And so it was that the two factions that had spent almost a year at war and another year in uneasy stalemate finally joined together in an alliance, however fleeting it might be. Olivia was among those assigned to work more closely with the newcomers, despite their tense relationship. But however much disagreement she might have with them, she was also one who knew them best, after working so closely with the weather contractors. She couldn’t really fault Lucky for the assignment, even if she still resented it.
She worked in the hangar mostly, helping one or another of the “Elements of Harmony” prepare for and then launch on a simple contact mission using one of the Emperor’s Soul’s jumpers. So lots of time explaining how the acceleration worked, and what sort of noise they would make when they inserted themselves into whatever location they landed.
She halfway expected the natives to just get themselves killed, along with their pilots. They might have the unique talents to accomplish the goal of uniting Equestria, they might be famous and experienced and have friends all over—but they were also extremely naive, almost childish in their outlook… well, all except for Twilight Sparkle. Olivia had broken her of that a little over a year ago.
Life in Motherlode settled into something like normal for a while—pods flew in every few days, with a few of the Elements and some locals they had brought back from who knew what remote Equestrian place. After the third or so mission, they started referring to her by name. By the tenth, she was starting to pick up a little more Eoch through sheer exposure. She hadn’t really bothered with the weather contractors, since part of that mission had been about teaching them English. Now she had a reason.
Affairs in Motherlode were a little more mixed, though she wasn’t exposed as often. Gruber and his soldiers seemed content enough to laze around for the first few weeks, but soon enough they started getting bored, and that meant they were restless. They began causing trouble in town—shaking ponies down, robbing from them, and threatening to “reveal what they knew.”
But Olivia no longer worried about them managing anything in secret, not when almost every item they owned was bugged. Though they’d never know it, Forerunner knew everything they ever did—knew which ones were forming secret relationships with the locals, knew which ones were taking bribes, which ones were making threats. And if one of them actually seemed like they were going to spring a leak in Motherlode’s information dam… well, there were methods for that too.
And Olivia was the one assigned to make sure they understood that fact.
She brought Gruber in the very day he sent one of his soldiers away—on a hike down the mountain, with the assignment to catch a train a town over. Given they were the only “free” settlement in all the Smokey Mountains, that soldier probably would’ve succeeded. Except that Forerunner had known about the plan for a week, and they’d had half a dozen men ready for it.
At the end, the brave soldier had tried to kill himself, going straight for the throat with his knife. But he’d barely even nicked the skin before Olivia’s stun-rifle had sent him sprawling.
“I don’t see why you want to talk to me,” Gruber said, following her through one of Motherlode’s upper tunnels. As time went on, more of these were transforming from plain stone to precisely carved and luxurious passages, except for the bundle of umbilical on the roof. It was the native population—they were mostly earth ponies, and all out of a job mining since Forerunner’s drones worked so much faster. Olivia thought the construction suited them. If anything, they had more of an attention to detail than the AI did. She could make out little hearts in the archways, and tiny sun and moon cutie marks near the edges where a passage might lead to a common area or a restroom respectively.
Gruber had not seen any of Motherlode’s facilities, other than the spa on the first floor and its endless supply of luxuries. But that was going to change today. A risk, but… they had to act.
Olivia’s new graft still itched, and was swollen bright red around the joint. She’d bound the whole thing up with bandages, but it would probably be another day or two before she could run. As it was she had to take things slow, careful not to put weight on the fleshglue too soon.
“Because there’s something you need to see,” Olivia said, quite cheerfully. She didn’t dress like a disgusting pauper this time, but in a plain uniform—the uniform of a prefect, a jumpsuit that covered her whole body and was adorned with Pioneering Society logos. There was also a holster for a sidearm, though none obviously visible inside. She did have a derringer strapped just under the edge of her jumpsuit on one side, and a knife hidden somewhere even cleverer. But she didn’t expect to need either against Gruber. “It’s a new facility. One we didn’t want to build for you, but… here we are.”
“It’s always build, build, build with you people,” he muttered, jamming a soft pretzel almost completely into his mouth. His blue fur was stained with patches of cheese sauce—the aliens liked human food even more than its pony equivalent, so much so that some of the soldiers were starting to gain weight. Gruber hadn’t been that healthy to begin with—now he practically waddled. “You need to learn to take the load off sometimes! Honestly… even my brother knows when to relax and let the royalties flow in. Like the investment for your hard work.”
They took a sharp turn past a red cross on one wall, and suddenly they were in medical. Specially emptied for this demonstration, at least as far as she needed to go. Olivia gestured for the third door, which was the only one not sealed. “We’ll take a break when we’re finished,” Olivia said. “Just through here.”
“And you dig like diamond dogs,” Gruber went on, as though he hadn’t even heard what she had to say. “They’re like this too, but… mostly it’s an obsession with gemstones. You wouldn’t think they would work so hard for nothing but food, but… you’d be wrong.”
Olivia made sure that Gruber would be bringing up the rear. She would be behind him if he tried to run, and close enough if he tried to off himself.
Not that she expected it—Gruber was a coward through to his bones. He could’ve fled to warn his brother himself. So far as she knew, he’d never done anything to suggest he had the courage to escape that way.
They stepped through the corridor into a room, about a hundred meters long and with regular cylinders every meter or so. Most of them were empty and exposed—shaped a little like Biofabricators, but with blue snowflake symbols instead of the biohazard warnings that were so common in a fabricator.
Motherlode had medical fabricators, but only for organs, not for whole ponies. They didn’t have the resources to expand their population that way. Only the old-fashioned way, eh Melody? Guess that worked out pretty good for you.
There was some other equipment in the center of the room—a few tables with robotic arms mounted to the ceiling, and flying medical drones hovering over their heads.
“This is…” Gruber dropped his pretzel. “This is not pony. You don’t have this.” He turned around, but found Olivia standing right in the way.
She didn’t draw either of her weapons, just bore her teeth and dared him to try and force his way through. On the surface they might pretend that Gruber was still in charge, but… the two of them knew the truth. “We haven’t seen what I wanted to show you yet.” Olivia gestured at the very first tube in the row. “Go on, you need to see this one especially. I think it will make everything make sense.”
“Oh, I think I—” But then she shoved him, and he squeaked in protest. “Alright, I’m going! Geez.”
They stopped in front of the tube, which was different from the others in that it was closed instead of open. It seemed to tower over Olivia, since they had used the human-sized pods. Even so, it barely fit the creature inside it. “Activate transparency,” Olivia said.
A section of the front half went from black to clear, and the creature inside appeared. One of the Storm King’s soldiers, with a mask in his mouth and tubes running up and down his body. His eyes were closed, and lots of the fluff had been shorn away. The rest would fall off when he woke up—hair didn’t do well in cryogenic storage. But it would grow back.
“W-what is L-Lokosh—”
“We caught him trying to run away,” Olivia said, standing just behind Gruber. Anytime he looked back, she would position herself between him and the door.
“That’s a-awful,” Gruber said. “Deserting his post. You know we would’ve punished him.”
“I doubt it,” Olivia said, “considering you ordered him.” She produced the note Gruber had written. It had been in code, but the code was analog and Forerunner had cracked it in seconds. “My detachment and I are hostages to a fermenting pony rebellion. Do not come to Motherlode unless you bring overwhelming force. As many dragons as you can.”
Gruber laughed awkwardly. “O-oh… that.” Then he tried to run.
Olivia intercepted him as he tried to circle around her, smashing him in the torso with her good foreleg. He fought back, trying to throw her, so she let him, stumbling back a few steps, before smashing him right into a surgical table with her shoulder. Glass shattered and tools went everywhere, and soon enough she was on top of him.
“You really aren’t a fighter,” she said, ignoring the sting of a few fresh cuts. Most of the broken glass was now in Gruber, but some of it was in her shoulder. “I guess that’s nepotism for you.”
“Go ahead and kill me,” Gruber croaked. “It won’t work. My brother grants us all eternal life. The dead rise again when the storm passes, you’ll see.”
“I know.” Olivia released him, though she kept one hoof on his torso, ready to shove him back if he tried to stand up. “Your brother gave us this idea.” She flicked her tail at the tube. “Your man won’t wake up, but he won’t die either. It’s the perfect way to fight an immortal. We don’t have that crystal stuff he used on the Alicorns, but that doesn’t matter. Last I checked, these freezers can keep someone alive for a thousand years. Maybe longer, if we wake you up for corrective surgery every now and then.”
Gruber swallowed, looking away from her. He’d apparently connected the dots. “Now you’re going to lock me up, like Lokosh.”
“Not… today,” Olivia said, releasing her hoof. “You’ve got a choice here, Gruber. I hope you’ll make the right one.” She shook herself off, trying to remove the bits of clinging glass. “You can live in luxury, or let us do what we want to your brain while your body is on ice. Don’t think it’s just a peaceful sleep, because it’s not. I promise to make the process as unpleasant as possible.”
Gruber nodded, scrambling to his feet. His injuries weren’t that severe, as it turned out. But there were a few cuts seeping blue blood, and the pain of it seemed to ruin his concentration. “Okay, okay! I get it.”
“Good.” Olivia gestured for the door. “Because the next time anything happens that makes me think you’re going back on our deal, we’ll have you in here. So you better start thinking of how to keep your soldiers obedient.”
They wandered off down the hall, and Olivia left Gruber in the capable hands of a pony doctor—one of the locals, who Gruber would probably remember. The less of the technology he saw, the better. But the impression still had to stick.
“How did I do?” Olivia asked, when one of Forerunner’s robotic ponies joined her in the hallway. She had a few fresh stitches, but otherwise was none the worse for wear.
“It might work,” Forerunner said. “Until I can finish synthesizing enough material for the rest of the soldiers, anyway. There’s no point trying to keep them alert for our next inspection. They seem to realize the gravity of our operation here, and intend to betray our secret.”
Olivia nodded. “Well, keep working as quick as you can. The sooner they’re all on ice, the better.”
Sarah had been on more uncomfortable dates, but not very many of them.
Part of it was probably the fact that James was trying to pressure her into a relationship she had already turned away, when the stakes for Othar were already so high. Sarah felt no particular loyalty towards Equestria or even her own nation, but seeing it conquered by Vlad the Impaler was a bridge too far. There came a point when even the self-interested rogue had to step in. Han had come back to save the day.
But there was another part of her that enjoyed the novelty alone—being on two legs was a welcome relief, something she supposed she’d never experienced before, technically. But her memory didn’t care about technicalities like which version of her had “really” grown up human, and the motion was natural for her.
Sarah had been on dates she didn’t want to take before, and they were usually the same. The sort of person who thought a forced relationship would work was usually the sort of person who was shy about everything and didn’t have any definite plans for what their time together would entail. They just expected some supernatural charm on their part to convince her.
But James wasn’t quite like that. Apart from walking beside her, he didn’t actually do anything to make Sarah feel awkward.
The beach looked much like the other tropical vacation spots she’d visited before, with resorts and patches of umbrellas, and plenty of sunbathers. The aliens loved to swim, and had lots of towing watercraft. Though there were also things like walkways that went straight into the water, with glowing handrails on either side. She pointed to one, where a group of four aliens vanished beneath the surface. “What are they doing?”
“Walking back to town, I guess,” James said. “They’re done vacationing for the day.”
“Oh.” Sarah shuddered. “Can we not go down there? I’m sick of dark places.”
“It’s not dark,” he said, but then he went right back to rambling.
Her guess about Harmony tweaking time here was apparently correct, because James went on as though he’d learned a great deal about these posthuman aliens. He described the skyrail down to the city, where he had spent a few weeks studying with professors of language and culture. “They’ve never actually met a human before, so they were excited to interview me. I guess they don’t get a lot through here.”
Up ahead, Sarah could now see the destination James had already warned her about. A seaside carnival of sorts, complete with plenty of flashing lights, screeching sirens, and cheering visitors. The roller coasters and rides were far more sophisticated than anything she’d ever seen on Earth—the tracks seemed to be changing between passes, which was probably the biggest thing. But the crowds were the same and the fried smell of the food was similar too.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Sarah said, pulling him back a little by his arm. She wasn’t sure she actually wanted to enter that park. But at least by now their crowd of alien followers was gone, wandered back to the bars they’d come from. “Didn’t they come from humans once? Look at us, we’re basically human. Just… modified. Pretty substantially, but…”
“Well…” James shrugged one shoulder. He slowed down when she pulled, apparently not minding the pressure. “I mean, we’ve got lots of little rodents in our ancestry. Does that mean that you know how they saw the world?”
“I had a pet rat once,” Sarah answered. “But I had to eat him.”
“Yeah… I’m not sure if I want that to be true. But do you see what I mean? They’re way more advanced than we are—they’ve been something else for so long that they might as well be aliens.”
“Eh, doesn’t seem so weird to me.” Sarah reached up, gently lifting his hat off his head and tossing it over the railing.
“Hey!” James jerked away from her, leaning over the walkway to try and catch it. But he wasn’t anywhere near coordinated enough. “I had to make that hat! Took me hours.”
“Reminds me a little of ponies,” Sarah said, as though she hadn’t even heard him. “No clothes, lots of bright colors and politeness. Except ponies still have…” She lowered her voice, then glanced away from him. There were people walking around them, people apparently relieved to have something so scandalous as a person completely in shadow removed from the path. “Well, sex.”
James was still glaring at her as he straightened. “Why’d you throw that away?”
“Because everyone was staring at us,” she said. “That isn’t how dates are supposed to go, trust me. You want to focus on each other, not wonder when someone is going to punch you because you have different morals than them. Be a crusader for social change on your own time.”
James’s voice changed into a frightened flash of color, which quickly transformed into a smile. “Wait a minute. You just admitted we’re on a date!”
Sarah might’ve grumbled about it under other circumstances. But here… “I don’t mind seeing the sights,” she said, through the usual set of visual images that constituted speech for her current species. She wanted to learn how to use sound, since they certainly had it. She could hear some quiet fairground-type music playing from up ahead, a little stretched and out of tune. But it was still there.
“You’ll love the Ultraviolet Twister. It’s… probably the coolest thing I’ve done since coming here, aside from just walking under the ocean. That part was definitely the best.”
“Maybe, but not right now. I’m surprised you want to go anywhere near it after being stuck underground for… how long were we even down there?”
“A month?” James suggested, but there was no confidence in his voice as he said it. “Wait, did I sleep that often?”
“No, you don’t sleep much. Or you… didn’t. Once you got transformed. You got your energy from another source, or whatever.”
“Right.”
They walked in visual silence for the next hundred meters or so. Sarah found she didn’t mind that much either—aside from the distant music of the fair, she could focus on the sounds of the environment. The waves crashing on the shore, the insects chirping in the trees above. However that worked. But they didn’t seem dangerous, so she didn’t worry about it.
Eventually she felt James take her hand, and she didn’t pull away. “I was hoping you’d take me back,” James said, and the nervous way he said it shaped his words into something not so deep as before. “I didn’t want to run away forever. Maybe a longer vacation than this… it’s nice to be somewhere that my clones haven’t shown me up. There are still discoveries in here. Part of our… future history. Our future, their history. But not our future because we didn’t… you get the idea.”
“Yeah.” Sarah leaned on his arm a little as they got into the fair.
Her next few hours were an enjoyable blur—despite the aliens, despite the strangeness of the rides and the food, there was something deeply familiar about the experience, and also totally new. Sarah hadn’t ever had the money to waste on things like this, and once she stole enough she considered herself above them.
But James, James had been on the borderline of society without quite falling into the underground. This struck her a little like what the average poor might’ve done for fun. Except that she had seen no sign of poor here, or even wealth. They didn’t pay for anything, and it wasn’t like she couldn’t tell the difference in one set of sandals or the next.
They didn’t have a Ferris wheel, but they did have a little airship that went up and down on a regular loop. She was pretty sure James had timed it so they’d be going up around sunset.
The more time she spent with him—the more she thought about how he had been the one who’d been loyal to her—the more it hurt.
Then James kissed her, and she didn’t think about much of anything for a while. As it turned out, their skin could do all kinds of different colors at once.
But then she pushed him away, into the empty corner of the padded bench. “S-stop it, James. This isn’t the time… and it isn’t going to work.”
“Seems like… it’s working fine to me,” James said. “We’ve been together since this thing started. We’ve made it through together. Why shouldn’t we…”
“Because I don’t like guys!” There was no hint of doubt in what she was saying—it wasn’t her who’d changed. “James, you’ve really… risen to the occasion, alright? That’s great. But that isn’t the only reason this is working.” She gestured at his torso. “Whatever we are…”
“Vitruvian,” James supplied. “That’s what the species is called. They’ve been on Equestria for at least a few thou—”
“Vitruvian,” she repeated, pushing on his shoulder. “Well, this works fine right now. But if we go outside…” She shook her head. “My relationships need to be physical, not just emotional. They’re mostly physical, if I’m being honest. I bet you money Harmony made you look like that to try and distract me. It’s the… second time he’s done that. I don’t think you’re a guy in here, and that’s what made this…” She relaxed a little, squeezing his hand. “Does that make sense?”
James nodded. “No one is. I don’t know… exactly how it works, but I’m pretty sure it’s all the same. So you’re as much of a guy as I am. Or… as much not of one.”
“Well, that won’t be much of a change.” She laughed, but there was none of her usual spite in it, and she fell silent quickly. “Well, anyway… I think we should stop, right here.” She folded her arms. “Because it will only end in pain. The closer you get to someone when you know it won’t work out, the worse it feels when everything falls apart.”
“But…” James hesitated. “You don’t have to leave. I’ve got two clones, so whatever I could do they’ll just do for me. And you… you’re not even really a munitions engineer, so it’s not like you could’ve done that job if you came back. Can’t we just… get along without them?”
“No.” That did it. Whatever Sarah had been feeling, it was gone now. “I’m done, James. It was fun, but… it’s time to go. Are you going to keep your end, or… were you just leading me on?”
James’s colors went through several dark, self-conscious shades. Then he rose. “We can go.”
“Harmony!” She didn’t say it out loud, but somehow the program heard her. It appeared between the two of them, its pony features seeming somehow… disappointed.
“We listen.”
“We want to leave,” Sarah said, gesturing out the open window. “To wherever Ocellus is. Vacation was nice, but… it’s time to get the gang back together.”
“You would be happier if you did not,” Harmony said. “We see that both of you are incomplete. With a few more adjustments, you could both be resolved.”
“Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve,” Sarah muttered, exasperated. “Get us out.”
The world melted.
Melody was fairly certain some kind of nepotism must’ve been involved in getting her such well-appointed quarters. But no matter how many times she asked, Lucky insisted that she hadn’t said a thing to Forerunner or the natives of Motherlode. “Our princess has been good to us so far,” Mayor Pyrite had said. “The ponies want to show their appreciation. Can you blame them? If I’ve learned nothing living with earth ponies as long as I have, it’s not to refuse a gift that’s freely given. They knew the work they were doing going into it. Just be gracious.”
So she’d tried to be gracious, permitting each of the natives who wanted the time to visit her in her new quarters. They were the same basic dimensions as all essential crew who lived with more than one pony—three large rectangular sections with a naked umbilical on the ceiling and rough stone walls. There was a tiny bathroom, a larger sitting room with a office, and a bedroom that wasn’t very quiet or very cozy even when she was with her mate.
But the natives of Motherlode had fixed all that. There wasn’t an inch of bare stone anywhere under her hooves now, and the plain walls had been carved into faux-arches and columns that almost reminded her of a palace. The blank lighting fixtures had been incorporated into handmade (well, hoofmade) metal fixtures.
“I don’t understand the point of all this,” she said to Deadlight, for perhaps the tenth time since arriving back home. “We were only away for a week. Where did they even find the time?”
Deadlight had far more duty shifts than she did—though still less than half what he’d been serving before the birth. Lucky had offered to remove him from rotation entirely, but neither of them wanted that. If the Storm King won, their world would be as ruined as everyone else’s. Even if Melody couldn’t help anymore, someone had to.
“They have nothing but time,” Deadlight said, taking baby Roman in his wings with great care and returning him to the crib. That, like everything else here, had obviously been made by hand and with great care. The imperfections in the fresh wood lent it far more character than a perfect recreation of some historical artifact could’ve done. “Think about it, they’ve been mining for their whole lives, and now you have machines for that. Now they train for a war… well, some of them do. The rest just supervise robots, trying to pretend like they’re working. A pony needs purpose. A few weeks of vacation is fantastic, but a few months is a prison.”
Melody settled back into the greatly-enhanced couch, resting her wing against Deadlight’s back. He was probably the most comfortable thing about this place, at least now that she’d recovered enough not to lounge about in hospital beds all the time.
She spared another glance for Roman, just to make sure that he would sleep soundly. But Deadlight knew what he was doing, and Roman was already wrapped securely. Whatever traces of strange intelligence she’d seen during the first night, they hadn’t been repeated since.
“I hope it counts for anything,” she finally said. “What we’re doing… we still don’t know how we’re going to get in and fight the Storm King. Hiding up here… it won’t help forever. Othar was underground, and it didn’t survive. Motherlode won’t either.”
Deadlight sat up a little straighter, looking away from her. Melody recognized that look instantly—the stallion was trying to hide something from her. And maybe he would’ve gotten away with it too, except for how long they’d been together. She could read him now, as easily as most languages. “What do you know?”
“We… do have an idea,” Deadlight said. “I didn’t want to worry you, but… I might as well tell you now.”
“Yes,” she agreed, lifting her head off his back and stiffening her wings a little. “Whatever you’ve been hiding… please. You know I deserve to know. For Roman. I won’t try to come with you.”
“Forerunner’s guess was right,” Deadlight said. “It’s the landing craft. They’re taking tons of cargo, and there aren’t any sensors aboard. Because… it’s going to the upper atmosphere. There’s no shielding on the lifting cranes, so… nopony would survive that trip.”
Melody leaned back, nodding to herself. “But that isn’t a problem for us. Space suits are impossible for ponies, but they’re simple for us.”
Deadlight nodded, though there was a little annoyance on his face. “Careful whose culture you call simple, Song. There’s always a bigger fish. Equus is bigger than all of us. But… yes. That’s the idea. Forerunner said something about Jonah. I didn’t catch the reference, but apparently it involves some contacts at a work-camp one of the Elements made. We’re going to help the whole place rebel, but after they get us aboard. Maybe… you could give me some context.”
“Jonah was a biblical prophet,” Melody began, and with each word found her audience became more confused. The words didn’t even seem to have direct translations into Eoch. “Nevermind. He was… a guy who got swallowed by a whale. According to the story, he was in its belly for three days before it spat him back up. It… probably means Forerunner is going to hide us in something.”
“Hide me in something,” Deadlight corrected. “You aren’t going to try and come along, remember? Roman needs you here. And I need you to be back with him, in case… well, in case something happens.”
“Psh.” Melody waved one wing through the air dismissively. But she couldn’t exactly argue what he’d said—she had promised. It was only her old self that wanted to come. Probably her clone would have that covered. “I dunno why that would matter even if I did go with you and get exploded right over space. If Lucky could come back, I can too. Both of us can. We’re as immortal as the Storm King, even if…” They hadn’t figured out a way to bring anyone back. It had to be out there, a simple matter of the right spell. Lucky even had a spell, but what they lacked was the energy to make it work. Forerunner had postulated that there were many methods, and that Discord had given them one specifically chosen to be non-reproducible outside of working for him. The longer they tried to get it to work again, the more likely that seemed.
“Death, sure,” Deadlight muttered. “But talk to Princess Luna about that. Or those ugly soldiers a few floors up.”
Melody lowered her wings in defeat. “Fine, fine. You win.” She settled back against his neck, breathing in his scent. Whatever traces of James might’ve been uncomfortable in this position were long gone now. She wanted nothing more than to be near Deadlight until she died. Which… might be a long time for both of them. “When is this happening?”
Deadlight shook his head. “Dunno yet. They don’t think we’ll be able to repeat it, so… probably we won’t get to send a crew in first. The whole strike team will have to move at the same time as the rebellions all over Equestria. Best guess… another month. They need a year, but I just don’t think we have it. Hopefully the Storm King’s goons don’t feel much like genocide once this starts.” But as he said that last, he didn’t sound even a little confident about it.
“Me too,” Melody whispered, rising again and making her way over to the crib. She levitated Roman out of it again, holding him against her chest. She didn’t want to let go.