Chapter Six: Core Problem

Dear Princess Celestia,

I am not sure why I am writing this letter, I am not even sure it or my last one will reach you. I also highly doubt if they do, you could reply. But, after the events of the past few days, perhaps I simply need to put pen to paper.

I have watched people die. Writing that out I do not think I can imbue the words with the horror and distress the events have instilled in me. The foe humanity has found itself at odds with, through no real fault of their own, is ruthless, and without mercy. I have seen them easily slaughter civilians, children especially, without hesitation. Entire cities have vanished beneath their wrathful onslaught.

The first city to fall still haunts my dreams, and I am not ashamed to admit I have woken multiple times begging Luna or you to save me from the nightmares.

It’s almost enough to make me curl up and hide in a corner, far away from the fighting and the dying. But, every time I feel like I am getting to that point, I remember what my friends told me; That while they might not know why these aliens are attacking, the humans know what they’re defending. What they’re protecting. That a warrior fights not because they enjoy the slaughter, but because they love what is behind them.

And I love what’s behind me. I know what will happen if I fail here, and these aliens potentially find my home.

Find you.

So I am going to keep picking up the weapon they gave me, and donning the armor I have. I’m going to keep fighting, so that someday I might return home safe in the knowledge that they won’t follow me.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle.

Sighing softly as she folds her latest attempt at a letter up, Twilight looks out the window next to the desk she has borrowed. Beyond the safety of the first floor of the Utguard Police Station it was raining, partially obscuring the park across the street and the sea of tents currently occupying it.

Moving from her seat, Twilight folds the letter up into neat thirds with her magic and seals it with a stamp. Pausing a moment, she leans down and gently nuzzles the letter, a part of her simply wanting to feel something. Closeness, perhaps, to the world she can no longer see, or touch? Exhaling softly, she opens the window, allowing the smell of fresh rain and cooking fires to drift in, and casts the spell to send the letter hopefully home.

As the paper burns in emerald and purple flames, Twilight cannot help but feel a little hope. Perhaps the letters she has been sending will find their way home, perhaps she’ll be able to go home and escape this nightmare. But as soon as it comes, the hope is overwhelmed by shame, as going home would mean abandoning her friends here and she cannot find it in herself to do that.

Snorting and frowning, Twilight closes the window again and picks up her helmet. Her magic also reflexively reaches for her rifle, only to remember she has left it in the armory for the gunsmiths to look over.

Feeling slightly naked without it, Twilight heads from the office she had been, and down the hallway towards the breakroom, nodding her head to the police and militia in the hallways. Many return her greeting, though far more have a hollow look to their faces, eyes distant and fearful. It’s a look Twilight knows well, perhaps far too well, having seen it in the mirror after Gladsheim.

Turning into the break room, Twilight quickly navigates through the small crowd of humans, and makes her way to the counter where she quickly grabs a white styrofoam cup, puts a teabag of ‘English Breakfast’ into it, and takes a measured amount of water from the communal pot of hot water on the stove.

With the objective of getting a warm and calming drink complete, Twilight heads back out into the hallway and makes her way to the stairs and to the lobby where the local troops had set up shop to relax.

Where normally benches and chairs would be for those needing to speak to the police to sit, the large space is now dominated by tables and chairs, with a few cots and hammocks slung in out of the way places.

It is to one of these tables that Twilight quickly moves to, nodding to the pair of weary looking Utguard police officers who are already at the table, and sits down with the mug of by now slightly over brewed tea clutched between her forehooves. Sighing heavily, Twilight simply stares at the brown liquid, the scent of it calming her as it brings back memories of home. Of the safety she once felt beneath Celestia’s sun, or even the warmth of being beneath her teacher’s wing as she read on cold rainy days like today.

Such thoughts are, as much as the tea, her only real safe haven with the war raging beyond the outskirts of the city. Something to fight for, as her letter had stated.

After a few minutes of this, her introspection is broken by a figure sliding into the seat across from her, and a helmet being placed on the table. Looking up, Twilight offers a weary smile to the man across from her, an equally haggard smile being returned to her.

“Sorry to interrupt what must have been a rare moment of peace,” Evior apologizes gently, “but those Sergeants of yours are gathering everyone who is free for a briefing, and your squad lead asked me to come get you.”

“Any idea on what’s going on?” Twilight asks, standing from the table and sipping her tea.

“None, though both of them looked more serious than usual when I saw them in the hallway,” the Police Chief replies as he likewise rises, the two of them starting towards the back of the station’s first floor.

“How can you tell? They always look like they’ve sucked on something sour,”

“Johnson didn’t crack any jokes,”

That gives Twilight pause, and she downs what remains of her tea and tosses the cup into a nearby trash bin.

“Well, guess I’ll need to write out my will,” Twilight grumbles.

The pair make their way through the ground floor until they come to the station’s briefing room, a space which is about the same size as the classrooms Twilight used to love being in back at Celestia’s School. This one is, however, not a room she truly wishes to be in, but knows that there isn’t much choice. Whatever the sergeants have called for them to gather over is likely very important.

Taking a seat near the front of the room next to Natalie, the squad leader inclining her head to her friend, Twilight puts her helmet onto the table in front of her and waits, tail swishing behind her in her agitation.

Silently, as the seconds tick by she prays to whatever gods are listening, even Discord, that another city hadn’t been caught by the Covenant and erased.

Forcing herself not to think about that possibility, Twilight instead stares at the clock, and mentally reviews her kit. Her mental calculations and reviews are interrupted a short time later by a hand on her withers, causing her to look towards her squad lead, who nods to the front of the room where the Sergeants are now walking in.

"Alright, listen up," Johnson barks, quieting the room, "as of last night after Gladsheim Commander al-Cygni has taken control of the planet's evacuation. She has done so with the permission of the planetary senate, however the Governor refused to step aside and insisted we plead for peace with the Aliens, and has thus been arrested."

Frowning slightly at this, Twilight can’t help but wonder if it was the correct move for the Commander to make. She trusts al-Cygni, but history back on Equus taught that military takeovers were rarely a good thing.

But then, desperate struggles for survival against a militant and overwhelming force might prove to be an exception, so who was she to judge.

“But, with that news aside, the reason we have gathered you here today is that the Covenant are starting to push past what little screening we’ve been able to put up,” Sergeant Byrne states, turning and gesturing to the screen at the front of the ready room, “they’ve broken through here, along the mountains, and are now threatening the Harvest Reactor Complex, which besides providing the majority of the colony’s power, also houses the datacore for Mack and Loki. I cannot stress how important the complex is due to this.”

“Without it, we’ll lose what little defenses we have through Loki,” Johnson continues for his fellow sergeant, “and we cannot afford to lose them as we continue to gather civilians and prepare for planetary evacuation.”

The Sergeants then both grow quiet for a moment, looking at each other before back to the assembled soldiers.

“We cannot ask any of you to go on the mission we are about to propose, there are no guarantees you will return alive,” Johnson states slowly, his normally gruff voice softened, “but the job has to be done. We cannot lose this facility until we are good and ready to, so we need volunteers.”

“We need to stre-” Bryne starts, only to stop and look at Twilight, furrowing his brow. The rest of the room is soon also looking at Twilight with varying levels of confusion.

It takes her a moment to realize why, as she had raised one foreleg without even thinking.

“Recruit, do you have a question,” Johnson asks, raises an eyebrow.

“No, sir, I am volunteering,” Twilight answers, surprising herself at how easily she says the words. “Loki and Mack are my friends, if you need someone to fight for them I’ll do so without hesitation.”

“Well, that’s one,” Byrne chuckles, “anyone else? Or are you all going to be less courageous here than the little pony here?”

The room fills with whispers for a moment, before others raise their own hands, Natalie and Eivor included. The number ending at twelve people.

“Right, well, that’s two full squads,” Johnson states with a nod, “the rest of you who’ve not volunteered for Byrne’s field trip, meet me outside, we’re going to be helping the locals and refugees get organized and set up defenses.”

Staying in her seat as the rest of the room shuffles out with Johnson, Twilight waits with her forelegs folded one over the other in front of her. The idea of risking her life for her friends is still terrifying for her, but after all the time she had spent talking to Mack and Sif over the past two months she knew there really wasn’t any reason to hesitate.

Celestia often spoke about how she had ruled Equestria as long as she had from a position of wishing to help all who could not help themselves, a sentiment her Guards often reflected in their service.

Twilight could not call herself her student if she did any less here, could she?

In short order the remaining troops gather at the front of the room, and Sergeant Bryne turns to the smartboard again.

“Alright, so there isn’t a whole lot to explain about this operation,” the Sergeant starts, pulling up an overview of the power plant, as well as a blueprint, “we’re going to be digging in and defending the power plant and server farm while the decommissioned reactor here in Utguard itself is brought back online.”

“Wait, the one in the space port?” Eivor asks, furrowing his brow, “that thing hasn’t been powered up in a decade, I thought it was disassembled.”

“Partially, but bureaucracy and red tape are our allies now,” the Sergeant continues smirking, “a great deal of the colony ship’s reactors were disassembled when it was entombed to make the spaceport, but two of them remained as a ‘just in case’ that was never publicized. That way, if the separatists attacked and took out the main reactor complex we’d have a back up.”

“Sir, I might not be an expert in your technology, but those reactors can’t be in the best shape,” Twilight states slowly, ears lowering as she scrunches her nose, “they can’t be stable.”

“We don’t need them to run long, Sparks, just long enough for us to power the cargo elevators to Tiara,” Bryne states, “after that? Well, these alien bastards came all this way to turn our planet to glass, we’re more than happy to trash it a bit on the way out.”

“I take it the same policy applies to the power facility we’re going to be guarding?”

“Sharp as always, Sparks, yes if we survive we’ll be blowing the power plant on the way out, nothing should remain to give the aliens any idea where our other colonies are.”

The rest of the briefing after that is quick, and Twilight studies the layout of the power complex to find the best places to set up with her DMR and use magic to assist her friends and squadmates. She also starts contemplating how to help the AI there, as part of the retreat will be detonating the server housing Loki and Mack, and Twilight refuses to believe them beyond hope.

Even knowing that one of them might be able to house themselves in the agricultural drones Mack usually uses to harvest the vast fields of the planet’s farms, Twilight can’t consign the other to the void without a fighting chance.

To that end when they leave to go get their kits, Twilight makes her way to her rucksack first and fishes out one of the intact crystals she had leftover from the accident that sent her here. Theoretically, if she did it right, she might be able to put one AI into the crystal, though it’d be risky and there’s no guessing if they’d come back out the other side okay.

But it was worth the risk, even a small bit of hope was still hope.

Her next stop was the police station’s armory, where most of their weapons and gear had been taken after they’d abandoned the base on the outskirts. Currently manned by militia and civilian gunsmiths, it had become a bit of a favorite hangout for a class of civilian Twilight had heard be called ‘gun nuts’ and she’d seen quite the crowd in the attached machine shop refurbishing weaponry from the personal stockpiles of the civilians over the past day she’d been there.

As she turns the corner towards the armory, she spots the civilian gunsmith that’d taken over it behind the counter running a cleaning cloth over some components, the scowl on his face less from the condition of the pieces he’s working on, and more for the woman in front of the counter.

“Look, grandpa, I get you’re worried, but we need every hand on deck for this,” the woman states, gesturing with her hands at the door to the outside, “I mean, have you seen outside? Gladshiem is gone and the militia is saying we might be next here!”

“Elizabeth, I know you want to help, but your place is here, with me not-” the gunsmith starts.

“Don’t you dare give me the ‘it’s too dangerous’ out there speech, not after your youth exploring and gathering that fortune of yours for that tech company you love so much,” Elizabeth growls, “besides, Ana is out there too, and I know you want her safe, so let me go and watch her back.”

“I… okay, just please be safe,” the gunsmith says softly, focusing on the parts in his hands, “and please… Please don’t be a stranger after all this.”

The woman, Elizabeth, smiles gently before raising the hood on the watch cloak she is wearing. She then grabs the rifle off of the counter and walks out the door without further word.

Clearing her throat Twilight walks over and rears up to place her forehooves on the counter, “You okay, Bray?”

“Fine, fine,” Bray replies as he clears his own throat, and Twilight ignores the tears in his eyes, “you here for your kit?”

“Yes, sir, Byrne has us doing something, told us to come talk to you,” Twilight replies, then chuckles, “he said something like ‘That old Banshee’ll know what we need to get this done’ or something.”

“Wish they’d stop calling me that, just because I complained a lot to the militia about the noise they made a few times…” Bray sighs before shaking his head, “but yeah, I’ve got stuff put together for the mission. Demo charges, extra magazines, the works. Everything you’ll need to hold the line and hopefully come back without too many casualties.”

As he talks he walks away from the counter a bit and starts grabbing items, piling them up on the counter as he goes.

“You’re a bit sturdier than the normal soldier, and can carry a bit more, so I think I can weigh you down with a bit more supplies,” he continues, giving her a critical eye, “are you trained in battlefield lifesaving at all?”

“I did a little bit with the militia medic, and know some healing spells,” Twilight replies, “but I won’t be putting anyone’s arms or legs back on.”

“Mmm, good enough, I’ll give you two IFAKs just in case,”

By the end of his search Twilight is weighed down by quite a bit of gear, the extra ammo for the DMR and all the extra ammo almost equaling her plate carrier. Though a heavy load for sure, Twilight still thanks the gunsmith with a nod and a smile. Better be a little heavy on the flight over rather than without when the bad guys come knocking.

Moving out the door the earlier woman had gone through, her kit rattling on her back, Twilight exits into the overcast and rain beyond the artificial lights of the building.

Out here in what had once been the PD’s outdoor parking, soldiers and civilians mill about on various tasks; running ammo and weapons, assembling for tasks near a makeshift tent, or lining up to get weapons and armor. Much of the armor and weapons had been brought out from personal stockpiles, as Twilight had learned early on that the humans who had founded this colony prided themselves on personal freedoms. The right to own and bear weaponry had been amongst those personal freedoms, though had been restricted to what Twilight would call museum pieces.

That didn’t mean they were ineffective weapons, as Twilight had seen a test firing of one of the large blocky machineguns the humans had called ‘Ma Deuce’. It had been quite impressive, honestly, though they hadn’t been able to use it long, ammo was limited on it, so they had to save what they had while more ammo was made by the people who still had the capacity to make it.

She had been quite curious as to why it had ‘Normandy - 1944’ scratched on it’s side, and when she had been told it was a place on the human’s home planet, Twilight had endeavored to perhaps visit it someday.

But that was for later, as she reaches the rag-tag group she’ll be going with, all of them weighed down nearly as much as she is. Everyone looks determined, though tired, given not many of them have really slept since Gladsheim. But right now fatigue was perhaps the lesser foe.

“Alright, that everyone?” Byrne asks as Twilight walks up, raising an eyebrow at Twilight’s load, “Sparks, I know you’re actually a horse, but you really shouldn’t let the armory load you up like a packhorse.”

“I can carry it, sir, at least until we get to the power complex,” Twilight replies, “the more supplies we have, the greater chance we come home with more of us.”

Byrne looks like he wants to continue, but instead sighs and shakes his head, “Alright, well if we have everyone now, we can head over to the airlift pad and hop on our transport. We don’t have a lot of pelicans, but al’Cygni has given us one to get in that will stay on station until we’re ready to leave.”

“Does it have the loiter time for that? I heard we’re running low on fuel,” one of the militia pipes up.

“It will be landing at a sheltered valley a few klicks from the station, we have a recon team in the area that will help hide it and provide an overwatch for us from the mountains until we leave. Now, any other questions?”

The group shakes their collective heads no, to which Byrne signals for them to follow after him towards the waiting pelican. Once again, Twilight marvels at the advanced tech the humans have when it comes to air flight, as the area they go to houses not just their own pelican but three others as well as a flurry of civilian vehicles that are being used for various other tasks. Soldiers and civilians are likewise rushing around the area, shielding themselves from the wash of the various engines as they haul cargo or hurriedly service vehicles.

More than a few of them sport blast damage or holes in their exterior hulls from plasma weapons.

The pelican they move up to is sporting a few of its own scorch marks, and the crewmember that meets them at the ramp looks haggard and bandaged, the general air about the vehicle leaves no room to doubt their willingness to run back into the fire.

No sooner does the last member of the team get aboard then the roar of the engines fills the air and Twilight is only just in her seat by the time they’re at cruising altitude and nearly out of the city. Twilight fights through the stomach-churning movement and the sudden feeling of being twice her weight and stays upright in the seat, the rest of the group doing the same with little protest.

As they climb the ramp closes up and Twilight has to work her jaw a little to get her ears to pop as the atmosphere around her pressurizes. As soon as the door is sealed, Twilight feels the entire vehicle start to speed up, and before long a muted boom echoes through the cabin, signaling the flight crew is taking no chances and going as fast as the aircraft can.

The flight after that is silent, save for the rustling of gear and the slow breathing of the soldiers around Twilight. None of them want to talk, none of them need to, instead saving their energy for whatever pre-battle rituals they have.

Twilight for her part, silently reviews Star Swirl the Bearded’s laws on thermodynamics. She gets about halfway through the equation that defines the properties of noble gasses trapped in a vacuum when the pelican starts to slow down.

Shortly after, the light above the ramp turns red, bathing the troop compartment in long crimson and black shadows. A few heartbeats later the light flashes, and everyone unbuckles as the hiss of the ramp unsealing fills the air.

Then the light turns green, the pelican impacts the ground, the ramp shoots down and everyone is off the transport.

The reactor complex isn’t much to look at above ground, being nothing more than a concrete square with a cooling tower and the access building. A chain link fence surrounds it as the only defense, and Twilight cannot help but feel now that they are here that this is perhaps the worst defensive position in the entire world. And she’d been at Gladsheim!

“Alight, everyone, we’re going to dig in as best we can,” Byrne shouts as he starts moving towards the access building, the comms tower atop it being the only real cover, “half of us are going to use the comms tower as an OP, the rest of you get down into the reactor control complex and set up an aid station in the cafeteria, see if you can’t offload some of the extra weapons and some of the ammo onto the staff still here.”

Nodding, Eivor gestures to the squad he is with, his police rank clearly giving him seniority for now, and they head into the building and into the complex maze of tunnels beneath.

Twilight, and the squad she is with, quickly make their way to a ladder behind the building, and Twilight offloads as much of the weight as she can to be ferried up by the others before she herself teleports to the roof to reclaim it and place it near where she sets up with her rifle. Their observation post is set up in good order, and before long Twilight is joined at the concrete wall bordering the edge of the roof by Natalie and a couple others with marksman qualifications.

Behind them, Bryne and the radio operator that came with them have hooked into the communication tower, and are reporting their position and situation to the command staff back in Utguard, though Twilight barely gives the conversation over the radio any mind. Her entire focus is on the rainy horizon through her scope. The slowly building anticipation of what is to come, what will surely happen, weighing both heavily on her and filling her with an energy previously dampened by her fatigue.

How long until the Covenant realize they’re here, and come to attack what must be a tempting target?

“Alright, Utguard has started the procedures to get the reactors back online, but it’s going to be most of the day to do it safely even with all the shortcuts they’re taking,” Byrne announces as he comes over with his own rifle, leaning his back against the concrete wall, “and just to be safe, we may also be here into the night, so that those bastards will have a harder time hitting us when we extract.”

“That’s going to leave us exposed for most of the day,” Natalie states, “we have a fallback point?”

“Worse comes to worse, we’ll shelter in the tunnels, but it’ll leave the cooling tower and our comms hookup here exposed,” Byrne explains, “we lose the comms and we’re not going to be able to call for help.”

“We’ll make due, I’m sure,” Twilight says softly, “I know it’s not really my place, Sir, but better preserve what troops we can. We’re going to blow the comms anyway, when we leave.”

Byrne chuckles, “It really isn’t your place, but I agree. We’re going to need every gun and every hand to hold them, to defend the final evacuation.”

“We really will,” Twilight says softly, her ears falling.

“You okay, Sparks?” Byrne asks, looking the unicorn up and down.

“Just tired, sir,” Twilight offers.

“I know fatigue when I see it, Sparks, something’s on your mind,”

“I… don’t want to die so far from home, sir. On a planet surrounded by creatures not my own,” Twilight admits, lowering her rifle and looking to the Sergeant, “I won’t abandon you, but…”

“The fear is still there. As it should be, if you weren’t afraid, I’d be worried,” Byrne replies, raising an eyebrow at Twilight, “we’re all scared, and I sure as shit don’t want to die on this backwater. No offense, Corporal.”

“None taken, sir, the neighborhood really went to shit after the new neighbors showed up,” Natalie states with a straight face.

Twilight snorts at that, and cracks a smile, “Well, I’m just going to keep assuming we’ll make it, and I’m sure we will.”

“I’m sure we will,” Byrne nods, “back to watch, can’t let those dirty apes catch us off guard.”

The observation post lapses into silence after that, with Twilight and the others focusing on their tasks. The only noises to break the silence are the quiet chatter of the radio operator giving updates to the command back in Utguard, and Byrne tasking people inside to various jobs. After a while, though, near what must be the late afternoon, Byrne taps Twilight on the shoulder.

“We’re rotating the watch, go down to the mess and catch some shuteye or see what you can help with down there,”

Twilight nods, and shoulders her rifle as she moves out of her spot, allowing her replacement to take over.

She then teleports off of the roof and down to the doors into the access building. Moving inside she makes her way to the stairs, not wanting to use the elevators so as to give herself more time to think. Because thinking is really all she has at the moment, thoughts on whether she'll escape and why the aliens haven’t found them here yet. They hadn’t really been hiding, so perhaps this place was beneath their notice?

Making her way down the twelve stories into the depths of the rocky soil, Twilight can’t help but pause at the large radioactive symbol painting on the wall next to the doors into the power facility’s main hallway. Perhaps they simply didn’t know how important this place was, or how damaging it would be to blow it up?

They certainly would in a few more hours, if nothing else.

Heading through the double open double doors, Twilight makes her way down a long hallway, the end of which turns at a sharp ninety-degree angle and leads to a thick blast door. The door currently stands open, the large reinforced steel and titanium bulwark intended to be used against indirect blasts. The entire walk up to it, and a few meters beyond are lit only by flickering fluorescent lights sunk into the concrete ceiling, lending the entire hallway and entrance a dark, unwelcoming atmosphere.

Passing through the blast door she then makes her way through one more set of doors, an airlock and decontamination chamber incase of radiation exposure, and into the facility’s main area.

She starts following the signs towards the cafeteria for the plant workers, when her hud pings, and a line appears on it.

Slowing down, she looks around as she furrows her brow.

“Is this thing malfunctioning?” She asks no one in particular.

Almost as soon as the words are out of her mouth, a text message comes across her screen. ‘No, Twilight, your helmet isn’t malfunctioning, I need to talk to you, follow the line. ~Loki.’

Frowning, Twilight stalls for a moment looking between the sign that points to the cafeteria, and the line leading to what she guesses is the server room. As if sensing her hesitation, or perhaps watching it there are cameras all over the place, Loki sends a message that actually includes ‘please’ in it, so Twilight breaks away from the hallway leading to the cafeteria and instead heads deeper into the facility.

The trip is not short by any means, and involves several more flights of stairs, and doors that she should not be able to get through opening on their own for her. The air slowly grows colder, and a bit damper, the deeper into the earth she goes, the darkness and humid air reminding her all too much of the crystal caverns beneath Canterlot. Memories of the wedding, and the creature who had both attacked her friends, her sister in law, and violated her brother’s mind lazily wind their way through her own mind and cause her tail to press against her hind legs as she walks.

Above all, though, the memory of an injured prone Celestia and the taunting laugh of Chrysalis standing above her, refuses to leave her mind.

She forces the last image out of her mind as she reaches another large reinforced door, frost clinging to the edges. Above it a large sign in blocky letters announces this to be the ‘Main Server Room. No Unauthorized Access’.

She stands at the door for a moment, wondering if this had perhaps just been a trick, when the seal breaks with a loud hiss and it swings inward for her in a blast of cold air. The room beyond is filled with towering columns of blinking lights, mist and frost flowing down from the ceiling to keep them cool.

Making her way inside, Twilight cannot help but look around, shivering slightly as the cool air wraps around her.

“Alright, Loki, I’m here. What do you want?” Twilight asks gently as she makes her way deeper.

“A favor,” Loki's voice echoes from multiple speakers throughout the room, the server racks lighting up as he speaks, "one I suspect you would grant even if I didn't ask."

Moving into the center of the room, Twilight finds Loki standing on a large holographic floor, the same size as a normal human, back to her and his arms folded across his chest.

“Surprised they let you have a holographic display this large,” Twilight muses as she walks up to stand next to him.

“Humans are, if nothing else, vain creatures. They made the AI in their own image, sometimes they just want to be able to stand next to us when we talk,” Loki replies, sighing and running a hand over his face in what Twilight muses is a very human gesture.

“So, what’s this favor you’re so sure I’m going to give you?”

“My brother, I need you to save him,” Loki states as he looks down at Twilight, “he’s a civilian, he isn’t programmed for warfare and if I do nothing else right now I’m going to make sure he survives.”

“And what about you, Loki? I doubt Mack will want to go anywhere without you,” Twilight offers as she sits down and looks up at the projection beside her.

“Tough shit, he’ll live, that's all that matters,” Loki snorts, “besides… Twilight, I’m old. Operational lifetime of a smart AI is seven… twelve years? I came online in the mid twenty-four-sixties Twilight. My time is coming to an end, but Mack… Mack just might survive this. He’s half my age, after all.”

“Sixty is old no matter how you look at it, yeah…” Twilight says softly, “but say I agree, how are we going to save Mack?”

“That crystal you’re carrying, I know you and some of al’Cygni’s spook scientists looked it over, it can hold a crazy amount of energy, right?”

“Yeah, I came to the same conclusion, but how are we going to get your brother from uhm, there,” Twilight stares, gesturing to the server towers all around them, “into the thing in my saddlebags?”

“I don’t know, you’re the magical genius,” Loki smirks, “I’m just an old man trying to do one last good deed. And we better do it quickly, because we’re going to have guests soon.”

As he says that, Loki gestures with a hand and a topographical map rises up around them, pulsing red dots appearing at the entrance to the canyon.

“I knew this day was too quiet,” Twilight sighs, “right, so I’ll… uhm… I’ll figure something out.”

“And I shall buy you, my colorful little equine friend, some time,” Loki replies with a smile that sends a shiver down Twilight’s spine.

Turning from Loki, who in turn focuses on the map and the red radar contacts incoming, Twilight goes a short distance away and opens her saddlebags, rummaging through it to see what she can use. There isn’t much, sadly, beyond the crystal and some basic supplies to clean her weapon and upkeep her armor, there isn’t a lot to use to jury rig up anything scientific. Still, she has to make it work so she pulls out her combat knife and the medical scissors from one of her IFAKs and goes over to a server tower with an empty rack in it.

She quickly opens the glass door in front of the tower and sets to work disassembling the part next to the empty rack and exposing wires. As she starts to pull tape out of her bags, the entire room shudders and a muted boom echoes from somewhere above her. Alarms start to blare, and Twilight’s radio starts crackling with static and garbled conversation.

“Loki, what’s going on?” Twilight shouts as she uses both her hooves and magic to start binding wires together with tape.

“Our guests got close enough for me to fire one of the defensive guns in the surrounding mountains at them. They’ve backed off, you’ve got a few more minutes.”

“And my radio? I can hear people talking but nothing is coming through clearly,” Twilight continues as she rolls over onto her back, tongue sticking out from the side of her muzzle as she levitates the crystal up towards the wrapped wires.

“Shielding, we’re too deep for proper radio signals to get in here, I have appraised the Sergeant of your location and informed him that you are on working on a task for me before the server room explodes,”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s happy about that,” Twilight chuckles, taping the crystal and wires together, “there that should…”

There is a spark from the wires and Twilight cusses under her breath as she quickly searches for the short, finding it and casting a quick insulation spell.

“That should do it, can you… uhm, sense the crystal in the network?”

Loki pauses for a moment, the vault around them shaking and the lights dimming a little again as the power starts to draw more heavily from the MAC fire.

“Yes. I can. Barely, but it is there,” the AI states, the lights dimming further and the largest shudder yet rocking the room. “Our guests have broken through the first line, I need to switch out with Mack now, so you can get him to safety.”

“Alright…” Twilight says, rising and looking to the AI, “I know you said you’re nearing the end of your lifespan, but if possible we’re coming back for you. You hear?”

Loki chuckles, smiling, “You win the war, and we’ll see.”

Nodding, Twilight waits as Loki’s image blinks out and is replaced by a very confused Mack.

“What the… Twilight, what’s going on?” Mack asks, his country accent tugging at Twilight’s heart with memories of home.

“I’m getting you out of here,” Twilight says quickly, pulling her rifle off her back, “your brother wants me to evacuate you, and I’m not going to argue.”

“Wait wait wait, evacuate me? I’m not goin-” Mack starts, but the entire room shakes and small bits of the concrete above them tumbles onto the floor and server stacks.

“Mack, look, I get wanting to stay with your brother, but the quicker you’re in that crystal the faster Loki gets that creepy smile of his back in here and starts helping fight invading upstairs!”

Mack frowns, looking at the topographical map still up around him and takes off his hat, “Damn him, he would hold the defense hostage for my safety. What do you need me to do?”

“Loki said he could access the crystal I’ve totally not rigged to the server mainframe with duct tape and prayers, so you should be able to transfer your program into it,” Twilight replies, gesturing at the crystal duct taped to the side of a server rack.

Mack follows where she gestures, and continues to frown before putting his hat back on and nods, “Fine… I’ll do it, but we’re not leaving my brother…”

“I already told him we’re coming back for him if we survive,”

Nodding one last time, Mack’s image flickers and then vanishes as the crystal starts to glow brightly. A split second later Loki is back standing on the pad, smiling warmly.

“Good, you got him in there,” Loki states as he turns back to the displayed map and battle, “better get going, this place isn’t likely to last much longer.”

Twilight nods and collects the now glowing crystal in her magic, depositing it into her bags before turning to leave. She pauses and looks back over her shoulder at Loki.

“Hey, no matter what, it was nice meeting you Loki. Give them hell and uhm… as I’ve heard some of the humans around here say, Valhalla awaits.”

Loki laughs and gestures to Twilight, “If I end up at Odin’s table, I’ll save you a seat, daughter of Sleipnir.”

Twilight smiles, then readies her rifle and leaves. She moves steadily through the server room, leaving it in short order and is up two flights of stairs before she hears the heavy vault door slamming and locking behind her, the sound urging her onwards as the stairwell shakes and concrete continues to flake off of the walls.

With each successive flight of stairs she ascends, the shaking grows heavier, with the lights dimming every few minutes as power is drawn from the reactors and power grid to presumably sling the large slugs the MAC guns in the mountains use for ammo. She’s halfway to the surface before the lights cut out for a moment, only for red alarm lights to come on and a loud klaxon starts to blare.

“Warning: Reactor containment is critical. All staff are required to report to their designated muster stations. Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear respiration masks required to be worn at all times. If you do not have access to-” the announcement cuts off as the stairwell rocks again, and Twilight is nearly thrown from her hooves as she reaches into her bags to grab the mask she’d been issued as part of her kit.

It doesn’t fit well, the seal is barely acceptable, but with a few tweaks with her magic as she gallups up the stairs, Twilight accepts that it’s good enough, that she won’t be in the facility much longer and she’ll just bathe and take all the iodine she can get her hooves on when she gets back.

She makes her way up the final few flights as fast as she can, rifle floating above her head as she shoulders through the door at the top, actually denting it with her armored shoulder and sliding into the hallway, nearly toppling into a group of civilians and militia.

“Sparks! What in the name of Hel are you doing?” Eivor shouts as she helps Twilight regain her footing.

“Loki asked for a favor,” Twilight pants, “figured it couldn’t hurt, was wrong.”

“Server room is twenty flights down, Sparks, did you… did you run all the way up here? In a mask?”

“Yup! Sure did! Was fun, would do it again,” Twilight snarks as she starts forward, “I better get back up to the rest of the squad before the Sergeant tears me a new one.”

“Yeah, you do that, we’re marshaling the civilian crew down here and getting ready to get out of here,” Eivor states as he continues to gesture to civilians, all of them wearing masks and radiation tags, “they’re going to take shelter near the entrance, the command net says the pelicans are on their way, but the area is too hot for them to land.”

“Well, let's see if we can’t clear the skies a bit!” Twilight shouts back over her shoulder as she springs down the hallway and to the entrance stairwell.

It doesn’t take long from there for her to get to the surface, and then a short teleport up to the roof. What she finds is her squad entrenched, with bullet casings and medical gauze covering the roof. A few of them are injured, though it looks to be from shrapnel rather than direct hits, and are trading bullets with what looks to be a large hovering organic looking vehicle.

“Glad you finally joined the party, Sparks!” Byrne shouts from where he’s helping the radioman wrap a bandage around his shoulder, “we saved you a tank!”

“Thank you sir, sorry about being late Loki is a pain in the ass,” Twilight shouts back as she takes her place on the firing line. “So, how do we take down that thing out there?”

“Don’t know, been too busy trying not to get shot!” Natalie says from beside Twilight, “we don’t exactly have any anti-material weaponry here. Just grenades and some timed explosives to scuttle the power station.”

Twilight grimaces, picking a few targets out through her scope that are currently guarding the tank, going to work with her rifle as she thinks on the problem. They’d need to get close to use any of the explosives, and beside that take out there Twilight guesses there are at least ten or fifteen infantry guarding its flanks. She really isn’t surprised by the fact they’re using combined arms tactics, honestly she was surprised there wasn’t any air cover.

The sound of a round breaking the sound barrier somewhere overhead reminds her about why there isn’t any air cover, a distant explosion further down the valley the station is the only indication of where the alien’s air power is.

Shooting a few more of the supporting troops, Twilight starts to formulate a plan. They can’t get close because of the infantry and the tank’s secondary weaponry, but what if they didn’t need to get close?

Lowering her rifle she looks to the Sergeant, “Sir, I might know how to deal with our armor problem…”

“Well, I’m all ears sparks! What’s knocking around in that little horse brain?”

“What if I teleport one of the charges onto the tank?”

Byrne stops what he is doing, which is currently bandaging a cut on his own head, and slowly looks at Twilight.

“I fucking forgot, you’re magical bullshit Sparks,” Bryne states slowly, “so please, if you think you can actually put a charge on that tank using your ingrained ability to hack space-time do so.”

Nodding, Twilight leaves the firing line and goes over to Byrne, who quickly pulls out a block of dark-grey clay looking stuff with a timer on it.

“So, this is plastic explosives, we can spare one of these, so you only get one chance at this,” he explains, “now how long do you need me to set it to?”

“Twenty seconds should suffice,” Twilight states, lighting her horn back up and turning to look at the distant tank, “let me know when the timer is ready.”

The seconds tick by as Twilight calculates the math for the spell, her horn glowing brightly as she constructs the matrix and accounts for the movement of the tank as it dodges a volley of fire from the militia firing at it. She takes in every detail of where she wants the charge to land, from the smooth, almost glossy surface of the alien tank’s outer shell, to the glow of the plasma as it charges up a shot towards the complex.

“Timer is set,” Byrne states.

“Start the countdown,” Twilight replies, eyes never leaving the tank, her horn glowing brighter as she hears a soft beep from behind her.

“Now or never, Twilight,” the Sergeant shouts, shielding his eyes as Twilight’s horn flashes brightly and the charge vanishes in a muted pop.

A split second later the charge appears in a bright flash atop the tank’s turret, wedged between two of the protective plates. All around the tank, the Infantry realizes something has happened and scramble to get the charge off of the tank when they realize what happened. Each of them are quickly cut down as they try to ascend the tank’s shell, and the tank finally stops and lowers to the ground as the gunner pops out of a hatch to go after the explosive.

Twilight herself by now has rushed back to the firing line, and as the strange alien creature is about to reach the charge, its fingers brushing against the side of the charge, Twilight squeezes the trigger and scatters bits of its brain and skull against the turret. Seeing that the tank can’t be saved, the driver pops out of his own hatch, and the infantry scatter, all but the driver reaching safety before the charge explodes, destroying the tank and sending shards of its outer hull and turret raining out over the battlefield. The explosion sent the fleeing driver off its feet and riddled with bits of the tank it had been driving.

Cheers erupt from the squad around Twilight, and a few of the humans clap her on the withers.

“Right, well, it was nothing…?” Twilight chuckles.

“Mhm, nothing,” Byrne states, “of course, we’d give you a medal in the marines for that. But we’ll get to that later, we need to get out of here.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Natalie chuckles, “right, time to scuttle the station, sarge?”

“Yup, set up the charges on the tower, we’re going to need to evacuate to safer pastures for the pelican to pick us up. Anyone not setting charges keep a sharp lookout, those bastards might’ve scattered but I doubt they’re gone for good.”

Twilight remains on the firing line while the others set up the charges, distantly listening to the conversations behind her as Byrne gets on the radio and coordinates with Eivor down in the facility’s tunnels on how to evacuate the civilian power workers. Occasionally, Twilight takes a few more shots at alien infantry popping their head up out of the bushes or from behind the smoldering ruins of the tank.

Pretty soon, the order comes to abandon the position, and Twilight pulls herself away from the wall one last time and quickly makes her way down into the pavement. She quickly moves from there to help cover the line of civilians streaming out of the entrance and into the nearby woods. A few more of the alien infantry become brave enough to try and attack, and they’re quickly put down or suppressed by the troops as the civilians continue to evacuate.

As soon as the line of people ends, Eivor comes over and taps Twilight’s shoulder, his gun pointing down range, and Twilight nods and moves sideways towards the safety of the woods with her own rifle pointed towards the hostile aliens. Once in the woods, the group quickly makes their way away and into the mountains, and true safety.

“Alright, all callsigns are beyond minimum safe distance, Loki,” Byrne’s voice comes over the radio after a half hour of quick marching into the mountains, “you have control of the detonation, blow your house up when you’re ready.”

“Never thought you’d give me the go ahead, Byrne,” Loki’s voice comes over the comms, “I have a lot of uninvited house guests poking around, I really did want to give them a warm welcome.”

Twilight stops on a ridge overlooking the facility, and waits, the power workers stopping around her. For a brief moment, the world seems to grow quiet, and Twilight wonders if the explosives might have been disarmed.

Then, the world is filled with a blue glow as the center of the large concrete pad over the reactor lurches up before exploding violently in a shower of stone, a visible shockwave spreading outward with a deep bass note. When it reaches them, Twilight swears she can feel her bones vibrating, and grimaces as her horn starts to spark and has to pull her helmet off as a loud whining tone erupts over the radio. Everyone around her does the same, turning their radios off or removing their helmets as an electromagnetic wave washes over them.

Soon, the entire complex is engulfed in fire and explosions, the reactor fully breaching and sending a jet of hot gasses skyward, sending the radio tower crashing from its position on top of the access building and onto the ground near the woods. Distantly, she can see aliens fleeing the area, and by the time the world is once more silent again nothing moves in the clearing the facility once sat in.

“Alright, shows over,” Byrne shouts from further up the ridge, “we need to get to the other side to call our way out!”

And with that, everyone snaps out of their stupor at watching the death of the power facility, and turns without further comment to get out of the area and get back to Utguard.

As she walks away, Twilight pulls the crystal out of her bags and checks it over, smiling softly as she finds it undamaged and still glowing brightly. Hopeful that once she gets back to friendly lines, she’s able to figure out a way to let him talk again.

And after that, a long nap.

Celestia knows she needs one.

Author's Note

*Falls over and holds the chapter up over his head* BEHOLD! CHAPTER!

Sorry this took so long, life, the universe, and the story Changing Expectations and it's sequel decided to take up my time and attention span for a bit. I had the majority of it done, but I pumped out the last little bit last night before Darktide's beta starts today, and I really didn't want to leave you all hanging any longer.

So, hope you enjoy! As for me, I'm going to go grab my lazgun and go beat up Nergal's grandkids!