CHAPTER TWO: ORBITAL OPERATIONS

The daily Friendship Express ground to a halt in Canterlot station with a final squeal of brakes. The train was a mere seven cars—barely half the length of any other train in the station. Even the engine’s tall smokestack was dwarfed by the sleek, steel bulk of the four o’clock Manehattan Express sitting majestically on the next line over. There was hardly any traffic to a small town like Ponyville, and Twilight, Austenite, and Spike were among the few to board the small, gaily-colored train. They could probably find an entire car to themselves if they really wanted.

Austenite had hardly said a word since leaving the Castle. He brushed past as Twilight gave their tickets to the conductor, sitting heavily on the bench. He fumbled for the cork-lined lever that locked the compartment window, throwing it open and allowing the compartment to breathe. The air smelled heavily of soot, but it was still more bearable than leaving the stuffy compartment closed the whole trip.

Twilight parked herself on the bench next to him, while Spike hopped up on the one facing them so he would have plenty of room to nap during the ride. Twilight wasted no time pulling out a book from her luggage, carefully propping it in front of her so it would not be jostled by the rocking of the train. She looked up and smiled reassuringly at Austenite.

“Don’t worry. Everything will be perfectly safe with the princesses. She said she’s putting it in her personal archive, and that has some of the most important books in all of Equestria.”

“I told you, I’m not worried,” Austenite grumbled. “I just wish I’d remembered to make duplicates of the plans. I knew that the Princesses were going to want to look at them, but—” He kicked against the handle again, jarring the window open slightly more. “—I didn’t think that we would have to leave them.”

As they got settled in, a whistle from the engine heralded their departure, and soon the compartment was filled with the rhythmic sounds of the train passing over the tracks.

“Well, you remember what Princess Celestia said, right? She’s going to give them back as soon as she’s done examining them. We’ll probably be going back to Canterlot to retrieve the spell matrix in a week.”

Austenite snorted. “If she finds it safe.” Derision dripped from the words. “I’ve heard that kind of bureaucratic nonsense before. ‘Go through a review process—it’s just a formality’. ‘It’s just a matter of waiting for the paperwork to go through’. It’s all lies. She was just cushioning the blow, Twilight.” He wrapped his wings tightly around him and drew in his hooves. “This is probably just going to be another dead end.”

Twilight eyed him coldly. “Hold it right there, mister. I don’t know what it’s like in Trottingham, but I do know the princess. And you should know by now that there is nopony I trust more completely than her.”

Twilight’s icy tone startled Austenite, and the pegasus looked up in alarm. Twilight was looking at him with an expression that was a dead ringer for the one that Celestia had worn in their meeting. He’d never seen this Twilight before, not even when they’d hit a brick wall with their work or been struck in the doldrums of bad results.

He realized his error immediately, of course—he’d never before insulted one of the sovereign rulers of Equestria. But even that didn’t matter, because in Twilight’s eyes, that paled in comparison to the fact that he’d insulted her mentor. From the look the dragon was giving him, it was clear that Spike held Princess Celestia in equally high regard.

“She’s never steered me wrong, ever.” She looked out the window at the passing mountainside, remembering the circumstances that had first brought her to Ponyville. “Once, what I thought was a rather silly request of hers even ended up saving the world. So when the princess gives us her word that she will examine the spell matrix and honestly determine if it is safe—” She turned her eyes back on him, and he visibly cringed, as if the very touch of her gaze was painfully hot on his skin. “—I know she will honor it.”

The clacking of the tracks counted the seconds before Austenite spoke.

“I’m sorry. I meant no disrespect, toward you or toward the Princess.”

Twilight held her silence, so Austenite continued.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever worked on projects before, Twilight, but for me, especially after working on it for so long, I get attached to it.” He grimaced. “Maybe too attached. Especially after working on it for four months. It’s like a foal to me, I’ve spent so much time with it. Having an idea—well,” he looked back at Twilight, “half an idea—in your mind, and seeing it come into existence before your very eyes? It’s so... incredible!” He smiled thinly at that. “Chasing that feeling is why I became an engineer in the first place.

“And to see somepony—anypony—step on that idea with a word...” He laughed nervously. “Well, it’s hard to remain objective. I should probably be more angry at myself.” He hung his head. “I really didn’t mean to insult the Princess, honest.”

Twilight didn’t bite his head off. Instead, to his surprise, he felt the feathery touch of a wing being draped over him.

“It’s okay, Austen. Apology accepted, if that matters. I probably shouldn’t have been so short, either.The princess is a bit of a button for me.” Austenite felt the wing squeeze around him. “You just have to have faith that the princesses have our best interests in mind.”

“I know, but it’s always hard for an engineer to let go of a project.” Austenite rested his head against the window, ignoring the beautiful vista of the snow-capped Unicorn Mountains passing by, instead examining the workings of the bogeys beneath the car. “I’m just afraid that my work is going to end up sitting in some closet, gathering dust and cobwebs.”

Spike chose that moment to pipe up. “Don’t worry, guys. You did great at the presentation! Those big-shot ponies couldn’t get enough of it! I heard them talking, and they were all super excited about all of the things you can do with your spell-whatsit.”

“The things we can do once we get the prototype working fully. At its current efficiency, the thing’s more useful as a paperweight.” Austenite huffed in annoyance. “I know we can do better—even the most pessimistic calculations say that the spell matrix can be ten times as powerful!”

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

That reminded Austenite of Celestia’s ultimatum. “But even if she pronounces it safe, she already said ‘no’ to our plans for the moon.”

“No?” Spike said. “Aww. That sounded so fun, too.” He sat up. “Was it a ‘no’-no, or a ‘maybe’-no? Or maybe an ‘I kinda like it, but I don’t wanna make a real choice yet so I’m just saying no to give you an answer now’-no?”

“I don’t know, Spike,” Twilight said, feeling crestfallen all over again. Now it was her turn to coil up, withdrawing her wing from Austenite’s shoulders.

She had been looking forward to showing Celestia the spell matrix, but she had really wanted to see what Celestia thought of going to the moon. She had expected her teacher to be surprised, she had expected the princess to commend her on such a rigorous goal, but she hadn’t expected Celestia to simply say... no. Even the knowledge that the spell matrix might yet see the light of day was tempered by that abject refusal. Even if space were as dangerous as Celestia said, wasn’t there a better way she could have told them?

As it was, Celestia’s explanations only frustrated her. Maybe she had flown off the handle with Austenite because she was a little angry at the princess herself? Part of it was what Austenite had said—that the princess hadn’t really considered it at all before rejecting their idea. But maybe she knew better than Twilight. Celestia had more than a thousand years of experience on the alicorn of a paltry five months. She was smart and wise—she had to be, otherwise she wouldn’t be so good at ruling Equestria.

Perhaps it was that, too—the way that Celestia made that offhand reminder that, even though she had ‘graduated’ from her tutelage, she still had much to learn. Celestia had acted, for a moment, like the imposter Celestia from King Sombra’s door, short and dismissive.

She looked from Austenite, to Spike, and back, but neither of their faces held any hint to her questions. How could she convince Celestia to change her mind? Could she convince Celestia to change her mind?

“I just don’t know,” she echoed.

* * *

Immediately upon entering her and Luna’s private chambers, Celestia kicked off each of her ornate golden horseshoes. With practiced ease, the shoes bounced off of a particularly worn and scuffed section of the wall and clattered to the floor. With a little more care, she removed her crown, allowing her ethereal mane to revert back to its natural state. Light pink hair fell across her shoulders as she used her magic to set the crown on a small velvet stand. The aura that she exuded all day, that radiated from her like beams from her own sun, also coalesced back inside her, leaving her coat a soft, clean—but strangely... natural—white.

Luna entered the room after her, and began to remove her own regalia in a manner that caused less consternation to the castle shoesmiths and masons. Her hair, too, fell back to the light blue it had been when she was rescued from Nightmare Moon.

Both of the sisters were exhausted. The meeting with the ambassador to the Gryphon Hegemony had stretched on, and court had been held much longer than usual as a result. It seemed to Luna that a single delay always seemed to compound itself, for the meeting that had only stretched perhaps a half-hour too long had somehow extended the day by another two. At least Luna had been able to excuse herself for a while on other business; Celestia had been present the entire time, which hadn’t done wonders for her mood by the time they finally finished.

“It appears Ambassador Emmerich is more long-winded than his brother was,” Luna said, testing the waters. Celestia and Luna had been expecting to meet with Kaspar, the Gryphon ambassador five years standing, and it had come as a shock when the sisters learned that Kaspar had been replaced. The role had been filled by one of his nestbrüder, a younger Gryphon called Emmerich. But where Kaspar had been the Gryphon equivalent of ‘soft-spoken’, Emmerich was brash, almost to the point of rudeness, and had dragged out the meeting with long, ornate formalities.

“I’m almost certain that he was being a pain in the flank on purpose.” Celestia said through grit teeth. She finished removing the last piece of her regalia, the sapphire-studded chestpiece, which joined her crown on her desk. “Besides, he arrived with the Hegemon’s response about the border lands issue. He could hardly be as relaxed as Kaspar and still hoof… toe?... the Hegemon’s line.” She gave a crooked smile.

“Well, he could certainly have been less rude,” Luna grumbled. Neither sister was ready to retire, so Luna sparked a fire in the hearth. Celestia and Luna knelt on their preferred pillows in front of the fire.

“Sister, you have to remember that Gryphons don’t see it as ‘being rude’,” Celestia admonished her, never too tired to resist lecturing her sister. “In their culture, if a gryphon acquiesces or acts deferential, they are seen as weak or lame. Emmerich was afraid that we wouldn’t respect him or the Hegemony if he didn’t act that way.”

“I don’t remember Kaspar ever acting that way, and we respected him just fine!” Luna rapped one of her forehooves on the floor for emphasis.

“That’s because Kaspar had already been in Equestria for two years before you met him, so he had learned how to act around ponies.” Celestia chuckled. “He was just as brazen in the beginning. I remember; he once tried to challenge Prince Blueblood to a duel because he mistook nickering for an insult. Of course, Blueblood didn’t help the situation…”

“The point seems moot. Why even go to such lengths if he knows that we can’t possibly find his Hegemon’s requests unacceptable? That land rightfully belongs to the Crystal Empire.”

Gryphon mining in the Crystal Mountains had long been one of the most powerful sectors of their economy. Farming and ranching in the Hegemony’s southern climes supplied food to its more inhospitable regions. The mountains were mineral-rich, and its shoals of forests were perfect for logging. Iron and coal from the area was also their major source of trade with Equestria.

But then the Crystal Empire had reappeared squarely in the middle of the area. The crystal ponies had awoken from their millenium of sleep to find gryphons on the land that, to their mind, had always been theirs. Those lands had been just as necessary for the survival of the Empire, and they were eager to reclaim them. The gryphons, of course, refused to leave the territory that had been part of the Hegemony for hundreds of years.

Only Equestria’s support for the Empire had stopped the gryphons from escalating the conflict. They had screamed about the ‘coup’ that installed Equestrian royalty to the throne of the Empire and the heavy-hoofed nature of her sanctions, but they knew full well that they could not sustain a war against both pony nations.

“That’s another reason why Twilight’s device worries me so. If it becomes widespread in Equestria,” Celestia continued, “it will be leaked to the Gryphons. I don’t even want word to get out that such a device exists. Gryphons have always been jealous of us for our magic, and I don’t want to think about the lengths they would go to in order to end their dependency on us.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I wish Twilight would have warned us first...”

Luna frowned. “And that is the reason you want to keep it hidden here? Surely with the advancements we are making here in Equestria, any loss in trade with the Gryphons would be irrelevant.”

The long day was wearing on Celestia, and she was not in the mood to debate with her sister. “Luna, you’re not seeing the big picture. Gryphons have no innate magic. Zebras have their potions and poultices, but no other nation on this world has mastered magic like we have.” She turned to her little sister. “And you’d want to give that up for what? Better farming? Textiles? Right now, the Gryphons need us. I don’t want to see a time when that is no longer true. Already they are dabbling in electricity.”

“So you would strangle progress on the mere chance that the gryphons will steal it? Celly, that’s downright medieval! So what if they eventually get spell matrices? Your school is still the leader in magical theory, and with the College starting to turn out engineers and mathematicians and scientists, Equestria could become the center of a technological renaissance!” She looked her sister square in the eye. “Every technological advance is not going to be the death knell of Equestria, sister. You are far too wary of progress.”

“Luna, you know that’s not true. Let’s not forget that your engineers have produced wonderful things, but we must not throw caution to the wind.” Celestia gave her sister a very flat look. Luna was edging towards whining, and she was beginning to get cross.

“You remember reading from Twilight’s friends about Flim and Flam? They came out of your college filled with ideas about progress and efficiency. That infernal machine of theirs was ripping trees right out of the ground, and the cider it produced wasn’t even fit for pig slop! Not only was it dangerous, it almost drove the hardworking Apple family out of business! And that was just earth pony engineering and their own magic. Who knows how dangerous a spell matrix could be in the wrong hooves?”

Luna didn’t care anymore. “Is this what you’ve been doing for the past thousand years? Worrying yourself into indecision? I mean, I... return... only to find ponies just beginning to play with steam? And that they’ve just discovered electricity for the second time!?” Luna grit her teeth, “I did not expect to find that ponykind has taken two steps backward!”

Celestia flared her wings suddenly, the great burst of air almost extinguishing the fire. “Alright already, Luna! I already promised that we’d look at the spell matrix, and we will look at it. And if I think it’s safe, we’ll give it and the blueprints back to Twilight and her friend.”

“And yet you still won’t let them undertake their journey to the moon.”

“No. Because it isn’t safe.”

“Horsefeathers. Twilight beat Discord. She can manage a journey in space—you just don’t want her to.”

Suddenly, something clicked in Luna’s mind.

“Oh. Oh-ho-ho!” Luna said in understanding. “You’re afraid,” she said slowly, in barely a whisper, “aren’t you, Celly?” The Night Alicorn stood and faced her older sister, the firelight revealing a devilish glint in her eyes. “You think that somehow she’ll find out—”

“Luna, it’s late!” Celestia spat. “We should both retire for the night.”

“She’ll learn the truth, and then where will you be? Where will either of us be?”

Celestia stood suddenly, her wings shaking a bit as she cleared away her cushions. “Luna, you’re delirious. You know that staying up the whole day isn’t good for your health. Go to bed.”

“You know what?” Luna retorted. “I almost hope she learns. Were I not honor-bound, I would have half a mind to tell her myself.”

Celestia could not even bear the time it would take to walk to her door. With a bright gold flash, Luna was left alone in their common room.

Luna stared into the fire, and contemplated the course of those past few years since her return. She’d tried to do right, tried to shepherd the ponies of Equestria toward progress, but in the end, she was bound to follow her sister’s wishes.

She, too, finally got up to retire to her chambers. Smothering the fire, she resolved to fight for Twilight Sparkle. This was too important, too wonderful, to shrivel because of Celestia’s fears.

Author's Note

EDIT: I did a little more tweaking to the reasons for the gryphons' unrest. Hopefully, this will provide a more interesting development of the conflict.