Melody felt useless.
This wasn’t the first time—feeling useless had been the basic state of her existence since her first breath in her new body. She felt more useless than usual, this time.
They had named the massive zeppelin the Speed of Thought, after nothing Melody could guess at. Its sleek shape still would’ve dwarfed the Cyclops, were it not fading into the sunrise. Melody wasn’t the only pony up here on the tarmac—the other members of Othar’s “human” population were here to see off the crew as well.
A few short days to fabricate, and they were on their way. They carried the hope of two civilizations with them—and they didn’t need her. Born too late to translate Eoch, but too early to study its history. It was an infuriating feeling. Her younger self was braver than she was, she had more discipline, she had done more amazing things. The Forerunner even trusted her enough to replace their military commander when her stupid bravado had gotten her killed.
Well, not killed anymore. She would probably be seeing Olivia again one day. Because Lucky was perfect and she would solve everything while Melody did nothing.
“They don’t have a fucking chance.” Dr. Born held a steaming mug of coffee in one mechanical claw, staring up at the Speed of Thought’s vanishing form. “Twenty credits says they explode the instant they cross the border.”
“Language,” Martin muttered weakly, glancing briefly up from the computation surface a drone was holding in front of her.
Rather helpful, these new drones. It was amazing how much someone could do if they had hands. Or something close to hands, anyway.
“And there’s no reason to be so depressing. We should be talking about how good a job they’ll do. Send them good vibes.”
“Good vibes?” Dorothy repeated, rolling her eyes. “What’s your excuse for losing your mind, Dr. Faraday? You didn’t let the stud knock you up too, did you?”
Melody stiffened, feeling as though Dorothy had just struck her. Her tail froze in place, ears flattening. She wished she could just melt into the tarmac. Unfortunately, Equestria wasn’t giving out cutie marks for melting today.
“Nobody did that,” Martin argued, pushing the drone away from her with one hoof and looking over her shoulder at Melody. “You didn’t do that, right?”
“I don’t know how you would know about it if I had,” she said to Dorothy, glaring again. “Ponies take eleven months for that. Don’t, uh… don’t ask me how I know that. Point is, nobody would know if anyone was pregnant, not for ages.”
Dorothy stalked past her with a shove, spilling a little of her coffee. “You only say shit like that because you used to be male. But some of us have had to worry about this our whole lives. You know the Forerunner made preventatives for this, they’re in medical. It’s probably not too late for Plan B either.”
“Wait…” Martin’s eyes widened, and a grin spread across her face. “She’s right? You are pregnant?” She hurried over, nudging at Melody’s belly.
Melody withdrew, finding herself wishing that she hadn’t copied her clone and stopped wearing pants. She backed away, tucking her tail between her legs. “I… might be possibly… a little bit.”
“She is,” Dorothy called, though her tone was more than amusement. She almost sounded like she was genuinely upset. “I saw the medical scans. Melody the new mommy forgot that I’m Othar’s only doctor. Well… physician, but you get the idea.”
“I’m not getting rid of it,” Melody said, backing a few steps closer to the covered tunnel that led back into the city. “Deadlight figured it out too, without any machines. If he hadn’t, I probably would have gotten rid of it, but… he was so excited to be a dad. Apparently, none of his other relationships have really worked out that well.”
“I can’t believe it!” Martin followed her, uncaring of whatever tension was between Melody and Dorothy. “You’re actually pregnant! Aren’t you even a little bit afraid? You were biosex male, weren’t you? Of course you were, your name is ‘James.’ Are you excited? Do you regret letting him sleep with you? Was your human instance gay too? I guess it isn’t gay now that—”
Melody felt like each word Martin spoke was a spell, shrinking her smaller and smaller into a shame-filled pile. “This isn’t what we need to be thinking about right now. Our leader and almost all the soldiers just flew off to try and save us. You two have important jobs to finish. Maybe you can stop tormenting me.”
Dorothy muttered something uncouth as she vanished, down the hall. There was an elevator in there, and only one car. Melody would have to wait before she went down herself.
Martin shrugged. “We don’t have to talk about it right now, I suppose. But I am curious. I’m in the same position you are, you know. Sans the boyfriend… I’m not really sure how I feel about getting one. It would be easier if you told me you were gay before.”
“Nope.” James shrugged one shoulder. “But I think Lucky might be? I don’t know. It’s confusing. I never intended to… well, this. But when you spend lots of time with someone, you… want to spend more time with them, you know? It felt natural.”
“The Forerunner is an excellent engineer, then,” Martin said, before turning back to her drone. “I didn’t know you could change that much about us.”
“Biology,” the drone said, the first time the Forerunner had spoken since the zeppelin took off. “The Pioneering Society’s ancient guidelines suggest every possible compromise should be made to allow its explorers to live happily once their duties are complete. I followed those instructions, though it was so long ago the one who made those choices isn’t really me anymore. The same will likely be true in a few months more—the self I am now will have been swallowed in a far vaster being.”
Melody shivered at that—but at the same time, it was nice to be disturbed at something that wasn’t her own body. A machine rebellion would be a lovely way for this to end.
“I got my cutie mark last night,” Martin said, her voice straining with forced cheerfulness. She turned to one side, pulling down her skirt.
What would’ve been inappropropriate for humans barely phased Melody anymore—when so many members of their crew didn’t wear clothes at all, why worry? She looked at the mark, which didn’t even seem to have any fur burned around it. It was a curve outlined in a rectangle, the simplest cutie mark she’d ever seen. “I, uh… what is that?”
“Golden spiral,” Martin said, voice proud. “It’s what happens when you divide…” Martin’s voice seemed to wash away in her words, Melody completely losing track of the mathematical terms she was using.
“No burns,” Melody said, when Martin had finished explaining. Not that Melody knew any better what a phi was than she had a few minutes before. “I remember Lucky and Olivia got hurt when they got theirs.”
“Guess not.” Martin shrugged one wing. “I’m taking my work down to the beach. Wanna come?”
“Maybe later,” she lied, waving. “You have fun. Get back before it gets dark.” Wish I could. I’ve got real problems to solve.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. There was one problem she had stayed behind to solve. Ideally she would’ve kept Deadlight with her (only for his ability to help, obviously), but he had flown off with Lucky.
She’s too young for him, right? I hope she really is gay.
Melody eventually took the elevator down to housing level and stepped out into a largely empty floor.
Like all of Othar, housing had grown tremendously over the last few weeks. Despite all the other tasks the Forerunner had, it still somehow found the time to direct construction equipment down here. None of the original crew lived on this floor, or ever used any of its services. The first ponies to use it were the soldiers, and now they were all gone.
Except Lei. Even as the elevator doors opened, Lei walked past pushing a tray of food. She was humming to herself. A Chinese folk song, by the sound of it. Melody joined her, though the pony didn’t need any help with the cart.
It was stacked high with breakfast foods, in all the traditional human favorites. Including synthetic bacon, smelling particularly delicious this morning. Melody had been craving the stuff for days now.
“You’re looking cheerful,” Melody said, trying to imitate her attitude. Hopefully this wouldn’t turn into another conversation about pregnancy.
“Yes,” Lei answered, in Mandarin. “It’s good to be helping. I made enough for you too, if you want to eat with the ones we rescued. Oh, and I got this.” She pulled up her skirt, exposing her flank.
Lei had a cutie mark—a covered serving dish. Some of the fur around it had been burned, unlike Martin’s. Only a little charred fur though, no evidence of debilitating her as it had done to Lucky or Olivia. Already the pattern stood out clearly from the rest of her coat, there was no need to guess about what it might be.
“Wow,” Melody said. It was the only thing she could think to say. “You’re, uh… congratulations? I think that’s what the natives say. Getting a cutie mark is an important moment in a pony’s life. Though… you’re probably not expecting yours to decide what you’ll do.” She looked away, ears flattening. “Martin got hers too. I wonder if you both got them around the same time.” Her voice lowered to a mutter. “I wonder why I haven’t got mine yet.”
Lei hardly seemed to hear her. “It’s so strange, Melody. I feel like I know things I shouldn’t. When I’m working in the kitchen, my hooves just know what they’re doing. I took off the cybernetics, see?” She gestured with her forelegs, showing that she wasn’t wearing any gauntlets. She still had her artificial leg—the replacement wasn’t ready yet. “Is this strange?”
“Yeah, but… not for us. Lucky described something similar in her journal. She got better at playing the guitar… then she knew a language she wasn’t supposed to.” Mostly true. To see Lucky work, it now seemed as though she knew every language. She had never once seen her younger self reference a dictionary, no matter what they were doing. Not like Melody, who carried her reference materials with her on her computation surface at all times. She didn’t have a cutie mark yet. “I think they throw parties for it sometimes. Too bad everyone left, or we could have one for both of you.”
Lei is even worse off than I am. Fabrication damaged her, and the soldiers don’t let her help. If she can be cheerful, I can.
“What about with the natives?” Lei flicked her tail towards the distant bunkroom, the very last one in the hallway. As much as they had been willing to house them here, the soldiers had wanted them as far away from their bunkrooms as possible. “We could have a party with them. That is all our new commander asks of us.”
Not quite true. In theory, Melody was now in charge. She would be next in command—if literally everyone who had flown away died. But if that happens, I might have to find a cliff and jump off too, because they’re really screwed with me in charge. Either that, or she could hope the Forerunner wouldn’t honor her predecessor’s succession any more than it had honored Olivia’s. Probably not an unreasonable hope.
“Alright then. Though with running the base, I don’t think I’ll be able to plan much of a party. Certainly not like what you could do. Are you sure you don’t want to wait until Deadlight gets back? He would know what to do.” She felt a little pang of longing as she said it, and fear.
Deadlight was too important to stay behind. More important than her. I helped him get accepted. I saved him from Olivia. I can give myself a little credit for that.
“No, it is fine.” Lei shook her head. “I can do it. It will be a reward to see our new guests happy. I don’t think their old lives gave them much to be happy about.”
“No, probably not.” Melody shook her head. They had walked almost all the way to the end of the long hallway. Each bunkroom had a dull red glow, though the various restrooms and other facilities were all green.
These last few rooms had one advantage over the earlier ones: they had been built for ponies. Olivia’s instructions had evidently been overridden sometime near the end of the floor, because suddenly the doors got short. Melody knew from showing their guests around when they arrived that all the other facilities down here were the right size as well.
The door to the bunkroom opened. Melody prepared herself to be struck by the smell, of sickness and unwashed bodies, but it wasn’t there. Of course it isn’t. They aren’t primitives, they were slaves. It wasn’t their fault they were dirty all the time.
She would have to keep reminding herself of that.
Bunkrooms like this could house ten people, each one subdivided by a stall of sorts that had an open doorway. In each stall there was a bunk bed suspended by a ramp over a folding desk, a chair, and a storage area. The front of the room had a sink and a large communal fridge. It was a lot like a large college dorm, except that everything in here was pony sized. That was a blessing and a curse, since in the human sized rooms all this would be gigantic.
She didn’t find the former slaves in the first four stalls, as she had left them. Instead they had emptied all the furniture from one and dragged in mattresses from several beds along with all the blankets and bedding.
Somehow, they had found a way to fold it all neatly, though it was clear that all four of them had spent the night there. Communal sleeping. Weird. Did what she had done with Deadlight count? Probably not, it had just been the two of them.
I hope I don’t have to spend too many more nights alone.
It was early enough in the morning that she had expected the slaves to still be asleep. Yet the bright “day” lights had been switched on, and all four of them stood in a neat row right by the door. They looked like soldiers lining up for review.
“Uh…” Melody blinked, looking them over. “Were you all waiting for something?”
Immediately the four of them dropped into a low, groveling bow. “Please forgive us,” Bull said. “We beg for understanding. You… not give work yesterday. Waited here, but you didn’t come until now. My fault, not theirs. Punish me. I was so excited when you brought us… forgot to ask.”
Lei watched, without comprehension. No one here was wearing headsets, so there was no immediate translation. Trying to work out what they were saying through such thick accents was a fresh adventure for Melody.
“Rise,” Melody said, her voice coming out like a command. She hadn’t meant to, but they were already standing, returning to their stiff posture. She sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you—you aren’t slaves. We will be happy to accept your help, but we don’t expect it of you. Certainly not now.” She gestured vaguely with one hoof, at the numerous bandages stuck to them. All their little infections had been treated, and all were healing. But it would take time.
“We know, you are Equestria,” said River. “That is why we wish to work very hard. So you don’t change your mind and send us back.”
“And maybe, if we work hard, you will save more,” added Lift. “So we want work.”
“Alright.” Melody took a deep breath. “Drag those tables out here and push them together. Then eat breakfast with us.”
Only then did they seem to notice the cart. Lei didn’t understand, but at all the attention on her, she helpfully lifted one of the silver trays, then muttered in Mandarin, “I made bacon. It isn’t real, but tastes almost as good. You will like I think.”
Lucky stared out the pair of gigantic windows as the Speed of Thought cut through the air. There were few controls in here, not like the Cyclops. As strange as a submarine was to be built in front of her, it was a design Lucky had recognized. One she’d studied, even if she’d only practiced inside mockups. Speed of Thought was something different, something new and strange wearing the skin of something ancient.
There were no control consoles in the bridge, and the comfortable chairs scattered about were arranged more like a den or a lounge than a center of ship operations. The Cyclops had many hardware analogues a clever crew could manipulate in the event of signal failure or a problem with their AI. They would have no such options here.
At the same time, strange projectors set into the ceiling could all aim at the same point and produce a command interface anywhere she wanted it. Right now that was nowhere, and the only projections were onto the window. Through the augmented-reality glass, she could see the invisible border of Equestria as they prepared to cross.
“This is the part where we die horribly,” Mogyla said from one of the couches, gauntlet “fingers” clattering on a virtual keyboard hovering in the space in front of him. “Or maybe not. Guess we find out.” He waved his hooves through the air, dismissing the keyboard and the virtual screen, then started fumbling with the backpack that had been resting beside him on the sofa. A parachute.
Lightning Dust was the only other pony in here. Lucky could see the anticipation on her face as she stared, eyes tracking the same place where ocean ended and land began. When they crossed officially into Equestria.
“Excited to be home?” Lucky asked. Both of them had changed colors again—this time two different shades of brown, with a few white splotches here and there. An unusual coloration for pegasi. Both even had new cutie marks—both boring weather-related cloud constructions.
Every crew member had been dyed, except Deadlight. Lucky doubted that any besides herself would stand a chance at passing for normal ponies… but the dye-machine wasn’t that bad. Compared to the brain-interface, Lucky would’ve climbed into the ink bath a dozen times.
“Nah,” Dust lied, looking away so Lucky wouldn’t see the dishonesty on her face. But she could still hear it in her voice. “Not much. Othar is awesome… until we lost your mayor, it was awesome. I was going to run the weather team. I guess I still can… we have unicorns now. Maybe when they’re feeling better they can help us with the enchantments.”
“Maybe,” Lucky said. She got quiet as they made the crossing, her whole body tensing as though she expected Celestia to fly up here and hoof her in the face.
But nothing happened—not an airborne princess, or something more practical like a collision warning. Nothing at all happened, in fact. Only when they were well and truly across did she go on.
“Maybe when this is over… When we win, and Harmony is gone, there’s no reason to be afraid of Equestria. We could buy the pieces of a weather factory. You’d still be the one to run it, obviously. It would be great if we trained our own ponies to operate it. But you could bring in technicians from Equestria, too. If you wanted. Maybe make a trip back every now and then.”
“Not if it takes this long to fly back in an airship,” Lightning Dust said, her voice a little sad. “This is too much time to be away, if I had such an important job. I couldn’t take a week off whenever I felt like it. Even in winter there are things to do.”
“Once we’re sure we aren’t going to get shot down, we could go faster than this,” Lucky said, leaning a little against the window. It wasn’t glass, though it looked convincing enough for the outside. Some kind of sapphire, Forerunner had said. “A jumper could make the trip all the way back to the Crystal Empire in an hour. But you remember what happened to us last time.”
“I do.” Lightning Dust stepped closer, lowering her voice to a whisper. “I can hardly believe this, Lucky. A year ago, and I thought you were some poor little abused kid. I wondered if you might be someone like those slaves Olivia rescued… but now we’re going to save all of Equestria from some kind of… monster. If someone told me this was the plot of a Daring Do book, I’d believe them. But real ponies, really doing it? I don’t know if we can.”
Lucky looked up. She could see the desperation in Lightning Dust’s eyes. The same feeling that had tormented her as long as she’d been the Colonial Governor. At least when Olivia was in charge someone else was the ultimate receptacle of guilt or success.
“I don’t know either,” she eventually said. “If any ponies before us tried, they failed. Now we’re caught up with ancient things, more powerful than us… someone has to try. If you don’t want to be a part of it… you could fly the other way. Forget about me, try to get as far away from all of this as you can.”
She was interrupted by an embrace, Dust pulling her close with her wings. “No.” Her voice was low, dangerous. “Equestria turned my name into a curse with the ponies I cared about. This is how I prove them wrong. I almost hurt some—but now I’ll save them all. Let them dig up old newspapers about me then!”
Lucky nodded, though she couldn’t help but look away. Something about that motivation didn’t feel like it was enough for what could be waiting for them. But was her loyalty to an abstraction any better?
“We will be approaching the drop point in ten minutes,” Forerunner said, over ship radio. “Meet me in the armory, Lucky and Lightning Dust. I have some things to give you before you go.”
Lucky waved a hoof to Mogyla. “Sorry there was no fireworks for you.”
“I’m not,” he said, waving back. They left up a pair of stairs in the back, down the length of the gondola. Speed of Thought was larger than the Cyclops even when one only counted the area any of them could visit. Even so, it was not engineered like the pictures Lucky had seen of Equestrian zeppelins. Like the Cyclops, the illusion of fitting into this world was only skin deep.
Instead of exotic wood and gaslamp fixtures, the hallways were cramped and plain. Most of its interior was taken up by mechanical areas, devoted to functions she could only guess at given how simple the ship seemed. What few areas they could get at were along the outside of the ship. At least it was warm—she didn’t even shiver, despite not wearing anything right now. For this altitude, that was quite the luxury.
They didn’t run into anyone in the hall. Probably the small metal spaces discouraged them from lounging there, choosing their little cabins instead, or maybe the common room. But they weren’t going to the common room, so Lucky wouldn’t find out. She wasn’t really here to give speeches.
“Forerunner wanted me too,” Dust remarked, as they made their way down the empty hallway. “He can’t have anything interesting for me, can he? I’m not…”
“You are one of us now, Mom,” Lucky said. “We’re on the same mission. We’re fighting for the same goal. That’s the only thing that matters.”
The armory opened for them without waiting for a scan from her implant—apparently the new systems could detect them at range. There was a slight whoosh of air from an airlock as they stepped inside, then again as the door sealed behind them. What’s the point of that on an atmospheric zeppelin?
Instead of dim metal, the armory was all white plastic, with a look of freshly fabricated parts instead of salvaged ones from the old Sojourner. After seeing what happened on that ship, I’m glad it was cut to pieces. Let it rot.
Few rooms in the Speed of Thought were tall enough to allow humans to comfortably stand, but this was one of them. Forerunner now wore a full uniform, concealing the obviously mechanical nature of some of his joints. If only he’d put on a wig, he might pass the untrained eye for human.
He had an array of objects spread out on a pony-sized table in the center of the room, and he stood over it like a preschool teacher about to give out lunchboxes to their class.
“You are a very skinny minotaur,” Dust said from beside her, looking up at him with poorly concealed stares. “And not very healthy looking either.”
“That is because I am not alive,” Forerunner said. His voice was distinctly male when it came from this mouth—lower even than the largest earth pony stallion. He still spoke Eoch clearly, though. I did that. I can be proud about something. “I am a construct, Lightning Dust. Like all the other drones you have seen in Othar. I am only more sophisticated.”
“But you look like the ghosts in the doctor’s office,” Dust said. “Melody said that you used to look like this, Lucky. Is that true?”
“A little like this,” Lucky answered. “We usually had more hair.” She could tell that Lightning Dust had more to ask, but she didn’t leave her the chance just now. “You have some things for us?”
She looked down at the table. At a glance, everything she saw looked like personal effects ponies might carry. Two sets of saddlebags, modeled much more closely on the real ones than the jury-rigged backpacks she had sometimes seen ponies in Othar wearing. A computation surface concealed inside a thick notebook, a pouch of gold bits…”
“Most of this is self-explanatory,” Forerunner said, holding up a few pony-sized shirts. Both of them had pictures of fruits and vegetables, in stylized absurdity. “I saw shirts like this with one of my drones, so I thought you ought to wear them. There is a great deal of foot traffic moving into the city called Ponyville—where Twilight’s castle is located, as well as where we believe the major is being held. Which reminds me.”
Forerunner removed a strange object from amid the others on the table, holding it up in one hand. It looked uncomfortably like a gun, with an extremely wide barrel. Except that it was small, and had a transparent interior.
“Lucky, I’m requiring you to receive a tracking implant. Come over here, and hold still. Lightning Dust, you can decide to accept this or not, it’s up to you. It will be briefly painful.”
“Tracking… implant...” Lucky said, staring at the machine. Not a weapon then, but some kind of medical device. “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”
“It’s new. Previous versions of this technology required a link to an external antenna, but with increased density of power storage and transmission range...” He trailed off, approaching her with the “gun” raised in one hand.
Lightning dust watched with more curiosity than fear—she didn’t have the same innate anxiety of anything gun-shaped that Lucky did. Forerunner pressed it up against her belly, then fired. She winced. It did hurt.
“I’m not losing another commander like I lost Major Fischer. That device doesn’t have the energy to transmit continuously… that would give you away too easily, anyway. But if it receives a signal from me, it will transmit a response pulse. Anywhere you can get radio, I should be able to find you. It will also transmit a slightly modified signal in the event of your death.”
Lucky felt the bleeding from her belly, right about the time that Forerunner sprayed something against her coat. It stung fiercely, but the bleeding stopped. She hissed anyway, pulling away from him. “Sounds like you should just… grow us with those.”
“I do. Well, I do now. The newer generation does. There is some speculation that a future generation of implants might be passively powered, but at present that device will only transmit continuously for 96 hours before needing to be recharged. Hopefully that is long enough for the crew to locate you, if you are captured and taken elsewhere.” Forerunner aimed the gun at Lightning Dust. “Would you like an implant as well, native consultant Lightning Dust? If you receive it, I can promise to take the same effort to recovering you from capture as I would for Lucky.”
Lightning Dust shivered, eyeing the gun warily. “No thanks. Equestria is my home, I can handle myself here. If something goes wrong… I’ll work a way out of it.”
“Very well.” Forerunner turned its attention back to the pile of gear. “I have separate equipment prepared in the eventuality that we succeed in our mission of recruiting the princess and are able to explore any of the Sanctuary installations. Given the likelihood of capture for you, I’ve minimized anything that Celestia or any other of her agents could use. This computation surface has an integrated long-range antenna—no need for a separate apparatus as you were forced to use during your previous mission. I have also concealed an emergency signaling device in this.”
Forerunner lifted a large spring-loaded tail clip. “Break this in half, and it will begin transmitting positional information as well as a distress call. I will interpret this signal as a call for rescue.” He set it down on the table closest to her. “Lastly, for you, Lightning Dust.”
Forerunner nudged something towards her. IT looked like a gauntlet, though it lacked the spidery metallic claws. The layer on the bottom was thinnest, suggesting it was meant to be worn while walking.
“What is it?”
“A modified stun rifle,” Forerunner said. “I understand you feel maternal instinct towards the colonial governor. Lucky Break is trained to operate many weapons, but she lacks the… tenacity to do harm to others even in her own interest. You do not.”
Lightning Dust reached forward with her right foreleg, slipping it into the glove. The whole thing tightened around her hoof a little, but it was still slim enough to be relatively covert. “I have three more of these. Perhaps you could wear them like shoes?”
“I visited your firing range…” Lightning Dust muttered, holding her hoof with the gun above the surface of the table. “I don’t want to be ‘shooting’ things without meaning to.”
“You won’t,” Forerunner said. “These weapons are verbally encoded. To fire, they must be held plus or minus thirty degrees from level, and instructed to shoot. They will contextually interpret your target as the subject of greatest threat, and fire. There is no need for training on your part.”
“Woah,” Lightning Dust put on the other shoes.
“Can I have some gun shoes too?” Lucky asked, hopefully.
“No,” Forerunner said. “The energy storage medium they use requires complex fabrication and I was unable to make more in time. Your voice is keyed to those four as well as Lightning Dust, so if you encounter a threat with any notice, she may share them with you at her discretion. Do not take this the wrong way, governor, but I trust her to use them more effectively than you will.”
“It’s alright, squirt,” Lightning Dust said, her voice a little smug. “We’re just here to negotiate anyway. I’m sure we won’t use them.”
“Oh, one more subject of note,” Forerunner added. “Those weapons were reverse-engineered using a template for space station security guards. As such, they were designed to be passively charged, and not fire very often. You will have, at most, two shots with each every twenty-four hours.”
Lucky grunted unhappily, but proceeded to focus on packing her measly saddlebags.
“We’re nearing the drop location,” Forerunner said, once they had finished packing everything away and dressed in the silly clothes. “The Speed of Thought will circumnavigate the area until you call for us or ask for help. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Lucky Break couldn’t help herself—she offered the towering human a hoof. It felt right to be grateful. “Hope we don’t need it.”
“We all need it,” Forerunner said, taking the offered hoof anyway. “Shame it doesn’t exist.”
They made their way out to the upper deck. Deadlight was lounging out here, next to the slow drone of the engine. He read from a computation surface hidden in an old book, though mostly he seemed to be watching the sky below them. It was early evening out here—poorly suited to their eyes, but well suited to his. They even seemed to be glowing a little.
“You’re going down,” he said, eyeing them. “Nice shirt, Lightning Dust. Save me some apple cider while you’re down there. I hear it’s some of the best in Equestria.”
“I’m sure we won’t have the chance,” Lightning Dust said, sounding annoyed. “We’re trying to save Equestria here, if you haven’t been listening.”
“Equestria has been saved many times,” Deadlight said, with a slight shrug of his wings. “Doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy yourselves while you’re doing it. There are ponies in the city you’ll be visiting who have saved it several times themselves.”
“Don’t remind me,” Lightning Dust groaned. “Thank Celestia they won’t recognize me.” She pulled on the goggles Forerunner had given them, and practically jumped into the air. “Woah! Lucky, you have to try these…”
Lucky had rested them on her forehead in the conventional place, mostly preparing to keep the wind out of her face on the way down. Now she lowered them, and her eyes went wide. The world had gone monochrome, but the indistinct haze of night instantly cleared to sharp lines and edges. She could see the railing on the deck, the several empty chairs beside Deadlight’s single occupied one.
“I’ve heard of these,” Lightning Dust said, grinning. “The Wonderbolts wear them on night missions. Supposed to be a pretty difficult enchantment. Expensive.”
“This one isn’t magic,” Lucky said, as they made their way to the edge. “But you don’t need to be told that. Most of what we do is… well, I guess in some ways you could call it magic, but it’s really just machines. These are machines too, just made to look like the goggles we would usually wear.”
“That sounds like magic to me,” Dust said, as she pushed aside the railing. “I’ve never jumped from a moving zeppelin before,” Dust said. “But I already know the dangers. Propellers in back, there will be a vortex off either side trying to suck us in. We need to dive straight down as quick as we can to cut through that, until we can barely hear the engine anymore. Moving this slowly, it shouldn’t be that hard. Even for you.”
Lucky nodded, swallowing as she braced one hoof on the edge of the void like a swimmer preparing to dive. Leaping off a suspended island in the sky still felt a little terrifying, even if she knew she could fly. Being reminded this thing is a flying blender probably didn’t help things.
They jumped.
Olivia should’ve died days ago. Then, when she’d been captured, she should have been forced to endure terrible interrogation. She should’ve been rotting in prison, left with the knowledge that her failure would mean the deaths of everyone she cared about.
She wasn’t rotting in jail.
Olivia came down like a comet, cutting through the night sky in a brilliant slash of flame. Trees exploded as she went down, many of their leaves catching fire. She dug a deep trench in the ground, hardly feeling it as it sprayed around her like a wave. She felt no pain as little rocks and thorny bushes smashed up against the armor, and were either incinerated or thrown aside.
Wearing this was everything she had imagined wearing a powered exoskeleton would be like, before she’d actually put one on and learned it was really just industrial equipment with some metal plates welded to it. Her escape from the hospital had required barely any effort, and now she was free.
But for how long?
Olivia clambered from the trench, stepping onto a thin layer of fulgurite, and cracking it underhoof. If only she could’ve heard the Forerunner’s voice in her ear right now, giving her advice and pointing her in the direction she needed to go, she would be like some old comic-book superhero. With armor like this, she could fight Equestria herself.
Except they have more of it, stupid. They have ponies trained to use it. Like the two I fought. Then again, she had incapacitated one of those ponies without much effort. She could’ve killed the other, if she had been more ruthless. But she wasn’t—she hadn’t been willing to kill someone who was just doing their duty. Attack one, yes. Try to escape? Sure. But murder? Not so much.
I’ll kill Celestia, though. After what she did to Karl, what she wants to do to Lucky. What she would do to Othar if she knew we existed. Would Equestria have any defense against an assassin wearing armor like this? When was the last time it had faced a serious external threat?
There was no one to ask for advice, no one to bounce ideas off of. Olivia would have to figure out what to do alone. She walked past the wreckage of her entry-point, moving swiftly through the dark with the mechanical assistance of the armor in every step. She could feel the strength it gave to her, the forward motion. It was like constantly walking downhill. Does it have fuel? Will I screech to a halt and be trapped in here? Is there a tracker?
Two of those three answers were likely yes. Obviously something had to power what she was doing—even if the natives called it magic, there were laws behind it. Machinery. What’s the machinery behind unicorn levitation? She shook her head, banishing the thought. She had done a little of that, once she put the helmet on. She could feel the ghost of a horn protruding from the helmet even now, glowing faintly purple. Every time she willed the armor to do something, her ghostly horn seemed somehow involved in the process. How, she didn’t know, and didn’t care.
They must be tracking this. It’s too valuable not to. And even if they can’t, there’s a flaming crater in the forest from my landing. They will be following me. Olivia had two choices—she could try to ditch the helmet and get as far away as possible, or she could hold onto it and use its power against whatever came. Would the advantage of the equipment outweigh the likelihood of attracting a stronger adversary?
She considered her training as she walked, cutting briskly through the forest and away from her entrance. She didn’t really know where she was going—it was dark outside, so she couldn’t use the sun. This wasn’t Earth, and she had never bothered learning enough about the night to know how to use it for directions. She would have to wait for dawn, then she could get a good idea of her position. She counted her steps as she walked, and did her best to move erratically while mostly in the same direction.
Finding where she landed would be trivial. Tracking her after that would have to be the hard part.
She was trained for this, though no one in the ISMU would have expected that training to be used here. She knew where to walk to leave the worst tracks, she knew how to read the signs of game-trails and judge which areas were safe and which might have natural threats. Not that she expected predators to be much danger to her with a weapon like this. She’d blown apart a brick wall with barely a thought, what chance did a bear have?
The suit seemed to do little to block out the natural sounds from around her. She could hear many animals moving in the dark—the hooting of owls, the constant rustling of natural life in the forest. Lucky had briefly mentioned how domesticated the wildlife was in Equestria, but this forest did not bear that out. From the occasional screech of a wildcat, or the furious sound of animal conflict further away, she guessed this was closer to one of the Earth jungles in terms of safety. Even a human soldier might not return from one, if they didn’t know what they were doing.
Olivia did not know, and ultimately that was what made her decision for her. I’ll hold onto the armor until daylight, when I can assess my situation better. She might take one of two options then—leave the armor behind, and attempt to evade capture as long as possible as a fugitive—or use the armor itself as the bait that might attract her enemy to her. She could bank on Equestria tracking it to control where that final confrontation might occur.
During a long night-march through the forest, Olivia might’ve sung something with her comrades, or chatted about life back home. But there was no one to talk to, and from the sounds all around her anything listening would not be a friend to her.
Twice she came upon the corpses of larger animals—once caught in a truly gigantic spiderweb, and another time as a skeleton laying bleached and alone in a solitary clearing. That second one looked like it might even be a pony body, though it was hard to be sure. Olivia had not learned the anatomy of the natives as well as she probably should have.
At least the armor kept her going. She didn’t feel like she was getting tired while she wore it—her fatigue was a very distant thing, like a storm cloud hovering forever at the horizon. So long as it didn’t come any closer, she didn’t care.
Eventually she saw a distant shape outlined against the starry sky, one without irregularity of uneven treetops. Solid lines, with sturdy stone blocks in places. Then the trees abruptly ended and she was standing in a windswept clearing, with a towering ruin rising in front of her.
She blinked in disbelief, and considered removing the helmet to see with her own eyes. Could there really be a medieval castle in the middle of a forest?
Yes, apparently. Olivia flew over an old bridge instead of trusting the wood and rope, landing on a clear path. She could see no lights nearby—no sign of occupation of any kind. Thanks to the helmet, she could see it clearly, even in darkness. See the two intact towers rising from amid the ruin, see the places where the roof had caved in.
That looks like a very good place to set a trap, Olivia thought to herself, pleased. She could imagine labyrinthine hallways, corridors with holes in the roof, many ancient hiding-places and secret passages. Perhaps it would have a population of ravenous predators nesting in the lower levels, or more of the spiders that had made the web she passed earlier. Perhaps it would already have traps, and she would only need to find them without triggering them herself.
How much time do I have to get a home field advantage? How long before they track me here? Olivia wasn’t sure about that.
She was sure about one thing, though. She wasn’t going to leave the helmet and run. She could make her stand here—against Celestia’s servants, first. Then, perhaps, against the tyrant herself. Wish I had some explosives. Maybe some weapons. As she thought it, the air around her shimmered, momentarily darkening. She noticed it then—a slight heaviness in the armor. Somehow, she realized she had drained an incredible amount of energy from what she was wearing. It seemed to speed her just a little less than before.
Arrayed in the field around her were two dozen white plastic crates, each one stamped with the Pioneering Society’s fabrication mark, with the word “OTHAR PRIME” written in block letters.
How much of Othar’s weapon stockpile had she brought? Grinning to herself, Olivia strode forward, and pressed the side of her hoof to the edge of the lid. Even through the armor, it detected her implant, and clicked open.
There were explosives inside, each one still wrapped in plastic film and set into foam padding. Between all these boxes, it might even be enough to bring down a castle.
Major Fischer set to work.