Athena followed quietly beside the Sergeant, wondering what could possibly top all the discoveries made in this remain of Old Earth. She watched him, a frown creasing his brow as he talked with Calliope, the comm-unit letting her listen in as well.
“Are you sure it’s stable for now?”
“I am, but it has been flickering for a long time. I’ve directed more power into the system and it is draining the batteries and secondaries. I’m afraid if what they say is true, magic is what’s disrupting everything.”
“We better get it done then.” Wyatt looked at Athena with a wan smile, “I’m sorry. I thought we could just leave it all alone. But this new world affects things worse than we thought.”
She could only nod, agreeing, “We know. We’ve had to adjust everything to account for it.”
“You’ve developed defenses for it. That’s what you said, right?”
“Oh, yes! A modification of the standard Kinetic/Energy Battle Screen. The frequencies covered are enough to prevent magic from being used inside the field and against it. It took a while, but we got it.”
The tall human sighed, “Wish we’d have known that a long time ago.”
“What’s so wrong? Surely there can’t be much left beyond your living areas and the vault?” She tilted her head for a moment, “Is this what has been bothering you? I’ve noticed some times you’re very quiet.”
He just looked down at his boots for a moment, nodding softly to himself, “Yes. I just thought maybe we could forget about it all.”
“Forget about what?” Now her interest was piqued.
Wyatt stopped in mid-stride, gripping his cane and kneeling down so he could look her straight in the eyes, “Athena, what do you think about the Concordiat? Those that ran it?”
The sable pegasus was taken aback for a moment at the question, “I.. We served and helped to keep the human race safe. There were good people, most of them. But there are always a few bad apples in a barrel.”
The Sergeant laughed actually, out loud and for a brief moment, “You saw only the best, little lady. Only the top officers got into Bolo Command.” A hand waved around as if gesturing towards those long ago humans, “The rest..well..let’s say they weren’t the bright lights. Prejudiced, greedy, ignorant, and some of them ran things!”
“I under..”
“No, you don’t. They dragged us into the Final War cause they were blind to it, willfully and cognizant. As long as they got theirs, then and there, they left the problems to someone else later on. So on and so on.” He lifted himself up once more, leaning on the sturdy cane, “Stupidity ran rampant. How do I know this being just a sergeant?”
Athena could only wait for the answer.
He smiled once more, “Busted from Captain down to lowly Sergeant for my sins.”
The lavender eyes widened, “...what?”
“Oh..I was a rakehell, I’ll tell you that. Drunk and disorderly, brawling in all the right bars on the right planets. Brave and foolhardy, but we got it done.” His chest puffed out proudly, “I’ll have you know Company C of the 121st Concordiat Infantry never left a bar standing!”
“Was that..”
“Us or the bar itself.”
Athena could only stare at him, remembering the kind, gentle soul the past few days and now this.
“But..how..”
“One too many places suing the military, I have no clue. One day I was called in, reassigned and busted. I figure I deserved it. But that last farewell? Ohh..the spaceport at Rigel Four had to shut down to clean up the mess. Sorta like an impromptu Mardi Gras.”
He grinned, eyes shining like pinpoints of light, “My soldiers knew how to throw a party.”
Athena laughed, “And Calliope knew this?”
“Oh, sure. But we kept it between us. No reason you needed to know..but now.. It’s need to know.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I’ve seen some of the worst of it, Athena. It’s better humans aren’t around, trust me.” He looked about, seeing Crystal Ponies everywhere, the gleaming of houses and shops, “This place is something special and you don’t need us here to screw it up.”
“That and we seem to feel the need to keep secrets, keep them until they come back to haunt us.” He showed the palms of his hands to her, “What can I say except perhaps we should have told you in the beginning.”
He motioned for them to keep walking, the pace a little faster as they traveled down the path to the castle, heading for the vault.
His voice came low, almost a whisper as he strode beside her, “I want to apologize. I sincerely thought..figured..I could spend my last days in peace with Calliope and everything here. I’m so sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“There’s so many things.. Calliope gave you the records of the last days did she not?”
“She did. We’ve been archiving and storing them in secure cores.”
Before they entered the castle proper, he turned to her, making sure they wouldn’t be overheard.
“Don’t show them. Don’t let them see the tragic ending of a world that would become theirs.”
Athena thought for a split second before Crusader came over the line.
“We have informed them of the Final War, with not many specifics. We did not have records to show them, having been ordered into stasis.”
“Then don’t.” He spoke to both of them, “Let them live their lives without that horrible story.”
“We can promise that. The information will be stored for historical purposes, but we will not show them until, and if, they are ready.”
“You agree with that, Athena?”
“I do. They know enough.” She had reviewed some of the files. Satellite views of kinetic weapons cleaving into cities with tremendous fireballs and shockwaves. Ship to ship fighting near the moon, glittering beams carving vessels up on either side.
“Good..that’s good.” He continued through the large doors, his cane ticking on the crystal floor as they sped along the hallway.
Ending up once more in the living area, they faced a somewhat blank wall, a rolling shelf in front of it easily moved aside.
“All right Calliope, open it up.”
“Handshake is good, codes are cleared. Pressurization is nominal.”
A clunking noise, bars of durachrome a meter wide were slammed out of place, the clicking of what sounded like multiple tumblers releasing interlocks chirruped for a few seconds. Silence fell down like a cloak before the wall slid back with a hiss of normalizing atmosphere. Athena noticed this section of wall was tremendously thick, her eyes following the partition as it was almost yanked out of sight.
She also noticed the tremendous power drain on the storage batteries they had hooked up. This had happened since the day they had first connected them. The experimental storage cells that Calliope had told them about had been recharged through them, once again providing a huge amount of power from such little things.
Hoping maybe to adapt them, they had been informed that the plans had been lost with the destruction of her sisters. The cells had been a lark, an offshoot of other projects, providing all the power to this part of the redoubt through a cold fusion process that used exotic materials that were not found on the earth.
The cells could be moved, used and whatever, but they could not be reverse-engineered to make more.
Lights came on from the arching roof, showing stacks of what looked like cradles in the glaring brightness. Athena stood there for a moment and then looked upwards to the Sergeant, “Are those....?” She was trying very hard not to panic.
“They are. I said I was a weapons technician, you never asked me where the weapons were.”
Her eyes scanned the room, slim tubes meters long sat in reloading cradles, ready to be dumped into a launcher for surface to space warfare. The magnitude of this kept her from speaking for a moment as she immediately opened up a datalink to Crusader.
Something was different though, the ends of the missiles were shiny in a way that reminded her so much of stasis bubbles. But that wasn’t correct, her tactical database said the Concordiat had nothing like this that needed..stasis?
The pieces slid together like well-oiled gears.
Athena closed her eyes for a moment, “Please tell me those aren’t what you were working on when you contracted Tanaba-Yau Neuropathy?”
“You’re very quick for a Bolo.”
“What exactly are the specifications?” She was desperately keeping herself in check, instead of panicking she looked upon this as a problem to solve.
“Those, my fine winged pony-Bolo amalgamate, are the finest anti-matter warheads ever devised by the cracked minds in Concordiat weapons development.” His voice held a sadness she could hear so clearly.
Her eyes snapped upward, “They actually did it, on Earth?”
“Oh, yes. Stasis bubbles surround a suspension of anti-matter and matter, keeping them from meeting until, and when, they are close to the target or impacting.” He swept a hand around, motioning to the silent engines of death, “They used them in the defense of Old Earth. It seems this section of the magazine was cut off when..well..whatever happened. We were left with them to take care of.”
“When linking the AI’s to the defense net, records told us that we were beside a magazine. Before we went into hibernation, us and Wyatt, we enabled the emergency exit which you’ve just gone through and took stock.” Calliope’s voice was sounding regretful.
Athena looked up at the ceiling, trying to imagine she was not here, “So the background count of magic crept up over the many millenia, finally affecting the stasis surrounding the warheads. Especially here in the Crystal Empire where it is incredibly dense.” Not to mention the thousand year absence of the empire in a magical curse.
Wyatt nodded, “And that is why the power drain. My stasis took nothing at all to maintain. But the warheads kept flickering and had to be turned off, then back on, which took immense power, to keep the solutions stable.”
The sergeant sighed, kneeling down once more as if to rest his legs, one hand placed itself on her shoulders, looking out over a room which contained the very worst possible thing.
“I’m sorry. More than you can imagine. We wanted to let them rot here forever inside the cradles. But this..magic..is affecting it. We cannot let them flicker out for a second. Calliope and her sisters used an automatic programming solution to reset them fast, fast enough the anti-matter couldn’t reach the catalyst.” He gave everything in sight a somber look, “The horrors of the old world come to haunt.”
He kept leaning on her as he spoke, his tone one of immense regret, “She didn’t know what was affecting them. Calliope filled me in after I awoke.” Weary eyes looked at lavender ones, “Your explanation provided the answer, but it’s far too late. We must get rid of them. They would destroy a good portion of this planet’s surface.”
“Why would they store such things on Earth, the homeworld?” Athena was flabbergasted, “Why would they be so suicidal?”
Carpenter sighed, a heavy breath that let the weight off the world off his shoulders for a brief moment, “Paranoia, stupidity. Who knows? They were fearful, I’m sure, of the Melconians. Their fleets were so much larger than we knew.”
“You know as well as I do, Athena, there were entire races who hated Earth so much that they would have loved to see our destruction.”
The sable head moved up and down, “I know. But I thought..oh..I thought we’d left it behind.” Her own voice held a touch of wistfulness.
Athena felt something she’d never thought, ever, that she’d know beyond dreams. The sliding of an arm around her neck, the touch of warm breath, a hug from the only human in this world. Comforting her.
It was the best feeling in the world.
-----
“You are taking this very well.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, I’m about to bust a circuit! Those are anti-matter warheads!!”
“Calmly sister. We can solve this.”
“Why? Why would humans put such things on the earth, hadn’t they learned from the Enceladus Disaster?”
“Apparently having the major part of a moon destroyed while experimenting with anti-matter was not enough to dissuade them using it for self-defense. It was a war Athena. There are secrets even we were not privy too.”
“I know. But this is almost a disaster in itself, we need to get them gone before their stasis machinery fails completely.”
“Surface to Space weaponry can be fitted to my Heavy VLS, but it would take some time. Can the systems be maintained until then?”
“Magical background count is tremendously high here in the Empire. I’m running a power line from my hull to the equipment, it’s the only way to feed enough energy to keep them stable. The frequencies on the bubbles cannot be changed, or we could stabilize them better. Wyatt says that was to keep the enemy from hacking the warheads.”
Athena shot data through the link, a diagnostic of all current systems inside the magazine, “Solid core boosters are still intact, we don’t have to worry about fueling them. When can you get here?”
“I am able to move in two hours.”
“Good.”
“One second, you are running a power line from your hull? How will you get close enough to do... Please tell me you are not..”
“I have to!”
“How much will we end up owing now?”
“Princess Cadence said that considering the emergency, it would be waived.”
“I am sure that conversation was one for the record books.”
“You had to be there.”
-----
The light purple eyes were looking at her in astonishment, “What did you say?”
Athena knew this conversation was not going to be well-received, “I need to move closer to the castle to provide power to some of the systems in the vault.”
She watched as Cadence thought of the huge machine that stood just outside the gateway to the Empire, thinking of how it would actually accomplish this, not to mention why.
“Why do you need to do so? Is something wrong?” She was honestly curious.
“There..was something in the vault that needs to be kept stable until we can get rid of them.” She really, really, really did not want to get into the discussion, though she hated prevaricating.
“What did you find?”
I hate things like this.
I carefully explained to her what was in the last part of the vault, the danger, and why we needed to move so fast.
Her eyes got wider, if you can believe it.
“They are truly that dangerous?”
“The amount of explosives there Princess, could crack the planets’ crust.”
“Why in Celestia’s name would they make such things?” Her voice was exasperated, trying to wrap her mind around the revelation of what I had told her.
Wyatt answered that one, sitting on a chair and listening to the conversation, he had remained quiet until now, “Because mankind had to have it’s defenses, Princess. That, and the galaxy was not a nice place sometimes.”
She snapped her eyes to him, pinning the slight human in place, “Are there any more such secrets?”
Most ponies would have taken only a moment to gather their thoughts, being confronted by a Princess, not Wyatt, oh no.
He raised a hand, rubbed his chin as if thinking, eyes looking up at the ceiling but I could tell he was keeping her in sight. He hemmed and hawed, made noises as if deeply reflecting on anything that could possibly be another secret he could give out that would be worse than this one.
After a few moments the Princess was not inclined to be patient, “Well?”
A slight smile, the hand going back to rest on the top of his cane, “Nothing I can think of. Except we’re running out of snack cakes because that pink pony keeps getting into the stores.”
He winked at the pegasus, “That’s a tragedy of the worst sort I’d think. I really like those things.”
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes and try to not laugh, didn’t quite work.
Cadence looked like she was going to say something, her mouth gaped for a moment then snapped shut, uttering a chuckle that relaxed her whole body, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Your Highness, I would be most appreciative. And no, there is nothing else. We ended up with those by accident I think.”
Athena thought back to the weapons magazine, cut in half by a rock wall and proofed against the ages by automatic emergency sealants that all redoubts had in case of breaches. It had flowed over and made basically another wall out of the rock face that was almost as impenetrable as durasteel. They had also used a little of remaining medical nanites to create another layer above that, and covering the outer offices as well.
“Is there a plan to be rid of them?”
A sable head nodded, “There is, Crusader is on his way.”
The pastel Alicorn nodded, “Now, how do you propose to get close to the castle?”
I sighed, “Well...the only way..”
-----
“Left! LEFT!”
“Will you stop? I know what I’m doing!”
“You ran over the garden!”
“I know that.”
“LEEEEFT!”
“Will you be quiet!”
“You have to turn left, just a skosh!”
Athena slapped a hoof on her forehead, sighing. She knew this had been a bad idea, but they had wanted to help.
“I cannot turn ‘just a skosh’. My treads are going to create damage wherever they go.” She pointed to the busted crystal roads, crushed and crumbled underneath the massive weight, there was nothing she could do. The power lines had a finite reach, her hull had to be closer to the castle.
Sensors were running full tilt, some of the docking and distance radars were setting Crystal Ponies teeth on edge. They were creating a resonance she couldn’t stop, badly needed, if she were to get through this with minimal..well...less than total damage.
She knew where she was to within the millimeter, but it couldn’t be helped, there was going to be some problems.
“Oh my gosh! The whole front of that house!”
“I know.”
Slipping through the shield was not a problem, erecting her battle screens had prevented the magic from disrupting anything. But now, creeping slowly through the crowded main thoroughfare, she was listening to her ‘helpers’ who were not so helpful.
Ponies had been warned, so no personal danger would ensue, but the harm to structures and things couldn’t be helped. The main road she was using as a way to achieve her objective was pressed with houses and shops.
Meter by meter she was moving along, but just calculating the cost was going to be a headache later.
“STOP! Oh my goodness darling, not the statues!”
“They can be replaced, the owner said so.”
“But they’re... oh the horror!”
“Rarity..just look away.” The crunching of her treads along a line of statues was definitely not the sort of thing you wanted to hear twice.
Twilight had come up with a route she’d said might be better, although it ended up making a few turns Athena would not have wanted to try and accomplish. After an exchange about maneuver damage and what it meant to the surrounding buildings, Twilight finally gave in.
But that certainly did not stop...
“Whoa! That was cool! Crunch!”
“Rainbow, stop that.”
“Are you kidding? She’s doing more damage than I ever could!”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence there, Dash.”
“Anytime!”
An orange hoof patted her shoulder, “It’s alright darlin’, Cadence knows there was gonna be problems. Can’t move something..” The emerald eyes winced as another garden went the way of dodos, “This big without ‘em.”
It was bad enough they were trying to help, but the cheering section made up of ponies who thought the destruction was great fun did absolutely nothing for her nerves.
“Are they selling shirts now?”
“Pinkie’s making a killing.”
“Glad I could help.”
Alright, just a turn slightly to the right, there we go. Bring herself forward a few more meters and we’ll be on the straightaway to the castle after this next slight turn. She couldn’t imagine repaving those roads and what would have to be done to get them back in shape. Well, it was an emergency.
“Nonono, more forward THEN turn!”
“Twilight, I know what I’m doing.”
“But if you move a little more, you’ll miss the corner of the house there.”
“And then I go right through that living room. I’ll take the corner.”
“How’d I miss that?”
“No clue.”
She saw a cyan blur whip in front of her hull, then back out again, “Dash! Quit putting things in front of the treads!”
“But you can crush anything! I’m just testing!”
“Stop that, seriously..just..stop.”
“Awwww...”
Fluttershy’s voice rang out from the surroundings, “STOP!”
Athena immediately put the brakes on, her treads and hull coming to an emergency stop, “What? What?”
The buttery pegasus came out from in front of the glacis plate, chivvying along a horde of what looked like...
“Bugs? Seriously?”
“But they’re good bugs.”
“They’re bugs.”
“It’ll only take a minute.”
Ten minutes later, after Fluttershy had checked the area for any stragglers, Athena slammed her transmissions back into place, creeping forward once more. The sounds of something else that was not there before, splintering under the weight, came to her ears and sensors.
“Dash, I swear, one more thing in front of the treads, you and I will have a problem!”
“Spoilsport!”
“I’ll dye your mane pink!”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Hey! That’s not a bad color!”
“Stay out of this Pinkie.”
“Have a snack, it’ll help.” A hoof held out something that looked like two rolled chocolate logs with creme filling. Dash immediately grabbed it up, peeling the package back.
“These things are great, thanks Pinkie!”
“I can’t believe you guys are eating those. Do you realize how old they are?”
“Mhey ‘ste phan oo me!”
“What?”
A swallow and a grin, “They taste fine to me!”
“You could eat a solid block of carbon, Pinkie.”
“Only with sprinkles!” The happy pink mare bounced away.
Athena hoped Wyatt was doing better.
-----
“Are you all right Princess?” Wyatt was watching Luna sit in front of a painting, tilting her head one way, then the other. She turned slightly, glancing back his way.
“I am, but I find myself drawn to this for some reason.” She pointed a clad hoof at the artwork.
“Not unusual, a lot of people were. It’s quite a painting.”
“But..what is it?”
“I forgot, you can’t read Standard.” He moved forward, leaning heavily on his cane and came to rest beside the dark mare.
“An artist by the name of Vincent Van Gogh painted that. It’s called The Starry Night.”
“I..it..it looks nothing like my night though.” She rubbed a hoof along her chin, “I see my beloved moon, but..those are stars?”
“But it does. It’s his impression of a starry night. The vortexes of color, the town below waiting in quiet for the morning sun.”
“An..impression?” Her cyan eyes were wondering, looking at the painting once more.
“Impression, he used his imagination to make what he thinks the night looks like. The glowing stars, swirling with color above a sleepy town. He actually called the painting a failure, believe it or not.”
“But it is not! How could that pony call this such a thing? It draws the eye, it lasts in memory. It truly is something beautiful, even if I cannot quite grasp it yet.”
“I think he would have appreciated someone like you enjoying his work.” The sergeant smiled, looking at the picture once more, remembering when he had tacked it up there.
“We cannot thank you enough for these gifts. They are spectacular and of an artistry we have never seen.” Luna had turned away from the art piece, settling down on the floor next to him. Her eyes swept the area of the vault, left untouched for now as discussions were under way for display and preservation of the artifacts. Dusty Shelves had been quite miffed he would not be allowed to take custody.
The armorglass enclosures of the valued items would protect from anything short of a nuclear blast, even then they might come through. There was talk of a museum, a place specially designed to show off these wonders.
“We are glad you like them, it would be sad if they were not appreciated when we are gone.” Calliope’s voice came through one of the newly attached speakers.
“She’s right, spent a lot of years looking at them. Learned to study what I could, not exactly a professor of art or anything.”
Luna was consternated, she truly liked both Wyatt and the voice ..AI.. known as Calliope. They were kind, and possessed a history she would have enjoyed to discuss in detail over many years. But such was not to be.
“Is there nothing that can be done?” Her voice was low, asking a question that until now few had dared to think about.
The tall human smiled, “I’m afraid not. For all our technology, there were still things that could not be solved Princess.”
He looked over to the mare, seeing her eyes grow soft, almost as if wanting to not face the realities.
“Don’t be sad, I’ve lived to see something very special emerge from a tired old world. Your race, your peop..ponies.. are truly worth being here for.” He waved a hand, “Calliope is not alone now either. It’s good for both of us.”
“We have not even shown you a tenth of what Equestria has to offer.” Her face moved away, staring at the wall once more.
A hand gently touched her shoulder, Luna turned to see him smiling, “I will see as much as I can and that will be more than I could ever have expected.” He tapped the sketchpad on his knee, “I’ve seen some wonderful things.”
“Do you really see us that way?” Her voice was wondering, remembering the pictures he had drawn showing them as something other than what they could see.
“I do. You positively shine with magic.”
“I wonder if that is why some others do not see us as simple ponies. Perhaps they too see this?”
“I don’t know Princess. I do know what I see is nothing short of incredible.” A hand picked up the drawing sketchbook he had been working on in quiet moments, flipping the cover page up and showing her another picture.
“Is that..”
“Yep. I draw what I see, and those six are something else.”
The Elements of Harmony stood in a group chatting, each one shown in a light that coalesced together to create a single, powerful, rainbow band of magic swirling around them. It was if the power grew when they were together, waiting for the beck and call to provide whatever help it could, almost as if a living thing.
“That is truly amazing.”
Wyatt nodded, “As a little kid, I always wanted to believe in magic and spells and such, but then we grow up and out of such things. Here, I can see it, almost feel it all around.”
His eyes looked at the Night Princess, seeing the swirls of cool color around her, an aura of power emanating from the slim, trim body, it gathered itself in an endless starry night surrounding the sitting form.
It wasn’t dark and foreboding, no, it was joy in simplicity. A ribbon of stars followed her mane downward, moving down her tail like a children’s slide, popping off the end and joining the rest of the concatenation that were in an endless dance about her.
He’d had thoughts about how they moved the sun and moon, but left it all behind. He could see the power, wishing he could feel it as his hand was bathed in a silvery radiance that wanted to comfort, to calm and bring him into the embrace of the nighttime she so loved. He couldn’t feel anything, but he saw it and that was enough.
“Let me show you what else I see..” His hands went to work, grabbing a bag of pencils and chalk, he slipped the eraser end of one wooden stick between his lips to chew on as he concentrated. Fingers made quick lines and dimensions, filling in color here and there as he kept glancing at Luna, bringing to life everything he saw. Not one star left out, not one thing removed. He wanted her to see what he did. Shading and form came in next, the light touch of his hand brought every curve and line of her face and body into full view. Her Mark standing out like a beacon in the night to lead the lost home.
She was sitting on the same cushion as now, only her head was tilted, looking at the painting on the wall and studying it intensely, never noticing the world of magic around her.
He finished with a flourish, putting his name down on the lower right side and presenting it to her with a slight bow, “Your Highness.”
The long horn lit up, surrounded by the aura of magic, moving over to and lifting up the piece of paper and turning it so she could look at it directly.
A small gasp of inhaled breath, “This..this is beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
“This is amazing, why have we never known this?”
“Maybe because you live in a world filled with magic, it becomes common place?”
Cyan eyes snapped upward, looking at him for a moment, “I wonder what else we don’t see?”
“Sometimes you can’t see the forest because the trees are in the way.” He held a poker face while he watched her work through that. Finally she laughed and slapped his thigh with a hoof.
“Smart pony are you?”
“I try.”
A clattering made them both turn, looking at the doorway where a large tech-spider and its twin were carrying a heavily shielded power line. Stopping for a moment, they tugged and curled up excess cable in a circle when Athena came walking in behind them, looking as if she’d been through a storm of massive proportions. Her mane and tail frazzled and undone, her eyes narrowed as she grumbled to herself.
“Athena? Do you need..” His comment was interrupted by the lavender eyes pinning him to the chair.
“Don’t, just don’t, offer to help.”
“But what...”
The sable pegasus ignored any more comments, leaping into a chair and staring at the wall, mumbling like a mad pony, “Anymore help and I will be forced to do violence..lots and lots of violence.”
To be continued.....