Planet Hell
Solocitizen
6.
You Are Not Alone
12th of Growing Season, 10,051 AC
In silence they rode the hyperlift to the Emperor’s Sanctuary. Just outside the windows to their right and left, storm clouds large enough to devour entire worlds churned and raged. Thunder Gale stared out the window at the light arcing and flashing in the clouds, just as his recently appointed Executive Officer, Lightning Fire, studied him.
“They don’t mention this at the Academy, but you shouldn’t do that to your crew,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Wandering through your ship and trying to socialize with your crew the way you were.” Lightning Fire held still as a statue. The only eye contact she gave him was out of the corner. “You’re not their friend, and they don’t think of you as theirs either. Prancing about the ship and making small talk with your subordinates makes them nervous. You can’t afford to keep them on edge like that. They have to envision you as a super-pony who’s invulnerable and lofty. Not like one of them.”
The vent overhead rumbled on and pumped cold air into the room. Outside in the wind and hail, a gunship emerged from out of the clouds and glided down to one of Kronos Station’s docks far below.
“What about you?” Thunder Gale spread his wings and turned to her. “Doesn’t bringing this up in the first place undermine that whole impression?”
“I don’t count, Major.” She didn’t budge from her spot. “I may be your XO, but I still hold the rank of general, and I’m here because you’re going to need a lot of help.”
“I thought you were here because you’re ambitious and want to get knighted?” Thunder Gale asked. General was a higher rank than most pegasi ever climbed, but even a general was still seen as a commoner or member of the nobility first, and a pegasus of exemplary personal achievement second.
“I’m here to serve the Empire in the best way I can.” She shuffled on her hooves. “As far as I'm aware, making sure you make it through your tours alive is the best way how.”
Thunder Gale stared at his reflection in the hyperlift doors. His mane was at regulation length and matched the blue on his officer cuirass. It was the same color as his father’s coat, and the same color as the stripes on the flag. His expression was solemn.
Nearly two years passed since the night of the palace bombing, and since Thunder Gale and his farther last spoke. After the attack his mother and sister had been declared dead and missing respectively, along with twenty others. Since then the empire had declared war on several earth pony-controlled worlds, vocational college swept Hill Born into another system entirely, and Thunder Gale had completed officer training and had been given his first command: a gunship called Spitfire. He missed Hill Born, a lot, but his mother and sister even more.
His promotion was a recent development, about a week ago, in fact. Almost immediately after the ceremony wrapped up and he toured the ship, he got a message from his father to attend a meeting with his inner circle of advisors and generals. He still didn’t know what to say to his father.
“It’s not that bad, sir.” Lightning Fire had spotted his bleak expression. “I read in your psych-report that you’re extroverted so I can understand how trying keeping to yourself is, but you’ll have plenty of opportunities to stretch your wings and socialize. The Spitfire is a gunship; she wasn’t intended to operate alone. We’ll spend most of our time docked in a Command Carrier, and officers from other ships will be around all the time.”
“It isn’t that.” Thunder Gale sighed. “Have you spoken to my father since the attack?”
Right then Lightning Fire stiffened up more than she already was. Her eye darted up to the camera mounted on the ceiling.
“No,” she said. “I saw him at your mother’s memorial service but I never got the chance to speak with him in person.”
“I’m worried, and in all honesty angry. I didn’t get to speak with him either. He’s always been distant, but not like this. He hasn’t been himself. Let me ask you something: when we found him in the corner of that hedge maze, did you see a green–”
“If you’re about to bring up what we saw the night of your birthday, I suggest you don’t. We don’t know who’s watching right now. He lost his wife and his daughter, and that’s all I’m going to say about this until we’re back aboard the ship.”
The hyperlift stopped, turned, and flung itself sideways along one of the arms jutting out from Kronos Station’s spine. Hanging from a geosynchronous platform, Kronos Station maintained a comfortable altitude in a gas giant’s upper atmosphere. It served as the nerve center of the Pegasus Empire’s military, the base of operations for the Imperial Marines and Sky Navy officer academies, and the wartime sanctuary for the Emperor. Thunder Gale would get there any minute, and he still didn’t know what to say to him.
At last the hyperlift pulled into the sanctuary, and the doors opened to the scent of flowers and blue banners that reached so high that they faded into the dark of the ceiling. Each banner bore the Gale Dynasty emblem, the manticore.
Thunder Gale and Lightning Fire stepped out onto a long carpet flanked on both sides by honor guards clad in gold and silver power armor. It was cold as they marched to the end of the carpet.
Past a set of doors as tall as the ceiling, generals and members of the Sky-Marshal Council gathered wing and hoof to slam tables together like aircraft carriers on parade. The walls were all lined with unlit holographic projectors. The generals and the Sky-Marshal Council didn’t acknowledge him or his XO, but instead fixed themselves on lining the table with their chairs. Thunder Gale grabbed a chair with his mouth and dragged it over to the table, and Lightning Fire followed right behind. The others whispered amongst themselves.
Without a word the Emperor strolled in, and the chatter fell silent. He watched his father and almost smiled, but his father didn’t even glance in his direction.
The Emperor stretched his wings and lowered himself onto the head of the table.
“Alright, boys, I don’t have all day so let’s skip to the important part,” he said. “I’ve asked you all here today to discuss the invasion of Arion and its surrounding colonies. They’re not like the earth pony trash we’ve been chasing these past two years. Arion is a developed world with a professional military and robust industry.
“Nonetheless, I expect nothing short of an overwhelming victory.” He swept his eyes across the pegasi gathered around him and hammered the table with his hoof. “I want to show the other tribes just what the pegasi are capable of.”
His eyes scanned the faces of every general, admiral, and advisor in the room but passed over Thunder Gale without pause.
“I’ve spoken with the Ministry of Culture,” he said, “and they assure me that the masses are hungry for war and will support an invasion.”
After the smoke cleared over the palace on the morning after Thunder Gale’s birthday, and his mother was found on lawn with eyes wide open and gazing at the sky, and surrounded by unmoving pegasi nobles, the emperor gave a stirring speech about revenge, and rallied the country for war. A terrorist organization operating on neighboring earth pony-controlled worlds took credit for the attack, and three weeks later a task force headed by the emperor himself appeared in orbit and bombarded the planet until craters marred the land where its cities once were. Intelligence tracked the organization to other planets, and so naturally, the cycle continued until an entire interplanetary nation lay conquered in the name of retribution. They never found any evidence of the terrorist organization on any of the worlds they slagged.
One of the Sky Marshals, a grey mare in ceremonial legionnaire armor, leaned forward and said to the Emperor: “We have numbers and firepower over the Arionese. A battle of annihilation is risky under most circumstances, but I believe that we can pull it off with minimal casualties. We could expect an unconditional surrender from the Arion government thirty-six hours after our fleets arrive in system.”
“The goal isn’t to simply ‘win’ a battle over Arion and bombard the surface,” the Emperor said. “I want to pave the way for annexation. The Ministry of Culture has also compiled a list of culturally significant museums and galleries. Above all else I want those sites preserved. After we’ve secured the system I want their collections brought here, to Hellas.”
Thunder Gale didn’t believe a word he was hearing. But it was all happening, and it was coming from his father’s mouth. What happened to preserving the balance?
"If we occupy Arion, casualties will be high.” Lightning Fire, who had remained silent until then, shook her head. “We can’t expect any less than at least two-hundred thousand troops dead each year for at least the first five years, and even more injured. You can expect even more if we start looting their art; it will be seen as an assault on their culture. As one of your advisors, I wish to voice my objections to this whole idea.”
“Lightning, you seem to be under the impression that I asked anypony for their opinion,” the Emperor said. “We are going to Arion and we are going to make them pay for safe-guarding known enemies of the Empire. We’re only here to talk about how. Is that clear?”
“Yes, your eminence.” Lightning Fire turned her head down at the table.
He watched the Emperor and Lightning Fire in stillness and in silence. He didn’t even want to breathe too loudly. He glanced at the faces of sky-marshals and the generals, and they were almost giddy with power, like a gang of bullies working up steam before stealing a foal’s lunch money.
But Arion wasn’t a foal. It was a planet, and one that was about as populated and diverse as Hellas. Thunder Gale stared down at space between his chest and the table and found the noble blues of his cuirass staring back at him. Sweat started to bubble up beneath his fur and feathers, and his heart beat, hard and fast in his chest.
“How reliable is our intelligence on Arion?” asked Thunder Gale.
He spoke up and all eyes in the room locked on him, including the Emperor’s.
“What do you mean?” The Emperor steepled his hooves and watched Thunder Gale from behind them.
“Our intelligence on The Somerset Compact was just flat out wrong,” he said. “The investigators we sent over couldn’t find any evidence linking the terrorists who bombed us to them.”
“That’s because they fled to Arion as we began the bombardment, which is exactly why we’re going,” the Emperor said.
Lightning Fire didn’t say a word, but she watched and listened to every word Thunder Gale said intently.
“Well, maybe we should consider doing our homework first this time.” Thunder Gale flung up a hoof and shook his head. Sweat rolled down his face, and his head swam. “Send the investigators over first before we, you know, gamble time, resources, and lives just to find out they had nothing to do with anything.”
"Do you mean to say that you disagree with my course of action?"
Time to be bold, he said to himself. Thunder Gale gulped down his fear and said: "Had you told me this morning that we were going to invade Arion, I wouldn't have believed you. Lightning Fire had a point there and you shut her down for being the only one making any sense here. I don't know where you managed to find the rest of these ponies, but they're either completely incompetent for going along with this or utter psychopaths for actually thinking this is a good idea."
The Emperor glared across the table at Thunder Gale. The generals and sky-marshals squirmed in their chairs, uncertain whether to get up or to stay. Lightning Fire stared at him unblinking.
Finally, the emperor barked the words, “leave us,” from behind his hooves and they scurried out. He and the Emperor stayed right where they were.
“You’ve disgraced me in front of my supporters,” the Emperor said once they were alone. “For much less than that I could have you thrown in a hole so deep you’d never see the light again.”
“It’s been two years, dad, is that all you have to say to me?” Thunder Gale asked.
“No son of mine would have brought such a disgraceful attitude to this table,” he said. “You’ve shamed the Empire and soiled my image in the eyes of my supporters. I have nothing more to say to you.”
“Yeah? That’s too bad, because I’m not done with you.” Thunder Gale pushed himself out of his chair, stomped up to the Emperor and jabbed a hoof right at his chest plate. His ears slanted back against his head as if on the attack. “I don’t know who you are, but you are not the same pony who taught me about loyalty and responsibility. He would have rather died than tear the galaxy apart on some revenge trip!”
The Emperor swatted his hoof away and huffed. He glanced at his golden cuirass in utter disgust. He shoved off the table and dropped onto all fours.
“I can’t believe it.” Thunder Gale shook his head and chuckled. “You care more about the fact that I touched you than you do about everything I just said.”
“This conversation has reached its conclusion.” The Emperor flicked his tail. “I have no intention of altering my plans just because you made a scene here today. All you’ve done is demonstrated that you are incapable of falling in line and unworthy of that uniform.
“If you can’t act like a pegasus, I won’t treat you like one.” He gave Thunder Gale his back and tapped a button on the wall. “Guards, arrest Major Gale and have him thrown in the brig. I don’t ever want to see this traitor again.”
“Is that it?” Thunder Gale laughed. “You’re just going to lock up your only son?”
“It’s strange,” he said. “I’d thought you of all ponies would understand why I must do this. And no, you’re not my son.”
Everything that followed passed as a dream. The honor guards stormed in, swarmed around The Emperor, and pinned every inch of Thunder Gale to the floor. He got a taste of linoleum while they clipped his wings to his body and shackled his hooves. They dragged him all the way back to the hyperlift and, while accompanied by no less than six guards, sent him on his way to the brig.
It was cold on the descent, as the guards kept him down on his side and his back to an air vent. There wasn’t any arguing with powered infantry without a suit of his own, and he wouldn’t have tried even if he did; his mind was too busy replaying what that other pony said to him.
Past their hooves and their steel wings, and the hyperlift windows, a squadron of gunships rumbled by the station and joined an armada of lights massing in the clouds. Thunder Gale remembered thinking, they’d only rendezvous here if they wanted to keep those ships from view; I’m looking at the invasion fleet. In a few weeks those ships will appear over Arion.
He veered his eyes to the floor. The space between his stomach and his heart knotted up.
The hyperlift stopped and the guards forced Thunder Gale onto his hooves and to march up to an official who carried boredom in his eyes. He asked him yes or no questions from behind a desk.
After the questions, they removed his shackles and shoved him into a room in the back.
They ripped the uniform from him and ran a scanner over his body. They even took the pendant his mother gave him from his neck and threw it in a drawer. He didn’t normally wear clothes, or at least not when he wasn’t on duty, but as he stood there in front of those officers and their gadgets and the cameras, he never felt more naked.
At one point he thought of fighting them, of lashing out with his powerful legs and bucking the smug expressions from their faces, but he knew just how long that’d last, so he resigned himself to their judging eyes and cameras.
After they finished their scans they pushed him down a hallway lined with blast doors. They opened one up and threw him behind the bars of a cell. There was no light in there, save for the dull light from a window to the outside, and once the guards locked him in his cell and slammed the door to the cellblock shut, there wasn’t any sound either. The floor was cold, and smelled faintly of urine.
For a while he sat too shocked to think, but then he got angry, and he flung his hooves on the bars and rattled them while shouting: “Let me out! I don’t belong here! I’m the prince!” But no response came, and his temper cooled.
Thunder Gale wanted to stay strong, as doing anything less would admit defeat, but as far as he knew he was alone in the dark, and at some point he stopped caring. He lay down on his stomach, rested his head on his hooves, and wept rivers in the floor.
Hooves shuffled over concrete in the cell beside his.
He shot up. Even after his eyes adjusted to the dark, he couldn’t see past the bars.
“Hello?” Thunder Gale shouted. “I know you’re over there! Come out and show yourself. Where do you get off watching me like that, huh?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you,” said the voice of a mare. “I didn’t know how you’d react so I just tried to stay quiet.”
“I…” Thunder Gale backed away, and slumped down on his hindquarters. “It’s okay, today hasn’t exactly gone well for me, and my temper is running a bit high.”
“So,” she said, “if you don’t mind me asking, how did you end up here?”
“I had just been put in charge of my first command.” Thunder Gale didn’t show the tears in his voice, but they still ran down his cheeks. “My father called me in to talk about an upcoming invasion, and I gave him a piece of my mind, so he threw me in here and disowned me. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s okay, I didn’t mean to pry,” the mare said. “I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you want.”
“No, it’s okay, really,” he said, “I’m actually kind of glad there’s somepony else here.”
He lost himself in the floor for a minute.
“Things aren’t going to be the same for me after today, are they?” he asked.
“I think I know how you feel, though, if it helps. One minute all is right in your world and your whole future awaits you, and the next you’ve fallen so low that you struggle just to know how you got here, let alone where your future is headed now.”
Thunder Gale’s ears perked up and pivoted toward her voice. He picked himself up and sat down beside the bars.
“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.” He leaned against the bars and tried to get a glimpse of her face without success. “How’d you get thrown in here?”
“I was here to finish my residency.” She laughed a little. “I’m one of the youngest ponies in my graduation class. My residence advisor, Doctor Caring Hooves, said I was one of the most promising surgeons she’d ever worked with.
“Then she found out my grandmother was a unicorn and she accused me of sabotage,” she said. “I’ve been here for two, maybe three days now. I cried nearly that whole time. But then you came, and I stopped.”
“Why was that?” Thunder Gale asked.
She stepped closer to him right as the storm outside flashed, and for the first time, he glimpsed her face. Her eyes were wet and her coat was tear stained, but her smile carried warmth. She wasn’t any older than he was.
“The worst is over,” she said. “Despite everything that’s happened and everything they’ve taken from me, at least now I have somepony to talk to.”
“I’m Thunder Gale, former Prince of the Pegasus Tribe.” He shot out a hoof for her to shake. “What’s your name?”
“Breeze Heart.” Instead of shaking his hoof, she grasped it in her own.
He tensed when their hooves locked together but he didn’t once think of shaking her off.