//------------------------------// // Chapter 10: Hammer // Story: Equestria 485,000 // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// The installation was nearing completion. He captain had elected to see it with her own eyes, as bad as they were. Although doing so was somewhat difficult, the arm that suspended her had moved her through the ship- -a journey that she did not take often enough- -to the bay in the center of the vessel that had been specifically constructed to support the mechanism.             A crew of remni, assisted by several organic pony technicians, were hard at work finishing linking the object to the ship’s central power systems and internal aetherite skeleton. It was larger than the captain had expected; the condensed version that the cultists had brought onboard had folded surprisingly well and must have been incredibly heavy. The device, now unfurled and extended, filled most of the bay. It still held a roughly cylindrical shape, although now some elements of the technology within were still visible.             “Captain,” said the leader of the technician group and the one in charge of the installation, a remnus named Journey End. Despite being artificial and reliant on direct orders, she technically ranked higher than half the ship. Identifying her was something of a challenge, though; all remni looked nearly identical to the untrained eye. “The device has now been fully integrated into the ships system. It is ready for use at your command.”             “Thank you, End. Were than any anomalies in the process?”             “No, captain. In fact, it was surprisingly simple to connect.”             The captain’s physical eyes shifted toward the ship, and then back to the remnus. “Thank you. That will be all.”             End bowed, and then stepped back to collect those under her command. The captain turned to her chief advisors, who were already in the process of examining the machine.             “Golden Star,” said the captain, the robotic arm that held her pulling her closer to him. “Have you completed your analysis?”             “I have,” he said with some level of dismay.             “And?”             “And it is inconclusive. The technology is more advanced than most currently found in Tribunal space, but includes numerous arcane elements. It is beyond my capacity to comprehend.”             “Of course you wouldn’t,” said the captain, softly. It was what she had been afraid of, but what she had known at some level from the start. “Can you surmise its function?”             “I can,” said Golden Star, “although I cannot guarantee accuracy.”             “I trust your opinion and skill. Or else you would not be here.”             Golden Star nodded. “It appears to be a technomagic device. I believe the far end to be an aperture, or an emitter. But it may also be a sinking device for excess magical buildup. Because of that, I cannot safely suggest what function this object serves.”             “I don’t like this,” said Heliotrope. She and Inky Nebula had been conversing with the technicians who had been installing it, and from the looks on their faces the captain could tell that they had found nothing new either.             “Neither do I,” said the captain, looking back at the long machine.             “It is supposedly interfaced to your systems,” said Inky Nebula. “Can you not sense it?”             “No,” said the captain. “I do not have access to it. I perceive its demands, but not its internal systems. To me, it is like looking into a black box that I cannot open.” She paused. Waxing poetic was not usually in her nature, but it was the only way to describe it.             “Just looking at it makes me feel bad,” said Heliotrope, bluntly. She turned to the captain. “I hereby submit my protest to its presence.”             “Heliotrope!” gasped Inky Nebula.             “Your protest is noted,” replied the captain. “And for the sake of honesty, I agree.” She did not delve in further, but she knew what she felt, and why. Her formerly immortal body had been sacrificed for the sake of this ship, and it had become her new body. Having this thing linked to her felt like a violation of that very body. “But this is in accordance with a direct order from the Goddess of a Billion Suns.” She looked up at them. “A DIRECT order. In the past, to even witness the dread god Celestia would have resulted in us becoming saints. And she gave us an order.”             “We have to complete it,” said Golden Star. “Her will must be correct. I mean…can we even distrust Celestia?”             “No,” said the captain, “but it was never her that I distrusted.”             “Then who?” asked Inky Nebula.             “You know,” said the captain, turning sharply toward Inky Nebula and drifting toward her. “That cultist. Twilight Sparkle herself is an arrogant, obsessive nihilist, but I could at least tolerate her. But I do not now nor have I ever trusted the wizards that follow her teachings.” The captain suddenly lurched forward, drawing her face close to Inky Nebula’s. Inky Nebula took a panicked step back. “And I don’t care if you know it.”             “Cap- -captain? What are you doing?”             “I’m not blind, Light Gloom, even if my eyes are dying. In any other circumstance, I would have you thrown off my ship for an insult this dire.”             “Captain, I don’t understand! What did I do wrong?”             Inky Nebula looked as though she was on the verge of tears. “You did nothing wrong,” said the captain, reassuring her, “but when he touched you, he installed a nanotech virus into your auxiliary neural architecture. He’s been watching me through your eyes, thinking your thoughts.”             Inky Nebula gasped, but Heliotrope stepped forward quickly. “Direct nanotech access to the auxiliary architecture can have lasting repercussions,” she said, quickly. “Inky Nebula, this requires immediate action.” She turned to the captain.             “Of course,” said the captain. Before she allowed them to leave, though, she looked deep in to Inky Nebula’s enormous black eyes one more time. She was afraid, and that made it difficult for the captain to control her anger. “But you. Light Gloom. If you put another of my crew in danger, I will have you thrown off my ship, assuming I don’t vaporize it with the outer fields first. My mission was reach this planet and have this device installed. I do not know what it is for, and by Celestia’s will I do not need to- -but you are extraneous to that goal. Keep that in mind.”             Light Gloom stared back into the captain’s nearly blind eyes, the eyes beneath his optics staring into the illusion without focusing. This turn of events had been unexpected, but in the end irrelevant. It had been his opinion that military types like her would be unobservant and easy enough to trick. The case had in fact been the opposite, and this intrigued him to some extent. He realized that he should have expected as much from an eighth-generation descendant of the Holy Mother.             He allowed the illusion to fade. The room that he had stood in in Inky Nebula- -five hundred and sixth generation descendent of the Holy Mother, twentieth in a long line of Lunar Cultists- -dissipated as his optical units came back on line, filling his view with the darkened room around him.             For the sake of expediency, he had elected to stay on the Royal Navy vessel. It felt strange moving in a gaseous rather than liquid atmosphere, but the conditions inside his hermetically sealed suit were constant and the change was not too substantial. Even if they had been, in his current state he probably would hardly have cared.             By placing himself on their ship, he ensured that they would not simply push his own ship away- -not that even that mattered terribly much; the payload was already onboard. His mission was, arguably, complete- -but the objective had not yet been achieved, and he did not intend to leave it to chance.             Light Gloom was not alone in the darkened room. Behind him stood two ponies dressed in similar armor, their cybernetic appendages curled along their backs and inactive. One was a large mare, while the other was a stallion of normal size.             “Luminescence,” he said, addressing the thin stallion. “Go to that room. Ensure that they do not attempt to disconnect the device.”             “Yes, High Priest,” she said, turning toward the shadows at the edge of the room.             “I am matching it to our ship’s frontal array,” said Light Gloom as his mind interfaced remotely with the spells that gave his ship life. “I am locking the weapon onto Twilight Sparkle’s position.”             Luminescence stopped. He turned toward his leader. “Shall I prepare the unit to fire?”             Light Gloom turned slowly. “Do you think me impious, Luminescence?”             Luminescence took a long moment to respond. Light Gloom took some satisfaction in that. Although the Cult placed incredible value on quick thinking, it placed an even higher premium on correct responses. The fact that Luminescence took time to consider meant that he had taken the Teachings to heart- -or, rather, to the mechanical thing he had in place of a heart.             “Your piety is irrelevant to me and to the mission,” he said at last. “This choice, though, falls at your discretion. I allow my question to stand.”             Light Gloom smiled under his mask. “Indeed,” he said. “Ensure it is prepared, but do so discretely. Even if my virus was discovered, we do know that they are too ignorant to realize what the machine is. Likewise, they are likely to ignorant to tolerate its purpose.” He paused. “That machine is the culmination of countless centuries of combined work by hundreds of scholars, engineers, and elite mages, including myself. Take good care of it, and ensure it is ready.”             “At your will, High Priest.”             Luminescence bowed, and went to work. Light Gloom returned to looking at a blank, darkened wall- -or at least superficially doing so. In actuality, he was linking himself to the other members of his crew as they moved through the ship, combining them into a single listening network. The virus had been created on a whim for the sake of scientific inquiry- -it was not required to know what the fools of this ship were speaking about when they thought nopony was listening.             “Would you have?” said the large mare. She had remained in the room, and glared into the back of Light Gloom’s hood with the asymmetrical combination of lenses, cameras, and abstract shapes that made up the face of her mask.             “That is an improper question,” he said. “What you mean is ‘would I be willing to fire’ on the Goddess?”             “Would you?” repeated the mare.             “Of course,” said Light Gloom, without hesitation. “And before you bother, I do know the full implication of that course of action. The beam is more than strong enough to atomize the planet…and to wound a pure alicorn in ways that she cannot recover from. A direct hit would be fatal.”             “You would slay your own god?”             Light Gloom turned toward her. “You say it as though it is an illogical conclusion.” The mare did not answer. She stared at him, awaiting an explanation. Light Gloom sighed. “I am a religious stallion. I have dedicated my very, very long life to the Will of the Goddess: the pursuit of knowledge, information, and the arcane, a dedication to scholarship and learning. A lifetime of it.” The mare still did not speak. “But beyond that, I have other duties. To the Cult. I am a Priest. It is my duty to interpret the Will of the Goddess.”             “The Will of the Goddess would be for herself to be destroyed?”             “Yes. If the Goddess stands in the way of her Will, the destiny she herself created, then why not? That is the trouble with living gods, isn’t it? They have free will. They can resist the world they chose to make.”             “You are either insane or a heretic.”             “I am not insane,” said Light Gloom. “Nor am I a heretic. What Twilight Sparkle says or thinks is irrelevant to the mission, and to destiny itself. Only her actions and choices matter, and they cannot be changed now.”             “If she knew this…”             “And that is the reason she is down there, and I am up here.” Light Gloom paused. “Of course, this is entirely hypothetical. The Goddess is like a mother to me, an idol, a teacher. I love her, and I do not intend to destroy her.”             “Then why target her?”             “Because she will lead the beam to its true target. Once she finds Mi’Amore Cadenza, Twilight will be evacuated to my ship, and will no doubt survive the blast. With one blow, I will cure the Mortality Virus as Twilight Sparkle intended me to. I built a weapon that can destroy an alicorn, and it will be used as such…but not on my Goddess.”             The mare stared on impassively as Light Gloom returned to his preparations. She could easily have stopped him- -but chose not to.