapon damaged my superstructural data network, which in turn caused an emergency shutdown of several control systems, in particular my caretaker protocol core, which is responsible for non-determined actions while I am offline.”

“A caretaker,” said Night Cloud. “A caretaker, responsible for non-determined actions… while you are offline… what exactly does ‘non-determined actions’ mean?”

For several seconds, Maximillian was silent.

“By non-determined, I mean actions my caretaker protocol core would take according to conditions defined in its programming. Reactions in the presence of external stimuli, rather than spontaneous decisions in absence of such.”

Night Cloud slowly nodded. “So… you mean to say that… when Crystal attacked you, you were offline. You, Maximillian, the… person to whom we are speaking, right now… you were not conscious.”

“Correct.”

“You were not in control of your actions.”

“Correct.”

Night Cloud wrapped her wing around me and squeezed gently. -Ivy, I hope you’re listening.-

-To every word, Nubiála.-

-This is no simple machine.-

-So it would seem.-

Frowning up at the wall speaker, I said, “So… you, um… it was… a computer. The caretaker thing… you were asleep or something… in stasis, like Carbide, and the computer made you do things—like driving around Spannerworks, patrolling it. Attacking intruders… attacking me.” I shivered and murmured, “You were a puppet.”

“That is a reasonable analogy. As far as I can determine based on system logs, I entered this state in the year fifteen hundred and sixty-two. I have no memory of the interim.”

“What does ‘interim’ mean?” I whispered.

“From then to now,” murmured Night Cloud.

“Oh… sixty-two. That’s… one year after Carbide went into stasis.”

“What?”

“He told me it was seven years after the megaspells, fifteen-sixty-one. So Max went offline a year after that… when did—” -Ivy, when did you go to Spannerworks?-

-First in sixty-six, and again in sixty-seven. Whatever robbed this machine of his faculties, it wasn’t my doing, but I can’t rule out that someone else went there before me and damaged him somehow. Perhaps a member of the Spannerworks staff, perhaps a scavenger with a mind for technology and a will to make use of the sentries… I only ever wanted to salvage the tools and steel there.-

I snorted. -So you’re the one who took all the rails?-

-Much later, yes, partly to prevent anyone from loading a car onto them to go prospecting at Spannerworks… I remain unconvinced the machine is truly harmless, but I will accept at the least that he means no harm to us here today. I’ve called off the gun crews for now. Have you dealt with the air problem?-

I reared up again to see the control console readouts. -Well, all the lights for the regulator are green and yellow now instead of red, so I guess it’s flushing out the extra oxygen… but I don’t think it will be safe for anyone else to come in here unless we can completely cycle all the radioactiveair out.-

-Which might just vent it outside…-

-I can just ask him.- “Hey, Max, does the climate control cycle air out of here and take fresh air in, or does it just recirculate it?”

“The filtration systems of both reactor and crew compartments remove carbon dioxide and other detrimental gases internally and recirculates purified air, unless configured from the control console to exchange air externally. Given the current state of the internal air volume and your personal immunity to its toxicity, I recommend that you leave the console alone.”

“No touchy, got it.”

“Independent filtration systems?” murmured Night Cloud. “Color me impressed. Someone at Spannerworks was serious about safety and redundancy.”

-Clearly, they weren’t funded by the Ministries… at least he isn’t spewing poison everywhere. Very well. Please attend to Carbide, whatever that entails.-

-Right.-

I nudged Night Cloud’s ribs and made for the lift, and she overtook me to step onto the cramped platform first.

“The, um… thing that will let Carbide speak to us—”

“Is at the very front. The bridge.”

“The bridge…”

“Like on a ship.”

“Aha… and why is it called that? Is this another esoteric aeronautical terminology thing?”

“Um… I guess, yeah.” I pushed the down button and reared up to nuzzle her cheek, landing again with a clang of my hooves on the grate floor. The motors whined, and the platform fell slightly faster than it had risen. “Bridge, wheelhouse, pilothouse, all the same thing. I don’t get why ‘bridge’ is in there, but that’s what they call it on a Thunderhead, so that’s what I’m calling it.”

“I see,” said Night Cloud, smiling and nodding. “Familiarity breeds comfort, so they say.”

-It’s never simple. Fell schemes from my old enemies, hail damage across the city, and now a strange personage hidden in an iron giant… reports are coming in of Kekalo soldiers showing themselves in the city again. I had hoped they would take the bait and attack me in the open; it seems they are determined to be pernicious, instead.-

Night Cloud shifted her hooves beside me. -Well… if nothing else, the iron giant turned out to be nice. Perhaps even a friend?-

-Perhaps.-

The lift squealed to a stop, and the door rattled open. I stepped out, walking close to the immense steel container of the reactor. The metal was cool against my coat, but a different kind of heat nevertheless filled the room.

-If only all our visitors were so amicable… I must ask you to stay inside for now. Ivory Point is on her way out of the hospital; Eagle and Zephyr suffered only minor exposure, but they are being treated and monitored, just in case. With any luck, we’ll route these miscreants by noon and we can get you a containment talisman sometime this evening, Crystal Dew, but it’s possible you’ll have to stay in there overnight.-

I swallowed. -Because I’d poison ponies around me.-

-Without the right precautions, yes. Don’t worry. We can remedy that soon.-

Night Cloud set her wing on my back once more, and whispered, “I’m sorry, Crystal.”

“Well, I’m not.” I whirled and reared up to kiss her, causing my blanket to slide off my back. She hummed quietly and returned the gesture, and for a few delightful seconds, I forgot everything but her and that warm, welcome touch on my lips.

“Unless you want me to be sorry you saved my life,” I murmured, “You can stop that right now. You didn’t know this would happen, and I for one am happy to be alive, happy to have my leg back, happy to have wings of my own, and happy to be your marefriend.” I briefly broke eye contact, nuzzling her jaw. “If, um… if you want me to be that, I mean. If… if you want to call me that.”

She rolled her eyes, but smiled all the same. She nodded and whispered, “Yes, I will call you mio beyamike…” Smiling, she lifted her foreleg to nudge my chest, and said, “My darling.”

I dropped back to the floor, licking my lips, and telekinetically jabbed the airlock panel behind me.

“Come on. Carbide’s waiting on us.”

On the opposite end of the wall from which I had entered the bridge was another door. In the front right corner of the chamber, there stood a cylindrical drum topped by an octagonal, metal pyramid. I trotted quickly to it, levitated Carbide’s inert form upward, and placed him gently in the clamps at the center of the octagonal barrier of metal.

Blitz’s calm tenor voice suddenly burst into my head.

-Crystal? Do you feel warm and tingly? Have pins and needles?-

-Um… warm, yeah. I’m fine. Give me a minute.-

Two hemispheres of tarnished silver sprung from the enclosure’s bottom and snapped up, sealing Carbide inside it. A buzz of magic came from the device, and an overhead light flickered on, causing the ancient, silver globe to shine. An almost completely transparent barrier appeared over the octagonal wall, taking the form of a squat, eight-sided pyramid, and on the nearest face of it appeared a projected mote of blue light, followed by another, and another, slowly crossing the triangular face. The changing light drew my attention to a line of text inscribed neatly on the exterior of the hemispheric shell closest to me.

-That isn’t what I asked. This is important, Crystal. Do you feel pins and needles? It would be all over—legs, wings, in your chest, everything.-

-No? I feel fine. Amazing. I’m not sore anymore, for one. Really, um… rejuvenated.-

-Great. Great… if you start feeling pins and needles, tell Night Cloud.-

-Kay.- “Night?”

“Hmm?” Night Cloud turned from the brightening expanse of snow outside the broad windscreen, which rested slightly below her head level.

I pointed my hoof at the inscription in the silver sphere beneath the pyramidal barrier. “What do you think ‘NeuroSphere Anchor’ means?”

“Um…” She laughed. “I, um… in this context… I’m not sure, darling. Maximillian? What is that?”

“It is a housing for an artificial mind without its own body; in its presentconfiguration, a lich. Such a device is nominally used torestrictbehavior of the lich, to protect it from thaumic manipulation and other hazards, or to facilitate communication and interaction.”

“Uh-huh…” I shuffled my hooves, looking up at Night Cloud. She chewed on her lip. “So-ooo… Carbide’s a lich. Is that bad?”

Night Cloud opened her mouth briefly, leaning her head over the pedestal, then frowned. She squinted at the inscription. “It’s… interesting.”

I rubbed my forelegs together, sat on my haunches, and whispered, “I guess what I mean is, um… is it inherently bad? What’s a lich?”

“Well…” She sat beside me and set one leg across me, and I twisted my head up at her. She brushed her mane back and murmured, “All I know about liches comes from a few games of Ogres and Oubliettes… supposedly, they possess living beings and raise undead minions, and are, um… generally evil, in those settings—but those are mythical creatures in a game, Crystal. I don’t think that knowledge applies. He did save your life, and from everything I’ve seen, he’s been kind, and helpful, and forthright… whatever sort of strange creature he may be, I haven’t seen anything that suggests ‘evil’ would describe him in the slightest.”

I nuzzled her neck, and set my hoof against the clear shield as the motes of blue crossed the breadth of the face, and a speaker above us popped into life.

“Ow! What the—how… Celestia’s blazingtail, that’s a lot of telemetry… ah, hello?! Who’s there?”

I laughed at the familiar tenor voice. “Carbide!”

“Crystal?! Oh, I thought I’d lost—I thought you’d… but… you were stabbed, impaled! How are you alive? You should have bled out in minutes!”

“Well… I’m not dead.” Night Cloud chuckled and squeezed my side with her wing. I stood up again and set my hoof against the edge of the barrier. “I’ll give you a hint: I look a bit more like Night Cloud, now… and I don’t have to worry about making my leg longer.”

“When—how long was I… ah, unconscious, so to speak? Wait, where are we? I can only hear you. There are some other signals, but I can’t make any sense of them. And what do you mean by, ah… like Night Cloud? What happened to you?”

“She has wings, now,” said Night Cloud, rubbing a hoof across my withers. “Courtesy of the Ministry of Arcane Science… or a leftover piece of it. The Impelled Metamorphosis Potion.”

“Aha… I see. That’s… well, that’s wonderful! You are safe and healthy. The means matter little. Crystal, I… I am—you can’t imagine how happy I am, to know that you… that what I did to you won’t cause you any lasting harm.”

Giggling, I said, “Yeah, I have my leg back, and radiation feels super nice now.”

“Radiation? Where did you find—oh. Oh! That’s where we are, of course. Ah… Maximillian! Status of reactor shielding? Primary and secondary sectors?”

“Reactor core shielding is reduced to eighty-seven percent effectiveness. Reactor sector shielding is reduced to eighty-nine percent effectiveness. All critical reaction containment systems remain fully operational. The reactor sectorhull remains fully intact, so far as I can ascertain; however,acontainment interruption and cycling of the reactor sector airlock resulted in release of contaminated atmosphere into the crew compartment. Aninternalatmospheric scrub of both compartments is in progress. I report seventy-one percent overall systems readiness, excluding relinquishment of munitions per voluntary agreement with local authority. I am otherwise well. I am… happy… to speak to you again, Carbide Burr.”

“Munitions? Ah… okay, then. That’s… that’s all good. Excellent, in fact. Far better than I’d have hoped. It’s, ah… it’s a pleasure, Maximillian, to meet you properly. My word… never thought I’d have a chance to say that.”

I hopped up with my hooves on the pedestal. “Carbide Burr? That’s your full name?”

“Oh! Yes, yes, that’s me, Chief Engineer Carbide Burr… not that the title means anything now.”

“Night Cloud, your and Crystal Dew’s external temperatures have risen to forty-one degrees. Are you certain you do not require medical attention?”

“Both of us?” murmured Night Cloud, touching my brow and the side of my neck. “Damn it…” Sighing, she said, “It isn’t illness, Maximillian. I appreciate your concern, but we’re perfectly all right.”

“Curious.”

I smirked and nudged her ribs. “Guess I needed all that extra energy to reach thermal equilibrium with you.”

Night Cloud laughed. “No, baby, our body temperatures are normally the same. We’re endothermic; we regulate our own—”

“I know what endothermic means, Night Cloud,” I whispered. “I was saying you’re hot.”

“… oh. Thermal—oh.”She giggled. “You’re silly…”

-Night Cloud, the machine has informed me that you both have a fever, as it were. How close are you?-

-I’d guess two to three hundred Graubaums.Crystal is likely near her saturation point. Some radiation leaked through the airlock to the engine room when the main shield shut off, and Maximillian said himself that the shielding isn’t working perfectly. I don’t think the doors are enough protection for anyone close by outside.-

-Ancestors preserve me… best keep them shut, then. I’ll ask him to drive farther from the outskirts. We’ll need to open the doors again for Orchid Wisp.-

-And to bring some food and clean water, I hope.-

-I haven’t forgotten. You still have a bond with Ivory Point, yes?-

“Ah, excuse me,” said Carbide, “Is everything all right? You both just went quiet all of a sudden.”

“Just a moment,” said Night Cloud, “Talking to Ivy.” -Yes, I do.-

-Then I’ll post her with the perimeter detail. She will be your radio. In the meantime, if there happens to be an actual radio in there—

-We’ll look. Go with Blitz. Please, keep her safe.-

-As is my oath, so shall I keep it.-

Outside the broad windscreen, there suddenly appeared a shimmering, transparent barrier of light not unlike Ivy’s golden bubble.

“Additional containment measures engaged. Be aware: The cabin may rock when crossing uneven terrain.”

The entire deck vibrated, and a deep hum came from below us as the view of snowy Bellenast beyond the window began to move. With surprising suddenness, Maximillian lurched forward, turning to our right, to the south. Night Cloud set her wing across me, leaning with the motion.

A crashing sound came from through the closed starboard-side door behind us as Maximillian straightened out facing west, and rolled out across the field of snow. Distant trees formed a dark band across the horizon.

“Maximillian,” said Carbide, “Where are you going?”

“Per Lady Ivaline’s instruction, in order to minimize risk of contamination, I am relocating to a point away from habitations, approximately fifteen kilometers to the west.”

“Ah. Very good… Crystal, Night Cloud… you said you were talking to Ivy…”

“She’s telepathic,” said Night Cloud.

“Truly?”

“It’s complicated. Ivy is, um… dealing with a troubling situation. The ponies who attacked us yesterday are not all accounted for yet. We’re safe for the moment, so at least she and Blitz can focus on that. I apologize for my rudeness.”

“No, no, it’s all right; I was only curious. Telepathy… hmm… Mosaic and Gestalt were rumored to be telepathic—I suppose they must have found a way to replicate that ability and incorporate it into the final spell.”

“Who were they?” I said, looking up at Night Cloud. She froze, mouth partly open.

“They worked for the Ministry of Arcane Science,” said Carbide, “On the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion project. They were among Twilight Sparkle’s most accomplished scientists. As far as I was aware, they and everyone else at the Maripony Research Center died—but if some of the Potion was still viable, then part of the laboratory must have survived. Night Cloud, do you know anything about it? Or Lady Ivaline, or Her Highness? I assume they must know something.”

Night Cloud jerkily shook her head, closing her eyes. “I, um… it’s—I… I’m sorry, but—”

I nuzzled her leg and murmured, “Let me guess: Can’t talk about it?”

She sighed, shaking her head again. “I’m sorry, but—no.”

“If any place could survive a megaspell strike,” said Carbide, “Even partly, it would be Maripony, but I can’t imagine the Potion stock would have remained viable after being contaminated—did you reverse-engineer it, or find the original research data? Are you making it here, in Bellenast?”

“Carbide,” I said, “If she says she can’t talk about, that means stop asking. Please.”

“All right, all right… I’m not trying to interrogate anyone. I’m just curious. I can’t help it—I’m a scientist, and believe me, the two ponies I’m talking to are living evidence of one of the greatest scientific achievements in all of history. I hope you can forgive me for wanting to pick your brain.”

“Well, sorry,” I said, “But no brain-picking right now.”

“Carbide,” said Night Cloud, “I don’t like having to—to brush you off, but I… I just—I swore to Ivy and Blitz that I would keep a secret. There’s a good reason for it, I promise you.” She gently squeezed my side with her wing, trailing her feathers across my ribs. “If you really want to ask them about it, be my guest, but now isn’t a good time. They’re rather busy at the moment.”

“I havecome to Bellenast in the middle of an international incident, haven’t I?”

Night Cloud laughed, and once again the slight motion of her wing tickled my belly. “Yes… believe me, I wish this were just another boring day.”

I shifted my own wing under hers, glancing back at my side. “Night Cloud?”

“Yes?”

“Did, um…” Swallowing, I murmured, “Did my baby…”

“Oh!” Night Cloud squeezed me more firmly and nuzzled my cheek. “It’s fine, darling. The Potion circulates through the placenta, but it largely leaves the fetus alone. Don’t worry. Your baby will be just fine.”

“Through the what?”

“Your placenta. It’s a, um… a protective membrane, a sack. It anchors the fetus in place inside the mother’s womb while it grows, and transports blood, nutrients, and oxygen between the mother and the fetus.”

“Oh… so, if my blood goes, um… into the baby, then… what about the radiation?” I gripped her foreleg firmly. “You said that’s in our blood. Is that going to hurt it?”

“No, darling.”

“Wait, so—” Shifting my wings again, I said, “Does that mean my baby will be an alicorn, too?”

She shook her head. “No. The Potion isn’t designed to transform a fetus. It’s designed explicitly not to, in fact.”

“Oh.”

“That is fascinating,” said Carbide. “I have to assume Twilight Sparkle didn’t want to bar her soldiers from having foals.”

Night Cloud chuckled. “Um… no. Surely not.”

“Carbide,” I said, glancing up at the octagonal pyramid of light on the pedestal, “Did you know? Um… when you did surgery on me, did you know I was pregnant?”

“Well… yes. There were obvious signs present in your blood, and I performed a thaumic imaging scan. Did you not know?”

“No,” I mumbled. Night Cloud lay down beside me, and I joined her, leaning against her under her warm wing. “Hadn’t really thought about it…Zephyr did. I guess there wasn’t much point in telling me, huh?”

“It, ah…” Carbide trailed off, remaining silent for several seconds. “At the time,” he said slowly, “It had not occurred to me that you might not know. I didn’t feel I had the right to ask. That, and… it wasn’t relevant to your immediate survival prospects, so I didn’t consider it that important.” He paused, and the light within his cradle flickered and pulsed. “I assumed, given your age, and what you said in the tramway, that, ah… that the act was not your choice.”

“No,” murmured Night Cloud, brushing my side. “Her choice was taken from—”

I jabbed her ribs, causing her to jolt. “He raped me,” I said, shaking my head. “And I… I killed him. That was my friggin’ choice.” I shivered and shifted on my hindquarters as Night Cloud hugged me. “His name was Aurum Bannister.” I leaned my head against her warm belly, rubbing my ear just below her ribs. “I murdered him. Now we’re here.”

“Baby, it was self-defense, not—”

“Stabbing him was self-defense,” I muttered, thumping my hoof on the deck. “After that… friggin’ chasing him down wasn’t self-defense.” Sighing, I said, “Carbide, you need a body, don’t you?”

“Er… I… yes?”

Night Cloud nuzzled between my ears, and I lay my head against her neck, listening to her heartbeat.

“That is, I would certainly like to have one, but, ah… your safety is more important at the moment. Constructing a new exoskeleton would, ah… require tools and facilities that we don’t presently have.”

The deck rocked gently as Maximillian steered slightly to the right, and Night Cloud’s mane fell over my face, obscuring my view. Something crashed beyond the door to the room on our right, followed by a muffled clattering of debris on a metal floor.

“Okay,” I muttered, standing up. “Hey, Max,” I said, pointing at the door. “What’s through there, on your starboard side?”

“That is the light vehicle bay. The Sturnidae hover carriage inside has come loose from its moorings, and may shift unexpectedly while I am in motion. I advise against entering the bay.”

“Hover carriage?” I rose from Night Cloud’s enticing embrace immediately and made for the door. “What does ‘sturnidae’ mean?”

“It means ‘Starling,’” said Carbide, “And I agree with Maximillian. It would be best if you stayed out of that bay. There’s heavy machinery in there, and probably tools and loose parts lying everywhere… and you’re ignoring me, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m listening, but everything you’re saying just makes me want to go in there.” I stomped the floor plate, and the door slid open, letting a blast of cold air sweep over me. Loose scrap and spilled nuts and bolts clattered across the deck in a constant din.

And in the middle of it all was a craft.

Four meters long and two wide, and styled with the barest remnants of cracked and peeling blue and orange paint, the hover carriage rested askew on the deck. A pair of bench platforms rested either side of a central frame rail, and a broad, dusty windscreen and crash cages protected the seats from the front. Two aerokinetic thruster nacelles the size of my torso jutted from beneath the rear corners of the small cargo bed behind and below the bench platforms, and a shaped intake cowling below the frame narrowed into ducting that snaked back toward the twin thrusters.

All across the diamond-patterned deck plates below the craft was a mess of flecks of faded, violet paint and dust, but the craft itself, like all the bare metal surfaces around us, was remarkably free of rust.

Maximillian rocked again, and the Sturnidae tilted, crashing against the deck on one side. I trotted into the bay, telekinetically grabbed several metal scraps from the cluttered floor, and wedged them under the thruster nacelles and the bottom supports of the flight benches, propping the hovercraft in place.

“Well, one thing’s for sure,” I muttered, “The oxygen problem was recent. Probably started when I zapped him, otherwise he’d have been nothing but a big hunk of rust a century ago.”

“You can thank the desert for that,” said Carbide, “And nickel and chromium.” His voice came not from the speaker in the bridge, but from one on the wall to my right, above a tool rack. “Please be careful in there, Crystal.”

“Be careful?” I murmured.

I lit the cluttered room with emerald that made the walls glint and glitter. Up from the floor and spilled-open storage drawers, I levitated a cloud of drill bits, screws, dies, bolts, oil cans, cutting torches, grinding belts, saw blades, and myriad other implements in my grasp, and smiled up at Night Cloud.

“I am right at home.”

She stared wide-eyed around at the floating tools and stepped off to the side, letting out a soft chuckle. “I think home ought to be a little cozier… more warm and soft, less cold and sharp.”

I began to return the askew drawers and tools to their proper places, or just place them where I wanted them. In addition to the loose tools and parts, there were larger, powered tools aplenty on the benches and hanging on gantry rails on the ceiling. Horn still alight with bright emerald, I walked over to Night Cloud where she stood in the corner, near the open doorway.

“Warm and soft, huh?” I said, nuzzling from her pectorals up along her neck. “I have you for that.”

She giggled, gazing around the dusty bay. “Is this the sort of place you like to haunt, darling?”

I reared up and pecked her cheek. “Yes! Just look!” I swept my hoof across the interior wall, at the plethora of devices arranged in tidy along the deck. “That’s a sheet roller, that one’s a pipe bender, there’s a plasma torch, a welding station, a drill press, a mill, belt grinder… another mill, I think… I don’t know what the big table thing is, but it looks neat, that’s a band saw, a lathe, a kinetic clamp and arbor, and—holy friggin’… okay, that lathe is beautiful. I really friggin’ hope that’s salvageable. This little vehicle bay has everything Eagle’s workshop had and more! This is awesome!”

“Okay,” she said, still giggling. “You found some toys you like… a lot of toys you like.” She froze with her mouth open, staring just past my eyes, then she broke into a joyous smile and bright laughter. “Oh, baby, look—look!” She wrapped my snout with cerulean and nudged my head around.

There on my hindquarters was a black-and-yellow-striped gas blowtorch pointed toward my tail, belching out a rising flame of emerald green.

Night Cloud sat down on her haunches in the doorway, spreading her forelegs wide to beckon me. I leapt into her embrace and laughed with her, then pushed my hooves against her to brace myself and kiss her, and she provided ample reason for shortness of breath and a racing heart.

“Ah… what happened? I can’t see anything, remember? You both sound very, er… celebratory. I can’t, ah… well, I can’t move, so if you want privacy, you’ll have to go to another compartment.”

I stretched my forelegs around Night Cloud’s neck and beamed, separating to breathe deeply and drink in her scent. Still giggling, I glanced back at my hip and said, “I have a balefire torch on my butt now.”

Night Cloud snorted. “Darling, really?”

“A balefire torch? What—oh, you mean your cutie mark! It manifested?! I’ve never seen a mark manifest before! Or—well, I still haven’t seen it happen, but to be present for it! What does that feel like? How—oh, never mind. Crystal, that’s wonderful!”

“Now that I think about it,” I murmured, “I didn’t feel a thing. Maybe a bit of a rush, but I’m pretty sure that’s from all the radiation. And making out.” Night Cloud gave a bashful grin, and I attacked her lips again.

“Ah… Crystal? Night Cloud?”

“Carbide, are we making you uncomfortable?”

“Oh. Well. Ah… since you mentioned it, yes, just a bit. As I said before, I can’t move, obviously, and… I would prefer not to shut off my senses so soon after regaining them, so if you want privacy…”

I sighed. “Is it because we’re kissing, or because we’re both mares and kissing?”

“What? That—er… I… no, it’s… I’m… really not concerned with… look, I can’t see you, anyway, but it’s not my business in the first place. You deserve privacy. I’m simply telling you that I can’t give it while you’re in this room. I can’t plug the ears or close the eyes I don’t have. Now, please, if for nothing else but the sake of principal, would you kindly—”

“Get a room?” I snickered and rubbed my cheek on Night Cloud’s neck, swaying gently with her as Maximillian turned once again around an obstacle. “So you don’t have to hear us making kissy noises?”

“If that’s how you want to spend your time while we’re waiting to hear whether Bellenast has gone up in flames, sure. I won’t judge.”

Night Cloud rolled her eyes. “Blitz will protect her city… I’m tired. If we’re to be stuck waiting, I’d just as soon go back to sleep. I can forage for food and water in the woods later, if we have to wait that long.”

“There are beds,” said Carbide, “Just through the door opposite the port airlock. Though I can’t vouch for the state of the mattresses—or the showers. Or the sink in the kitchen… the vapor condenser is mostly solid-state talismans, but it might still work, considering the state of everything else.”

“If it comes to a long wait,” said Night Cloud, “I can bring some snow in through the airlock. I’m not nearly so radioactive as Crystal, so I don’t think I’ll endanger anyone nearby just by poking my head out.”

I looked up at her. “Really?”

“I’m much larger than you, darling.” She carefully turned around in the bridge space and stepped through the port side door to the kitchen and crew compartment. I followed her. “Simple surface area-to-volume ratio and body mass at work.”

“Oh.” I nodded, trailing closely behind her as she entered the bunk room. It was narrow and cramped, and had only two beds to the right, and another door on the left led to a cramped bathroom. Night Cloud began to remove her barding one piece at a time.

“So, that means… if you did reach your, um, saturation point… you’d also be dangerous longer than I would.”

“True.” She looked at the compact bed on the floor, standing in only her pearlescent gambeson. She stripped off the figure-hugging garment and set it on the thin mattress, then lay down on it. “I hope that, being away from the engine room, that won’t happen.”

“What about being next to me?”

“You’re one-fifth my size, Crystal.” In the dim light, the cobalt-blue alicorn raised her wing and smiled expectantly at me. “You cannot now and never will be able to irradiate me that much—although, I could easily do it to you. Ivory Point will bring my containment talisman by when she comes back, anyway. You don’t need to worry.”

I lay close to her, pulling my blanket tight under her welcoming wing. I nuzzled her neck just below her bandages. “Does that hurt?”

“No. In fact—” She unwrapped the linen cloth with cerulean magic, and slowly pulled the gauze pad away from her coat. “It’s perfectly fine.” The shaved-bare patch of her dark skin underneath was almost completely unblemished, only ever-so-slightly lighter in the center. “This is more than enough radiation for me to regenerate. I’ll barely have a scar at all.”

“Whoa…” I bumped my nose to her hide, sniffing at the slight lingering scent of protectant ointment. “Your coat’s really short.”

She chuckled. “That’s just how Palomino ponies are. I don’t really get a winter coat.”

“Huh.” I leaned back, laying my head on her shoulder. “So… why don’t you give everyone the Potion? I mean, if you can heal just like that, and… radiation doesn’t hurt you… wouldn’t everyone be safer?”

Night Cloud briefly opened her mouth, letting out a weak laugh. She squeezed me with her wing and kissed my cheek, then drew back to my lips, instead. I rolled my eyes.

-You know, if it’s something you can’t tell me, you can just say that; I don’t want to pressure you… but you don’t have to shut me up with tongue wrestling. Not that I’m complaining—I think you’re pretty good at it.-

She snorted with laughter and pulled away from me. In the dark room, those electric blue eyes fairly gleamed. “I’m sorry, Crystal, but… it just isn’t that simple. Um… Ivy can…”

-I cannot ask you to keep your silence for the rest of your days, Noča Nubiála, least of all to the mare you love.-

Night Cloud closed her eyes and mouth as Ivy spoke.

-Many years ago, Crystal Dew, there was one pony who had that very same thought as you. A pony in a place of great and terrible power: One who would have all of ponykind become one in her image; one who would forsake liberty and individuality and self for safety; one who would hold all ponies the world over slaves to her will for sake of her dominion.-

I frowned as Night Cloud stroked her telekinesis down my neck. -That… doesn’t sound nice… but, um… what does all that have to do with being able to heal when you’re hurt? That Potion is a miracle in a bottle.-

-It is a marvel, yes… but not so miraculous as you believe it to be. Ponies created it, and ponies control it, corrupt it, use it for cruel purposes. For nearly a century, from the day she stole me away from my city, I was one of those ponies. One servant among many. A slave chained within my own mind, beholden to another pony’s command.-

Night Cloud hugged me tightly. I stared at the floor in the wan light coming through the small window in the sliding door.

-She calls herself the Goddess.-

Author's Note

~~January 2025: I am revising this chapter, and hope to finish the revisions this month. I don’t recommend reading ahead yet.~~
January 24, 2025: Done! Yay!

If there’s anything that catches your attention, whether editorial, continuity-related, or just something that doesn’t feel quite right, let me know. Feedback is blood and I am a mean green mother from outer space! Feed me, Seymour!