//------------------------------// // Nine // Story: The Good, The Bad and the Princess // by BorealStargazer //------------------------------// “How much longer?” “Are we on a timetable here?” Luna sighed. Flashlight was essential for some kinds of work. Generally, though... His supernatural ability to get on her nerves was on par with her own magical talents. “Five more minutes. If there is still no progress after that, drop it,” she decided. “Yes, we do have a schedule to keep. At least explain what the problem is. I thought decreasing energy consumption should not be hard enough.” The mechanic raised his muzzle away from the maintenance hatch on the side of the guard's armor and turned to her. There was a spark of eyes behind the visor glass. It seemed he switched the filter off to be able to see anything in the depths of the exoskeleton. After inspecting her and seemingly being unable to find fault with anything, he sighed heavily. “Security is the problem,” he went on in response to her puzzled silence. ”Maintenance access to the system has its bottlenecks. Our armor — yours, mine, — is a continuation of our own coat. Especially yours, princess. A psycho-mould, a retinal check, a hoofprint scan. Your armor is unique. You have no need to introduce yourself to get all the controls.” He adjusted something inside the hatch with his hoof, glancing on the displays, invisible to her. “I'm currently logged into this stallion's armor using usual maintenance credentials. The problem is, the system requires the correct password to provide me all the access I need. Without the appropriate rights the most I can do is look at some numbers.” “Can't you hack it?” Flashlight rolled his eyes. “I'm a mechanic, princess, not a hacker. It is not as if there are just ten possible options to choose from like in those videogames of yours. Bruteforce attack is out of question considering my capacities at hoof. I don't know who handles their info security...” I know, the princess knitted her brow. “...but this is where I hit the rock.” “Did I hear you right, Flashlight?” Luna raised her brow. “Did you just use the ‘I’ word?” “Save your moon-y sarcasm.” “I'm serious. It's not often I hear ‘can't do that’ from you.” “I can reboot in emergency mode to bypass the safeguards. This will reset all the life support subsystems. Do you want that?” he answered. “It's forty-five above zero outside. I thought we were trying to keep the guys alive.” Princess sighed. “Check Trowel's armor. Is there is no progress by then... We don't have much time to waste. Pack up and move on.” While the earthpony was struggling with the hatch she tried the communications once again. A small grotto that had hidden them and their ill-fated followers did provide some protection from the primal storm, but there were still occasional portions of sand reaching them. “Unable to establish connection,” Shadow whispered, audibly upset. “Statics level critical.” Looks like asking Dogrose is out of question as well, she reckoned. If Dogrose would give her the password, that is. “That's strange,” mechanic interrupted her thoughts. “What is strange?” “The indications are. Usually this kind of armor is supplied with standard power sources. How much charge left do you have, princess?” “Ninety-three percent,” Luna replied. “You?” “About the same level,” Flashlight tried to scratch his beard habitually, then remembered about the helm and looked at his hoof, puzzled. “The same with the guy. Lieutenant's suit has full charge, though. We've been walking for no less than half an hour. Meaning...” The alicorn patiently waited. From her experience about the past conversations with the mechanic she knew that new questions would probably only delay things further. He fiddled with the exposed side of the armor for a while, then shook his head and grimly leaned back. “If there is a plaque "Cockatrice" on a cell with a hydra inside, don't trust your eyes,” he sighed. “Princess, take a look here.” Luna leaned to the opened hatch. Inside, in the depth, between the cables, the rods and some rolled reinforcements, in the slot behind the thick glass a crystal was glowing. Once honey-yellow, now it shimmered in crimson, and there was a shaggy ball the color of blood growing inside. “A power cell,” she recognized, summoning all of her scarce technical knowledge. “But why is the amber red? It is a common accumulator...” “The crystal usually never reaches this condition under normal circumstances,” Flashlight grumbled. “I doubt you've seen it like this before. Color shift on the spectre. In common terms, this accumulator is nearly worn-out. It is able to hold only a fraction of its design capacity.” “So his armor is out of energy?” the princess frowned. “Not yet,” the earthpony spreaded the cable connecting his armor to the service ports on the guard's. “But it will be. No wonder the charge feedback sensors are confused. They can show full charge now, but soon the indications will abruptly deteriorate to several percent. That's when his subsystems will begin to fail one by one. Normally the maintenance crew should not accept armor suits like this one into exploitation. It can be detected by any standart grade diagnostic tests in the dock.” “He would die,” there was no question in Luna's voice. “He'd suddenly find himself in a metal box without any power.” “He will die,” Flashlight winced. “In case we do nothing to prevent it.” “And what are our options?” Mechanic thought for a short while. “We might be able to get back in time... probably, if we turn back right now. I suppose we discard this one?” “We will lose the umbrum. There is only one way down while she's on the plateau. After she leaves it...” Luna shook her head. “We will never find her.” “I could shunt power supply to another set of armor through its charging port,” he said, weighting. “Probably even to the other guard's suit. I can't lower consumption without full service access but he will still hold longer like that.” “Will it take long?” “Actually, no. I have no appropriate cables... Nothing our duct tape couldn't fix.” The princess shook her head and stepped away. If you only knew what kind of trash... Serviceponies' ability to build working mechanisms from a box of scraps never stopped astonishing her. Still, if there was one thing she was certain about, it was that Flashlight would do it right. “What's your opinion?” Serenity stopped inspecting his cannon and turned his Y-shaped helmet glass to her. “On those two,” she added, nodding at the immobile exoarmor suits. “Sending somepony to... watch over me... was something I expected. Giving one of them a suit of defective armor guaranteed to fail soon...” Serenity kept his silence but the princess felt his smile on her. A smile devoid of any joy. “I would never think Lash had subordinates so devoted.” Serenity jerked. The alicorn was puzzled at first, but then understanding slowly descended upon her. The captain was laughing. “You think he wasn't aware?” “Princess,” there was Flashlight's voice in her headphone. “I'm sorry to interrupt you but we have a problem.” “Speak, Flashlight,” she replied, turning back. “I totally expected it to work,” he groused as if making excuses. “Short-circuiting the cables is trivial enough, there is a convenient plug here, and the tape should more or less protect from circuit breakdown...” “Flashlight,” Luna sighed. “Stop mumbling. What happened?” “I can't make the armor switch to charging port. Maybe it considers the input to be too weak... I don't know. I can't force it without superuser access.” “Flashlight,” Luna touched his shoulder softly. With an armored hoof able to crumple plate iron. “You are one of the most gifted mechanics I know. You can't make it? Fine. What else can you do?” “I can... I can...” he scrubbed his helm with his hoof, pondering. “I don't like the alternative. Still, I can patch the systems directly,” he explained, feeling the expectant silence of his princess. “Bypassing the charging port. But I need to disconnect the broken power cell for that. This museum stuff has no option to support multiple power sources.” “Will it work?” “It will. I'm sure of it. Like, eighty-five percent sure.” “What should I do?” Her help, she believed, was mostly token. Perhaps she wasn't aware of something... Still, after she tightened the "donkey" nuts having funny "ears" with her telekinesis, fixing the clamps in place, and Flashlight pulled the rectangular power cell, they both let out a simultaneous sigh of relief. She never noticed she was holding her breath. A shoulder lantern of the suit blinked briefly but didn't die. “We're terribly lucky today,” Flashlight concluded in satisfaction, hugging the metal box with a red crystal inside. Then he jumped when a lighting struck somewhere above them. Small shards of stone rained down on them from the rocky ceiling of the grotto. “What the...” A new discharge followed shortly, this one near the exit, lashing on the sand. It was raining boulders now, the alarmed captain reached them in a few leaps, but even he looked unsure about what to do next. “It's the amber,” the servicepony blurted out, looking at his box in shock. A new double strike shook their cover that seemed so safe before. “The sensors could lie but the crystal is used up! The cell itself isn't shielded! It attracts the charge!” It was as if Serenity was expecting exactly that. His dark blue silouette appeared near Flashlight. With a single strike the captain kicked the cell out of his unsteady grasp, then threw it in the air and gave it a precise buck. Luna realized only that the cell was flying towards the entrance. The flash blinded them, the shockwave knocking them out of their hooves when it shook the floor. Shadow howled like a buzzer, filling the screens with warning messages. Several big chunks of rock, torn from the ceiling, drummed on their armor. “I'm alive?” Flashlight lifted his hindquarters clumsily, shaking off the settled dust. The explosion threw him against the wall, and he landed in an upturned heap. “Seems like I'm alive. I'm alive!” He stopped and coughed. “I mean, are all of you alive?” Serenity grunted in her headphone. Luna rolled from her back and shook her head. Her assumptions were confirmed by the sight on the screens of her helmet: the armor didn't get much damage. What surprised her was that the thunderbolt, and she was positive that was it, appeared to be completely soundless. Having clumsily hobbled to the guards lying nearby, pony mechanic checked the cables and nodded reassuringly. “It worked,” alicorn stated the obvious. “We better move our hooves fast,” Flashlight agreed. “Or we will have two dead ponies instead of one. They have a single battery now.” Preparations didn't take long. Luna and Serenity were walking at the front now, barely lighting several meters ahead of them with their body lanterns, the mechanic following in the rear. He added the mark of the place where they left the immobillized guards to his navigator on princess' request. Still, it wasn't much of a relief to her. She wasn't that familiar with the two, she also had reasons to question their declared good intentions. Yet they never gave the oath and weren't part of her Guard. This prolonged silence didn't do her much good either. “What was that?” “We catched a bolt.” “Flashlight.” “Yes, sure. Amber attracts electricity,” the servicepony hummed thoughtfully. “Kinda like a magnet. I mean, it doesn't do it all the time. But this cell was nearly empty. Okay, imagine an empty mug that is being submerged in a barrel of water, but not to the rim.” “A rough analogy, of course.” “Terribly so,” Flashlight agreed. “Don't tell my electrotech lecturer. What happens when we suddenly remove the sides of the mug?” “The water.. implodes?” Her companion uh-huhed, reserved. They continued in silence for some time, pushing through the wall of sand. “Fine, but why the explosion?” “I'm not sure, but I have an idea. Stabilized crystals are similar to old chemical accumulators in their properties.” “Chemical accumulators are still used to this day,” Luna pointed out. “You were stuck in your workshop for too long. Life isn't limited to the latest developments.” Flashlight snorted in displeasure. “An accumulator can't be charged instantly,” now it was he who broke the silence. “In theory we can speed up the charging by increasing the intensity of the current. But some energy is still lost in the form of heat due to resistance. The more the intensity, the more hot the device gets.” “The power cell got overheated, then?” Luna specified, perplexed. “So to speak,” Flashlight snorted again. “The crystal's structure was significantly degraded already. If we add a lightning to the mix... I'm no planetologist but if the lightnings here are anything like Equestrian ones, that means hundreds, if not thousands, of amperes.” He went silent again, then finally added. “Anyway, that's just an assumption. We use amber for many years, we built our entire technology around it but the eggheads in their labs still didn't figure it out entirely. They never tried to make it explode... or hit it with a lightning.” “Should I worry about thunderstorms?” Luna glanced at the mechanic without turning to him. “Exoarmor is shielded by default,” Flashlight sighed, exhausted. Then confirmed reluctantly. “Perhaps not as good as their armor, but still it is. If you don't pull the crystal out of the protected zone, the danger of catching a bolt is as real as some straw breaking a mule's back.” “That's funny,” the princess smiled casually. “There is a saying about this, you know...” She noticed the flash in the corner of her eyes but had no time to react. A flat strike to the chest threw her back, knocking the breath out of her. A princess that turned out to be so fragile.