Reflections Preview

Yup, you read that right. Here's a preview for the upcoming sequel to the Broken Mirror stories, Reflections. Be warned, spoilers after the break;

Canterlot Castle
Meteor Shower

“What the hell do you mean we’ve got nothing?!?”

“I mean exactly what I said General.” Comet spat in retort to my own harsh lines. “We have no communications, no reinforcements, no intel, nothing. We’re fucked!”

“I’ll second that.” A human called out as he rushed into the war room.

“Commander Tremble, where the hell have you been?” I asked.

“Dealing with our visitors. Only had a chance to break off once Tempest showed up.”

“Tempest… Cloud Runners is in play?” I muttered, turning to the holotable at the center of the room. “That means someone must know that something happening up here.”

“I would assume it must be the UNSC. Apparently Admiral Osman personally reequipped him, but that’s not why I’m here.” The commander said as he plugged a small chip into the side of the holotable. After a few seconds a still from his helmet’s camera rose up from the table’s surface. “Crossbow engaged this guy right here, along with an entourage of his robots.”

Personally I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Son of a bitch… That’s Kovac.”

“You know him?”

“Knew him, and thought that he was dead.” I replied. “We all thought that Dusk killed him during Operation Scorpion.”

“Well, you see what he’s carrying?” Tremble asked, pointing at the silver cylinder that was in Kovac’s hand, with a green LED strip shining brightly on both ends of it.

I studied it for a moment, and a feeling of dread slowly washed over me. “Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”

“I wish I could…” Tremble muttered. “He’s got a Havoc warhead, and it’s armed.”

“Wait, he’s got a nuke?!” One of the guards yelled in surprise.

“Does the man need to repeat himself? Yes, the crazy unicorn has a nuke!” Comet yelled.

“But how the hell did he get it?” I asked. “It’s not like we have any nuclear warheads in our arsenal, and Osman’s own records of equipment transfers to the Enclave didn’t list anything remotely as destructive as a Havoc…” For a moment I stopped to think. About a week ago these synths first made their appearance at an old property of mine, Manehattan Wire. And if the intelligence reports have been accurate, some force had been establishing site security there for the better part of the last two years. “Unless someone else had one.”

“What?” Commander Tremble asked.

“You heard me. What if someone else had one of these warheads?” I retorted. But as I was going on, I began putting some of the pieces together. Admiral Osman had already reequipped Cloud Runner… Furthermore she’s been a near constant presence here on Equis for the better part of the last decade. I had until now wrote it off as an attempt to atone for her actions during the war, but one important tidbit of information finally clicked into place.

And on all of those visits that I had run into her, there was one pony that was always with her.

“Dusk…” I muttered. “That warhead was his.”

“Uh… What?” Comet exclaimed, echoing the sentiment of confusion that was circulating around the warroom.

“Don’t you get it? Kovac went after Dusk first, at that party at Blueblood’s. He was upset, sure, but Specter showed up, who has been reported as dead for eight years, and then Cosmo cornered him… Dusk knew that Kovac wasn’t dead. He’s been waiting for him to make a move, and if my hunch is correct he hid the last quantum mirror in Manehattan Wire, probably hoping to define the eventual engagement.”
“But where does the warhead come in?” Comet asked.

I glanced at Tremble and nodded. “You know a lot more about these things than we do. Aren’t they variable yield?”

The aging human nodded. “If memory serves, you could get the detonation yield down into the kiloton range.”

“So you could level the factory without causing extensive damage outside of the site boundary. You could either engage Kovac and use the nuke as a last-ditch solution, or simply confirm his presence and use it to off him without putting others at risk.” I couldn’t help but feel somewhat impressed. “You know, if we weren’t dealing with a weapon of mass destruction I’d probably consider giving Dusk a medal for creativity…”

“We are dealing with a WMD, so put a pin in that idea.” Tremble curtly replied. “Now what do we do about this Kovac guy? Better yet why would he bring a nuke into Canterlot?”

“Well if he’s trying to off the Princesses, he’s in the wrong place… Tia and Luna are in the Griffon Kingdom for a trade summit. Maybe it’s some sort of payback for the loss we dealt him… Wait, Don, where did you run into Kovac again?”

“Ground floor foyer, solar wing of the palace. Why?”

“Right next to the entrance… What if he intends to take that thing down to the Nexus?”

“You mean that cave with all the freaki-deeki magic-” Comet stopped on the spot, obviously seeing where I was going. “Oh shit. Uh, didn’t we try to measure the energy that pit was putting out?”

I nodded, glancing quickly around the room before returning my attention to the two Special Forces commanders. “We did. Fried the instruments, but we got enough data to try to find an equivalent in energy output…”

“And if I remember correctly that data was very similar to readings that the UNSC took of protostars.”

“Right. A very unstable and unpredictable protostar…”

Now Commander Tremble was starting to look concerned. “So how bad are we talking if this Kovac guy detonates that thing down there?”

All I could do was shrug. “At bare minimum he could take this entire mountain and turn it into a mile deep crater…”

“Well that’s definitely not good.”

“And at worst he could create an explosion on par with a nova that could wipe out a sizable chunk of the solar system.”

Hearing that made Tremble’s face turn from a dull shade to near bone white. “My god…”

So I think it's safe to say that if you have a nuclear weapon, you might want to make sure that the government actually knows... Good going Dusk!