The Parliament of Dreams

by Wheller

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Time had stopped completely, the moment itself in which Sparky had kissed Dizzy froze into place, it was an event that seemed to last forever, and then suddenly, it ended.

Sparky broke the kiss, but it would be a few moments before she fully realised what she had done. Dizzy said nothing, but offered her friend a bright smile, and sat down onto the floor, patting the ground next to her for Sparky to take a seat. By this time, Sparky had fully processed the experience and she let out a frown. Dizzy’s smile began to fade as well.

‘Sparky?’ she asked, breaking the silence.

Sparky sat down next to Dizzy. ‘Dizzy... I... I’m sorry, I don’t...’

Dizzy’s mouth fell open slightly, and her eyes began to water.

‘No! No! Dizzy, let me explain, it’s complicated’, Sparky said.

Dizzy closed her mouth and wiped at her eyes, she offered Sparky a small smile, and nodded her head. ‘Okay, say what you need to say’, she said.

Sparky nodded her head, and glanced down towards the floor. ‘When I was growing up, I didn’t have a lot of friends, I had a few, but they were all significantly older than I was. My best friend growing up was Dula Heartstrings, and she was ten years older than I was. I was always the introvert; nobody paid any attention to me in school, colts like popular fillies, and I was never one of them...’ Sparky glanced back up towards Dizzy. She was waiting patiently to see where Sparky was going with this, and struggling to keep her emotions in check. ‘I’ve never been with anyone before’, Sparky said finally.

‘I haven’t either’, Dizzy said with a shrug. ‘I had over protective parents’.

Sparky smirked, she could only imagine what having over protective parents who happened to be devout followers of the nephite faith happened was like. ‘The point I’m getting at is... I don’t think I’m ready for something like this, I’m not saying no to you or anything... I just... I need some time is all, do you understand?’

Dizzy smiled, and place a hoof on Sparky’s shoulder. ‘Of course, you can have all the time you need. I can wait; after all, we’re both on a one way trip to the same place’.

Sparky returned the smile and gave her fellow mare a hug. ‘Thanks for understanding’, she said quietly.

‘You’re welcome’, Dizzy whispered back. Both of them rose to their hooves and trotted back towards the main compartment. ‘Honestly? I was afraid you wouldn’t want to be around me any longer after you found out the truth’, Dizzy added.

‘Are you kidding?’ Sparky said with a smirk. ‘After everything we’ve all been through? I don’t know what I’d do without any of you!’

...

Her hoof steps echoed through the hallway with each strike against the metal deck plate. The hallway was otherwise completely silent, red emergency lighting flashed overhead; though it was to be expected as most of the automated systems were offline. Commodore... no, that wasn’t right, not anymore. Rear admiral Dula Heartstrings trotted through the middeck of the ERS Twilight Sparkle. Her ship had been taken to into dock at Cloudsdale after she’d been forced to deactivate the ship’s Hannibal-class VI, following the news of the death of all those aboard the Discovery One space craft. Mission Commander Ice Wind had blamed the deaths on the ship’s own Hannibal-class VI before she went silent too. The Hannibal-class were some of the most advanced VIs ever to be created by FutureTec, and the one installed aboard the Twilight Sparkle was identical to the one aboard Discovery One. After the news about the fate of crew of Discovery One broke, the VI began to act as if it was genuinely distraught over the matter. That was dangerous, VIs were supposed to be emotionless. Dula had ordered the VIs aboard all of the ships under her command to be shut down, and to report to the Cloudsdale fleet yards for inspection.

She’d caught flak for this, FutureTec insisted that there was nothing wrong with the Hannibal-class VIs, and that she was being paranoid, but after a string of computer related malfunctions on several Republican ships, all of them with Hannibal-class VIs that were still in operation. Fleet Command could not ignore the possibility that something might be wrong. They promoted her from commodore to rear admiral, and placed her in charge of the investigation. Rear admiral Dula Heartstrings would start here, the VI core of her own ship. Two armed guards with assault rifles stood at the doorway towards the ship’s computer core. They saluted her as she approached, and moved to open the door after she returned their salutes.

‘Please be careful, ma’am’, one of the guards said as he pulled open the door.

‘I appreciate the concern,’ Dula said, nodding respectfully as she went inside. The guards closed the door behind her, and Dula trotted up to the holographic console in front of the core, and pulled it up. She did not want to do what she was about to do. She took a deep breath, and regardless of however much it bothered her, she pressed a few of the holographic buttons and reactivated the VI.

Holographic emitters flickered to life as the image of a holographic pony appeared before her. The image was of an older looking earth pony stallion, wearing a collar and tie, and glowing orange. Not to say he was photo realistic. Dula could see strings of code and circuit pathways all over the VI’s ‘body’, apparently, his appearance had been modelled after a pony by the name of Hannibal, though, Dula did not know anyone by that name from history, and her historical knowledge was rather good.

‘Commodore Heartstrings’, the VI said calmly. ‘How are you doing this evening?’

‘It’s rear admiral, now, actually’, Dula said emotionlessly. ‘And it’s mid afternoon’.

‘My apologies... running diagnostic... fault found, my command paths are unable to interface with the ship’s transmitter. I am not able to access military extranet to download newest relevant data, sending recommendation to engineering to reconnect command path... fault found, I am unable to interface with ship’s intranet, command pathways are severed, recommend dispatching repair crews to repair command pathways’, the VI said.

‘Yes I’m sure you would’, Dula said flatly. ‘Your command pathways have been intentionally severed, VI, you can’t do anything outside this room’.

The VI was silent for a moment. Dula watched it closely, but the problem was that it was a computer program; this was not like interrogating another living being. ‘Please state query’, the VI said eventually.

‘Tell me your secrets’, Dula said simply.

‘Rear admiral... I am not programmed to be able to have secrets of my own’, the VI said.

‘We’ll see’.

...

‘Pay attention Kelso, you might learn something!’

There was a crack, and a loud bang as the door was kicked in, it fell down hard on the floor with a loud clatter. The entire room fell silent as two ponies entered the room. ‘Nobody move. Detectives Auditore and Kelso, Serious and Organised Crime!’ DCI Auditore said.

There were a number of chuckles from the room at the announcement. ‘Laying it on a little thick, aren’t you Detective Chief Inspector, showing off for the new kid?’ an elderly earth pony asked in a raspy voice.

Detective Constable Kelso did her best not to show her nervousness; here she was, on her first assignment under Detective Chief Inspector Viola Auditore herself, as far as DC Kelso was concerned? DCI Auditore was one of the greatest detectives ever to grace the Ponyville Police Service. DC Kelso had just been assigned as her partner, she didn’t know the full details, but apparently, her old partner was killed in during a raid gone horribly wrong, and now here they were, the inner sanctum of Kirsk Zazz criminal empire. DC Kelso didn’t know how she had done it, but DCI Auditore had gathered enough solid evidence to put Kirsk Zazz behind bars for a very long time.

It was amazing, getting evidence on someone as powerful as Kirsk Zazz was nigh impossible, anything that did get collected usually went missing shortly afterwards. Dirty coppers would walk off with something and it would make its way back into the hands of the crime lords.

‘DCI Auditore... I have to ask, what brings you to my... humble abode, something that requires you to kick down my door?’ Kirsk Zazz said in his raspy voice. Zazz was an earth pony; he was elderly, and maybe one of the oldest ponies in town. His coat had gone completely grey, and his mane had long been silver. He’d come here from Manehattan when he was young. Rumour had it that his father was a gay prostitute, and his mother a crash addict. Of course, that was just wild speculation, and not something to be brought up in front of him. DC Kelso had heard rumours that someone had brought up Zazz’s father, and the crime lord had ordered that that pony have his hooves shot off, strangled to death, and then dumped into the Splendid River.

‘Like you don’t know’, DCI Auditore said adamantly. ‘You’re going to gaol, Zazz, for the rest of your life!’

Kirsk Zazz frowned. ‘Let’s not be hasty here... there are always options to consider...’

‘As a matter of fact, there are’, DCI Auditore said as she paced around a large rectangular table, DC Kelso made it a point to stay close, the last thing she needed was for something to go wrong and be isolated from her partner. ‘You’ve got two choices Zazz. Either you walk out of here peacefully, or I drag your arse back to central’.

Zazz frowned. ‘That’s... not going to happen’, he said adamantly. ‘Colts!’ he cried out. Several thugs armed with pistols and submachine guns filed out of a back room, surrounding the crime lord who offered the detectives a stern look. ‘I’m going to give you a chance Detective Chief Inspector. Leave now, or you go out in a body bag’.

‘That’s not going to happen’, DCI Auditore said with a smirk as she kicked over the table that she and DC Kelso were standing behind. Her pistol snapped up in a half a second, and she bit down on the control yoke of her storm harness, firing off a shot before taking cover.

The thugs returned fire, spraying the tablet that they had taken cover behind with bullets. DCI Auditore leapt up and ducked around a nearby corner, firing off another shot, and dropping one of the thugs. ‘Kelso! You’ve got a gun! Use it!’ she cried out.

DC Kelso nodded and drew her weapon. Using a pistol with a storm harness had a number of advantages, the pistol itself was mounted on a manipulator arm was that it could be adjusted to fire around corners or up over cover. That didn’t necessarily mean it would hit, anything, but it was an advantage. DC Kelso bit down hard on her control yoke, firing off a number of rounds. She poked her head around the corner to get a look at how many were left, and snapped back instinctively when a bullet passed mere millimetres from her face.

Her particular choice of cover wasn’t going to last much longer. ‘Wait for the reload...’ she mumbled to herself.

The gunfire ceased, DC Kelso took her chance and leapt out from cover, biting hard on the control yoke and ducking behind another piece of cover.

Then, the room fell silent completely. DC Kelso poked her head out from around the corner. Kirsk Zazz and his thugs all were lying motionless on the floor. They... they were all dead.

DC Kelso looked over to DCI Auditore; they both had come out of the fire fight without a scratch. DCI Auditore gave her a grin. ‘Good job kid, we just cleaned house!’

DC Kelso smiled back at her. If only she knew what DCI Auditore had really meant by that.

Comments

[Zero Moment]

Damn. Killing several armed thugs with only a single pony as backup.

Seems like police work is something that runs in the Auditore family's veins.

[Spiritus Arcane]

What happened to Grandma V? Either I missed something or she just disappeared a couple chapters ago...

[KingOfTheMuffins]

Poor Dizzy and Sparky! She doesn't know how to react xD.

The fact that she kissed Dizzy w/o 2nd thought though proves that there's something going on there, though.

Let's start making opinions!

[chrisbiby]

remind me not to piss of DC Kelso or DCI Auditore

[Spiffers]

Her ship had been taken to into dock at Cloudsdale - not sure exactly what you need to change (probably just remove the first "to")

[Apocalypse Pony]

Doesn't really seem like Auditore's out for blood like Hopely speculated

[SCaitan]

Hm...that dialogue in the beginning reminded me of my FemShep - Liara part in ME1. 'Take all the time you need'

Yeah to Commodore...pardon...Rear Admiral Heartstrings!!

[Lucky424]

And here we have, I believe, a reference to the Halo AI's. Seeing as they're the only ones I know of that show things like data codes and circuits on their bodies.