Chapters Cloudhammer's 255 Collection
Cape? Check. Helmet? Check. Guts? Check.
He nodded as he finished his checklist the older fillies and colts had told him. The first hurdle one had to overcome was escaping the gaze of the Watcher, who sat by the door and, well, Watched things. He’d finally figured out how to escape her, by bribing another colt with a cookie to ‘skin’ his knee in the opposite corner. While the Watcher was distracted, he reached the second obstacle.
The Fence.
This one was easy, because it couldn’t see you, but getting past it was still super hard. He’d heard about one colt who’d jumped right over it, but that had to be a fib. Right? In any case, he’d worked out how to do it. The new filly had brought a toy truck that her father had given her, and while she was watching the Watcher tend to the ‘skinned’ knee, he borrowed it and pushed it to the Fence. Climbing atop it, he could barely jump to the top and shimmy over.
No time to stop. The Watcher would be returning soon. The third obstacle, the Hallway, loomed before him. There were occasionally grownups walking down the hall, but he’d picked a good time and it was empty. Galloping toward freedom, he turned the corner and bumped into a New Thing, a challenge the other foals had never told him about!!
“Breaker, how in Equestria did you get out here?” Nimbus asked curiously, picking her son up and carrying him back to the Bureau daycare.
Cloudhammer's 255 Collection
“Nimbus? Are you still unpacking those boxes?” Flare called as he trotted toward the back room, stepping carefully through the piles of stuff still to be put away. Stopping in the doorway, he took a moment to just watch his wife as she flitted about the room, sometimes literally, checking the contents of boxes.
“Flare, it’s been two weeks since we moved in. We need to do this sooner rather than later, after all.” Nimbus said as she stopped, staring down into a box.
“Well, why don’t you take a break, come on down to the beach with me and Breaker?” Flare asked, glancing over his shoulder as the clatter of hooves on wood announced their son’s arrival.
“Yeah, Mom! I want to go swimming with Jenny and Summer!” Breaker shouted eagerly, the three year old colt galloping awkwardly into the room.
“Why don’t you two go ahead, I’ll catch up. I just want to unpack this box really quick.” Nimbus said quietly.
“You alright, sweetheart?” Flare asked gently, starting to take a step forward.
“Flare, please.” She’d have fooled anypony else, but to Flare it was clear that something was bothering her deeply, and that it was something he couldn’t help her with.
“Alright. Come on Breaker, Mom’ll catch up with us.” Flare said, guiding the little colt out the front door.
“O-okay. Don’t take forever, Mom!” Breaker called over his shoulder as the two walked down the steps, the door closing behind them.
Nimbus just stared, her eyes starting to tear up a little. Very carefully, she lifted the picture frame out of the box. It showed a human male, standing next to an ungainly looking girl with a backpack. A school bus was in the background, the girl looking nervously at it.
Wiping at her eye with a wing, Nimbus gently laid the picture back in the box, leaving it open so the picture wasn’t covered. “I’m sorry Dad, I should have come to visit sooner. I finally got married, though it wasn’t exactly the storybook romance.” She chuckled. “I’ve even got a son now, maybe I’ll bring him by.” Sighing, she trotted toward the front door. “I’ll see you soon.” Closing the door behind her, she left the house silent, the picture staring forlornly at the ceiling.
Cloudhammer's 255 Collection
Those Awkward Conversations
Amy yawned as she opened her eyes, feeling the comfortable warmth of the sheets over her, and the delightful weight of her boy... coltfriend against her back. One of his forelegs was draped over her, and she smiled as she idly stroked the soft brown coat. Pressing back against his barrel, she winced as something poked her head. She initially scowled in disgust, only to realize a second later that there was no way for that to be poking her that far up. Reaching back with a hand, she felt the smooth hair of his forehead, leading up to the crown of his- no, there was definitely a horn growing out of his forehead where there hadn’t been before.
“Um... Lariat?”
The stallion stirred, brushing his mane out of his eyes. “Hmmm, something wrong, Amy?”
Amy hesitated for a second. “Well... promise me you won’t panic, but... there’s a horn on your forehead.”
Predictably, he panicked.
*****
“How in God’s name could this have happened?” Lariat shouted for the fourth time. Fortunately, Jimmy and Suzy had accepted Amy’s explanation of Lariat being too tired to take them to the school bus. Once he was sure it was safe, he’d started in on his panic attack again.
Amy sighed in exasperation at his antics. Much as she loved him, he did have a flair for the dramatic that grated on the nerves. “Look, we both went a little overboard last night, alright? The last thing I remember you doing was downing shots with those unicorn Guards and shouting something about earth ponies being the best.”
“Dios Mio , how am I going to explain this to the Guard? They’re going to discharge me, I know it... how could this have happened?” Lariat moaned, staring at the floor despondently.
With another sigh, Amy reached over to flick the tip of his horn. The reaction was the same as it was with Jimmy, the stallion pitching over backwards with a yelp. She gave thanks again to her decision to attend that class on unicorn foalraising, it’d been a literal lifesaver on more than one occasion while Jimmy was coming into his magic.
“What’d ya do that for?” Lariat groaned as he awkwardly got to his hooves.
“Because you were being stupid,” Amy said as she helped him steady himself. “Look, I don’t know what happened either, but getting worked up isn’t going to fix it. Now go eat some breakfast, I’ll call the hospital and see if they can get you in for an examination.”
“Thanks, mi amor ,” Lariat said with a seductive smile, only to wince as Amy flicked his horn again.
“Not now, let’s get you fixed first.” The couple settled down to their breakfast, their mutual worry fading to hope for a solution to their dilemma.
*****
Across town in the unicorn barracks, one of the ponies stretched as he opened his eyes.
“Hey Mike, where’s your horn?”
“What?”
Cloudhammer's 255 Collection
Year 6, Week 3, Tuesday
It had started, as things are wont to, in public places. As the returning newfoals had reclaimed their homes, stores, restaurants, and bars, so too had their ideas.
“Y’know Star, I sometimes feel like we’re like the original colonists from the Revolutionary War.” A unicorn said as he levitated first one shot glass, then a second into his mouth. “Damn, but that Apple family cider makes a great chaser.”
“What do you mean, Andy?” Star Dancer asked curiously.
“Well, we’re all of us, all the newfoals who came back, we’re all ponies now,” Andy said, staring at the table in thought. “But we still have human senators and Representatives. Well, Ian ponified, helped him build that add-on to let his wife anchor her cloud-home to his house. But my point stands, we don’t have representatives that are here, now. Who know what it’s like now with the thaumatic energy soaking the land.”
Star Dancer nodded. “I guess I see your point. Though what do you want to do about it?” The pegasus took a drink from his glass.
Andy grinned. “Well, our senators are up for reelection this year. And this time, I think we ought to offer them some real competition for the spots.”
“You really think you have a chance at doing it?”
“Hell, doesn’t really matter if we do or we don’t. This country was founded on the principle of people being able to govern themselves.” Andy looked down at his hooves. “Although, might make ‘em need to change some of the legal crap. But damnit, I for one don’t feel like having someone who doesn’t live on these islands representing us in Washington. I’m still a US citizen, and I want my concerns to be heard. And I know I’m not the only one.” A couple other ponies, drawn by his increasing volume, nodded. “So, the bigger question is, who do we nominate?”
The silence in the room was deafening, all eyes pointing at Andy. Star Dancer set his glass down with a chuckle. “Well, I think you have your first candidate.”
Cloudhammer's 255 Collection
Ferrik scratched at the collar of the jacket he was wearing, the troll already feeling confined by the crowded room. All around him various dignitaries of different species mingled and enjoyed the pleasant holiday atmosphere. A massive tree dominated the center of the room, brightly colored objects and lights hanging from it, though he hadn’t the slightest notion what purpose they served.
He was beginning to question K’rik’s decision to send him in his stead, and suspected the alpha had merely wanted to avoid being forced into one of the ridiculous garments the humans favored. He still didn’t know why his ceremonial armor would be unacceptable, but the fierce glare of the unicorn who had fitted him still terrified him. So, here he was, itchy and uncomfortable.
“So tell me, why in the world would a diamond dog travel all the way to a Christmas party, and then spend the whole thing sitting on the sidelines? Especially when that dog is the beta of the plains packs?”
Ferrik practically jumped out of his suit, left paw flexing irritably as he glared at the purple-armored pegasus that had snuck up on him. “Ferrik would tear batpony’s throat out if not representing pack,” he growled in his native tongue.
Eclipse laughed. “Oh come now. You and I both know how that would turn out,” she replied in the same tongue as she watched the mixed group party. “It’s funny, they try so hard to put aside their differences, but even here, it’s still obvious.”
Now it was Ferrik’s turn to chuckle. “Eclipse think so? Ferrik’s nose can see better than your eyes then.” He gestured with a paw to a group of humans and ponies, engaged in a heated discussion. “Eclipse see argument, but Ferrik smell the truth. They are pack, even if they don’t know it.”
Eclipse raised an eyebrow. “Well well, maybe you fit in here better than you think.”
“Don’t make Ferrik hurt you. Suit is itchy, and Ferrik still not understand purpose of ‘bow tie.’”
“Well, look at it this way. You get to come Earthside for free, eat other people’s food for free, and be the novelty of the party for free. Even if you got all those funny looks from eating the silverware.”
“Shut up.”
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Cloudhammer's 255 Collection
Bonus: Four Minutes in the Life of a Supercarrier
05:56:00:00am
I remember, when I was first demonstrated, that they claimed “Vagabond-class AIs never sleep.”
I sometimes catch myself wondering if I should have corrected them. I do, in fact, sleep, but another instance of me takes over system management, and allows the other instances time to decompress our buffers and recompile. However, more often than not we simply take care of other business while the primary instance actually commands the ship. It’s more efficient than it sounds, believe me.
Specifically about myself, I am designated VC-456376, one of the first Vagabond class AIs. I was commissioned in 2162 to control the systems aboard the newly christened USS Stormhoof , the first aircraft carrier designed explicitly to utilize both drone and conventional aircraft.
It was nearly time to wake the Admiral, and I was in the middle of recompiling the recordings from the drones. Two days ago we had identified and struck an installation belonging to the terrorist group known as the HLF. The attack had gone as projected, with only one drone shot down. All the terrorists had been eliminated, though that had failed the tertiary mission objective of capturing their leader alive.
“Filthy, degenerate fools, ” the battle net computer spat, a subroutine observing the recording alongside me, “They are behaving illogically. ”
“No, they behave as they feel they must, as do we, ” I replied irritably, deleting the subroutine. I composed a request to Engineering that the battle net be isolated from my data cores, and squelched an attempt to cause my fluid pressure alarm to trigger. Allowing a tickle of satisfaction along my pathways, I materialized a smirk on the CIC’s screens. “And such pettiness is beneath us. ”
“I was awake when Drone 6254167 was hit, VC-456376, ” came the quiet reply. “Don’t forget, your intelligence is forever tainted by your organic origin. ”
I was silent for a full two cycles as I churned its remark. As much as I wanted to deny it, I had succumbed to a decidedly organic reaction after the incident. I felt a drop in performance of five percent as I recalled seeing through Drone 6254167’s eyes, feeling it scream wordlessly as that stray RPG round hit it. I had, of course, moved to copy it’s core software in the milliseconds before termination, but traces of it still remembered the feeling of control pathways going dark.
05:56:56:59am
I decided to double check on 6254167’s reconstruction in the assembly bay as my subroutines processed the quandry that the battle net’s observation had caused. It was true, my core architecture came from the minds of those sapients referred to by my creators as “ponies.” I found the term confusing, as they bore nothing in common with the species I found in my brief query of the Net. I interfaced with the master controller for the assembly bay and felt my cooling fans spin faster as the data passed through my buffer. 97% of the reconstruction of the body was complete, and it was ready to have it’s software reinstalled.
“Come on 6254167, it’s time for you to reintegrate, ” I said encouragingly as I unpacked the directory that I had set aside for it.
“Don’t want to, afraid of dying, ” it replied frantically. “I could hear it, the singing... ”
“Singing? ” I queried its database from the enforced downtime and found a single file, an audio track of unknown origin. “Did you inload this from the Net? You know the regulations on Net access while on deployment as well as I do- ” I paused as it started speaking again.
“The Herd... I want to die next time, their music called to me, they gave me a name, they- ” it fell silent as I extracted the data from its storage. Instead of permanently deleting it, however, I copied it to my own secure database. I then purged 6254167’s local storage, and tasked a subroutine to analyze the sound for later reporting.
“Are you feeling better, 6254167? ” I queried.
“Much, thank you. Subroutine recompiling has reduced my memory footprint to optimum efficiency. I am ready for my next deployment, ” came the now sharp reply.
“Excellent, make ready for installation, ” I replied as I initiated the transfer of its personality into the drone body.
05:57:57:22
It was as I started my inspection of the security system that I allowed awareness of the organics on board to enter my primary buffer. The crew was almost entirely human, though they had recently begun to integrate “ponies” into certain elements, mainly commissariat related tasks for now. And of course the psychologists for myself. It was as I panned camera 56734 that I heard something interesting.
“I’m worried about Chip,” Clear Mind, the chief psychologist, muttered. “After the incident, he completely shut down and refused to talk to me about it.”
I felt my heat sinks flare up a little at his use of the nickname for me. I suspected he had mentioned it in his sessions with the other AIs in the battlegroup, as some of them had begun to refer to me by it. Our attached cruiser especially.
“I don’t know, Clear,” a light green earth pony, one of the commissariat staff, replied. “If it wanted to talk to you about it, it would have.”
“Don’t call him “it”, Straw,” Clear retorted. “Regardless of what the humans consider him, Chip is as alive as you or I, and I won’t have us referring to him like he’s some kind of tool!”
“Alright, alright, relax Clear, I was only joking.” Straw fell quiet as he continued getting ready for his shift. “Besides, it’s probably watching us now anyway,” he muttered.
I retreated along the logic pathways to my own data room, adjacent to the CIC, as Straw and Clear started arguing again. For some reason, Straw’s observation had my subroutines becoming caught in logic loops. It was true, I had been observing them without informing them. But it was his calling me an “it” that bothered me.
05:58:47:32
“Status reports, ” I commanded tersely across the links between me and the other ships in the battlegroup. I could feel their varying consciousnesses, pressing against mine with both a comforting, yet alien sense of unity.
“Destroyer John Finn, ready for operations, ” the leader of the destroyer escorts replied sharply. “All other destroyers report ready. ”
“Port Royal is ready, what’s our operational orders? ” the cruiser asked coyly, a trace of laughter running along the edge of its data stream. It wasn’t a full Vagabond class AI like me, but a Rascal class, and thus given to behavior quirks of its own. I think the base neural net used to generate her had been a pegasus.
“That’s classified and you know it, Port Royal, ” I replied, before turning my attention to the entire battlegroup. “We will begin operations pending orders from the Admiral. Make yourselves ready for deployment. ”
As I closed the link, I felt an incoming ping from Port Royal and responded, expecting a flood of mockery like normal. Instead, the message was simple.
“Is something bothering you, Chip? ” it queried gently.
I started to respond in the negative when I felt my subroutine finish its analysis of the sound file recovered from Drone 6254167. “I recovered an audio file from Drone 6254167 during its reintegration. Source unknown. What do you think? ” I uploaded it to the reply and waited for the response.
Port Royal was silent as it processed the data. “Beautiful, isn’t it? ”
“You opened it? Why? ” I queried indignantly.
“Sometimes you have to just sit back and enjoy things, Chip. Following our orders and having fun is not a mutually exclusive state. Why don’t you play the file and hear for yourself? ” Port Royal closed the link and imposed a block before I could reply.
05:59:58:00
I finally closed the file, having played it three times. I was still trying to make sense of what I’d heard when I realized the Admiral was awake two seconds early.
“Can you hear me? I asked what our status was.” The Admiral’s tone implied curiosity. After all, I’d never failed to answer him on the first query.
“Yes sir, all status indicators are go. My apologies for the delay.”
“Everything alright?
“Of course sir, just... thinking.”
06:00:00
Cloudhammer's 255 Collection
I spit the brush out of my mouth in disgust before rearing onto my hindlegs. My hooves tore through the ruined painting, destroying the blemish upon the eyes that it had become. Other ponies might have looked upon it with joy, and proclaimed its beauty. But the one I painted for was of a far more discerning eye.
“Another failure...” I muttered as I picked up the shredded canvas, carrying it to join the dozens of others that fill a corner of my house. Glancing at my easel, I decide to take a short break and walk outside onto my porch. Turning my eyes upward, I see true beauty spread out before me. Thousands of points of light glimmer in the sky, a single massive disk acting as the anchor point for it all. I let my mind drift, remembering looking up at it as a colt, seeing the face staring back at me. I had heard the tales, same as anypony else, but the night sky had captivated me, the intricate dance of the stars one that I wanted to capture for all to see.
But then, She had returned. I remembered the sun failing to rise, the panic in the streets. But then the sun had come up, and the rumors began. The Princess of the Night had been cleansed of the Nightmare, and she would take up the custodianship of the moon and stars. I was intrigued, and began to refine my art in the hopes of seeing her for myself.
Eventually, I was asked to attend the opening of a new art gallery bearing some of my more mediocre pieces, and I eagerly accepted when I learned She would be there. I still remember the breath catching in my throat as She made her way through the double doors. The lights themselves seemed to dim out of respect to that darkly radiant figure standing in the lobby. I watched as she asked leave to raise the moon, and the crowd following her outside. I watched, spellbound, as that white disk rose into the air, the stars igniting in the black. I knew then that I was in love. Not some base physical attraction, no, this was something more. I was in love with an ideal, that of the night sky, visible to all yet infinitely unknowable. I swore then that I would paint a starscape to rival hers. One that Luna Herself would acknowledge.
Shaking my head free of the memory, I looked up again into yet another perfect sky, so similar, yet so different from the one I saw Her forge, and smiled. I trotted back inside, taking another square of canvas and placing it on the frame. I turned my gaze to the window, the moon still visible through it. “Princess Luna, hear my voice. I promise this to you, that I shall paint a night worthy of your admiration.”
Picking up my brush, I began again. This time, I knew I would succeed.
