"She's waking," somepony said. I didn't know who, because my eyes were still shut.
I didn't need to ask to whom they were referring, as the last thing I could remember was being stabbed in the backside with a syringe full of potent sedative. Gradually more bits of me came back online as the sedative lost its grip, but I knew it would be hours before I was capable of doing much, and as for decisions, they were a big no-no until at least tomorrow. The sedatives would be clouding my brain for that long, even if I didn't realize it. Stormie sure knew how to nobble a girl! At the moment she was not my favorite pony, even if what she had done had been for my own good. I'd thank her after I'd clocked her one to the jaw.
"And I haven't even slept with Stormie's husband," I muttered, "even though he's my husband, too."
"And she's not making a lot of sense," the pony said. "Is she sleep talking?"
"Oh, that made perfect sense," Cacha said, also from close by. "It's too bad Stormie didn't hear it."
"What didn't I hear?" Stormie said from a little further away..
"You shall forever wonder," I said. Petty revenge, perhaps, but revenge nonetheless. Clocking her one to the jaw would have to wait.
"You had better not call what we did muntiny. We will keep our queen safe from her enemies, even if that enemy is her own stupidity," Stormie said.
"I'd call it medical intervention when the queen was incapacitated by excessive stress," I said. "Still, it doesn't mean I won't delight in sticking a syringe into your butt at some time in the future."
"I'll keep that in mind." Stormie did not sound amused, although I did detect a hint of relief in her voice.
"So what happened out there? How long was I out?" I asked, finally opening my eyes to see where I actually was. Apparently I hadn't moved a step from where Stormie had put me to sleep. I was lying on the floor in the middle of the hangar. Hey, everypony. Here's your stupid queen, sleeping it off where she was sedated... It must have dome my credibility no end of good. At least they'd given me a pillow, even if it had legs.
"You've been out for about a day," Cacha said, answering the second question.
"What the?" A whole day? That was pretty rude of Stormie! "And you've been acting as a pillow for that long, Cacha?"
"Of course not. I often got up to stretch my legs, and several times I joined the others outside the door to blast at clockwork spiders. I also helped bringing in the rescued, and more salvage."
"Um, excuse me, Aneki," the unfamiliar voice said.
I glanced in its direction to find a three legged pony a pace away, looking down at me. She had an aqua face, teal eyes and a pale blue mane and tail. I recognized her as one of the outsiders, although the last time I had seen her, she had four legs. She had not formed a replacement leg from her weapon.
"You have my attention."
"I want to thank you for rescuing me," she said. "Even though you've been lying here, I know it was only because of your insistence that any rescue attempt was made."
"Oh, good," I said. "Somepony survived. But what about your other leg? I was rather hoping all of you could be brought back."
"A casualty, I'm afraid. That piece was missing. Briggs put as much of me together as he could find, but then, even with me assisting him, we could not find the missing leg."
"I'm sorry to hear that, although I expect Stormie can grow you a new one in the tank."
"Yes, they told me I could be restored."
"What about the rest of your team?" I asked.
"We brought back what we could find, which fortunately included the important bits of two of them. I'm told Brainstorm is working on them at the moment. Unfortunately Rose Wine took a blade through the head. There was nothing we could do for her. We also found enough pieces of Death Squad One that two of them could be reassembled as well."
"Were they missing any parts?"
"No. Those two were lucky. We were able to put them back together while we were out there. They then helped cover us as we looked for the others."
"So, where are they now?"
"Back on duty, guarding the door."
"Amazing," I said. They hadn't even asked for time off. "And the other two from the death squad?"
"Sorry."
"Oh." I was saddened to have lost any ponies at all, but to have some survive warmed me inside, despite the pain of loss.
"We knew the risks. Don't blame yourself. It won't make any positive difference."
"Thanks..." I didn't know her name, or if I did, I had forgotten it.
"Lana."
"Thanks, Lana. Get well soon."
"Okay, Lana, you've said your bit," Stormie said. "Let's get you to the hospital."
"Yes, ma'am," Lana said, turning towards Stormie, something she found a little difficult with her right hindleg missing.
As the two left, Stormie looked back over her shoulder at me. "Aneki, I gave you a counter-agent, so your body and mind will be totally free of the effects of that sedative within a few minutes, but if you have any intention of going out there, other than to help defending the hangar, I will gladly give you another dose, and forget about administering the counter agent."
"There's no point in going out there now, is there?" I said. "Those I wished to save have been saved."
"And that is exactly why I left you unconscious until now."
"This had better not become a habit," I muttered. That Stormie even had a sedative that stayed in effect until countered was scary!
"I will not interfere with your usual lead from the front approach, but if you try to go on a poi... suicide mission again, I will intervene."
My guess was that she had been going to say pointless suicide mission, but with Lana right next to her, that would have been extremely bad – unforgivable in my mind. I was pretty sure my thoughts of condemnation could easily be seen on my face, because Stormie almost looked contrite. She turned away, and walked purposefully towards the tunnel, forgetting Lana's limited speed. Trying to keep up, Lana hobbled behind her, and into the rotating tunnel.
The door closed behind them, freeing my mind of that interaction. I scanned my surroundings, wondering what, if anything, had changed during my forced slumber.
I could see the powered wagon that Lander Team One had taken. Damage to it was slight, suggesting that the clockwork spiders cared only about killing ponies, their equipment being of no interest once the primary goal had been achieved. It was heaped with the pods the teams had been using. Some looked to be in good condition, while others had fared even worse than mine had when I had last been sliced apart. Snow had unloaded one of them and was fussing over it, using her telekinesis to piece together the damaged sections.
So, Briggs hadn't just rescued ponies. He'd helped them retrieve the equipment too. Although recovering that equipment had been on my to-do list, it was of a lower priority than rescuing the fallen. Equipment wasn't alive. Perhaps Briggs was unable to make that distinction, being more machine than pony, or perhaps he just considered it to be part of the job.
Briggs himself was nowhere to be seen.
"So, I expect every pony in the habitat will soon know that the queen took a forced nap. That's going to look so great on my record."
"No." Cacha shook her head. "Only those that were down here saw, and most of them are smart enough to keep their mouths shut."
"And those that aren't?"
"By the time Stormie had finished lecturing them, they were smarter. A lot smarter."
"I guess that's one way of doing it. Keep yer trap shut or yer won't be able to open it again."
"Pretty much, although her wording was somewhat less confrontational. Seriously, once they realized you didn't expect them to come along, their opinion of you went up. They liked knowing their queen was willing to risk her life for each and every one of them. Besides, I don't think anypony down here really would be stupid enough to bad mouth you. You are too powerful. So is Stormie. And so am I."
It was true that most of my family were very powerful ponies, and I wasn't just talking in the political sense. Turning on us would not be good for one's peace of mind or well being! Besides, while I expected there may be other ponies that would like my job title, I very much doubted they would want the job itself. Warrior Queen, so dedicated to the service of her subjects that she is the first pony to go into hostile territory; so dedicated that her subjects had to hold her back... Nope, I really didn't need to worry, did I?
"All the same, if this comes back and bites me in the butt, I will bite Stormie in the butt – literally."
"You still hold resentments towards her, don't you?" Cacha said.
"She and Brainstorm have improved a lot, but they still lack social graces. And what they did to me when we first met was unforgivable. My conscious mind says I have forgiven them, but I'm pretty sure my subconscious has not, and probably never will."
Turning my mind to other topics, there was one pony currently missing from the picture. Actually, even though he now looked more pony like that he had for hundreds of years, he wasn't actually a pony. Well, he wasn't one anymore.
"Cacha, where's Briggs now? I'd like to thank him. Is he back with Maisie?"
Cacha shook her head, and flicked a hoof in the direction of the hangar doors.
"He went back outside to do more scouting. He told me the clockwork spiders totally ignored him, even when he was carrying injured ponies. He thinks the spiders assumed he was just going about his duty, or whatever it is that drives their actions."
"So, if we had ridden him out there, we would have been pretty safe, then?" I asked. That would be ironic.
"No, no, not at all. It seems the other clockwork spiders didn't like healthy ponies, even when he was with them. The two revived death squad members had quite a fight on their hooves. So did Lana, even though she was obviously injured."
"I guess that makes our next step obvious, doesn't it."
"And that would be?" Cacha asked, missing the obvious. Well, it was obvious to me.
"We get all of the sapient computers into captured clockwork spiders as soon as possible, assuming they are amenable to the idea. I expect a few will still like the safety of their hard shells and networks."
"You could probably get some of the non-sapient computers into them too. Briggs could do a memory dump or program them or whatever it is he does. The sapient ones could then each command a squad of drones."
"Cacha, you are brilliant. I'll suggest it to Maisie right now. Oh, and when I'm done, remind me to tell those two idiots from Death Squad one that their shift was over hours ago. Surely they have come down from the adrenaline high by now."
The foal wriggled in my grasp. It was pleasantly warm, dark and quite comfortable. It took my sleep muddled mind a few moments to realize the foal was my own, Allie. We were making up for all the time we were spending apart of late. Even if we were asleep at the time, we were still together – and the little darling was quite capable of entering my dreams and playing with me there. She also had the wonderful talent of heading off any nightmares, or guiding them into more pleasant dreams. In these emotionally stressing times, that was something I relished.
Of course, this couldn't last. Some pest was calling me on my communicator, severing whatever connections I had with the land of my dreams. I levitated it from my night-stand, answering the caller.
"Aneki, this is Briggs. I have found the facility that is constructing the clockwork spiders."
Wow. Not even a hello. He had jumped right into the conversation. My brain struggled to catch up.
"You've what? Did I hear you right?"
"I have found a facility where the clockwork spiders are being constructed. It was the only one I could find close by."
"Where is it?"
"One level above us. The area one level below it is about fifteen minutes away, by pod, from the habitat," Briggs said. "In other words, quite close, once you get up one level, and that isn't so easy, now that Pink Electricia has blown up the shaft they were using. I had to go quite the long way around."
"So, do you think there is anything we can do about it?" We had never used the blocked shaft ourselves. In fact, we hadn't even known about it. The shaft we had last attempted to go up a level was also clogged, unless the spiders had cleared it.
Cacha stirred beside me, and groaned. Allie wriggled, and opened her eyes. The importance of not disturbing them had dropped to zero.
"Mum?"
"Hush, little one. I'm talking to Briggs."
"Oh, okay." She relaxed again.
"Sorry, Aneki, even if there was a local shaft we could use, we still can't approach the facility directly. There are too many spiders up there. However, I can guide you to a place directly underneath it, one level down. Are you able to shoot through the equivalent of three or four storeys of multidimensional material?" Briggs asked.
"I should be able to. The trick is not to blow myself up at the same time. I'll have to use a variant of the spell I've been using to kill the clockwork spiders themselves."
"How so?"
"The spell drills the tiniest hole through the material, and keeps going until it penetrates the other side. Then it expands and blows everything up within the preprogrammed radius. The trick is to keep that radius lower than the thickness of the material that is being destroyed. The back-blast from the drill hole is bad enough!"
"Cannot you program the spell to pass through the material without interacting with it?"
"So far, I have not managed to achieve that. So, what are the other problems, if any?"
"There are still a lot of clockwork spiders down on this level that will need to be cleared out of our way. It is perhaps too dangerous for ponies to go there."
"That is a problem, isn't it? If we can't get ponies there, we can't attack. Is it in the arc of fire for Pink E's operational ship's gun?"
"No."
"Of course. That would be too convenient. Let me think on it. In the mean time, contact Pink E, and see if she can get an appropriate ship's gun to do the job."
"I will report back to you."
"Give it a few hours, please. I'd rather like to finish my sleep."
All we needed now was for Bittersweet to give us the all-clear. She had a team of ponies working on our ultimate clockwork spider repellant, the big blast. We were nearly ready. All relevant ponies were at their appointed locations, be it in the hangar, or in the lower levels of the habitat, at the various consoles that controlled the gas flow and the engines.
Routing the liquid nitrogen to the engine ports had proven to be quite easy as pipes meant for the thrust mass passed conveniently close by, and even had capped fittings in the perfect locations. It was as if somepony or some alien had carefully thought about emergency situations, secondary and even tertiary redundant systems. The nitrogen tanks were already a part of an emergency system themselves, designed for rapid re-establishment of the atmosphere in the life-support chamber, should there be a rupture or leak. Oxygen was mixed with it at that point, so there were already two sets of pipes per tank pair.
The liquefied gas needed heating before it got to the life-support chamber, or it would do more harm than good. So, what would happen if the pipes up through the primary heating system failed? They would need an alternative, of course. These other pipes could be pressed into service, taking the gas closer to the engines where it could be heated there, instead.
How many redundant systems had we lost knowledge of? On the other hoof, how many had already failed? I knew the Celestia controller that was responsible for the simulated sun in the sky dome had failed at all levels. Was there anything else we were missing that had simply become forgotten over the years?
Brainstorm raised his voice. "Remember, ponies, it will be unusually cold out there, and chances are that some liquid nitrogen may drip on you. That is why you have been issued coats." He was standing on a box in the middle of the hangar, addressing the ponies that had assembled in front of him, myself included. The coat he was dressed in was a frilly number that had once belonged to a media star or something. It was totally outrageous. I suspect he had chosen it so as to lessen the embarrassment of the other ponies over what they had received.
To call the garments that had been distributed coats was stretching the truth a little. They were a heterogeneous collection of clothes purchased from the pre-loved fashion shops of the life-support chamber. To us, their appearance was secondary, fortunately, as they were the out-of-date garbage no fashion conscious pony would buy. The flimsy and worn material would do very little against the lower temperatures – our HELaTS bodies would take care of that. All the coats were for was to prevent any of us receiving burns through direct contact with stray drips of liquid nitrogen. Some of us were wearing two layers, because the old clothes we had received were so worn. Oh, the frustrations of living in a resource-limited environment that relied on recycling and reuse.
We had gathered as many heavy weapons ponies as we could, and we were going to stack ourselves into and on top of the operational pods for a fifteen minute ride to the area that Briggs had found under the clockwork spider manufacturing facilities.
Death Squad Two gave us four ponies. The Royals gave us three. Death Squad One only had two survivors to offer, but they had gained valuable experience. Lander Team Two gave us another four ponies, for a total of thirteen. The Storms were remaining behind, with those with less experience or lesser arms, to guard the habitat.
Snow had managed to repair one of the damaged pods, so that gave us five operational pods between the thirteen of us. Three of the pods would carry two ponies as well as the pilot, and two would carry one pony. That way, the pilots could concentrate on driving or flying, while those atop the pods could dedicate themselves to defence. All ponies involved were now unicorns, as that was essential to being equipped with heavy weapons. As such all of them were easily able to cast a spell that would keep them firmly attached to the pod on which they were to ride.
Briggs, of course, was also accompanying us, but was quite fast enough on his own.
Another problem we had needed to solve was breathing. Our planned method of clearing the way to our attack point was to blow all obstacles away with a massive blast of nitrogen. That, of course, would make the air in the proximity of the habitat unbreathable. While HELaTS could survive for a short time without oxygen, heading off on a mission in an area that had just been purged by flushing it with a huge quantity of nitrogen did not seem to be a really good idea. As such, we had come up with three different ways to have access to that essential gas.
We had found a small supply of HELaTS space suits, much like the ones the newcomers had used in their escape from Habitat Six. Unfortunately, time had not been kind to the suits. We had salvaged the masks and tanks, which after a serious overhaul, seemed to be adequate. Each pony in the team had been given one. They fitted around our muzzles, temporarily bonding with the HELaTS armor. Likewise, the air tanks stuck to our flanks. Apparently the full suits had also included facilities for eating, drinking, and waste management.
The first fallback measure for breathable air was the pods themselves, each of which had been equipped with oxygen tanks. Failing all else, the riders could squeeze into the cab with the pilots. It would be totally impractical for combat, making it a survival measure should all else fail.
The third method of distributing oxygen was probably the most significant. As we did not wish to blast the toxic waste fuel out into the very environment for which we were fighting, Bittersweet's team had hooked up an oxygen tank to supply oxygen as an alternative thrust mass. The benefit was twofold. With the lighter thrust mass, less thrust would be generated when we fired the engines to expel the liquid nitrogen from the gap between the hull and its cradle. We really didn't want to try to lift off, after all. Secondly, it would help rebalance the nitrogen to oxygen ratio, meaning that if all went well, our masks and other emergency measures would not even be needed.
The nitrogen, which had already been pumped into the gap between the hull and its cradle, was already evaporating, chilling the lower levels of the habitat, and the hangar as it sucked the heat from them. The real action would occur when the superheated oxygen was blasted from the engines and thrusters, causing, in theory, a mass conversion of the liquid nitrogen to its gaseous form. The result would be an incredibly strong wind-storm blasting away from the habitat in all directions.
"Status, Bittersweet?" I subvocalized into my communicator.
"We are ready. Are the hangar doors sealed? Are you ready?" she asked.
"We are. Please proceed."
Earlier that day, I had taken the precaution of telling Kakuun and Princess Lunar Eclipse that there would be a significant event that could possibly be felt or heard within life-support chamber. Key people in the media had be warned, so that they would be able to calm the populace, should the need eventuate.
I was glad I had, because even with the dampening system that supported the life support chamber, something would surely have got through to them.
The noise was beyond anything I had experienced before. It made the sheer loudness, vibrations and terror of the ship's main gun incident pale to insignificance.
The engines roared at near full output, something they had never done before. Main and auxiliary thrusters blasted at maximum output. A huge quantity of liquid nitrogen explosively boiled, pushing its way out past that which was still liquid, causing a cacophony that overwhelmed our senses. The interaction of the liquids and gasses with the complex structures of the ringworld added to the vibrations as the engines fought against the structure that held the habitat in place.
It became difficult to stand, think or even breathe, and all ponies in the hangar collapsed, hugging each other in desperation. This hell went on and on, for longer than any pony could tolerate, and that was merely the beginning. Another heartbeat had passed, and we had to live through it all again.
Eventually the assault on our senses abated to intolerable, as the pool of nitrogen was exhausted, then faded to a stony silence as the engines were brought back down to their usual standby mode.
"Is it over?" a very small voice asked from very far away. After a moment, I realized that voice had been Cacha's and she was within my embrace.
"That was the scariest thing I have ever experienced," somepony said.
"After that I'm looking forward to the relative peace and quiet of battling hordes of clockwork spiders," said one the ponies from Death Squad One. Now, that really put it in to perspective.
The communicator beckoned. Bittersweet was calling.
"We appear to be alive," I answered, before she could even ask anything.
"That is reassuring. Likewise, apart from the odd gas leak, general shaking, and a spate of small system failures across the board, we also appear to have survived. We are dispatching repair teams as I speak. In the mean time, I believe it is your turn for action. The thrusters have been shut off, and will not be fired again, unless I have your express permission, Aneki."
"Noted," I said. "Thank you. Until we speak again."