The Chapter Where Ponies Get Snuggled
The Alicorn-shaped hull of the Equila landing craft began to glow a dull red as it entered the planet’s atmosphere. It slowly shifted to orange, then yellow, as the vessel continued to heat from entry friction. By the time its angle of descent tapered off, the shuddering had treated its occupants to a series of vibrations that one would normally expect in a class-five earthquake. Yet its hull held fast, and twelve of its passengers soon tromped aboard a tracked and heavily-armored rhino-class transport vehicle stashed in the lander’s hold.
Once the ponies had situated themselves in the troop compartment, Commissar Nutmeg paced back and forth between his seated squad. He occasionally sipped from a red coffee mug, which contrasted heavily with his light-blue fur, even as it complimented his mid-length yellow mane. He swiftly downed the remainder of its contents when the cabin’s normal luminators cut out, leaving only crimson emergency lights.
“That’s the five minute marker,” Nutmeg announced through his headset vox, having to yell over the sound of howling winds, which reached deafening volumes even within the interior of the rhino itself. “Make sure your gear is secure and good to go. Quick recap for those of you with short attention spans—I’m looking at you, Point,” he indicated to a scrawny chestnut-colored stallion. Nutmeg jittered a little as the sudden influx of caffeine kicked in. “We’re touching down half a kilomare from the facility. Once the rhino is out, Free Fall is going to take the Equila airborne again to give us aerial support. Excessive Force will drive us up to the facility. We will secure the facility so that Inquisitor Tracks here can do what he does best. Read my lips on this—” He pointed to the purple robed figure sitting at the back of the troop compartment “—the Inquisitor’s safety is your number one priority during this mission, got it?”
There were several murmurs of assent from his squad… and Point raised his hoof.
“Point,” Nutmeg glared at the offending pony, “I swear to Celestia, if this a stupid question, you can exit the Equila before we land.”
“It's just about the surface conditions, Sir.”
Nutmeg held back a laugh as he started attaching the clasps to seal up his long, black greatcoat. “Arctinus Septimus stretches the definition of ‘habitable.’ Surface temperature averages negative forty degrees centigrade; your eyes will freeze in their sockets if uncovered, and your throat will freeze up if you breathe the air directly. So button up everypony; make sure you seal your cold weather gear, put down your goggles, and breathe through a scarf. Conditions in the facility should be much warmer, unless the heating system is off—”
The crimson lights turned to viridian.
“Brace yourselves,” Nutmeg called out, grabbing an overhead rail with one of his forehooves. “Thirty seconds to landing.”
Everypony reached up with their forehooves and pulled down on their seat safety restraints to make sure they were secure. Within moments, a powerful shock passed through the vehicle and the sound of the rhino’s engine roaring to life replaced the incessant howling of the wind. The floor slanted as the Equila’s boarding ramp lowered, and the rhino’s sudden acceleration gave its occupants a jolt.
Excessive Force’s voice came over the comm: “ETA to facility is two minutes.”
“Ok,” Nutmeg said as the others raised their safety restraints and got to their hooves. “I want a nice, clean dispersal. And check your targets, the Inquisitor said that just because we lost communication doesn’t mean the place is swarming with hostiles.”
“We’re here,” Excessive announced just before the rhino came to an abrupt halt.
Nutmeg pulled the rhino’s side hatch open, allowing the team’s two scouts—Point and Owly—to dive out into the snow, which came up just past their cannons.
“Celestia’s bowels!” Owly exclaimed when the cold bit straight through his jacket and his navy-blue fur. The only consolation was that there was no current wind or precipitation.
“Move it!” Nutmeg yelled. “They’re not paying us by the hour!”
The two scouts began to trudge through the snowdrifts towards the facility doors, which resembled a large and imposing set of metal shutters built into the side of a hill. They appeared to open by splitting from the center and retracting into the walls on either side. It looked possible to drive the rhino right into the facility if they could get the doors open just a few mare lengths.
Blitz, the team’s grenadier, grunted as he forced his mountainous blue-grey bulk through the rhino’s hatch, inadvertently detaching his grenade launcher in the process. He swore as he turned around, reached into the snow with a forehoof, and attempted to shove it back into its combat saddle.
Inferno, who was almost but not quite as large as Blitz, squeezed through the aperture as Blitz struggled to situate his weapon. Where everypony else had chosen white or gray winterized gear, Inferno remained in the all-encompassing black armor and skull-motif gasmask that he always wore. He quickly ignited the pilot light on his flamethrower once he was clear of the vehicle.
Nutmeg exited side-by-side with Fray, the team’s lithe lime-green coated close-quarters combat specialist, who gasped at the sudden temperature change. Nutmeg appeared to be more or less unaffected by the weather, seemingly more interested in the group’s grunting, grumbling grenadier.
As Nutmeg moved to assist Blitz with securing the launcher into its harness, the Twins—a pair of Adeptus Marechanicus tech-pones whose crimson robes didn’t quite conceal the extent of their cybernetic augmentation—exited the rhino. “Air temperature is currently negative thirty-five-point-seven degrees centigrade,” Rust announced, waving a prehensile, tendril-like mechadendrite around.
“Affirmative! Sheen agreed, following closely behind Rust. “My lubricants are becoming more viscous by the second—”
“Get out of our way, you mecha-weirdos!” Trauma, the team’s blood-red medic, pushed Rust into Sheen so that he and Whisper, their mute, grey-coated sniper, could debark. Once past the babbling tech-ponies, Whisper immediately leveled her longlas and scanned their surroundings.
“All clear!” Trauma called into his vox once Whisper gave him a hoof signal.
Point glared back from his exposed position and placed a hoof over his vox’s microphone. “Well, that’s a plus,” he said with no small amount of sarcasm around a half-chewed protein bar.
Owly would've chuckled if he weren’t already shaking from the temperature. “Let’s get going,” he gasped, gritting his teeth as they galloped into a sudden gale which gusted and ground against them like a ghostly, gnashing giant.
“There should be a panel out here to open the doors,” Point yelled as they approached the base of an almost vertical wall of rock with massive metal shutters set into what appeared to be a natural cave. He looked around for a few moments at the featureless surface, his eyes scrunching beneath his goggles. “The Twins said it would be big… if true, why can’t we see the blasted thing?”
“It’s right here,” Owly said, brushing off some snow that had caked onto the large metal panel. He struck it once to break the ice that had welded it shut, then pried it open, revealing an array of blinking lights above a small data port. He reached a hoof into his coat to dig out the Inquisitorial rosette that Tracks had given them for the express purpose of opening the facility, then inserted the stylized “I” into the data port. One by one, the lights changed color until they were all glowing a light shade of viridian.
There was a horrible squeal of metal on metal as the mechanisms behind the massive doors began to pull them apart. Point entered first, galloping into the dimly lit interior, and taking cover behind a stack of frost-covered equipment crates. He stuffed another protein bar down the front of his scarf and began advancing, sweeping the massive hangar-style room with his lasrifle as he chewed, but no resistance presented itself.
Owly galloped in after Point, but only made it to a support pillar about a quarter down the length of the expansive room before his goggles fogged up. He swore and pushed them up to his dark-blue forehead. Then he scanned the entirety of the space with his sharp, yellow eyes, before giving Point the hoof-signal to continue the advance. “Ok Blitzy,” Owly said into the comm, “it’s clear for you and ‘Hot-Stuff’ to come in now.”
Blitz entered and trotted right down the center of the room, sweeping his grenade launcher back and forth as he searched for targets. Inferno followed in Blitz’s hoofsteps, eventually pointing his flamethrower in Owly’s general direction and releasing a few gouts of flame, which fell just short of hitting Owly’s side. “Call me ‘Hot-Stuff’ again, heathen.”
Owly swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in his throat. Working for the Inquisition had obviously done nothing to improve Inferno’s sense of humor.
“Radio discipline!” Nutmeg said as he and Fray entered the facility. “Point, report.”
“Nothing in here but boxes,” Point said as he trotted closer to the Commissar, surreptitiously stuffing some spent snack wrappers into his saddlebags. “There’s a single set of blast doors at the back, probably the main access tunnel to the rest of the facility…” He raised his fogging goggles and pulled his scarf down. “Sir, what is this place anyways?”
Nutmeg took off his own goggles and scarf so he could properly scowl at Point. “If the Inquisitor deems that we need to know, I’m sure he’ll tell us.” He looked over to Fray as the diminutive mare pushed her goggles up and pulled her scarf down, exposing the lime-green fur of her muzzle. “Well, for now, everypony go cover the tunnel door—and Point, pay more attention to our surroundings and less to your rations, or I’ll have the Inquisitor ban your access to the Equila’s pantry.”
Point grumbled as he turned to follow the others.
“Air temperature inside the facility is zero degrees centigrade,” Rust announced as the Twins entered. They, as usual, only wore their Adeptus Marecanicus robes.
“Damn,” Nutmeg muttered, his breath frosting slightly in the air. He keyed his vox. “Main hangar is clear, Inquisitor.”
“Any sign of activity?” Tracks’ scratchy voice came over the line.
“That’s a negative, Inquisitor; no vehicles or machinery, just a bunch of boxes filled with—” he popped the top of the closest rime-encrusted crate and pulled out a lumpy foil bag “—food… muffin-rations from the looks of it.”
“Roger that, Nutmeg,” Tracks said. “We’re coming in.”
Point rolled his eyes and put a hoof over his vox mic. “Oooh, he’s coming in, I feel safer already.”
Fray elbowed him hard in the ribs. “Knock it off, Point! You’ll get worse than just latrine duty if you piss off an Inquisitor!”
“Heh,” Point snorted. “You said ‘doody.’” He began chuckling as Fray gave him an expression flatter than a cake baked without yeast.
The rhino drove straight into the hangar before slowly turning ninety degrees to the left, positioning itself so that it was broadside, about ten mare-lengths from the back of the massive room. The large multimelta mounted on top of the vehicle swiveled sideways until it was trained on the doorway. Then the hatch on the side of the rhino squealed open, and the hooded, thickly-robed form of Inquisitor Tracks stepped out, but immediately tripped and hit the floor as his bionic foreleg caught on the rim of the portal. His hood fell back as he splayed out on the ground, revealing a horn that jutted out of his black mane, and a single ruby-red bionic eye. His purple muzzle twisted into a toothy grimace and his natural eye shut in pain. Nutmeg rushed to his side, helping the Inquisitor regain his hooves.
“Well,” Tracks said in his usual, raspy voice, “as long as I don’t go and try to accidentally kill myself again, I say we should get around to solving this little mystery.” He lit his horn and used his magic to draw the hood back over his scarred face.
Nutmeg nodded at Owly, who nodded back, then turned and trotted over to the door control panel The squad all took positions to cover the tunnel entrance as Owly hoofed the activation rune. There was an odd electrical fizzing sound. Owly raised an eyebrow and hit the rune again.
Suddenly the outer doors began to close with another huge squeal, drawing everypony’s attention. Nutmeg swore as their avenue of escape and all outside illumination was slowly cut off by the closing metal panels.
“It’s ok,” Tracks said. “It’s meant to to keep the cold out. Wouldn’t want to waste the facility’s power by heating the outside, would they?”
Once the grotesquely gigantic grinding gears of the outer doors shuddered to a halt, the inner doors began to screech open, revealing a tunnel approximately two ponies wide, lit intermittently by flickering luminators.
“Air temperature in the tunnel is six-point-seven degrees centigrade,” Rust added.
“That means the heat is still on,” Tracks announced. “But there must something wrong… it should be set to twenty.”
“You heard the stallion: let’s scope the place out,” Nutmeg barked.
Owly and Point took the lead, advancing together until they reached an intersection. As the others caught up, Nutmeg turned to Tracks. “Do you have a map of this place, perchance?”
“Yes,” the Inquisitor answered, tapping a hoof to his bionic eye. “To the left is water storage. To the right is the generator.” He pointed straight down the hallway. “At the next intersection, left leads to the living quarters and dining area; right leads to the command center, which is where the heating units, auspex array, and communications all are.”
“We’re going to have to split up,” Nutmeg said. “These tunnels are too narrow for us to fit more than two at a time. Point, Fray, go left. Owly, Blitz, go right. Inferno, you and the Twins take the living area—and don’t burn it down!”
Inferno turned his skull-motif mask towards Nutmeg. “I only burn the unrighteous.”
“Tell that to the priest you accidentally immolated on Celestis Secundus.” Nutmeg turned back to the others. “The Inquisitor and I will go to the command center, and Trauma and Whisper will cover the passage in case you encounter any hostiles. In the unlikely case of resistance, retreat to this hallway so Whisper can perforate your pursuers. If you find anything of interest, report it immediately.
With nods and words of affirmation, the ponies split up down the different passages.
As they worked their way down the right passageway, Blitz removed his goggles and scarf, stowing them in his saddlebag. “Starting to get hot in here.”
“You think there’s a reason he split us up into known couples?” Owly asked his humongous blue-grey coltfriend.
Blitz smirked. “Except for—”
“Inferno, of course; we all know he only has the hots for fire.”
“And the Twins,” Blitz chuckled. “Those two will violate anything they can get their tendrils on.”
After sharing a short laugh together, Owly looked over to Blitz again. “Hey, we’ve been busy recently; how long has it been since we last—”
“—snogged?” Point asked Fray.
She gave him a sidelong glance with a raised eyebrow. “I don’t know how long it’s been, but you acting like an idiot on this mission won’t help make it happen again anytime soon.”
Point made a pouty-face. “Oh, c’mon, you know I’m just—”
“—playing around,” Trauma said.
The frown on Whisper’s gray-coated muzzle deepened. Oddly, the first thing that came to Trauma’s mind was how life-like the augmentics that made up the left side of her face were. A pity her injuries back on Caspian IV had left her unable to speak; he missed hearing her witty repartee, and especially missed her playful chatter whilst in the middle of their more passionate activities.
“Look,” Trauma said, pulling his scarf off of his blood-red muzzle. “I’m just saying, is all; you don’t need to aim your rifle at Owly and Point every time they joke around like that!”
She narrowed her icy blue eyes at him.
Trauma crossed his forelegs. “And you definitely don’t need to shoot at them; I’m sick of patching those two up. I’m the only actual medic on the Inquisitor’s crew right now, and my plate is full without you adding unnecessary injuries to it.”
Whisper didn’t change her expression.
Trauma sighed “C’mon Whisper, you practically treat them like they’re—”
“—Heretics! And all heretics shall burn in the cleansing fires of righteousness!”
The Twins pointedly ignored Inferno’s fervent religiosity as they made their way down the long, narrow passage toward the living quarters. But then as one, both tech-ponies stopped short.
“Unidentified figure ahead,” Rust said.
“And Celestia will pass judgement upon all whom—” Inferno stopped speaking, glanced at the Twins, then leveled his flamethrower back down the hallway. “What kind of figure?”
Sheen raised a mechadendrite bristling with data-capturing apparatus. “According to visual and olfactory analysis, it appears to be a—”
“—corpsicle,” Nutmeg unceremoniously dubbed the purple-furred stallion who was frozen upright in the middle of the tunnel they were traversing. The temperature had dropped precipitously once they had split from Inferno and the Twins, and it seemed to be approaching the levels of cold they had experienced outside.
Nutmeg brought his scarf back up to his muzzle, hoping to ward away the bitter air that had begun to sting at his throat. “How in Tartarus is he still standing?”
Tracks proceeded around the pony popsicle and pressed his bionic foreleg to the pony’s orange mane, snapping away several strands in front and revealing a horn.
Nutmeg’s eyes widened. “A unicorn?”
“Yes,” Tracks replied in a somber tone. “This is Wave Function, the facility astropath. I sent him here to be my eyes and ears.” He walked to Wave’s side and brushed the frost from his flank, revealing an equation cutie-mark. “We received his last communication around two months ago; he said the operators were getting some odd readings and that he’d keep us informed of any changes.”
Tracks bowed his head to the deceased stallion. “I only diverted us here after a few weeks had passed. Astropathic communication can be so unreliable, you know.” He raised his head and sighed as he placed his hoof on Wave’s withers. “I’m sorry friend, I should have brought us here sooner—”
Stricken by a sudden realization, Tracks twisted his head to one side of the body and back to the other. “That’s odd… there are no wounds.” He brought his hoof to the back of Wave’s head and touched their horns together. “But I can at least use my talent to see how you died—”
A crimson light illuminated Tracks’ face as his horn began to glow. His left eye opened, revealing a white light that drowned out the natural ruby color of his iris. “He was… shivering; he must have been suffering from hypothermia—” He blinked a few times. “Looks like he’s… tired, yawning. Oh… he…” The glow ceased and Tracks looked down to the floor, allowing silence a short reign. “Ponies can lock their knees and sleep standing up, you know.”
Nutmeg shifted slightly, but showed no other signs of emotion.
“In fact,” Tracks continued, “if you’re suffering from hypothermia, and you feel tired enough, you might just think that you can lock your knees, get a little rest, and everything will be fine…”
“Except you freeze to death instead,” Nutmeg finished.
“Sir.” Inferno’s voice crackled over the comm system.
“Go ahead,” Nutmeg said.
“The living quarters… is a charnel house. There are bodies everywhere.”
Nutmeg’s eyes narrowed. “Wounds?”
“Extensive; large caliber explosive rounds were used. The Twins say there’s a high probability that the weapon used was a bolter—disregard that; it was definitely a bolter, I just found a shell casing, seventy-five-caliber… BAH!” Inferno’s connection suddenly cut out.
“Inferno?” Nutmeg tapped his earpiece. “Inferno, what happened?”
“Sorry Sir, reflex. This place needs to be cleansed; there are heretical markings on the casing!”
Glancing at Nutmeg, Tracks narrowed his natural eye. “Heretical markings on bolt-shells could mean Discord Mareines. I hope I’m wrong; we don’t really have the equipment down here to deal with that kind of threat… Inferno, we're on our way—don’t touch anything until I get a look at it first!”
Tracks was two steps into the beginning of his gallop when his bionic foreleg snagged on a wire that had been covered by the frost on the floor, causing him to trip and face-plant into the ground.
Nutmeg’s eyes darted along the length of the wire, noting the small metal box it connected to, and the large blocks of greenish material that were also wired to the box—
“Move Tracks! Move!” Nutmeg shouted as he reached down, scooped up the Inquisitor, and took off, galloping away from the several kilograms of Celestia-4 explosives.
They were blown off their hooves by a cataclysmic explosion rivaled only by the unexplained detonation that had sunk the ancient battleship Mane.
“What’s all the vox chatter?” Point chewed another protein bar as he tapped his hoof against his headset communicator. There was some kind of interference, possibly due to the gargantuan metallic water tank that loomed over their heads.
“I don’t know,” Fray shot him a worried glance. “Do you think maybe we should—”
A violent tremor shook the room, knocking both ponies to the floor.
Point jumped back to his hooves as a low rumble rattled the pipes that ran up along the walls. “What in Tartarus was that?”
Fray stood, looking with uncertainty at the creaking, groaning pipework. “I don’t know, I—AH!” Fray shrieked as a tear opened in the side of the tank, pouring hundreds of gallons of ice-cold water onto both ponies, the force knocking them against the opposite wall. The water level rose quickly, reaching up to their knees before they could get themselves moving. “Point! Go, go, go!”
They tried to gallop for the stairs to the catwalk that led back to the tunnel they’d entered from, but within heartbeats they found themselves swimming through the frigid water instead. With his limbs beginning to go numb, Point barely managed to drag himself up onto the metal-grill catwalk before reaching a forehoof back to try and pull Fray out.
Fray was a strong swimmer but, with the cold sapping her strength, she started to flounder. She tried several times, and failed, to reach a forehoof out of the water to grab onto Point’s outstretched foreleg.
Point strained to stretch himself out far enough to reach her. At last he hooked a hoof into one of her armor straps. With a loud grunt, he pulled her bodily out of the water, landing them both prone on the platform.
They lay for a few moments, alternating between panting heavily, shivering, and chattering their teeth.
Fray started to shake violently. “C-c-cold, w-w-we need t-t-to get warm—”
Point knocked his guard helmet off and started pawing at his jacket “S-s-strip! Q-quick; gotta g-g-get this wet s-s-stuff off!”
Both ponies tore at their sodden armor with a desperation borne of their quickly plummeting body temperatures. Fray managed to get the last of her gear off first and shook herself off, spraying water like a post-bath canine. As Point shook himself off too, Fray rummaged through her saddlebags and pulled out an emergency blanket.
When Point opened his eyes, all he could do was stand, shivering, as Fray opened up the folded sheet of mylar.
“P-p-point?” Fray stuttered in a questioning tone. “Why aren’t you g-g-getting your blanket?”
Baring his teeth in what would've been a sheepish grin if his teeth weren’t chattering, Point just shivered in place.
Her brow flattening, Fray glared at him while donning the reflective, crinkling sheet of metallic-looking plastic. “You… y-y-you swapped it out f-for extra food, d-d-didn’t you?”
Point’s shivering intensified, his clenched muzzle pulling downwards into a frown.
Fray sighed and held one side of the blanket out with a foreleg. “C-c-come h-h-here, you dope; we’ll warm up f-faster if we share it.”
Not needing any further prompting, Point pushed himself up against Fray and she lowered her forehoof, wrapping it around his withers. She was worried at the chill that his touch initially brought, but warmth soon started to seep through their damp fur.
Fray slowly rubbed her hoof along his neck, from his crest, to his withers, and back again. He responded by nuzzling his muzzle into her neck and sighing. As their shivering began to subside, she rested her chin atop his head and held the blanket tightly around the both of them.
“I wonder,” Fray said, “how the others are doing.”
“Mmph,” Point mumbled into her neck fluff.
Sighing, Fray tightened her grip on Point, pressing their bodies closer together. “You’re right, we should get ourselves warmed back up first.”
“You getting anything?” Owly asked, looking away from the pile of rocks that had replaced the tunnel they’d come down.
Twisting a dial back and forth on his vox set, Blitz frowned. “Naw, I can’t even get Excessive on the comm from here, and he’s got the rhino’s vox repeater.”
Turning towards the now-wrecked generator, Owly ran a hoof through his mane. “How bad do you think it is?”
Blitz scratched the blue-grey fur of his chin in contemplation. “The damage is probably extensive, judging by the sounds of the detonations—”
“There was more than one?” Owly withered under Blitz’s retaliatory glare. “Right, forgot your freaky knowledge of demolitions for a second, there.”
“Don’t know why,” Blitz replied. “I demolish something of yours pretty frequently.”
Blushing furiously, Owly made as if he were inspecting the fallen rocks again. “Maybe they're all just digging themselves out?” His words were starting to come out in puffs of mist. “Is… is it getting colder in here?”
“Affirmative! I have detected a decrease in ambient temperature by seven-point-three degrees in the past ten minutes!” Rust flailed what Inferno could only assume was a temperature gauge about in a wanton manner.
Sheen raised a tendril to touch Rust’s. “Such danger can be stimulating, though we must also consider self-preservation. I recommend we conjoin our physical forms to conserve BTUs. Allow me to intertwine my tendrils with yours!”
“Affirmative, that would be most efficient!”
Inferno’s expressionless skull mask gazed upon the gratuitously groping, grasping tech-ponies for a moment before he turned back towards the living area.
“Wait! Do you not wish to join in pooling our thermal generative functions?”
Inferno wasn’t entirely sure which of the two had addressed him from the flailing pile of tendrils. “I do not appreciate your lewd offer of physical comfort. I will make my own heat.”
Trauma awoke to the feeling of the back of his head impacting against the ground several times. Apparently somepony was shaking him by his combat vest. “Stop—ow, stop—ow… I said STOP! Celestia dammit!” He waved a forehoof wildly to ward off whoever was trying to give him a minor concussion.
The shaking ceased as he opened his eyes to look up into the sight of Whisper’s uncharacteristically concerned visage… which was upside-down? Trauma felt dizzy as he wondered why she had approached him from such an odd angle. He tried to roll over and get to his hooves, but felt an intense pain through his surprisingly immobile hind legs. Looking to his back half, he saw that it was buried under a veritable wall of rocks that had collapsed from the roof of the tunnel. “Oh,” he looked back to Whisper, “that can’t be good.”
Whisper responded by narrowing her eyes and scrunching up her muzzle.
“How,” Nutmeg shouted into the blizzard they found themselves surrounded by, “in Celestia’s balls did we wind up outside?!”
Tracks looked just as displeased with the current situation as Nutmeg. “Displacer field generator,” Tracks said, tapping the ornate technical-looking clasp holding his cloak together despite the howling, frigid wind’s best effort to whip it apart. “It must have activated when the explosion shockwave hit us. Its machine-spirit detected the danger and dimension-shunted us through the Everfree to… relative safety.” He put his natural hoof to his hood to keep it from blowing back as a sudden squall slammed into them.
Nutmeg looked around the windswept rocky surface they occupied. There was nothing even closely resembling shelter against the driving winds and snow… except for a single large jagged-looking shadow, which Nutmeg assumed was a boulder. “Hay, how about we get behind that—” Seeing the silhouette start to move, Nutmeg stopped speaking mid-sentence.
“Oh, I hate being right all the time,” Tracks said as the figure stomped towards them.
As the shape approached, it resolved itself into a towering pony, encased inside a suit of blasphemous, defiled power armor, and with a boltgun attached to its side: a Discord Space Mareine. Spikes and chains dominated the armor, as did a variety of animal skins and bones.
As it spoke, its voice rattled their ribcages: “Ah, more lapdogs of the false princesses. I thought I’d killed all of you pathetic insects.” The bolter trained on them. “Go now, join your friends!”
“Hold onto me!” Tracks yelled. When Nutmeg looked askance at him, Tracks sighed and wrapped his bionic foreleg around Nutmeg’s withers. “No homo.”
The boltgun fired.
Point futilely tried, again, to escape from Fray’s iron grip. “Am… am I being detained?!” he mumbled into her chest fluff.
“Point,” Fray said as she held him close. “Stop struggling, you’re letting the heat out!”
“Let me go,” he said, halfheartedly pushing against Fray’s warm chest and taut, unyielding forelegs. Eventually Point grunted as he ceased his struggles. “We can’t just sit around and do nothing; I thought I was imagining it at first, but it actually is getting colder in here!” He gestured with a hoof towards the water they had shaken off, which had already frozen on the catwalk, their now ice-covered armor, and the giant pool of water beneath them that was forming a sheet of ice on top.
“I know, but we don’t have any equipment that can cut through rock and now our gear is all iced up; we’re better off staying put and keeping warm. So shut up and stop trying to get away from me, you nut.” She relaxed her grip and ran her hoof up and down the side of Point’s barrel.
“Hmmm,” Point hummed as he rested his head on Fray’s other foreleg. “I could go for some nuts right about now.” The chill of damp fur on damp fur was soon replaced by radiating warmth as their combined body heat soaked through.
“Point,” Fray chuckled, running her hoof up and through Point’s mane. “You’ve been eating the whole damn mission; how are you still hungry?”
“I get hungry when I’m inactive,” he grumbled.
Fray continued her hoof motions. She lowered her head so that it was next to his on her leg. “Well, this is the only way we’re going to stay warm until they can rescue us.” She smirked. “Besides, you get hungry when you’re active too—Tartarus, you’re always hungry.”
Point’s stomach growled, almost as if to punctuate Fray’s statement. Point blushed, shivering slightly as his eyes wandered to his iced-over helmet. “I haven’t heard any vox chatter since the explosion…”
Fray shifted, rubbing her side up against Point’s until his shaking stopped. She sighed contentedly. “Well, unless you packed a melta-charge, all we can do is wait… wait and pray to Celestia.”
With that, the two became silent and pressed closer together. The only sounds that could be heard were a distant dripping from the shattered water tank, the occasional crinkling from the emergency blanket, and their own slow breathing.
“Fray?” Point felt a new source of heat flooding his barrel as he nuzzled closer to her.
“What is it?” she asked, squirming a bit in his suddenly stronger grasp.
He blushed, bringing his eyes up to meet hers. “There are… other things we could do to… y’know.”
She cracked a slow, lopsided smile. “Heat things up?”
Point met her smile, then her lips—
Owly couldn’t stop shivering, despite his cold weather gear. “H-how in Tartarus… is it s-s-so cold in here? I think it’s c-c-colder than it was outs-s-side.” His breath was visible coming out through the scarf.
Blitz looked at Owly with worry. “Yeah, it’s getting pretty damn cold in here—got any emergency flares?”
Owly shook his head from side to side and continued to shakily pace around.
Blitz creased his muzzle into a frown for a few moments, his eyes darting back and forth as he thought. “Ok, rescue isn’t coming soon…” He suddenly broke into a grin. “What do you say; you and I break out the emergency blankets, and share some body heat?” He waggled his eyebrows, though the motion was largely concealed by his goggles.
Owly just sat, hugged himself, and nodded his head up and down as his teeth started to chatter.
Reaching into his own saddlebags, Blitz pulled out a XXXXL sized emergency blanket and started unfolding it. He looked over to see Owly hadn’t moved from where he sat, shaking. “Hey, you ok?”
When Blitz didn’t receive a response, he dropped his own blanket and went over to his rattling “best friend.” He rummaged through Owly’s saddlebags until he found the tightly folded mylar sheet.
Looking around, Blitz found a flat patch of ground, quickly unfolded the material, and set it down. He unceremoniously picked Owly up, set him down on top of the crinkly material, and grabbed his own blanket before joining Owly on his.
The blanket from Blitz’s pack was enormous, and easily wrapped around both of them. Once they were covered, Blitz wrapped his forelegs around Owly and tried to rub his hooves up and down on his withers and shoulders to try and warm him back up. “Ok now, just think warm thoughts, Owls.”
“T-tryin’,” was the best Owly could manage.
“C’mon, you’re pressed up against the hottest bod in the whole Equestrian Empire! How can you not be thinking of hot?”
Owly’s shook harder, though now it was partly due to him chuckling. “Y-you are p-pretty hot,” he admitted as he pressed himself up against Blitz’s wall of a chest.
Blitz undid the straps to the breastplate of his carapace armor and pulled it to the side, allowing Owly’s head unrestricted access to the fluff on his heavily muscled chest. Blitz wrapped a forehoof around Owly’s neck and pulled him in close. “You’re damn right I am,” he whispered with a warm breath into Owly’s ear.
Owly shuddered in Blitz’s grasp, and Blitz was certain that it wasn’t from the cold anymore.
“Are… they… broken?” Trauma sighed. He was having trouble translating Whisper’s upside-down sign-language. She was moving her hooves so fast he probably would've had trouble even if he weren’t viewing the motions from an awkward angle.. “I’m not going to be able to tell you how bad my legs are until I can get them out from under these rocks,” Trauma said, shivering slightly. “I don’t even know if I’m bleeding under there or not…”
Whisper’s upside-down muzzle pouted at him.
Trauma rolled his eyes harder than an Equestrian naval frigate testing out their rotational thrusters. “I know; you said you’ve already moved the rocks you’re able to! Did you try the doors to the hangar again?”
She crossed her hooves and leveled her “Point and Owly” glare at him.
“Ok, fine, well we’re going to have to figure something—”
The doors to the hangar exploded, showering red-hot melted shrapnel into the tunnel. Thankfully they were far enough away that none of it actually reached them.
Trauma lowered his forelegs from covering his head. “What was that?”
“Finally!” The voice was Excessive’s. The sound of galloping hooves heralded the reddish-brown-coated earth pony’s arrival into the tunnel.
“Oh balls,” Excessive addressed the pile of rubble blocking the passageway. Swiveling his deep-emerald eyes to Whisper—who hesitated a moment before lowering her longlas—then to Trauma, then to where Trauma’s lower half was pinned, he raised an eyebrow. “Can you still feel your legs?”
“Yes,” Trauma replied, looking at the rocks that trapped them. “They’re numb in a few places, but I can still feel a lot of pain from them.”
Whisper just looked between the two silently.
“Well,” Excessive said in the no-nonsense voice he usually employed when trying to sugarcoat bad news, “the rhino is wrecked; a piece of ceiling fell right onto it, completely crushed the vox repeater and engine. So no help is coming yet.”
Whisper and Trauma’s eyes widened.
Excessive shook his head. “Ironically, the multimelta’s cooling system was damaged too, but I did manage to power it up and get one shot out of it before the barrel melted.”
“Thanks, we saw,” Trauma deadpanned.
“Cute; your sarcasm is noted,” Excessive replied flatly. “But the batteries are still intact, and I can probably use them to power the outer doors.” He lowered his head by the rubble. “I might be able to get enough of these rocks moved to pull you out, and with both of your help here…”
Trauma saw Whisper narrowing her eyes. He shifted his inverted gaze back to Excessive. “You… trailed off for a second there.”
Gritting his teeth, Excessive eyed both ponies over. “I’m going to need pieces from both of your cold weather gear.” He gestured to his exposed reddish-brown fur, due his own general lack of clothing. “My carapace armor was in the part of the rhino that ate it; otherwise I’d have just risked going out in that. I’ll need your gear if I’m gonna be able to take one of the spare ponythium tanks out into the blizzard and rig up some kind of signal that Free Fall will be able to see.”
“But it’s freezing in here.” Trauma shot a look to see Whisper was matching his glare towards Excessive.
“Yes,” Excessive retorted, “how astute of you; you noticed the one thing that’s been on my mind since I exited the swiftly cooling interior of the rhino.”
Whisper poked Excessive in the chest hard enough to qualify it as a punch, not that it fazed him in the slightest. Her eyes radiated unspoken threats of pain and murder.
Sighing, Excessive backed off a few hoofsteps despite clearly not being intimidated. “Hay, same side here; I was going to leave you two one of the other ponythium tanks so you could keep warm. So cool your jets, silent mare—besides, you guys have your emergency blankets and all, right?”
“Yes we do,” Trauma was tiring of bickering while on his back. “Whisper, help him dig me out.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“...Please.”
Her scowl was replaced with a wry grin.
“Temperature In this chamber is now negative twenty degrees centigrade!” Rust enthusiastically announced.
“Affirmative!” Sheen replied, with no small amount of exuberance.
“The combined heat of this prodigious rubbing is proving effective at combating these reduced temperatures!”
The two continued to run tendrils over each other in a manner that suggested, yet was wholly unbecoming of, the Adeptus Marechanicus holy rites of lubrication.
Suddenly, Rust stopped flailing and groping.
“Why did you cease your thermal caress?” Sheen asked, in what could have been mistaken as a pleading tone, if it wasn’t common knowledge that members of the Adeptus Marecanicus were completely incapable of expressing any kind of pony emotion.
“My atmospheric analyzer is detecting a significant increase in carbon dioxide production!” Rust’s ocular implants began to dilate. “Also, the temperature is beginning to rise; our merged forms will soon no longer be required for thermal equilibrium!”
Sheen made a sound which possibly qualified as a shriek, since it bordered somewhere between hoof-on-chalkboard, foal wails, and cat hissing.
Rust flailed multiple mechadendrites and spewed binary static into the air. “We must discover this anomaly and correct it so that we can resume heat exchange!”
“Affirmative!” Sheen wriggled her limbs in a manner reminiscent of an anemone.
The two slid into the living quarters on metallic hooves and supple serpentine supplemental limbs.
Sheen released another shriek when her ocular implants beheld the spectacle before them.
The mattresses had been removed from every bed frame. Those frames which were made of wood had been broken into pieces and piled together with the mattresses. And it was all on fire; the lurid flames reflected in the expressionless lenses of Inferno’s mask as he observed the blaze. Now-thawing bodies were stacked like cordwood besides him, awaiting their turn to fuel the pyre.
Rust’s vocal processors stuttered in binary static, drawing Inferno’s reflective gaze towards the two tech ponies.
“I have solved our heating problem.”
Tracks slapped a hoof at his robes, which were smoking where the bolter round had passed through them. “Looks like it activated a little late that time… I think the bolt ricocheted off my augmentics, which also caught a bit of its secondary explosion. Oh well, at least we’re back inside again. We need to hurry up and get warm… that Discord Mareine must’ve sabotaged the heating units.”
“Ideas?” Nutmeg asked.
Tracks put his natural hoof to his chin. “You have an emergency blanket in your saddlebags, correct?”
Nutmeg nodded.
“Well,” Tracks said, “we could share it and—”
“Sorry Inquisitor,” Nutmeg shook his head back and forth emphatically. “Grabbing on to share a teleport is one thing, but I’m not much for snuggling… least of all with another stallion. You can have the blanket.”
Flattening his brow, Tracks stifled a cough. “This is a matter of life and death, Nutmeg! You—oh blast it all!” More smoke seemed to be pouring from his cloak.
Also starting to cough, Nutmeg looked at Tracks and his smoldering clothes. “What the Tartarus are your robes made out of? They smell like orange.”
“They most certainly do not smell like oranges…” Tracks reached into his robes to try and find the smoke’s source.
“Now they smell… crimson,” Nutmeg said as Tracks pulled a smoking cylinder out of his robes. The canister had a seventy-five-caliber hole punched in its side.
Tracks’ eyes widened at the realization that the bolt had struck the hallucinogen grenade he’d been carrying. “Oh, schnigglefritz.”
Fray’s face vibrated in tune with Point’s rhythmic, cacophonous snoring. She looked askance at him, though she was used to his jackhammer-combined-with-a-chainsword manner of slumbering vocalizations. Elbowing him several times was about as successful as it was when they bunked together on the Equila, which was to say: not at all.
“Damnit Point,” she swore. “Sometimes I wish somepony would shoot your throat out so you can be as mute as Whisper.” She frowned, but then sighed and rubbed her head into his, brushing their cheeks together. “Except that I love your dumb voice too much. Maybe Trauma can do something to your muzzle so you can actually breathe through your nose when you sleep, though.”
Point snorked and rolled, threatening to take the emergency blanket with him.
“Hay!” Fray held onto the blanket for dear life, which was appropriate since it actually was cold enough to kill outside of it.
“I lurve you, Fray,” Point mumbled, rolling back into Fray’s underside and rubbing his face into her chest fluff.
Cocking an eyebrow and smiling, Fray turned her head to look down at Point as he tossed in his sleep.
“Can you grab me… some oats?”
Her brow furrowed, but the smile remained. “Even when you sleep…” She leaned her head down and rested her chin against his neck. “Tell you what, if we make it out of this, I’ll snag some of those muffin rations for you.”
Point just mumbled some more, exhaling warm breath onto her neck as he pressed himself closer.
“And if we don’t make it,” she sighed, “I’m good going out like this.”
“How are you holding up Owls?” Blitz’s emergency blanket setup, with one laid beneath them, and the large one draped over them, had created a small pocket of tropical temperatures inside the otherwise arctic chamber.
Owly had already removed his goggles and scarf, and had actually started unbuttoning his armor flaps. “I’m actually getting too hot, if you can believe it.”
Looking down at Owly in the dimly lit interior of the makeshift mylar tent, Blitz cracked a huge grin “Told you so.” He ran a hoof through Owly’s mane. “You feel those two little rumbles not too long ago?”
Looking up at Blitz, Owly shook his head from side to side.
Blitz pulled Owly a little closer, so he could whisper into his ear. “The first one felt like a melta-charge blowing through armor plating. That means Excessive fired the rhino’s multimelta, prolly at the inner doors, since the second rumble was drawn out, so I’m pretty sure it was the outer doors opening.” The grin returned. “No idea why he wouldn’t vox us first, but he’s probably getting help right now.”
Owly replied by trying to hold himself closer to Blitz. “How long do you think it’ll take them to get us out?”
“Umm—” The smile vanished from Blitz’s face. He knew both the general dimensions of the tunnels, as well as the composition of the rubble. His mind worked quickly to come up with a timetable for rescue. The Equila had sufficient supplies, and Pinion could probably work-up some kind of device to excavate them out… but it would take a long time; several hours at least, maybe even a whole day.
When he saw Owly’s forlorn expression, Blitz felt his own heart sink. “It shouldn’t take long,” he casually lied.
Raising an eyebrow, Owly shifted his expression from one of sadness to one of irritation. “You’re lying to me, aren’t you?”
“Damn,” Blitz swore. “How’d you know?”
“Not telling,” Owly said, shaking his head back and forth before sticking his tongue out.
Chuckling, Blitz wrapped his hooves around Owly, and slowly ran the underside of his chin across Owly’s muzzle. “I’ll just have to make you tell me,” he teased.
“Fat chance,” Owly said as he returned the nuzzle, burying his nose into Blitz’s neck. He sniffed once, then leaned back with an odd look on his face. He then suddenly shoved his muzzle right back into Blitz’s neck fluff and sniffed a few more times. “Is that… why do you smell like my conditioner?”
A fierce blush quickly crept across Blitz’s muzzle and he went completely rigid. “I—I don’t! You know I can’t stand the smell of that stuff!”
Owly sniffed again and grinned. “The nose knows, big guy. What did you say it made me smell like again?”
“Hrmph,” Blitz grumbled, puffing out his cheeks and pouting.
“I believe,” Owly said in a singsong voice, “that you said it made me smell like a mare.”
The blush on Blitz’s muzzle deepened and he scrunched his face.
“You trying to smell nice and pretty for me, big guy?” Owly nudged his elbow into Blitz’s side.
“Ok, ok, stop!” Blitz had gone completely red in the face. “Sometimes I like to… keep your smell around, ok?”
Sighing, Owly pressed himself further into Blitz. “You get lonely sometimes when I’m scouting ahead, huh?”
“C’mon Owls,” Blitz whined, in a manner uncharacteristic for such a large stallion. “You’re gonna make my face burn off here!”
“Well, that’s fine,” Owly said, smirking, “because you know I like it when you’re nice and hot.”
“I wonder how long he’s been gone,” Trauma mumbled as he stared into the blazing pool of ponythium right in front of him.
Whisper lifted her head from Trauma’s chest and tapped her forehoof against the band wrapped around the pastern of his left foreleg.
“No,” he gestured vaguely towards his splinted hind leg under the blanket. “My chronometer broke around the same time as my bone, I think.”
Whisper pouted at him.
“I know you don’t wear one because it throws off your aim.” Trauma tried to shift a little and winced, and he saw another worried look from Whisper. He sighed. “Look, I felt along the length of it; I only broke a single metacarpal. The splint should be fine for now, and when we get back onto the Equila, I’ll have Pinion set it properly and fuse the bone.”
Still pouting, Whisper turned her head away from Trauma.
Trauma thought about how bizarre it was that he couldn’t hear her sigh—or make any noise at all since her lungs had been replaced by a bionic respirator. He wrapped both forehooves around Whisper and pulled her back up against him. Her head was still turned away, but Whisper didn’t resist his pull. Resting his head on top of hers, he released a longing sigh before whispering into her ear; “I miss your voice.”
At first, there was no reaction. But then, suddenly one of Whisper’s forelegs swung out away from them, then right back in, the hoof weakly striking Trauma in his shoulder.
“Ow! What—”
Whisper repeated the motion, hitting him in the shoulder again… and then swinging back out for another.
Trauma realized that Whisper had started shaking. Pushing her away slightly failed to prevent her feeble assault on his shoulders. As she struck him repeatedly, he used his forehoof to gently turn her head to face him. The sight that met his eyes tore at his heart; tears streamed down Whisper’s face in a torrent as her body shook. But without natural lungs, her body was unable to sob properly, and she couldn’t even vent her frustrations by yelling or crying out.
Swiftly pulling Whisper back against his chest, Trauma cursed his own thoughtlessness. “I’m sorry—I didn’t… I didn’t mean I missed it more than you did!” He held her shaking form tightly, the warmth on his chest from her face becoming damp as her tears soaked through his fur.
Whisper’s voice wasn’t the only thing she’d lost on Caspian IV; gone was the mischievous tone she used when she teased Point or Owly with physical violence, as were the seductive sounds she made when they would—
“Celestia above, Whisper,” Trauma sighed. “If you missed speaking this much, I don’t know why you gave up on having Pinion try to get your voxponder working.”
Pulling away from his grasp, Whisper started making shaky hoof-signs.
As he translated the hoof motions in his mind, his brow furrowed. “What do you mean, it’s been working for months now?”
A look of abject despair consumed Whisper’s features as she continued to sign to him.
Trauma dropped his forelegs away from Whisper and crossed them. “Turn it on.”
Shutting her eyes, Whisper emphatically shook her head from side to side, sending teardrops flying through the air.
Grabbing both of her shoulders, Trauma brought himself closer to Whisper, so that his muzzle was right next to her ear. “Turn. It. On.”
Looking up at Trauma with a defeated look on her face, Whisper used one forehoof to loosen the collar of her uniform, and fished her other foreleg down the neckline.
Trauma gave Whisper a reassuring smile. “C’mon, it'll let us actually talk; it can’t be that bad.”
There was an small popping sound as Whisper’s hoof fiddled around under her shirt, followed by a click and a sudden burst of feedback noise.
“Ok,” Trauma encouraged, “now say something.”
More signs flew at Trauma from Whispers hooves.
“Why would I laugh?” Trauma asked with a fair degree of incredulity.
“Because I sound like this.”
—just like the Celestia-damned Twins.
Trauma’s eyes widened as he realized his mistake far, far too late. His hooves immediately flew to his mouth to stifle the laughter that flowed, like an unbidden stream of screaming souls from his stomach. Unfortunately, with nowhere else to go, the air from his lungs exited through his nose in a loud snort.
Whisper stared at him with a blank, almost unreadable expression.
Trauma tensed, since he associated the look with when Whisper was preparing to perforate ponies with her longlas. There was no anger or rage evident, just a cold and calculating mask of death. He had never been on the receiving end of the look before, but it gave him chills that had nothing to do with the ambient temperature. He may have peed a little.
Thankfully Trauma’s self-preservation instincts kicked in and he pulled his hooves down to his sides, forcing his face into as serious an expression as he could manage. “Ok, first: I’m sorry.”
There was no change in Whisper’s facial expression.
Trauma went for broke: “Ok, first: turn it off?”
Still no change.
Sweat broke out on Trauma’s face despite the chill in the air. “Ok, first we go to Pinion, and tell him that if he can’t make you sound like anything other than the Twins—” he flinched at a sudden violent twitch from Whisper “—that we’ll remove his wings and send him for a nice long flight?” He plastered the best smile he could manage under the circumstances.
“What if Pinion can’t fix it?”
Slapping himself in the face first, Trauma swung his head back towards Whisper. “Ok, seriously, turn it the Tartarus off, I want to survive this mission.”
Thankfully, Whisper furrowed her brow in irritation, instead of remaining in kill-stare mode. She reached her hoof back down into her uniform, and after a click, the voxponder was deactivated.
Trauma shook his head out to remove any residual giggles that threatened to surface. “Ok, first things first: we’re keeping that off until Pinion can get his grubby mechadendrites on it; last thing we need is anypony else on the team hearing it. I’m sure it would be a bloodbath.” He cringed at the mental image he managed to conjure, of Whisper standing atop a pile of corpses. “Truthfully, a completely-bass stallion-voice would be better than that.”
Whisper punched him in the shoulder, hard this time. Ignoring his subsequent painful outburst, she started making hoof signals again.
Trauma nodded. “I know, I deserved that.”
Out of a swirling, smoky haze of colors and sensations stepped… Spike the Dragon! No, wait… Saint Spike the Dragon! At least he thought he was… his head throbbed with a strange pain that tasted vaguely of orange, and crimson, and sounded like chocolate… but he was pretty sure that he was Saint Spike the Dragon, and definitely not a pony who was numb and shivering…
He just couldn’t believe his luck, or good fortune, or… whatever; his mental thesaurus was exceedingly limited. All he knew was that he had been granted a sainthood by the holiest of holy, the Alicorn Princess Sisters—and again, was not at risk of freezing to death…
For some reason, that last thought seemed to be sticking with him pretty hard. But whatever! His adorable waddle increased in velocity as he made his way down the avenues of the megalopolis of Canterlot’s City of The Two Sisters. He passed by the millions of supplicants, whom had sold all of their physical possessions for just the privilege to step hoof on this holiest of planets. Those who had made it this far were the luckiest; some were stuck on the other side of the planet and would never be graced by proximity to the Sisters. At least it was pretty warm under the Princess’ holy Sun, though.
As he approached the Castle of the Two Sisters, he observed as the ornately-armored Space Mareines of the Old Gray Mare chapter, who flanked the thousand steps of divinity, saluted him. He couldn’t have felt happier as he bounced up the steps, occasional flutters from his wings allowing him to bound several at a time.
When, at last, Spike reached the top, a dozen Mareines in holy Termarenator armor opened the kilomare high doors to the castle, which reflected light in a manner similar to an emergency blanket. Beyond, a purple-robed unicorn escorted him to the throne room, which was situated no less than ten kilomares into the castle. As the castle doors closed behind him with an odd crinkling sound, the temperature seemed to rise, which was definitely a plus.
“Are you ok?” the unicorn asked him after they had traveled some distance into the massive structure. Something about the unicorn’s voice was familiar, though Spike couldn’t place where he knew him from.
“Of course I’m ok!” Spike couldn’t contain his excitement. “Today, I am no longer Spike the mediocre; today I become Saint Spike the Sensational!”
“I… see,” the unicorn said, before fading into a shadow near the throne-room doors. “Well, congratulations on your accomplishment, Nut—er, Spike.”
Beaming, Spike waited for the decorated double-doors to open. While not as large as those which led into the castle, the level of intricacy in their design was such that he felt as if he could die happy having seen them only once. And the blossoming warmth he felt within was just a bonus.
The doors swung open all at once. Spike walked forward into the vast space, which was occupied primarily by the enormity that was the Golden Throne of Equestria. To the left, was a chair that was the size of a five story building. Sat upon it was the gargantuan figure of Celestia, three stories in height. Pure, golden, bright light shone forth from her countenance, illuminating the entire room. A ledge at about her head height funneled baked confectionaries directly into her muzzle, to sate her endless need for fresh cake infusions.
“AHEM.”
After uncovering his poor ringing ears, Spike’s eyes were drawn to the right, where a noticeably smaller throne sat, built into the foreleg of the larger seat. Luna was about as large as a Space Mareine, except that she had a much slimmer figure. Her eyes sparkled with mirth and mischief.
“AHA! SPIKE, THOU HAST FINALLY ARRIVED! WE LOOK FORWARD TO GRANTING THEE THINE SAINTHOOD!”
“Yeah, about that,” Spike was almost embarrassed to dare speaking in front of the diarchs. “I love that I’m being sainted, but I don’t know why you’re doing it!”
“SPIKE! THOU ART TOO HUMBLE, A TRAIT WHICH WE FIND MOST ATTRACTIVE IN A MATE.”
Spike blinked at Luna’s declaration. “Wait, what?”
“YES SPIKE! WE ARE QUITE FLUSTERED TO ADMIT THAT THINE GREAT DEEDS HAVE ENAMOURED OURSELVES TO THEE!”
Scratching the back of his head, Spike felt a blush rising to his cheeks. “But… ah… that is…” he gave up and shrugged, “I didn’t do anything!”
“NONSENSE! COME NOW HERE TO SIT NEXT TO US ON OUR THRONE, THAT WE MIGHT ENJOY PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH THEE!”
Tracks jumped when his earbud communicator came to life, causing him to drop his autoinjector to the ground.
“Tracks! Tracks, do you read me!” Free Fall’s voice was music to the Inquisitor’s ears.
“Yes,” Tracks replied, adjusting the earbud. “Yes, I can hear you.”
“Thank Celestia! We were worried that you’d been crushed or frozen in there.”
“Almost,” Tracks replied. “But I think we’re all a bit too stubborn to be done in by some Discord Space Mareine boobytrap.”
“That must be the Mareine we found wandering on the plateau above the facility,” Free Fall said.
“I see… you didn’t leave her, I trust?”
“I had no intention of leaving her,” came Free Fall’s terse reply, “I took the Equila to a safe distance and launched tac missiles at her until I was satisfied that she and everything within a hundred mare-lengths was vaporized; buck Discord Mareines.”
Tracks sighed. “Well, that’s one less problem to worry about. How long until you can get us out of here?”
“We’ve set up a generator, vox repeater, and melta drill in the main tunnel; Pinion says we should have you dug out in about four hours.” Free Fall paused for a few seconds. “How are you holding up in there?”
“Well,” Tracks looked down at Nutmeg, who had his forelegs wrapped around Tracks’ midsection and was using his back as a pillow. “The Commissar and I are cold, but we should be able to last four hours. Nutmeg is suffering from exposure to one of my… special grenades. What about the rest of his squad? We’ve been out of communication with everypony else since the explosion.”
“Pinion reached the Twins on a Marecanicus band. He says that they’re spewing some nonsense about Inferno ruining their ‘interface time.’”
“Don’t want to know,” Tracks said, cringing slightly—and not from Nutmeg rubbing his neck all over Tracks’ back. “Anypony else?”
“Well, we already picked up Trauma and Whisper. Trauma has a broken leg, and Whisper hit Pinion over the head with a heat sink for some reason…”
Tracks chuckled. “’Bout time somepony did.”
“I am listening to the transmission, Inquisitor.”
“Glad to hear it Pinion,” Tracks replied. “I stand by my statement. Get ahold of anypony else?”
“I’ve been detecting weak, intermittent transmissions from the generator passageway. vocal analysis indicates an eighty-five-point-three percent chance that the voice belongs to Blitz.”
Suddenly, a loud hissing sound came over the vox, with Excessive’s voice yelling over it. “We’ve just broken through into water storage! Looks like Fray and Point… are cuddling under an emergency blanket. Hay, somepony get over here and help me haul them back to the Equila!”
Tracks allowed a grim smile to crease his muzzle. The smile turned into a grimace as he gritted his teeth and rubbed the sore spot on his natural foreleg. It had been caused by the auto-injector, which now lay spent on the tunnel floor. “Sorry, Nutmeg; I only had one dose of antidote for that hallucinogen grenade.”
Nutmeg mumbled and burrowed his muzzle further into Tracks’ side under the thermal blanket. “Luna, your fur is sooooooo soft!”
Tracks looked down and blinked his natural eye. “Whatever. At least we won’t freeze to death.”
The End
