Olivia wandered through the cavernous tunnels. She hadn’t been walking for very long, really, just a few minutes. There was still blood on her armor, and one of her legs jerked and twitched whenever she put weight on it. Her disguise was in shambles, and unfortunately the nature of her exoskeleton meant that she couldn’t remove it without help. There were horror stories in the ISMU about soldiers who had died wearing suits like this, unable to get out of them to see to their basic needs once power failed.
“I am detecting sound up ahead,” the Forerunner said into her ear. She no longer had the helmet with its HUD, or else she wouldn’t have needed the auditory cue. At least the headset still worked. “Get out of sight. I am attempting to calculate a way around it based on the readings you obtained on your way in.”
Olivia dodged behind a cart into a side-passage, though she could neither see nor hear anything from up ahead. “You can hear someone, but you can’t use my sonar to find another exit?” she whispered, in English.
“Sonar was in your helmet,” the Forerunner answered, sounding annoyed. “I only have biofeedback and your microphone still working. I’ll enhance it for you, hold on.”
There was a painful squeaking in one of her ears, and then abruptly she could hear voices. Eoch voices, and not locals either. It wasn’t heavily accented and guttural, like the Eoch Salvadore and his goons had used. They spoke the same way as Lightning Dust, or Deadlight.
Even if the voices had been clear Olivia wouldn’t have been able to understand them. As it was, they were constantly stretching and popping, with static rising and falling every time she inhaled. She even thought she could make out the distant thump of her own heartbeat in the back of the signal.
“I will translate,” the Forerunner said, then its voice changed. It rose in pitch into the female spectrum, apparently imitating one of the speakers.
“Trixie is unconvinced that blocking the entrance was the best idea. What if the bad pony can teleport too?”
Then a second voice spoke. The Forerunner shifted its own voice, fading the second speaker into the background. Yet Olivia heard this one differently—her whole body tensed, and she found herself shaking slightly. She could understand this one. A female voice, deeper and more confident-sounding than the first. She wasn’t speaking English, and Olivia could only understand one word out of twenty, but somehow, the meaning was clear as day.
“We are looking for a pegasus. But if we’re wrong, or if she is carrying some enchantment, then the moment she teleports we will feel it and be able to follow. I have already collapsed the other passages—eventually she must come this way.”
“Stop translating the second one, Forerunner,” Olivia whispered, quieter than before. “I can understand her.”
“That is not consistent with my records of your abilities, Major.”
Olivia peeked out from around the edge of the tunnel. She could see a little of the debris of battle on the ground—more dead soldiers, killed by Perez and Abubakar on their way out. But there was also something else, a distinct magical glow flickering against the cavern walls. Purple and blue light, shifting through the spectrum slightly like the lights in a dance club.
“If you sealed all the entrances, why don’t we just walk straight through and find her?”
The second speaker spoke again, and this time the Forerunner obeyed. Olivia hadn’t imagined it—she really could understand her. “You would not want to see what she did, Trixie. If we went any further, you would have to.”
“Be advised. I cannot verify what the second one said moments ago. Without sonar equipment…”
“She was telling the truth,” Olivia whispered back. There was no doubt in her mind about that, though she couldn’t have said how she knew. It just didn’t make sense that a voice like that would lie, a voice which spoke with such authority, a voice that could cut through armor and flesh to something buried much deeper. “There is no other way out.”
Olivia had only one good foreleg, the other had been bashed and melted far too much to be useful with shooting. She would have to stand still while she shot. How accurate could she be?
She slunk out from the edge of the hallway, moving quietly in the dark. She had to step only occasionally, camouflaging the thump of her armor as best she could against their distant conversation.
“You think the great and powerful Trixie cannot handle the pressure because she is new? Has Starlight forgotten who helped fight off the changeling invasion? Who helped rescue all of Equestria?”
Olivia edged down the passage. A little further, and she could make out a pair of pony shapes, outlined by their own light against the gloom.
They have powered armor too, she thought, strangling a gasp as she took in their appearance. Both were wearing a tarnished reddish metal, though there were bright purple lines etched along it in geometric patterns, glowing faintly. One of them had removed her helmet, revealing a bluish unicorn with a light blue and white mane.
The other was still wearing the helmet, which changed her eyes to a glowing purple. There was a slit down the back for her mane, which emerged from within and lifted into the air behind her, as though she were an alien puppet clutched by an invisible hand.
Not just that—the hair didn’t look much like hair. It seemed transformed somehow, into a reddish-brown sky. Like looking through the window into the first light of dawn, with only a few stars. Or the last light before nightfall.
There was a peaceful feeling in that light—one she knew she should ignore, but that she couldn’t entirely dismiss. The one wearing that helmet was to be trusted, for some reason. She was good, and anything that opposed her must by necessity be evil.
“Are you alright, Major?” She barely heard the Forerunner’s voice, but she certainly felt the sharp prick in her side a second later, snapping her out of her trance. This was good, as she had stepped right out into the hall where the ponies might spot her at any moment. Olivia dodged quickly back around, resting against the wall. “I just provided you with a dose of equine adrenaline. It appears you have been poisoned, but I cannot determine how. Your suit is giving me clean biohazard readings, and there is nothing in your blood. No, don’t explain. They will hear you.”
She shut her mouth, lifting the rifle with her one good leg. She could lean just a little further, and get a clear shot to the unprotected pony. She wasn’t sure if her rifle would be able to penetrate their armor, but… killing one protected by a weapon she didn’t understand would be easier than two.
Yet she hesitated, lowering the rifle a few degrees. What am I thinking? What did these ponies do to me? She glanced up at the blue one again. It felt like looking at a child.
These ponies weren’t slavers, they weren’t even evil. They were working for the enemy. But I don’t have to kill them. I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.
She felt another jab into the soft tissue of her neck, a little more painful than the last one. “Is that better, Major? Nod if it is, don’t speak.”
She nodded, before returning the rifle to her back. The barrel retracted, and the metal clip reached out to snag it. Loud enough that both ponies blocking the way looked up.
The blue one reached down, struggling with her helmet for a moment before the other one helped her secure it. The instant she did, her own mane of ordinary hair transformed to look just like the first, glowing deep purple and dark red and moving to the same invisible wind. “Who’s there? The Great and Powerful Trixie warns any ne’er-do-wells that they are facing a hero of Equestria! Oh, and her friend.”
Olivia could understand her. I refuse to kill you.
She felt another jab, and this time the pain was enough that she inhaled sharply. “Quit doing that!” she whispered, though not quite low enough that the ponies wouldn’t be able to hear noise.
“My options are limited, Major,” the Forerunner said. “I am certain you are under the influence of a foreign entity. I will find a way to free you. Stay alive.”
Olivia stepped out into plain view, walking slowly towards the ponies. She limped with each step, exaggerating the damage to her armor as best she could.
“What happened here?” As before, Olivia didn’t hear the voice in Eoch, or it didn’t feel like she had. The English was perfect, with a slight southern drawl that she herself had practiced hard to eliminate from her own speech.
Olivia stopped about five meters away. She could feel the energy radiating from these ponies—a sensation with no human parallel. Standing near a Van de Graaff generator wasn’t like this, it didn’t make her hair stand on end. If anything, it was like an invisible slope in the floor, pulling down towards the two ponies. Their armor was in its strange way far more powerful than her own.
“A pair of monsters met beyond,” she said. “One betrayed the other, wanting to enslave it.” She turned, lifting a pair of rusty shackles from the cart beside her, tossing them at the ground at the ponies’ feet. “You see the chains.”
“That is consistent with the latest reports on Dragon’s Folly,” said the pony, her mane still rippling behind her like she was underwater, sparkling with light. “It does not explain this.” She gestured at the dead on the ground past Olivia. At least, she assumed that was what the pony was pointing at.
Olivia could not see her eyes, yet she imagined something of sympathy in the pony’s bearing. She has fought monsters like this before. Like me. “One offered mercy and it was refused. Salvadore sent his soldiers, then his dragon. They died.”
Could she miss the scorch marks on her armor, the scratches and tears? Probably not, even in the gloom. It wasn’t as though I thought I could trick them.
“Wait a minute!” said the one Olivia knew was blue underneath her armor. “She is talking about herself in the third person!” She stomped one hoof on the stone, and it splintered into little fragments.
The other pony turned to look at her companion. “I’m so glad you’re here, Trixie. I never could have figured that out on my own.”
“I do not understand,” the Forerunner said into her ear, positively panicked now. “You are not speaking Eoch. They should not be able to understand you. I advise you to suspend this conversation as quickly as you can, Major. Your exoskeleton lacks the medical interface for me to treat you.”
“You sound almost worried for me,” Olivia whispered. “I didn’t know a machine could feel.” The ponies did not look like they had heard the synthesized voice, though they couldn’t have missed her reply. Even if their armor didn’t enhance their senses as hers would have, she was close enough to them now.
“We were called about a pony with strange magic,” said the second pony, the one not named Trixie. “We have reason to believe that pony might be a fugitive from justice from Equestria. One capable of kidnapping royalty, and…” She glanced past her, at all the corpses. “She went by the alias ‘Lucky Break.’ Is that you?”
“No,” she answered, though it wasn’t what she wanted to say.
The pony not named Trixie began walking towards her down the hallway, movement as slow and dangerous as a predator. Could she fight someone like this? I gave up my chance to win against these natives when I didn’t kill one of them.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try and escape anyway. Olivia might not relish this equine life, but she had made it this far. She would live, if not out of desire then out of spite. And if she failed, if they captured and started interrogating her, well…
It was a good thing the Forerunner was so fast with its dental work.
“You are a danger to those who live beyond Equestria’s borders. They lack the weapons to defend against one like you. It doesn’t matter whether or not you think your actions were justified. Princess Twilight Sparkle will help you—she helped both of us too, actually. You will put down whatever weapons you are carrying and come with us.”
She almost obeyed, right there. The voice was so confident, so supportive. It didn’t hold her responsible for all the lives she had taken. It only wanted to help her. Maybe it could take away the memories she had been reliving down here in Salvadore’s burrows. Shame the scans had captured her memories of the Belt with such detail.
Maybe if it had been just herself, Olivia would’ve obeyed. But if she was captured, there was a chance these ponies would be able to use what they learned to hurt Othar. She would not allow those who she was protecting to die. Conditioning buried deep in Olivia’s mind switched like a light—conditioning beaten into her under layers and layers of drugs and near-torture. She was being irrational. She had no reason to obey these ponies, and every reason to resist. She would escape.
Olivia reached behind her, drawing the rifle into her good claw and resting the injured leg against the wall. The barrel clicked into place, and both the enemy ponies stopped walking. “I will not,” she said. “I don’t wish to hurt either of you. Please, get out of my way. We can both return home, pretend we never met. No one needs to get hurt.”
Salvadore and his soldiers had not seemed to recognize guns when they saw them. Both of these ponies focused instantly on the firearm. The air in front of the first one shimmered faintly bluish, in an outwardly expanding sphere.
“Should I call the others back for you, Major? It is possible Lieutenant Perez and Sergeant Abubakar could make it to your position in time. They would have to abandon their living cargo in the city, but…”
“No,” she said quietly. “Ready evac, but don’t bring it until I make it to the surface.”
“Who is she talking to?” asked Trixie from down the hall. “Starlight, I think this pony is crazy. Crazier than the ponies we usually bring in. Well, you usually bring in.”
“If I am captured, melt the cyber package,” she said, not caring if they could hear her now. “Do not attempt to recover me. I will… make sure there isn’t anything to recover.”
“You will come with us,” the front pony, apparently Starlight said. “You will not resist.”
“Command accepted,” the Forerunner said, a little stiffly. “I cannot see how your enemy is armed, but with your current mental state I do not think your odds of success are high. I cannot give you any more adrenaline.”
This time, Olivia felt the strange softness come into her head again, and consciously rejected it. She would not be made to do what she did not wish to do, no matter the kind of torture they wanted to use.
Olivia aimed for the center of the pony’s mass with her rifle, firing in quick bursts. Her ears rang with the rapport of each shot, momentarily deafening her. The impact on her target was still somewhat less impressive than she had hoped, though.
Instead of being staggered, the air all around her lit up in a glowing shell, flashing brightly with each shot before fading to a dull luminance again. Olivia kept walking forward, ignoring the ringing in her ears as she started firing more quickly. As quickly as she could twist her hoof, always for the exact same spot.
The shell became a constant brillance, almost blinding to look at. Were those cracks spreading from her target? I need a bigger gun. Something fully automatic, maybe armor-piercing rounds. She had brought anti-personnel bullets, given that the natives didn’t have any armor technology. Well, she thought they hadn’t.
Her rifle clicked, the magazine empty. Olivia had to lower it, reaching for the replacement clipped to the side of her armor. That was when the enemy attacked.
She crossed the distance so quickly Olivia hardly saw her, smashing into her hard enough to drive the air from her lungs. Hard enough that she would have broken bones if it wasn’t for the armor she was wearing. The metal of her chest and shoulder caved in around the point of impact anyway, even as the armored pony yanked on her leg. Yanked so hard that the entire section of armor came tearing off, trailing sparkling wires and gushing hydraulic fluid.
Olivia screamed, though the pain had come from so many different places at once she couldn’t identify any specific source. She dropped to the ground, unable to support her own weight with both of the armor’s legs broken. Her armor sparked in protest, and she felt a heat wash over her back. There was a flash of bright light from behind her, one she knew was the thermite charge embedded in the computing package. Just enough to fry every useful component in there—to make it impossible for the enemy to recover the suit or what it contained.
Well, except for her. Olivia glared up at the pony, spitting up a mouthful of blood at her hooves. “I-I… could’ve killed your friend. I didn’t.” She bit down on the back of her mouth, then swallowed. To her surprise, she found the poison tasted strangely sweet.
The pony named Starlight stopped above her, kicking the weapon away. Every other loose object on her armor came free was well—the handgun, every spare magazine, her knife, and radio. All went into a pile on the ground in front of her.
“I’m sorry I needed to hurt you so badly,” Starlight said. “We will treat you once we get you back to Ponyville. For all your wounds, not just the physical. And if you have learned anything useful, you will share it with us.”
Olivia couldn’t help herself—she laughed. She could already feel it taking effect. Her muscles tingled all over, and there was a slight twitch in her face she couldn’t get rid of. Rumor said suicide pills like these could kill in mere seconds, but that was a movie fantasy. The reality was somewhere between one and two minutes. Though probably less for me. I’m a horse, and we don’t weigh as much.
“I could’ve killed you and lived,” Olivia said. “But it’s been long enough. I’m done fighting.” It was harder to breathe, harder to think. Everything should’ve gone black right then.
But then something happened that shouldn’t have. Olivia started to retch, her body twisting and convulsing. Not just the contents of her stomach, but bile as well, coming out in awful wave after wave. Some of it made it into her lungs, and suddenly she was struggling to breathe as well, a mess of pain all over.
This isn’t right! It’s supposed to shut down my brain! It’s supposed to be painless!
The ponies were both moving in the room above her, gathering around her.
Another thought found its way into her mind, one even more horrible than the agony she was experiencing. We didn’t have time to test the suicide formula on a real body. What if it can’t kill a pony?
“I don’t know what I did!” she heard Starlight insist, though she hadn’t heard what it was in response to. The words were coming muddled through her agony. “To Ponyville, now! We’ll get her to the hospital!”
Everything went white.
Lucky Break wasn’t wearing a headset while she watched the Stormwings perform their airshow. It was one of the little luxuries of being a translator, that she could listen to either the ponies or the former humans and speak with each without effort. Besides, they were mostly here to watch.
It was quite the show. Lightning Dust had told her more than once about air-shows, but she hadn’t got the chance to see them before. The Crystal Empire was mostly a crystal pony city, hence the name. And what shows it did have were always featuring the Wonderbolts. Lightning Dust didn’t abide spending their sparse bits on them. And Stormshire had been too remote, too small for anything of interest.
It wasn’t just ponies, either. Only about half the flyers were pegasi, and they used their magic to charge the air, or form glowing contrails of different colors to amaze the crowd. But in most ways, it was more of an acrobatics act than anything. Now that she knew the difficulties of flight, Lucky could empathize with the athletes, and be properly amazed by their timing.
So she sat between Lightning Dust and Martin, eating something greasy and deep fried and forgetting just about anything important. It didn’t matter that she was being hunted, or that all of Othar might be destroyed. For the moment, it was just her, the snacks, and the show.
“These ponies are alright,” Lightning Dust was saying into her ear. “But if you want to see something really impressive, you have to go to Cloudsdale. When the terrain itself is made of clouds, that really broadens what you can do. I guess they don’t have enough pegasi around here to keep a proper track.”
Lucky’s satchel began to vibrate. They had bought some of the “worst” seats, low down to the bottom of the stadium, where they had to crane their necks to have a chance of seeing anything. But they weren’t quite alone in their row. Lucky slid the satchel around until it was right in front of her, then flipped it open. It was the computation surface, shaking and rattling around with her bits. She touched it, trying to silence it, but it just got more violent.
Reluctantly, Lucky leaned in enough to try and see the screen, so she could shut it off properly. Bold text was on the screen, replacing the usual interface, and flashing bright red. “PUT ON YOUR HEADSET IMMEDIATELY, DR. JAMES IRWIN. YOUR LIVES ARE IN SERIOUS JEOPARDY.”
The computer could have turned on its speakers and started barking at them, of course. But if it did, that would certainly attract attention. Lucky obeyed immediately, reaching into the satchel and scrambling around for her headset.
“Don’t look away, Lucky!” Lightning Dust urged from above her. “They’re about to do the finale. You don’t wanna miss that!”
Lucky found the headset, reaching up to secure it and lifting up the hood of the robes to conceal that she was wearing it. She made as though she were looking up, though really, she was listening.
The Forerunner’s voice came in immediately over the headset, just as she had expected. That was about the only thing that sounded like she expected. There was no chance she could’ve missed the worry in its voice, the urgency and fear. They did not sound like imitated emotions to her. “Major Olivia Fischer is dead. Agents from Equestria are in the city and may be aware of your presence.”
Lucky squeaked faintly in pain and disbelief, no longer even pretending to watch the sky. The ponies up there could be moving the sun and she wouldn’t have noticed it. “W-what?” she whispered, lowering her head as the crowd rose up in another round of cheers.
The Forerunner did not respond to her question. “I sent Williams and Mogyla to retrieve the other teams, but I do not trust their ability to navigate into your current location. They lack the tact or cultural understanding. I have an aircraft waiting instead. It would have arrived already, except for the risk of accidentally killing one of the performers. Do not move from your current position when the show ends.”
“Olivia is… dead…” Lucky repeated the words in a low whisper, feeling the full weight of her responsibilities come crashing down again. What was she doing watching this show, pretending she was a pony and that nothing was wrong? The world wouldn’t pretend along with her, and now someone was dead. “How?”
“No time,” Forerunner said. “You will rendezvous with the Cyclops once I am certain the Earth ring’s defensive systems are not tracking you. I will not lose all of my organic segments simultaneously.”
There was an explosion from above her, and Lucky immediately cowered. The stadium rumbled, shaking her all the way to her bones. But it was no Equestrian retrieval team, obviously. Just the show’s climax, with ponies looping through several interlocking rings while griffons tossed bright burning torches between them. The crowd cheered, stomping their hooves in appreciation. Even Martin had joined in.
Lucky felt none of their excitement. She only stared with wide, empty eyes. She barely even noticed as the event concluded, and ponies above them began to clamber out of their seats. Martin and Lightning Dust both rose to do the same, but finally Lucky spoke up.
“Wait, we can’t leave.”
Both turned, with similar looks of confusion on their faces. Though Dust was the one to speak. “It’s over, Lucky. They aren’t coming back. If you missed it…”
Lucky pulled back her hood, so that they would be able to see the headset she was wearing on both ears. Anypony watching them would be able to see it too, though with the news she had just heard she couldn’t bring herself to care. “We must stay here,” she said again, this time in English.
Lightning Dust didn’t look like she had understood much of that, though at least she stopped trying to get away. “What’s wrong?”
Lucky shook her head. She tried to answer, but only broken sobs emerged. She swallowed stiffly. “Bad. Real bad,” was all she could say.
“Extraction is en-route,” said the Forerunner into her ears, tone as concerned as it had been before. “When it arrives, get aboard as quickly as you can. You will not recognize the aircraft, it isn’t one you’ve seen before. All that matters right now is that it’s discrete.”
“E-evac is coming,” Lucky said again, finding the words came a little easier this time. So long as she focused on the now, and not what had happened. We have to survive. I can cry later.
“Right here?” Martin this time, confusion in her voice. “Our cart is still parked outside. My telescope is in there. I have to go get it.”
“NO!” Lucky and the Forerunner both exclaimed at the same time. The Forerunner spoke into her ear—without enough coherence to form her own words, Lucky just repeated what it said out loud. “Mission prerogatives have changed. The other team recovered enough samples for the cure. If you want a telescope, I will make you one.”
“You will?” Martin frowned for a second, until comprehension dawned on her face. “Oh, Forerunner. Well that would be a change. Just so long as you actually do it.”
Martin didn’t know what was happening, but Lucky still wanted to punch her.
Lightning Dust, meanwhile, knew her better. She recognized this distress, and had gone from confusion to watching the area around them with alert eyes.
The stadium was just about empty by then, its stone benches that had been packed now filled with trash and debris. A cleaning crew had started work on the other side, and more than a few staff seemed to be approaching them.
“Hey!” shouted one of them, in heavily accented Eoch. “Show’s over, you gotta get out!”
Lightning Dust took one step towards him. “What?” She made a few indistinct gestures with her wings. “I can’t understand you. Whaaat?”
Good thinking, mom. Just a little bit longer.
“YOU NEED TO GO!” the staff reported again. “We have to clean up for the next show! If you want to watch it, you have to buy new tickets!” The bipedal canine had already crossed half the distance between them, his burly arms looking thick enough to hurl a pony.
There was a sudden roar from the air above them, as loud as any of the demonstrations had been during the show. The diamond dog bouncer even stopped to watch, though there was nothing to see. Even Lucky’s eyes widened as she looked up, searching for whatever had caused the disruption.
Even squinting, she couldn’t see anything more than a slight shimmer in the sky. She could feel it though, a blast of warm air sending clouds of trash from the stadium flying like snow. Except at a point right in front of them, a few meters up. A shape was outlined against the dirt, about the same size as a jumper but thinner and sleeker.
A doorway appeared, into a dark space with pony-sized chairs. More like a luxury limousine than a futuristic airplane.
“Damn, that’s some stealth system,” Martin muttered, staring up slack-jawed. “I didn’t know our active camouflage was so good.”
“Board immediately!” the Forerunner shouted into her ear. Lucky took off, and Lightning Dust joined her in the air with only a few seconds of hesitation. Martin couldn’t do that without a running start, but it didn’t matter. Between the two of them, they could lift her the three meters or so into the open doorway. Lucky’s last sight of the outside was the astonishment on the diamond dog’s face before the metal door slid closed and they started to move.
For a few seconds, Lucky remained where she had landed on the floor in the center of the vehicle, breathing slowly. Like she was recovering from a physical beating. The aircraft moved smoothly enough that she didn’t feel sick, and she wasn’t jostled around the floor either.
If she was more coherent, she might’ve asked if it was trying to stay slow to avoid being detected by the ring. But right now, she didn’t care.
“Egress from Dragon’s Folly has been completed successfully. The Cyclops is running silent, so it will be at least a few hours until it gets enough distance from the city before I consider a rendezvous safe. You will have to remain aboard the Reikon until that time.”
“What is this, Forerunner pony?” Lightning Dust walked past Lucky, from one end of the vehicle to the other. There was a tiny bar—at their eye level, with a fridge and a food preparation area. Dust opened the single door at the back, but it was only a pony-sized bathroom. There was no cockpit, no access to the engine, nothing. “Is this like the airship that crashed?”
The Forerunner answered in Eoch. As before, there was no trace of neutrality to its tone. It sounded exactly like talking to anypony else—a little proud of its new ship, maybe a little nervous too. There were undercurrents of distress there, much as Lucky herself might sound “It’s called a Reikon. It’s not as fast as the jumper you flew in earlier, Lightning Dust. This is a civilian vehicle, so passenger comfort is more important.”
“I don’t understand,” Martin said, clambering up into the seats. The pony-made seats were like those Lucky had seen in Equestria, cushions with padded backs at the right distance to sit on one’s haunches comfortably. “What was so important that we couldn’t complete our mission, Forerunner? We could have walked back to the Cyclops when we were done.”
The seatbelts didn’t even remotely resemble those on human ships anymore—they looked more like roller coaster restraints, big padded bars that came in from the side as soon as Martin took a seat, but got out of the way just as quickly when she got up again.
“I no longer believed the city to be safe for you, Dr. Faraday. Major Fischer’s mission succeeded, but with unacceptable losses. Olivia was killed.” Lucky had never heard such grief in a synthesized voice—and that was all she could handle. She started crying too.
The major had been an idiot—she’d kidnapped a pony who would’ve been perfectly happy cooperating. According to her clone, she had stymied scientific progress, and threatened Othar itself with her warlike decisions.
But Lucky didn’t care. Olivia had been the first other human she had met on this ring. Not the first friendly person she had ever met, but one of the first. Olivia had promised to protect her, and she had always delivered. No matter the cost.
“Are you sure?” Lucky found herself asking, through the tears. She remembered something Olivia herself had asked, when they told her about Karl. “If we can’t find her body, she isn’t dead.” It didn’t stop her from crying, though. Even if neither Lightning Dust nor Martin seemed to share her feelings.
Her mom only looked bewildered, mouth opening and closing but no words coming out. And Martin? The scientist looked blank. There was nothing on her face—not pain, not anger, not disbelief—not even relief.
“I am nearly certain,” the Forerunner eventually said. “Based on previous observations with the Major Olivia Fischer Neuroimprint, I extrapolate to greater than 98% certainty she will have killed herself to prevent capture by an enemy she believes could extract information from her against her will if she survived. She verbally confirmed her intention to suicide prior to her capture.” The Forerunner did not continue.
Lucky finally rose, pacing down the craft, then up again. She couldn’t stay still. What are we supposed to do without Olivia?
“How?” Martin finally asked. “I saw her on the practice range—the major was the best soldier ever. That’s why she was in charge, right? That’s why you picked her imprint instead of somebody else’s! It can’t have been for being the best diplomat, or the best leader…”
“I want to know too,” Lucky said. “Even if you’re sure. I want to know how she died.”
So it told her. It wasn’t like a soldier sharing information, carefully considering with every word and only revealing what they thought she ought to know. The Forerunner spoke plainly. It started by explaining that their mission for the cure was a sham—more genetic samples would allow them to increase the diversity of their population, but it wouldn’t lead to a cure.
“The organelles Dr. Born and myself hoped would lead to a cure are only present in living tissue. They are among the first parts of a cell destroyed when an individual dies. Each individual appears to have a strain not just unique to their species, but to their individual genome as well. Dr. Born already tried studying the mechanisms present in plants and simple animals around Othar, without success. So we needed ponies to study, at least one from each tribe.”
It went on, explaining how Olivia intended to purchase the blood from a criminal in the city. How her team had been betrayed, and Olivia had stayed behind so that the other two soldiers and the four slaves could escape. Told of how she fought and won against many of them, but finally the agents from Equestria arrived.
Only then did it switch to Eoch. “They were called ‘The Nightmare.’ Have you heard of anything like that, Lightning Dust?”
The pegasus mare shivered uncomfortably, glancing once over her shoulder. As though she thought she were being watched. Lucky had never heard the term before.
Eventually, Dust nodded, though she spoke to Lucky instead of the Forerunner. “When I was in jail,” she said, speaking very quietly. “I was only in a few days, waiting for my case to be tried. But I… I heard some stories. All I know is, they answer to the princesses directly. Luna used to be in charge, but now I think Twilight Sparkle mostly handles it.”
She laughed, voice bitter. “If you can believe it, rumor was they were losing their bite. Luna’s teams used to…” She shivered. “Well, Twilight thought she was too good for that. She liked to rehabilitate ponies. Thought she was better than Luna, I guess. Or maybe she just cared less about justice.”
“That is consistent with the behavior I observed,” the Forerunner said, before switching back to English. “The Nightmare team was two ponies, armed with weapons and magic I was not aware of. Being near them appeared to impair Olivia’s abilities in ways I have not observed before. But she was unable to resist them, and instructed me to destroy her armor as soon as the outcome was known. That was when she…”
A long silence. “It is when I believe she would have attempted to kill herself. Likely with her sidearm, as I predict she would have wished for greater certainty than the as-yet untested tooth implant she received.”
“What is it saying?” Lightning Dust finally asked. She had probably never seen such despair on Lucky’s face before.
Lucky summarized as quick as she could, staying vague in the beginning. From the way she phrased it, Lightning Dust would probably infer Olivia had gone to rescue slaves just because she’d heard they had some. But Lucky didn’t much feel like speaking ill of the dead, even if they deserved it.
Lightning Dust did not get the chance to respond. The Forerunner spoke up again, sounding reluctant. “Lucky Break—I am aware your mental faculties have not recovered, and may not for some time. However, there is another matter of some urgency. The scheduled time for your transmission from Princess Twilight Sparkle has arrived. I am already detecting her signal. If you wish to respond, you must do it now.”
Lucky Break wanted to scream, or maybe break something. Instead, she straightened, wiping away a few more tears. She walked slowly away from her mom, who now looked as shocked as she felt, and Martin, who was still pale and motionless.
She walked until she was at the end of the room, and the console set into the wall. Probably she could have talked to Twilight from anywhere—the plane obviously had microphones. But she picked the computer anyway. “A-alright, Forerunner. I’m… I’m ready. You can tell Mogyla to connect me.”
End of Interlude