//------------------------------// // -97- // Story: Coarse Diamonds // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “Commander John Quelk this is Commander Thomas Itterstin, the base has basically gone to crap and we’re losing people left and right. Surprisingly, it’s not the invaders doing the most damage. A few of them have however gotten to the freezer and are thawing out people, they need to be stopped. There are Gillamonk sightings all over the base and Puffles are destroying everything including all the coffee machines, it’s a mad house in here!” Thomas was the one base commander working at the computer, there was extensive damage all around the surface around the base. It was turned into a jagged mess thanks to the all the explosions and the destruction of their towers, the landscape wasn’t the only thing going on. “I think the others are looking for the command center, their intrusions into the system are rather subtle whenever they do it and they’re doing it from our own computers. I think they’re actually getting closer to my location and I can’t stop them.” “This is Perja, I will take care of the ones going after the command center. I just need to get some more weapons from the armory; John can handle the pests at the freezer.” There was an animalistic tone to Perja’s voice that made Thomas shiver; it sounded like someone pissed her off. Thomas knew Perja was quite tough and could take all kinds of injuries provided that her body parts weren’t severed. Cybernetics couldn’t quite create or match the same strength as a biofeedback psychic going full blast. If she lost an arm then a cybernetic replacement would be far weaker than what Perja could actually do with a real flesh and blood version. “Roger that, I’ll have my mechanized force move in on the fuckers and shut down their efforts in the laboratory sector.” John was a pilot for their most powerful mechanized unit, the mass production models weren’t as well guarded as his was. His particular unit was a large unique four legged yellow walker with hazard symbols on it. It had several powerful weapons and nobody else could operate it except for the intended pilot. “If you’re not too busy, send some infantry down there to harry them until I arrive. Most of my forces are tied up in killing the Gillamonks and preventing the Puffles from getting into the armories at the moment.” The Human forces were having a hard time with even killing one Puffle. It was a fact that they hadn’t killed a single Puffle yet, even during experimenting with the species after having caught a generous number of them. Every Puffle that had escaped containment were still alive despite the accidents they were causing everywhere, some ending in catastrophic explosions. The deaths from being near said incidents had already cost the Humans three hundred people in the last hour alone, which wasn’t the same as the one hundred and fifty humans that died by being snuggled to death. Most of the dead Humans that had been snuggled to death were scientists who weren’t good at surviving the deadly if affectionate critters. The security on John Quelk’s particular walker involved a very specific and expensive type of sensor. Facial and finger print scanners weren’t nearly as useful as you’d think, especially when you have things like active blood sensors. A facial scanner could be fooled, so could a retinal scanner, all you needed was the image of a person’s face which wasn’t hard to get a picture or recording of and a data pad with the right application of screen movement or scrolling. Finger Print scanners had been continuously foiled since the discovery that tape could lift and reuse finger prints to beat them. An active blood sensor in comparison was impossible to fool. The ABS scanned for John’s specific genetic profile and the blood had to be actively flowing and in the shape of a human to even use his walker, he also had to be awake and not dead. It was scanning him constantly, making sure that his current state matched a medical profile and took into account for changes in blood flow such as having adrenaline rushes. There was only one way to fool an active blood sensor, said sensor required several hours of set up which is why they were hard to fool in the first place. The only clear method for fooling an active blood sensor would require that you clone an entire person perfectly; very few races could do this and as such it was used for top level security. Not even shape shifters could fool one if they couldn’t get the exact kind of blood flow that a human had, for a shape shifter to mimic someone so perfectly they’d have to know every single thing about that person down to the genetic level. They were even fewer races that had shape shifting abilities that could come close to this; they were all at best equal to Changelings in the disguise department and Changelings would certainly fail to bypass this type of security. The sensor system could not even be hacked into. It was a closed system and it required entering authorized names and genetic data long before it was turned on, for once it was on there was no changing it. The reason why the entire base didn’t use this technology was because it was impossibly expensive and better for securing personal panic rooms or vehicles. It would take a lot more money than the every country on earth had to have these particular scanners everywhere in this facility alone. Just one sensor had cost in the range of several trillion dollars in the matters of how expensive it was just to install one ABS in the lead mechanized unit for the Tempest Technologies hidden facility. It was money well spent considering what Commander Quelk’s walker could do, mostly because it wasn’t one of the mass produced models. - Rubis felt weak and dizzy, she had been quite startled to wake up and topple over onto the soggy floor to hear she was captured by a Human organization that intended to sell her to the highest bidder. She sorely needed food and quite soon. She currently sat with her back to the right side of the entrance with a rifle in her lap. It was technically the right side going in, but the left coming out. She was shivering, she had been lucky whereas many others had been not. There were quite a few corpses in the room with them and that wasn’t nearly as bad as psychologically knowing that Rubis herself might have been dead anyway in trying to escape this place. She tried not to stare or look at them, the lifeless bodies strewn about. Rubis survived being thawed out, not many others could say the same. There was one oddity in the thawing prisoners; it was that the captured Pegasi that were here to clear up the blizzard problems had thawed out perfectly. Apparently a Pegasus’s body allowed for them to be frozen solid for any period of time and then thawed out almost without any side effects, even their hair was immaculate and undamaged. The only real effect is that they had to vomit if they had eaten anything before getting frozen. On the whole every Pegasus had survived being frozen solid and they had several teams worth of Pegasi slowly getting their bearings, none of them were ready for a fight and none of them had military backgrounds. They were all here for the same reason, they were sent to see what they could do about the weather problems that the Humans were now known to be causing. Some of them specialized in clearing blizzards, snow or even making such weather. The Pegasus named Frost Wind was organizing them and he had supposed that it was thanks to Pegasus magic that they survived with little ill effect to show for it. After that explanation everyone expected any of the Pegasi to survive thawing out, so far only one row and two floors of ice sculptures were free and thankfully more were waking up. There were just as many dead, just left lying on the floor. Now if only Ember would get back with the promised vending machine to feed some of the people and get them moving to set up something of a defensive perimeter. They needed a defensive parameter that didn’t rely on a recently thawed starving humanoid bird and battered mare wearing a parka over an EVA suit. Two in every three unicorns captured so far had survived; others were unfortunately brain dead with no chance of being resuscitated. There weren’t many unicorns here so it was a positive result, until one particular unicorn thawed out and they finally had a doctor. His name was Flesh Tender and he set about seeing to helping people thaw faster, but he did mention being in need of food. All Unicorn fur and hair was ruined due to the freezing process, something those with a Pegasus physiology seemed to have avoided entirely. Flesh couldn’t really help anyone until he got some food in him, because doing magic right now would be painful and his healing magic was rather specialized so it wouldn’t help with Rarity’s broken leg. As for the captured Earth Ponies which were a majority of the frozen bodies, they were coming out in random states of alive, half dead, in need of emergency medical aid or mostly fine with brittle fur and hair. The Earth Ponies had clearly gone down swinging, if the various states of their frozen visages gave any clear indication of that. It was worse if they were frozen with their eyes open and they survived the freezing process, they already had a case of an Earth Pony being blind because of it. Vomiting was a common sight and so was the building number of despairing people who noticed a brain dead thawed out body as friends, family or otherwise lying lifelessly in the water that had been slowly flowing out the door into the hallway. At least the water on the floor was now being gathered up and turned into clouds by the surrounding Pegasi, which meant they now had a relatively safe source of water thanks to the winged Ponies. They were almost done stopping the flow of water out of the room. “I hope that your friend is coming back soon with that food mon amie. I do not believe one vending machine will be enough for all of us, but it would certainly help.” The door into cold storage was open and Rubis took turns with Rarity when it came to looking out for any Humans or walkers. She turned to look straight ahead at the Pegasus slowly rallying his comrades into filling the top portion of the huge room with clouds as Rarity looked out the door. The walkways and the various levels could be seen from the floor. “For the time being, I hope that one is enough to get us started. How are things Mr. Wind?” “About as well as can be expected considering things as they are. We’re all scared, hungry and of course have a really low morale at the moment as a result of all this. I believe we’re all also cold, but the temperature is good for what it is to thaw out the rest of the victims.” He had a white mane and tail with an icy blue coat; he looked fine compared to any other frozen victim. The gathered water would be safe to drink and it gave the Pegasus Ponies something to do, there were also plenty of clouds for them to rest on while waiting for something to eat. “At least we don’t have to worry about thirst with all the melting ice. Could one of you please tell your pet or whatever it is to stop eating everyone’s vomit? It’s really disturbing.” Fluffy Puff, as Rarity called her, was enjoying herself and didn’t seem to care that she was eating what had been in others peoples stomach and decayed beyond recognition by their stomach acids. The Puffle was one of the most innocent paragons of her species. “Oh she’s not our pet; she’s a native species of Applin Five and is suggested to be one of the dumbest things on this planet.” Taking that thought to a logical conclusion Rarity thought out loud about the weirdness of Fluffy’s species being on an ever green planet. “You know, with all the warm weather this planet usually experiences, you’d think they wouldn’t have fur as thick as they do.” “It is a mystery for another time. Merde, did you just say Applin Five!” If Rubis had to go another few minutes without food she might just keel over and die from starvation, but hearing what Rarity said brought something to the forefront in her mind about how she ended up here. “Are you saying we are currently on Applin Five at this very minute Lady Rarity?” “Yes, we’re currently under the surface of Applin Five and quite far down, we have to probably dig up to get out. My people might have incidentally caused a number of tunnels to collapse making it harder for us to escape, also harder for the Humans as well.” A lot of glares were sent Rarity’s way and there was quite some grumbling about it. “Why, is there something that you just figured out Miss Poulette?” “Oui, from what I last remember… I was on Applin Three.” Breathing was a little bit more taxing for Rubis now that she put that tidbit out into the open; her fears were far worse than she had previously thought them to be. She had thought this was all occurring on Applin Three, why the very thought was horrifying that she had been moved from one planet to another without anyone noticing that she was gone. The grumblings about Rarity’s people were very silent now and everyone was staring at her. “I am feeling very faint about this news; I was among a number of prospective colonists. They are all probably here and have likely yet to start thawing.” The heat was slowly filtering throughout the room and it would take some time for it to get to the edges. It started to build up out from the entrance to spread horizontally down a row and vertically up the stairs, into the catwalks, blocks and the upper floors of this one massive room filled with frozen people. Rarity went to say something when there was a really loud continuous scraping noise, everyone turned to the entrance wide eyed and she readied her material pistol. Rubis peeked outside holding her rifle at the ready while crouched at the doorway. She sighed with relief as she saw something that was incredibly beautiful, food and hopefully enough to truly get them started on a rebellion. Well vive la revolution, Rubis needed whatever she could get at the moment because her stomach was slowly killing her. “Did somebody call for a vending machine full of food?” Ember was coming from the left branch, heaving the machine with rough jerks that led to it dragging along the floor. This had been decidedly as difficult as dragging a five hundred pound crustacean across a city for a bounty payout, maybe more so because the vending machine weighed as much or more. At least it didn’t have the same issues as dragging an unconscious body did and she had better leverage on it thanks to its shape. She dragged it into position so that it could be used as makeshift cover for people approaching the door head on, the back of the machine now faced the head on hallway. Ember motioned to it with a flourish and a bow. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find a medical kit for you Rarity, but I at least brought some relief. This is all junk food, but it should be enough for now right?” “Six dollars for cinnamon rolls, highway robbery, I shall not pay!” Rubis was trying to add a comedic sense to this while trying not to think about the horrors they were all experiencing at the moment. It seemed to work or at least Rubis would like to think that it did. “A docteur has recently thawed out, he should be given some food and he should know how to distribute it so we do not get sick. At this point sickness would be a sure death sentence for any of us.” “Nutrition is something I can help with, I can also heal flesh wounds of all kinds if I’m giving enough food.” The unicorn that had messed up pink fur and a mostly destroyed brown mane and tail walked up to them, Mr. Tender’s cutie mark was of a transdermal skin patch. The cutie mark almost made it look like he was wearing a patch on both his flanks; it was a rather unusual visual effect compared to Frost Winds gust of air and a snowflake. “Aside from that, how are we supposed to get to the food?” Ember clenched her left set of claws and punched the glass with her fist, it shattered inwards from the force she unleashed upon it. She reached in grabbed a pack of raisin cookies and tossed them to the doctor, who fumbled with his hooves to grab the little bag. He eventually tore it open with his teeth as he didn’t want to use his horn to do it on an empty stomach. He slowly started eating the cookies and knew better than to try and quickly swallow them down in a ravenous manner. At least he was getting plenty of calories to work his magic with, now he had to instruct the others on how to eat safely in their current conditions. “That’s how, are you hungry Rarity?” Concern for her centerpiece’s wellbeing came first before the rest of her hoard or even these hungry people, there were no illusions in Ember’s head as to how focused she was on the mare she so coveted. If Rarity knew that she was being looked at as an object of impossible value and coveted as such, would she be mad at Ember for it? There was a high probability, but she was hoping to be just seen as a concerned friend instead of a dragon with an exponentially growing problem that is relative to that of neurosis. She needed a psychologist and preferably not the one that is with the rest of her hoard up in space named… what was her name again? She was the masseuse; at least Ember could remember that much since her wings always worked to peak efficiency after visiting her. The name Blossom came to mind, but what came before it didn’t. “I think the others need the food far more than I do… since the start of our assault how long have we been here exactly?” Rarity had blacked out after the slide through the ice tunnels and really hadn’t known about the passage of time, only now was she bothering to ask about it. “Seven hours, we’ve been at this for the last seven hours with spots of rest here or there.” Ember had kept track of how long it had been since they launched their assault on the tower above ground and how things had gone increasingly pear shaped since then. Rarity was the only one who had gotten any real sleep. “Out of all of us, Applejack and Mare-Do-Well have had the least amount of rest as far as I know.” “The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, she is here?” Anyone who had ever lived on Equus like Rubis knew of the existence of Mare-Do-Well and what she did; only the mask hero had disappeared not long after the Hands of Midas thing. Her cheeks turned upwards in response to the smile now forming on her beak. “The current continuation of The Mauve Mare-auder is currently assisting us? I am a big fan of her work, she is a truly heroic figure known by many and her family has been all over the world. Though now it seems that one has finally gone up to space?” “Yeah, but don’t show any of that hero worship around her, she’s really different in person from what people expect her to be.” There was a slight look of concern before Ember added something for sake of making the mood a little brighter. “She really is a hero and is willing to sacrifice a lot, but her cutie mark is not what you’d expect it to be with her rampant vigilantism and need to help people.” “At least we know there are heroes out there, some that will help no matter the danger. Like the two that came for us in our time of need.” Looking through the packs in the vending machine, Rubis eventually picked out a chocolate croissant and noticed the stares she was getting. “What? Oh do not judge, I am quite hungry and if I must eat then I will as some would say, ‘out the pig’, with something flavorful! If it is to be the last thing I eat, it may very well be enjoyable at least.” As she slowly started in on her sweet snack food they heard the sound of footsteps coming down the corridors from three different directions. It sounded like the Humans had managed to rally more forces against them. Ember moved Rubis aside and took up position in the doorway; she looked out and fired a burst of rocks causing the humans to scramble backwards and into rooms for cover. There was only one scream and one shot later that person was no longer screaming, much less moving judging by Ember’s body language. “If you’re going to help us fight Rubis, aim to kill.” This was a take no prisoner’s situation and Ember wasn’t going to take any either. They had issued shoot to kill orders on her centerpiece…. and the rest of her present hoard of course. Ember was not taking that lying down. “They aren’t going to freeze any of you again; they are just going to kill you as you are now a liability to their plans. I want everyone here to keep this in mind and that we didn’t need to stay here to protect you while you thawed out.” Another scream sounded and that was followed by it being silence. They both turned to Rarity who ducked back as several rounds peppered her position on the other side of the door. If Rarity wanted to stay and help these people then Ember wouldn’t say no to her, heck she wanted to help these people too given the situation. “I think I may have become desensitized to enacting violence, but I still don’t like to do so for many logical reasons.” It never got easier taking a life; Rarity hadn’t taken many personally and would never forget those that she had. She would try not to let it get to her and would have a good long talk with Vera later about this; she wasn’t supposed to be getting Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at her age. She was far too young to be a shell shocked veteran. “Doctor Tender, start grabbing food and spreading it around. We’ll hold them here.” Mr. Tender nodded and lit his horn uneasily and started grabbing food from the vending machine with his magic. He started spreading the food around, while Ember and Rarity started firing upon the Humans who had them trapped. He had to be careful as the Humans coming from the corridor directly at the door could shoot at him. - Gilda had to tweak the walker from the inside, but she was getting results as it was faster and had better reaction times, the mass production walker could be better and painted a better color than gray, green or the icy blue that seemed to be a theme of Tempest Technology. The one she was piloting was green and the canopy was relatively bullet proof, that didn’t mean it would hold up as well to attacks from other walkers. As she drove the stolen walker down the corridors none of the humans noticed or fired upon her, so they hadn’t found out that one of the walkers had been stolen quite yet. When Gilda actually started to do some fighting, that would give up the game that she was not on the Humans side. As far as disguises went, it was perfect. She then heard orders to head for the laboratory sector; they already had several squads of Humans holding the captives in the huge frozen storage room and they were sending in walkers to deal with the threat. She was one of the people who got the call and she knew who was in that area, it sounded like the Boss Lady really needed all the help she could and Gilda would form up in their ranks and then cause glorious chaos. The Boss Lady always dragged them to the greatest of places and got them into the most entertaining of situations. Except for the zombie and ghost filled space station which was a big N O on Gilda’s list of things she’d rather not get involved with. She had a party to crash at the large storage room and a Boss Lady to help out; she’d show these Humans how you truly piloted a mass production model machine. The main thing wrong with the walker she was piloting was that it was not intended for people with a long tails. - “Okay so I may have discovered a way out for all of us out from that last intrusion, it involves the top of the facility and an emergency way onto the surface. To get there safely we need the command center and control of the entire facility, thankfully I know where that is now.” As Greta talked to them they were moving down the corridor gunning down Humans as they went and had to stop for cover while Saffron dealt with a walker personally. “We also need to wipe out ninety percent of the opposition, all three of the commanders certainly need to be put down or nobody is safe from a possible self destruct scenario. They have one of them and an entire group of walkers moving in on Rarity’s position. We’re getting it easy by comparison.” It was amazing to watch Saffron use the Pinpoint Puller to such an incredible degree to zip from one wall to the other and then the ceiling and dropped onto the canopy. What really helped them out was that Mare-Do-Well managed to teleport through the canopy of the walker within seconds of landing on it to deal directly with the Human inside . Afterward the machine crouched, the canopy opened and Saffron dumped the Human’s unconscious body out of it. Greta took this opportunity to put Viral inside of the walker and gained remote control of it, by stabbing the tail into the control panel. Now they had some fire power for taking the command center with, at least they could handle another walker without having to tax Saffron’s horn any further than it already was. Aside from Applejack, Greta was the only one who wasn’t dealing with an injury or fatigue as bad as Rover and Saffron had it. That said a lot about how fit Applejack was that she had been running around for hours with the armored Mare-Do-Well. Greta had to give it to the Unicorn; she was a hero through and through because she refused to kill anyone, though Perja might have been the one kill that could be attributed to Saffron who took a table to her head.  That is, if Perja had actually died from it and Greta wasn’t sure that she had. Biofeedback psychics were tough to put down and could dish out more damage than they usually took. Reaching over for some cherries, Greta’s claws clasped at nothing but air. She then looked for her snacks and scowled, apparently Gilda had absconded with the delectable fruits she had been working through while remotely guiding her robotic fox. She changed cameras to one of the turrets and saw two humans bleeding out below and one with a plasma burnt hole in his skull, there was a box of partially shot up cherries next to them. Of course Gilda used the cherries to steal something of greater value, why wouldn’t she? Shaking her head Greta changed the camera back to Viral’s view and charged ahead of the three to clear a path. She noted some problems with the walker and corrected them as it went. Mass production models were all the same, expensive crap that worked poorly and was made even made with cookie cutter statistics despite the fact that they could do so much better. It only took a minute to get the thing moving twice as fast, much better than the walker had any right to be as when under Human command. It was a good thing this Tempest Technologies facility lacked good mechanics who knew there were major flaws with their walkers, only taking the specifications at face value was the height of stupidity that these Humans showed. Gilda would have noticed the problem and fixed it immediately with the one she just stole, plus her friend would have gotten these walkers for a better price and then would have tricked them out. Knowing Gilda as well as Greta did, she wanted to show the Humans that they were doing things inefficiently as possible with what they had. Her best friend prided herself on being a mechanical engineer, on top of being a high school drop out that snuck into college and did a bunch of other illegal things. Greta didn’t care that Gilda had a questionable history or sometimes dragged her into doing things just as questionable; she loved Gilda all the same no matter what the beautiful consistently oil stained belligerent griffon did. Hacking was quickly becoming one of her most useful skills anyway. - “Let the infantry weaken them first, then we’ll close in from all sides. We have them cornered, they aren’t going anywhere.” Commander Quelk had twelve walkers, which was more than enough for a bunch of frozen stiffs, a bounty hunter and an injured mare that somehow took down their alpha wolf robot project. In fact some would say it was overkill to just have him in his personal walker breathing down their necks. Commander John Quelk didn’t hold a high enough opinion of himself to drop his guard around these intruders like Perja did.