//------------------------------// // Part 2, Chapter 21: A Symbol of Peace // Story: The Portgate // by Archival //------------------------------// "Every time a drone passed by the native camp, I couldn't help but watch the little horsies come and go. It was like seeing an old Civil War camp in real-time, colorized HD go about its daily business - with cute little ponies instead of Confederate or Union soldiers. The plate armor and spears threw me off a lot more, too, for some reason. I mean, they had a row of black iron stove going, cooking up pancakes and coffee just like in the old history books. It was weird, you know? Being on a planet possibly trillions of light years away from ours and watching a tiny, orange unicorn in Roman armor grab a mug of steaming hot joe and a plate of syrup-drenched flapjacks. Another thing that I learned was that the flying ones didn't pay as much attention to the drones. At first, they followed the drones and even nabbed a few, right out of the air. They eventually got bored or something, I guess, because within a week or so they stopped looking up every time we whizzed by. Maybe they have tiny aerial spycraft of their own, and were just checking ours out? Or maybe their superiors told them to stop. It was a shame, in my opinion, because we got to see them up close when they tried to take our drones. For a creature that's supposed to be an alien from a totally foreign world, I wouldn't mind hugging one... -Taylor Albertson, Drone Operator -Luna- Luna cautiously pulled the tent flaps closed, her ears perked up and listening for any outside listeners. The single oil lamp hanging from the roof burned dimly, illuminating the dark interior of her personal quarters but not brightly enough to cast a silhouette for any observers to view. She stood there for a minute, her magically enhanced hearing searching for eavesdroppers, before letting out a sigh and sitting down at the folding table in the middle of the tent. "What did you call me here for, Luna?" The princess looked at the purple pony in front of her, the alicorn's dark lavender eyes still as bright and eager as ever. Luna's horn glowed with a deep blue aura as she grabbed a silver document box from her bedside stand, its rune locks shining underneath the yellow light in hues of red and gold. She set the box down in front of her with a clatter, the latches and hinges rattling as she did so, and brought her horn down upon the center of the box. With a swish, the glowing symbols and shapes binding the box faded to black ink. "Twilight," Luna asked as she flipped the latches open and pushed the lid up with her hooves, "will you swear that you will not reveal this information to anyone but me and Celestia?" "U-Um, yes, Princess..." she hesitantly replied. "Twilight, one of the most important things an alicorn princess must learn to do is to keep a secret. You must be able to hold your tongue, even under the most excruciating of tortures and the slyest, most persuasive weaseling. Promise me." "Yes, Princess," responded the purple alicorn, her tone much more serious than before. Luna nodded. She grabbed the silver box's contents and spread them out on the table, the sheets of crisp white sketch paper covered with detailed drawings and depictions of alien objects. Twilight picked one up and held it in front of her as she stared in fascination at the sharp, angular edges the charcoal markings traced out. The lines were too perfect, too straight and precise to be hoof-drawn. "Did you draw these?" "Yes. Do you know how?" "A recollection spell?" "Close. Combining a recollection spell with a magical anchor allows me to physically copy images from my memory and onto paper, like a camera." "Why not just use a camera, then?" Twilight asked. "At the time, I didn't have a camera." "At the time? What do you mean?" "All in due time," Luna stated. "Now, what do you suppose that is?" "Well," Twilight answered, "the four wheels clearly mean it's some sort of vehicle. There seems to be a compartment for passengers. Beyond that, I'm not sure." "Not bad. Though, there is one thing I would like to mention." "What would that be?" "The object on the roof." "Let me take a look," Twilight muttered as she squinted at the strange protrusion on the top. "No need," Luna chimed in as she pulled out another sheet of paper. "This is a larger drawing." Twilight grabbed the drawing and examined it closely, mumbling her thoughts as she scrutinized every detail. "I think I've seen something like this before. When I was with the aliens, their weapons all had this little protrusion here. I think that's how they hold the weapon, and the lever here is how they activate it. This one is stuck onto a vehicle, so I would assume that this is much more powerful than the ones that the individuals carry. Like the cannons on our galleons, right? And here, these sharp thingies are the 'arrows' that it shoots. I've seen them before. They're much larger than the personnel wielded ones, though, and there's a lot more of them, so this is definitely much more powerful. The difference between a crossbow bolt and a ballista bolt." "That's actually...amazing that you figured that out, Twilight! I'm impressed!" "Thanks, Princess," Twilight shrugged. "What can you tell me about the vehicle itself?" "Not much. Just that it seems to be made of mostly metal, and explodes under high heat." "Wait, can you run the last one by me again?" "In a minute. Here," Luna said as she handed Twilight another piece of paper. "Make your best guess." "So," Twilight muttered under her breath, "definitely another weapon. Same lever and handle. Radically different shape, though. Just a tube, with a box on the side." "That little tube is what they look through." "How do you know this?" "Just keep going," said Luna with an intrigued look on her face. "If they look through that," Twilight continued, "then that's how they aim it. Strange, the other ones didn't have a tube like that. Other than that, not much to go on. Wait, wait...their weapons all had a tube the projectiles came through. This one is much bigger." "Good." Luna's face suddenly darkened. "Do you want to know how I got these drawings, Twilight?" Twilight raised her head from the sketches. "Are you going to tell me? Is it...bad?" The princess sighed as she closed her eyes and rubbed her face. "I didn't tell you this in the letter, Twilight. The real reason you're here is that, well...I saw something. Witnessed, actually." "What are you talking-" "I watched them, Twilight. I saw a fully grown, aggressive fire dragon dive down towards their camp, guarded by nopony but a small force of forty or so of their soldiers." Luna raised her head from her hooves, her eyes tired and weary. "Forty of the Royal Guard's finest would end up as nothing but a crispy snack for a dragon the size of a barn." "I, um...wow, Princess Luna.." She stood up. "That thing is a cannon, Twilight. One that shoots straighter, faster, and more accurately than even the finest twenty-pounder in the Equestrian arsenal. One that any common infantrypony can carry, and one that can blast a sizable chunk out of a dragon's scales." "Wait, that's...terrifying!" "No, there's one last thing I want you to identify. One more weapon." Luna raised a piece of paper and set it down in front of Twilight, her back to the alicorn as she listened to her speak. "Alright...huh. This is weird. Way different from the other ones. More like a rectangle. I really don't know, Princess." "That's what brought the dragon down. Even without it, I could tell the creatures would have taken it out of the sky anyways. But..." "Princess?" "I'm the Princess of the Moon, Twilight. I can feel things that nopony else can. I...it...was just so...fast!" "Are you okay, Princess?" Luna turned around and looked at Twilight. The faintest hint of pure, anxious fear burned within her shaky, dilated pupils, a sensation the Lunar Princess had not felt in many, many years. "We are dealing with a manticore, Twilight, without a weapon or magic to defend ourselves with. We must hope that the manticore isn't interested in us." "Princess Luna..." "That's why you're here, Twilight. You know them better than we do. Eventually, we will have to interact. And when we do, I want to be prepared." "Princess Luna." "Twilight, for the sake of Equestria-" "Luna!" Luna stopped her monologue as Twilight cut her off. The tent was silent, save for the chirping of crickets outside. "Luna, I recognize this individual. The one holding the weapon you were going on about." She leaned forward, getting a closer look at the face of the alien. "Wait, that's..." "It saved me." "It killed my ponies." Twilight sighed. "Luna, they know who I am. They have to, if this alien is still alive and in contact with their society." "You're right. Twilight. I hope you're ready to play ambassador." "I suppose I am, Princess." "Maybe things won't go bad after all," sighed Luna as she sat back down. The oil lamp flickered as it burned, its flame shifting without direction in the tent's stuffy atmosphere. -Captives- "God! Look at that thing!" "Size of a cargo plane. Good thing it wasn't us who had to deal with it, huh?" "Yeah...I heard it's still alive." "What?! How?!" "Well, it's not quote-unquote 'alive and kicking.' More like 'alive and unconscious, lying on the ground.' They found it still breathing, somehow. See those little bricks strapped to its neck and wings? With the wires?" "That's not the only place they stuck them. I can see where this is going, and I don't like it." "One of my pals told me it's plastic explosive. If it tries anything, it's getting a septuple-amputation." "Isn't it a heptuple-amputation? And shouldn't it be a sextuple-amputation and a decapitation?" "Heck if I know. Either way, it's gonna die. All the tents fifty feet from it are gonna get taken down in case of rabid medieval lizard. Crushed a bunch of tents when it came down anyways, so they had half of their work done already." "Heh heh." "But yeah, how's it feel to be carrying a real live pegasus in a plastic box?" "Other than the stares, I can live with it." "Last one, right?" "Yeah." "Good. Didn't get my degree just to haul a pretty pony around." "Hey, be glad you have this opportunity. You could tell your grandkids!" "Let's not talk about the distant future just yet, alright?" "..." "That's the flight mechanic right there." "Hey, you two! Is that the last one?" "Yeah. Don't drop them, now. They're still in a delicate state from all the drugs and sedatives we've been pumping in them. Not to mention the bullet wounds." "Mind if I check?" "Yeah, go ahead and-" "Is that...a dyed mane? How do you even do that?" "Rainbow hair's all the craze these days with the kids." "It's been the craze ever since I got outta college. No bullet wounds." "Numbers One, Two, and Four have them. Take care with those ones." "No problem. Anything else I should know?" "Nothing that isn't in the briefing. Oh, make sure the locals don't see you with the cargo. If they smack one of their own outta the sky, that'll be bad. After that, you're pretty much in the clear." "Got it. Thanks." "No problem. Come on, I gotta get back to the infirmary..." Rainbow Dash heard, but did not understand. She was aware, but not conscious. The synthetic alien chemicals flowing through her veins made sure that she was neither awake nor dead, but instead in a sort of paralyzed slumber that just barely kept her from waking up to the foreign vocalizations of a species that did not call Equestria home. The pegasus did not feel the padded box she was strapped into sink to the ground as the strange creature clad in blue rechecked her restraints under a harsh, glowing light. Neither did she feel the clink of metal as four steel links hooked around the corners of the crate, chaining it to a drone four times the size of a pony. She did not flinch when she suddenly rose up into the midnight sky, her diarch's brilliant moon but a sliver of a crescent. Stealthily, the quadcopter floated across the sky towards its destination without a sound, the white, fluorescent glow of humanity's electrical lighting quickly fading into the distance. The heavy-duty yet surprisingly silent propellors hummed steadily through the chilly, breezy air, its four companions following suit. Its five cameras kept watch of the landscape without respite, two spinning rapidly and scanning the surroundings while the others focused on the path ahead. The drone drifted towards the left as a sudden gust of wind pushed it to the side. When Phoenix Avionics had designed the BT-13c Heavy Configurable Attack Drone, they envisioned the camouflage-green, 8-foot long quadcopter to be a support weapon capable of carrying 500 kilograms of ordinance at a decently responsive speed. Normally, it would have two submachine guns strapped to the side of its propellors as the eight top and bottom weapon racks unleashed hell upon its long list of possible targets with heavy machine guns, missiles, and bombs. Now, however, it easily countered the wayward breeze, the single payload attached to a bomb-bay module far lighter than the metal and plastic implements it was meant to wield. The cluster of drones zoomed forward at breakneck pace, their cargo lazily swinging tens of feet above the ground. Soon, the warm orange glow of ponykind's fiery torches grew visible as the drones neared the military encampment. Wooden spikes lined the borders of the tents, the former tree stumps carved out of the surrounding forest's woods and shrubbery. Sentries patrolled the borders of the camp, their armor and weapons metallically glistening under the light of the fires. The cameras surveyed the camp below, automatically tagging all the heat signatures it saw as either living creatures or non-organic heat sources. Though the naturally enhanced eyes of pegasi and the magically augmented vision of unicorns were strong, the cover of darkness was on the side of the quadcopters. Minimal moonlight and the bright light of the camp's braziers hindered the sentries' vision, whose magical vision could not make out the non-living magical signatures of the bloodless automatons. Watch as they might, the drones slipped by their eyes undetected. Stealthily and silently, they slowly dropped down from the skies and down into the clearing surrounding the encampment. With the gentlest of thuds, each of the five drones delicately set their passengers down on the grass as if they were priceless glass artifacts. As the chains fell away with their release from the quadcopters, the radio-activated coffins unfolded like a blooming flower, exposing their occupants to the night sky and the forest breeze. Three of the ponies were bandaged with clean, white strips of gauze wrapped around their limbs, while the two others were scarcely injured at all. The drones began to rise up into the sky, the grass beneath them waving and dancing as the propellors lifted them into the sky. Their mission was complete... ...except for one last thing. A blindingly-bright flash of red suddenly burst into the sky, a trail of smoke quickly trailing it as it rose up and above the meadow in a brilliant arc. The flare burned with the intensity of a thousand bonfires, hanging in the sky like a sun as it reached its peak. Shouts began to rise from the camp as ponies ran out of their tents, weapons at hoof as they rushed towards the edges of the camp's borders. A second flare ignited as they galloped, this one blue and much closer to the ground. As the red flare burned and pulsated, its parachute slowing its descent from the heavens, the blue one simply stood, staked to the ground, and fizzled with a deep azure hue. Soon, the ponies would send somepony to investigate the blue flare. The red one was just to catch their attention; the blue one would burn for many more hours, making sure that those in the camp knew where it was. They would search the surrounding woods, in search of whoever was responsible. But the quadcopters were long gone, a flock of five specters silently zooming through the forest sky. It was as if they were never there.