CHAPTER SEVEN: A CAVEAT

“...and it’s ‘Your Highness’, not ‘Your Majesty’. Make sure you remember that. Oh! And make sure you bow low enough. Everyone remember the bow that we practiced? Die Cast, you remember? Okay, good, goo—no, not low enough, Snap Punch!”

Twilight smiled to herself and shook her head. She’d thought that she was nervous about this visit. Luna was scheduled to arrive within the hour, and Twilight and company stood waiting on the new dirt road leading from the train station up to the lab. She contented herself to waiting patiently, but it seemed that Austenite needed to let off steam.

“Something funny?” came a growl from behind her.

“Oh, it’s just funny watching Austenite.”

“And knowing that you’d be doing that if he weren’t?” Spike deadpanned.

“Watch it, mister.” She bucked playfully, making Spike wildly grasp at her mane for a moment. He laughed sheepishly and looked around, trying to see if anyone caught his momentary slip. Only Bastion was close enough to observe. The stallion remained as stoic as ever, so Spike crossed his arms and tried to play it off.

“Hey, I calls ‘em like I sees ‘em,” he said coolly. “Admit it. A year ago, you would have been freaking out about something like this! I guess those leadership lessons with Cadence really paid off.”

“Well, a year ago I wasn’t a princess,” Twilight said with mock-sereneness. “A princess can’t run around ‘freaking out’. It’d be bad for morale.”

“That didn’t stop you when I accidentally spilled jam on that letter to Agatha last week,” Spike grumbled.

“Oh, hush, you,” Twilight said as they were joined by Austenite and Applejack.

Aside from Applejack’s stetson and Bastion’s light barding, there wasn’t a stitch of clothing in sight—this was supposed to be an informal meeting, Luna had insisted. Despite this, Bastion had informed her that Luna would be arriving with a full platoon of the Royal Guard. He’d also taken the opportunity to not-so-subtly remind her that he was still her only bodyguard.

This time, Twilight couldn’t brush off the question of security, not in the face of the steadily-worsening news from the north. Crystal Empire scouts had been reporting increased gryphon activity for weeks now. There were even rumors of entire claws of gryphon regulars being marched toward the Crystal Mountains. Her correspondence with her brother wasn’t hopeful, either. He’d had to evacuate all the crystal mining camps and escort the civilians to the safety of the city.

Through everything, Twilight had remained adamant that she didn’t need any more guards, which she had said, maybe in not so many words, whenever Bastion brought it up. Then, suspiciously soon after one such conversation, she received another letter from her brother. He’d spent his last few letters urging her to outfit herself with a proper security detail. Now, he was threatening to come back to Equestria, stuff her in the deepest, most secure room in Canterlot Castle, and sit on her if she didn’t.

In the end, Twilight had had to acquiesce. Which was why, when Luna left, she would be leaving sixteen guards under Bastion’s command to ensure the protection of the Princess Twilight Sparkle.

And she’d only just gotten used to one hulking protector constantly following her around...

“Everything ready?” she asked Austenite.

“No technical difficulties today,” he said sheepishly as he pawed at the ground with a hoof.

“Nervous?” Twilight asked with a grin.

“Everypony else was,” he quipped. “I was just, ah, reassuring them. You know, having met the Princesses before, and all that.”

“I see.” She turned to Applejack. “And how are things on your end?”

“Well, it took us a while, but the workshop’s clean as a whistle. ‘Course,” Applejack said as she playfully punched Austenite’s shoulder, “it didn’t help that your chief engineer here was tryin’ to pull stuff out faster than we were puttin’ things away.”

“You mean disrupting my workspace. I had everything exactly where I wanted it!” Austenite whined.

Applejack looked at him incredulously. “Disruptin’ your workspace? Sugarcube, you’d stacked a bunch of open paint cans under the desk in your office.”

“What was I supposed to do with them? Clutter up the hallway?”

She turned to Twilight. “He had pushed all the toolboxes in front of one of the bathroom doors.”

“Huh. I thought we used to have two of those.”

“Anyway, the place should be spic ‘n span from top to bottom.” Applejack tossed her a casual salute.

“And just in time, too,” Spike said. “Look!”

A dot in the sky over Canterlot split into two, then split again. Soon enough, a wave of ponies was spread across the sky, headed right for them. It was a salt and pepper formation, with both the pure white of Celestia’s guards and the jet black of the Night Guard. A team of four pulled a huge skywagon, presumably filled with unicorn and earth pony guards. In the middle of the huge formation flew the Princess of the Night herself.

They came in low over the treetops, passing over the group of researchers with a huge gust of wind. The formation, Luna in the lead, circled in a tight loop and touched down hard, making a textbook-perfect combat landing. As the dust settled, and the dazed engineers picked their jaws up off the ground, earth ponies and unicorns began pouring out of the skywagon. Pegasus patrols were dispatched to sweep the skies, and unicorns began scrying the land for any sign of danger. Luna’s arrival at Sweet Apple Acres had become the largest invasion the Royal Guard had mounted in over a thousand years.

“Hmm, a bit slow. Perhaps they aren’t working hard enough now that your brother is taking care of things in the north,” said Luna, watching the organized chaos unfold. “Still, the landing went as smoothly as anypony could’ve hoped, so it’s a start, at least.” She flicked a bit of dirt off of her forehoof, and flashed Twilight a wolfish grin. “And it’s just as fun as I remembered it.”

“Welcome, Your Highness,” Austenite said, the cue for everypony to bow. All the researchers bowed suitably deeply, though Twilight wondered why it was necessary, considering the fact that they’d all been acting like fainting goats a moment before.

Luna nodded serenely, “Thank you, Austenite.” She spied the orange pony to his side, “Ah, Applejack, my athletic friend! It has been too long.”

“Since last Nightmare Night, Your Highness.” Applejack swept her stetson off her head and bowed again with surprising aplomb.

“And Princess Twilight.” She turned to the shorter alicorn. “In charge of this fine bunch? Not quite befitting your station yet,” she teased, “but we’ll work on that later. Lieutenant?”

A soldier trotted up to her and came smartly to attention. “Yes, Ma’am?”

“Finish securing the area. And be sure you don’t embarrass yourself in front of the captain here.” She nodded towards Bastion.

“Yes Sir! Yes Ma’am! I mean, Yes Ma’am! Yes Sir!” The lieutenant fired off a series of rapid-fire salutes that were liable to sprain her fetlock, then flew off.

“And that is what worries me so,” Luna said as she watched her go. “Shining Armor took our most experienced companies with him. Most of the ones that are left look more like foals playing guard than the real thing. I know their training is superb,” she said as Bastion opened his mouth, “but there’s always something missing until they first taste blood.”

Twilight spoke up. “Luna? Perhaps we should focus on the matter at hoof instead of all this talk about—” she gulped, and glanced at the ponies beginning to squirm around her “—blood.”

“Of course.” The princess gestured towards the others. “Please, introduce the rest of your team.”

* * *

“As you can no doubt see, Your Highness, with the new rotary field, we can achieve a much higher degree of control than the prototype did. This also improved the efficiency by a significant margin—over sixty percent...”

Austenite tuned Zircona’s words out. She was doing fine—much better than he had done the first time he’d been in front of the Princesses. Besides, she was edging into the magical theory now—Twilight would be able to answer any questions the Princess had.

Despite the rocky start to the visit, his team had hit their stride once inside. It was a simple matter to show her the various models and prototypes, and demonstrate the different spells they could achieve. He and Twilight were escorting Luna around a tour of their workshop, shadowed as ever by Bastion. Spike had excused himself on ‘urgent business’ back at the library—probably for a very important nap. The pegasus smiled to himself. Years of living in Canterlot had probably taught the dragon how to avoid social functions.

As they came around, ponies would explain what they were working on, then it was right back to work. Despite the rank of their guest, Austenite was determined not to let the visit turn into a day off for everypony else. They had too much work to do already.

They spent perhaps an hour on that part of the tour. Luna seemed engaged, asking questions and commenting on everything she was shown. Twilight also seemed calm, but he couldn’t suppress the feeling that they were all just going through the motions, like the tour was just a prelude to some larger issue that was hanging over the visit. He knew Twilight could sense it, and he could see her trying to project an air of composure. So far the other ponies weren’t catching on, but his feeling of unease kept building the more they walked.

There had to be another purpose to Luna’s visit. And in the face of that unknown reason, Austenite’s brain kindly supplied him with all manner of wild suspicions. He couldn’t believe that Luna was there to shut them down. Luna had been their patron almost from the start—she’d even defended them in front of Celestia herself! But perhaps she was just the bearer of bad news? Maybe Celestia had decided that she didn’t need the spell matrix after all, and she had decided that Luna could break it to them easier? But Twilight was Celestia’s favored pupil—surely she would be able to talk to her? The walking gave him plenty of time to worry over every possibility.

“Well, Twilight,” Luna said, nodding approvingly as they closed out the tour in the drawing room, “I’m impressed by the way you’ve organized things here. You’ve made more progress in the past two months than I think anypony would have expected.”

The young alicorn smiled demurely. “Thank you, princess. I couldn’t have done half as much without everypony’s help.” She nudged Austenite with a wingtip. He smiled and opened his mouth to express his thanks as well.

“You’re going to shut us down, aren’t you?” Austenite blurted out instead.

Twilight, Luna, and Bastion all turned to stare at him. He kicked himself mentally—if they were being shut down, then bluntness wasn’t going to win over anypony.

“My apologies.” He cleared his throat. “You’re going to shut us down, aren’t you, Your Highness?”

Twilight facehoofed. He shot her a confused look. What? That was the polite way to say it, right?

Luna laughed. “No need to fear, Austenite. I’m not here to shut you down. Just the opposite, in fact.”

“The opposite?” he repeated.

“Yes. More bits, more material, more ponies. We will send you the top ponies in magical theory. Austenite, you’ll have carte blanche to skim anypony you want from the firms in Trottingham.” She swept a forehoof out before them. “Name it, and it is yours.”

The words were almost mesmerizing. What could he do with a tenfold increase in resources? A hundredfold? They would be ready in a weeks, not months. And then after? His rehabilitation! Offers from all the top firms, begging him to come work for them—no! They would be working for him! It would be his name on the wall. And all it would take was to say yes…

And that made warning bells ring inside his head.

Austenite frowned. “No offense, Your Highness, but I know a sell when I see one.” He turned to face the goddess, eliciting an intake of breath from Bastion. “Celestia gave us what little we have and just sent us on our way—why the offer of support now? What’s the catch, Luna?”

“You mind your tongue, pegasus!” Bastion growled at the omission of her title, stepping forward. “You best remember who you’re—”

“Bastion.” The single word was a command, and the guard instantly froze. Luna had said it as calmly as ever, but a deaf pony could recognize the displeasure in her tone.

“Your Highness. You can’t just let—“

“Captain, please,” she cut him off again. “This is going to be difficult as is. Perhaps it would be best if you left us for a moment. Princess Twilight’s guard must still be organized.” The words seemed to fade in the padded silence of the drafting room.

Bastion’s head drooped. “Of course, Your Highness. Your Highness,” he turned to Twilight, “I must attend to my duties.”

Twilight nodded, and the stallion slunk out of the room, tail between his legs.

“My apologies, Twilight,” Luna said after the door had shut again. “I did not mean for that to be quite so harsh, but I would much rather talk to you two alone.”

“What is this about, Princess?” Twilight asked uneasily.

Luna hesitated for a moment, weighing her words. “It is true—we want to give you all the help you need. We just require—that is to say, Equestria requires—a great many things from your spell matrix.” She tilted her head side to side. “The device you have shown me today is capable of a fantastic variety of spells already, but we require something more... ambitious, perhaps? Capable of some rather complex spells.”

“What kind of spells?” Twilight said, eyes narrowing.

“Spells that I would have to teach you.”

“Black spells?” Twilight asked alarmedly.

The room was silent. “War spells,” Luna said after a moment, “yes.”

Twilight’s eyes hardened. “You want me to design a weapon.”

Luna smiled mirthlessly. “You are so much like my sister, you know that? Yes. What we need is a weapon, desperately. You are one of the most gifted spellcasters I have ever seen, Twilight. With my knowledge and your skill, I’m sure we can come up with what we need.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can,” Twilight said indignantly, “but I don’t want to. I won’t.”

Austenite couldn’t hide his shock from his face. He knew that what he had done moments ago had breached a thousand years of ceremony, but somepony refusing to obey one of the Royal Sisters?

The Night Princess grit her teeth. “So extremely like my sister,” she hissed. “Before summarily dismissing the idea, did you even consider why we need this?”

Twilight crossed her hooves. “We’re not making a weapon.”

The Princess of the Night frowned. “War with the gryphons will come—that is my sincerest belief. They’ve attacked our home. They’ve stolen your work. The dignitaries and diplomats are still playing out their parts, but the course is inevitable. And however much Celestia detests the idea of war, she sees it too. The gryphons have gone too long without a challenger, and worse yet, they see our northern lands as their right. War will come in months, if not sooner, and we cannot afford to be caught unprepared.”

Again, silence invaded the drafting room. Luna looked down at Twilight, and Twilight stared out the window. Austenite said nothing. He’d learned a while ago that in times like these, it was easiest just to shut up and let the alicorns duke it out.

Luna cocked her head. “Twilight, your brother is the Captain of the Guard. Can you tell me how many the Royal Guard number?”

Twilight consulted the ceiling for a moment. “Around sixteen hundred, right?”

“Sixteen hundred sixty-eight, to be exact. And do you want to know my estimates for the size of the Hegemony’s army? Ten thousand.” Luna’s eyes glittered icily. She paused to let the number sink in. “Ten thousand strong in times of peace. With a few months’ notice, we figure we can draft another two thousand ponies. But that would hardly change the balance. Celestia and I agree with one another, for once—“ she grimaced “—that in our current state, we would be destroyed if it came to open war.

“That’s why we need you. Because without your spell matrix, Equestria will fall under the gryphon claw. We need an ace in the hole, a wonder weapon, something that will make the gryphons afraid to take a single step across our borders.”

“I-I d-don’t,” Twilight mumbled. “I mean, I wouldn't know the first thing about—”

“I do, though.” Luna said smugly. “I will teach you the war spells, and you will make the spell matrix craft them in turn. Simple, really.”

“This is what you wanted from the start.” Twilight finally turned away from the window to look back up at Luna. “To use our work to build a weapon.”

“It was one of my intentions, I will be honest with you,” Luna admitted. “But by no means is it the only thing I hope will come of your work. Just one necessary thing you must do to ensure Equestria’s survival,” she said earnestly.

“She’s right, Twilight.” Austenite finally spoke. “We may not want to do this, but we need to.”

“I know she’s right,” Twilight all but snapped. “I’m not an idiot, just as I’m not unaware that she specifically mentioned my brother to appeal to my pathos. Sorry,” she relented. “It’s just—“ she wrung her hooves in consternation “—how are you okay with this?” she asked Luna. “How can you just—just come here and ask me to make something that could kill thousands?”

Luna’s cyan eyes turned steely. “We can because we are princesses, and we have a duty to protect the ponies of our land. And I expect you’ll feel guilt and sorrow. I still feel regret over my actions a thousand years ago, even though I… wasn’t myself when I made them. We wouldn’t be equine if we didn’t feel those things.

“But you’re a smart pony, Twilight. You know that if we don’t follow this course of action, more ponies are going to die, and many more will have their lives destroyed.”

Twilight looked like she wanted to set fire to the whole room. “You’re right—I don’t like it,” she said sourly.

“It’s good that you hate this.” Luna smiled. “Maybe that way you won’t make the same mistakes we made a thousand years ago.”

“And what mistakes were those?” Austenite asked.

Luna pursed her lips. “The mistake in thinking that everypony was as ready for progress as I was. And believing that there was no measure too drastic to achieve that progress. But you two…” she considered them for a moment. “You could do it right this time. You could revolutionize all of Equestria without resorting to bloodshed.”

”Besides murdering countless gryphons,” Twilight deadpanned.

“A whole river of gryphon blood wouldn’t even come close to the atrocities Nightmare Moon committed.”

“But how many ponies could die in this war?” Twilight asked. “You said it yourself—the guard is outnumbered more than ten-to-one! Even if our spell matrix gives us the edge you think it will, the gryphons can’t help but notice that as well.” she pointed out. “And if they reverse engineer our prototype…”

“Then they’ll have an expensive parlor trick,” Luna scoffed. “Your prototype is a foal’s plaything compared to the models you have now! The gryphons know about as much about magic as an earth pony knows about flying.”

“But it’s there if they know how to look for it,” Twilight said.

“If they know how to look for it,” Austenite stressed. “It took the smartest unicorn and the… okay, maybe the fourth smartest pegasus in Ponyville to lift a feather, and it took us four months to do it at that.

“There is that,” Twilight agreed.

“It’s settled then,” Luna said definitively, before Twilight could qualify her statement. “I will teach you the spells. For the sake of security, only you two will know their true workings. You will configure the spell matrix to perform these spells, and then—“ she flashed a wolfish grin “—we prepare them for the field.”

* * *

Luna had retired from the drawing room, off to go find Bastion and make up for bruising the stallion’s ego. Twilight and Austenite remained, though.

“It’s necessary—”

“But it’s not right. Why does it sound like we’re trying to justify it?”

“We’re not. It wasn’t our decision.”

“We could still have said no, Austen.”

“You would have said no to one of the Royal Sisters?”

There was an uncomfortable rustling of feathers.

“Three years ago? No.” Twilight sighed. “But three years ago, I thought wars were only in books—none of those casualty figures meant anything. Three years ago I would have gone along with it out of blind trust. Now?” she said with wide eyes, “Now my brother could be numbered among the dead. Anypony we know could be.” She grimaced. “Now I go along with it because I actually agree with them.”

“Well, let’s save the morality for when the safety of the kingdom doesn’t rest on our shoulders.”

Twilight nodded firmly. “We have work to do. And Luna promised us anything we could ask for.”

“Anything we could want. So what’s the next step?”

The alicorn smiled. “We start building.” The two partners shared a knowing look.

“We start building them their weapons, and we start building our spaceship.”

* * *

“More, sir?” Eckhart looked up as a stack of papers slid onto his workbench.

“More,” came Kaspar’s smug voice. “Does it look like this will be of any use to you?”

Eckhart flipped his lenses up from his eyes and peered at the new delivery. “As a matter of fact, it does, sir.” Eckhart slowly rose, his eyes fixated on one of the pages. “Of course!” He wheeled around and padded deeper into the workshop.

Kaspar followed behind him, careful not to let the cub’s excitement infect him.

“Of course! How could I not have seen it? Of course this is the way to make the primary field uniform!” He shook the paper at the spymaster. “This is it! This is the last piece.” He read the notes again, as if to reassure himself that they were real.

“This is good news, then?” Kaspar pushed.

Eckhart nodded emphatically. “Oh yes, sir! With this, everything else falls into place.”

“Good. Then how soon can you have something ready to test?”

“A few weeks. A month at the outside.”

Kaspar smiled. That was something he had wanted to hear. That meant that Project Redoubt wouldn’t have to be moved back.

“And how powerful will it be?”

Eckhart smiled thinly. “The question, sir, is how powerful do you want it?”

Author's Note

Sometimes I'm really glad my editor doesn't live in a time where eugenics is considered a valid field of study...