//------------------------------//
// 33 - ...and let slip the dogs of war. 
// Story: Final Solution 
// by Luna-tic Scientist 
//------------------------------//

Something twitched at the back of Gravity's mind, but she ignored it. Vanca was still talking, gesturing at a holographic needle that floated within the display. Sections of it had been pulled away, showing a mostly solid interior, but her attention was on the rows of explosive charges lining its flanks; the mechanism by which the machine had evaded her grasp the last time. She stared at the image, biting at the insides of her cheeks. If this dog is right, then I really did almost have it... but I won't know until they shoot at us again.

Gravity had heard Vanca's advice on the Hammer so many times that it was starting to sound like a rehearsed speech. Get it early, yes, yes, that much is obvious. Luna, a mass at the far end of her arcane reach, was quiescent, not showing any of the activity it had before the last Hammer shot. There was something, a faint pulsing oscillation, but so tiny as to be almost imaginary. I wonder if that is the spare ammunition they keep in low orbit? That other twitch came again, not from the distant orbit of the moon, but much closer. Gravity frowned, then pushed the feeling away.

Sighing, she stretched out her power, letting it skitter among the rocks of the debris ring. Feeling them was easy, but they had an awful resistance when she tried to do anything more significant. "Goggles on," she said, closing her eyes and lifting her head. Gravity's ears flicked at the sudden hurried rustle and snap of straps. There was the quiet guttural mutter of her gryphon liaison, reporting that she was about to try her magic again. "Always watching me," she whispered, voice pitched too low for anyone to hear. "I wonder what you expect to learn?"

Violet light started to leak between the closed lids of her eyes and she clenched them tighter still. The valley, not much more than a narrow slot canyon cut by a currently dry stream, was blazing with light, bright enough that it warmed the rock walls and cut through the cold air. She picked a fragment in high orbit, a tumbling rock a few dozen lengths across that carried little more than a solar-powered beacon and the vague taste of the crystal thaumic processor which had attracted her to it in the first place.

She tracked the orbital path, wondering why this ring particle had been singled out, then smiled. A near resonance with one of the larger fragments; its orbit is not stable. Multiple close encounters would twitch the rock through a variety of orbital tracks, many hard to predict more than a few encounters in the future. Gravity held her breath, muscles tensing in an unconscious effort to apply more force so far away, and the tumble gradually slowed.

"This one thought the pony was going to change the orbital element this time. Vanca is only detecting a change in angular momentum."

Gravity could hear the Academician's claws tapping as she rattled them against the display unit's casing. How did Fusion ever work with this dog without pulling her head off? "I will! This isn't easy... and stop making that noise!" The words ended with a snarl, and she gritted her teeth, trying to refocus her mind. Mercifully, Vanca was silent, even seeming to hold her breath.

Pain started to dig its claws into the base of her skull, and she held the rock in her grasp, remembering the massive effort it had taken to shift the Hammer projectile even slightly. Gravity fumbled with the still-new ability, this not-quite telekinesis that let her shift the tracks of things in orbit, hunting for the elusive feel that would let her move the thing about. It's all about energy... kinetic and gravitational potential energy. Put it in or take it away to change the orbit. Before there had been panic and an intense desire not to fail; trying for the same effects just as a mere experiment was a miserable failure.

At the moment all that power is coming through me, but does it have to? The thought nagged at her and she turned her insubstantial gaze towards another ring fragment. The memories of that frantic improvisation against the Hammer came back, and she ran through them, focussing on each thing she tried. Yes... I've already done this... a transfer of momentum from one fragment to another. The Hammer was too fast, but perhaps with more practice? Gravity picked another fragment, one tumbling in a higher orbit, and linked it to the first.

More control, that's the issue... The arc-welder glare of her magic faded and Gravity made lightning-fast alterations to her touch, tiny things that would be undetectable to the ground unit Vanca was using. The fragments reacted, twitching this way and that, until she was happy.

"Has the pony given up--?" Vanca gave out a startled yip as the light came back and Gravity grunted with the effort she was suddenly applying. Her head started to hurt again, ragged claws dragging deepening furrows through her skull. "Yes! That's it!"

I know, you idiot, I have a better view than you! The rocks, each more massive than ten Hammer shots, moved in opposite directions, one gaining height while the other lost it. The falling one accelerated and she curved its path, shifting both altitude and orbital inclination. The effort lessened as the task became more familiar, and Gravity began to think about how useful a falling rock might be, not just as a source of power for an upwards attack, but as a weapon in its own right.

She followed its track, imagining the world, and pushed it towards a grazing trajectory, something that would pass high overhead, but close enough to put on a show. "You let them know it's just me, practicing," she said, gesturing with her horn to the gryphon. Shadow sight made it impossible to read his expression, but Gravity could imagine it. Do something useful. She reached out for Fusion, nodding approvingly when the sharing opened to show a high lake, its once frigid depths pulsing with blue-green flashes. Practicing?

A bolt of something blue-white speared out, punching through the turbulent water, travelling deep before detonating in another greenish flash. The water was now steaming gently, the bodies of cooked fish littering the surface. I wanted to avoid too much attention, Fusion thought back, the words unaffected by her heavy breathing. Didn't work as well as I'd hoped. Do gryphons eat fish?

Gravity chuckled, making Vanca look sharply in her direction. Probably. I've had some luck moving rocks about; we should have one passing overhead shortly. I can hit stuff on the ground if I want to. Her smile widened. We'll have our own Hammer.

Fusion's ears had pricked up and she was staring at the sky. A bright point had appeared, turning rapidly into a glaring streak of white-gold that passed from horizon to horizon faster than a hypersonic transport. It was completely silent, despite looking like the world's brightest rocket engine. As long as you can aim the things, she thought.

I can. The light faded and Gravity's smile turned to a frown. The twitch she felt was back, and stronger than before. She cast her mind about, ranging through the low orbital altitudes and their tangled mess of fragments moving in chaotic paths. There, amid all the randomness, were long strings of sensation arcing up from points on the ground. A cold weight settled in her gut as the numbers of things multiplied. I think...

Gravity opened her eyes, staring at the gryphon. "What Ellisif described, it's happening. The other Hives are attacking us. Lots of mass-driver fire." He gaped at her for a second, then started to mutter into his command collar.

Vanca had frozen, eyes bulging. "The pony must tell Lacunae -- these ones don't have a satellite warning system anymore!" she yelped, suddenly jerking into motion and gesturing helplessly at the display table and its feeble excuse for a sensor suite. "Vanca worked on the mass drivers; without warning, these ones cannot coordinate the defensive fire." Her paws flashed into motion, wiping away the graphics she'd been using and replacing them with a map of the world, curved like a section of a globe. "Where is the fire coming from?" The seal of the Synod appeared in one corner as the unit connected to the non-causal communicator, still in the remains of the attack carrier.

"I can... Everywhere." She swallowed, closing her eyes. "I can feel the distant launchers; they are still firing, but there are so many trajectories..." Gravity spun the ballistic arcs forwards, plotting speeds and vectors as they turned downwards towards the ground. "The first projectiles all arrive at the same time, no matter where they are launched from. The closer sites are launching now." Her voice became distant, mind lost in the tangle of moving mass.

"...sounds like a time-on-target barrage, multiple strategic launchers. Think they are firing everything." The gryphon soldier made a deferential rasping sound at the back of his throat. "Ma'am, we need those targets."

Gravity started, attention snapping to the map. But I don't know where anything is! There are so many--too many! Her own idea of where all those high-speed masses were was clear, but that bore little relationship to this artificial representation. "Need to calibrate." How!? "Moons. Show me where the moons are."

Vanca's paws danced over the input field making vector lines appear. "Is that enough?"

Horn glowing, Gravity pushed her away and made the map spin until those lines matched up with what was in her mind. Then, attention divided across a vast tract of cluttered space, she started to sketch in huge arcing parabolas. "Can you dogs stop any of this?"

Vanca stared at the rapidly building tangle of lines. "Some. Maybe." The Synod's seal had finally been replaced with the head of some dog, rank insignia just visible on the shoulders of his equipment harness, and the Academician's ears folded back. "Too busy to take this one's call?" she snarled, teeth bared. "Get the Strategist here, immediately. The Hive is under attack."

===

The sudden commotion in the operations room drew Orgon's attention away from the rapid-fire planning session between the three functional Councillors. The fourth, Indutu, had been led away by a medical officer and was currently 'resting' with the aid of a certain amount of chemical assistance. A moment later, the priority alarm on his bracer gave a shrill chime, filling the conference room with its teeth-aching intensity.

This one suspects that any planning has been pre-empted. Orgon slapped the alarm away and stood, nodding to the Councillors, before striding to the command desk. "Report," he said, eyes fixed on the subscreen with Vanca's face. In response the video feed changed to a schematic of the world's surface, long spidery lines converging on the familiar shape of Lacunae Hive territory.

"There's nothing on the perimeter sensors and no movement on the backscatter radars..." one of the room's staff said tentatively, "...but they might not detect--"

"No. Send the alert. Launch a full sensor package."

The operator nodded, nervousness vanishing under the certainty of orders, his paws dancing over the command panel. Moments later, the main strategic maps started to update as hundreds of high-velocity drones, lofted by servitor-powered launchers, climbed over the horizon. Orgon let out a sigh as more icons appeared on the master map, the blue of 'unknown' changing to red. There was sudden movement in the ops room as members of the general staff converged on the central strategic command table. Response plans, long gamed out and practiced, were called up and modified.

There was a chime, a leaden thing that suggested a vast bell, and an unused display lit up with a red countdown. Five hundred seconds until Deadpaw activation, Orgon thought, staring at the strings of red lights arcing in from the surrounding Hives¸ not that it will make any difference with all our launchers targeted. "Will there be any spare capacity in the launchers?" he muttered, eyeing the response plan rapidly taking shape in the holographic display field that hovered above the central table, and feeling the gaze of the officer responsible for the automated retaliation system upon him. "Leave it running."

The officer nodded shakily, her own paws rattling as they tapped out commands on the panel. "Yes, Strategist. I-it will be a full response package."

"Good. The other Hives know this; it will stay their paws." Perhaps. He turned to the central table; the plan was stable, with only minor, flickering changes. "Can these ones respond with conventional weapons?"

"No, Strategist. These ones will not have capacity for counter-battery fire; everything will be required to defend the launchers." The Tactician's ears flattened and he glanced to his colleagues. "There is still the possibility of using the strategic arrays, but these ones caution against the use of thaumic weapons at this stage, given the disposition of our Arclight squadrons. These ones are only seeing counterforce strikes against our launch sites, not the summoning circles." He swallowed, glancing back at the holo display. "Assuming no terminal manoeuvring, the only countervalue attacks are against servitor corrals and associated management centres... and a slew of points in that," He gestured to a section of the map coloured pink and hidden under pony-generated pastel clouds.

Of course. Orgon nodded. What do they think to gain from this? They must assume we will evacuate all of ours. "Activate your plan, but give a higher priority to the servitor evacuation. Move them into the arcologies." Paws tapped on controls and battlenet took over, issuing automated orders that cascaded down through the chains of command.

===

Gravity's emotions were a confusing swirl in Fusion's mind, full of curving lines and towering mushroom clouds that made her blood become sluggish and her body fill with icy water. Streaks of blue-white terminated in titanic pulses of solar fire, while above them great columns of burning ash and vaporised rock climbed into the upper atmosphere. Among it all, angular shapes flitted, little seeds of darkness riding blue plasma, shedding lines of eye-searing green--

Not memories, but visions of the future. She's just imagining. What... Fusion's ears folded flat and she resisted the urge to push open the sharing and demand that Gravity talk to her. The panic at the other end of the link had turned to focus, a carefully organised three-dimensional map of lines intersecting with the surface of the planet. A heavily armed gryphon flew overhead and dived towards her, the sudden motion a distraction.

"Fusion, I have been ordered to--" He gave a little cry, veering away from the steam plume above the still boiling lake, coming into an untidy landing a few paces away. Shaking, he held out a pair of pony-scale earpieces in one set of talons. "Ellisif wanted to coordinate our response."

"Yes. She needs to disperse her forces; it looks like the dogs are going to target our wormhole arrival points." How much else? Are they going to scatter nuclear fire over our new home? Certainty settled across her like a weighted blanket. Of course they are. There will be no mercy. Fusion took the comms units, fixing one to her left ear and looping the elastic straps under horn and throat and over poll. The thing was military and purely physics-based, but had a backup thaumic interface and muttered words of controlled panic into her ear. She winced, turning down the volume and wished for the quiet-yet-always-audible voice of her old comms disk that would talk in the middle of her head.

"We are," the gryphon called out, jumping into the air and beating his wings rapidly, climbing towards a gunship that flew over the valley walls on growling engines.

What are we going to do with everyone? Fusion ran through their preparations, set in motion long before any negotiations with the dogs had even been dreamed of. We are dispersed, and every one of our new settlements has a team of ponies who have been digging tunnels and bolt-holes. We've stockpiled the food the dogs have given us; freezing meat for the gryphons and storing the dog's daily supplements for us.

The teleport pattern formed in Fusion's head and she frowned, ears flicking back at the memories of her paranoia about those food pellets. I don't like it, but what choice do we have? They are safer dispersed and dug in than in the paws of the dogs. We were careful; no one has told them where any of our settlements are, and what they can't see they can't hit. The clouds above were still the slightly pastel shades of multiple ponies' magic, and still impermeable to surveillance, if she believed anything Orgon had told her--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--appearing in the air above Gravity, the other mare not looking up at the pulse and thump of her arrival. "Can you stop any of them?" she called out, settling on the ground next to Vanca and the portable display.

"So many!" Gravity didn't seem to be talking to her, but was just speaking out loud. Her eyes snapped open, head swivelling track her. "They are not as fast as the Hammer, not even close." Her face convulsed, becoming agonised. "It takes me too long; I've moved a few, but they are still launching."

"We've done what we can and I don't think they can get many of us except by luck. The Hive tells me that they are evacuating all the remaining breeding centres and corrals." Fusion's face twisted into a smile. "Down to the depths of the arcologies. I think that's to ensure we don't just let all the dogs die." She stepped to Gravity's side, rubbing her head against the mare's neck. "This is not like the Hammer, Gravity. We can take the fight to them."

Gravity nodded, some of the panic leaving her eyes. "I can move stuff in orbit from anywhere, but it takes all my strength and focus. You'll have to do it." Her ears sagged, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. "I could drop rocks on some of the launch sites. It might force them to defend themselves."

Launchers like ours... full of ponies who have no choice. Fusion nodded, trying to keep an outward expression of calm certainty. "Yes. If you think that's best, do it. I know we said we'd only strike military targets, but there are other places you... you could consider." Fusion dipped her head, staring at her hooves. "The Hammer is more important if they use it. I'd relocate to somewhere else, just in case they can find a trace of your magic." She passed the other communicator to Gravity and waggled her head. "I've got one, but it won't work if I go anywhere far."

Gravity took a deep breath, eyes closing and wiping away her tears with the leading edges of her wings. "How will you get to where you are needed? We've no teleport patterns..." Her voice drifted off, attention returning to her magic.

"I'll fly." Fusion smiled and took a step back, the natural glimmer of her coat brightening and surrounding her with a golden glow, then jumped into a hover. "Get somewhere safe!" she called down, wings beating fiercely and the glow changing into a brilliant halo. Fusion vanished behind a vague distortion in the air, the only visible marker of the nested fields of defensive force and concealment, accelerating and leaving only the crack of a sonic boom in her wake.

===

Geodetic, strapped into his alcove at the bottom of the launch silo, moaned as the target list expanded in the virtual space of the propulsion herd's sharing. So many! I thought it was an exercise, I thought-- Pain flashed through his head, making the magic flutter. Through him, the rest of the herd felt the uncertainty and the whole thaumic edifice that was the drive spell warped and distorted, filling shadow sight with random flashes. Geodetic pushed the thoughts away, letting two gigaseconds of training, drills and actual launches take over.

Beneath his belly, pressed against the padded alcove floor by the restraint web, and visible in the shadow universe, were the complex structures of the autoloader and magazines. Shadow on shadow, machines able to move masses the size of freight cars engaged in a frantic dance in the depths of the base, lining up endless chains and loops of ammunition. The projectiles were the densest part, the deepest darkness in his shadow sight, borided tungsten and depleted uranium, solid bodies for armoured targets and tessellated masses of tetrahedra for exoatmospheric intercept.

The drive spell stabilised and Geodetic pulled the first batch of target coordinates out of the battlenet interface, the orbital elements filling his mind with curves of phantom light. Long practice found the impact points of those arcs, and he let out a soft whinny. Not the Arcologies, but the launchers and our corrals! They are shooting at us! Somewhere overhead, still over the horizon but getting closer at five kilolengths a second¸ were masses of hostile metal. The fear faded behind an iron determination and he gritted his teeth. "I won't let you hurt my Masters or my family."

He pushed his will out into the sharing, feeling the propulsion herd respond like they were his own legs. The first projectile, a tight cluster of pony-length needles, each a carefully packed array of tetrahedra no bigger than a horn-tip, was pulled out of the autoloader arm and into the tuned gravitational tube of the drive spell. It disappeared, thrown upwards in a crack of displaced air. Another followed it, then another and another, the stream becoming continuous and the mechanical sounds of the loader vanishing behind the buzz-saw scream of combining sonic booms.

More spells protected Geodetic's ears from the shockwaves, and the little alcove became bright and warm and filled with the scent of pony sweat as the stallion bent all of his strength to doing the job he'd trained his whole adult life to perform.

===

Fusion accelerated, holding the maps Ellisif had showed her in her head like it was a spell pattern. The layer of ensorcelled cloud lay below her, a variegated set of pastel shades that retained its integrity even though the ponies that powered it had all retreated to boltholes. The camouflaging power would persist for a while without them, but would not last forever; within a few tens of kiloseconds the web of simple spells would unravel and the clouds would vanish, laying all their hiding spots bare--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--the jump took her to the ragged edge of their territory, a rumpled, blinding-white plane of jagged ice boulders under a cloudless, indigo sky. The quiet mutter of Gravity's mind vanished with the sudden translation and Fusion reached for her sister again, then hesitated. The other mare's mind had been flooded with trajectories and the sense of a vast, cold weight moving in a distant orbit; there was a barely comprehensible complexity there, too much to risk the distraction. Fusion's ears drooped and she shivered, resisting the urge to turn and check all around for things creeping up on her. "I can see why we didn't go any further," she muttered, squinting into the brightness. The memory she'd used was from one of the long range scouts sent out to sweep for any hidden dog bases. It also sat just over Lacunae's long land border with Baur Hive.

Have I been seen already? Fusion took a deep breath of the stinging air and shook herself, rattling her feathers, before accelerating again. "Start the magic before you get too high... it's harder to add air to the system than just keep a hold of it," she whispered into the screaming wind, held at bay by the narrow cone of her personal force field. "This better work, Redshift." No time to practice, no time for anything.

The cone became double-ended, sealed off to the rear by a needle point, and Fusion cast the spell Red had taught her. It was simple, he'd told her, one of the very early ones he'd learned, but the thing was alien and far outside her normal area of expertise. Magic pulled the carbon atoms out of her exhaled air, turning it into a dark haze of suspended graphite dust. Telekinesis wadded the powder into a single pellet, then pushed it to the back of her field. She sniffed, sneezing at the sudden, acrid chemical taste then hurriedly altered the spell pattern before trying again. A second breath was much cleaner, with only a slight lightning-smell remaining. It would be embarrassing to die of ozone poisoning before I even get shot at.

I wonder if... The icescape rolled away beneath her hooves, all low hills long flattened by the grinding of the ice sheet, as she headed towards Celestia, charging the rising sun as fast as a railgun round. There was a familiar ache to the constant work, but it was almost a pleasant thing, like going for a long canter, and her mind wandered. It should be possible to do this magic inside my body, and not need a supply of air at all. Fusion frowned, thinking about all the other carbon atoms that she'd really rather remain where they were. Perhaps not. She built her defences and added to the fields, cloaking herself in darkness by folding the paths of incoming light into trajectories that never reached her body.

The shockwave just beyond the tip of her muzzle radiated heat into her field, raising the temperature of the trapped gasses, so she pulled it away, taking some tiny fraction of her prodigious power requirements from that patch of tortured air. Fusion added to her speed, opening herself to the flood of warmth from the distant sun. The blood drained from her head, a greyness creeping in from the edges of her vision¸ and she used more magic to coat her body with a halo of white-gold fire, turning muscle and bone into something akin to the strongest alloys.

The land seemed to stay empty, but by shadow sight there were sparkles that spoke of physical power. The flickers, hinting at the colours of superconductors and plasma held at high temperatures. The lights started to pulse and move, and Fusion altered her course in shallow curves and loops, the blood draining from head or hooves despite the gentleness of her manoeuvres. The lights changed course to match her, and she opened a hole in her laser defences, tuning the field to magnify the external world.

Light flooded in, making Fusion squint, and she looked past the glare of her plasma sheath. Out on the ice were black, blocky shapes containing the flares of superconducting light; they pulsed while stationary, then moved and pulsed again. In time those pulses were tiny puffs of vapour, the brief signatures of shockwave-induced clouds. There was a facility out there as well; a collection of buried structures that capped a deep coil of charged superconductors. You... I know you. A military base with a power reserve, just like in Lacunae.

Fusion smiled slightly, feeling for the tingle of the fast-moving electrons in their resistance-less prison. I fought to keep a place like you safe, once... Right now, the base was too far away, but at the speed she was going, everything was close. She bent her mind to speed, while simultaneously calling up the teleport spell and pushed--

~~~discontinuity~~~

===

The conference room at the other end of the video link was imposing, all black marble with a mirror finish, but smaller than might be expected for a body with ultimate power. Six chairs, one for each Hive, but only five were occupied. Despite the loss of the low-orbit relays, the feed was very good; the arrangement of the screens at Orgon's end made it seem like he was actually in the room.

"This one is sorry to spoil the Court's surprise, but perhaps they could have at least tried to negotiate for a little longer," Orgon said, keeping his tone pleasant. Displays around the periphery of the main screen showed the status of the Hive's defences and the slow arc of weapons crawling over the horizon. "These ones might have been able to reach a compromise."

Chief Justice Tundru looked annoyed, then waved a paw in disgust. "There is still time. Perhaps this extra pressure might focus the Strategist's mind," he rumbled. "Lacunae's failure to control its servitors is a grotesque failure of duty. The Hive leadership has been found guilty of crimes against Section Five. There will be no escape from Administration." Claws tapped out a tattoo on the desktop. "This one is certain that Lacunae's intelligence estimates are reasonably accurate, but he will spell it out for the Strategist. This is less than a quarter of these ones’ firing capacity. The Court is trying to cause as little damage as possible."

Orgon watched his external displays and the tactical summaries relayed with them. The overview map, complete with weapon trajectories, was getting a little cluttered as the first defensive fire climbed to meet the incoming projectiles. His smile widened slightly as some of the weapon tracks developed decidedly non-ballistic twists. So the ponies are helping... The image blinked and updated, displaying blobs of false colour at high altitude, each marked with the phrase 'gravitational anomaly'.

Even with this extra support, some of the weapons were going to punch through the Hive's defences; it was inevitable. There simply wasn't enough antimissile capability to ensure success; each incoming round had to be targeted by several shots. Worse: the projectiles could be dumb metal with only the most basic guidance, while antimissile rounds had to be sophisticated, expensive things. Lacunae just didn't have the magazine depth to hold out for long. Still, these ones might surprise them. He placed a call, pinging Merlon's comms disk.

"What exactly does the Court want this one to do?"

"The Court knows the Strategist has reached an... accommodation with the rogue servitors. Use that to kill them all."

"The bulk of the servitors are still Blessed and this one does still have access to labournet. He could order mass euthanisations... is that what Tundru means?" Orgon could see the red cloud of incoming fire start to break apart, individual particles missed by the up-rushing green dashing for the ground. His stomach twisted, and he resisted the urge to look at the damage estimates. His practiced smile never wavered.

"This is not the Court's decision. Lacunae must do its duty to safeguard the rest of the Hives."

"This one is open to suggestions... Orgon has tried before; he overloaded a primary energy reserve, the best part of half a megaton, next to one of the ponies. It survived. He's sure he could kill a lot of them, but the two that really matter--" He shook his head. There was a flash of pearly light and a quiet concussion of displaced air behind Orgon's back, at the centre of the temporary landing zone. The pony's timing is perfect, as always. His smile widened slightly at the expressions of shock on the Court representatives.

"Yes, Strategist. How can I be of service?"

Orgon's gentle smile flickered for an instant. There is something in the pony's voice... It wasn't much, but there was a tremor, a sense of despair, carefully hidden amid the attentiveness. "Merlon, the Court wants this one to resume his assault on the rogues. What does the pony think would be the consequences?"

Merlon stared back at Orgon, her eyes flicking to the video screen and back again. The silence stretched, and still she didn't speak. Orgon waited, pushing the uncertainty away. There's nothing more the Court can do to this one, but the pony...

"Strategist. You could ki-- murder a lot of ponies, if you wanted."

Orgon twitched, suddenly unable to suppress a sudden surge of fear. It was too much; the pony has had too many revelations. What did they tell Merlon?

Merlon bowed her head to the screen, then lifted her head and stared at Orgon. "The consequences would be..." Her mouth worked, and she swallowed. "I talked to Fusion, watched her work. She really cares about all the ponies she has taken responsibility for. Whatever Vanca did to her, it made something different. She is no longer a pony, not really. She thinks she is, but..." Merlon fell silent again, her gaze drawn to the strategic maps and their sparkle of colliding munitions.

"But?" Orgon said softly, carefully standing up and moving to Merlon's side. He raised a paw slightly, then lowered it when the skin on Merlon's shoulder shivered.

"The power radiates from her like she is the sun." Merlon laughed, the sound brittle and ending with a sob. "One of them actually called her Celestia, you know that?" The laugh returned, high and strained, then cut off. "You won't be able to kill her," she said, suddenly calm. "Too fast and too powerful. You know what else?" she hissed, ears back as she stared at the assembled Court. The People on the screen exchanged shocked looks that rapidly moved towards anger. "She is well aware that your soldiers, the gryphons in particular, have little choice in what they are ordered to do. She won't want to hurt them, but she will if she has to. She also knows that you are responsible and will seek a quick resolution with minimal loss of life. Pony life."

Orgon gently touched Merlon on the shoulder; this time the pony didn't shrink away. "All the Hives are under threat; please give these ones--" Here he indicated the screen with a sweep of his other paw. "-- some insight into the results of their actions. Orgon wishes to minimise the destruction."

Merlon sagged slightly, wings drooping. "Gravity is the angry one, but Fusion..." She shivered. "Her calm is unnatural. I am afraid of what will happen if she ever loses control. At best she will seek out those in command and attack them directly. At worst--" Her mouth snapped shut and she shook violently, all over. "We know she has some sort of link to Celestia, and that the sun responds to her somehow. Think on that before you try and slaughter her people."

===

~~~discontinuity~~~

--a flash, blue white, somewhere behind her, only seen through the clairvoyance nodes Fusion had placed around her defences. A pulse of fatigue, the extra effort required to keep the layered fields intact, flowed through her, but it was little enough compared the strength needed to keep them up at all in the face of the brutal blowtorch-blast of the air.

Fusion kept her eyes closed, viewing the world through the twin windows of shadow sight and clairvoyance. Power flowed through her, channelled out into the world; she grabbed a fraction of it and pinched off part of her plasma sheath, pouring energy into it until it glowed in the far UV and flickered with X-rays. She bit at the inside of her lips, straining to see any glimmer of hornlight from within the attacking vehicles. There, at the limit of her resolving power, were little flecks of pastel amid the darkness.

I'm so sorry. Fusion clenched her eyes tight-shut, but it did nothing to impede her view. She pushed, flinging the plasma bolus towards the attackers, her flight wobbling in the shockwave of its sudden departure. The confining magnetic field was not stable -- the pressure of the ionised gas was extreme and too much energy was radiated away in the ultraviolet -- so Fusion had to keep pumping energy into the rapidly receding spell.

Her target disappeared in a flash of white light and a fountain of dirty rock, and the other vehicles scattered, firing as they retreated in good order. She pushed another plasma bolt at them, turning one of the low hills into a crater and spraying pulverised rock over the pristine ice. None of the other vehicles, now clearly visible as heavy things running on four fat globular wheels, were hit, but most of them abruptly levitated and accelerated, abandoning their efforts for fire-and-movement.

She conjured another plasma ball, but kept a hold of it. I don't need to chase you down... perhaps the threat will be enough. Fusion dropped to a lower altitude, letting the horizon shelter her, and carried on towards her first real target.

===

"I'm sorry, Master, there is nothing I can do," Eutectic said, his ears drooping. "The pony is too far away and far too strong. I will try, but it might attract her attention and..." The Pilot didn't reply, just grunted. There was a hint of disappointment to the sound; a flash of pain made Eutectic grit his teeth. I did the right thing; if the pony attacked us we'd all be dead, no matter what I did. The memory of the shot that had killed bravo unit replayed itself over and over again in Eutectic's mind. How could a pony do that to a Master? "Master? What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing," the Pilot said, then killed the intercom.

Eutectic whinnied softly to himself, staring at the ring of displays within the little servitor bay and pushing away the prickle of the Maker's Punishment. A point of blue-white appeared next to the pony, or where the pony would have been, had it not been shrouded by a shrieking plume of incandescent air. No, not again! I can't-- The awful vision of the first shot resurfaced, all blinding flares and violent shockwaves that had riddled the hull with microfractures. The second had missed, or been just a warning, and the Pilot had fled.

The seconds ticked by, the heavy gauss tank's subsonic levitation drive no match for the pony or its weapon, but for whatever reason the pony didn't release the spell and just allowed it to fade. Eutectic let out an explosive sigh as the pony continued along its path, ignoring the squadron, dipping to drop over the horizon. We were just in the way...

There was a sharp crack from somewhere in the drive bay and the tank dropped sharply to the sound of curses from the Pilot. Eutectic busied himself with repairs, probing the levitator crystals and restoring enough mass nullification to permit the fans to slow their precipitous descent. It wasn't quite enough, and the tank struck ice with a stunning crash that threw Eutectic against his restraints.

"Can the pony fix it?" the Pilot growled.

Half the levitator array was a mass of chaotic splinters, fractured by the thaumic quench. Eutectic opened his mouth, then froze. "Not quickly, Master." he said in a small voice, "it will take a dozen kiloseconds, maybe more." Eutectic hunched his shoulders, cringing inside his restraints and waiting for the Punishment that would accompany the Pilot's inevitable recriminations.

There was an achingly long pause, long enough that Eutectic nearly begged for the pain just to get it over with, but the Master just sighed. "These ones are lucky to still be breathing, the Pilot supposes." The ground wheels, great silicone and diamondoid cable constructions, spun up in their cup-shaped housings and propelled the tank in the direction of their home base. "This one will call for recovery. The pony did what it could."

Eutectic's breath escaped in a silent sob. "Thank you, Master," he said, closing his eyes and bending his magic to repairs.

===

Shadow sight found it long before it came over the limb of the world. Blazing brightly, the near perfect diamond-white of many ponies working as one, the launch site was like a magnesium flare in the darkness. So many... This isn't just a pony in the repair bay of a tank, Fusion thought, then her eyes snapped open, seeing nothing but darkness. "Just? Listen to yourself, you stupid mare!" she screamed into the tight confines of her fields, the nausea switching to a sudden rage. There must be another way. Fusion allowed her weapon to cool and let her speed bleed away from its kilolength-a-second madness and down to something more like that of a dog fighter.

The ponies were pouring all their strength into their magic, a spell very similar to one Gravity had used back at the Institute to pull a dropship out of the sky. If I had her power, I could reach through any amount of armour. Fusion inspected the launch site, following the traceries of physics as they coiled down into the depths below the shaft that housed the ponies. Things moved within it, like food in the gut of some transparent creature from the benthic depths. But... you don't need to destroy the whole base, do you, you foalish mare? What about the magazines?

She pulled at memories of her fight within Naraka's basement levels, rapidly modifying the disruption spell she'd used on the dog airtanks, trying to stretch a little more range from the thing. Her fields contracted and stretched into a long double-ended needle, growing brilliant as the trapped air turned into Celestia-hot plasma. There will be defensive fire... Just got to get close enough for an instant. At least there's no Arclight yet.

Ahead, the constant swirl of pony magic faltered, slender threads of their power fumbling for her. The touch was tentative at first, rapidly growing stronger as all the ponies in the launcher turned their attention upon her.

===

The looks from the Court were disbelieving. They do not listen to their own scientists. This will not end well... Orgon sighed.

"Does Orgon think that little display will change things?" Tundru said with a snort. "These ones will contact the Strategist again in half a kilosecond." The screen went blank, showing only the World Court logo. Orgon stared at the screen, feeling numb, his mind empty.

"Talk to me about foals, Orgon."

The Strategist's head snapped around, but Merlon hadn't moved. She stood there, head down and wings brushing the floor, not looking at him. "What about them, Merlon?" he said, taking a slow step backwards, one paw caressing his bracer. The pony would never talk to this one like--

"Too many foals, Orgon. Too many mares at Naraka. I understand some sacrifice is necessary, but, but--" Merlon started to pace, a restless circling, her hooves making sharp scraping and clicking noises against the polished stone. "I was told only a pawful were used, but there were too many foals at Naraka. I even saw them myself, but didn't think."

"Yes," he said softly. "Too many. The truth is hard to take. Decisions were made to hide the truth, even from Security ponies. Fugue can strike even the most hardened. This one couldn't take the chance."

"No, I suppose not. You want to replace us, remove all the unnecessary pony and just leave the bit you found useful." Merlon stood still, frozen in mid-stride. Her voice was dreamy and distant. There was no anger at all, something that made the fur on the back of Orgon's neck stand up. "That's what Fusion told me... was she right about the nature of Naraka's work?"

"The program was started long before this one had any direct contact with it," Orgon said, trying to match the mare's detached tone. "But he was aware of it." There is no way to make this sound better than it is. The pony knows the truth; what this one says is less important than the way he says it. Orgon's mind whirled, but there were no words. He scratched at the ground with one paw, his ears drooping slightly.

The silence extended, seemingly to infinity, and Merlon nodded sadly. "I thought so." She gestured to the strategic map. "You should probably do something about that. I can't think of anything we can tell the Court that will stay their paw."

"Still the pony will work with this one. Orgon doubts he could do the same, if he'd had the same revelation." He sighed, staring at the strategic display. The red lights were multiplying as the surviving weapon packages started to dispense submunitions. Point defence systems flickered into life over the map as short-range mass drivers and lasers went autonomous and started to pour fire into the sky. Soon the ponies at the launch sites would have to divert their power to local defence, further reducing the Hive's mid-course antimissile capacity.

"I can be pragmatic, for now. What choice do I have?" Merlon scrubbed at her eyes with the leading edges of her wings. "Fusion could talk to the Court directly, if you thought it would help. She is carrying a standard comms set. The range is poor, but I'm sure Technical could manage something." Merlon let out a little whimper, sinking to the floor and closing her eyes.

===

There was a roll of thunder from somewhere over the horizon. An incandescent streak reached up into the sky, flanked by the narrow cones of shockwaves. Sparkles of light, completely silent, peppered the sky all around, the signature of metal meeting metal at closing speeds of over five kilolengths a second.

Technician Valith stared at the distant light show, visible through the armoured slit windows along one side of the command bunker, then dragged his attention back to the console. Is it the rogues? He shivered, remembering how the blue mare had dangled him over the demolished depths of the Security base. There was precious little to do in the hardened aircraft shelter; he was only here as part of a high security clearance service crew carrying out routine checks when the alarms had gone off. "Is Savan out of the launch bay yet?" he said into his comms bracer, moving to the thick inner windows and peering into the shelter. There was no response.

The view was poor -- he was high up on the wall of the shelter, and the weapon occupied most of the central volume. Flashing red lights ringed the shelter, casting lurid shadows onto the pre-stressed fullerene fibre-armourcrete walls, and the faint sound of a siren penetrated the thick windows. "Come on, get out of there! The reactor is nearly at temperature." There was no answer, and Valith fiddled with the console, trying to see if his messages were getting through. Comms lock down, he thought, feeling sick. It's on full automatic. The Deadpaw counter was spooling down at the centre of the main screen, and nothing he did could change that.

There were two exits from the shelter, both of them the rotating cylinder designs common to environments with a high radiation risk, and he couldn't see either of them from here. "Come on Savan, get out of there," he muttered, checking the door status indicators again. One of them flickered and changed to 'operating' and Valith slumped back against his chair. "Thank the Maker." He rubbed at his eyes with the pads of both paws, then stared morbidly at the weapon.

The size of a double-wide levitation train but needle-pointed fore and aft, it looked like the bodkin point of an antique crossbow bolt. Tiny afterthoughts of wings were spaced along the hull, little more than guidance vanes, things that were only really useful at airspeeds below a thousand lengths a second. The rest of it was a radar/ladar stealthy, supercavitating lifting body optimised for speeds in the high hypersonic regime. A hatch had opened in the midsection, mated with an arming conveyor under the floor. Bulky shapes were being fed into the belly of the weapon, like eggs being laid in reverse. On other screens, the same technological dance was being carried out in the other four shelters in the bunker complex.

More red lights ringed the inner shield doors, marking the arming of the explosively actuated pistons. Nozzles twisted and widened, in time with louvered vents ringing the windowless nose opening and closing. Dust blasted across the floor, then blue light stabbed briefly from the nozzles. That's it then. It's at temperature. Fat coils of braided hose, pulsing with refrigerant, prevented the core from turning to slag without external airflow, stealing the heat from molten salts of fissile elements that circulated through the minimally-shielded reactor body. Hard gammas and fast neutrons flooded the shelter, enough that a faint blue glow of ionisation haloed the rear compartment. Valith stole another glance at the console; the door had finished cycling.

Other displays had changed; target lists were populating a course map, each red circle marked with glyphs for penetration and yield. There was the sound of paws on the access ladder to the monitoring bay and Savan, panting heavily and her eyes wild, pulled herself into the cramped room, kicked the hatch closed, and slumped to the floor. "These ones are so screwed." Savan swallowed, closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then looked up at the ceiling hatch. "This place will be a target... should these ones go?"

Valith chewed at the back of one paw. "Valith doesn't know... a near miss will be worse if these ones are in the transit tunnels." The string of nuclear eggs had stopped and the hatch was closed. There were no more drive tests, but the rad counter gauge had climbed high enough that anything but a teleoperations rig would be twitching on the floor within a few paces. The Deadpaw timer continued to drop towards zero, then held at T-minus one hundred seconds.

"Stay here and wait it out, Savan guesses," she said, pulling off her equipment belt and scratching at the brown fur of her hips.

"Nothing these ones can do." Valith nodded, gesturing at the light show going on through the viewing slits to the outside world. "This one only hopes the servitors have orders to protect this base."

Savan's muzzle twisted into a bitter smile. "Perhaps these ones will get lucky and the thing will launch. At least then these ones will no longer be a worthwhile target."