31 - Hard Lessons
Days of Wasp and Spider
by Luna-tic Scientist
=== Chapter 31 (remastered): Hard Lessons ===
Sersjant Galmr gave Olvir a long, hard look when he reported in, long enough that the gryphon thought he would be denounced as a coward right there, then slumped slightly.
"Flysoldat Bergthor, squad three is a trooper down, you will join them." He paused to wipe concrete dust from the side of his beak. "You made the right decision, Olvir. You are of more use to the Masters alive than buried under a hundred tonnes of rubble."
The words seemed to cause his sersjant an almost physical pain, and Olvir was glad he couldn't see Galmr's expression through his protective gear. He kept his own expression fixed and his spine ramrod straight, snapping his beak to show he understood. "Yes, sersjant, I--"
"Don't say it, flysoldat," he said, waving Olvir away with a dismissive gesture, turning back to organizing her part of the recovery operation.
Olvir watched the gryphon stride away, then let his own posture slump. Do you wish one of the others had made it instead, someone actually useful to you, or do you just wish I'd died with them? he thought, struggling to maintain his composure. Uncertain what he thought about that himself, Olvir trotted smartly over to his new squad.
He stayed quiet while they cleared rocks; the others talked little, just snapped at him when he wasn't fast enough or when they thought he wasn't putting enough effort into the job. The word had spread fast, and he cried out inside at the unfairness of it all.
Finally they'd finished as much of the grim task as was possible -- less than half of the missing had been recovered at all, but it had been worth it for the few they had managed to pull out alive -- and were ordered to fall back to the remaining vehicles while the airtanks dug themselves out with great blasts of dust and jets of blue glowing exhaust.
Moments later he and the two other gryphons of the fireteam were flitting down the corridor, sweeping it for any threats in advance of the now silently floating airtanks. Pumping his wings, Olvir flashed into the upper transit hub, curving around to sweep the area for any hostile surprises. This was something he'd been trained for; the half dozen gryphons of the advance team fanning out like a precision display team.
At nearly twenty lengths high, the hub was not the largest he'd ever seen, but it was still a cavernous space. Like most, it was circular in floor plan, with the arches of large tunnels piercing it at regular intervals around the rim. Overhead, in the high, vaulted ceiling, was a network of tracks for heavy lifting gear, showing that this chamber was originally part of the construction effort for this section of the accelerator.
Most of those tracks were down now, along with large chunks of the ceiling and parts of the perimeter wall. Great piles of the tetrahedral construction blocks lay scattered across the floor, providing a maze of cover for anything wanting to hide. Nerves singing, Olvir completed his inspection and sighed with relief when nothing took a shot at him. 'Advance scouts' my tail, he thought with some bitterness when Sersjant Galmr ordered him to make an extra pass near the tunnel entrances, I know when I'm bait.
Command was finally happy the hub was empty, so he joined the rest of the force hiding in cracks and amid the fallen rocks. Olvir found himself a spot near the top of one rubble pile with a good view of the chamber and was joined moments later by one of his new squadmates. The other gryphon pointedly didn't look in his direction.
===
Hakon placed the airtank hull down behind one of the larger piles of debris, with enough clear space around it to let him jump the vehicle in any direction he wanted. He kept a close eye on the ceiling; no obvious cracks directly above, but this whole structure was bound to be riddled with them and it wouldn't take much to bring it all down. The infantry dispersed themselves around the large chamber, hiding around the rubble piles and, in the case of a few gryphons, taking up sniper nests in the larger ceiling voids.
There were half a dozen big corridors branching out of the hub, single line levitation tracks spreading to all areas of the Institute, some even connecting to the lower hub and the deep tunnels, as well as the loading area underneath the surface shaft. Many of these were smashed; choked with tens of lengths of rubble where the shockwaves from the falling carrier had brought the ceilings down.
"Looks like this is it," Lazgo announced, calling up a ghost-like thaumic overlay and highlighting a hotspot. It looked good: somewhere behind the walls, moving at a steady pace towards one of the blank faced tunnel entrances, was a shifting patch of arcane activity. The source was in a side corridor and any moment forward elements of the force would have direct visual contact.
Neither airtank had direct line of sight, but that didn't stop Hakon from seeing what was happening. Collected from sensors distributed across all the troopers, the fusion of thermal, millimetre wave and light amplification lit the dark tunnel with a virtual light. The airtank presented this as a synthetic view, processing the image to make it appear as if the intervening obstacles were translucent.
The order was to test the servitor's power, so the airtanks would remain hidden while the rest of the force engaged. Despite this, Lazgo was already trying for a firing solution; a tight cluster of points appeared in the aiming circle, bunching and swirling as he prodded the computer to hunt for targets in its anti-personal mode.
A figure stepped out into the main corridor, maybe fifty lengths away, surrounded by a swarm of rapidly moving rocks and embedded in a field of violet light that made everything hazy and uncertain to Hakon's straining eyes. The computer wasn't fooled, and the laser aim points coalesced on the figure.
===
Command had placed a blinking marker in the little 3D plot sitting high on Olvir's field of view; it wasn't a single 'target' icon, but more of a diffuse cloud of probability, a location inferred by the destruction of the sensor network and what could be gleaned from the low resolution thaumic warning systems. Olvir already had his gun forward, safety off and reticule placed over the most likely tunnel mouth.
For the tenth time he checked the lie of the linkless feed ammunition chute, compulsively making sure it wasn't kinked. A click of the beak had the gun's management system interrogating each cartridge all the way back to the panniers on his hips. His gun was loaded with the standard 'Ripper' mix, alternating thaumokinetically boosted anti-armour fletchettes and smart fuzed multimode exploders, just as it had been when he'd checked only a few seconds earlier. And the few seconds before that.
The unwelcome feeling of fear resurfaced as that hazy patch of red crawled through the map display, and he sipped a little water from his harness' water bladder to try and alleviate his dry mouth. This just brought into sharp relief the sudden fullness of his own bladder, while simultaneously failing to quench his thirst. The tension rose still further and Olvir whined quietly at the back of his throat.
A dazzling point of deep blue light bloomed somewhere down the corridor, surrounded by a halo of violet that seemed to defy his eye's abilities to focus on it. The glare was so bad that even through his gun's stabilised and filtered optics he couldn't resolve whatever was making that light. Guessing that the light was from the pony's horn, Olvir dropped his aim slightly and gently closed his beak, taking up the slack on his bite trigger. A slight increase in pressure, no more than a kilo, and the autogun would fire.
The trigger pad compressed slightly under his beak, the mechanism pausing at the second stage. The gun knew the range, knew the approximate dimensions of his target, and had cast a stochastic pattern of impact points about his reticule. Everything was automatic; crystals in the bell-shaped muzzle would direct each round to its allotted position. Any single shot would gut the pony from throat to tail root.
Better hope you don't meet her.
The words of the gryphoness survivor rattled around his brain, turning Olvir into a single mass of coiled muscle, near to trembling with anticipation. One talon stroked the controls for his antimagic defences, although he wasn't sure what good they'd do against a pony able to pull a Security dropship out of the sky -- and in any case, his system was under remote lockout, just to make sure no one gave the game away.
One of the Masters -- obviously monitoring the feed from the aggregated gun cameras -- made the decision. A purple circle icon appeared around his armour's status display, at the same time as a rising series of three notes played through his earbud. Olvir was well trained; he was ready and his gun was on target. On third note he bit down.
The autogun bucked in its mounts, delivering the familiar stinging slap across the beak where the recoil forces weren't quite cancelled out by the shock absorbers in the trigger bar. In the blink of an eye, ten rounds were kicked out of the mass driver barrel at nearly a kilolength a second, then given a nudge by the firing computer to land in the precise pattern he'd already been shown.
Every gryphon and Master with line of sight did exactly the same thing at the same moment, creating an invisible storm of fire that should have turned the pony into a patch of blood and bone fragments spread halfway down the tunnel. Instead it just kept coming, shedding a cloud of sparks and dust from the pyrophoric immolation of the high velocity rounds, galloping on like some fire shrouded demon. Two disks of violet light, each the width of his spread wings, materialised near the creature, keeping step while it ran. They looked like sheets of glowing glass and should have been just as fragile, but ammunition able to punch through talon thick steel was being shrugged off like paper darts.
Heart beating almost as fast as his gun was cycling, Olvir fired again and again, to just as little effect. Out of the corner of an eye he saw a missile pop up from one of the power suits and dart towards the pony, only to suddenly veer off sideways and detonate at the paws of a second Master. Then more things started to explode.
The hazy violet cloud that surrounded the unkillable thing was a vast number of rocks held up by its telekinesis, orbiting the burning shape at great speed. Rocks that started to vanish, producing 'hostile fire' traces over Olvir's HUD as his sensor suite tracked the shock waves of their passage. Pale lines of computer generated light sprang out from the pony, connecting it to Security troopers all across the chamber. 'Squad taking fire' and 'communications failure' messages started to pop up in his HUD, and Olvir sank a little lower, switching to holding his autogun's trigger bar in one set of talons and only pushing his gun over the top of the rubble.
Even with the gunsight camera it wasn't a very accurate way to shoot, but he could see the rounds going home. Impacts were making the mound vibrate against his belly, a seemingly endless stream of incoming fire striking dust and fragments from the rubble pile. Where is the pony getting all that ammunition? he thought, she's putting out as much fire as a platoon. Olvir continued to shoot back, watching his rapidly dropping ammunition counter.
The awful truth dawned on him when he saw rocks spiralling up from the ground to join the swarm orbiting the pony. Nothing we're doing is making any difference. Olvir's stomach clenched and he fought the sudden urge to leap into the air and fly away as fast as he could. Finally, the pony entered the transit hub chamber proper and came within range of every weapon that the remains of the barricade team could bring to bear.
The pony seemed to know this; as soon as she cleared the archway her wings flicked out and thrust down, sending her arcing through the air in a path that seemed suicidal to Olvir. Every gun had a clear line of sight and, for an instant, the pony was caught at the centre of a converging sphere of fire, the individual shockwaves so numerous that the air itself grew hazy and curdled.
Olvir never found out if that actually killed her, for at that moment the airtanks opened fire. His visor saved his sight, the electronic layers going dark before he had a chance to witness the full glory of a multi megawatt laser strike. Enough light flooded past the gap between visor and beak to make him throw up a foreleg in protest, but by the time he'd moved the show was over, leaving only the echo of thunder and the rapidly fading glow of flash vaporised dust in the beam path.
Hanging in the middle of the chamber was a distorted puff of greasy black smoke. Not even a drifting cloud of feathers remained.
===
The route to the approaching Security forces was made convoluted by the general level of destruction. They had concentrated in the upper transit hub and didn't appear to be advancing into the Institute itself. At least I'm not going to have to hunt them down in small groups and risk one slipping past me. Standing on top of an unstable rubble pile, Gravity paused and tried to shake off the memory of the fear in Fusion's mental voice. Do I really need to do this? Should I? She kept the thoughts to herself, ever mindful of the faint presence of her sister at the other end of the tenuous sharing link.
For an instant doubt assailed her, joined by the various physical aches and a deep fatigue that extended to her very marrow, then Fusion was supplanted by a vision of Bastion. Battered and tear-stained, the Security pony had known the fight was hopeless, but was ready to attack her with everything he had. Gravity shook her head again and took a step forward to slide down the pile to the floor. They don't know what they lost by doing that. Well, I'll show them. At the moment they value us so little; it is time they realised that we are not to be disposed of at a whim.
The uncertainty vanished under fresh anger, taking some of her weariness with it, and Gravity started forwards again with new determination. As she moved the mare passed the time by destroying as many of Security's little robots as she encountered, in between bouts of building the teleportation pattern for their final escape. At least if I do need to leave in a hurry, I can. She allowed Fusion to see the pattern forming, something that seemed to calm the mare a little.
Gravity approached the upper transit hub with some care, trying to determine exactly what she faced. Her magic sight was better than Fusion's for this kind of thing, but it still didn't give her the information she really needed. The big, dense things -- the pair of lens-shaped vehicles with their thick armour -- were obvious, as were the scattering of lights from the magically active wing bones of gryphons, spread across all parts of the chamber.
The gryphons also had crystal thaumic systems in their armour and weapons, all of which were visible to the mare as coloured lights in the darkness. The same was not true for the powered armour the Master's wore; with their active defences off they were practically invisible to her shadow sight. Not for the first time, Gravity wished that Fusion was by her side; her sensitivity to energy would pick out the backpack fusion reactors with ease.
Still, she knew they had to be there, and probably at least a dozen, based on the number of gryphons she could see. A simple illusion won't do it, she thought, not with all the sensors on those suits. Gravity had not had long to inspect them, but it was obvious that an optical camera was the simplest system they had. I need to give them something they can believe in.
As she trotted down a rubble choked corridor and took short flights across gaping holes in the floor, the mare picked up odds and ends from the ruined rooms to either side. Bits of concrete that were the right size, a few lengths of fractured pipework, and four chunks of desktop were pressed into service for the weapon she was building. By the time she was close to the corridor attached to the upper hub, it was ready.
Trotting at her side was a large version of a foal's doll. Such things were normally made from scrap wood and grass and were no more than few hoof-spans tall; this monstrosity had steel pipe limbs and a concrete rubble body, with crude wings made from thick plastic lab desks. Gravity turned to face the thing, making it cock its head as if it were studying her in return. The fragments hung inside a haze of violet magic, moving at her command. It had been a long time since she'd made one of these, but her skill at telekinesis meant that its movements were incredibly lifelike.
Deep in the centre of its belly, protected by the shell from a pressure vessel, Gravity buried a water-clear crystal from an instrument taken from a laboratory on her route. The thing was tiny, smaller than the tip of her horn, but its perfect geometric shape and high arcane signature made it the ideal recipient for the clairvoyance anchor spell. She closed her eyes, opening them again to gaze back at her own face from a point level with the bottom of her chest. A quick adjustment to bring the view point closer to head height and she was ready for the final part of the deception.
A twitch of magic and dark blue fur condensed over the wreckage skeleton, long plumes of silky midnight blue filled with the sparkle of distant orbital debris growing out from its rump and neck. A few seconds later, New Gravity looked back at Original Gravity, then fanned her wings vigorously. Original Gravity winced at the sound of plastic boards crashing together, then shrugged. I'm sure they'll be too busy shooting to notice what you sound like, she thought. With shadow sight the collection of animated rubble was painfully obvious; any pony within half a kilolength would know that something was wrong. But you killed all your ponies, didn't you?
New Gravity reared up in front of Original Gravity, pawing the air. "The perfect likeness," she murmured, "right down to the fact that you are broken inside."
Don't think like that! Fusion's mental voice was sharp, her worry and fear almost drowned out by her sudden anger. For a moment Gravity could almost feel her sister's presence, imagining being shaken by white-gold magic, and she smiled slightly. You are doing what you think is right -- I think it is foolhardy, but it does have its merits. Just... just be careful, okay?
Gravity nodded quickly, her doppelganger mirroring her movements with the sound of concrete grinding together. "I will. No silly risks." The mare's mind slipped away to focus on the upcoming confrontation, excitement building once more and her attention becoming needle sharp. New Gravity stalked ahead, picking up more weapons as she went, rocks and metal pipes that orbited her in an ever increasing swarm.
===
Gravity moved around the final corner at a gallop, magic flowing into the cloud of rocks and making then hum and whine through the air. More magic flowed into her limbs and they blurred, moving faster than was possible for any mere flesh and blood creature. Her speed doubled and doubled again, vision narrowing until only the tunnel mouth was visible.
Her shadow sight, already dusted with lights from gryphons, suddenly blazed with colours as the geometric shapes of antimagic fields materialised all over the hub. Gravity immediately started to take fire; hypervelocity fletchette bursts that cracked like whips, mixed in with the blinding pulses of paw-held lasers. Mind starting to sing with the effort, she manifested several force field disks, manoeuvring them around her body to intercept as much of the fire as possible.
Now I know where you all are! The excitement of battle reached a peak and she started to flick rocks from her travelling swarm, little nudges of power that made the improvised projectiles crack the air with their own sonic booms. All of the magic she was employing, coupled with the constant stream of incoming fire, made things disorientating and her accuracy was terrible, but she was throwing a lot of rocks. Her attendant cloud was depleting rapidly, but there was plenty of ammunition scattered around; with every hoof-fall another shotgun blast of pebbles peppered the now visible Masters.
All of this had taken perhaps three seconds, long enough that she had actually entered the transit hub and attracted the attention of the heavy vehicles. Gravity watched closely as some kind of armoured shield flicked open, a bit like an eyelid, on a bulge at the top of each vehicle.
The size of the opening could mean only one thing: laser. A whisper of fear stole up Gravity's spine; no mere shield of rock would suffice against an energy weapon of that magnitude. They must be my main target. She jumped up, wings flicking out to take her in a high, gliding leap over the vehicles, when their weapons found her.
Her world turned a green so intense that it could only be matched at the surface of the sun. Tough though she was, there was no way she could survive power levels designed to punch through armour at fifty kilolengths. The beam strike vaporised metal and detonated rock, the sudden explosion defeating her telekinetic field and bringing with it a concentration-sapping pulse of pain that made all Gravity's magic fail. The world went back to normal, just in time for her to see the tail end of the laser pulse train reflect off the far wall of the corridor, as bright as Celestia at noon.
Gravity had been expecting this and clenched her teeth against the sudden headache; shedding the last vestiges of the clairvoyance spell, she reopened her shadow sight to check the locations of the vehicles. In one quick motion, she picked up a bundle of heavy metal stanchions, thrust them around the corner, and pushed. There was still no clear line of sight, so she held on to the magic and guided her weapons in an arc that took them over the intervening rubble to strike at the vehicles. The effort made the mare grunt, the fading pain in her head flaring up to a shocking brilliance that left her staggering and half blind.
Odd noises, all appallingly loud, echoed around the corner. Explosions and a rapid staccato thunder like the screams of a dying monster, all accompanied by green lightning flashes and a sudden rapidly building glare of white light, bright enough to make her squint even by reflection. Taking a deep breath, Gravity let the pain subside for a second -- to her immense relief, it was fading as quickly as it came -- then poked her head around the corner for one fast look.
The high ceilinged chamber was lit by jets of white flame spraying up from vents on the rear of one of the armoured vehicles. The noise was building in step with the fire, the shriek of gas escaping under high pressure. Even at this distance, the heat coming off the plumes was like standing too close to an oven; fierce enough to make the insides of her ears and the end of her muzzle tingle. The other vehicle was moving, as were the shapes of gryphon and Master, variously running, flying -- or in one case, falling -- to different locations.
The pain was gone now and the ever present weariness faded in the face of the sheer joy at being able to strike back at their tormentors. Lips curving in a hard smile that didn't reach her eyes, Gravity gave a low chuckle, completely unheard in the general cacophony. Somewhere at the bottom of her mind there was a flash of uncertainty, a worry that revelling in this destruction was not something a normal pony would do, but it just felt so good.
That gnawing thought held her back, dampening her enthusiasm and making her watch the activity in the chamber for a moment. It was a fascinating thing; all the soldiers moving in little choreographed rushes, repositioning themselves after her strike. As if they can hide from me! Gravity snorted, then focused her attention on the two armoured vehicles.
The first was obviously dead, but the second only had a crater in the upper armour. It was right where the laser mirror was, but the machine was obviously still in the fight -- and she'd be very surprised if it didn't have a backup system somewhere. "Time to put all that practice into good use," Gravity muttered to herself, collecting a small swarm of good sized rocks and setting them flying around her body. Still smiling, she held the last remaining pipe, a heavy metal thing much like the one she'd used that first time at the beam chamber, against her flank like a lance.
Grav, what are you doing? You've done enough, come ba--
"Just a quick jump to get around the back of them, sorry, going to lose the link." Fusion was still talking, a pleading tone entering her mental voice, but Gravity wasn't paying much attention. She called up the complex arcane pattern, excitement reaching a fever pitch and making the pains of her body and mind fade into the background. A few quick alterations and--
~~~ discontinuity ~~~
===
Olvir stared at the rapidly dispersing cloud, the release of tension almost making him physically sick. He'd just poked his head up over the top of the rubble pile when the first airtank exploded with a crack like a giant whip. Brilliant gouts of white fire sprang up from the rear of the hull, hot enough that he could feel the heat even here. Olvir stared open beaked at the burning vehicle, talons going slack and letting his autogun retract back along its track. In the harsh lighting he caught sight of a flicker of motion, something long and metallic glimpsed for an instant as it accelerated so fast as to become invisible.
Another hammer blow of sound and the second airtank staggered and spun, armour ceramic spalling from its upper hull. Smoke and sparks spewed from a long gouge that tracked from the top of the glacis plate and terminated at the shutter covering the laser mirror, like a slash blinding an eye.
There was a flash of violet from the bottom of his rubble pile, only a few lengths from where he hid; instinctively his head flicked around, big yellow eyes focusing on the source of the light. It was the pony, staggering as if she'd just tripped, surrounded by a collection of rocks floating in a violet cloud. Light seemed to flow from her, seeping from every hair of her coat like a gas. The mare's mouth was half open, big herbivore teeth exposed in what could only be a smile.
The instant calculation of a predatory mind combined with the futility of gunfire against this pony told him all he needed to know -- even if he could draw his weapon in time there was no point. In that same moment of time he leapt, wings half popping out from under their carapace panels to guide his attack, forelegs coming forwards with talons spread.
Multiple projectiles cracked the air around his body, while close by there was a thump of impact that registered below the level of his conscious mind; even without looking he knew the other gryphon was dead. His fall towards her seemed to be achingly slow, and Olvir had plenty of time to see a tangled lump of metal that had been circling the pony suddenly blur in his direction. He tried to turn, tried to dodge the strike, but even his battlefield grade nervous system and big, fast twitch muscles were not quick enough.
There was an awful blow on his right wing, an impact so strong that it sent him into a tumble, floor and ceiling blurring until he struck the concrete floor. He never passed out, but lay there stunned, looking up at the blue pony standing over him. She stared into his eyes, seeming to be almost as shocked as he was, then her gaze shifted to look at his flank. As if hypnotised, Olvir's head turned in that direction, inanely wondering what she'd seen.
My wing-- the thought choked off and he remembered the shoulder of the gryphoness he'd helped load into the ambulance. The bloody mess was barely recognisable; he was sure his real wing, its long golden feathers smooth and strong, was tucked safely away behind the sprung loaded panel running along the side of his armour harness. Disbelievingly, Olvir lifted one foreleg, reaching out with a trembling talon to brush aside the broken thing.
The act of touching it seemed to break whatever spell had taken root in his mind. That slightest of movements felt like fire was being poured down his side, an awful pain that crowded out everything else. Olvir turned back to look at the pony, unconsciously making the quiet, high pitched keening of a chick calling for its mother.
A telekinetic glow formed around his autogun, the tough composite cracking and splintering. More glows and a jostling that produced a spike of pain so bad that he couldn't find the breath to scream, then a violet tinged force gently pulled the visor away from his helmet. He stared up into the face of the mare, her smile gone and her eyes filled with some unidentifiable emotion, silently begging her not to kill him.
The glow around the visor intensified, crushing it into an uneven lump. "I'm sorry," she whispered, then stepped back.
There was a flash of violet and she was gone. Olvir blinked in confusion, half convinced that he'd gone mad, then curled into a ball as bullets turned the patch of concrete where the pony had been standing into gravel. The shooting stopped moments later, and Olvir started to crawl down the corridor and away from the lethal transit hub, whimpering and crying every time he jolted his wing.
Over his shoulder the explosions and gunfire started again.
===
Permission had already been given to engage and Lazgo didn't waste any time, immediately holding down the trigger. The nanosecond pulses of light superheated the air in the beam, sounding like the sharp cracks of a whip, even inside the airtank. A dozen near simultaneous strikes connected with the target, any one of which could have blown a hole through the servitor lengthwise, and it dissolved in a shower of sparks and flame.
Lazgo whooped again, but this time Hakon paid no attention. There was something odd about that pony-- The thought dissolved when the thaumic alarm went off and the airtank started to shake from rapid impacts, damage warnings flashing up in quick succession. There was a crashing blow from somewhere over his head; the high quality sensor feed abruptly died as the main mirror shutters failed to survive the strikes.
The displays on the inside of the gimballed sphere rebuilt themselves from the secondary sensors scattered about the hull, and Hakon's eyes widened in disbelief as the data feeds from the other airtank in the little squadron spiked with red flashing warnings. One side of the vision dome flared white as the other airtank suffered a catastrophic quench; its superconducting storage banks converting their stored power into heat in an instant, the complex structures vaporising and emerging from vents as jet-engine blasts of incandescent gas.
"Main mirror is dead; disconnecting from optical network," Lazgo announced in a shaky voice, "no damage to laser array. Routing full power to secondary units." There was a pause, and Hakon could almost hear the gears turning in his gunner's head. "What just happened, this one has never seen--"
Gunfire alarms sounded, red circles flickering over parts of the display where the external microphone array caught the pressure pulses of supersonic projectiles, backtracking them to their launch points. Fresh injury icons started to appear over the 'friendly unit' tracking boxes, first a pair of gryphons, then from the People in powered armour. Lazgo spun the targeting reticule, but whatever was shooting seemed to be in several places at once.
"No clear shot, multiple hostiles," Lazgo snarled, his fear giving way to frustration and anger at his inability to get a clear shot. He had the same full three-sixty vision as Hakon and the orientation of the airtank made no difference to his ability to shoot; the laser network would switch the beam to any one of a dozen secondary emitters spread across the hull. "Take us up to get over the rubble."
Hakon nodded unconsciously, muttering a report to the command staff back at the access corridor, despite the 'comms degraded' warnings pulsing in the status window. "Likely multiple hostiles, taking fire from several locations." Without waiting for any reply he fed power to the plasma drive, filling the transit hub with electric blue light. Dust blasted away from the high velocity jets, but the sensors compensated with infra-red and millimetre wave imaging to render the choking cloud transparent. The computer had finally located one of the shooters, hiding behind the still burning wreck of the other airtank, so Hakon lifted straight up and angled in that direction.
For a moment he saw her, a deep blue servitor surrounded by a collection of objects floating in a haze of violet magic, then there was a stroboscopic pulse of light, the exact same colour, and the pony vanished. Laser fire, brilliant in the dusty air, raked the spot where it had been, making the concrete explode and shatter. Mind focused on flying his airtank and trying to avoid areas where the ceiling had partially come down, Hakon didn't notice the second flash of light occurring at the same instant, until the proximity alarm warbled. His head whipped around, following the direction of the warning sound.
She was there.
How in the Maker's name-- The thought died stillborn and he stared at the apparition, half believing it to be another illusion, even while he yanked on the controls to run the pony down. Lazgo seemed too stunned by this unexpected appearance to use the airtank's weapons, and Hakon switched to cursing his useless gunner.
The creature was like no servitor he'd ever seen, and he began to get some inkling of how much trouble he was in when the pony lifted the large pole that had materialised with it. The pole vanished and his airtank staggered under a heavy impact, a wireframe model of the internal systems expanding to fill the lower half of the vision dome. Critical failure alarms sounded and Hakon tried to bring the airtank down safely, before it fell out of the sky.
It was only seconds before he realised the fight wasn't one he could win. The airtank hit the ground with bone rattling force, sliding to bury itself half in one of the walls. Shock mounts under his acceleration couch and the last vestiges of power from the drive saved his life, and Hakon was only stunned for a moment. Training and long kiloseconds of simulation work spurred him into motion even before his vision cleared, shaky paws dancing over the power system's virtual control panels, frantically trying to dump all the stored energy. Temperature spiked inside the main superconducting coils as safety systems, already damaged by half a length of steel pole shoved deep into the airtank's vitals, suffered a cascade failure.
Nearly a terajoule of energy was held in those coils. Inside the armoured power bay of the airtank, a part of the complex and dense mass of exotic element wiring exploded into vapour in less than a tenth of a second. This was only a small fraction of the total storage system, but this failure damaged the adjacent coils and started a thermal runaway within the airtank. The explosion delivered a solid shock to the back of Hakon's chair, his whole warning panel going red in an instant. Eyes wide with horror, he reached for the ejection handle between his booted paws. There was a fast building roar and a tremendous vibration coming from right behind his chair, the sound of white hot gasses trying to escape.
Bolts popped on the upper hull of the airtank, releasing the armour plate covering the pilot's capsule, but the rest of the ejection system failed to fire. Too much rubble overhead, bet the blow-out panels are blocked as well, Hakon thought, a fatalistic calm settling over him, despite the screaming and cursing from his gunner. He hunkered down in his couch and closed his eyes, thoughts returning to his long-time servitor crewmate.
"Hope your next crew treats you well, you old nag," he muttered, as the bulkhead behind him failed and flooded his compartment with fire.
===
~~~ discontinuity ~~~
--materialised in a pulse of violet light behind the burning vehicle, just as a storm of gunfire was focused on where she had been. The jet-engine roar had died away, but the smashed and cratered side of the vehicle still radiated enough heat to be felt through her fur. It was still mostly whole -- of the projectiles she'd thrown at it, most had been deflected, with only one hitting at the right angle to punch through the armour -- and still provided good cover from three quarters of the chamber.
For a moment she was dazed, the sight of the maimed gryphon twisting her stomach and paralyzing her mind. What did you think was happening to them, you stupid filly? You saw them in the tunnels; things splash when you hit them hard enough. Somehow those casualties didn't seem really her fault; they were just something she'd discovered in the aftermath of a terrible accident. Gravity shied away from that train of thought, but too late.
--the bloody, sightless eyes of the Security mare, her body slumped amid the wreckage of the first assault on the beam chamber, the sudden implosion of her magic at the instant Gravity's counterattack had overwhelmed her defences--
A sudden movement pushed the memory away, and Gravity saw her next target dashing out from behind a fallen chunk of ceiling, an insect fast biped with too many arms sprinting to the next bit of cover. This is better, she thought, get those responsible, not their slaves, letting fly with a fusillade of hoof-sized rocks. The shotgun pattern struck the figure high on the upper torso, hard enough to send it tumbling across the wreckage strewn floor. While it lay there, one arm moving weakly, Gravity struck again -- this time with a single boulder twice the size of her head. The rock shattered on impact and the suit's antimagic field flickered out.
The other airtank was moving now; its howling drive blasted dust and gravel in all directions as it came off crystal levitation and boosted for the altitude it needed to target her. Amid the chaos -- with over half the soldiers injured or dead, the rest hopelessly confused as to her real location -- the vehicle was uniquely vulnerable as it manoeuvred uncertainly in the confined space up near the ceiling. Gravity took the opportunity, picking up the heavy metal pole she'd saved as a combination club and lance, and--
~~~ discontinuity ~~~
--flicked her wings out, taking short strokes in the dusty air, in time to see the vehicle tilt towards where she had been, ruler straight lines of blinding green raking her hiding place. She was close, far too close -- barely outside the airtank's antimagic field -- and lashed out with her improvised spear, aiming for the emergency vents on the rear upper surface. Even as she did so, a quartet of miniature turrets on the upper surface flicked in her direction, armoured shields dropping to reveal secondary laser mirrors like hoof-sized eyes.
As she threw her spear the turrets moved again, dazzling green beams that would have turned her into vaporised blood and bone fragments converging instead on her weapon. Point defences designed to stop a small drone or missile able to get close enough to target the vents did little more than punch holes in the hundred kilo projectile; it struck home at just under the speed of sound, smashing through the lightly armoured vent covers.
Lightning flashed around the base of the spear, spider-crawling over the surface of the airtank and grounding on the exposed metal of the damaged ceiling. The vehicle's plasma drives started to flicker and it staggered in the air--
~~~ discontinuity ~~~
--and Gravity appeared in a gap between a fallen stack of roof blocks and another of the tunnels that radiated out from the upper transit hub, much to the surprise of the powered armour Master who'd also decided it was a good place to hide. She hadn't known he was there; he'd realised that his antimagic field made him visible without actually offering that much protection against a creature able to throw multi-kilo rocks at railgun speeds, but that presented its own set of disadvantages.
He was still trying to get his rotary cannon aimed when Gravity's force field flicked on for a moment. For a heartbeat nothing happened, then the figure slumped, the suit falling apart where it had been neatly cut from helmet to groin. Blood splashed out like it had been dropped from a bucket, near black in the violet glow of her magic.
Gravity froze as the hot liquid sprayed over her chest and legs, what remained of her bloodlust draining away as fast as the Master's life. The concrete jumped under her hooves, the shock nearly unbalancing the pile of roofing blocks she hid behind, immediately followed by the thump of something massive striking the ground. Light flared, but dimmer than before; even the terrible atonal shriek of escaping gas seemed muted.
Gravity shivered as the light brightened enough that she could see what she'd done to the Master, before clenching her eyes tightly and turning her head away. The mare breathed shallowly through her mouth, but the stomach churning slaughterhouse smell was inescapable.
Eyes still closed, Gravity swept the hub with her shadow sight. There were far fewer antimagic fields visible than when she'd started, but despite seeking them out she'd not accounted for all of the Masters. Even as she watched, a pair started to leapfrog their way across the chamber floor towards her, one in a shooting stance while the other moved. Their speed came as an unwelcome surprise; even now she could imagine them, invisible with their thaumic defences off, racing around the sides of the chamber to get her in their sights.
That's enough to slow them down, she thought, time to go. Gravity glanced over at the tunnel she'd used originally -- the second vehicle had hit next to the opening and the ceiling had come down completely -- then called up the teleportation pattern and slotted in the ready prepared memory of the space next to the beam chamber, and--
~~~ pain ~~~
--something flowed across the shadow world like a surge of water over a fire, extinguishing the bright glimmers of magically active crystals as it passed. The pattern Gravity was just bringing to life collapsed, the delicate, complex spider's web of colour dissolving like spun sugar in water. The mare's shadow sight disappeared, normal vision bringing with it a pulse of pain that dwarfed her previous headaches.
Gravity collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath and struggling to hold on to her magic. She clamped down on that strange connection she had with the moons, fixing the sensation of cold mass in her mind, trying to keep something, anything of her power.
Out in the chamber there were a series of hoarse cries and screeches, all cutting off abruptly as every airborne gryphon's flight magic failed and they plummeted to the ground.
A shiver ran through the mare, her mane and tail abruptly feeling lank and heavy after the last few kiloseconds of gossamer lightness. Despite her best efforts, the connection to the heavens narrowed to the merest whisper, so faint that she could barely feel it, leaving her with but a fraction of the strength she'd had. Even this took effort to keep, and Gravity thrashed her wings as she struggled to her hooves on the broken ground, fighting to weave what little power she had into a semblance of a shield against the suppressor.
The effort was a real, physical thing, like running a hard race or trying to hover in still air. Sweat rolled down the mare's flanks as she broke into a staggering trot, trying to put as much distance between herself and the transit hub full of undoubtedly angry Security troops. Wings half unfurled for balance, Gravity accelerated to a canter, then an uncertain gallop, trying to avoid the loose rubble and general detritus that littered the corridor floor.
The worst part was trying to juggle the attention required to see objects in her path early enough to avoid them -- a fall at this speed was bound to break something -- with the constant focus she needed maintain her tenuous link to the moons. Gravity's horn glowed with a dim radiance, its intensity totally at odds with the effort she was expending, but she didn't relent. The suppressor was a constant pressure in her mind, like a beast clawing at a door, horribly strong and screaming with deafening rage. She fought it with every stride, certain that if she let it in there was no hope for her.
If only I could have some peace to study this! she thought, finally dropping back to a canter as her strength started to give out. There was an underlying pattern to the pressure, a kind of semiregular oscillation that spoke of incomplete magical cancellation. It should be possible to reduce the effects, after all, that's exactly what the beam chamber shielding does. The mare started to weave the tiny amount of spare power she had left into a shield, something specific to this antimagic weapon.
Her concentration was shattered by the arrival of an ornithopter drone the size of a large dragonfly, the clatter of its wings barely audible over her pounding hooves. The thing kept pace with her, swerving when she tried to bat it with her own wing. It's one of theirs, she thought, her gait faltering, they've found me. Gravity abandoned her efforts to create a shield, diverting that portion of her meagre strength to try and grab the flying robot and hold it still.
She could feel it easily enough, but actually getting a grip proved unpleasantly difficult. It wriggled in the fitful violet glow, wings vibrating fiercely, and Gravity let out an involuntary groan with the effort required to hold it still. The mare could feel it slipping, rotating in her grip as it tried to fly away -- it was managing it, too; the remnants of her magic were outclassed by this tiny machine. Gravity skidded to a halt, reaching out to grab it with her mouth, teeth closing on the rear half, just behind the wings.
For a moment she felt it wriggle against her tongue, the elongated rear section squirming as if it was a real insect, then she bit down, as hard as she could. The light-weight housing crunched and splintered between her teeth, the thin carbon wings scoring fine cuts on the end of her muzzle where they sprung back to their resting positions. The mare kept chewing, getting the body between the big molars at the back of her mouth. Abruptly there was a crackle and a sharp, burning pain against her cheek and she spat, working her jaw to rid it of the suddenly hot wreckage.
The saliva covered drone hissed and sparked on the concrete; to complete the job she pressed one hoof against the sensor laden front end. It splintered with a satisfying crunching sound, but she didn't wait, immediately setting off for the elevator bank and its attendant ramp.
The further she went, the closer she came to the central shaft. The damage to the corridors became more severe, low piles of rubble frequently choking the whole width. The mare was reduced to a trot, then a careful walk, picking her way over the unstable piles. Lighting was very poor; most of the emergency lights had failed amid the shockwaves and general destruction, leaving the corridors in shadowed darkness. By now, Gravity's night vision had completely recovered from the insult dealt to it by the burning airtanks, enough that the feeble glow of her horn left the mare at the centre of a shifting pool of radiance.
Skidding down the back side of a particularly large rubble pile -- Gravity was sure the top of the mound was somewhere above the original roof line, but fortunately the collapse had been extensive enough that there was plenty of room to get over it -- she began to worry about the state the ramp would be in. With every step she took towards the utility core the damage became steadily worse. What am I going to do if the ramp is impassable? she thought, then shook her head.
Already she could imagine the insectile bipeds and their attendant gryphon soldiers pouring down the tunnel behind her. With the suppressor on they must know I'm vulnerable... and if they get to Fusion before me-- Gravity cut the thought off, trying to ignore the rising tide of panic, breaking into a trot despite the shifting and uncertain surface. There are other routes, but I only hope I made them angry enough to follow me instead. The mare laughed, a quiet, hysterical giggle that would have made anypony nearby take a nervous step back.
The constant pressure in her mind made it hard to plan, but she clung to the dregs of her power like a foal clinging to its mother's legs. There were no other signs of pursuit, and a small part of Gravity wondered why she'd not seen any more drones, or why the Masters hadn't just sent some robotic weapon after she'd destroyed that flying camera. Did I hurt them that badly? she thought. Perhaps they're waiting for reinforcements -- after all, where can I go?
The elevator bank finally came into view and it was as she'd feared. The cluster of shafts had a broken look, like a bundle of giant pipes struck with a hammer, great cracks and holes leading off to total darkness that seemed to be full of unseen horrors. Slowing to catch her breath, Gravity picked her way to the doors over the ramp entrance, eyeing the mound of rubble in front of them with dismay. Scrambling to the top, she pushed her horn through the gap between the damaged doors, trying to illuminate the blackness beyond.
There was less damage on the other side, but the doors -- originally designed to swing open in both directions -- didn't move when the mare gave them a tentative push with her head. She shoved harder and was rewarded by a grating sound and a little bit of movement, the crack now large enough to push her hoof through. "I can do this," she muttered, digging all four hooves into the rubble and leaning against the door, then pushed with all her might.
It moved all of a hoof width.
Gravity relaxed when it was clear the door wasn't going to open any further. Faintly over the sound of her pounding heart, she heard a little rattling sound. Probably just some gravel falling from the roof, she thought, but held her breath in case it came again, twisting her ears in the direction of the noise. There was another sound, not the rattle of falling pebbles, but an odd kind of slithering. The mare's eyes widened and she carefully made her way back to the bank of elevators.
There it was again; the sound of something soft rubbing against stone, coming from the empty elevator shafts. Gravity crept forwards, ears pricked and sweeping the darkness for any hint of where it was coming from. "Oh, no," she whispered, staring at the cracks in the surfaces of the floor to ceiling tubes, then rushed forwards to press her ear against one of the smaller fractures. Distorted and echoing, but loud enough to be clearly audible, she heard it again, then there was a puff of air as something fell past the opening. A smell of ozone and explosives, underlain by a hint of rank fur and dusty feathers.
The mare jerked her head back with a gasp, the sound echoed by a strangled squawk from the gryphon on the other side of the tube wall. For a moment the pair stared at each other, lit by the faint glow of Gravity's horn. She could see the naked terror in the half-bird's eyes, great round saucers bleached grey by the violet light, then the soldier moved, reaching with one taloned foreleg for the autogun over his shoulder.
"The pony is here!" the gryphon whispered in a strangled tone that probably should have been subvocalised, twisting on the rope that had lowered him down the shaft. He finally got the gun aligned with the narrow opening, but Gravity had already gone.
The mare let out a whinny and spun away from the bank of lifts, her paralysis broken when the soldier had moved. Stupid filly! she thought, why didn't you make sure the shafts were smashed when you had the chance! They obviously thought the shafts were clear, otherwise they wouldn't have used them; if she couldn't get through the half-blocked doors, they'd get to the beam chamber before her.
Desperation drove her scrambling up the rubble pile to slam into the door, knocking it open another fraction of a length. Now wide enough to get her head through, Gravity pushed in as far as she could, jamming her shoulder against the rim of the door and using her head to push against the other with the big muscles of her neck. The tactic worked and she managed to get both forelegs through the gap.
Now she was part way through, Gravity could see what was causing the problem. A mass of tangled metal -- part of the cable run and ducting system that ran along the roof of these less frequented areas -- lay wedged between the back of the door and the wall; as she pushed against the door the metal bent a little, springing back when she relaxed.
Gravity eyed the obstruction in dismay; the twisted plates and brackets were well and truly wedged in. She'd hoped for a few bits of rubble, something that once moved would stay moved. She struggled, trying to back out and get a better angle to push at, but the door had sprung back, digging into the soft flesh between her bony shoulders and the swell of her ribs. The mare wriggled, but couldn't get the leverage to retreat any further. She paused, catching her breath, and in the quiet heard a scrabbling noise from the direction of the elevator bank.
Panic filled her and she kicked out at the ground, bucking and rearing in an effort to drive her body through the gap. Sweat lathered her flanks and, painfully slowly, she squeezed further in, finally reaching her midshoulder and wing root. Gravity had already folded her wings fully back, stretching the tendons and muscles in directions they'd rather not go, and a burning ache was building up in the flight muscles that encircled her belly.
By now the pressure from the sharp door edges digging into her ribs was becoming almost too much to bear. Even if she could get back out the Security troopers would have realised that, despite her destruction of the drone, her magic wasn't a threat to any of them. Twisting sideways, she pulled her left wing up over her back, folding it through the opening and hooking it around the edge of the door.
There was an ear-shattering bang from somewhere behind and Gravity dove forward, pushing as hard as possible backwards with her wing. A surge of adrenalin and fear gave the mare extra strength and blanked out the ripping pain from her trailing wing, trapped between her torso and the other door. Almost mindless with terror -- and with her coat thoroughly lubricated with sweat and blood -- Gravity gave one last kick and tumbled free of the door.
The door snapped shut behind her as the springy metal relaxed, nipping the last joint of her tail through its covering of hair. The sudden pinpoint of agony overwhelmed the more distributed pain from her flanks and wings, shocking the mare from her panicked state. She jerked forwards, a bundle of long blue hairs pulling free from her flesh and adding an extra insult to the injury. Gasping and wide eyed, Gravity listened to the sounds of claws and paws scrabbling on the rubble in the elevator room, then a sudden, hard slam against the door she'd just squeezed through.
Jumping into motion, the mare leapt down the shallow spiral ramp, sliding on the loose fragments covering the smooth floor and colliding heavily with the curved far wall of the shaft the ramp was built into. Something wrenched in her right wing, another burning spike stabbing through the already abused muscles. Shocked and trembling, Gravity stared up at the door watching helplessly as it twitched open, something small and black poking through half way up.
Not a weapon, Gravity thought, as the object was pulled back, trying to kickstart her scattered mind, but the next thing will be. Pushing off from the wall, the mare staggered down the ramp, ears folded back in anticipation of another explosion. She'd made it a full turn of the ramp, and had accelerated to a drunkard's trot, when the expected happened. A shockwave stabbed at her ears, rubble and metal fragments striking the wall behind her and bouncing down the ramp to hit her legs, nearly robbing the mare of her precarious balance.
Sobbing with the effort, Gravity accelerated to a dangerously fast canter, half falling, half running down the ramp. Behind her there was the clatter of heavy booted paws on the concrete.
===
Fear and exertion made her heart pound and her breathing frantic, loud enough that she could no longer hear the sounds of pursuit. They were there; they had to be, so she pounded her hooves against the ramp's cracked and broken surface. She ran at the centre of a patch of thin violet light, the faint glow of the tiny bit of magic she'd managed to hold on to. Before her muzzle and behind her tail was nothing but a profound darkness, impossible to penetrate even with her excellent night vision.
She had almost no warning. One moment she was slipping and sliding on the gravel that lay in drifts over the concrete, the next the floor had dropped away into a yawning darkness. Useless wings backstroking in panic, the mare skittered over the rubble-strewn ramp, the broken edge approaching far too quickly. Gravity's precarious balance failed and her hooves went out from under her and she fell.
The landing knocked the wind out of the mare, but probably saved her life. Sliding on the rough surface, Gravity came to a halt with her forelegs hanging over empty space; down below there must have been one of the surviving emergency lights, the faint reflection of which showed where the spiral ramp continued. Stunned with the scale of this disaster, she stared down into the void, gazing helplessly at the smooth walls of the shaft where the ramp had sheared off and collapsed.
It was a good five lengths down to the next intact turn, nothing to a pony with working wings, but it may as well been on the moon for all the chance she had of landing safely. At this height she'd break every bone in her body. Rolling sideways away from the drop, Gravity climbed shakily to her hooves, ignoring the stinging pains from patches of abraded skin on legs and belly. Her ears twitched; there was the clear sound of boots on concrete, but it was further away than she'd thought it would have been, at least four levels up.
Was I that fast? she thought, momentarily mesmerized by the approaching sounds. They seemed to come in little bursts, like her pursuers were taking turns to move. She'd taken an insane level of risk, practically galloping down the treacherous ramp in near total darkness. And all for nothing. Bitterness and self recrimination welled up, mixed in with fury at her own arrogance. Should have listened to you, sis. They'll kill me and you, or worse, just continue where they left off.
The light from her horn brightened fractionally, some of the effort she'd spent on running freed up to add to her remaining power. Gravity felt the change and eyed the gap again, the anger fading as her mind, used to the physics of moving objects through space, unconsciously chewed on the problem and spat out an answer. Perhaps it will be enough, she thought. Whatever happens, I can't go back and I can't stay here.
Backing up a few paces, simply to get enough momentum to carry across the gap, Gravity listened to the approaching soldiers, then spread her wings and charged.
===
Gravity knew her wings wouldn't work, but she was so used to being safe in the air that actually jumping off the end of the ramp was easy. For a moment it was like any other flight, that fraction of time between leap and first wing beat where the magic would catch you and make physics look the other way while you soared heavenward. It was only a moment, though, and the sudden feeling of falling made the mare want to scream and thrash her wings.
She held on, kept her wings half raised like she was in the middle of a downstroke, despite every instinct telling her otherwise. Time telescoped, expanding the few seconds to a subjective eternity. As she fell, the visible detail of her landing site grew, a jumbled mass of rubble laced with twisted reinforcing bars where the upper turns had collapsed. There had been no time to test this plan and only a single chance to actually execute it should it even be workable.
The idea relied on the fact that the magic of horn and wing was linked, surrounding and filling a pony while she flew. Finally letting out the scream she'd been holding in for the last aeon, Gravity focused all her remaining strength on protecting her wings, thrusting them downwards at the last moment before impact. Shifting her attention from horn to wings came at a price, and the pressure from the suppressor intensified, sucking away her power with horrible speed. In moments it was all gone.
A moment was all the mare needed.
On that single, desperate, downstroke her feathers bit air, jerking up at her mid shoulders with a sudden, welcome, violence. Loose limbed and relaxed for the landing -- an instinct every pony had, and one of the few things she didn't have to fight against -- Gravity slammed into the ground hard enough that her legs buckled and her belly collided with the broken surface. Stunned only for an instant, the mare struggled to her hooves, feeling a sharp, stabbing pain along one flank.
Something ripped in her side as she jerked upright, staggering over the rubble to a relatively flat section, before turning to look at where she'd landed. A liquid, black in the dim green glow, glistened on a twisted section of reinforcing bar that jutted upwards like a gutting hook. Eyes wide, Gravity stared at the jagged metal, then turned back to the descending ramp, trying not to think about the patch of liquid warmth spreading along her flank. Breaking into an unsteady trot, the mare limped towards the light.
As she moved, Gravity probed the space where her magic had been. All but the faintest traces had gone; the remainder was shifting and nebulous, impossible to pin down. Try as she might, there was nothing left. It was as if she was a foal again.
The source of the green glow came into view, blinding to her dark adapted eyes. It was not some emergency light as she'd assumed, but came from one of the kits that hung on the wall at intervals. Something had knocked it off its bracket hard enough to break it open; the same shock had activated one of the chemlights.
Gravity pawed through the spilled supplies, kicking the slim glowing cylinder out from under the collection of other equipment that, had she been able to operate it, would have been incredibly useful. She spared a mournful glance for the stack of wound patches, then lowered her head to pick up the chemlight with her teeth. The stab of extra pain from her side made Gravity hiss through her teeth and she paused, fighting the urge to throw up.
Her ears twitched as the sound of claws on stone echoed down from the upper part of the broken ramp. This wasn't the stealthy, intermittent rushing she'd been hearing ever since she'd stopped her head-long gallop, but a sudden, sliding stop. Gravity smiled around the glowing plastic tube. That should slow the gryphons down, at least, she thought, but I wonder how far those suits can jump? She hadn't actually seen them fly, but the things could be very fast, and she wouldn't be surprised if they could jump down safely.
There was a sudden rush of sound and feathers, that of a large body falling freely, then a loud squawk and a near subliminal thump, followed by hoarse screaming. Gravity's already slightly crazy grin widened and she gave a near hysterical giggle, before resuming her trot down the ramp.
===
The sound of pursuit resumed almost immediately, but there seemed to be fewer of them. The noises also appeared to be different; fewer legs, but heavier pawsteps. Gravity picked up the pace, then nearly stumbled when the floor suddenly flattened out. I've nearly made it, only another couple of hundred lengths. The thought was wonderful, lifting her spirits now that she'd finished with the seemingly endless spiral ramp. Down here the damage was also less severe, and her uncertain trot accelerated into a pained canter, dodging the occasional block of fallen concrete.
The patch of fur between her wing roots itched with the anticipation of a shot, but nothing ever came. The temptation to turn and look, to discover exactly where they were and get rid of the uncertainty, was horribly strong, but the mare resisted, pushing on until she'd reached the final turn. Ahead was the long straight corridor leading to the radiation lock she'd smashed open at the start of this mess; with none of the twists and turns of the rest of her route, there was the risk that her lead wouldn't be enough.
As fast as the suits were, nothing could really match a pony for speed over ground -- one of the reasons she was glad that the gryphons had been held back by the collapsed ramp, although no doubt they'd be following as soon as a rope could be rigged -- but it wasn't as if the Masters would have to actually catch her.
Nostrils flaring, Gravity opened into a full gallop, ignoring the risk of a trip or fall. There was a cleared path, with the occasional mound of debris on each side, and she silently gave thanks that the Security ponies had done such a good job for the assault force.
Half way down the corridor and Gravity was at full stretch, head down and mane and tail flying back in the slipstream. A green lightning flash illuminated the corridor, throwing hard shadows against the walls and ceiling. The mare clenched her teeth around the chemlight and swerved to place one of the piles of rubble between her and the pursuing Master. I'll never get to the entrance without getting shot, she thought, searching frantically for an alternative.
She'd badly damaged this corridor when she'd cut up the walls to create enough wreckage to slow the Security force down, and this proved to be her salvation. Just to her right, almost hidden by a fold in the debris, was a curved hole a little way up the wall. Cut by her force field, the edges were razor edged and gleamed in the green chemlight glow. Too small, she thought, if I touch the edge… Her wings ached with the memory of her first encounter with such an opening, but the sound of running pawsteps was getting closer and the mare didn't hesitate.
Wings held tight and head lowered, Gravity kicked out with her hind legs and jumped through the opening. Forelegs pulled up to her chest, the pains of her wounded side were forgotten as she sailed past the cut surfaces with room to spare. Something tugged at her rear left hoof and the leap turned into a tumble, sending the mare crashing into the desks and chairs that filled the office area. Lying on her side and stunned for a second, Gravity stared at her hind leg, a little surprised to see that it was still there.
She must have just clipped the edge; a neat strip of skin had been removed from hock to top of the hoof, the surface of which looked strangely shiny and flat. The frightening thing was that she couldn't feel any pain from this new injury; the edges were so sharp that there was little signal from the severed nerves. A thin stream of blood started to trickle along her leg. The sight ran through her like an electric shock and the mare wriggled upright, trotting deeper into the complex of rooms surrounding the access corridor.
Will he follow me or just race ahead? The thought was a troubling one; she'd only heard one set of pawsteps, so at least there was only one to deal with. The confines of the office space restricted her movement a little; the rooms were sized for servitors, but the damage had thrown everything about. Despite this, Gravity was able to keep to a trot, with the occasional leap over some bit of fallen furniture. He'll race ahead, he has to. How much of a lead do I have?
The mare reached the last room, the one still holding the pair of discarded power suits and the hidden fuel-air explosive, and hesitated, ears swivelling to catch any sound. There was nothing, no running pawsteps, no clank of metal on ceramic. He's waiting, she thought, there is clear line of sight as soon as I leave the side room. She hopped from hoof to hoof. So close! The gap in the wall was large and she could get through it at a canter, if she wasn't worried about stopping.
Gravity was just nerving herself up to take the chance, when there was a subdued thump and a cylinder about size of an apple flew across the opening, straight into the radiation lock and on into the beamline chamber. The mare's eyes widened; it could be only one thing. There was no time to plan, only to react.
Her hind legs bunched and she kicked off, flicking her head sideways to throw the chemlight out in front of her. The glowing tube spun through the air and the mare followed it, all of the strength in her hips and back accelerating her to a gallop in the only a few strides. A blinding line of green slashed out at the chemlight, spearing the space Gravity would have been, had she been carrying it.
Two paces to go and the opening was approaching fast. There was a flash and bang from inside the beam chamber, dust blasting out of the opening. No, no, no, no-- The thought cut off as the searing thread of light pulsed again, somewhere behind her, but then the smashed radiation lock door flashed past and Gravity was back inside the shielding. The laser licked through the opening, blasting shallow craters in the floor and walls, followed by another of the cylinders.
Instinctively, she reached out for it and was delighted when the inside of the radiation lock lit up with pale violet horn light. The cylinder stopped in its flight, reversing direction and disappearing back the way it came. There was another explosion, quieter than the first, the sound muffled by the ringing in her ears. All of Gravity's aches and pains seemed to evaporate with the joy of returning power, a heady rush that filled her from horn tip to tail root.
It was the matter of a moment to throw a force field across the opening, then drag one of the discarded panels from the shutter system up behind it to block any laser fire. A single gliding jump had the mare inside the chamber, and she wheeled around to land in front of her sister and Lilac. Sobbing, Gravity pulled away the debris that had settled on both ponies, throwing it across the room in her haste to make sure they were unhurt.
Safe, praise the Maker, you are safe. Her relief was vast, the weight of the world vanishing from her back. It was a mere stroke of luck that had saved them; the grenade had detonated towards the back of the room, its fragments soaked up by the central instrument cluster.
"I'm sorry, I should have listened," she babbled, "we should have gone as soon as I could manage it." She gathered up Fusion and Lilac in her telekinesis, more magic reaching out to pick up the collection of hardware she'd taken from the Security force. The ready prepared teleportation pattern sprang into her mind, only a push away from being real. The mare leapt off the ground, ignoring the ache in her wings to hover with quick, sure strokes.
Something struck her force field, hard enough that it made her magic falter. More strikes followed and the effort required to keep the field up started to tax her weakened state. Gritting her teeth with the effort, Gravity held a lump of rubble over the manual trigger for the explosives she'd planted in the Institute, then pushed--
~~~ discontinuity ~~~
There was a pulse of violet light and the beamline chamber went dark. A slender, four armed biped burst through the opening a moment later, only to be greeted by an empty room and the fitful glow of a rapidly failing telekinesis spell. Half a second later the magic died completely, allowing a rock to fall a quarter length.
Shock tubes flashed yellow for an instant, then a searing wave of fire filled what was left of the underground facility.
Stats
Page generated in 0.044 seconds
Total duration
819 users online
1,139,047 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Has it only been six weeks? Seems like longer!
As a side note, I've discovered that I can either write two chapters a month or edit two chapters a month, but not both. Unfortunately this means that Wasp will be going back to a once a month posting frequency (with occasional extras when I have a good month).
Im glad to see this updated, I am, and its a shame this takes so long, but its superb quality. May the muse be ever with you, and really looking forward to the next chapter.
Wow, Luna got wrecked near the end there.
I'm guessing that Luna wears her royal boots (or whatever those are) to cover injuries like this. And Celestia just wears them too because she thinks they look rad.
Her wings also tend to be shorter than Celestia's in the show. Is this because she keeps clipping them on things?
whelp.
Hain't noMaster gonna be able to follow them now.
A month isn't that long. I can wait. I can.
3356792
Well, they've probably got scarring on their necks too, Celestia especially from the massive heat. It's the most interesting theory behind the regalia thus far, in my opinion.
And meanwhile, Discord is born. As if the Masters needed more shit to deal with. Let's hope it's not pretty.
3356826
I don't know if that's Discord, he doesn't have four arms, to my knowledge!
Maybe we're about to see the first appearance of the NMM smoke form?
Ahh, so it was a doppelganger made out of convenient rubble, I'm a little surprised that fooled the various targeting computers. Good way to scout out the laser batteries that needed some Kinetic Justice.
Ouch, so much for Hakon.
They really need to figure out how to punch through the magic suppressor fields. Well, that and coming up with some sort of defense against lasers.
Cutting it just a little bit close there, Luna.
I wonder where they just fled to and whether it's going to be safe long term. I suppose in theory they have the entire surface of the planet to hide on, so it might be more of a question of whether the Masters have any means of tracking them that works planetwide and if there will be enough cooperation from the other hives to let them do so.
3356826 I must have missed Discord, when did he show up this chapter?
Ok, long story with lots of positive reviews. Only thing keeping me from starting is wondering how far from finished it is.
I only ask because in the past 2 weeks I've blown completely through FoE Project Horizons, all 60 chapters of it, and now I'm stuck waiting for updates. :(
There's an extra "making sure" here
That should be a z, not an s
Damn, it's been a while but well worth the wait.
Damn, it's been a while but well worth the wait.
"antipersonnel", all one word
3357667
"stabilise" is the British way of spelling it. Doesn't really matter which form is used as long as it is consistent.
3357020
3357212
I'm pretty sure that thing that breaks out of containment is Discord. It's really just insane speculation, he's an infant chaos being and there's no guarantee that his first appearance even remotely resembles what we know him as. But it's more likely that it's some unique character that may very well serve as the first villain, in the traditional sense of the show, that the sisters go up against. Some uncontrolled force of nature monster created by the Masters for whatever reason. Or I'm a little high and full of shit.
This arc has been increasingly irritating me, with Luna repeatedly and unabashedly being stupid and not learning her lesson. I'm so glad the story's finally moving on, even though the combat scenes were pretty neat.
3356826, 3357020
Quick n'dirty edit to clear that one up -- the figure bursting in to the beam chamber at the end is the power suited Master that was chasing them. 'Four armed' because two normal arms and two weapon arms (the gatling and the crabs-claw); realised the confusion is because I only really described the armour in detail way back in chapter 6 (I think), so I'll need to fix that at some point.
3358894
Oh shit, that's right. I didn't even remember that he had four arms!
Another awesome chapter Luna-tic!
Initially, I thought Celestia had recovered and bailed Luna out of her stunt which could have been an interesting turn of events. Possibly the worst thing to come out of this for the masters is going to be faulty intel. I have a feeling that they'll assume that their blanket magic suppression systems are their best weapons against the sisters when it seems that between Gravity and Fusion a shield spell against it won't be particularly difficult.
Also if the suppression system works like I think it does by disrupting magic patterns with magical noise then with the power at the sister's disposal it seems like it would be trivial to create a larger pulse at the same resonant frequency which would catastrophically overload the systems.
3356745, 3356793
Thank you for your patience and I'm glad you're sticking with it!
3357205, 3357212
It's a cluttered environment (high magic, lots of movement), which makes life hard for the electronics, but even then it wouldn't fool them for long (fortunately it didn't have to!). No Discord, that was a case of mistaken identity brought on by my vague description.
3356792
Even the nastiest scars fade in time -- and time is something they have in abundance. Also I now have an image of Luna constantly banging into door frames with her wings.
3357667, 3357813
I'll fix those, thanks.
3358843
You know how it is with some students -- they don't get the message until it is beaten into them. In her defence (and mine!), the poor mare isn't having a very good day, having gone from a happy servant to a mass murderer in the space of an hour. She's learnt her lesson, don't worry.
3359327
Thanks! The real shock for the troops was that she was able to use magic at all while within the suppressor field (which is why they were not that fast in their pursuit). The problem the Sisters have is that to build suitable countermeasures requires exposure to the suppressor effect, which presents it's own problems...
3357502
That's a tricky one to answer. The whole story probably has at least another year to run, but I'm planning to split it into 'books', each one having closure to that part of the story arc.
So in a couple of months I intend to complete part one of Wasp, exactly because is has become so large as to make some folks nervous of starting. Part two will be a direct continuation and will start at the same time. Does that help/make sense?
3360082
Welcome! If I might ask: what prompted you to start reading it now?
I picked the 's' spelling because every single other (British English) word variant of euthanise uses the 's'; I was never able find mention of euthanisation in British English dictionaries to confirm or deny that. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!
3360397 Good to know. I'll keep an eye one it. :)
This has turned in to one of those stories where I can't wait to see it update, but I have to set it aside until I'm in the right mood to read it. I didn't want to touch it yesterday so I could work on my own story in peace, but after last night I was all up for some kickassery. Thank you Luna. Now please, get some sense knocked in to your pretty little head!
Now the question is, knowing what they do about the Masters and ponies, will Luna think of her family?
3360379
"She's learnt her lesson, don't worry."
>Nightmare Moon
You'll have to excuse me for not believing you, lol. Even if you have a completely different reason in mind to explain Nightmare Moon, you can't write her this way and not expect readers to think of her as now being on that path until the story proves otherwise.
3360797
Perhaps not, although there's plenty of time between now and the Nightmare (depending on how you draw your chronology). There have been plenty of bad decisions all round, all down to incomplete information on all sides.
3357205 Polished noble metal mirror. Rhodium or iridium. All lasers will bounce off highly reflective surfaces, no matter how powerful they are. It's the weakness of using photons. The laser mechanism must have mirrors to fire, which means another mirror can reflect it.
Charged particle beams don't have that weakness. They can only be repelled by powerful electromagnetic fields of the same polarity as the beam.
Now, if you have a focused neutron particle beam firing at you (however one of those could be created, right now they're only hypothetical as it's tough to make lots of neutrons go where you want them to...) you're screwed unless you have a magical field that stops all incoming matter and energy.
3360379
Quite a few things you write in seem to be in order to explain quirks in the show (why there are so many gems, for example), so I thought that these might be part of your little game. Looks like I'm wrong.
3363187
Only in this case! The rest of it, yes, I try to integrate as much as possible (at least as far as the early seasons; I'm expecting some breakage in S4, based on what's been shared already).
3363079
It's really tricky keeping that mirror optically perfect outside of a sealed housing, and to make one pony sized...
There is another solution, one that has been hinted at already (at least for the wavelengths the Masters are using).
3363375 Interference cancellation? Bending spacetime such that the beam just flows around you? (gravitational lensing effect) I can think of a couple that are nice and sciency.
And then there's the anime standby of just holding up your hoof and shouting, "YOU CANNOT BREAK THIS HOOF!!"
Seriously, I want a farce of this where Luna just goes Gurren Laggan on the Masters.
The lesson here is that Gravity and Fusion are terribly powerful, and when they put their mind and horn to it, can wreak untold havoc... but they are neither unstoppable nor invulnerable, and the combination of numbers, training and heavy weapons & armor means that the Masters and griffons will win if the sisters are foolish enough to try a pitched battle.
I don't think they will be, though, especially after Gravity's experiences and once Fusion is back up and running.
3357502
This guy as been updating at least once a month for I dont even know how long. Sometimes even 2 chapters a month. I totally recommend reading this as it's basically the sole reason I still visit FiMFic.
Pretty legit shit right here.
I'm honestly running out of people to recommend this story to. Quite a niche market for high level sci-fi with a pony skew.
Oh, and I think a found a near perfect song to go along with this! Shares name with the protagonist and everything!
I remember talking to you at some point about what kind of music the masters would listen to, and you suggested something high pitched. I think chip-tunes would be a likely contestant for DD music genre of choice.
I don't know if anyone has found these yet, but whatever.
Translucent.
Anti-personnel.
Anti-armour.
Nice chapter mate, keep up the great work
3368036
I think they must breed when I'm not looking.
Thanks, I'll fix those.
Fantastic as always. I look forward to seeing where the fugitives rematerialize, and what kind of fallout will follow for dog and pony alike.
Also, let's hope Gravity savors that humble pie in the future. Up until she figures out how to counteract antimagic fields. Then she will have full license to cackle.
This has been up for days and I haven't read it? Bah!
That was a very good chase scene, though I was half expecting her to break a leg from the number of times you mentioned the lighting and the the treacherous footing. Also, I realized in reading this that I've been picturing the airtanks as basically wraiths from the halo games, but with significantly more effective weaponry.
Hakon...
As a more general aside, if I bore witness to the horrors of the military industrial complex of the People, I too would want to let the remnant of a remnant of ponies who survived the insurrection to rediscover science on their own.
3374728
Without her magic, a broken leg would be a death sentence, so I couldn't go that far!
The airtanks -- a smoother hull than the Wraiths, but I see where you are going. What I had in mind were the antigrav tanks in Traveler artwork (vaguely lens shaped and streamlined; although I'm calling them 'tanks', they have a performance more like that of an aircraft).
3360500
Ah, there you have the nub of the problem -- what to do about the rest of the ponies?
3370248
Thanks! Give it time -- there will be a cackle loud enough to shake the world.
3366764
Free advertising, the best kind (I always knew this story would be a bit niche, ah well). I suspect the Master's music would be strange to our ears, too many frequencies above the human range.
Normally when this story updates, i'm all over it like a fly on shit. I just now got around to it, because i just seemed not to be in the mood, until now. Was totally worth the extra ~five day wait to be in the mindset for it.
3378835
I realize I've been imagining them as looking like the older Eldar grav-vehicles from Space Marine and Titan Legions...
3378835
I get nervous when you start saying things like that.
More good stuff, though I fell waay too far behind in my reading and commenting.
Poor Olvir. At least he might have lived, even if he's almost certainly a disgraced cripple
I initially thought the 'drifting cloud of smoke' was Luna teleporting away at the very last second. Clever of her to use a decoy, but I thought it would have been even cleverer if she had just retreated and let them assume they killed her (doubly so when the bomb goes off). Instead, they now know she can teleport, and is powerful enough to take down their hovertanks.
Don't get me wrong - it's great to see them kicking flank, but from a strategic perspective, these forces are small fry and killing them off personally vs. letting the bomb do it serves no purpose. At the same time, the more they engage in combat, the more their opponents learn. It would be much better to leave unknown capabilities in reserve (though given how paranoid these dogs seem to be, they might not have underestimated them all that much). I'm kind of glad she didn't figure out how to subvert the supressor shield just yet. We can be reasonably sure it's possible, but at least the Masters won't know yet. They did see her horn glow, though, so I guess it'd be too much to hope for any complacency.
So yeah, the decisions were a bit frustrating, but it does show character; their current inexperience, and foreshadowing Luna's eventual turn to the nightmare.
I can't help but wish it was the FIM Celestia - I'm sure those millenia of experience ruling would have let them foment a rebellion without the dogs knowing.
3356792
I've actually had a leg injury like that. Perhaps not as deep - I was shaving my legs - and after a few years the scar was gone. Not sure why. (Didn't notice it was there for several minutes, after which it took forever to stop bleeding.)
Oh poor Gravity. Poor all of them. I don't suppose they'll have time to rest up?
3364493
Powerful, yet inexperienced. Yeah. Power's great, but man have they got a lot to learn about using it. They can still be outmaneuvered pretty easily. As they are learning rather painfully.
3429342 I think it's implying she got cut down to the bone, but I'm not sure if you meant you did the same in your shaving accident. Scars do sometimes dissapear though, when they distort or migrate away from your point of injury.
Thanks for the comments, folks (sorry I've been so lax in replying).
3411389
All true, but if it's any consolation they'd have been found out eventually. It's really hard to completely distroy a body with normal explosives, especially when faced with a high tech forensic investigation. Now, if they'd had a nuke...
3429342
It's an odd experience when you cut yourself with a very sharp knife. I managed to cut across the underside of my fingers (simple carelessness); the knife hit and I didn't feel a thing. For a moment I though I'd gotten away with it, until it started to bleed. Fortunately it wasn't serious, I just went away knowing why you keep your other hand out of the way!
3429807
Not my intention -- just the skin (the 'shiny' refers to the hoof itself, where the top layer of keratin has been sliced off by the impossibly sharp edge). SynCallio's razor accident is a reasonable human analogy (that's what I had in mind, anyway).
3430674 Ah, so the scars wouldn't have been nearly as bad as I'd thought.
3357020 Of course Discord has forearms...
...
3366764
As far as high-pitched music goes, you're probably onto something with your focus on lively, synthesized music but I don't think I can really contribute any really useful suggestions.
Whenever I ask my memory for high-pitched music, I get "high-tempo with a melody that tries to avoid the lower registers". (Las Vegas (rsn, remix) from the Top Gear/Top Racer soundtrack, one of the two fastest songs in my collection with the other being Night of Fire (jp, lulz) as used in the Initial D anime)
However, if you like chiptunes, take a look at the album Analoga Stereoider by Dunderpatrullen.
The songs aren't purely chiptunes (some of them contain voice samples and they didn't try to limit the percussion and reverb effects to the capabilities any given chip) but I quite like them.
In my opinion, everything from #4 onward is good but I suggest starting with #5 (which also happens to be how I found it) and #6. Here are their official YouTube uploads, complete with entertaining video placeholder loop:
01 - Duns Duns Duns - Intro
02 - Blip Blop A Lula
03 - Falling For You
04 - Pingvinpalatset
05 - Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy
06 - Mint
07 - Crush Burn Repeat
08 - Machine Respawn
09 - Ultima
10 - Taekwondo Princess
11 - Pompadour
12 - Gamarna
13 - Maverick Mayhem
14 - Softworld
Oh Grav, you poor fool.
To the extent that Chaos is to blame for NMM, I expect the Creation Stones' main effect was to 'fix' what he did.
3360397
I probably should be staying out of this until I've finished catching up on the discussion, but what I remember being in here I would probably call two 'arcs'. Of course, you can work around that by saying "two 'arcs' per 'book'".
3411389
At first I thought she teleported or something too, but later on I realized: why'd she go in at all? They're in a room, aren't they? With the power levels she's playing with, if she just wants to kill them and/or wreck havoc, why not just turn it into a blender?