"What is that?" Ininil asked, gesturing at a scintillating point of white light on the main screen. The dot, visibly faster than anything else in the battlespace visualisation, left a trail of curdled clouds in its wake. "It is one of the rogues, isn't it?" He swallowed, not glancing at the Monarch. Rutting Maker!
The Monarch, flanked by his gryphon guard, was also staring at the screen. "Help this one to understand. Use of the Strix weapon has not only failed to achieve the only goal these ones had, it has also triggered a global disaster. Is that correct?" Pearly-white claws drummed ceaselessly on the desktop. At his other side the stripy servitor was breathing with loud snorts, its eyes wide and ears folded back. It was staring at another screen showing a timer counting the seconds until the Strix spellfront hit this command bunker. There were not many left.
What is the creature thinking? Ininil's paw touched the empty holster at his hip -- no weapons allowed in the presence of the Monarch! -- and took an unconscious step backwards. "Yes, Monarch, that would seem to be the case." The rogue had been deep inside Baur territory, holding station somewhere near the Strix facility; now it was heading towards Arcology Prime. His bracer vibrated quietly in the urgent pulse-code of a critical message, and Ininil's breath caught in the back of his throat as he read it.
The Monarch stopped drumming his claws and stared at Ininil, eyes narrowed. "More good news?" he hissed.
Ininil started to feel numb. "A report from the damage control team entering Strix. The Creation Stone did not retract into its vault after firing. It is missing." How much more damage could the creature do with one of the Stones?
Perfect white ears folded back into white fur. The Monarch opened his mouth, lips pulled back in a snarl, then remained silent as the thaumic attack alarms went off.
"Signature matches the long-range teleport tunnel," one of the defence analysts called out. "Location is centred on the rogue; it has just breached the core defence zones."
"Where is the other end of the wormhole?" Is it going to send a bomb? No... it wouldn't need to be here for that. An assault force? Ininil puzzled over the map display while the defence teams carried out a hurried discussion. Finally the map changed, zooming out to show the curve of the planet, shrinking away until the scale was large enough to encompass the debris ring. A patch of red was moving away from the surface, heading into deep space. It makes no sense... there's nothing out there! Oh, rutting-- "Contact the Court--!" Ininil cut off the end of the sentence; the defence team leader was already talking rapidly into her microphone.
"Arcology defences are engaging the rogue, without success." Half the screens had switched to feeds from ground and aerial defences, a mix of camera and synthetic views. Most were confusing and without context, but the wide-angle shot in the middle showed the ordered artificial mountain ranges of the arcology against the night sky. The darkness strobed with flashes and fast-moving drive flames, then was banished entirely by a sudden, blinding glare.
===
The news, the official version, had its normal propaganda gloss. There was trouble in Lacunae Hive, of an ill-defined sort, but it was no threat to Baur, there were no incursions into Baur territory, etc, etc. Cherin snorted, one ear twitching for the sounds of Lakau's activity. Her pup was visiting during the mid-term academic break, halfway through the mandatory political education and societal integration courses, and had dived onto his gaming system like he'd been starved for a megasecond. The education programmes were more highly structured than they had been in her day, and no distractions were allowed.
"The pup should get to to a place he can pause," she called out, over the muffled snap of laser strikes and kinetic bombardments leaking out from his room. The game was a popular one, a complex mix of tactical first person and strategic battle management, called something like 'Hive Domination', or similar. There was no response and Cherin shook her head, tawny, dark-spotted fur on her ears ruffling in the breeze from the kitchen vent. She pulled the slab of beef-belly, still resting on an artfully sliced layer of its own hide, from the spiced marinade and transferred it to the induction heater. The machine made a ticking noise, the sound of the scanner measuring the volume of the meat and determining the power requirements.
Cherin checked the results, making a few minor adjustments for her own and Lakau's taste. The meat was too expensive to risk relying on the automation. Starting the oven she wandered across the apartment's living space, then leaned against the wide windows and opened a secondary data connection on her comms bracer. Ignoring the wallscreen and its collection of vagueness and probable outright lies, she browsed through the public feeds, looking for something more substantive than the glossy, empty official broadcast.
Outside, in the extended heart of Arcology Prime, the ever-illuminated lights were drifting towards their 'night' settings, turning the walls of the block opposite to darker and darker shades of grey. They were not that close to the central core and the Monarch's palace, with its hundred kilosecond a day, all day everyday, activity, but the faint buzz of flying vehicles headed to and from that district was unending. Only paying a little attention to the local gossip channels, Cherin watched them move, segregated into various mid-air lanes from the heavy, ground-hugging cargo transporters to the nimble aircars and fast couriers up near the ceiling that capped the whole Arcology by a hundred lengths of rock. Her own apartment was about two-thirds up from ground level, in a clear spot between two opposing layers of traffic.
Cherin frowned. There were gaps in the public feeds, more so than normal. "Censors are working overtime," she muttered, keeping her voice to an indistinct mutter, just in case State Security had pulled her address out of the directory for closer electronic inspection. There were always rumours of them using clairvoyance surveillance, but that seemed unlikely for a random investigation. The trick is to be as boring as possible, she thought, hiding a slight smile behind one paw. Being average without being suspiciously 'perfect' was something of an artform, one practiced at an almost instinctive level by many members of Baur Hive.
There must be something happening on the surface. There were normally a few of the People on the outer layers of the Hive, those who streamed innocuous videos of dawn and dusk, or the clouds, or swirls of the debris ring, but these had been absent for almost a megasecond. What she'd seen in the brief kilosecond before the censors had stripped them from the feeds had made her whiskers twitch. Little sprinkles of light, rippling in waves across the night sky. Shortly after, the satellite links had all been listed as 'unavailable by order of State Security'. It was a pity; some of the drama shows coming out of Soro Hive were just getting interesting.
There was a flash, bright and shocking enough that Cherin flinched, throwing up a paw over her face. It was like being faced with a thousand photo flashes, except they never stopped. Heat, like a blowtorch in the paws of a State Security interrogator, flooded through the window. Her fur curled and smoked, filling her gasped breath with the acrid tang of burning hair. Through stinging eyes, Cherin saw the flying traffic go mad, swerving in random directions, many falling out of the flight lanes and colliding with buildings. Superconductor fires flared in a dozen places, the hard lightning completely overwhelmed by the glare from coreward.
Cherin staggered a step, half-blinded by the unceasing light reflected off the inside of her apartment. The fire alarm warbled, triggered by a haze of smoke that sprang off every illuminated surface. The floor jumped under her paws and she fell backwards, striking the edge of one chair and landing with a crash on the carpet. Winded, she struggled to draw a breath, staring dumbly up at the charred pattern on the ceiling and vague bipedal silhouette-shadow of damaged pixels on the wall screen. The shape of a female Person, arms raised and head turned away, and--
--the side of the apartment block was hit by a shockwave. The window, the frame it was mounted in and a large section of wall blew in with a hammer-blow of sound, shrapnel slicing through the air with invisible speed. If this one had been standing-- Flesh flayed away by crystal razors, bones cracked and organs pulped. The air roared and the floor slumped, cracking crazily, then the ceiling fell in, the foam acoustic insulation blowing away as a grey snowstorm to leave the far heavier fused stone and whiskered basalt structural beams exposed.
Still unable to move, Cherin watched with bulging eyes as cracks raced through the sagging beams, little sharp-edged disks flaked off by the unmanageable pressure gradients. More shudders, a continuous rolling thunder of detonations from the rapidly emptying flight corridors, then the floor dropped precipitously, half a length or more, as the side of the building fell away. Out past the jagged teeth of the ruined wall was the opposite building complex, shrouded by streamers of smoke and flames. A heavy transport had ploughed into the wall, stripping the outer layer of the structure like a hunter skinning a rabbit. Past the fumes and dust, the cellular internals were exposed, filled with fire whipped up by the red-hot wind. A bipedal shape, fur ablaze, stumbled and fell, arms windmilling as it plummeted out of sight.
"Lakau," she croaked, desperate, then he was there, her little cub, all sooty-dark fur and lanky arms and legs, dragging her away from the frightening dip in the floor. He still wore the dress of a gaming fanatic: haptic gloves and collar, slim induction crown clamped to his head. Blood streaked his face; something had stripped the fur from one cheek, leaving a line of dangling hide. He didn't notice, or at least it did nothing to damp the sudden, astounding strength in those thin arms as he pulled her bodily over the ruined chairs and to the door.
"What happened?" he asked plaintively, dragging her upright, nearly soundless against the building roar from outside.
Cherin sagged against him, paws grabbing at his shoulders and chest. "Got to get out," she screamed, "fire--" With a crack, the ceiling finally fell, leaving them huddled against the inner apartment wall and the exit door to the corridor network. Eyes wide, Lakau pushed futilely against the mechanical door release, then shook off the haptic gloves and wedged his claws in the crack between them. The hot wind whipped at his fur, the slightest hint of the incandescent gale raging a bare length away, behind the fragile outcrop of remaining wall shielding them both.
She gagged, smoke and other fouler combustion products filling her muzzle and coating tongue and throat with a burning layer, then lent in to help. The frame had buckled, jamming the leftpaw side, but the right shifted slightly, grinding against fragments in its track. The building shifted again, dropping a little more, yielding a brief reduction in the pressure keeping the door shut. It popped open: enough space for a body. Cherin grabbed at Lakau, finding her own panicked strength, and pushed him through and out of the ruined apartment.
The corridor beyond was full of smoke and shockingly quiet after the hell-rage of the Arcology interior. Lakau pulled at her arm, yanking her towards the lifts and their sets of emergency evacuation stairs. A few paces and it was obvious there was no escape in that direction. The smoky darkness was filled with a rapidly building heat; somewhere ahead was the roar of wind and flames under pressure, suddenly lighting the haze with ruddy incandescence.
"Stop!" she shouted, amid hacking coughs, "That must be the lift shafts and stairs." Supposedly designed as shelters and safe spaces, the heavily built core structures were intact and acting as chimneys funnelling fire up from the fractured and blazing lower floors.
"Maintenance exits, try and get out of the Arcology roof?" Lakau said, his own voice raw and near-unrecognisable.
She nodded, mind fuzzy and pain at the back of her head, a powerful headache hanging like a thundercloud around her ears, only kept at bay by adrenaline. What are the chances--? Thought incomplete, she staggered after Lakau, his fur near-invisible in the hot gloom. The building was filled with continuous tremors now, the floor starting to tilt towards the gnawing void beyond the walls.
Past the gaping opening to their old apartment, flickering orange glare outlining Lakau for a moment. She lost him for a second, then there came a wail, a final expression of despair. She caught up, seeing him wrap his arms around a fallen ceiling beam. Rubble filled the corridor, great, fractured interfloor slabs, each a tonne or more. Cherin stood there, feeling the floor shift again, not an isolated jolt, but a steady and accelerating tilt. The sound of cracking rock started to overwhelm the roar of the wind.
Cherin stepped forwards, sweeping Lakau up in a fierce hug, trying to press all of her body to his, trying to get as much contact as possible, trying to press hard enough to drive back a suddenly hostile world--
With a howl the structure fell in on itself, floors pancaking together and adding to the expanding ring of destruction within Baur Hive's Arcology Prime.
===
"Brace for shockwave!"
The call came out from one of the defence team, and Ininil widened his stance and tightened his grip on the grab rail under his console. The floor pulsed under his paws, like someone had jerked the rug out from under him, sending him and every other standing person tumbling, except the Monarch. He was held upright in a field of white magic, generated by his stripy servitor, which hovered in the air at his side. The creature seemed calmer now it had something useful to do; the random twitchings and shiverings were gone, but it had gained a haunted expression in its black eyes.
The room swayed and shook, bouncing up and down as something heavy pounded down upon it. The was a loud groaning from down the entrance passageway, the sound of metal being twisted and buckled. "Status?" Ininil called out hoarsely, when the noise had subsided. The floor had an unsettling tilt, as if the whole room had sagged towards one corner. He looked upwards, eyeing the reinforced ceiling. Thin cracks spidered across it, but it had held.
"Looks like the cavity roof has collapsed on top of these ones... there are comms, but the door won't open." The Person responsible for command centre security defences waved a paw at the main entrance; it had been twisted and shifted sideways, leaving the big shutters slightly buckled. The command bunker sat in the centre of a spherical cavity, like a peach pit, on arrays of springs to absorb any shocks; obviously the shell of the sphere had broken and the motion of the bunker had damaged the access hatch. Several of the support staff were opening equipment lockers and removing cutting gear.
"...and Arcology Prime?" Ininil asked, his ears drooping. The Hammer's impact point had been right over the heart of the arcology; most of the energy would have spread sideways through the path of least resistance -- through the residential and financial districts. How many millions?
"Gone." There was a moment of stunned silence, every person frozen by the attack.
"Master, what will happen to the servitors who lose their magic?"
The tones were high and delicate, and totally unexpected. Ininil frowned. That voice... that's the--
"This one will give the order for them to be euthanized; it will be easier to start with fresh bloodstock--" The Monarch's head snapped around to stare at the servitor, his eyes almost bulging. "It dares to speak to this one?!"
The servitor cringed, then straightened and shook its head, as if trying to get rid of a fly. Its tremors had returned, and it stood there, puffing and blowing like it had galloped up a mountain, as the Monarch strode forwards and backpawed it across the muzzle. The pony suddenly moved, taking a neat step to the side and wheeling about to face away from the Monarch and his guard. The gryphon started to turn, surprised by the sudden motion, then the pony lashed out with both hind legs. The motion was so fast that it was little more than a blur; hooves caught the guard on the side of the head with a sound like a hammer being struck against wood.
The gryphon's head snapped over and it fell, wings twitching and legs drumming against the floor. The Monarch stopped in mid tirade, jaw open as the pony danced backwards, lining up for a second kick. He jumped to the side and the hoof missed his head, just clipping his shoulder. The Monarch spun and stumbled away, arm suddenly limp.
There were shouts and screams; Ininil's frozen mind jumped into motion again and he scuttled backwards, bouncing off a console and nearly falling. The Strix spell wave! The rest of the general staff rushed away from their stations, some crowding towards the blocked exit, others moving to the Monarch's aid.
The servitor had wheeled again and was trotting in tight circles around the Monarch; every few strides the inside leg would flick out and catch him on the hip or shin. Mouth working, the Monarch tried to speak, but was reduced to a string of yelps and whimpers. Blood was staining his white fur, running down from his injured shoulder and broken right leg.
Ininil, shouting at the people working on the door but completely unheard, pushed his way towards them. They had pulled out a heavy plasma cutter and were fumbling with the battery pack; cables trailed from the tube-like projector to the trolley holding the power supply. He grabbed at the cutter, snarling "Get it working!" at the person nearest the trolley, then hauled the thing, the best part of thirty kilos, towards the pony.
Two members of the internal security detail, with standard close protection soft armour but without their guns, rushed the servitor. The first was kicked full in the face and fell instantly, paws waving feebly over her crushed muzzle. The second got within the sweep of one black and white wing, claws raking for the pony's belly while biting at its neck. The servitor shook and bucked, failing to shake off its attacker, then surged forwards, carrying the soldier with it and pinning him against the corner of a console. Body armour was no use against such a blunt impact; the soldier coughed once, spraying red across the servitor's mane, then collapsed to the floor and made gurgling noises.
Wild-eyed, it stared down at the body, then wheeled and sprang at the Monarch, knocking him over. It stood over him for a breath, then lifted its head and locked eyes with Ininil. The general stared back, paws frantically working through the cutter's controls. Safety systems disabled, the cutter finally flared into life, just as the pony reared and came crashing down on the Monarch.
A jet of superheated plasma struck the pony across the head and neck; it shrieked and jumped, wings thrashing but failing to bite air, then tripped as its legs tangled. Body jerking and fur aflame, it fell silent. Ininil cut off the jet, allowing someone to pull the pony away from the Monarch, but it was too late. White fur stained and chest caved in, the ruler of Baur Hive was dead.
Ininil felt an itch at the centre of his head, and reached up to rub at his forehead with one paw. The itch intensified and he froze, watching the other members of the General Staff perform some variant of the head-scratching motion. The safeguard has activated! He groaned as the sensation intensified, dropping the plasma cutter and digging at the side of his head with his claws. "Help," he croaked, starting to lose control of his paws. "Implant. Get it out!"
His words tailed off into a whimper, and presently he began to scream.
===
~~~discontinuity~~~
The tempo of Fusion's thoughts slowed, approaching something more normal. On the horizon was a glowering orange eye behind an expanding wall of debris. She felt the heat from the climbing fireball and squinted at it. Somewhere under that seemingly slow-motion -- it wasn't, it was just huge and far away -- explosion were the corpses of millions of dogs, bodies flashed to ash and scattered for kilolengths by shockwaves.
Most had not been given the quiet dignity of a sudden, unforeseen end, death coming for them in between heartbeats. They would slowly asphyxiate in tunnels as vast fires stole oxygen in subterranean conflagrations the size of small thunderheads, or would be pinned in the dark to perish beneath megatons of crushed rock and ruined buildings. Others would drown as artificial aquifers were cracked open, flooding the lowest parts as water sought its level, and others still would persist for days or weeks yet, as meagre supplies of air and food ran low, dogs and ponies alike irretrievably trapped by an entire culture’s worth of rubble. How many did Baur have in that arcology?
Fusion struggled to feel something, anything, for the megadeaths, but there was nothing there. Too big, too much. She spread her wings, changing her descent into a soar, and felt the heavens for the taste of Gravity's mind. Are they shooting again? she sent.
There was silence in the mental space, then Gravity's sensorium opened to show a dispersing cloud of glittering ice crystals against featureless black. Sound and smell came next; harsh panting and the scent of pony sweat, strong in the confined space within her sister's force field bubble. Not yet, the reply came. Gravity turned her head, then did something to her defences, making part of the shell magnify the disk of the planet.
A dirty brown splodge had appeared in the centre of one landmass, displacing the white curls and patterns of clouds. I think it might be worse than the one they hit us with. Gravity's emotions swirled, flicking from horror to vindictive glee. The wormhole bypassed most of the atmosphere.
Fusion nodded to herself. Even without the penetration aids that would have an effect. She let the sensations from Gravity's body wash over her; there was the familiar taste of fatigue and the tingling itch of surface burns, but nothing seemed too bad. Along with the steady and slightly distracting feeling of freefall was a centre of power that buoyed her sister up. What do you think they will do now? Fusion felt her shoulders hunch as some tiny fraction of what she'd done settled upon them.
I don't care... they have already maimed everypony I know! Gravity suddenly jerked into motion, her horn flaring into life. The view of the planet shifted, expanding and moving to one side. Fusion, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have persuaded you to come home. We had so much evidence that dogs couldn't be trusted.
Fusion stroked the air with her wings, gaze fixed on the climbing mushroom cloud. It was already thirty kilolengths high and still rising. She collapsed her defences, feeling the heat beat against her coat. The sky was suddenly filled with a wave of meteors, each trail pointing back to ground zero. Beneath her hooves fires were burning in random patches, plumes of smoke climbing towards her altitude. "The strike has thrown material out of the atmosphere... I think it's re-entering." Fusion spoke the words into the silence of the wind, watching the expanding curtain of the shockwave. She saw it break over the banks of a small mountain range, displacing the wild, post-magical weather control thunderstorms that were running amok. "No, it's not your fault. I tend to blame myself for everything that goes wrong, but no matter how I feel, I know that's not fair. We had hope, hope that the dogs would finally see sense..." She gave a shrug, closing her eyes and letting her head droop.
"When I talked to Orgon..." Fusion swallowed, finally lifting her head and narrowing her eyes. I always thought he knew everything. "...I think he was genuinely shocked. They had no idea the weapon was even possible."
They all know what we can do now, and they know they missed the two ponies they really needed to hit... There was another pause and the disk of the planet shrank a little further. Flashes of light, very close, lit Gravity's muzzle from random directions. ...but they nearly got us. They must suspect how hard that was for us. I want to give them something to think about, something that the whole world will see.
What? Fusion's own fatigue started to become overwhelming, washing out the energising effect of adrenaline. We have so much to do, so many to rescue.
And if they shoot again? Or use their other weapons?
They'll do that no matter what. We'll only be safe when the dogs have been deprived of their ballistic and thaumic weapons. I've already sent some rocks to Luna. Time to send something more substantial. This amplifier... it's amazing. It's not just that things are easy again, it's that the entire formulation of magic has changed. Where there was once just a nail and a hammer, there is now a shaped charge and a laser cutter.. I'm sure I can move much bigger things...
Her attention shifted outwards, passing Luna and settling on Grund. The second moonlet sat in the three-two orbital resonance and wasn't a single, solid body like Luna. A fuzz of smaller objects occupied the space, smeared out and prevented from coalescing by continuous disruption from the larger debris ring objects. She extended her grasp, tightening it around one of the masses and giving it a nudge. It moved, striking an adjacent object and disintegrating into smaller fragments.
Gravity let her breath out with a hiss. That wasn't easy, but before it would have been impossible. If I get closer I can do far more.
Do... do you feel like the thing is trying you to point you somewhere?
In reply, Gravity shared deeper elements of her mind. There was the same pull that Fusion had felt before, only now, with the world spread out below them, locations became apparent. One is in Lacunae! With one of those each...
How about three each? There are six of the things. I wonder why they don't use them. Fusion blinked, for a moment back in the still magically active Tartarus base. I suppose they did. I want a word with Orgon.
But first we need to finish this. Gravity swung her head, the arc encompassing both the planet and Luna. You said it, I think. The Court assumes it has the high ground and that we can't get to them... but Vanca told me a lot about the Hammer. Their power reserves are not infinite. We can force them to defend themselves. I need to stop the shockwaves from the second strike; that should be easy now. Her attention returned to the second moon. After that, and if I get closer...
Yes, you are right, Fusion sent down the sharing link. You do that; I'll start to burn them from their holes in the ground.
===
Harq hunched down in his den, keeping still as the heavy waldo arm traced lines along his flank. The pain was gone -- the damaged scales had been removed -- but there was a persistent itch from the plasma jet that was sealing the wounds. At least my Masters weren't angry. They didn't even make me empty my crop-- He twitched at a sudden stab of cold, tensing and holding still when the medic system gave a sharp bleep of complaint. His extraction had been rough; heavy lift transports had peeled back the dirt and rubble, then pulled him out by cables wrapped around his tail. Harq's hindquarters flexed and he gritted his teeth at the ache in his hips.
The mixed forest and fields had been turned into ripped and shredded badlands by strings of explosion craters. Some contained the smoking remains of combat aircraft or, more frequently, the occasional scattering of twisted metal or ceramic splinters, but most were steaming pits of glassy rubble. The memory was fresh and strong; Harq's heart expanded slightly and cooled, sending chills rippling from snout to tail spike. The whispers in his head had quieted to a murmur, full of restful tones and commands to remain calm, almost enough to make him drift off into a doze.
There was a twitch from somewhere overhead, a ripple of sensation that was instantly and terrifyingly familiar. A momentary tunnel falling in from somewhere else appeared in the open air above the ground, disgorging a point of magical brilliance. "The pony is here!" he shouted, thunderously loud voice making the lights rattle. His head reared up to point at the inside of the den chamber ceiling; the sudden motion smashed the plasma sprayer, throwing the waldo arm to one side and sending the medical alarm into a frenzy of bleeping. Harq surged onto all fours, wings flaring, then staggered as the voices changed from quiet murmurs to deafening screams, so loud that his muscles faltered and he tripped.
Shaking his head, he reached out with one taloned forepaw, driving claws into the gap between the main doors and pulling them apart. His efforts only rewarded him with a tiny movement of the blast-shielded panels. "It's here!" he croaked, lifting his head and slamming it down against the smooth rock floor. His vision faded as the voices grew even louder; legs, wings and tail started to thrash, twitching uncontrollably, scoring sharp lines in the walls and smashing equipment.
Rainbow light, only present in the shadowed spaces behind his eyes, rippled through the world and the voices choked off. In the moment of blessed silence Harq just lay there, heart thundering and pushing little rays of heat into his extremities. All the lights had gone out, even the indicators on all the instruments, the only glow an electric blue shining out from between his jaws. Not going to be trapped again! He coughed out a bolt of plasma, blowing the doors apart.
Shockwaves rippled through the floor, spidering cracks up the walls. Concrete fragments started to rain down on his head. Body twisting, Harq scrambled to his paws, jumping through the doors and along the exit ramp.
There were Masters in the loadout bay, a few troopers in the powered armour of the reaction squad, but most were technical staff and animal handlers. Cries, thin and panicked, reached up from the tiny shapes, fighting with the sudden, hard siren of the radiation hazard alarm, but Harq only had eyes for the surface exit. Accelerating, he burst out of the big hatch and into the hangar beyond. It opened onto the shaft that lead to the surface, a hundred vertical lengths away. Nearly out, nearly-- Shots followed him, splashing off his scaled rump without leaving a mark.
A beam of light shone down the shaft, too bright to look at. Harq shied, tucking his muzzle behind one foreleg at the sudden prickle of X-rays. Explosions and shockwaves rippled up, past the hangar exit; the beam jagged sideways, blasting great rents through the sides of the shaft. It snapped off and Harq leapt into the dust- and fire-filled air. He squinted into the turbulence, crystal nictitating shields protecting the more sensitive primary optical surfaces of his eyes.
There was too much dust and heat for optical or infrared, but the longer radar wavelengths were clear enough for orientation; he twisted, wings beating and shooting him into the rising plume of flame above the burning installation.
The pony was right there, no more than a tenth of a kilolength away, a dark seed cloaked by a bright star-glare in every wavelength Harq could see. Brutally strong magnetic fields coiled around the tiny creature, twisting the air and holding a point of brilliant semi-solar illumination. "No!" he cried, wings backstroking furiously and forelegs coming up to protect his face. The point blurred--
===
Fusion had lost count of the number of bases she'd hit.
Numberless hardened aircraft shelters, air defence sites and armoured vehicle support facilities had fallen; many had not been completely destroyed, but their surface access ports had been collapsed to render them useless. Some had suffered support system failures as a result of her attacks, the significant radio frequency and magnetic interference her plasma weapon generated causing sympathetic cascading shutdowns in fusion reactor complexes. Crippled computer automation could not rectify the faults in time, and superconducting loop storage lost sufficient charge to restart the reactions. Others had been crushed by falling debris, still others hopelessly irradiated or flooded as coolant networks, life support plumbing and the manifold other complexities of the dog’s advanced systems were brought crashing down around them
This one was better built than most, with a thick cap of armourcrete under the landscaping. Through shadow sight something moved in the depths, a glowing shape with bat wings and a thick tail. Fusion's ears folded back and she thrashed her own tail. I know you... you're the thing that attacked Gravity. It was trying to escape, heading for the surface--
Her power came on in a rush, turning the immaterial magic into a rocket-engine blast of stripped nuclei. She probed the exit shaft, bringing forth a string of secondary detonations and a ripple of shockwaves. The creature was still moving; Fusion shut off her beam and gathered her strength, watching the lizard-shape swim up through the rising plume of combustion products. It rose into clear air, close enough that she could count the fine scales that ran from muzzle to tail tip.
With her normal eye the thing was a dark, slate grey; a smooth-scaled monster with fleshy, curved wings and a spiny dorsal ridge that ran from the poll to a set of nasty spikes on either side of its tail. The scales looked like they were made of rock, a polished, fine-grained igneous material straight out of a deep-level flood basalt. The spines had a translucent, smoky-look to them, as of volcanic glass, like its obsidian claws, terrifyingly sharp, at the ends of paws built to rip and rend armour plate. Its mouth opened, electric light leaking out between diamond dagger-teeth.
Fusion's power collapsed to a point, setting the air on fire. She threw the plasma bolus--
"No!" Paws came up and wings pulled in.
--fields reached out and jerked the weapon aside, making it pass over the creature's head. Fusion held her position, hovering in the warm, smoky updraft; the creature did the same thing, slowly lowering its heavy paws to stare at her with big, orange eyes. It's afraid... "As well it might be," she murmured, looking at the ruin she'd made of the base. There was nothing in the surrounding area -- ground and skies were clear out to the horizon -- so Fusion let her defences fade, looking at the creature without the filter of her magic. "What's your name?" she asked, boosting her voice to carry over the crackle and roar of countless minor explosions.
"I am Harq." The creature's voice was a low rumble. "Will you kill me?"
"You tried to kill my sister." The words came out flatter and harder than Fusion had intended, and the creature flinched.
"I am my Master's creature." The paws clenched, heavy muscles moving under the scales, then one came up to rub at the side of the head. "They shout at me." Claws scratched, digging at the scales. "Mercy. I plead."
It's not trying to escape. Fusion narrowed her eyes, inspecting the creature. The light was ever apparent, a constant glow of magic that coated the thing like a skin of molten gold. Defences, ways to resist kinetic impacts or great heat. Deeper, and her other senses came into play. "What are you?" she whispered.
"I am..." The creature looked helpless. "I am a weapon, a made thing. You should kill me. When the Masters come back they will order me to attack and I won't be able to resist."
"I think you might have trouble killing me," Fusion muttered, studying the side of Harq's head. "What have you got in there..." She reached in, worming her way past surprisingly tight magical defences. A radio and some complex circuits... I'm no Redshift, but all I have to do is break it. She twisted it, burning out the myriad of tiny pathways in the semiconductor slabs until it went dark. "Your Masters will never be able to get you back. What will you do with your freedom, if I give it to you?" She conjured another point of weaponised brilliance, staring at the creature speculatively.
"I will be yours to command--"
"I don't want a slave," Fusion snarled, "try again!"
"I--" Panic and fear made the creature tremble. "There is the place I was made. There are others like me, only hatchlings... I would rescue them. The Masters don't treat them kindly."
Fusion nodded, letting her weapon fade, and flew closer. "That's good Harq, really good. Go and live your life, you and whatever kin you have, and stay out of the way of any ponies. You can do what you like to the dogs."
===
In a flash of golden light and a ripple of gravity waves, the pony was gone. A gentle thump, like distant thunder, came a split second later, barely audible over the crackling roar of the subterranean fire filling the access shaft with smoke and burning metal sparks. Harq hovered there, staring at the place the pony had been, his own magic feeling for any trace of the creature. He stilled his wings, soaring in the thermal updraft and circling what remained of his home base.
"I'm free," he whispered, looking around for the first time since he'd escaped from his den. The landscaped cap of the base was a cratered ruin; dirt, rock and trees stripped away as if by a gargantuan pressure hose, exposing the armourcrete layer underneath. This was scored by glassy grooves, penetrating deep enough to expose the labs and construction hangars beneath. It would take me a kilosecond to do this much damage, and the pony managed it in a few breaths.
His throat closed, the fission reactions in his crop damping down and stopping, leaving only the fading decay heat. He shivered, not from cold but from fear. Paws clenching and unclenching he gained altitude, climbing above the smoke and into clear air. Under the light of the sun he aligned himself on the place he'd been hatched, far over the horizon. She could have killed me with a thought. His wings beat at the air, accelerating him forwards. But she set me free.
To his left, a patch of the horizon flickered and flashed with the colours of accelerated plasma. Harq glanced at it, then turned away. She's destroying everything the dogs have. The air flowed past and he pumped magic into it, accelerating past the sound barrier. I'll rescue my friends and then I'll do the same.
===
Unconsciously, General Kode gnawed at the back of one paw. The video feed had been clear, even with the damage to the command centre preventing physical access. The Monarch, dead. Most of the General Staff: writhing on the floor making incoherent noises. Stupid fail-safe! How is Kode supposed to fight with that over his head? He cringed, but his own implant didn't respond. This one is sure he was never meant to assume command. He looked back down at the briefing documents, released as part of the transfer of command. Strix is... monstrous, but it should have worked. How did it go so wrong?
"The second rogue is moving again... so is the first! It is heading for Thatu base." The staffer responsible for that sector looked up at Kode, a haunted look in her eyes. "Shall this one order an evacuation?"
Nothing had been able to stand against that single pony. It was careful to avoid the surviving static antimagic defences, bypassing them to strike at launchers, vehicle muster points and arsenals practically at will. It appeared and disappeared from the patchwork of surviving sensors like a vengeful spirit, obliterating everything it touched with an efficiency and purpose that Kode admired as much as feared. Little remained except for reports of focused thaumomagnetic pulses followed up by a plasma jet that could have lifted a kiloton into orbit. The antimagic sites it couldn't avoid were pounded by rocks falling from orbit; less than a tenth of the defensive ring still functioned.
"All the evidence points to the rogues being able to detect the Hive's strategic launches, yes?"
"Yes, General."
"Any sign of the other Hives retaining launch capability?
"No, General."
Kode's teeth dug into the flesh of his paw. Unnoticed, blood started to trickle down his wrist. How long until they turn their attention to the arcologies? The casualty figures from Prime were frightening. "Use it or lose it... this one thinks that the Hive needs a distraction." With shaking, blood-stained paws, Kode opened a locked cabinet and pulled out a box marked 'Strategic Response Options'. Inside was a pair of data cards. He passed one to his executive officer. "Does Akar agree?"
"This one supposes it's not much more than the Court has ordered already." Akar said, sounding like he was being strangled. "...and if these ones do nothing, the pony will destroy everything." He gestured helplessly to the video feeds from the command bunker and the aircraft fleeing the Hammer strike.
Except Lacunae cannot defend itself. Kode nodded and inserted his card into the console.
===
The pony ran, a mad gallop with no hint of care for its own safety, under a sky that flashed and glared. It struck the cluster of people a glancing blow and bounced away, ripping the fragile sheet of mirror sheltering them. Light poured in, a vicious slap of glare, and...
Korn picked at the contents of the medical kit, trying to interpret the pictograms drawn for minimally medically trained gryphon troops. He blinked in a futile attempt to clear his eyes; great blobs of colour covered irregular parts of his visual field. How much sight has this one lost? The medic that had thrust the used kit at him before cantering off to help with another horribly flash-burned pony had bruskly said it would probably fade in a few kiloseconds. Probably, he thought, biting at the end of his tongue, then picked out a fat can of trauma spray.
"Well?" Vanca said, pain making her voice even more acerbic than normal. "What is taking Korn so long?" She cradled her right arm, holding it just above the elbow. Below, the upper surface of her arm was a nasty mass of seared flesh, the fur burned off and the skin charred and cracked. Her fingers were twisted, curled into claws.
Korn squinted at the can, orientating it carefully. Have the colours faded? The trigger was designed for a gryphon's claws and didn't fit well in his paws. He gave it a shake; it was nearly empty, but was designed for a creature far larger than a Person. More than enough. "This one can't see very well." She didn't reply, just nodded and held out her burned arm. With quick strokes, he coated the damaged flesh with the spray, sealing it behind a thin, slightly glistening, layer.
Vanca sighed, relaxing slightly. "That did it." She tried to flex her paw, then flinched and inhaled sharply. "Not quite good enough for that," she said with a shaky laugh, then nodded to Korn. "Are Korn's eyes permanently damaged?" she asked, staring intently into his face.
He shrugged. "This one doesn't think so. It seems to be fading. They itch, but Korn dares not rub them."
"UV flash burns to the cornea," Vanca said, frowning. "This one can't see anything obvious -- no clouding or blood. This one hopes that is all it is. With no medical servitors..."
"Quite," Korn said, clenching his paws. "This one isn't sure about Vanca's paw... the damage is quite severe."
"Even before the spray, Vanca couldn't feel her fingers." She looked down at the burns and wrinkled her muzzle. "Probably for the best."
Korn nodded. Burned so deep the nerves are dead. He turned and looked out over the herds of ponies and gryphons. The tattered remnants of the flash shield were everywhere, shredded by hooves and talons. "How long before the shockwave arrives?" he muttered, rooting through the kit and coming up with another nearly depleted can. A long streamer of hardened foam trailed from the nozzle, and he picked it away. Vanca held out her paw again, and Korn sprayed her arm with a layer of protective foam. It solidified into a spongy mass, a mottled grey and brown coating, turning the limb into a shapeless club.
Vanca prodded at it with one claw, then grunted in satisfaction. "Good work, Student." She looked up and around the cloudless sky. "Should have hit already. The pony must have done something."
"It's like being in the presence of the Maker, when those two are around."
"Hardly, there's plenty they cannot do." Vanca snorted, then sighed. "The People's society was unstable, that much is obvious, now. It's just that these ones were the nudge that pushed it over."
Korn felt his paws tremble, then snorted. "This one can see the paper: ‘The creation of weakly Maker-like entities via relativistic heavy ion beam and its potential to act as a trigger for cultural trophic cascades.’ Does Vanca think these ones have enough data to submit to Physics D, or should they try and repeat the experiment?"
"Does Korn want to be lead author?" Vanca laughed, then grimaced, cradling her injured arm. "Vanca thinks it would be a great start to his research career." She stiffened, looking up. "What now?" she said, eyes narrowing.
One of the flying gryphons, feathers finely patterned with close-spaced black and grey, whirred overhead and came down for a fast landing a few paces away. Korn flinched, backing away. "Svartr, this one has been released, the gryphoness has no--"
Svartr snapped her beak and he immediately fell silent, then gave a short, harsh laugh. "You won't ever get away, Master," she hissed, then ruffled her wings, visibly reining in her anger. "I don't want anything from you this time, except your paws." She reached out with a set of talons, giving him a shove in the direction of one of the transport aircraft. Vanca snarled, exposing sharp teeth, but said nothing when Svartr rounded on her. "Come if you want, or not."
Korn nodded dumbly, feeling like he was drowning in a bottomless pit of black ooze, and got to his paws. Svartr went to push him again, but he was already moving, a fast, stumbling trot across the still smouldering ground. Fifty lengths later and he was being thrust into a Person's couch and pushed up to a console. "What does the gryphoness want Korn to do?" he muttered, eyes downcast.
"This is configured as a logistics bay. You--" Svartr held up a bright yellow foreleg tipped with dark talons. "--are the only dog with a working set of paws in range." She cocked her head, tapping Korn on the muzzle. "We thank you for the equipment donation, but it's a challenge for a gryphon to use."
"This operation is too big to manage without support," Vanca said, placing a paw on Korn's shoulder and staring at the display. "It looks similar to the Institute's administrative interface..." She trailed off, then looked sharply at Svartr. "Who will be these one's liaison? Vanca assumes it won't be you." Korn winced; the words were polite but the tone was one Vanca had frequently used at grant reviews that weren't going her way.
The gryphoness hissed and waved over another gryphon, one of the more common white-headed variants, who had been keeping his distance from Svartr. "Olvir, they are all yours."
===
Chaos paused for an instant at the heart of the kinetic strike, tasting the ionised rock vapour that filled the deep impact crater. It traced the extent of the blast, modelling the turbulent shock fronts that had moved outwards from the impact point, spreading laterally through the buildings and structures that comprised the core of the bipeds’ habitation structures. These constructs were mostly air and had provided little resistance to the blast; all of the energy had been trapped between the bedrock and the thick roof.
In the moments when the shockwave had passed through the biped's habitation structures, Chaos had travelled with it, sitting in the high-energy interface and basking amid the sudden increases in entropy. Millions of the bipeds had been reduced to ash and powder in that time, but that event in as of itself was of no direct interest. What had attracted it was the strange behaviour of the automata. They appeared to grow more... agitated? active? with each biped's death, interacting with the organic neural structures in the brief moments before they were reduced to their constituent atoms.
Chaos had witnessed countless biped deaths and caused more than a few itself, but never had it seen this behaviour. Exactly what the automata were doing wasn't clear, but they seemed to be attempting to extract something from each mind. The process didn't appear to be completed successfully; whatever it was they were doing was too complex even for processes carried out in the quantum foam, in the time available.
Aside from that anomaly, events were unfolding along the path it had designed. Aided by nudges and small manipulations, the situation in the Baur polity had degenerated to the point where they were desperate. It had only taken one tiny suggestion to make the new commander take the right course.
Chaos raced ahead of the launch orders, adjusting the target lists as they flowed as packets of modulated light. There were too many checks and balances to trigger the attack, but once the orders had been given...
It put strange behaviour of the automata out of its mind. There was much work to do, and many risks to be taken, but soon Chaos would be free.
===
Orgon wasn't watching the main screen, with its ongoing litany of destruction surrounding Baur's Arcology Prime, but the expressions on the faces of the Judges. Horror, mostly, with a healthy dose of disbelief. "This one is seeing more launches," he said. These ones would have been in a better place to defend against conventional strategic weapons, rather than the Hammer. He sighed, then pointed a claw at Chief Justice Tundru. "Lacunae has no mid-course defences. Stop the attack."
The Justice had a panicked look in his eyes. "This one has no control over the actions of Baur command, Orgon knows that members of the Court give up any influence--"
"Orgon knows the rules, but he also knows they are a lie!" He stood, leaning forwards on clenched paws. "Do not lecture this one on the way the Court works -- these ones all know how it works!" His ears flattened and lips peeled back from a row of shape, white teeth. "Get Baur to call off the attack."
"Strategist..." The words came from one of the strategic defence analysts, who'd stepped up unnoticed to Orgon's side. The person flinched at the fury in Orgon's eyes as he rounded on them, but didn't retreat. "There is something odd about the weapon tracks." He swallowed, gesturing to the strategic display table. Fuzzy ballistic arcs were curling up from Baur, probing for their targets like blurry, skittering tentacles. The fuzziness started to vanish as the scattered tracking systems refined the trajectories, revealing that--
"Rutting Maker, what is this madness?" Orgon whispered. The spray of trajectories looked almost random compared to the initial attacks on Lacunae; they were targeted at all the Hives on the planet. "Confirm those targets." He turned back to the camera connected to the Court. "What is this, Tundru?"
The members of the Court were not paying attention to Orgon, but instead were occupied by their own display screens and private audio feeds. Finally -- only a pawful of breaths, even though it seemed a lot longer -- Judge Chetul looked up, glaring at Tundru. "So this was the plan all along," she spat. "This one has just been told that servitors have lost their magic over most of the planet, yet she sees that Baur launchers are still operating."
"No! This one swears that there has been a terrible mistake--"
Chetul made a cutting gesture. "Damn right there has been! No more lies from Tundru; these ones need to know the truth. This one votes for impeachment." She looked at each of the other Judges, who all nodded grimly. "Vote carried. Let the record show that Tundru is no longer Chief Justice."
Tundru's jaw dropped open and he shook his head. "Chetul cannot be serious!" The door at the back of the conference room opened, admitting a pair of guards and third person wearing the equipment harness of a medical officer. Tundru ignored the guards, staring at the medic. "No," he said, voice suddenly trembling, "please. This one will cooperate fully."
"It is too late for that." Chetul gestured to the medic. "Find out the truth about the Baur weapon and whatever Tundru knows about the Hive's attack plans."
The medic nodded and the guards pulled a suddenly hyperventilating Tundru out of his seat, dragging him to the door. "Yes, Judge. This one will set the trawl for maximum speed."
Ignoring the now struggling Tundru, Orgon tried to determine how many warheads would leak through their crippled mid-course defences, then gave up. This could be the end of these ones. "Judges, these ones must stop those launchers."
Chetul made a helpless gesture. "Efforts to contact Baur command are ongoing. There is evidence for a problem with the command structure. This one suspects that the redirected Hammer strike decapitated the Hive. The Court withdraws all objections to unilateral Hive action." She grimaced, looking uncomfortable. "All things considered, this one thinks that using the Hammer again would be a worse mistake."
===
Valith tapped Savan on the shoulder, pointing out of the low, armoured window. "The launcher has stopped firing," he whispered. The rolling hills and patchy forest was quiet and the strings of shockwaves from the launch of kinetic vehicles has ceased.
"Is it over?" Savan 's ears lifted from their depressed droop, and she got up from where she'd been slumped in one corner of the control room and padded over to his side.
"These ones are still alive," Valith said, paws clenching and unclenching. "What does Savan think these ones should do?" Valith could go home to his pup and his mate. The thought wound tight in his chest, making his heart ache. "Valith wants out of this bunker," he said, voice suddenly firm, and strode to the access hatch. It didn't respond to his prodding. "What the Maker..."
"Oh."
Valith froze in mid attempt to get the hatch open, a tide of dread closing up his throat. He turned to stare at Savan, who nodded to the Deadpaw counter. "Rut." Suddenly spurred into motion, Valith ran to the windows overlooking the hangar bay. Red lights ringing the exit port had started to flash, shortly followed by rows of pistons pulling the heavy door open. A klaxon sounded, a heavy, mournful wail that filled the bunker and set Valith's teeth on edge.
"Target list has been updated. Not just Baur now... it's going to hit Soro and a bunch of other Hives." One paw came up and covered her muzzle. "It’s the full countervalue strike package... Case Sinkhole-Javelin. These ones are hitting the arcologies. Everyone against everyone."
The words hung in the air like they were a suffocating blanket. The heavy silence was interrupted by the bang-bang-bang of umbilicals being detached from the weapon. There was a rising rumble, a subsonic vibration that rapidly built to a scream. Light streamed in through the hangar windows, the colour of ionised air, then faded. Outside, the external launch doors blew open under the thrust of solid rocket motors, releasing a dark blunt needle that shot into the sky on a plume of blue light.
Other weapons joined the first, launched from the rest of the shelters in the complex, fanning out across all points of the compass.
===
Above Fusion's head, one of the moons was coming apart.
The ill-defined patch of light that was Grund was stretching, smeared out by a careless paw. By shadow sight there was a great flickering patch of violet light in the same part of the sky, made faint by the extreme distance. Gravity, still holding the magical amplifier, had shifted her orbit, accelerating towards the rubble-pile moon. The touch of her thoughts, normally a comforting presence at the back of Fusion's mind, had faded to the slightest whisper.
"They will try and stop you, Gravity," Fusion shouted to the heavens, putting all of her considerable strength into the sending, but received back little more than an indistinct murmur. Still alive and working. The violet light over Grund proved that, at least. She spun in the air, turning tight circles on one wingtip, trying to decide what to do next. The other amplifiers...
A tap of magic interrogated her communicator, but it reported no connection to the Lacunae network; whatever relay Orgon had been using was out of range or had been shot down. She pushed--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--appearing back at the staging area with its neat rows of corpses. Smoke hung in the air, rising from a hundred small fires, a stinking mix of burning vegetation and scorched flesh. Her communicator pinged in her ear, then: "Fusion, this is Ellisif. What do you want us to do? Lacunae command says there are more kinetic projectiles on the way, and there's nothing they can do to stop them."
Fusion swore softly. The world is too big for two ponies to defend! "What are the targets?"
"Not us this time; it's the arcologies. Just Baur... they protected some of their ponies from the spell, but the rest of the world has been affected."
Fusion felt dizzy and shook her head. "The effect isn't just local? I thought--" She inhaled deeply, then explosively puffed the air out. Are the two of us all that remains? Her wings felt leaden, insufficient to sustain flight, so she landed on the lake shore to walk slowly between the pastel bodies. No magic anywhere else. It fits. "Wait, I flew past Baur launchers; the ponies in them still had magic! How...?" They still had a few functioning suppressors. It really did fit; Fusion's mind whirled, a sudden bout of dizziness threatening to send her to her knees.
There was silence, then Ellisif sighed. "How long ago? They were targeted by all the other Hives as soon as the unrestricted launches were detected. They may already be destroyed. Can you--?"
A memory of one of the launchers, the ponies inside scrambling to repair the damage she'd done, popped into absolute clarity. Please please please-- Fusion jumped into the air with a single stroke of her wings, ignoring Ellisif's attempts to speak. Her defences coalesced, a needle-pointed, streamlined shield oriented along her current velocity vector--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--too far in a single jump, the vector not correctly aligned, her glassy shield tumbling end over end in the half kilolength a second airflow--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--higher this time, above most of the air, holding herself with iron telekinesis while the spin was damped. A few moment to take gasping breaths, eyes closed against the bright pulses of nuclear detonations from the ground far, far below--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--final jump, over rock and ice, the crater obscured by a rising plume of warm, dusty air. To her energy sensitivity, everything had the purple radiance of gamma emission. Fusion hovered in the updraft, fields keeping the contaminated air away. Somewhere out there... are there ponies still with magic, waiting at the ends of lethal trajectories? Her insides clenched and she screamed out her frustration. "Where are you?!" The world didn't answer, just filled her ears with the gentle sound of gravel pattering against her defences.
Fusion fumbled blindly for the connection to Gravity, pushing and pushing until her sister accepted the sharing. Gravity's mind was full of vectors and orbital elements, powering a complex, near incomprehensible web of magic reaching out to touch here or move there. Fast things were coming out of Luna, heading in her direction. She was distracted, focussed fully on her work.
I'm busy, Fusion. What do you want? Flat and distracted, tinged with annoyance. Some of Fusion's distress must have leaked into the sharing; Gravity's mental tone shifted to one of concern. What?
Fusion gulped in a breath and held it. Are any of the Baur launchers still operating? Can you feel anything at all? It's important.
There was a pause, the sense of mass and velocity fading as Gravity switched her attention back to the planet. No, she thought finally. Plenty of conventional missiles, from dispersed silos, but I can't feel any mass driver fire. Why? What's the matter?
The breath came out in an explosive gasp, like Fusion had been kicked in the gut. She shook her head, loose mane whipping at her neck and chest. Nothing, not now. It's no longer important, she thought, ears drooping. I'll tell you later... come back safe, sister. A wordless assent came back and Fusion pushed--
~~~discontinuity~~~
Another few jumps, more than she'd taken on the way out, and Fusion was back in radio range of Ellisif. "Do you know where Vanca is?" she said, cutting off the gryphoness' attempt at a question.
Ellisif directed Fusion to one of the transport aircraft on the valley floor, one with the antennae-covered look of a command vehicle. The dog was sitting on a rock just outside the main door, watching Student Korn do something with a complex control panel while deep in conversation with another gryphon. Vanca looked up sharply at Fusion's approach, one paw coming up to touch at a nasty burn on her arm. Someone had applied a field dressing, turning the bottom half of the limb into a foam pillow.
"Vanca supposes she should thank the pony for saving this one's life," she said¸ scowling at Fusion. "If it wasn't the pony that put these ones here in the first place! This one needs to return to her lab--"
"I have more important problems than your casual curiosity!" Fusion felt the heat start to rise from her body and did nothing to stop it.
Vanca shrank away slightly. "The pony never knows where curiosity will lead," she grumbled, half to herself. "What does the pony want? This one can't help with whatever has afflicted the others; she's a thaumophysicist, not a veterinarian."
"I found a thing, a magical amplifier of some sort, at the heart of the Baur base that cast the spell. I've never seen anything like it in dog technology. I think there are five other things like it, spread across the world."
Vanca froze in mid snarl, eyes going wide. "Six in total? Describe what you found!"
"Spherical, about the size of a large apple." Fusion moved her muzzle in a short arc. "Massively complex magically. It changed form when Gravity or I held it."
"Well, this one supposes it makes sense. All the gigaseconds these ones wasted, the progress Vanca could have made. Stupid!" Vanca spat the last word, lips curled back in fury. "Vanca thinks it was one of the Creation Stones." Fusion gestured impatiently, pawing at the ground with one hoof. "Old magical artefacts that predate the People's written history. Stories say that six of them together were used to build the pony's species, among other feats. Strangely enough, they became objects of religious fervour." She smiled bitterly. "Wars split up the Stones and the Hives formed around the tribes that worshipped them."
"So Lacunae does have one!" Fusion's ears folded back, "I want it. The other one is with Gravity."
"The Stone is one of the Hive's most prized possessions! Vanca couldn't get permission to study it, the chances of the pony getting its horn on--" Vanca stopped and frowned. "What is the pony's sister doing with the Baur Stone?"
Fusion gestured to the sky. Vanca looked up, then pointed at Grund with one shaking paw. "The Stone is kept in one of the best guarded facilities in Lacunae. It's a Church relic, but Orgon will be able to get it for the pony." She didn't look at Fusion while talking, but kept her eyes locked on the streamers of matter flowing out of the rubble-pile moon. "Please take this one to her lab!"
"You've seen the Stone, haven't you?"
"Once... Vanca doesn't make a habit of going to the Church, but it was the only way to see the thing." She tore her gaze away from the sky and looked suspiciously at Fusion. "Why does the pony ask?"
Fusion's horn lit white-gold, folding the Academician in a haze of telekinesis. "How would you like a closer look?"
===
"The pony wants the Stone, and it will have it." Orgon stared disinterestedly at the elderly Person, his mind on the rapidly closing kinetic weapons. Depressed trajectory strikes to minimise flight time, say three hundred seconds until first impact... Lacunae's depleted Arclight squadrons were firing on the incoming projectiles, hunting for the traces of antimatter in the nuclear triggers. Any hope that the weapons were more of the same purely dumb metal had been dashed sometime ago; the sky was scattered with pinpoint flashes of X-rays and fat splotches of plasma that blocked defensive radars.
"Out of the question! The Stones are for the People, not their servants. It is a blasphemy of the highest order, and--"
"The Deacon should be grateful that Orgon is giving him the courtesy of this call. Ecclesiastical Security has been ordered to stand down."
"The Church answers to the Maker, not the Strategist's rather temporary secular power." The robed figure made a contemptuous gesture, cutting the connection.
"Shall this one order a force to assault the Basilica?" Faula asked, paws poised over her command station.
Orgon stared off into space for a moment, then shook his head. "No. Inform the Academician that the forces within the Church compound are likely to be in a state of active rebellion. They are to be considered enemy agents." A ghost of a smile flashed across his muzzle. "The Synod can have Orgon tried for his war crimes later, if there is anybody left to fill the posts. Fusion will do the job faster than Security, and probably with fewer casualties."
===
This close, Fusion could feel the Creation Stone. It was somewhere behind the polished black walls of the Church compound, behind several squads of dogs with guns. Also present was a robed figure, snout barely visible inside a deep hood.
--a clawed thumb pressing against the crown on her young head, of things penetrating her brain and locking the Master's rules with self-sustaining twists of magic. This one Blesses you in the name of the Maker--
Fusion shivered, her mouth suddenly dry, and pushed the old memory away. This is one more centre of evil. Do I blame them because they believe what they do is right? Ah, but nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves ‘what evils can I perpetrate today, because I’m the bad guy?’ Everyone thinks what they’re doing is the right thing. She paused, staring at the robed dog, and shivered again. Except for Salrath.
She thought about it, her shadow sight probing the depths of the Church complex, so different from the black pyramid at the centre of her corral. All those names, all those ponies dead and gone. Their religion is another control mechanism, both for us and their own people. Her ears folded back and harder colours streaked her mane. "I've never been in a Church for your kind," she said to Vanca, who was still looking at her communicator as if it was a poisonous insect. "You used this to reinforce the Blessing's effects." We'll get our reward for service after we're dead... how convenient.
"This one isn't really a believer," Vanca said sharply, pushing ineffectually at Fusion's telekinetic hold. The academician had, at least, calmed down from the strangled screams she'd made during their headlong rush to the Basilica.
"Time is short," Fusion said, dropping Vanca then flicking out her wings and striding forwards.
The armed dogs tensed, rifles already raised and aimed. "This one has Strategist-delegate authority," Vanca called out, addressing the figure in Church robes standing behind the soldiers. "The Deacon will stand down his guards immediately and cooperate with--"
"Fire!" The railguns opened up, bursts of metal needles splashing off the invisible dome of Fusion's force field, making it flicker white-gold and kicking splinters off the polished floor. Magazines ran dry in the space of a breath, and there was a shocked pause before training kicked in and paws went through the litany of 'the reload'. "What are these ones waiting for?!" the Deacon screamed, eyes bulging. "Shoot!"
"I have no quarrel with you guards," Fusion said loudly. Those in charge should pay directly. I couldn't get to the Court, but I can get to you. "The Deacon is another matter." She made the tiniest of gestures, a slight wave of her head, and the robed figure burst into flames, collapsing to the floor and thrashing noisily. A few shots followed, but Fusion ignored them, pulling the ornate door they guarded out of its mounts and throwing it over her shoulder. "No more delays," she said, magic making her voice ring out and fill the vaulted antechamber. The guards fled, dropping their rifles as they ran. She trotted forwards, Vanca running to keep up, following the sensation of power that she'd felt before. It wasn't quite the same as the one that Gravity now had, but the difference was subtle. It was like seeing the same scene through a different camera, the familiar objects framed in other ways.
"Was it really necessary to burn the Deacon alive?" Vanca asked quietly, all traces of her normally acerbic tone gone.
No. "I just murdered a whole arcology in revenge for what the Court did to us. One more of you is nothing." Vanca flinched and Fusion sighed. "I will hold those in charge responsible for their actions, Academician. If one horrific death makes them stay out of my way, I won't need to kill more."
"Of course," Vanca said, her expression carefully neutral, "this one is sure the pony is correct."
Nothing in this place short of a nuke can stop me... I could have just brushed them all aside. The thought nagged at Fusion and, for a moment, all she could see was the burning, writhing body. Grimacing, she pushed the memory back, focussing again on the nearby Stone.
Doors, walls and all manner of structures were variously cut, burned or simply crushed and pushed out of Fusion's way. She didn't slow from that ground-eating trot, picking up Vanca when it became obvious she was having trouble keeping pace. Fusion dropped down a lift shaft, the car pulled out and wadded up like it was a scrap of paper, landing with a crash at the bottom and pushing the doors out into the corridor beyond.
These were not the fancy, ornate things of the upper levels, but heavy composites of metals, plastics and ceramics, and actually put up a little resistance to her efforts. Behind them was a security post, but the guards had already surrendered, backing away from their discarded weapons. "These ones don't have access to the vault," the first called out, voice shaking.
"Vanca doesn't think that will be a problem," the Academician said, wincing as Fusion pulled a block of material from the wall behind them. Within was a small, plain chamber, holding a waist-high pedestal that bore a polished stone sphere incised with a single glyph.
Fusion picked it up, watching as the stone faded into a soap-bubble of crystal containing a point of searing light. Insubstantial vistas of magical potential unfolded behind her eyes; she followed the expanding patterns, feeling completely insignificant against the vast-- "Huh," she said. "They just tried to bring down the roof."
"What?!"
"This whole level is wired with explosives; I just blocked the detonation command." Fusion lifted Vanca and pushed--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--she stood in the antechamber, listening to the hollow boom from below. The floor shook and dust sifted down from the high ceiling. "Someone must have had their thumb on the trigger." Did all those dogs deserve to die? She shook her head. Idiots. I can't save my own people... I won't take responsibility for theirs, too. She smiled at Vanca. "Thank you for your assistance. I can drop you off...?"
Vanca reached for the Stone and Fusion held it out, letting the dog rest her paw on it. She shivered, a dreamy smile flashing across her muzzle. "All the wasted time." She sighed, letting her paw drop. "This one doesn't suppose Fusion can locate a Person she's never met, who may be anywhere in the arcology? No?" Fusion shook her head. Vanca sighed again and closed her eyes. "This one has a mate somewhere in here; she really ought to try and contact him. He thinks this one is dead... and there is little that science can do to stop what's coming in the next megasecond." She backed away, then turned and sprinted down the corridor, shoulders hunched.
Fusion watched her go for a second, then looked back at the Stone. "Right, then--"
~~~discontinuity~~~
--appearing in clear air, many lengths above the ground. Lights flashed and pulsed all around her; the higher lights were brilliant, short-lived pinpoints, the lower were longer, slower, growing, rising and fading like glowing bubbles. What am I supposed to do about all this? How many will I condemn if I try and stop the attacks and leave those here unprotected?
With the Lacunae Stone held tight against her breastbone, Fusion pushed her thoughts out to Gravity. I need to protect our people. Can you stop the attacks?
There was a pause, filled with the sensation of vast masses moving in unexpected ways. Closer to home, a ghost-body, limbs outstretched and heart thundering, overlaid Fusion's own. The leakage cut off, the constant undercurrent of thoughts becoming sharp. I am going to fight the Hammer. It is well defended but at least I can stop it from attacking us.
The thoughts cut off, blocked from Gravity's end, leaving Fusion alone in her own head. She can do that much... Fusion stared into the crystal depths of the Stone, feeling an echo of the sun within the fleck of glare at its centre. ...what can I do now?
There were things she could do, even without the Stone, but had never dared to try. The beguiling complexity of the sun beckoned to Fusion and she itched to do this or that. There was a response to her idle thoughts, close and instant, from the Stone. If you do this, then that will happen, it seemed to say. Options opened up in her head, cause-effect chains that filled her with confusion, dread and desire, all at once. But the sun has set! What am I supposed to do here where it is night? Oh--
Fusion reached into and through the Stone, her power shaped and built and thrust across the light-seconds to the complex knot of quantum foam machinery, making it twist and shudder under her grip. It stuttered, flickering madly like a candle in a gale, then stabilised and started to do her bidding as if it had always been this way, scarcely missing a beat.
Commands issued, she relaxed and stared expectantly at the heavens. Nothing happened, and Fusion started to count under her breath. Speed of light delay, but is it one- or two-way? It had felt that she'd had an instant response, but... The western sky changed from indigo to orange and then yellow as a point of fire flared on the horizon.
With unnatural speed and in the wrong direction, the sun rose again.