I can hear it. No, more than that, I can feel it. The Machine is spinning up. I'd give us a little over twenty minutes before the world ends. That should be enough time to finish the story, though who under the welkin I'll be able to tell it to, I don't know.
Chapter 18
We're Getting the Band Back Together
The black sky cracked in two above, and threw false colours across the landscape. The air was still cold, but the aelewyrm's body warmed her, and with the last reserves of her strength she cast a spell hold off any risk of hypothermia.
Soon after they began, she found her excitement at seeing the aelewyrms wasn't enough to overcome her exhaustion. Now she flew with a grim determination to stay awake and watch for Ilmarinen.
Hours passed.
Eventually, she began to recognise the landscape. The familiar husks of salvage stripped long ago. All the rich resources that had brought salvors this far in the first place. And not long after, she saw a faint glow in the night sky to her left.
She'd found it!
She turned the aelewyrm towards the glow.
The city resolved itself in pieces. First a smear. Its edges sharpened. Soon she could make out the individual spheres, surrounded by their collective halo.
Something else caught her eyes, bounding along the shallow dunes.
It was Millie's hovercraft. Sweetie Belle turned towards its, and urged her aelewyrm onwards as fast as it could. As she approached, the hovercraft slowed, then came to a stop. Ilmarinen was still a bundle of lights in the distance.
She landed the aelewyrms gently on a flat spot amongst all the machinery on the hovercraft's roof. She was just dismounting when a hatch banged open a few metres away and Millie's head popped up out of it.
With her lips pressed together, she looked from one aelewyrm to the other, then turned back to Sweetie Belle, sighed, and said:
“You'd best come in for a beer, lass, and tell me what you bloody hell you've got yourself into now.”
“I suppose it's my fault for bein' an idiot,” said Millie. “I should've known all I had to do to make you reappear was try and do summat else. I bet you wish you'd come back with Dignity now, don'tcha?” She took a sip of her beer and gave Sweetie Belle a wry smile.
“A bit, yeah,” said Sweetie Belle. Sitting on the hovercraft's bridge, she'd recounted everything that happened to her since she left Pinion Beach, and Millie had received it as if it were no more unusual than a visit to Canterlot.
“Anyway, Tom's fine. He's still in Ilmarinen. Last I saw he were havin' a bit of an argument with t' other archaeologists. Pretty serious one – I reckon he was ready to raise his voice at one point.”
Sweetie Belle gave a brief laugh, then said, “I need to see him. And the others – Hinny's Revenge and Dulcet, are they there too?”
“Will be for a day or so,” said Millie.
“Good. Can you take me back to Ilmarinen? I need as many allies as I can get to save Scootaloo.”
“I guess you're includin' me in that?”
“Yes.”
Millie pinned her ears. “You've got a lot of nerve, lass.”
“Thank you.” Sweetie Belle raised her tankard, then finished the last of it. “Will you do it?”
“Them aelewyrms you brought. I can't imagine the Ilmarinen authorities will be happy about 'em, even if they are just babbies. Are they dangerous?”
“They're fine,” said Sweetie Belle. “Maybe it's better if they stay in the hovercraft though.”
“Aye, that's me. Mildred: Glorified taxi service and ancient megafauna storage.” Millie's tail flicked as she put her tankard down. “Actually that wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe then I could at least get paid for this shit.”
“What about …” Sweetie Belle nodded down the stairs to where, along with the aelewyrms, a tied-up Gregor was being kept.
“He knows I'm doin' him a favour by not givin' him in her to get executed, so he can bloody well wait,” said Millie, loud enough that Gregor could probably hear her.
Sweetie Belle slept late in the table bed she'd taken last time she was aboard, and when she woke it was nearly midday. She felt, if not refreshed, then significantly less exhausted. Millie gave her oats, tentatively played with the aelewyrms while she ate, and then took her back to Ilmarinen.
She found Tom in one of the cafes talking to another couple of researchers – one unicorn and one diamond dog. When he saw Sweetie Belle walking up to him he dropped his spoon of powdered scorpion, whereupon it fell from the bowl and clattered to the floor. By that point he was already standing, and as soon as she was close enough he hugged her tightly. After a second he let go, stood, and rubbed at one ear, looking awkward. “Uh, hello,” he said.
“I'm glad to see you too,” said Sweetie Belle. “
He introduced her to his friends, then asked, “Where's Scootaloo?”
Sweetie Belle paused. “I … I lost her,” she admitted. “I think the pirates are still after her.”
Tom stared her. “Oh … crumbs,” he said at last. He looked over at his friends who were still eating. “I have to sort this. I'll see you later. You can have the rest of the scorpion.”
“Oh, right, thanks for that,” said the stallion.
Tom turned back to Sweetie Belle and looked up at Millie. “I think we all need to talk, then.”
On the way to the Dulcet to try and find Lucille, Sweetie Belle once again recounted her story for Tom's sake. She suspected this was quickly going to get tedious.
Tom was silent for a while after she had finished. They walked together down one of the corridors that connected the spheres to the docking towers. At last he said, “So what are we going to do about Blueberry?”
“Nothing. She's not after me any more. I'm going to find Scootaloo, and then we're going to go home.”
“What if she doesn't want to go home with you?” said Millie.
Sweetie Belle glared at her. “I don't know. One thing at a time, alright?” She turned back and chewed at her lip. “We'll rescue her. Make sure she's okay. Then it's her choice what she wants to do.”
“Aye, that works.”
“And the Ilmarinen navy can deal with the rest of them. They're the ones who want to establish a rule of law, so I'll leave them to it.”
Tom said nothing.
At the gangplank to the Dulcet they asked for Lucille, and she came out to meet them personally.
“Ah, Sweetie Belle!” she said. “So you made it at last! I was just thinking about starting to worry.” She frowned briefly, leant forward, and looked around the docking tower. “Are you about to tell me things went wrong?”
“She ain't dead,” said Millie. “Apparently. Just on the run from pirates – sorry, privateers.”
Once again Sweetie Belle told Lucille what had happened, and asked if she would help.
“Let's see,” said Lucille, leaning against the wall by the gangplank. “You dig out the salvage I was hunting – which does look like it'll be very profitable. Then you bring along the fabulous and flouncy Blueberry Pancake. Then you lead her away so we can all get to safety. I don't know where we are on the who-owes-who stakes at this point. But I'll give you a hearing, and you can make your case in my ship. Especially if you can come up with a little incentive.”
“Give me half an hour,” Sweetie Belle told her. “I just need to go and get Gritstone, then we should be done.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” said Lucille, clicking her beak. “I'll be here.”
Sweetie Belle grinned at her, waved a brief goodbye, and headed back down the corridor, with Tom and Millie in tow.
Hinny's Revenge was docked at Tower Two. There, Sweetie Belle found Whicker guarding the gangplank.
His eyes widened when he saw her. “Fuck me,” he said when he saw her. “There you are! You know we've been hearin' all sorts of mad shit about you. 'She's dead', 'She ain't fuckin' dead', all sorts. You found that mare you were lookin' for, then?”
Sweetie Belle shrugged. “Yes and no,” she said. “I lost her again. Now I'm going after her properly. I'm looking for any help I can get.”
“Sure fuckin' thing,” said Whicker. “Lemme just –”
“There's no need,” came a clear voice from behind him, and from the ugly door in the airship's hull stepped Gritstone. He walked slowly down the plank and nodded briefly at Whicker as he passed him. “At ease.” Then he turned back to Sweetie Belle. “You're alive. That's impressive. Well done.”
“Oh, uh … thank you.”
“But I'm afraid the answer is no.”
“What?”
“Lucille sent me a message about the ansible. You want help rescuing your friend? I came to speak to you directly as a personal courtesy, I'm not going to help you.”
“But I –” began Sweetie Belle.
“My ship is not yours to play with and put in danger as you please,” said Gritstone calmly.
“You're a smart stallion,” offered Millie.
Sweetie Belle glared at her. “Not helping.” To Gritstone, she said, “What if there was salvage?”
“I can find salvage on my own, with far less risk of piracy. I'm sorry, Sweetie Belle. Goodbye.” Before she could reply, Gritstone had turned and was walking back up the gangplank. She watched him go back inside.
“Tough fuckin' break, filly,” said Whicker.
“It's fine,” Sweetie Belle told him. “I think we can do this without him. Just … could you say hi to Petallion for me? And Muttershanks – I know stuff about daemons now that she'd give her right hoof for.”
Whicker grinned and patted her rather heavily on the shoulder. “Sure thing. You take care now.”
Sweetie Belle turned to Tom and Millie. “I guess that's everyone then.”
Fifteen minutes later, Sweetie Belle found herself sitting in one of the Dulcet's meeting rooms, alongside Millie, Tom, Lucille and the ship's defence officer, Cerise. She had brought everyone up to speed about Saffron's presence, though she had left out the fact that the she had manifested sitting on the tabletop itself.
“Sounds useful,” Lucille had commented when Sweetie Belle told her about Saffron's knowledge of qilin engineering.
“Consider it a possible incentive?”
“Perhaps.”
Sweetie Belle acknowledged this, then began: “When she caught me, Blueberry said Scootaloo had escaped, and the griffon pirates had gone after her. The three ships that came after us …”
“Oh, gods,” murmured Cerise.
“The odds are better this time,” Sweetie Belle told her. “Blueberry took one of the scoutships and killed its crew. And I can promise you they lost all the gunships they had when we last ran into them.”
“That leaves a light cruiser and a scoutship,” said Cerise. “Remember what I said last time? Dulcet could just about break even with a lone scout.”
“We have got support,” observed Lucille, looking over at Millie.
Cerise tilted her head. “Armaments?”
“Harpoons guns,” said Millie.
“… Harpoon guns …” Cerise stared at Millie, then gave Lucille a look that seemed to say this is ridiculous.
Millie leaned in and nodded once, sharply. “Three harpoon guns. And don't get mardy, luv, but I have taken Dignity into battle with some of these griffons before, to save these two I might add, and come out of it alive. She ain't a battleship, but she's more manoeuvrable than owt you have to offer.”
Cerise clicked her beak.
“It's true,” Tom said. “From what I saw, airships have trouble firing at the hovercraft. It's on the ground, below the normal range of their guns, and has acceleration nearly as good as a gunship.” He turned to Sweetie Belle. “Still, all this is assuming they haven't called in any more ships.”
“No,” said Sweetie Belle. “But since we don't have any better information.” She shrugged, and added, “I can also help with my elementals. Sylphs are very good at disabling airship engines.”
Cerise put a single talon to her beak and closed her eyes for a few moments, then turned to Lucille. “Yes, okay. We've from suicidal to merely very dangerous. We might be able to beat these pirates.”
“Privateers,” murmured Millie. This seemed to catch Lucille's and Cerise's attention, and she continued: “I've got one of 'em tied up in Dignity. Told me all about it.”
“Flavian?” said Lucille.
“Aye.”
“I always knew that bastard was up to something.”
Millie grinned at her. “You're alright, you are. I like you. I reckon if this gets out, it'll ruin him. T' revanchists will support him come hell or high water, but most of t' neutralists won't.”
“I wouldn't be surprised if he has five levels of plausible deniability behind this,” said Cerise.
“Sure,” said Millie, “but even his friends don't trust him by now.”
“I feel like I've wondered into a very strange Aquileonan political drama,” Tom said to Sweetie Belle.
She agreed. The tangles of the Aquileonan parliament, though mostly opaque to her, seemed needlessly complicated at best and dangerously unstable at worst. It did seem to give them plenty to talk and get angry about, though.
“You're right. Sorry. We can talk about this later,” said Lucille. “Now: How do we find Scootaloo so we can get into this not-suicidal mission?”
“That's easy,” said Sweetie Belle. “Saffron can help. See, Scootaloo's new wings give off a strong magical signal … ”
“Ah,” said Tom
Sweetie Belle grinned at him. “Exactly. First, we need to go to Skulltown.”
A little less than an hour later, Sweetie Belle went with Millie and Tom up to the offices of the Ilmarinen navy in Sphere Two. It was a more imposing than most of city : a long two-story structure of adobe, painted in the Ilmarinen flag colours of blue, orange and black, and topped with three oversized domes. They sat on the sloping ground near the edge of the bowl-shaped terrain at the base of there sphere and seemed to overlook it.
A wire fence surrounded the whole thing, but the gates at the front had been bolted open as if someone, uncertain of how unfriendly they wanted to make the offices seem, had regretted the earlier decision to erect it. Inside, she ran into no resistance until the front door itself where a stallion asked them for their names, then directed them down a corridor to the right.
The walls were bare, painted white and lined with pipes and wires, but punctuated at intervals with lamps like flower-heads set in ornate brackets. Room 15, said the door in neatly painted letters. Sweetie Belle knocked.
“Come in,” called a voice.
Its owner, a bored-looking unicorn stallion behind a desk so neat it looked closer to a mathematical abstraction than a physical object, glanced up at them as they came in. “Mildred, you're the only one with a ship berthed here. Is that right?”
“Millie. Yes, I am.”
“And you two?”
“Tom. Just Tom. I was a member of the archaeology expedition that was rescued a few days ago.”
“Sweetie Belle.”
A pause while the stallion looked over them. “Right,” he said at last. “I am Captain Proper Order. And what do you have to report?”
Sweetie Belle stepped forward. “Griffon pirates have been docking here a few times over the past few days.”
“We are aware of that,” said Proper. “But we can't police the whole of Amaranth, and we very rarely have actual proof.”
“I understand,” said Sweetie Belle. “But this goes beyond piracy. The pirates are – or were – working with a crystal unicorn called Blueberry Pancake …”
And once again, aided by Millie and Tom, she gave her story – this time a carefully edited one, without Saffron or the aelewyrm hatchlings appearing and with some events glossed over. She concluded with saying she'd learned Blueberry was going after some ancient technology that could make S. very powerful.
Proper nodded slowly when she had finished. “You can see, I hope, why I might find some of this hard to believe.” He skimmed his papers. “A lone gunship docking – yes, I remember that. That was you?”
“Yeah.”
Proper sat back with a creased brow. “You know that counts as an admission you haven't paid your fee for berthing here?” Seeing Sweetie Belle's expression, he smiled briefly. “Don't worry. I won't chase you down for that. If what you say is true, you have plenty of reason not to pay, and if you're not, it's not really an admission. Anyway, I'll look into this and see if we have a record of the other events you mentioned. I should warn you, though, this may fall outside our jurisdiction.”
“Captain,” said Millie, “if you don't mind me sayin', that's bollocks. I know for a fact that the jurisdiction of the Ilmarinen navy were defined in a reight sketchy way. I've seen your battleships protectin' Pinion Beach. You can investigate this if you want to. And believe me, if she's right, the Ilmarinen is under threat.”
Proper was silent for a few seconds as the two of them held eye contact. “As I said, I'll look into it. Is there anything else?”
Sweetie Belle looked to the others, then shook her head.
“Very well. Thank you for your report. Goodbye.”
Out in the corridor Tom said, “That went better than I expected.” Then, when neither Sweetie Belle nor Millie responded, “Do you think he'll do anything about it?”
“I don't know,” Sweetie Belle said. “His choice. Come on, we need to get to Skulltown as quickly as possible.”
Before they left, Millie took her ansible terminal out of the Ilmarinen communications office, commenting, “There ain't no one I really need to talk to anyway.” With the other terminal aboard the Dulcet, the ships would be able to keep in constant communication with each other.
They also agreed that, for the mission, it Gregor would be best locked in one of the Dulcet's cells.
While all this was underway, Sweetie Belle took Tom down into Dignity's hold. She'd told him about the aelewyrm hatchlings, but his eyes widened when he saw them.
“Oh … wow,” he said.
The aelewyrms chirruped and twanged at Sweetie Belle's entrance. They'd developed a new noise since she'd been riding them that sounded like a pipe organ being sat on as it went out of tune. She stepped forward to introduce Tom.
He stayed by the door, stared at her, then tentatively followed.
The closest hatchling nudged toward him. He looked over at Sweetie Belle.
“I think they remember you,” she said. “You can touch them.”
He reached forward slowly and paused a few inches away from the aelewyrm's mandibles, then continued. “This is …” he trailed off, grinned widely and stroking the upper mandible. “Their actually made of corundum, you know,” he murmured. “Like rubies …” He greeted the second aelewyrm a bit more smoothly.
“That one's called Bounce,” said Sweetie Belle. “It's the one I rode here. Those two are Chardonnay and Scruff. I don't know about the other two.”
Tom rubbed Scruff behind the wing and repeated its name to it. “Well, coming up with five names in one go isn't easy,” he said.
“You wanna help?”
Tom looked over at her. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
One of the unnamed hatchlings was wrestling with Chardonnay. The other was curled up nearby making drawn-out, lazy-sounding noises. Tom walked over to them.
“Lind. Benz.” he said, pointing to each in turn.
Saffron appeared beside Sweetie Belle. “That's so beautiful. Really, really, how wonderful.” She snorted.
Sweetie Belle gave her a grin. “Yeah, it is.”
The chevaloid's hooves, wrapped in cotton sheets to soften them, pressed into her back in long smooth motions. Blueberry stretched out a hind leg as far as she could and, face buried in and nuzzling up against a fluffy pink towel, purred, “Yes, there. There. Exactly right.”
The door clicked open and slammed shut again.
Without opening her eyes, and without letting the growling undertones in her voice slip, she said, “Brother Flay. Hello once again. Would you like to join in?”
Silence.
Blueberry let it hang, save for a soft mewl as the chevaloid moved its massage a little further up her spine.
“Our liege has arrived.” Flay's tone had the quality of sharp-edged shrapnel. “Our ships will be docking soon.”
The meeting was an odd affair: Her airship, still engineless, was being tugged by the scout.
“Wonderful. How long?”
“Ten minutes.” Flay sniffed, then finally gave in. “And what is this? Do you intend to appear before him done up as a harlot? Has your respect for our order fallen so low?”
She at last opened her eyes. Flay stood before her, gesturing at a line of blue and gold mane ribbons hanging from the spine of a second chevaloid. “I would never dream of such a thing,” she said, one side of her upper lift pulling up. “Those are for when I get back.” Her aura flickered briefly, and the first chevaloid stopped its massage and stood to attention. With a wriggle, she shifted from the massage table and settled her hooves on the floor. Her robe, held in her violet aura, floated over from where it was folded in the corner and settled about her shoulders. “Well, then. How do I look?”
“Appropriate.” Flay seemed to struggle to make the admission.
Blueberry leaned in close to him. “You're such a charmer,” she whispered.
After staring at her for a moment, Flay trotted out of the room.
Soon afterwards, the bulkhead around her juddered. A distant-sounding clank echoed through the hull.
Sombra had arrived.
As she walked with her guide through the dim corridors, she cycled through her plan for the meeting. How many adherents were on this ship? Not many. Those who looked after Sombra, and performed the transition ritual to sustain him, and a smattering of others. The rest were more distant allies, picked up along the way with promises of wealth and power.
By the door, her guide stopped and looked over at her with an unreadable impression. She smiled at him, spontaneously and sincerely, and slid open the door.
It closed behind her. She knocked on the second door, and waited for the bolt to open.
The familiar smell of mould and rot, thick as soup, insinuated itself into her sinuses. Sombra, sitting impossibly still, and his throne formed a single faint shape in the gloom. At first, only sickly green glow of his eyes was visible; as her vision adjusted, she could make out the faint lines of his cloak.
The old feeling came rushing back, like she was a filly again, alone, all her secret shames on display. She throttled the feeling and stepped forward.
“Tanelorn?” said Sombra.
Blueberry caught sight of the waxen, dry flesh of an open wound in his foreleg.
“I have it. I know where it is. All the weapons you desire.”
The head shifted slightly, like something directed by a puppeteer. “Good.”
Blueberry walked closer. She stamped her rear hoof lightly against the floor, and started walking slowly to the left. Beyond the bound of propriety. “Before we begin, I just want to say …” Stamp “ … what all this means to me.”
“Sister Blueberry Pancake.” The words ended with a warning growl, too deep and too savage for any pony throat to have made.
Blueberry continued her circle of his throne, so she was nearly behind him. Stamp. “Find the crystal heart; rule the world.” She appeared on his far side. Stamp. “Find Tanelorn; rule the world.” Stamp. “Talk about unimaginative! I don't care what this sycophants say. I'm not impressed. Your lack of ambition sickens me.”
“Cease!” The air just in front of his horn seemed to froth, erupting dark aetherial lances towards her. A second later, five spots on the ground glowed briefly, and Sombra's spell dissipated. In that moment, Blueberry could see how small and pathetic the host body looked.
“Oh dear,” she said. “Did I do that?” She looked up from the floor, and her expression of mock surprise fell away. “I know you. I know what you are, oh my liege. A petty tyrant, an arrogant fool who thinks his little followers can't think for themselves.. I … I am so much greater. You want to rule the world. I am going to save it and everything in it. Including you. And when I'm done, you'll thank me.”
She stepped back again as the pentagon of light began to grow. “Don't worry,” she told him. “It's just a pocket dimension. I'll come and get you when I'm ready.”
Sombra's roar was lost inside the shimmering walls that rose to enclose him. Together with his throne, he dropped away as if the floor had opened up beneath him. A second later the light dimmed and vanished, and nothing remained. “Well,” said Blueberry, “I'm glad we had this talk,” and strode out of the room.
That was the hard part done with. Outside, she allowed her guide to take her back to her own ship, where she met immediately with her bodyguards and five chevaloids, including the one carrying her makeup box and ribbons.
“Did you do it?” asked Sorghum. He sounded almost eager.
“Oh, you wonderful boys,” she told them. “I did. Everything is going the way I planned. Now come with me.”
Leading them in a procession towards the bridge, she applied her makeup and worked the ribbons into her mane. When as last she swept into the bridge with her bodyguards, she looked magnificent. Guards briefly tried to block her, but stepped back when they saw her robe.
The chevaloids waited outside. Blueberry and her bodyguards stopped by the front window that looked out over the desert ahead and turned back to face the bridge crew – a total of six ponies, including an acting captain and a robed adherent to whom he was subordinate.
“Sister Blueberry Pancake,” said the adherent. “Please explain your presence here.”
“Of course,” she said, pushing a gentle thrall spell across the whole bridge. “I'm here to announce a change in management. That is to say, Sombra is no longer with us. I am in control here – and I promise I will bring you a far more than he ever could. Any objections?”
“Traitor!” hissed the adherent. “You –” He looked down at the lance extending from her shield through his chest, then back up at her.
Blueberry withdrew it and let the silence hang as he collapsed. “Anyone else?” she said.