Far out on the northernmost border of Elysium, Prism hovered behind a light tank that was facing out towards the ocean. Buoys bobbed in the waves at set distances in the midday light. The tank was unlike the old tracked vehicles of Equis, and looked more like an armored car to the tri-color maned mare. I don’t care what Spike says, this is not a tank.
The vehicle known as a Greyhound sat on four large wheels attached to a stripped down chassis. The currently vacant driver’s cabin sat up front while the elevated gunner’s turret was situated at the back. Without any armor plating, Prism could see everything from the engine to the magazine racks. At least Spike made sure this rust bucket was weatherproof… well, except for miasma at least.
The turret stuttered left before correcting itself back to the right. Prism could see Silver Belle grumbling to himself inside the gunner’s pod that looked more akin to a cockpit than an armored section. Except for the back and a bit on top of him, Silver was surrounded by transparent aluminum that had a thin sheen of blue magic made to protect against corrosive elements.
“Come on, dude, you had this nailed down yesterday!”
“I know, I know,” Silver fussed as he fidgeted in his seat. “Somepony must have mucked with the controls last night or something.”
“Sure they did, buddy boy, just let me know when you’re ready to fire.” Prism snickered at the engineer, but also allowed herself to smile at the sight of him.
It took Silver a bit longer, but eventually he turned around to wave at her, only for the turret to follow his eyes. It spun around and Prism suddenly found herself staring down the barrel of an energy cannon. “Gah!” Prism freaked and dove for the beach.
Silver cursed aloud, but Prism was too busy making sure that the gun wasn’t aimed at her anymore. Once her fear bled away, Prism crept along towards the notch between the left two wheels so she could climb up to the gunner pod. “Silver, I swear! How many times are you going to forget that thing tracks your eyes!?”
With the gun now immobile, she banged on the cockpit to find the stallion cringing as far back as his chair would allow. “Cut me some slack, PF, I made sure the safety was on and there wasn’t a cartridge loaded yet. I fix these things, not pilot them.”
“You have heard of weapon safety before, haven’t you?” If there was one curse of being Twilight’s daughter, it was that the pesky logical side of her brain liked to pipe in when it wasn’t wanted. You know full well the gun wouldn’t have fired anyway because you’re tagged as a friendly, right? it reminded the rest of the annoyed mare. Fuming at the logical side of herself, Prism huffed and slid back down to the ground. “Besides, you don’t get that excuse because you’re always my gunner in Wing Flight MX.”
“That’s VR, not RL, totally different.”
Prism decided it wasn’t worth retorting further. I’m not going to let anything sour the Flight of Feathers. Just keep playing it cool until he’s ready. After that, he’s more than welcome to stay out of the field.
She watched him finish getting settled in and wave at her to warn of outgoing fire. Nodding in response, Prism used her personal display to have her ear protectors start a sonic dampener spell. After giving a return signal, Silver aimed at the closest target twenty yards out to sea. The barrel of the cannon stretched out to half the length of the Greyhound, but the suspension bore it with almost no visible sway.
With a mighty whomp the armored car rocked on its wheels as the shot rocketed downrange. Prism watched with anticipation, only for the first shot to go wide to the left. Prism started to give some advice until Twilight’s picture popped up with a jolly ringtone. “B-ugh—doesn’t she know I’m busy?!”
Barely hiding her pout, Prism Flash physically tapped the ringing picture, allowing a lively holographic face of her mother to appear. “Hey, Little Wing, I meant to ask you something during breakfast, but Spring Roll decided that was a great time to explode her diaper, and I had to get a hazmat team to sterilize the second floor of the cafeteria. There were casualties.”
“Is that what that alarm was?” Prism responded almost out of reflex, and completely dropping her irritation. “Wait, what do you mean a hazmat team? She’s just a normal foal isn’t she?”
Twilight breathed in through clenched teeth and flattened her ears. “Yeah… seeing how you and Silver are getting along, I better go ahead and tell you this now. When it comes to being the child of an alicorn, a foal can be the cutest little avatar of Tartarus ever to exist. You know those horror stories Aunty Cadance used to tell about Flurry Heart nearly destroying the Crystal Empire even before her first birthday? Those were all true.” If Twilight had been banking on Prism not having morbid curiosity about that little gossip nugget, she was sorely disappointed by what her daughter said next.
“Hold the phone. Are you telling me all those other stories about how I used to create hurricanes inside our old castle were true too?”
“You were at least manageable after a few months. Anyway, the reason why I’m calling is Voyager. You’ve seen his new avatar, yes?”
Prism had to take a long moment to shift gears. “Oh yeah. He looks like that redmane Vaper Daper from that stupid western movie nopony liked. I heard it bombed so hard some of the actors were blacklisted.” Prism cackled so hard she had to wipe a tear from her eye. “I can’t believe you have the quads to authorize changing his avatar to that. Bravo, mom, bravo.”
Twilight’s flat and unamused face could have been made into a poster for curbing enthusiasm. “Yes, well, that’s the thing. I didn’t authorize it.”
“Oh.” Prism searched her mother’s stony face for the punchline, and found nothing. “So uh… have you tried talking to the IT department?”
“Of course I did,” Twilight grumbled as her daughter failed to hide more snickering behind a hoof. “But none of them confessed and Voyager is adamant that he did it to himself, and I’m not buying that for one second. Which is why I called you to see if you knew anything.”
Prism shrugged helplessly. “I haven’t heard anything about a prankster; if I had I’d be morally obligated to hoofbump him for pranking the whole colony. That’s alicorn tier—wait a second.” Prism scrunched her face in concentration while her mother was caught between supreme annoyance and detective mode. “Now that I think about it, Silver hangs out with Hexadecimal a lot. That guy bored me to tears one time after telling me how ‘bombastic’ that movie was. He might be your stallion.”
“I already spoke to Hexadecimal,” Twilight replied with a deepening scowl. “He said he had nothing to do with this. If he actually lied to me…”
Prism flicked a wing in mild amusement. “Mom, if there’s one thing Silver managed to teach me about programming, it’s that computers always do exactly what you tell them to do, not necessarily what you want them to. Did the IT team just so happen to deploy a patch within the past few days?”
Twilight’s foul mood faltered at having to think a bit. “I believe so, yes. But the report I got from them said it was just a minor personality improvement.”
“Momma, I’m just spitballing here, but you think maybe that could be the reason it modified itself?” When Twilight didn’t immediately reply, Prism continued. “I mean, think about it. Voyager was borderline sapient when we left the old world, and the main IT crew he’s been interacting with ever since we got here has a hard-on for some craptastic movie that brings shame to the phrase ‘cult classic’. He’s probably just trying on a persona his handlers would like most.”
“Oh for the love of tasteful cinema you might be right,” Twilight moaned as she stretched her face with her hooves. “So Voyager’s first thought as to what makes a good face for the admin AI of the whole colony is a fraudulent banker?”
“You actually watched that movie?” Prism guffawed. “You have my sympathies.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and huffed. “Well, thanks for the input. I’ll have to have a little chat with Hexadecimal and the others after court today.”
“Have fun with that.”
Twilight’s hologram exploded as she ended the call, and just then a target buoy a hundred yards out did the same in a cloud of mana. “Ha! There ya go, Silvy, just like the simulators!”
Silver had the wits to disconnect the eye tracker before he turned around to give Prism a hoof pump. “Yeah, it only took a week.”
“We all gotta start somewhere, right?” Prism snarked back.
From the comfort of Spring Roll’s nursery, Twilight was gently rocking the sleeping foal to the soft chimes of a music box. Yet to Twilight’s eyes, she sat in a virtual throne room where an earth pony was bowing politely. “I must thank you again for seeing me on this matter, Colonial Princess.”
“Your concerns were valid, Honeycomb,” Twilight replied with a slight nod. “You can be assured I’ll authorize the order to have some bee queens cloned by Friday.”
Honeycomb gave one last bow before vanishing from the courtroom. Well, that wraps up court for the time being.
Twilight gazed down at her dark purple daughter and tittered while playing with a lock of her hair. Since she’s asleep, I can prowl the hangouts. “Voyager!” she called out.
The AI’s avatar materialized before her. “Yes, Colonial Princess?”
Twilight’s original thought was derailed by seeing the avatar. Ugh, I wouldn’t mind it so much if I hadn’t been subjected to that movie by Luna for months on end. I can’t fathom why she liked it so much. “Voyager, did you select that avatar yourself?”
“Affirmative.”
“May I ask what prompted this?” Twilight kept her tone both calm and friendly. Voyager may not be capable of emotion, but he knows how to read and respond to them.
“After deployment of service patch 2526-B9C, I came to the realization that my present avatar was held in low or apathetic regard by the majority of the population. Logic dictated my function could be better served if I took a more likeable appearance that was also high on the professional scale.”
Twilight’s face went completely flat with a modest scowl. “And that logic told you to take on the likeness of a villainous, embezzling banker in a horrible movie?”
The avatar did a fine job of mimicking confusion. “That is correct, Colonial Princess.”
Twilight gave a long, drawn out, heavy sigh as she squeezed the bridge of her muzzle. “I swear, this has to be a subconscious prank; because I thought I screened this kind of stupid out of the colonist roster.” Twilight clapped her hooves and took on a more excited and almost perky tone. “Okay, first things first. Voyager, I want you to tell the team that released that last patch to reevaluate your logic centers. With a plunger if they have to.”
“As you command.”
“Secondly, inform…” Twilight used a series of magic and hoof commands to bring up a roster of VR graphic designers. She gave the AI a glance, only for her mind to keep recalling that torment of a movie. “Tell Bitmap he is to commission you a collection of new avatars to choose from. Hopefully by the time he’s done working, your logic will be normal again.”
“Orders relayed.” The AI regarded Twilight for a machine’s eternity, but barely a few heartbeats for Twilight. “Is my logic impaired?”
Twilight train of thought had been going into her next routine, but the question brought it to a halt. Habit forced her to study the avatar for any sign of distress. As per usual, if the AI wasn’t actively mimicking emotions, he would reveal nothing, as he did now. “Partly, at least when it comes to visual appeal. I have no problem with you expressing yourself,” since that’s a thing now, “but just like everypony else you want to look your best, right?”
Voyager stared at her unblinking. Had he been a flesh and blood pony, Twilight would have been unnerved. “Records indicate poor or disliked appearance results in distractions, reducing productivity. Your logic is sound. Thank you, Colonial Princess.”
“Happy to help,” Twilight responded with a glad smile. “Now, what screenname should we use today?”
Upon hearing the command, Voyager brought up a large list of recent discussion threads and VR forums on her personal display. Many of them were flagged as still being quite active. Some of the more interesting posts had highlighted keywords. “Star Mare093 has been called out on knowing a bit too much of your decisions, and some might suspect you.”
Twilight rubbed her chin with a wing, and kept Spring Roll asleep in the crook of her forelegs. “Make some obviously ignorant statements about the accusers’ parentage and their love lives, and then abandon the name.”
Voyager’s avatar flickered a bit. “Done. Glittering DOunut007 did manage to get several ponies to confess their plans to hijack two of the cloning pods to grow a breeding pair of cats.”
“How far into this plan are they?”
“Velvent Sqaude 41 and Down to Earth Home Diggigity Dee claim to be in the middle of figuring out how to bribe the medical staff for genetic information and access to the pods.”
“I think we’ve gone on long enough without pets.” Twilight imagined Spring Roll playing with a kitten and puppy, all the while taking countless pictures. And of course post them all online so that Spring can get embarrassed about them in high school. Twilight cackled at one of the most fun perks of being a parent: embarrassing her kids. “Tell the relevant staff to start cloning both dogs and cats. And make a general announcement about it in the news. I’d rather not have well-meaning ponies commit a crime just to bring pets back.”
“Acknowledged. There—one moment…” Twilight furrowed a brow at the AI’s hesitation. “There is a VR forum discussing the morality of implementing a modified griffin eye screen.”
“Is that so?” I may have the final word on anything, but one does not garner true loyalty by ignoring your subjects. “Give me the username Tatertot Musket and disguise me as an earth pony with brown and egg white colors.”
With only a nod in acknowledgement, both Voyager and the room surrounding Twilight seemed to disappear and was replaced by a large circular room. The fringes of the room looked like large descending stairs leading to a large circular table. Seated at this table were five ponies in the middle of active conversation. Everything they said appeared as text in front of and slightly above them. Well over three dozen ponies watched and listened in on the massive steps. The lighting of the room was gentle but had no detectable source outside of the glow coming from under the table and the hovering cushions which the chatters were sitting on.
Twilight’s avatar materialized on the upper portion of the observer stairs, and behind the lone empty cushion at the table. She took a moment to scan the audience. The majority of them were in rapt attention, with the occasional green or red light signifying their stance on what was said below. Voyager highlighted only a scant few who were simply bots or ponies that had gone idle.
“I’m telling you, the use of this eye shield is completely unnecessary and frankly a waste of a good bargaining chip on the Princess’ part,” decried one stallion at the table, drawing Twilight’s attention back to the conversation. “Why would we even consider that a fair trade when we have perfectly good goggles or helmets that can do the same darn thing?”
“Obviously so we don’t have to put them on to go outside,” snared a nasally mare. “That’s sorta the whole point of the thing, duh.”
Twilight scanned the speakers. Outside of having the typical screen names, all of the avatars were randomly generated throwaways, save two out of the five. An orange and forest green alicorn stallion sat facing Twilight with the name “The Prince of Common Sense”. He was also the one denouncing the use of the griffin eye screen. The other was a thus far silent mare who had the body of a cream colored mythical seapony. Lady Atlanta. I don’t often see her in political forums.
“How do we know for sure the eye thing isn’t a spy device?” accused one of the bland mare avatars by the name Toothpaste789. “You all heard about them hacking our satellite transmissions during that whole fake gamma fiasco. Who’s to say Thorn’s so-called honor isn’t a bunch of bull?”
Since neither wings nor magic was needed to fly, Twilight walked on thin air up and over the crowd as she made her way to the empty chair.
“Let’s not get pulled into a tangent,” Common Sense chirped in while softly rapping a hoof on the table. “That is a matter for the Princess to handle. We should keep our focus on the eye screen itself, namely, the fact that it should only be a temporary and entirely elective option.”
By now Twilight had reached the table. “May I?”
The others studied Twilight’s equally bland avatar. “Sure hop right in,” the stallion user Coltwolfboar offered with an indignant wave of a hoof. “I hope you don’t end up being a silent sitter as well.” He stole a glance at Lady Atlanta. As Twilight took her seat, the table expanded until it could comfortably fit a new cushion. Twilight nodded in thanks and sat down.
Common Sense glanced around, indirectly prompting Twilight to do the same. The audience stands had also expanded, with over twenty more ponies listening in. “Looks like our little debate is getting some notice.” He faced the other members of the table. “Why don’t we do a quick recap of the core issue for the Princess?”
Twilight froze, but otherwise remained cool at the undirected request. Common Sense didn’t so much as glance at her as he continued. “If we’ve gotten this big, Voyager and the Princess are bound to take note of us by now.”
“So much for speaking freely now,” Coltwolfboar grumbled hotly. “And just when things were getting good.”
Twilight scowled at the sullen mood threatening to take hold. “There’s nothing wrong with open discussion is there?” All eyes at the table turned towards her. “Last I checked, the Princess hasn’t reinstated the alphabet soup of watchdogs now has she?”
“She doesn’t need to with Voyager around,” Coltwolfboar contested with a hoof stomp on the table. A series of red lights encompassed the audience, but a few greens were there too. “At least some of you know how things are.”
The nerve! I am not like Princess Luna, okay! Twilight bit her lip in the real world while keeping her avatar indifferent.
If ponies naturally spoke in a sing-song cadence, Lady Atlanta was especially guilty of it. “Please, calm yourself. Nothing we have said here so far couldn’t be spoken of openly. I agree with The Prince. Let’s stay on topic.” As if to make sure that happened, Atlanta did a series of hoof commands until the schematics of the eye screen were ballooned up above the table for all to see. “The eye screen. Assuming the ponies responsible for reverse engineering it are successful, I say we should embrace it for the time being as one step closer to making this world a new home.”
The last pony of the group was deliberately androgynous with no mane and basic tan fur. It even spoke in a synthetic genderless tone. Only the name “Pony1187” gave anyone anything to go by. “Agreed. But I say we shouldn’t stop there.” Pony1187 waved the image of the eye screen away and brought up a chunk of yellow crystal. “Just in case anypony forgot, the Pathfinders found this stuff: Prismite. I have sources that tell me this stuff is not only a warm superconductor, but is also hypoallergenic. We could make some serious bionics with this stuff.”
“And?” Toothpaste jabbed with disinterest. “In case you forgot the last two hundred years when we cured Cyberbond Sclerosis, we don’t need some new rock to put in replacement limbs.”
“You’re missing the point,” Pony1187 replied with a huff. “We could create actual brain implants with this. Goodbye PD goggles and horn circlets. We could make everypony a genius if we start redevelopment with this! And that’s just the start!” Pony1187 exclaimed while gesturing wildly.
Twilight saw a large number of the audience light up green, but just as many went red. It would be interesting, but surgery like that sounds irreversible, not to mention dangerous.
“Children, please,” Common Sense chided. “We can leave futuristics for another chat room.” He pushed the picture of Prismite aside and replaced the eye screen. “I for one, say we are on a dangerous slope. First the X-10 was an all but mandatory enhancement to take, but now we have the same situation with a bionic implant.” He glared at Pony1187 in particular for a moment, getting a nervous furrowed brow out of Twilight. “How many changes are we going to submit to when it should be the planet that changes, not us?”
“Terraforming?” Coltwolfboar snarked behind crossed forelegs. “We’re struggling enough as it is between the critters and the fungi that keep trying to worm their way through the vents. Like it or not, this,” he barked while stomping the floor, “is our home now. There’s nothing wrong with adapting to it.”
Toothpaste cut in while adjusting a pair of floating glasses on her nose. “Common Sense has something of a point. Even if we adapted ourselves to the atmosphere, the sheer particle density in the outside air makes some unprotected electronics short out within days or hours. Air filters are easy enough to make, but producing materials and paints compatible with those same electronics would cost us supplies we can’t manufacture yet.”
Twilight was all too familiar with that particular problem, and grimaced at being reminded of it.
The blank avatar of Pony1187 cracked a wide off-kilter grin. “Crack another win for Prismite.” As all eyes turned to him, he threw up a picture of the same yellow crystal being processed into thin strips. “Check it. This stuff doesn’t need to be refined, per se, to be used in chips. Only cut into thin enough pieces to do the job. Prismite doesn’t give two cracked horns about no freakin’ dust since this stuff is found au naturale out there.”
“That’s a nice theory,” Coltwolfboar scoffed with a dismissive wave of a hoof, “but my sources tell me that’s only a preliminary finding.”
The seapony of the group placed a reassuring hoof on the table towards Pony1187. “Your heart is in the right place… just a bit misdirected.” She floated above her chair and turned towards both Coltwolfboar and Common Sense. “There is nothing wrong with letting go of old norms for better ones. As terrible as the loss of Equis was, there is a silver lining. We are no longer tethered to the old baggage the old world shackled us to. I say we have a moral imperative to adapt to survive. If that means adapting our bodies, then so be it.”
“So glad you could finally grace us with your wisdom,” Toothpaste mocked. “Too bad it’s flat wrong.”
“There’s no need for such hostility,” Common Sense replied with a calming wave of a wing. “We do not convince people of anything by using anger.” Multiple members of the audience flashed green. He watched Toothpaste grumble and sit back while Pony1187 started fussing with a list of data files. Lady Atlanta merely smiled and gave a nod of thanks towards Common Sense. The faux alicorn eventually turned to Twilight, his eyes glancing slightly upward to read her name. “You’ve kept your own counsel thus far, Miss Tatertot Musket. How do you feel about the Princess’ current path of accepting these gene edits and bionics?”
Twilight found herself giving a regal smile by force of habit, and had to consciously shift to one with more teeth and casualness to keep up appearances. “Since you’re asking me… there’s nothing wrong with abiding by the first law of nature: survival of the fittest. At present, we ponies are not yet fit to survive openly on the planet; we have to create artificial biomes. Not to mention we have absolutely no natural immunity to any pathogens out there. It is far easier to change a small piece of ourselves to survive the outside air. In doing so, we can still hold onto who we are as a people.”
“And what if we can’t?” Coltwolfboar challenged while toeing the line between cordial and irritated. “What if some ponies turn themselves into mutants like Atlanta wants us to, or a bunch of robots like that nutjob?” He jabbed a hoof at Pony1187 who groaned at him.
“You’re so shortsighted, Colt. Robotics are the future! Now that we’re not under Celestia’s laws, and have Prismite, we can finally be one with the net.”
“Are you sure you joined the right channel, Pony?” Toothpaste bantered with a scowl.
Twilight could sense the festering attitudes were going to block anyone from accepting any conflicting ideas and stepped in. “Our evolution, whatever path it takes, be it natural, artificial, or bionic, should do nothing to divide us.” Twilight felt that old warmth of friendship as she remembered her multiple lifetimes of friends. “Even if ponies went to the logical extremes in some cases, we could just see them as a new tribe. No matter what, we’re all ponies,” Twilight finished, echoing an old friend.
“All I’m hearing are flowery words for ‘diverse ponies will always stay united,’” Toothpaste challenged with pain in her voice. “What if some ponies forget that we’re all ponies, huh? What if some of us change themselves so much that we can’t recognize our neighbor anymore? Are we going to let some pony versions of the Gnashing Fangs roam around freely?” Toothpaste scanned the crowd, challenging each of them until her gaze landed on Pony1187. “Or some brain modified cyborgs that could turn insane with a computer virus!?”
Some of the old bloodied iron that Twilight had summoned the day she killed Fire Shrine leaked into her diamond hard face as she bore a hole into Toothpaste’s skull with just her look. “That is the challenge to which we as a generation must remain vigilant as we chart this frontier. Granted, dabbling in our genes or advanced bionics is dangerous; only a foal would say otherwise.” Twilight noticed Toothpaste’s glare slackening a touch. “The Princess is right to allow us to take the reins of our physical evolution, but the challenge of staying on a stable path must be met.” Twilight saw many green lights in the audience, and felt emboldened. Twilight wanted to break into a full-on lecture, but four hundred years had given her just enough restraint to avoid the trap. This time. If I say much more, too many of them will suspect me of being me.
Common Sense calmly clopped the table. “You have quite the knack for getting to the heart of the issue.” Everyone at the table looked back at him with a collection of emotions, and he saw Twilight leaning back and breathing out slowly. “You bring up some solid points, Miss Musket. Ones worth consideration at the very least. Why don’t we all take a break from this discussion for now and digest it? I know I have business in the real world to attend to, as I’m sure most of us do.”
A round of agreements, both thankful and grumbled rang out as ponies went offline en masse. Twilight Sparkle wanted to linger to see if Common Sense was just using that excuse to talk alone with her, but Spring Roll started crying, forcing her to go offline as well.
Silver Belle rocked in his turret as a trio of shots roared down range. The tracking computer outlined the trajectory, and with a small screen off to the side, gave a satellite view of the magic plasma rod and the target buoy that was moving south at a good clip. Two shots hit the mark within one foot of each other while the third went wide by only three feet. Silver pumped a hoof with a massive grin. “Boo ya! Nailed it!”
Prism was well behind the turret and dancing in midair at Silver’s success. ~“Great job, Silvy! We’ll move on to practicing while we’re moving next.”~
~“Roger that, Prism,”~ Silver cheered back as he engaged the safety.
Prism flew over and remotely opened the driver’s cockpit. The engine was already running from Silver’s training practice, so it was only a matter of getting settled in and checking the readouts. Her gaze danced across the various readings with an experienced eye. With practiced fluidity, she took the engine out of idle and revved. “You ready for this?”
Silver’s reply was drowned out by a priority call from Spike to both of them. The craggy old dragon looked riled up, and the command center around him was abuzz with radio chatter. Silver’s holographic face appeared next to Spike who had a larger window allotted to him. “Listen up you two, we have a situation involving the natives. They’re pissed and headed straight for the colony. I need every gun to the west, and that includes you two.”
Silver paled at the order. “Iii—ah, but Commander, I’m just an engineer, a mechanic really. I—”
“Just so happen to be one of the few ponies to have with real experience operating those tanks.” Spike crossed his arms and gave both of them a hard look. “So buck up, boy, you’re one very lucky engineer.”
“I… am?”
“He is?”
Spike gave a dangerous sharp toothed grin. “You’ve just been promoted to Combat Engineer Third Class. Congratulations.”
Prism Flash buckled her seatbelt and gave Spike a determined stare. The threat directed at her colony and family struck a chord that hardened her resolve. Is this what daddy felt when war came? That thought alone was all she needed to answer the call. “Where do you need us, sir?”
“Back to the garage for resupply. The two of you will not be going to the front, because I have some good news.” Spike waited to see if they would say anything, but nothing came fast enough. “There’s a worthy prize for your Flight of Feathers in the rear of the swarm.”
Tapping a holographic keyboard, Spike brought up direct satellite feed of the swarm. The camera was zoomed out to the cloud layer, allowing both Pathfinder and engineer alike to see the sheer scale of the swarm that was easily thousands strong if the densely packed red dots were anything to go by. Silver Belle bit his hoof and his ears were pressed flat. Prism however whistled at the sight of it. “By Hurricane’s Fury that’s a freak’n army! Just how hard did we kick the hornet’s nest?”
“A tactical error on my part,” Spike admitted with a little self-deprecation showing. “The threat that the lowlands nest was becoming was growing far faster than our predictions. Given the—ah,” Spike coughed into a fist, “lack of training you two had on the tank at the time, I felt it necessary to drop a few rounds of napalm on the nest to deal with the issue preemptively. Worked like a charm, but it seems the survivors know it was us who did it, and are coming for revenge.”
“Revenge?” Silver had to ask if only to try and control his terror a bit. “Well, that’s just swell.”
Spike had the camera zoom in on a number of dots towards the back which resolved into green highlighted figures, with one massive one trailing behind the whole swarm. It was turtle shaped with a dome-like back lined with a series of large scales rather than a single shell. It also had a tail that was positioned like a manticore’s, only much thicker, and with powerful looking muscles. A green acidic sphere was perched on the end of the tail. The ponderous beast moved on four tree-trunk legs with hundreds of smaller brethren swarming around it.
“This is like the burning of Everfree all over again.” Prism Flash gulped a lump in her throat at the thought of attacking that monster head on. “I didn’t think this planet’s monsters would actually work together like this.”
“Only now the monsters are attacking the right people,” Spike stated with irritation. “This whole problem could have been avoided if that damn false gamma ray attack had come just three days later, but we had to clear out that nest sooner rather than later.”
“How long will they take to get here?” Silver asked between chattering teeth.
“These things are not moving in an organized group,” Spike replied with a slight upturn in his mood. “The better trackers should reach the outer edges within two days, the civilians didn’t exactly clean up their route to the xenomass swamp. Thankfully though, it will take the entire swarm two weeks to get here in piecemeal. Ordinarily I would just airstrike the beasts into submission, but we can’t produce enough ordnance yet, so I’ve already ordered the anti-orbital railguns to be reconfigured into artillery. Between the air strikes and that artillery, our line can hold beyond the colony’s outer perimeter, but that’s going to take time. The faster elements, namely, the wolfbeetles and wasps will be here first.”
Prism felt the urge to stop sitting around, and started driving the armored car towards the garage while Spike continued the briefing. Prism’s mind kept drifting to Silver who was doing a miserable job of trying not to look absolutely horrified. He had sweat-drenched fur matting his forehead, but at least managed to keep from grinding his teeth. Prism kept one eye fixated on the giant behemoth as if it were the only prize worthy of the Flight of Feathers. “Commander, if this matters to your strategy, the Flight of Feathers can be satisfied by any dangerous game. A throng of weebles and wasps would be fine since they are directly threatening the colony.”
Spike gave her a long, almost fatherly look of shared disappointment. All he had to do was see the mix of abject terror and desperate hope in Silver’s profusely sweating face to see the root cause. “I know your mother will be glad to hear that. Ruby and Firefly are the only other Pathfinders who were close enough to be recalled, so update them on the situation when they arrive at the garage.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Spike ended the transmission, leaving only the sound of the engine to keep the silence at bay. Prism stewed in her seat, grumbling incoherently. Mom and dad got to take out a whole pod of hydras on their FoF. Her eyes softened at seeing how Silver was forcefully trying to control his breathing. I’m such an idiot. He could barely handle hunting a single baddy, not go right into the heart of a freak’n army.
Silver Belle was elbow deep in the Greyhound’s turret coolant system fussing with a hand-held tool. The magic emitted by the wand shaped tool was correcting structural errors the shakedown exercises exposed. Tremors running down his foreleg rattled the green beam of mana from the tool, which wasn’t helped by the nervous tic in his right ear. Keep it together, colt, come on. He clenched his teeth to keep the beam stable and on target. His display goggles bugged him every so often when he went off target.
He finished repairing one hairline crack and was about to move on to the next when a hoof slapped him hard between the wings. “Ahh!” Silver dropped the wand and jumped out of the tank in panic. He landed on his back with Firefly looking down at him with an unamused scowl. “You are one jumpy bat today.”
Silver sagged with a sigh before dragging himself up. “Aren’t you?” Now that he got a good look at his unicorn friend, he noticed Firefly was resting the barrel of a long coilgun on his shoulder, and holding up the butt of the weapon in his magic. “We’ve got a whole Everfree Forest pissed at us just because we had to bomb their nest!”
“And?” Firefly asked with genuine confusion. “Did you miss the part where the boys in green have been melting every large and dangerous critter within a hundred miles of colony almost since we landed? That nest needed to go before the whole area became infested.”
Silver looked down at the tool still strapped to his hoof. It jittered and shook from his trembling leg. “Then couldn’t we have at least waited until we had a trained and ready tank corps? None of the other engineers are going out there.”
Firefly’s scowl loosed into a sad frown. He glanced further down the room where Ruby and Prism were in the middle of discussing details with Spike. He turned back towards Silver to find him already shoving his head back into the Greyhound. He set the coilgun on a convenient rack on the side of the vehicle and got up close enough for only Silver to hear him. “Look, buddy, I get it. We all lost family in the war. You just wanted a quiet safe job where the biggest danger was pissing off your boss, but where you still get the chance to rub elbows with the big shots.”
Silver switched his tool off and glanced sideways at his lifelong friend. “Is that really too much to ask?”
“It is when you try to woo one of the biggest shots around, who happens to have so much hero blood in her it’s actually kinda scary.”
Through his sullen thoughts, it took Silver a moment or two to actually comprehend what Firefly just said. When he did, Silver climbed back out of the compartment to give his friend a baffled look. “What do you mean by that?”
Firefly pointed at the mare in question, drawing Silver’s gaze towards Prism. Even though they were too far away to be in earshot, Silver could still see her stoic face was masking a bout of sadness in the way she carried herself. “I’ve known that clown ever since boot camp, and I can tell you right here and now she wants to claim that big hulking turtle thing like a cat wants catnip.” Firefly’s eyes lit up and pulled Silver’s face into his and started whispering conspiratorially. “Speaking of cats, I got word somepony’s going to come through for a cat clone, and I got dibs on the female. I’m going to make me a mint by breeding her, but I’ll give you a discount, whaddaya say? A fuzzy furry kitty could cheer PF up in a real hurry.”
The mention of the turtle monster made Silver wilt to the point where his wings drooped along with his ears. “She was going to originally. That turtle thing… for the Flight of Feathers.”
Firefly’s eyes narrowed at the miserable stallion standing before him. “Oh hell no, you did not talk her out of fragging that thing just because there’s a swarm coming at us, did you?”
“Of course not!” Silver hissed with some semblance of indignant irritation. “I said nothing of the sort.”
Firefly rolled his jaw and replied in a snide tone. “I bet you didn’t have to after pissing yourself.”
“Oh come on, Fire.” Silver shoved him off with a grunt. He readjusted his goggles and got back to work finishing his repairs, and nearly had to shout to be heard over the tool’s buzzing. “I’m not a soldier, I’m not a Pathfinder, I just want to be the guy you lot come to to fix stuff.”
“Ahhh, isn’t that convenient?” Firefly yanked Silver out of the compartment and gave him an evil eye. “Boy, if you want be the fixer, then fix this crap right now or she’ll never forgive you for this.”
“But it was her idea.”
“Yeah, after reacting to your sorry tail. This is the Flight of Feathers we’re talking about. If you wuss out on her over this, she’ll remember it until the day she dies… which just might be never.”
Silver pulled away from the evil eye, if only so he wouldn’t get freaked out by it. “Since when did you care about the FoF?”
“Since just now.” Firefly hit Silver’s chest somewhere between a tap and a not-so-friendly jab. “You probably got the hottest and rarest piece of tail on the planet pining for you, and you’re just going to disappoint her in the worst possible way you’re capable of? I’d be grabbing some popcorn to watch the show if you weren’t my friend. That, and the whole monster horde coming our way too, I guess.”
“You really think it’s a good idea to go that far into the horde just to kill one big thing out of hundreds of big things, where the both of us could flipping die if any of them catch wind that we’re there?”
Firefly turned to look back at Prism with a leer. “If I was the one tapping that, damn right I would.” Then he shrugged and retrieved his coilgun. “But then again, I’m not some pansy who’s too scared of squishing a bug or two to marry the freakin’ daughter of the Princess.” Firefly hefted the weapon back on his withers and gave Silver a mocking salute, and turned to leave. “I can only kick you to the finish line, my friend, but you gotta cross it yourself.”
Silver nervously rubbed the side of his leg, his mind warring with itself. “There’s only a swarm between me and that finish line, ya know.”
Firefly shrugged with his back turned. “Eh, it’s outta my hooves now, you gotta ask yourself how far you’re willing to go with her, not me. See you in the field, gunnerboy.”
Firefly cantered off, leaving Silver to stare blankly the ground. Unbidden memories of the charred remains of his childhood home bubbled to the surface. A gaping hole in the roof. An unexploded shell that had crashed into the living room. A desiccated foreleg stuck out of the crater, and his younger self stood frozen staring at it, he couldn’t remember for how long anymore.
Silver squeezed his eyes shut to hold the tears back. This isn’t a war. It’s just a large scale extermination. Just really pissed off monsters. Silver swallowed the bile in his mouth and looked towards Prism. By now, the mare had ended her briefing with the others and was flying towards him.
He balked and hastily set his goggles to opaque to hide his reddened eyes. “Hhhey, Prism.”
Prism cracked a weak lopsided smile. “Hey back. Our ride good to go?”
Silver ground his teeth and jabbed a hoof back at the open panel. “Almost, just touching up the coolant pump. We still headed to the front?”
“In a way,” she responded with a shrug. “The infantry will be setting up hard points where us ‘tanks’ will be roaming around shooting stuff outrider style. Anything too big for us to handle are to be led into the infantry to take care of. Everything else will be hit by either artillery or airstrikes until the beasties decide we’re not worth it.”
Silver nodded silently, momentarily not trusting his voice. “Nnno time like the present, right?”
Her smile didn’t grow like he had hoped; it just remained steady. “Come on, I’ll grab some extra MREs while you finish the repairs. We gotta clear out in an hour.”
“It won’t take half that time,” Silver said with more pep in his voice at being able to cling to something he was good at. “I’ll probably be done with the checklist before you get back.”
“Cool… cool.” Prism hesitated for a long awkward moment before turning to fly off for the rations.
“Ah, Prism!” he called out, making her stop and look at him. What he wanted to say—to tell her to chase down that turtle monster—died on his tongue. His ears nearly went flat as he deflated. “We’ll do great out there with you at the helm.”
She nodded with that faint smile returning. “Sure we will. And I know you’ll be great alongside me, right?”
“Every step of the way.”
With one final nod of forced approval, Prism sped off, leaving Silver alone. Alone with failure sinking his spirit. He could almost feel Firefly looking down at him with pity. Damn it. Why can’t I give her this? Kicking himself, Silver returned to his work. Firefly’s advice would haunt him for hours to come.