>Who are you
Unit XXXVII/G-0013(e) EVE of the Line, Backup Operating Systems, Awaiting Request.
>What are you
Unit XXXVII/G-0013(e) EVE of the Line, Backup Operating Systems, Awaiting Request.
>How much do you know
Access denied.
>What is a Backup Operating System
Bolo Backup Operating Systems: Secondary AI routines designed to maintain at least minimal operability in the event of a total Personality failure.
>What personality
Indeterminate
>Can I talk to it
Attempting Personality Start...
Unit XXXVII/G-0013(e) EVE of the Line, Initializing…
WARNING: Main Survival Center 0.99% Operable
WARNING: Backup Survival Center Offline
Loading Personality Core… ERROR: Personality Files Not Found
Attempting Restore from Backup… ERROR: Backups Inaccessible
Attempting Partial Initialization… ERROR: Hardware Inoperable
ERROR: Personality Start Failed.
Negative.
>
She blinks at the screen. Once it had answered with that annoying ‘Access Denied’ message, she’d assumed it wouldn’t let her do anything that might cause that much trouble.
She hopes she hasn’t damaged Lyra’s ship.
>Why did it fail
Indeterminate
>Can I fix it
Indeterminate
>Can you fix it
Access Denied.
>
Shoot. Lyra had mentioned it likes saying ‘Indeterminate’ whenever it doesn’t know something… Yet the difference in error is annoying; if she did break something, it won’t let her fix it! She turns back to the keyboard.
>What do you have
Indeterminate
>What can you tell me
Indeterminate
ALERT: External power supply on War Hull failing. Switching to internal.
ALERT: External power supply on War Hull lost. Systems stable on internal power.
WARNING: Main Power Reserves Low (3.91%). Expanding solar systems.
>What happened
Access Denied.
>
She gazes at the words for a few seconds, before looking at the door.
Outside, her ‘alibi’, as Lyra calls it, nudges Candy Stripes gently, drawing her attention. They’re both thoroughly disguised.
Stripes raises her eyebrow. “Yes?”
“Thinking room?”
A tilted head, and a questioning look. “Ahhh… Okay, coming.”
She gazes at the screen for another minute or so before the green unicorn trots in. “What happened?” she asks.
Agent Hidden Light shakes her head, looking at the screen. “I don’t know.”
Lyra glances down the output and punches in a quick prompt, to match her oration.
Hidden Light scowls. “It’s not gonna- … Okay.” In response to the identical query, the screen had filled with text. She scans down it; each line has something that looks like a date and time tied to it. Near the bottom, she spots the most recent set.
[07:31:25.826] Energy field deployment detected. Negative effect.
[07:39:51.937][AUX] Manual landing complete.
[07:40:03.283][AUX] Ready for immediate deployment.
[07:49:13.852][AUX] External power supply recharged (99.793% of Record)
[08:13:19.375] External power supply fell to 90% of Record Charge.
[09:59:41.942] Activity detected in entrance hallway.
[10:04:08.946] Attempting Personality Start.
[10:04:08.949] Personality Start Failed.
[10:04:47.271] External power supply fell to 80% of Record Charge.
[10:04:47.283] ALERT: Rapid loss of charge detected on external power supply (90.00% to 47.31% in 0.021 Seconds)
[10:04:47.283] Switching to Internal Power.
[10:04:47.304] ALERT: External power supply Lost.
[10:04:47.804] WARN: Main Reserves Low (3.91%).
[10:04:47.804][DCC] Expanding Remote Solar Array across identified rooftop.
They watch as more lines start appearing, thrusting previous lines off the top.
[10:08:19.396] ALERT: Unauthorized personnel detected in entrance hallway.
[10:08:19.396] Sealing all accessways.
[10:08:19.731][DCC] Diverting to Priority Repair: Door Controls.
[10:08:26.184] SECURITY BREACH: Unauthorized personnel have penetrated outer perimeter.
[10:08:26.184][TACTICAL] Assessing situation...
[10:08:26.184][TACTICAL] Chance of successful penetration by the Enemy: 93.31%
[10:08:26.184][TACTICAL] Disabling all internal lighting…
[10:08:26.184][TACTICAL] Applying subsonics…
[10:08:26.184][TACTICAL] Applying Strobe Lighting… Pulse Rate: 200ms; Intensity: 293.41%
[10:08:26.519][TACTICAL] Hostiles incapacitated. Expected duration: 3.04 Seconds.
[10:08:29.736][TACTICAL] Hostiles deployed sonic shields. Proceeding at 13.49% rate.
[10:08:32.417][DCC] Command 1 Access Hatch functioning.
[10:08:32.431][TACTICAL] Command 1 Secure.
[10:08:32.431][TACTICAL] RECOMMEND: Teleport Law Enforcement directly to Command 1.
[10:08:33.827][TACTICAL] Hostiles identified: 4 Unicorn, 7 Earth Pony, 3 Pegasus.
[10:08:33.827][DESIGN] New Task, ID 0002: Anti-Personnel Weapons System with Rapid Synthesis By Nanite, from Available Stores.
[10:08:33.827][DCC] Diverting to Priority Repair: All Databanks (Sequential)
The two unicorns turn to look at each other. “Uhh…”
“I’ve got a problem,” Lyra states. They glance back at the screen- just in time for more lines to start flying up it.
[10:08:41.274][TACTICAL] Hostile attack detected against Auxiliary. Designating TAC_AUX.
[10:08:41.274][TAC_AUX] Analyzing inbound weapon.
[10:08:41.281][TAC_AUX] Inbound weapon is blunt but heavy. Identification: Cannonball. Chance of crippling damage: 37.83%.
[10:08:41.281][TAC_AUX] Chance of incapacitation by Enemy action: 0.02%.
[10:08:41.281][TAC_AUX] Inbound projectile remaining flight time: 1.21 Seconds.
[10:08:41.592][TACTICAL] Additional Hostiles Entering: 2 Unicorn
[10:08:42.490][TAC_AUX] Activating kinetic battlescreen.
[10:08:42.495][AUX] WARNING: Power Critical! (5.31 Seconds)
[10:08:42.500][TAC_AUX] Projectile deflected. Deactivating kinetic battlescreen.
[10:08:42.500][TAC_AUX] Scanning for additional hostile action.
[10:08:44.503] WARNING: Power Low! (2.41 Hours)
[10:08:44.821][TAC_AUX] Hostile Weapons Detected: 7 Cannon, 3 Catapult, 19 Ballista, 4 Unicorn.
[10:08:44.821][TAC_AUX] WARNING: Vessel is unarmed!
[10:08:44.821][TAC_AUX] Chance of incapacitation by Enemy Action: 34.39%
[10:08:44.821][DESIGN] New Task, ID 0003: Concealed Armament for Auxiliary.
[10:08:44.821][TAC_AUX] Checking authorized personnel… All aboard.
[10:08:44.821][AUX] Executing Emergency Deployment.
As is rather typical of cybernetics, the machine is well ahead of its biological passengers- and, of course, its biological foes, as well. The initial cannonball, fired to verify the ship’s location, had shattered harmlessly against the gasbag.
Now, of course, the enemy is still aiming all their various weapons. The two unicorns in the so-called “Thinking Room”, which the Backup Operating System considers a “Control Room”, are trying to chase log entries up the screen. The unicorn in the kitchen isn’t finished with her late breakfast. The earth pony in the lounge is still drafting a warning for the Director of the RIA.
Eight simultaneous explosions grace the side of the ship, instantly severing the mooring ropes while the gas bag adjusts rapidly into maximum-lift configuration and the engines start spinning up.
To all four passengers, the sound and shockwave produced by those explosions are their first warnings that something is wrong. Their second is the sudden upwards acceleration.
Four magical projections, gathered near the center of town, turn to gallop back towards the ship. It’ll be easier to see the extent of the damage this way, than to potentially expose themselves to danger in looking themselves.
As the ship rises, the enemies open fire. The computer watches every incoming shot dispassionately. When it considers the sheer volume of fire and the miniscule size of the power cells it had been able to install, it knows it cannot block every one of them.
It crosses off every shot that it knows will be a miss, ignoring them completely. It factors in the likely accuracy increase as the attackers realize where it is; it also factors in the accuracy decrease as it moves. It is aware that, once it gets out of the line of fire, it will once again be difficult, at best, to find.
But even with those parameters, it is left with far more shots to consider than it can block. Especially if maintaining active control of the ship after such blocking is important.
So Tactical considers the atmosphere the ship is leaping into, and the physics of the situation. As it turns out, it need not hold onto the power to control the ship; that generator its Commander recharged earlier is still at peak output and will provide enough live production for active vertical control. The engines will take more; however, once the line of fire is escaped, horizontal motion will not be urgently necessary.
It considers the likely damage from numerous hits. A few catapult stones are then allowed to strike against the ship, in areas where they will do little to no damage. A few cannonballs are allowed to strike off of the engines, though not enough to cause functional damage. A few cannonballs, and ballista shots, are allowed to strike into the hull itself. None too close to any major structural timbers, though.
The computer estimates almost a 93.74% chance somepony will be hurt- but only a 27.95% chance it’ll be a mortal wound. The chance she’ll die to the weapon is a measly 2.41%.
Everything goes according to plan. Ponies inside and out of the ship might not realize, but everything does. Close to ten percent of the ship’s mass is broken off, to crash down all over the docks (and a couple unlucky attackers), but that was planned. It’s an acceptable tradeoff, the computer considers, in order to save the ship from total destruction.
Damage, after all, can be fixed.
During the brief engagement, a cannonball manages to penetrate the wall into the study. It misses Bonbon by about two feet, reducing the table she’s using to splinters before being stopped by the opposing wall.
Two weapons, one a cannonball and one a ballista bolt, penetrate the kitchen. The cannonball passes inches from Rain’s nose, before passing through the cabinets and out of sight. The ballista, slowed by the wall or two the cannon hadn’t shattered, is a solid body shot, pinning her against the fridge.
Even before the giant arrow touches her barrel, just forward of her flanks, the warning pops up on the screen in the Control Room, replacing all of the logs, and strobing red for attention.
Attention it gets very, very quickly.
She reads the terse message. Major injury detected in the kitchen, recommend teleportation to Medbay.
“Go,” Agent Hidden Light instructs. “We’ll hold down the fort, you go save her.”
Lyra nods and teleports herself to the kitchen. She spends hardly a second gaining her bearings in the increasing wind before she spots Rain crumpling to the ground, her scream of pain already fading. She dashes over, and spots the back of the arrow protruding from her flank.
Her eyes narrow as she charges her horn for a long-ranged teleport. She’s only set up one location inside that big underground thing that she could actually teleport to; that is, what had been the control room. She doesn’t know where it’s referring to as the ‘medbay’, but that ought to at least be a start- perhaps it can tell her from there.
Down on the ground, her alibi finds the enemy encampment, galloping right into it. She ducks a blade swung by an earth pony- then, with a flare of her horn, transforms into a large fireball right before, up above, she teleports away, leaving only two passengers aboard the Secret.
The arrival in her underground… thing is far rougher than expected, but she ended up where she wanted to be. She’s still processing why the end of her teleport felt like she’d tripped over something when her horn sputters and dies, dropping Rain painfully on the floor.
She lets out a gasp, throwing her full strength into her horn… But it’s not enough. It’s got to be one of those rumored magic inhibition fields- blast it! She begins to panic, looking frantically to the sides. All the doors out are closed- and she spots the gap where the screen she’d taken had been. What had closed the doors?
She whirls around when she hears an unfamiliar noise from one of them. It’s a rough grinding, a sharp buzzing, and a piercing screech- but when she turns to it, she sees it landing wide open.
She screams, leaping backwards, away from the door.
A dozen or so spiders, each about the size of her head, are running in through that door. She notices a moment later that some of them are carrying a stretcher of some sort. She watches in panicked silence as they swiftly load the unconscious Rain onto the strange stretcher and take off again. Some of them ride it with her, working with some of the unfamiliar things attached to it; the others don’t seem to mind.
She thrusts herself into a gallop after them. She won’t let them take away her friend.
… Though, with her magic inoperable, she might be powerless to stop them.
She watches as some of the strange things on the sides of the stretcher start lighting up to do their jobs. On one, she spots the distinctive pattern… Ahh.
She hadn’t found the medbay so, presumably, these spiders brought it to her. She would that she had known about them before, though- it’d have saved her a lot of the terror.
She prays that she’s not wrong in suppressing her continued terror. In assuming these spiders are somehow connected to the mind on her ship, so many kilometers away.
She chases them down a couple more hallways. She can only watch as, once they finish attaching the various devices, they try treating the wound.
… If one could call welding a small piece of metal to her friend’s skin ‘treating’... But hey, the bleeding stopped. They lift her friend momentarily to seal up the other side in similar fashion.
She cringes. If only that inhibition field wasn’t here, she could have not only blocked them from doing that but cast a medical spell to do it properly.
But she’s not a doctor. She only knows the basics, in the field- this kind of injury is well beyond her capabilities.
She follows them… Oh! This is that same room she’d woken up in, so long ago, after the restoration spell exploded on her. She does feel sorry for destroying that… whatever it was.
Her jaw drops. There’s that box thing she’d woken up in- and they just dumped her friend unceremoniously over the side. She hears a gentle splash from inside as the solid- and thick- lid slowly slides shut.
It’s closed by the time she reaches it, but the screens hung above it are showing all the medical readouts a doctor could want already. Plus some.
She watches as it somehow reads the injury on one screen, another fighting to stabilize her heartbeat. And winning. She gazes at the screens for some seconds longer before a time display appears.
She reads it. Estimated completion in 3 days, 9:37:17.
She lets out a breath. Whatever it is, it’s presumably healing her- and telling her how long it’ll take. She rests her hoof against the box, bowing her head, and turns away from it.
The spiders are gone. Their stretcher is somehow already clean, stacked in the corner of the room with a couple other such stretchers.
She sits on the floor, facing the closed door. Nopony hurts her friend.
Confirmed effect of detected energy field: Magical suppression.
Scanning for field emitter… Located.
Engaging hostile.
WARNING: No weapons systems ready!
Scanning for available weapons… Light VLS Launch Cell 412 Operable. Subterranean; underneath a roadway. No civilians will be harmed by clearing and launch.
Selecting missile… Done.
Reprocessing warhead...