//------------------------------// // Chapter 57. Regrouping // Story: H'ven Sent // by otherunicorn //------------------------------// Being lost in the habitat was one thing. Being lost in the bowels of the ringworld was another! Nonetheless I was not overly perturbed. So far, most of me had managed to make my way as far up the elevator shaft as possible before I hit the aftermath of the battle. As to what my detached leg was doing, I had no idea. It didn't appear to be around to ask. I had briefly looked around the opening of each level as I passed them, and apart from a little debris, I had found nothing. A lot of defeated clockwork spiders had not fallen very far down the shaft. More had landed on them, become tangled with them and the tendrils, and as the battle proceeded, had formed an impassable plug. I was not sure how many levels down I was from where I had started, but I could not hear anything above me, so either there was still some distance to travel, or the battle was over and the other ponies had moved away. Not being able to proceed any further, I guided the damaged pod onto the highest level I could access, and parked it. Exiting it, I retrieved my food generator, which, thankfully, was stored in the part of the pod I still had. The pod really looked bizarre, sitting there with the rear wheel resting on the ground, and the body of it hanging in the air, as if the front wheel still existed. I moved away from it, before loading the food generator. I didn't want the damn pod suddenly failing and falling on me. I knew there were other elevator shafts that could be used to go up higher, but I did not know where they were. I could search for them, but not being familiar with what was out there, I could easily get lost. Sitting there, munching on my greens, I was beginning to form an alternative plan. Instead of searching for an elevator shaft, I would head towards Habitat Eleven, then blow a hole through the side of its cradle, allowing me to climb up from there. I was pretty sure I knew the correct direction to get there, too, as I had the mapper in the pod. I just hoped it wasn't damaged. I had just swallowed my final mouthful when a faint voice interrupted my thoughts. Had somepony come looking for me? It sounded like Cacha. "Hello?" I called, loudly. "Aneki, where are you?" Cacha responded. I knew her voice as well as she knew mine. This time, I had a better sense of the direction it was coming from, too. The voice had come up from the elevator shaft. I hobbled to the edge, and looked down. Sure enough, there was Cacha, partially protruding from her pod, a level below me. "Here I am," I said. Cacha's pod rapidly rose the remainder of the distance. I stepped out of the way, allowing her to move out of the shaft and park her pod. Within moments she had extracted herself from the pod. Immediately, she threw her forelegs around my neck, hugging me. "I knew you would be all right!" she said, planting a kiss on my armored nose. "Of course I'm all right. My left half is missing," I said. She chuckled. "Seriously injured, yet you still have a sense of humor." "I don't suppose you have found a stray leg?" Cacha released me, and pulled back a step, looking me up and down. "I see you have a replacement of sorts. I didn't know what sort of shape you would be in, because... well... your leg, yes I found it, is kind of... weird." "Weird?" "I don't know if you will be able to reattach it. It's sort of... grown." "Grown what? It can't have got larger... unless it decided to absorb something. Stop holding me in suspense. Where is it? How big is it?" "It's in my pod. Hang on, while I get it. It's not much bigger, but where it was torn off, it's grown these weird fins. I'll get it for you." Cacha retrieved my leg for me. Indeed, it was quite a mess. On the outside, damage from the clockwork spider's blades was evident, but as scars, not wounds. The turret was a twisted mess, and appeared to be the leverage point from which the limb had been ripped off. The inner surface, which should have been muscles, ligaments and blood vessels, had transformed into what Cacha had described as fins. A mass of these things covered everything that had been exposed. They were thicker at the base, tapering up to a fine frill. They weren't static, or limp, either. The bases would swell, then deflate, all the while the frills swayed back and forth. I sat there, mesmerized by it, wondering at the absolute marvel of the Storms' latest version of HELaTS. "Weird, isn't it?" Cacha asked. "It's brilliant," I said. "Why?" "It's keeping itself alive. It's sacrificed some of itself to make these little lung-hearts, and it's breathing and pumping blood to the rest of itself." "Wow. How long could it keep doing that?" "Maybe a few days. Even weeks, I guess, until it has used all of its reserves. Now, please excuse me a moment, while I pull myself back together." Sitting, I reabsorbed the artificial leg I had made from my weapon. Briefly, I wondered if I would need to do anything about the skin layer that covered my shoulder, or about the fins on my severed leg, then I realized I was over-thinking it. It would be a shame to see the demise of the preservative measures the HELaTS system, had employed, but they had fulfilled their purpose. I levitated the severed limb to my mouth, and kissed the fins. "Thanks, little buddies, you did a wonderful job." That said, I simply levitated the severed limb into place, closed my eyes, and imagined tendrils reaching from my shoulder to integrate with my leg. Flesh merged with flesh. Fins vanished. Temporary skin vanished. Bones moved back into place and breaks fused. The damaged turret was reabsorbed. I had four legs again. A few moments of observation and concentration smoothed out the scars, and I looked as good as new. My leg had gone from being it to part of me again. "Wow. That's it?" Cacha asked. "It should be. Feeling won't return for a few minutes. Didn't you practice having a leg cut off in the lab?" "No, thank you, I did not." "So that's why you refused to answer, back when I asked you how it went?" "I wasn't going to lie to you, was I?" Cacha said, sheepishly. "All the same, not telling you felt like lying." "You should have just told me. It's not like I would have got angry or anything." "I didn't want to disappoint you, either." I hugged the idiot. "Don't let stupid things like that come between us, ever." "Okay." She squeezed me back. "So, what happened, up there?" I asked, waving my numb hoof in the direction of the shaft, "and why were you coming up from below?" Cacha sat. "There were too many of them. They kept on coming, and we kept shooting, until there was such a giant mound of them, and bits blown from the elevator shaft, that it all became blocked. Then the smaller ones came, squeezing though the gaps, so we kept shooting and shooting. "The others pulled back, and when they were clear, Snow and I backed up too, and started blowing pieces off the ceiling, until the whole places was just a gigantic mound of rubble. The clockwork spiders stopped coming after that. "We had already found the front part of your pod, and your leg, so I grabbed that. Both had landed on our level, tossed there by the force of the blow that tore you apart. After that, we withdrew from the area and, I had a couple of the others guide me to the nearest alternative elevator shaft." Cacha waved a hoof at her pod, and I noticed for the first time that it had two tiny passengers – the breezies, Zephyr and Strawberry. I waved at them and they waved back. "We went down two levels, at first, but even that far down was blocked, so after that we went down six levels to be sure we cleared the blockage." "So, you decided to scout upwards before going downwards?" I asked. "It made sense. I didn't know if you would be up here, but going up three or four levels first was better than searching what is effectively a bottomless shaft. So, how far did you fall, or did you end up here?" I shook my head. "I don't know for sure, but it sure felt like a mile." "How did you survive a fall that far?" Cacha looked concerned. "I think I floated down in what was left of the pod." "Now, there's a good question. If you fell that far down, how come the remains of your pod are up here?" "I rode it up the side of the shaft." "In that condition? You're kidding." "Nope. For real. It's just about as tough as we are!" "Will you be able to drive it back to the habitat, or do you want to ride with me, even if it will be cramped with four of us in there?" "I'll try riding it back. At least that way, Snow may be able to repair it. I don't want to abandon her efforts," I said. "She'll be glad of that. When will you be ready to travel? How soon before you can use your leg properly?" "I'm good to go, already," I said. I scooped up my food generator, and stashed it in the pod's storage compartment. "Let's go." I swung myself up into the open cabin of the damaged pod, not even bothering to try to get its boarding system to work. Yup, my leg was fine. Cacha was lifted up into her pod, but left herself and the two breezies exposed. "So, did anypony else search for me?" I asked. "No," Cacha said. "They'd still be walking towards the shaft we used to get here, and even then, we figured their weapons would not have been able to deal with the resultant clockwork spiders. Only Snow and I were fast and powerful enough to be effective, and it made more sense to leave her as a guard for the others. Having stirred up that hornets' nest of clockwork spiders, the outsiders would have no chance of survival if they encountered more of them. Having Snow with them would at least give them a fighting chance." "So, how many clockwork spiders did you encounter at the second shaft?" "Just a single one, actually. There may be more by the time we could make it back there, in ambush, so we are returning via a third shaft." "You can find a third shaft with no problem? I'm surprised you chose Zephyr as a navigator. He was lost the first time we met him!" "Not fair," the tiny being voiced. "I was blown away that time. It's easy to get disoriented when you are being bounced and tossed about." "I am also an experienced scout," Strawberry said. Her mane and tail were the same color as mine. "Thanks for helping, little buddy. Thank you, Strawberry." We saw nopony else until we were just outside the habitat, where we found Snow on patrol, and Brainstorm tinkering with a weapon I had not seen before. It was reminiscent of the ship's main gun that I had destroyed a couple of years earlier, although of a much more manageable size. I waved to them from my exposed position. "Up, cracked egg glue!" Snow declared the moment she saw the condition of the pod I was driving. I took that to mean she wanted to repair it. "You can fix it?" "Of course. I have the front section. I was worried that you would abandon it. I see you have already reattached your severed limb. Are you all right?" she thought to me. "Yes. All good. No hospital stays. No long comas while nerves knit. I'll probably have nightmares, but it is almost like I am getting used to it." "I expect your brain will become accustomed to it with time," Brainstorm said. "All the same, not needing to become accustomed to it would be the better option. I'll get you to give me a full briefing later. I really want to know the details." "The little heart-lung fins were awesome!" I said. Plotting and planning was becoming somewhat of a constant for me, these days. It went with the territory of being the queen, even if most of those here did not know that. While I was not really a fan of this sort of thing, it did have the positive side of me not losing any limbs while so involved. I'd prefer to be out there, running – something I had not done for pleasure in quite some time. A grandiose table, with the throne and sculptured chairs placed around it. Rich, red carpet. Ornate walls and fountains. Well, not exactly. A dozen old cushions positioned around a few old packing crates on a utilitarian floor built to withstand the wear and tear of the passage of landing craft, and assorted functional fixtures and fueling points adorning the walls was a more accurate description. And my cushion had a prickle in it. I kicked it a couple of times, but that did not help. Present were what was becoming my standard group of lower level cohorts, minus one changeling queen, who we were keeping safe until she had some royal offspring of her own – Brainstorm, Stormie, Maisie, Briggs, Cacha, Snow and myself. On the other side of the table were Ultramarine, Heavy Hitter, a couple of breezies and another couple ponies who I could not identify by name. They operated as witnesses more than anything, because it was rare for them to say anything. "Clearly we misunderstood exactly what we were going to be fighting," I said. "We were expecting one, maybe two antibodies." Snow harrumphed. "Clockwork Spiders." "However, we were attacked by how many? There must have been ten of them before I was knocked out of the fight. How many more clockwork spiders did Snow and Cacha deal with before the area became clogged? How many are roaming around up there?" I asked. "Would you care to explain this?" Ultramarine looked somewhat taken aback. Heavy Hitter just sat there with his mouth hanging open, but not putting any hooves in it. "What? You have nothing to say?" I asked. "We... we have never experienced such an attack ourselves before! Do you think we set you up? We were also at risk!" Ultramarine said. "I had to ask," I said, shrugging. "It is my duty to protect the inhabitants of this habitat from all potential threats. Perhaps your earlier attempts awakened a greater response this time. How high up the shaft to the next level did you get on previous tries?" I was sure this had already been covered, but I asked again, anyway. "We've never got any distance up the shaft! We made it from the previous level and onto this one before an antibody response, and was able to defeat the one that eventually appeared because of that. Ever since then, just going too near to a shaft has resulted in the appearance of another antibody." "Okay, at least your answer is consistent," I said. "Clearly we need a new plan," Ultramarine said. "And a bigger army with better weapons," I said. I wondered how my trainer, 3G1 was doing with his recruits, and if they would be prepared to risk their lives for potentially gaining immortality, unicorns horns and dirty great guns. For that matter, there was the possibility of upgrading these outsiders too. They had experience, even if their training was haphazard, and a good percentage of them were already unicorns. "So, equip us with weapons like the one you use," Heavy Hitter said. "The unicorn weapon system only works on... well, on unicorns. It directly taps into a unicorn's magic. The unicorn doesn't even need to be good at magic, as the weapon systems deal with the requirements directly," Brainstorm said. "So, you are telling me you are the pony that has a way to turn unicorns into living weapons like Aneki, Snow and Cacha?" Ultramarine asked. "That, and more. We also have the ability to give your earth ponies horns, turning them into unicorns," Stormie said. "You have turned earth ponies into unicorns?" Ultramarine's voice was loaded with skepticism. "We have, twice." "I'll believe that when I see it," Ultramarine said. "Look at me and believe," Cacha interjected. "You're kidding me?" "Nope. Me and Snow. You don't think earth ponies with bat wings and unicorn's horns occur naturally, do you? They even restored Aneki's damaged horn." "Snow told us she was a construct when we first met them," Heavy Hitter said. "I thought she was being sarcastic. A construct? An artificially made pony? Really?" "Really," Snow thought to us. "What about pegasi? Can you convert them? Can you give them horns? Would that turn them into alicorn princesses? Or princes?" Heavy Hitter asked. "I don't know, and no, I don't think so," Brainstorm said. "So, you've not tried to convert a pegasus?" "We don't have any in Habitat Eleven. No, incorrect. We have one of them, but I have not met her." "Only one? What happened?" "War, millennia ago. Unicorns were pushed nearly to extinction and pegasi were eradicated. A small genetic pool of survived, isolated, on the bridge, and was recently rediscovered. That's where we found the genes for bat-ponies too. And that's enough said on the subject," Stormie said. "Oh. I had never considered a war could break out within a habitat," Heavy Hitter said. Stormie rolled her eyes. "It was a subtle war, mostly managed through reprogrammed modifiers, underground fighters and state sponsored extermination squads," Brainstorm said. "What caused ponies to fight each other? Do you know?" "Although we did not know it, it was actually a pony-changeling war. The changelings were fighting for the survival of their kind because they assumed ponies would have driven them out or killed them." "And that is very sad," I said, "because it was expected they would be boarding, disguised as ponies. Had either side bothered to address the other, there would have been no need to fight," I said. "So, when did this war end?" "When I accidentally blew up the changeling nest, and all but the youngest of their royalty," I said. "The youngest was quite amenable to a more cooperative existence." "I can imagine," Heavy Hitter said. "So, exactly how old are you?" "Perhaps you should be asking how long the war lasted," I said, without providing any information. "So, to drag this discussion back on track, Brainstorm, if I understand you correctly, you are saying you can equip a significant portion of my team with these powerful weapons," Ultramarine said. "I am saying that it would be technically possible, given resources and time, to convert a number of your team into living weapons," Brainstorm said. "So, what's the cost? What is to stop you from doing so?" "You are not from our habitat. In fact, you are strangers to us. I will not do anything that could risk our own habitat." "But you have a solution to this problem?" Ultramarine asked. "Become members of our habitat. Swear fealty to our queen," Brainstorm said. "You want me to swear fealty to some mysterious pony, sitting safe in her fortified palace? If I am, no, if we are to swear fealty to any pony, I would at least like to meet them in person, so I can judge their character," Ultramarine said. "That is not an unreasonable request. You will like her. Our queen is a leader, not a ruler. She doesn't ask of any pony what she would not do herself." "If that were true, would she not already be down here, with us?" "And if I were to say she was? You already know her," Brainstorm said. "You are kidding me. I know her? Surely not Snow? She is your queen?" Brainstorm laughed. "Snow is certainly old, powerful, and wise, but no, Snow is..." "Bolts!" Snow interjected. "Snow, as she just said, is a mechanic, an engineer, and an all-round tech-savvy pony, but she most definitely is not our queen." "How do you derive that answer from her one word?" Heavy Hitter asked. "Prior knowledge and experience," Brainstorm said. "Think about it," Cacha said, "instead of taking wild guesses." "With Snow's words? Oh, you mean about the queen is," Ultramarine said, "Okay. I think somepony said she was married to the oldest and most powerful stallion in the habitat, which, now that I think about it, would only help if I knew who he was." Brainstorm laughed again, and Ultramarine gave him a weird look. "Well, there are quite a few ponies down here that I don't know yet, but you said I already know her. The mare who was passing out food generators doesn't strike me as the type. The one with the funny robot riding on her back... no, not her either. Then there is Stormie, your wife. She certainly has the presence required, but then we go back to the oldest stallion clue. Brainstorm, are you...?" "I am the oldest male in this habitat, yes," Brainstorm affirmed. "And the queen is..." "My wife, yes. I have three wives, as well as a significant number of other mares in my herd." "Herds? I didn't think anypony practiced that anymore." "Remember, in the lower levels we have just six stallions, and currently around six hundred mares," I said. "Herds are inevitable." "Ultramarine, this line of questioning may get you there eventually, but you really are forgetting the biggest clues given to you," Cacha said. "Couldn't you just tell us?" "No. The queen is enjoying this too much!" Cacha gave me a subtle poke in the ribs. "So, she's here right now, and listing to us?" Ultramarine released a frustrated growl. "Cacha, you said you know the queen, didn't you." "I did. I do." Cacha smirked. "But you don't know her," Ultramarine asked me. "I said I have never met the queen." Ultramarine shook her head. To have such a visible tic while thinking could be rather annoying! "I... think... I'm getting it." "Oh, come on, Ultramarine," Heavy Hitter interrupted. "You are talking to her, now. It's obvious. Which pony is clearly the leader of those we've met? Which pony always takes on the most dangerous tasks, when she could easily delegate? Which pony does Cacha love?" "Ah! So, you've never met the queen, eh, Aneki?" Ultramarine asked. "No, I haven't," I said with a shrug. "Because you can't meet yourself," Ultramarine said. "Not without the use of a time travel spell, and I don't have one of those," I said, grinning. "You are a tease." "Yup." "... your majesty," Ultramarine added as an afterthought.