//------------------------------// // -96- // Story: Coarse Diamonds // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Gilda was getting bored; she needed to do something, something that wouldn’t destroy their mode of transportation. She got up and climbed down from her seat and walked towards the back of the machine trying not to be tripped up by the ladder. Everyone else was doing something interesting; she was tired of relaxing and needed some action. “Say Greta, how are things going?” Gilda crawled through the hatch and carefully moved her body down to the ceiling, which was currently the floor because their entire machine was upside down. “Well the group I’m in charge of was attacked by one of the base commanders here. She is biofeedback psychic and she almost killed our guys before we knocked her out. Applejack almost lost her head, Rover would have been shot in his and Saffron almost got stabbed in the chest… through her armor which is now running on fumes from all the damage it’s take in that fight.” On the screen Greta had her eyes on they were currently stopped at a point in a hallway and the tail of the machine she was controlling appeared in their view and hacked the door. They were being shot at for a few seconds before their aggressors were dealt with. “I’m currently trying to find where their command room is, but apparently one of the commanders is a computer expert. Reacts real quickly to intrusions in Tempest facility’s systems and I’ve only done two so far. Do you need anything Gilda? I’m kind of busy and I’m about to hack into their systems again.” “Yeah, I was wondering where you put all those chemical canisters you pulled out of those robot wolves?” Everyone else seemed to be having fun and Gilda was not going to sit idly around when she could be doing something interesting. She was already slinging plasma rifle on her back and loading up on clips for it. “Also, you wouldn’t have happened to have jury rigged a chemical sprayer to test the stuff would you?” “Yeah sure, the canisters are in that box over there. They are pretty tough which is a good thing, if they had ruptured inside the Centaur-pede then that would have been a very hard mess to clean up. There’s a chemical sprayer in there as well and yes rigged it.” Greta didn’t take her eyes off the screen as she had the fox robot leap up onto a counter and the tail opened up and rammed into the computer. She had pointed at the right box and inside was a chemical sprayer, which Gilda took out. ”Gilda, I just realized something. What do you exactly need that stuff for?” “They have some pretty neat walkers and I wanted to steal one for fun and profit, I can see them down there preparing some. One those can fit in here easily enough.” Gilda started stowing canisters into a satchel that wasn’t her ammo pouch weighed down with plasma clips. “Gilda, I hope you realize the trouble that will cause, they’ll know where we are if you do that! Speaking of, I need to deliver a quiet message to Ember and Rarity before I’m caught.” Greta was too busy hacking their computer systems again to really pay attention to what Gilda was doing. “Ember, Rarity, come in, can you hear me?  Please respond to confirm that you’re in that big room, what’s in there? Are you two okay?” “Ember here, Rarity has a broken leg and one that was shot clean through. The shot one is currently sealed off with breach gel. I’m carrying her through what looks to be a freezer with thousands being held on ice and our pink little stalker is here with us, the annoying little fluffy monster.” Well that was interesting news, plus Ember sounded aggravated and there was a bit of coughing. “Oh and I got punched in the chest by a walker. It hurts a bit, but I’m good to keep moving. Also there are a lot of Puffles running around, apparently they and these six legged lizard creatures broke free from whatever containment the humans had them under. I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire facility is having problems now thanks to the problem causing fluff balls, what the hell did you do to cause those explosions?” “I fixed the issue with the blizzards... and might have incidentally buried us underground with very few routes out of here thanks to the numerous explosions.” Greta’s voice cracked a bit and she felt rather sheepish. “Gilda seemed to have enjoyed it at least.” “This is Rarity, is there any chance we can defrost and save all these people? This is a lot of rows and this freezer is several stories tall. A lot of the captives here are Pony and even some Humans, though we have seen a few Parascine or Cacceran here and… is that a Parrote?” Rarity sounded startled to see another Equus native that was from their planet. “I do believe it is one. She’s most definitely not a Griffon.” Well the species was technically called Parrot, but they were usually called Parrote for being larger than what real parrot would look like. They were not common in the Pony lands and were like Humans by being tall two legged beings that had hands. They were basically a distant cousin to the Griffon species on Equus. While they couldn’t fly on their own, given the fact that they generally lack wings, they were really good at jumping, acrobatics and piloting ships. They were of the few more humanoid looking species on Equus, like the Abyssinians which were a cat like species of similar build to Parrote’s except they were feline. Hippogriffs were closer than Parrotes were to the Griffon species as cousins, given hippogriffs are the cross of a Pony and Griffon relationships. Caccerans and Abyssinians were not the best of friends, but they did have their similarities and differences. Abyssinians were usually taller than Ponies and Caccerans were usually shorter or smaller, another difference is that Abyssinians were native and Caccerans were aliens with random rabbit and fox like features. Sometimes it was hard to tell Abyssinians and Caccerans apart, especially if a Cacceran has gone native. Parrotes were said to be derived from a Hippogriff and Abyssinian relationship. “Like I told you guys earlier, the chances of being safely being melted once frozen doesn’t look good and the survivability is low. So don’t expect to save everyone, save who you can.” Noticing that her intrusion was quickly becoming noticed in the system, Greta started to speak faster. “I’m guessing since there’s a massive room, there should be some kind of temperature control in there… now if you’ll excuse me they are beginning to find my intrusion and I have to move our guys and get back to Gilda before she does something… oh no. Cutting connection now, I think Gilda left while I was busy with you. Last word of advice, do not thaw them out too quickly, don’t set the temperature too high and more will survive the thawing process if not most of them!” The robot vixen’s tail quickly unplugged from the computer and closed up; she turned the robot fox around to address the others. “Okay news update guys, Rarity and Ember are okay… generally. Rarity has some bad injuries and Ember has taken a blow to the chest from one of the walkers, do not let the walkers close to you. If they can hurt Ember, who’s the sturdiest person we have here, then they are most certainly going to hurt you!” Checking Viral’s system, Greta made sure that a tracer didn’t connect and was thankful that she wasn’t caught. She didn’t think her luck would hold out through two more intrusions into the system. “I would like to apologize for all those explosions a while back, but we’ve dealt with the blizzard problem at least and...” “Oh no we haven’t, we haven’t dealt with the problem until this facility is gone!” Applejack interrupted a bit angrily while looking at the fox, these Humans were still threatening her livelihood and her family. She wasn’t going to take that lying down. “As I was saying, for the time being the Humans are not capable of producing blizzards damaging the planet’s ecosystem. Now that I think of it, this is a really bad place to be. At least your family is safe Applejack, but getting out of here might be a bit difficult as we can’t go out the same way we came in. In fact this facility might start flooding without those clouds to stop the snow and ice above us from melting. Also while I’m talking to you Gilda left the Centaur-pede to capture one of those walkers. Don’t know if she’ll succeed, but she better not get herself killed.”Of course having heard that there was a lot of havoc running around the facility, Greta figured they were safe in their current location for the time being so she continued to fill them in. “In any case there are a lot Puffles and strange lizard monsters that broke containments in the laboratory area Rarity and Ember are investigating and they are spreading throughout the facility while causing…” An explosion shook the room Viral and the others were in, it sounded like it came from several floors down and it had been pretty darn close. Applejack and Rover were holding their ears and cringing, thirty seconds later they were able to stand up straight. “Havoc… anyway, Rarity and Ember are going to attempt to free the Tempest Technology slave stock and if they can thaw enough help we can take the facility from the Humans.” Which was a good idea and Greta had a bet that was Rarity’s current train of thought, even if there were a lot of unarmed civilians they could still do some damage and relieve some humans of their weapons. They were currently outgunned and the Humans had numbers on their side, so making the playing field a bit more even would help. They would have to do it as fast as they can, because the lower parts of the Tempest Technologies facility would be drowning in water in a few hours. “The best thing to do would be to take the command center, before they decide that a self destruct is warranted to prevent us from spreading news of this system stealing plot. In summation if the Humans are crazy enough to the point they won’t care if they die in the process of a self destruct, then nobody will know what happened here and it’ll happen again either here or somewhere else.” “Greta, my armor can’t take much more of this and that Perja woman really did a number on us. At least they won’t use the self destruct until they have no other choice and we haven’t driven them that far yet.” Saffron didn’t think her shields were coming back, but at least the armor was still in working condition. Well workable condition, but not yet bad enough to ditch it entirely despite the thin hole carved into the chest of her metal suit. “Yet being the big key word to our continued survival, so yes finding the command center and preventing any other method to set off a self destruct would be a pretty high priority thing for us. We have to stop said thing from ever happening, we also need to keep them distracted from Rarity and Ember. So I think we should continue drawing attention to ourselves.” “Rover is thinking this will be quite hard.” That was an understatement as far as Rover could tell, they were all taking injuries they couldn’t afford to have as things were going to get worse. “Also I am incapable of doggy paddling with broken wrist, drowning is unpleasant way to go. Happened to a friend once, mother is teaching Rover to swim after that. She was a friendly and beloved bitch who knows many Diamond Dogs personally. Never explained to Rover how she knew them all personally, but she knew a lot of them.” “Remind me to never use the idiom ‘son of a bitch’ around you, I wouldn’t want to be insensitive to your culture.” Culture was kind of important to Saffron, given all the foods she cooked were related to her heritage and long line of Ponies who did things other than what they were truly talented at. Thinking of what Rover had to say about his mother; Saffron had the sinking feeling that Rover’s mother had been quite sexually loose and slept around with a lot of other Diamond Dogs. “Why would it be insensitive? Rover is the son of a bitch.” Here Rover’s ears wilted a bit. “I am hoping mother is still living, she is being a very smart bitch. Otherwise I am enjoying this rest break.” “Well because… you know what, never mind that. Forget I ever mentioned anything about it Rover. Let’s keep focused on what we need to do, like find the command center or at least information on a computer that can help us prevent an even worse disaster than the ones currently going on according to Greta.” Sighing Saffron turned to the robot fox. “We have to deal with one disaster at a time here. The flooding isn’t an immediate problem, I’m sure Gilda can take care of herself and what is an immediate problem are the chances of a self destruct happening if we keep causing large amounts of chaos like this. I might even be able to say that this is worse than what happened on Antilur Station and that’s saying something given it was a space station filled with reanimated flesh zombies and barely held together ghosts.” - Five rounds and the human dropped with a hole in his skull and two others in his body, Ember closed the door and turned back to Rarity of whom she left sitting on the ground. She turned back around as she stowed her gun. The hallways outside frozen storage was littered with rotting rock riddled reprobates. “Fifth group in the last few minutes, they must really want these people stay here.” Of the things Ember was ignoring, one of them was the Puffle licking at the melting ice like a tasty snack. “Someone knows we touched the thermostat and they aren’t happy with it Rarity.” “Well that is obvious with them sending more at us and the previous teams not reporting in; also the room is beginning to get a bit wet.” Rarity wasn’t actually upset as she had intended her parka’s to be disposable at least and they were doing their jobs in soaking up damage that wasn’t projectile related. She was watching the frozen beings slowing being thawed out, in case something happened to Ember or she was temporarily indisposed for some reason, it would then be up to Rarity to help these people thaw out. “Do you suppose you can go out there and pick up some of their weapons? We’re going to need to arm some of these people once some of these people thaw out soon enough, I’m quite certain no matter who they are they’ll want to help once...” A crash to the floor behind them caused both of them to jump and for Ember to pull the energy pistol while Rarity went for her material pistol. The frozen meat locker from hell with thousands of possible living souls had just had its first liberated person, it was the Parrote. She was trying to stand up, her legs were looking quite limp. Another thing that was limp happened to be her decrepit looking crimson and blue tipped feathers that were pooling against the soggy floor, it looked like she was attempting to do a push up and there was a look in her orange eyes. She was hyperventilating and her eyes were wildly looking about at all the other frozen forms. All the frozen bodies were thawing from top to bottom and her upper half of the Parrote had thawed out enough for her to become aware of her situation and panic, the ice around her legs had shattered safely and she looked to be healthy if highly disoriented by her imprisonment.  She must have had a lot of pins and needles running through her body. She started coughing a bit and explosively emptied her stomach of any bile that was in it, while sickening it was kind of expected. The Puffle stopped licking the nearest melting ice scultpture and made her way over to the bile spewing Parrote. Fluffy stopped near the Parrote and sniffed the air; she then proceeded to squeak and gave the Parrote a smile before she started eating the bile. Rarity could feel some bile rising up her own cheeks at the sight, it was rather disgusting. After the Parrote stopped puking, she just stared at the Puffle blankly and blinked a bit. She slowly turned her sight to the two sitting there, watching her slowly try to get her bearings; she quite a bit confused by the creature eating her vomit.  While she was doing this Rarity put away her pistol, Ember opened the door to look outside and slowly go out and pick up a few weapons while looking around wearily. Ember made sure to stay within the sight of the door and Rarity, she carried an armful of weapons and dropped them with a small splash in the large puddle Rarity sat in. They were going to need all the help they could get, now if the Parrote was friendly enough to work with them then they’d have some help. “Can you do the talking and try to inform them what’s going on?” A little fire here or there would help clear out the cluttered corridor, she’s already shot thirty humans and considering the size of the map this facility had there were bound to be thousands of them still around. That and she had some seriously bad social quirks, the exception being towards her hoard. “I’m going to be watching the corridors for any more attacks… and maybe do some clean up. Don’t try walking anywhere; I’ve got us covered for the time being.” “Right then, oh excuse me, you there, are you feeling better? I have a feeling that things around here are going a might bit…” An explosion sounded off making Rarity fold her ears back and she looked towards the ceiling with a tiny glare and then back to the cringing Parrote. “It is an exceedingly dangerous around here as it were, what’s your name dear so I might know what to call you? We can sort of use all the help we can get around here. Well if you’re willing and able, can you feel your legs?” “As you would say in your native tongue, where are we right now and what the bucking hell is going on here?” The Parrote was rubbing at her head. Gritting the teeth of her thick mostly half circle beak, she was obviously fearful for her life. Given that she just woke up from what was a dreadful sleep and in a rapidly worsening situation, some wariness was to be expected. At least she didn’t wake up in some space pirate’s ship enslaved to them. She had a rather interesting accent that sounded French/Prench; not to mention her voice was rather haggard which was also to be expected and her clothing look absolutely destroyed by the freezing which had Rarity somewhat appalled. She was only wearing a bra and underwear that seemed to be falling apart as she thawed; she was probably caught in her sleep or something. She dipped her head down and started to lap up some of the cleaner looking water beneath her as it flowed out of the door Ember was guarding. “My legs, what’s wrong with them? They’re numb.” “I’ll give you the abridged version, you were frozen solid and brought to a Human made facility far underground and were likely going to be sold off to the highest bidder in a slave auction until we came along.” Clearing her throat and giving a sad look to what had to have once been some rather beautiful feathers which were now horrible to look at. Her plumage must have once been amazing, but thanks to being frozen for a time the drooping damaged feathers from her head and her tail looked to be horribly messed up and needed to be, in Rarity’s solemn opinion, trimmed away so that they could grow back. Rarity’s heart went out to the poor girl really, the things she would have to do to get her beauty back into shape. Did that mean that every frozen pony would have to do the same to fix their appearances? Fur and hair didn’t exactly freeze right, why the thought was positively horrid considering she was all about spreading beauty and or helping others. “We kind of made a mess of things charging into a large battle and then we ended up finding this facility… mostly by accident. Being frozen solid is not a very survivable thing, but you’ve managed to do so, though not without a bit of loss.” “You mean… my legs might not… they might not…” The Parrote was still a bit slow; she was still trying to get her head together on the floor. She had a slight look of horror on her face. “Oh, no, no, no, it’s not your legs I’m worried about. They look alright for the most part from my perspective… it’s your coiffure… or plumage if you will.” Rarity didn’t want to point to out to the Parrote that her tail and head feathers were mangled beyond recognition by being frozen solid and they looked to have been absolutely long. “Look at it this way, you’ve survived the process of having your entire body frozen and your brain practically suffocated through flash freezing chemicals so there’s at least some positive side to this. We thawed you out to get some help for the situation we’re in; the Humans in this facility have a lot travesties to answer for.” “My… my plumage, what is wrong with my…” The Parrote finally notice her dead looking feathers that were still attached to her head, she looked a bit upset for a moment and managed to push herself into a sitting position. She calmed down and started to speak slightly clearer than before while slapping at her legs trying to get some feeling back into them. “Doesn’t matter, it can grow back. My beauty will not be tarnished for long if I can get out of here alive. What do you need me to do when I can get feeling back in my legs? I want to help.” “Splendid, I know this may seem like much, but we’ll need you to pick up one of the weapons my friend is gathering and help us protect this room until all the people thaw out. Well, at least the people that aren’t dead by being frozen alive in the first place. There may be a few dead bodies in this room with us soon and I apologize for that, but I need you to hold yourself together.” Yeah, there were a lot of alarming things going on here and Rarity thought better of not being straightforward with the poor dear, she was being completely upfront. “I wouldn’t want to want to worry you with the urgency of how we need people to take over this facility before we all die, but it’s important that we just get some people standing. Which reminds me, do you happen to have any medical experience?” “Oui I can gladly take up arms, I am Rubis Poulette madam. Now if only I can take up my legs.” Rubis didn’t look like she was ready for a fight and she was barely even able to stand. “I would be shaking your hoof for reviving me, but alas I am afraid I am incapable at the moment. So excuse me for not properly greeting you, s’il vous plait?” “Of course, I’m not in much of a good state myself to greet you as you can plainly see.” This sounded like someone Rarity could get along with; they were charming and sounded both sweet and willing to help even in their current state. “I’m Lady or Baroness Rarity D. Belle, officially a fashion designer with an unusually large penchant for incredible’ danger.” “Merci Lady Rarity, Merci.” There were groaning sounds and Rubis turned to see others like her starting to thaw out and become aware enough to shatter their prisons and become stabbing by the bits of ice they might have fallen upon. “I have no skill as a docteur though. Even if I was, I would not be of much help to you here in my current state mon amie. We should hope for one.” “Can you at least help me talk any of these people down from panicking until you can get your talons under you?” An explosion sounded out in the hallway, Rarity looked towards the door with worry and Rubis mimicked her action. They hard sounds of blasts hitting the door and what sounded like rough fighting for a few minutes and in the meantime Rarity commented softly. “We really are on a tight schedule here and my friend out there doesn’t sound like she’s having a good time.” “Oui, I will try harder to stand up and as quickly as I can manage.” The door slides open and Rubis gets her first sight of Ember and she wobbled a few steps through the door bracing herself with a hand. “We’re starting to get walkers and soldiers here, so how many are ready for a fight?” It almost sounded like Ember was desperate to hear a room full of answer. Her answer only seemed to be one and she was still thawing, but she was moving at least. “I am not ready, but I will be soon enough. I am no coward to danger.” At least Rubis was putting on a brave face as she struggled to even get up on one leg. “Try to hold out for a little longer Ember.”All the frozen people had been packed into the room like sardines; it was starting to get uncomfortable for Rarity to see at least fourteen unmoving bodies, one was unnervingly a Human child. At least she saw twenty or so that were moving that and trying to come to their senses. So their saving to death ration was positive at least, but still quite horrible to bear witness to. “Rubis do you mind the fact that you might have to fight naked? Your clothes are kind of… and your particular species wears more than the average Pony.” “I will just have to fight naked if I have to, in the name of survival I know no such shame!” It seemed Rubis was getting some strength in her and didn’t seem to be upset about her state of dress and she was already slowly stumbling forward to carefully pick up one of the rifles, she got a good look at one of the so called walkers. It was a little demoralizing to see just one, even destroyed as it was, but she put on a brave face anyway. Her stomach growled loudly and she was hungry. “An army marches on its stomach and as for mine she is empty. I am in terrible need of food.” There wasn’t any floating barf on the floor and Fluffy was licking her lips happily, it had tasted rather unique. - “Seriously, how dumb do you really think we are?” The Human guards preparing a walker for a pilot go up and check the tunnels for stability started firing upon the cardboard box that hadn’t been there a second ago. They had clustered together when they started firing upon it and a sticky looking red substance started to bleed through the cardboard box onto the floor. One of the guys approached it and then they were fired on from behind, ten plasma shots ripping through their torso’s burning off hair, skin, flesh and bone and they all collapsed in agony. Gilda rolled her eyes and dropped to the ground and walked up to the box to flip it over. She revealed it to be a box full of cherries and proceeded to shove an absolute mouthful into her beak. After she finished her snack, she took one last fruit and stuffed it into the side of her beak leaving the stem poking out of it and tightened her purple headband while smirking. “Dumb enough to never look up. Even with the defense drones around, you should always beware the chance of air support!” Chirped Gilda happily, she then made her way over to the machine that was just about finished being fueled and she started to whistle to herself as she crawled into the seat beyond the open canopy. The seat looked really inviting too, she caressed the machines upholstery and then she reached up and pulled the canopy down. “Now let’s see what this little baby can do.” The machine stood up and Gilda went over the specs of it, grapple claws, shock cannons, maximum speed and fuel expenditure… this thing wasn’t very efficient in some ways. It was certainly an effective combat model for something that was a mass produced piece of crap for an exorbitant cost that was too high for what it was actually worth. It was a nice piece of crap, but she could make it go twice the speed and hit harder with a few tweaks here or there. So where were her friends again and who would need her help more at the moment?