Ponies and Lasers and Clankers, Oh My!

by Tekket


Chapter 2 - Unexpected Developments

1:43 PM, Twilight’s Castle, Ponyville,

Twilight was having a great dream. In it, her invention was finally working. The metal mare stared at her with pink glowing eyes and quietly swept up all the remains of the previous attempts at creating it, all while Twilight supervised it with a smug grin on her face and Spike, somewhere down on one of the lower levels of the castle, was running around and crashing into things while yelling at the prospect that a suit of armor had seemingly come to life.

While she was very happy that her creation was working properly, and not only that, but it was following her instructions exactly, without hesitation or question, she couldn’t help but think that everything (other than Spike’s little freak-out) was going a little too smoothly. It slowly dawned on her, that she had been staring at the same scene playing out for easily ten minutes now, and the pile of broken Metal Mares was only growing the longer the working Metal Mare swept it up.

Twilight started freaking out, however, as the Metal Mare duplicated and the second version began walking towards her, speaking in an urgent tone that was completely out of place on its blank metal face.

“Twilight, Twilight! You need to wake up! Something’s happened! Twilight wake up!” For some reason, the second Metal Mare spoke in Starlight Glimmer’s voice, and that scared her more than anything.

Suddenly Twilight’s eyes flew open as she felt somepony shaking her violently.

Starlight Glimmer was standing over her, shaking her shoulders in an attempt to wake her. When she noticed that Twilight had opened her eyes, a string of emotions flew across her face including anxiety, relief, and… for the briefest moment Twilight thought she had seen excitement there, but it was quickly replaced by a small scowl.

“Jeez Twilight, for a Princess, you sleep like a log, although I guess that’s to be expected after how much you’ve been working lately. Anyway, there’s something you just have to see!”

Starlight walked over to the window and opened the curtains, letting sunlight into the room, and Twilight nearly went blind as the light invaded her eyeballs with a searing pain.

“Ahhh! Why is it so bright!? Close the curtains before I go blind!”

"Twilight, it's already almost two in the afternoon. I know you stayed up late these last few nights, but I still think you should let some sunlight in-” Starlight said, but was interrupted by Twilight teleporting to the window and quickly yanking the curtains shut again.

“I- I just need… some time for my eyes to adjust, alright? These are heavy curtains and it’s really bright outside. Anyway, what was it you were talking about? What do I need to see?” Twilight asked with a huff.

“Well, I really think you should see for yourself,” Starlight replied with a grin that was eerily familiar and set Twilight on edge, “I think you’ll find it… enlightening.”

“Starlight…? What did you do?” Twilight asked suspiciously, but before she could question the unicorn further, a crash from downstairs and a short yell told her that something was up with Spike.

“Come on, Twilight, you’re going to miss all the fun!” was the only reply she got before the unicorn mare left the room. Tentatively following her through the corridors of the crystal castle, Twilight realized that Starlight was leading her to the one room she’d been spending more time getting to know than any other room in the past week. They were going to her workshop.

When Starlight opened the door, and Spike saw Twilight standing in the doorway with a bedhead, and still in her pyjamas, a brief look of confusion crossed his face, but it was gone instantly as he ran up to greet her in a huge hug.

“Twilight! I don’t believe it! I thought it didn’t work last night, just like you, but then I finally came in here after lunch to clean up some of the mess you made over the past week, and, well… look!” the teenage dragon yelled excitedly, talking so quickly his words blurred together.

Twilight looked to where Spike was pointing, and saw the Metal Mare standing beside the table where it had been the night before.

At first Twilight couldn’t quite place what was off about what she was looking at, but after a minute of silence she realized: it wasn’t laying in a heap on the table where she had left it the other night, and it wasn’t sitting against the wall, it was standing. On its own. A quick look to Starlight made sure that she wasn’t using her magic to hold it up, so Twilight looked back at her creation.

It made no sound and was motionless, so Twilight walked up to it and waved a hand in front of its face. The only thing that was different about the Metal Mare was that its eyes glowed a light pink, the same color as the crystal that was supposed to power it. When Twilight waved her hand, the suit of armor did nothing, so she decided something else.

“Can you hear me?” Twilight asked the Metal Mare. When it did not respond in any way, she asked again, “Can you speak? You should be able to speak, are you working properly? How are you working? You shouldn’t be working, the spell damaged the crystal.”

When the Metal Mare did nothing but stare straight ahead with its glowing pink eyes, Twilight looked back at Starlight and Spike, both of whom were wearing large smiles, and she returned them with her own flat stare.

“So you can make its eyes glow. I know you guys mays have wanted to cheer me up after so many failed attempts, but this was hardly the way to do it. This just got my hopes up, and it was just… cruel. You should know better,” Twilight said, tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes.

“I actually thought for a second… I-I thought… it was…” The Princess of Friendship couldn’t finish her sentence as all the emotions of hope she had had with her projects over the last week disappeared to be replaced by hopelessness at her failures. Even two of her best friends… they may have meant well, but-

No, they had known what they were doing. This was some kind of joke, and Twilight had had enough of it.
“Twilight, we weren’t trying to hurt you, here, just-” Spike started, but anything else he was going to say was interrupted by Twilight’s growl of frustration.

“I don’t want to hear it Spike.”

“But Twilight-”

“No, Starlight! I don’t want to hear it! I can’t believe you would try to do something like this to me,” as she started accusing them, Twilight’s voice began to crack with emotion, “I worked my hands, hooves, and wings off trying to make these Metal Mares work. And I thought you knew how important they were to me. To turn this into some kind of… some kind of joke, is just cruel. I don’t care if it was intentional or not, I know you could have decided something else and-”

“Twilight, this isn’t-”

“No! Get out! All of you, I just need some time to myself. All of you, right now, get out!”

Twilight was about to start crying right there; she had failed, she had failed and would never get the darn spell right, and all her efforts to help the ponies of the guards would be-

But something caught her attention right before the waterfall of tears erupted. The clank-clank-clank of metal on stone (or rather, on crystal) caused her to pause and look back at Starlight and Spike, but, now they were joined by a third figure.

The Metal Mare was walking toward the door of the room with slow, methodical steps, and its hooves on the palace floor were what was making the sounds. It did not regard the unicorn or dragon at all as it passed them, and as soon as it made it out past the doors, it turned around and stood, staring back into the workshop.

At first, while Twilight had seen the glorified suit of armor walking, she thought Starlight had been using her telekinesis to make it appear as if the Metal Mare was walking on its own, but no ethereal glow could be seen either from her horn or from the Metal Mare the whole time, and when it stood looking back in the room with its blank, pink gaze, Twilight whispered, “but… how…?”

Spike smirked before replying.

“Twilight, you told us to get out of the room. All of us.”

****

“Sir, our scans of the planet have shown that it is teeming with life. There are several settlements, and sentient beings confirmed across the planet’s surface, but they do not appear to be very technologically advanced. From what I’ve been able to gather with our short-range scanners, they don’t seem to use much in the way of electricity, and there are very few radio and other EMR waves originating from the planet.”

“Good work, 44498. 29554, have you figured out where we are yet?” 72624 said, his flat, squeaky voice carrying none of the authority he was trying to convey to the bridge crew.

“Not yet sir. We don’t seem to be in any known star system, but I’m checking the database on constellations we can see from here.” Captain 72624 nodded and turned to the next droid to give their report. While 76504 and 22221 (who was assisting him) told the Captain about the results so far of the asteroid scan, 72624’s logic processor was working overtime trying to deduce the information he had already been given. If they were in an uncharted star system, then that would mean that the planet below belonged to neither the Republic-, Empire, he reminded himself.

It belonged to neither the Empire, nor what was left of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. It also meant that the inhabitants of the planet had probably never been off their rock, or ever made contact with the greater galaxy. If he could convince this new planet to ally itself with the Separatists, then they would have a new place to hide and start over, while they rebuilt their numbers. Although, since this planet wasn’t even known to the Empire, it could technically be considered a victory: they would have a legitimate government that wasn’t a part of the Republic/Empire. It just wouldn’t be acknowledged or even known to the Galactic Empire.

“-perfect for mining and refining, which we can use to repair the outer hull of the ship. We’re still scanning the rest of the asteroid field, so we won’t know for sure just how much there is, but with another thirty hours of scanning, I think we should have a reasonable estimate of what the asteroid field contains. If we get a mine and refinery built on a couple of those rocks, we could probably make a shipyard out here!” 76504 finished enthusiastically.

72624 only caught part of what his subordinate was saying, and with his logic processor already overworked as it was, he barely understood the exact implications of what the pilot droid had been saying. However he nodded at all the right times and ‘hmm’d and ‘I see’d several times, making the pilot droid think he was being listened to. As it was, Captain 72624 marveled at how smart 76504 was (at least compared to most other battle droids), and mused on whether he had been given an astromech’s core processor instead of a B1’s.

Giving the go-ahead to 76504 and 22221 to continue scanning the asteroid field for material they could use, as well as hidden bases, probes, spy stations, or anything else that might reveal their presence and cause them to have to flee, the Captain listened to several other bridge officers explain that the reactor was working fine, but that their long range sensors and communications were completely gone. 72624 wasn’t surprised at this news at all, as he had read through it earlier in damage reports from engineering and communications. As he listened to a third pilot droid tell him how the batteries had all cooled down and all the damaged guns were being tended to by repair crews, his attention was caught by a blipping on his datapad, which turned out to be a short message from one of the hangar security teams.

All it said was, ‘Sir, an escape pod we recovered during the battle is sealed tight and the occupants demand to speak with you. They won’t come out and we can’t get in without damaging the pod and its occupants. I think you should come see this for yourself.’

Excusing himself from the bridge, he called a security team to accompany him to the hangar and called three more to meet them there.

***

As 72624 walked, six super battle droids and a dozen B1’s followed behind, constantly checking side halls and open doorways, making sure no clones that might have escaped annihilation tried to ambush them.

Though the walk (and occasional quiet turbolift ride) was uneventful, the Captain still couldn’t shake the strange feeling that had been building up in his core processor. It might have been from their continued course closer to the planet, or perhaps it was from the strange situation in the hangar, or perhaps something else entirely, but 72624 didn’t like it, and was quite relieved when he entered the main hangar and saw nearly fifty other droids already milling about. Most held their blasters at the ready, although a couple of B1’s kept them on their backs while they inspected several small ships and escape pods.

A red-chested security droid walked up to greet him as he neared the escape pod with the largest congregation.

“Sir, we haven’t been able to identify who or what is in the escape pod. It’s devoid of portholes and the only answers we’ve received are by text directly from the pod’s communications system. What should we do?”

"Is the escape pod Confederate? Or Republic?” the Captain asked, before he mentally reminded himself yet again, that it would technically be an Imperial escape pod.

“Sir, we keep pinging it, but we can’t seem to find out whose side it belongs to. As far as we can tell, it’s a standard civilian escape pod.”

“Civilian?” 72624 looked at the escape craft. It was quite large, easily able to hold at least a dozen beings, and was solid dark grey. Although he didn’t really have any experience to go by with what would be a civilian escape pod, that story didn’t hold up with him for a second, even with his limited logic power. There should have been no reason they had picked up a civilian craft from the middle of a battle. Either way, he knew exactly how to deal with noncompliants; it didn’t matter whether they were droids or organics.

“Let me talk to them. I’ll handle this, Sergeant. Give me your datapad.” As he took the proffered device, the Captain tapped out, ‘This is the Captain of the dreadnaught Dawn of Dusk. Exit your pod immediately or we will destroy it.’

“There, that shoul-” 72624 started, but was cut off by the hiss of the pod door opening. At that instant, all the droids in the hangar turned towards the pod and primed their blasters. Inside the pod, it was completely dark, save for what little light filtered in from the overhead lights in the hangar. Inside, sharp, thin outlines could be seen moving occasionally, but when 72624 stepped closer, several things exploded out of the pod with great speed in a flurry of limbs and red eyes.

Just before a razor-sharp claw parted his head from his body, the things stopped, and the security teams, that had just about fired, got a good look at the pod’s occupants and both sides exchanged an awkward silence.

Inside the pod had been nearly two dozen (or so it looked that way to the Captain) Separatist Assassin Probes. The lead assassin probe slowly lowered its front limbs, and the others soon followed suit.

“Identify yourselves.” 72624 ordered, trying to keep the fear of almost having been reduced to scrap by one of his side’s own soldiers from creeping into his vocoder.

The lead assassin probe made a series of mechanical grunts and low tones, but 72624 understood it perfectly.

“<I AM AS-P-76, ASSASSIN PROBE IN THE SEPARATIST ARMY. THESE ARE MY FORCES. WE ARE A COVERT OPS TASK FORCE. MAY I ASK WHAT SHIP WE HAVE FOUND OURSELVES ON?>”

“This is the Providence-class Dreadnaught, the Dawn of Dusk. What were you doing in that escape pod?” the Captain countered.

“<THE SHIP WE WERE STATIONED ON CAME UNDER SUSTAINED FIRE AND WE ABANDONED SHIP. WE ASSUMED WE HAD BEEN CAPTURED BY REPUBLIC FORCES AND WERE TRYING TO CAUSE AS MUCH DAMAGE AS POSSIBLE TO THEIR COMMAND STRUCTURE BEFORE WE WOULD BE DESTROYED.>”

The Captain thought took a minute to think about the explanation. No, really, a full minute. Actually a minute and seven seconds to be exact. And all the while the assassin probes stood and waited, and the security teams shifted uncomfortably, unsure of what to do.

“Well, okay. That sounds reasonable enough,” 72624 said finally, causing some of the B1’s to give a start, as their attention had begun to wander.

“Welcome aboard the Dawn of Dusk. I am hereby adding you to our ship’s complement, since we have no way of finding out your previous vessel’s current status. Now, I want you and your squad to report to maintenance for a quick check-up, and then I want you to help patrol the ship. We were boarded recently, and although we think we got all the clones, we’re not sure, so I bet your sneakiness might come in useful if it turns out there’s any left. I’m taking charge of your company and you will report to me. I’m B1-72624, the captain of this ship. Understood?”

The large, spider-like probe droid kept rotating its head this way and that, fixing the Captain with several different photoreceptors at once, making him feel very nervous the whole time as the assassin probe decided on a course of action. Eventually it settled itself down, moving into a more relaxed stance and responded.

“<VERY WELL. WE ACCEPT YOUR AUTHORITY. WE SHALL REPORT TO MAINTENANCE AND THEN WE SHALL PATROL THE SHIP, UNTIL SUCH A TIME AS WE ARE NEEDED FOR OTHER DUTIES.>”

72624 sighed in relief as the group of assassin droids moved off, crawling over anything in their path.

“Now then Sergeant, anything else you need my presence for?” the Captain asked, turning back to the security droid and handing him back his datapad.

“Not really. One of the other escape pods we rescued was empty, one contained a single LEP servant droid, and the last one held a quartet of demolition droids.”

What? The Captain was now quite intrigued. First assassin probes, now demolition droids? What was with all these specialty droids being recovered from a regular battle? Perhaps whoever had been coordinating the Separatist fleet had decided to mobilize as many droids and as much equipment as they could in an effort to stave off the Imperial attack. That sounded like a good enough explanation to the Captain, but even he could see the foolishness of mobilizing droids that were obviously meant for specific purposes, not open warfare.

“Hm. Tell the demolition droids to report to maintenance as well. The servant droid too. Actually, after he’s done, tell the servant droid to report to the bridge, he can be my personal assistant. I’ve always needed one.”

“Yes, sir. Just one thing,” the security droid interjected, “The LEP, has female programming, not male. A fact that she made very clear to me when we rescued her from the pod. Just don’t mix it up, she has quite a temper. It’ll make life easier for you.”

“Uhhh…” 72624 was genuinely stunned. More by the fact that the Sergeant had thought to give him advice on dealing with a simple servant droid than the fact that said servant droid needed advice to be dealt with, but still. It was quite curious. Then again, the Captain was still a B1, and often needed advice from his fellow officers.

“Ok then. Anything else to report Sergeant? I’m afraid I’m needed on the bridge if nothing else is urgent.”

“Well, since you’re here, I can finish my report on the vehicles we secured before jump, as per the Commander’s orders. Where is he by the way?”

“Umm. About that… the commander is, um… indisposed. I’ll be making an announcement over the ship’s PA system soon to inform the crew about the situation, but for now, I’m in charge. Finish your report.”

“Yes, sir! Along with the escape pods, we recovered two Sheathipede-Class Shuttles and a Gozanti Cruiser. The shuttles were carrying shells for a defoliator tank, and the light cruiser was carrying a defoliator conversion kit. Other than that, the ships were piloted, and crewed, by B1 Pilot Droids. That is all, sir.” With a final salute, the Security droid Sergeant turned and started getting the assembled security teams to sweep the recovered vessels and directed the newcomers to maintenance for a check-up, leaving the Captain to make his way back to the bridge with his own security team.

***

Contrary to what most of the droid crew on board the Dawn of Dusk thought, and exactly as the Captain suspected, there were indeed clone boarders that had managed to escape annihilation and were still escaping detection by the droid patrols.

Clone Corporal ‘Rabid’ looked over at his teammate. He and Private ‘Laugher’ were the last living members of the team that had come aboard the Dawn of Dusk in an attempt to capture or kill the Muun Commander on board and take control of the dreadnaught. Having failed that, the two clone troopers were now hiding in an armored closet, only the light from their helmet lights illuminating anything.

“Well, this is a right fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into,” Rabid remarked.

“’We’? What’s this about ‘we’? You got us into this mess, I was just following you,” Laugher shot back, his nickname expressing the absolute last thing he wanted to do in their current situation.

“Oh, knock it off. We both got into this mess, just like everyone else from our squads. I’m no more to blame than you are, Laugher. Our orders were to capture or eliminate the ship’s bridge crew and take control of the ship.”

“Yeah? Great, so why don’t we just waltz up there and demand their surrender? Or do you have a better idea?”

“No need to be so snappy with me, alright? I’m trying to figure out a way for us to survive, same as you. And in a way, yeah, that’s kind of what I was thinking.”

“Are you crazy? We’ll be dead as soon as we open the damn door!” Laugher exclaimed.

Rabid gave a smirk.

“Orders haven’t changed, kid.”

***

“Okay, so… Go over it once more. You’re saying my spell worked, but not entirely? I checked and double-checked and triple-checked my calculations, and even checked and double-checked my calculation checks. The chances of my spell fragmenting the runes on the powering crystal and not shattering it are already so small I don’t even want to think about it. And you’re saying not only did it not shatter, but the combined runes only changed the instructions of the spell enough to make the Mare less responsive?” Twilight asked incredulously.

“Well, I thought it didn’t work, or that some part of it was messed up and it could only stand and nothing else, but when I checked the magical energy coming off it, and compared it to your notes on the predicted magical energy that was supposed to be radiating off it if it were to work properly, the disparity was so subtle, I almost missed it. But when Spike asked if it could do something, I felt the energy change briefly,” Starlight explained, “I think the runes combining are the reason it can’t speak, and why it can’t respond to questions. It wants to, but something about the runes is creating conflicting instructions.”

“And you’re sure it can only respond to direct commands? Have you tried ordering it to talk?” Twilight asked, already writing down her findings and Starlight’s hypothesis.

“Yep, tried that,” Spike replied.

The three (four if you count the Metal Mare) friends had moved from Twilight’s workshop to a sitting room in the castle, (Twilight having changed into regular clothes and groomed herself in the meantime) and were discussing the exact specifications, including the limitations, of Twilight’s creation, with Twilight still taking quick, unbelieving glances at the invention in question, which stood quietly at attention near the door.

"Hey, Metal Mare,” Spike called to the mechanical creation, “Tell me, what’s your favourite flavor of ice cream?”

The Metal Mare made no response to the query.

“Metal Mare, tell me your name,” Spike called.

No response.

“I order you to tell me what your purpose is!” Spike yelled at the contraption.

The Metal Mare made no attempt to comply.

“See?” Spike said blankly, “Nothing. Whatever happened to it, it only responds to direct commands, and even then, it can’t talk.”

Seeing the discouraged look on Twilight’s face, Starlight placed a hand on her friend and mentor’s shoulder and said warmly, “Hey, Don’t worry Twilight, I’m sure you’ll figure it out with that big brain of yours. Besides, it’s a miracle that it can do so much already! I mean, you’ve practically created life! Simple, intelligence-limited, subservient life, but still. Who else can say they’ve done that?”

“Well…” Twilight started, but Starlight interrupted her.

No one! No one anywhere! You’ll figure out this minor setback, and the next one you make will be able to talk, and maybe even after that they’ll be able to think on their own or have feelings, or even…” Starlight faltered for a moment, but quickly composed herself again, “Or even make friends. How amazing would that be?”

“You’re right!” Twilight cried, standing up suddenly and startling both Starlight and Spike, “I’ve done the impossible! Now the next step is just a tippy-hoof away! It might take another few nights of hard, tireless work, but now that I know a way to make the Metal Mare work, it’s only a matter of time before I get the bugs out.”

As Twilight started making new calculations and adjustments in her mind, she couldn’t help but feel like the answers to her problems with making the Metal Mare work properly were closer, far closer than she thought.

Outside the room, the tiny sound of metal tapping and clicking its way across crystal was unheard by any of the room’s occupants as something watched and listened in on their conversation.