Rainbow Dash - 21st of Faust, 1st year of Harmony
749,567.83 A.H.
Sector 3 Terranite Mine - Sananda, Noctae Sector
Rainbow’s hoofsteps echoed seemingly endlessly with each step she took. When she had first entered the mine, she’d expected it to be a high tech place. An orderly series of square tunnels, flat floors, with lighted paths for workers and hover-carts to follow.
That was not remotely the case.
The Terranite Mine was rough cut. No laser drills were used to cut the path to minerals which reacted to laser light. They had been drilled, and roughly at that. The mine’s floor was uneven, it’s tunnels round, lumpy, more organic than artificial.
The mineshaft was cold, dark, and damp. The floor was covered in greasy oils and residue. Drill coolant and lubricant which had long since congealed or begun to decay. The only light came from the twin spot lamps on Penny’s chest, which were set to project red light. The Chernin’s choice may have helped maintain their night vision, but it turned the the uneasy atmosphere into a terrifying one.
It reminded Dash of the time her high school teacher had shrunk the whole class to explore an ant colony. A field trip which had not ended well at all.
Rainbow‘s wings twitched and rustled nervously as she and Penny walked through the mines, following the faint scratches in the tunnel floor. They walked in silence, both too exhausted to speak. The silence let Rainbow’s mind wander, and every faint scrape or click in the distance sent a fresh jolt of fear through her, be it echo or something more.
After nearly twenty minutes descending into the darkness, Rainbow could take the silence no more. The cyan mare turned her head and looked up at Penny, clearing her throat. “S— so uh… The people watching have to be bored, right? We’re not saying anything. Drones probably can't see us, just the rocks ahead.”
Penny shook her head, making her damaged armor creak. “Nyet. The drones can see us clearly. But… Da, we should talk.”
Penny commanded one of her drones to fly in front of her and offered it a wave. “Sorry, Comrades. I’m a bit pizdec… Blin that mech was over my weight class.”
Rainbow nodded and winced. “About that. You said you fought more dangerous things. Why was that such a problem?”
“It went right for me. The hidden observation post didn’t matter. Animals cannot see power signatures, you can hide from them. I ambush most prey I hunt. Most organic creatures cannot puncture my armor either. I’ve fought things that big, but only when I can surprise them. This one surprised me.”
Rainbow nodded and squinted through the darkness at the rocks ahead. “Makes sense… Luna, I wish I was a batpony!”
Penny hummed. “How many subspecies do you have anyways?”
Rainbow tilted her head in confusion, prompting Penny to say, “Variants. Of Pony.”
“Oh!” Rainbow thought for a moment then rattle dof f the full list. “Six. Unicorns, Pegasi, Earth Ponies, Sea Ponies, Bat ponies, and Alicorns.”
Penny nearly choked on her spit as a terrified look overtook her face. “Blin! You mean there’s a whole race of those god-tier psykers?!”
Rainbow’s ears twitched as she tried to understand Penny. “Oh! Uh, no. I mean, legends say there used to be, but there’s only three of them right now. Princess Luna, Princess, Celestia, and Princess Cadence.”
Penny shook her head slowly. “It’s little wonder they are your people’s nobles… Blin I still remember how Celestia teleported all of Pan’s stuff into a shuttle like it wasnt at least a ton and a few hundred meters.”
Rainbow snorted and waved a hoof. “That’s nothing! Twilight once teleported everypony in our group across town!”
Penny stopped walking. “Kakiye?”
Rainbow eeped and folded her legs, dropping down close to the ground, her tail standing up straight in alarm. “What? What is it!?”
Penny turned, her servos whining in protest, and took a deep breath. “You mean to tell me, your friend teleported at least three people what I imagine is around ten kilometers?”
Rainbow shook her head. “No.”
“Oh. Good. My brain almost exploded there,” Penny chuckled as she resumed walking down the tunnel.
Rainbow’s tail swished back and forth, slight anger boiling in her heart. Jerk! Making me nearly pee myself like that… You know what… “It was six of us, and she transported us from AJ’s farm to her library, which is about… Uh, sixteen kilometers?”
Penny nearly tripped over a loose rock in the tunnel. “She did what?!”
“You heard me,” Rainbow said with a smirk. “It’s funny how much that freaks you out. It’s just teleporting, she does it all the time. I swear she’s a bit chubby because she’ll just poof places instead of walking half the time.
“Now if you want crazy lots of magic, there’s the time Twilight tried to turn an orange into a frog.”
Penny closed her eyes for a long second. “She’s powerful enough to think she can turn a fruit into an animal?”
Rainbow smiled. “In her defense, she almost did. She got it about halfway.”
Penny shivered as the image of an orange with a frog’s skeleton and guts protruding from it and melded with the fruit’s flesh entered her mind. “Ugh!”
“Yeah, it was pretty gross,” Rainbow agreed with a flick of her wings. “It hopped just like the real thing.”
“Nyet!” Penny exclaimed, wheeling around to look Rainbow in her eyes. “You are joking! There is no way she did that. It’s not possible!”
Rainbow looked Penny dead in her eyes. “It is too possible! The minute we get her back from Nova Wing I’ll have her show you! Heck, that was five months ago. She can probably completely transform it by now!”
Penny rolled her eyes. “Want to bet?”
Rainbow smirked. “Yes, because you’ll lose.”
Penny snorted. “Ha! Okay, you’re on. A million credits says she can’t. I win, you do a million credits of work for me. That’s, oh, two years. I lose, I pay you a mill. Deal?”
Rainbow hold out her hoof. “Deal! You should just pay me now by the way.”
Penny reached out with her left arm then hesitated. “Uh, Blue? Smol problem, I can't feel how hard I am squeezing things. We have a deal, but I don’t want to break your hoof.”
Rainbow smiled. “Thanks…” Her mind suddenly turned to her mission. Bringing up Twilight reminded her of her missing friends, and how Penny had been effectively ordered home by her father.
“Uh, Penny?” Rainbow asked slowly.
“Mmm?”
Rainbow stopped walking and flapped her wings, flying up to Penny’s eye level. “So, about my mission… How long will going to Chern take? It’s already been a couple weeks since they kidnapped my friends. The trail is getting cold. What can we do?”
Penny frowned, realizing the urgency of the situation. “Well, we can talk to papa—”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Your dad is crazy! Why would he listen to me when I explain why I cannot visit right now?”
Penny tilted her head. “Ey?! Crazy? Blin, what makes you think that?”
“Oh, I don’t know… Maybe it’s because he was watching our stream and chatting on the phone while in a life or death battle to save a family member!” Rainbow exploded.
Penny snorted, then doubled over as she began to laugh.
Rainbow raised an eyebrow angrily. “What’s so funny?”
Penny sputtered as she tried to stop her laughter, slowly standing back up. “That was a business meeting.”
Rainbow blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Okay, so, Chern is… Different,” Penny said slowly. “You might like to do business by sitting at a table and talking till everyone is happy. For us, that’s boring. It’s also bad. Compromises is one thing, but businessmen can screw you and make you think you got a fair deal. We don't do negotiations. We fight instead.”
“Y— you kill each other over like, mergers and stuff?” Rainbow asked as a look of horror flashed across her face.
“Nyet. We use rubber bullets,” Penny answered. “Say you want my papa to sell your company, uh, targeting reticles at a good price. You come up with a price you think is fair, kidnap someone, which is most always cousin Anatoli, and leave note demanding the deal you want. If you can stop papa from getting Anatoli back, you get your deal, and return Anatoli. See?”
Rainbow blinked twice. “You… Its… Its a game?”
Penny nodded. “Da!”
“But— But he had a mech! And a building collapsed!”
“Da!” Penny said with a smile as memories of a few fun business deals flashed through her mind. “Good companies make arenas to negotiate in. Collapsible buildings you can reset later, fake landmines, mech access, artillery support. It’s more fun with good toys, da?”
Rainbow stared at Penny blankly.
Penny frowned. “What’s the matter? Don’t ponies have a combat based sport? Is like paintball, only without a t.”
Rainbow slowly shook her head as she drifted back to the ground. “You guys are weird.”
“Ha!” Penny snorted. “Says the girl who lives on a planet where you manually control the weather!”
A static crackle in Rainbow’s ear made her wince. Before Rainbow could say anything, Pan’s voice came over her comm. “Uh, Dash? The chat is going crazy. Please look into a camera and explain what’s going on with Twilight and everypony.”
Rainbow paused for half a second, wanting to slap herself for remembering that she was being watched and not everyone ‘present’ was up to speed. She blushed as a wave of embarrassment passed over her and turned to face one of the drones.
“Sorry, I uh, I probably should have talked about that earlier,” Rainbow admitted, her ears drooping. “So, a while ago, a couple weeks really. I was camping in the woods with my friends Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and AJ. We were back home. Nopony knew that all of you existed. We’re a primitive world… Though it doesn't feel nice to call us that. We don't have space flight but—”
Rainbow sighed and shook her head. “Ugh, nevermind… That’s not important. What is important is that when I went off to talk to Pan, who was working as a park ranger at the time, a ship I later learned to be a part of the Nova Wing abducted my friends.
“So… They’re out there somewhere,” Rainbow pointed up with her left hoof and looked down the tunnel distantly. “Pan… Pan and Penny were going to get him off world because he didn't like living on Equus. I hitched a ride, hoping to find them. Somehow.”
Penny cleared her throat. “We do have one lead, comrades. Blue got a little hurt, so I took her to a doctor on Tavros. They had her species medical data on file, thanks to the captain of a ship registered as the VOC Meermin. If any of you happen to know who owns it, please let us know.”
Rainbow sighed. “I didn’t think space would be so big… There’s got to be billions of ships, right? What are the odds one of your viewers knows that ship?”
Penny smiled behind her helmet. “The net can do some amazing things. Honestly, I should have had you ask them sooner… We should keep moving. Come. We’ll ask papa if he can help find them. He hates slavers as much as anyone.”
Rainbow nodded once and turned around, resuming her walk into the depths of the mine. She’s right. Maybe we’ll be lucky and someone watching is a dock worker or something and knows where that ship is docked right now.
A faint glimmer of hope ignited in Rainbow’s heart. Its warmth brought her enough courage to ignore the fear and worry swirling in her mind for the moment.
Little did Rainbow know, she was gravely underestimating the power of angry nerds with no real lives and nothing better to do then throw themselves at a noble cause.
Pandora - 749,567.83 A.H.
21st of Faust, 1st year of Harmony
Parking Orbit - Sananda, Noctae Sector
Back aboard the Dawn, Pan was frantically trying to keep an eye on the chat. Most people had left after the fight to gush about ponies or try and find transformatives to sell to the people in chat who seemed to truly want them. Those who still remained had gone from astonished at pony magic to genuinely furious.
Flunkgonfly16: Fucking Nova Wing! It’s like every time something extra shitty happens they did it! 😡
Proteamet: Who the hell would enslave little pony people?!
Magnificent: I know right? #heartlessmonsters
Ash19256: Please tell me someone's seen that ship. 😤
ConspiracyTeenz: I work at traffic control for Kilvainia. If I see that ship, I’ll report it.
djthomp: Guys? It’s worse than that. Nova Wing is well known for enslaving a whole planet if they are primitives.
Sprinkles: Don't just tell Blue, call Star League! 😥
Timuri: Oh, shit! Dj is right. I just looked it up. Those bastards are going to commit a full xenocide then sell off the survivors.
Bliconal: Wait, they do WHAT?!
djthomp: Look it up. They’ve turned 19 planets into dead worlds and enslaved the survivors. They do it any time they find primitives Star League can’t help.
Chatterbox: Oh shit they do! WTF! 😡
FourHappy: Blue knows she can call Star League about this, right? Fuck it, I’m calling them myself.
Pan(moderator): They can’t help, FourHappy. I looked into the law and since we’re from the K3 sector they aren’t allowed to help us. Only Blue and I are citizens, or even can be citizens. Star League can’t look for them legally. We’d have to have another crime for them to investigate.
Fishwife: That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard!
Ash19256: If they are native to the K3, it’s true. SL is a Federal organization. That means they have the strict “never interfere/go here” policy.
Railistr: It’s also a huge superstition. A lot of people think if we go there we'll piss off the First Race.
Proteamet: This is bullshit! I called just now and they told me there’s nothing they can do unless we know the ship is a pirate vessel for sure.
djthomp: I can confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that the brass will never let League pilots anywhere near the K3 or a hypothetical race native to it. There’s a real fear of starting a war we can’t win by poking our noses in there.
Bliconal: So Star League is useless. Great.
Manet: Guys? If the Wing enslaves ponies, we’ll never get the chance to meet one in person. If you check out their ODIN page, most of their slaves are sold off to people who will use them for cyborg parts.
Pan(moderator): Wait, what?! Uh, guys? We can’t let that happen to anypony. Twilight, and her friends are sort of national heroes. They have the unique ability to use an ancient relic as a group. It took a thousand years to find six ponies who could use the Elements of Harmony last time. If Nova Wing is going to attack our homeworld, we won't have a chance without the Elements. Please if anyone knows anything about that ship, tell me right now!
ConspiracyTeenz: I wish I could 😰
Timuri: If SL won’t help, I will. I’ve got enough footage of Blue to program an AI to check sensor data for ponies. Give me ten minutes and I’ll share the file. If everyone runs it we might be able to cover a quarter of the Arm’s security logs.
Proteamet: Um, it would have to hack into every security server in the Arm to do that.
Timuri: Yep. Trust me, I can get it done. It’s not the first time I’ve done something like this.
Ash19256: Guys? I have an idea. I have access to the scrapyard at work. If I had some credits and a few helpers, I could get a ship ready for use. If Timuri’s program works, we could rescue them ourselves.
Fishwife: How? People who buy slaves basically means big time criminal organizations and people rich enough to hire security guards and buy armies of security robots.Djthomp has created a new group: Rescue Team Alpha
djthomp: I’m ex-Star League. Count me in, Ash. Anyone else who wants to help, join in.
Proteamet: Guys? I know lots of us like to cosplay as old Chernin soldiers and collect military surplus, but it’s probably a bad idea to actually try and use that stuff against a mafia.
Timuri: My people have a saying; evil wins when good sleeps. I’m in. I’ve got a surplus store, everything works. I’ll bring my stock. Where are we meeting up?
FourHappy: Count me in. Adorible alien babus need help!
Sprinkles: #ImIn
Pussyfoot: #ImIn
RayneLuna: Anyone who doesn't help Blue is officially a monster. #ImIn.
Ash19256: Guys! The CNS Chebureki is up for scrapping! We need to save it. Not just for Blue, but for history!
Fishwife: Wait, we can save ponies on the Chebureki?! I’m in. How much is it for sale for? What will it cost to get it working?
Proteamet: Are you seriously doing this?!
FuzzyLittle: Buck yeah, we’re doing this! Ash found us a dreadnaught. #ImIn
Ash19256: Everyone interested, jump in the private chat. We need to raise sixteen million to save her. I’m hoping on the net now. Blue’s fight went viral. We can get the money in no time!
Proteamet: What do you expect us to do? Chip in all of our NET bucks and buy a broken battleship?
djthomp: *dreadnaught.
Ash19256 has linked an image.
Sprinkles: 😍 Its guns got guns!
Life Beat: I could help make the systems perform a bit better, and design replacements. Refitting a ship is hard work, but if we can get a few hundred of us together we can probably get her working in a few days.
FuzzyLittle: That’s exactly what I just did. Someone can get me a ticket, right? #NoRegrets #FinalyDidSomethingThatMattered
djthomp: I have my old dropship. I’ll pickup anyone who needs a ride.
Life Beat: I have an idea, but we’ll need to give her more Slav...
Pan looked away from the screen and cleared his throat to get Jo’s attention. “So uh, what is the CNS Chebureki? Because they seem to be buying it to help us.”
Jo quickly linked up to the ship’s systems, ran a network search, then laughed. “It’s a nice gesture, that’s what it is,” Jo answered. “The Chebureki is a two hundred year old Chernin dreadnaught that was retired after being blown halfway to hell holding the line over Kerivis during the last days of the…”
Jo trailed off and frowned. “Huh, that’s a bit ironic.”
Pan tilted his head. “What is?”
“The ship’s last battle was against a Nova Wing force which was attempting to unify their scattered fleet and return to being a steeler nation,” Jo summarized. “It fought for two straight weeks, taking out seventeen other ships of its own class before being crippled. The stories say the crew put on vac suits and fired heavy weapons from the deck to continue taking down fighters until the battle was over. Interesting history, but there’s no way Penny has enough fans to repair and then crew a two kilometer dreadnaught.”
Little did Jo know, she was gravely underestimating the power of angry nerds with no real lives and nothing better to do then throw themselves at a noble cause.
Rainbow Dash - 21st of Faust, 1st year of Harmony
749,567.95 A.H.
Sector 3 Terranite Mine - Sananda, Noctae Sector
The deeper Rainbow went in the mine, the worse she felt. The air felt charged, not with any tangible energy, but with the vague ‘negative waves’ she’d heard ponies talk about from time to time.
I always thought those ponies were hippies, or into alternative arcana. Dash thought as she nervously rounded a corner. But it’s something real, isn’t it? Something horrible happened here. I can feel it in my wings.
Penny had gone quiet again, not from fatigue, but from a similar foreboding terror. She moved as quietly as her damaged armor would allow, peeked around the corner and pointed down the tunnel ahead at a fork to the left side.
“Blue, that’s where the marker is,” Penny informed.
Rainbow nodded slowly. “Okay… So… If there’s another one, do we run?”
“Nyet,” Penny said with a tremor in her voice. “It knew where I was without looking. It was faster than me. If there’s another, we die.”
Rainbow winced and took a deep breath. “Surprised you didn’t quit.”
“Chernin don't quit.”
Rainbow smiled and shook her head. “Neither does Rainbow Dash… If we can’t outrun it, and we can't hide, we might as well get it over with and run in.”
Penny gulped, took a deep breath, and nodded. “Da. Let’s go.”
Rainbow braced her hind legs and flared her wings. Every last instinct she had told her that going through that tunnel was a horrible idea. But at the same time she knew it had to be done.
“On three?” Rainbow asked.
Penny shook her head. “Nyet. Now.”
The Chernin woman took off at a jog, her damaged suit moving as quickly as it’s servos and hydros could propel her. Rainbow trotted along at her side, not needing to run to keep up.
The two crossed the uneven tunnel to the side passage in a matter of moments. Penny turned, shining her armor’s headlights down the passage. The light traveled a mere twenty meters before it fell upon the end of the tunnel, which was marked with a gaping hole broken through the stone, which looked into what appeared to be a massive geode.
The geode was filled with bright blue crystals. They were truly massive, some as large as a pony, others were much bigger. All of them seemed to shine with an inner light, not quite glowing, but clearly containing some form of energy.
Penny took a deep breath and began walking towards the open passage. “Blue, that is a lot of Terranite… Please be careful. No lightning. You’ll set it off.”
Rainbow looked at the crystals and shook her head, trying to process what she was seeing. “Uh, no I won't. I’ll just charge it up. That’s manicite.”
Penny stopped by the entrance into the geode and turned around, squatting down to look at Rainbow through her visor’s slit. “Blue, you mean to tell me your homeworld has Terranite on it?”
Rainbow trotted forward and stepped into the manicite geode. Penny winced as the pony's hooves licked against the crystal, only for nothing to happen. “Have it? My friend Pinkie’s family grows it! It’s great for storing mana. We use it like batteries for magic items. There’s a piece of it in my saddlebags to keep the spatial fold going without a unicorn to charge it.”
Penny sputtered. “You can synthesize Terranite?! Blin! Did you just say this stuff is on my ship? It could explode!”
Rainbow laughed. “It won't explode! Watch.”
The mare drew back her hoof and slammed it into the crystal below her while pushing a portion of her magic into the crystal. The massive spire of blue crystal brightened, going from seeming to almost glow, to genuinely glowing. “See? The worst that happens is it glows a bit.”
Penny moved, carefully leaning into the hole to inspect the crystal. “It’s stable… But how? Nyet! Forget that, how do you make it stable?! We could be the wealthiest people in the galaxy, Blue!”
Rainbow shrugged her wings. “I don’t know, I’m not an Earth Pony. Ask Pinkie when we save her, her family grows it. Oh! Bat ponies dig it up all over the place too! Usually near arcanite veins, which is basically the same but better somehow… I don’t know I’m not a mage,” Rainbow said as she began to look around the geode. “The only profit in growing it is you can grow it to specifications… I’m not seeing any more death-robot-monsters.”
“Why is your world so… Rich?” Penny asked as she slowly climbed into the geode. “It doesn't make sense. It can't be like it is naturally.”
Rainbow shrugged her wings. “It’s always been like— Eeep!”
Rainbow’s hoof pointed straight at a large pile of scrap metal and electronics deeper in the crystal which had been hidden by shadow until the crystal she had been standing on had been lit.
Penny wheeled around, instinctively activating her armor weapons, then deactivating them as she remembered she was standing inside enough fuel to power the Arm for a year. She squinted at the pile of scrap and frowned. “That looks like a nest.”
Rainbow nodded. “We… Need to check it out, don’t we?”
Penny sighed. “We do.”
Rainbow winced as her comm crackled in her ear. “Uh, Dash? Penny? Hello?”
Penny frowned and switched her comm on with a quick thought. “Da? What is it?”
Pan sighed in relief. “Oh good! The drone's feed went dark.”
“It’s the security program,” Penny replied calmly. “For preventing the universe from seeing what’s in the mine. We walked into a big deposit. Tell them ‘Everything is cheeki breeki’, and they will believe you.”
“Okay… Just, be safe hon, okay?” Pan begged.
Penny sighed. “Too late for that…” Penny hung up her comm with a thought and carefully took a step towards the scrap-nest. “Okay, Blue, lets make sure that nest is empty. Then we go back to the Dawn. Call Papa. Find your friends. Never think about that monster again.”
Rainbow nodded and spread her wings, deciding to make this quick. “I’m going to fly over it, wait here.”
Penny smiled. “I like this plan. I’m happy to be a part of it!”
Rainbow took a deep breath to calm herself and pushed off from the ground. The air in the geode was oddly thick, and her wings bit into it with more force than she was expecting. It only took her a few flaps to glide into position over the nest, which wasn’t remotely enough time to overcome the building sense of terror in her heart.
Rainbow gulped, turned around to circle over the nest, flew for a few seconds then looked down. Her eyes widened as the first thing she saw was the nest had been built around a titanic skeleton.
The bones could have belonged to an elder dragon, or another creature of comparable size, but Rainbow kenw they did not. First, the things horns curved downwards pointing towards its flat mouth, and curled like a ram’s horns. Second, this thing walked on two legs, despite the huge wing bones and dragon-like claws. Third, its talons were wrapped around the haft of an axe the size of a dining table.
“Woah!” Rainbow exclaimed. She dropped into a hover and waved towards Penny. “It’s safe! It’s just bones. Come check them out. This thing was huge!”
Penny froze. “Fresh bones?”
Rainbow squinted into the darkness, inspecting them. The bones didn’t have the sheen of recently picked clean bone. They seemed older, almost stone like. Perhaps even petrified, though she knew that couldn't happen in these conditions.
“No, it’s been dead for a long time.”
Penny hummed. “Okay, I’ll take a look.”
Rainbow corkscrewed her way towards the crystal floor, searching for a safe place to land. As she peered into the darkness, something moved.
Rainbow yelped and flapped hard, ascending back into the air. Penny shouted something and ran forward as fast as she could. The light from her suit shown through a gap in the nest’s wall and illuminated a small boxy robot as it silently hovered across the crystal floor, carrying a large piece of metal towards the skeleton.
Rainbow laughed nervously and turned towards penny. “It’s okay! Just one of the mining robots they lost.”
“They went bezerk, da? Careful it doesn't mine you.”
Rainbow gulped and turned to try and see where the robot had gone. The mining robot hadn’t moved far, it stopped by a large yellow metal box embedded in the crystal beneath the skeleton. Rainbow tilted her head curiously as she tried to see what the box was, but was suddenly blinded as the mining robot began to weld the scrap metal it had collected to the box in an attempt to patch a hole in it.
Rainbow looked away from the retina burning light, wincing from the brightness, and then saw the rest of the space beneath the huge skeleton. The titan had died and fallen forward upon what appeared to be a massive, four legged spider-like mech.
It had four legs which were large, rectangular, and seemed to be mostly armored plate. The central body was shape like an octahedron, but with rounded edges and corners. An obvious weapon turret sat atop the central body, but had been crushed flat when the titan had fallen stop it.
The only other notable feature on the half buried mech was a cockpit. It sat on the side facing Dash and gave her the chills for the simple reason of appearing to be a steel coffin embedded in the mech in such a way where it protruded just enough to be distinct.
Time had worn away the paint, leaving mostly bear metal, but Dash could tell the coffin-cockpit had once been elaborately decorated, and beneath a tiny slit-like window, right where the occupants eyes would be, the flecks of paint were arranged in a way which hinted at a name having been painted on the lid-door.
Rainbow froze as an intense wave of sadness flooded through her, pushing her fear aside. The titan had slain this mech, and that was a very bad thing. Rainbow had no idea why she knew that, but she did. She knew it with the same certainty that she knew she could fly.
Why? What is this thing? No, who was it. This was a person… But how do I know that?
Rainbow stood stock still, staring at the fallen mech so intently she didn’t notice Penny as the armored woman stomped up next to her.
Penny approached Rainbow slowly, her nerves twitching as she feared something had silently killed her friend and propped up her corpse. “Blue? Hello? Blue? Are you okay? If you don't say anything I am going to carry you— Woah!”
Penny’s exclamation shook Rainbow out of her stunned trance. “Aaah! I— Oh, it’s you… Sorry it’s just that… Something about that robot. It makes me feel—”
“Afraid?” Penny asked with an understanding nod.
“No,” Rainbow said, shaking her head as she slowly trotted towards the mech’s cockpit. “Sad.”
Penny bit her lip. “Rainbow, leave it alone. We’ve fought one mech today. Let’s not make it two.”
Rainbow shook her head. “I can’t. I have to read the name on the lid.”
Penny raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“I don’t know. But I have to…”
Penny took a step forward and began emergency diagnostics of her hand-servos, desperately hoping to get the pressure sensors working so she could grab Rainbow. “Rainbow. Snap out of it!”
Rainbow looked over her shoulder at Penny. “I figured it out,” she said as she came to understand what had come over her. “I need to remember their name. They died, and were forgotten, and that’s not okay.”
Penny frowned and quickly ran a spectrum wide scan for psionic activity. The results came back almost instantly a very faint arcane link had formed between Rainbow and a dim something within the Mech. “Rainbow! Stop! It’s influencing you!”
Rainbow nodded, now fully aware of the faint touch on her mind by an arcane power. However, something deep within her, something she could tell was not the magic present within the machine before her, told her it was okay, and she would be fine. “I know. She wants me to remember her.”
Penny frowned. “What?”
Rainbow walked up to the lid and squinted at the paint, trying to read the name. Her eyes strained as she tried to find the pattern in the worn flecks of paint and faint engraving lines. Unfortunately it was too dark.
Rainbow looked over her shoulder at Penny. “Can you move a bit closer? It’s too dark.”
Penny shuffled her feet for a moment, nervously debating what to do before stepping forward with a sigh.
“Thanks,” Rainbow said and returned to trying to read the ancient name plate.
With the added light, her eyes were able to trace the pattern the paint had once made. The magical bond gave the shapes meaning. “Her name was Sara Jonett,” Rainbow said with certainty. “She was a hero. She fought the titans, and died. Not here, somewhere else. She was buried in this mech so she could continue to fight. She died again protecting… This place. Whatever it was… A house? Oh! She’s saying a gatehouse. Or maybe gateway? I don’t know.”
Penny frowned. “How do you know that?”
Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t know? She must have told me.”
“And that’s not terrifying? Are ghosts normal on your world too?”
Rainbow smiled and shook her head. “No… It’s just, I feel like what happened was normal. I don’t know why, but like, it was all instinct. I had to read the name, she had to be remembered, so her remains told me her name.”
Penny shivered. “Must be because you grew up on a magical world. I’m beyond spooked, we need to go. Please.”
Rainbow nodded once. “We can go now. Sorry. I just… I had to do that.” Rainbow took another step forward and touched the coffin gently. “I’ll remember you, it’s okay.”
A light flickered in front of Rainbow, making her jump nearly a foot in the air. Penny yelped and activated her suit’s lasers, ready to fire at anything that moved. The flickering light came from a mining drone.
The drone had climbed up onto the downed mech, and the light was from it slowly warming up its holo projector.
Rainbow and Penny took a few steps back, not sure what would happen. Rainbow spread her wings, getting ready to fly. Penny sent emergency power to her armor’s servos, making them hum loudly.
The projector flicked on. Bright blue light formed the shape of a human woman’s face. The face remained completely still as a sexless robotic voice spoke. “Homo Equus genome detected. Hello, Battle-Sister. Please, carry my operator’s final words home to Terra.”
“This thing is human made?” Penny’s eyes widened. “Wait, it recognised you!”
“Shhh!” Rainbow hissed. “It’s talking!”
The holographic face jumped to life, immediately taking on the look of someone in great pain as it spoke. “Computer: Do everything possible to get this message to Terra. The humans in the other reality broke something in the tunnel. The gate on our side is flooding with hostile lifforms. I am dying. They need to get a ship... out here... Close it… they want to wipe us out… because… gate...”
The holographic projection slumped forward, flattened slightly as if it hit something and grew still. The sexless voice resumed. “Message delivered to more fit agent. This unit is now aborting self-repair procedures…. Surrendering control of xeno-machines… Shutting down psi-field… Shutting down life support systems… It is now safe to shut down your Dragoon.”
The hologram flickered and died. The mining drone beeped loudly, signaling every organic nearby that it detected it was not where it was supposed to be and required a map-update.
Rainbow fluttered her wings awkwardly. “Sooo what do you think it meant by sister?”
Penny bit her lip. “Dooo you know your species evolutionary history?”
Rainbow shook her head. “No, not really. I didn’t take paleopony history.”
“Well, this thing identified your genome. This ancient first race robot referred to you using the First Race’s formal name for themselves. I think they made your species.”
“That’s red—” Rainbow snorted and waved a hoof, then paused. “No… Not it’s not. There’s no other explanation. I know what a genome is. It could read mine. There's no way two of those will be the same by chance!”
Penny nodded. “Da… We know the first race made many of the species in the galaxy. But your ancestors existed alongside them. That… I want to go back to your homeworld someday. Something amazing has to be there.”
Rainbow stood up and nodded. “We’ll go back when we have my friends.
Penny took a step forward and took a long look at the now inactive mech. “Da! For now, let’s figure out what we tell our employer… Ancient First Race AI. The miners must have activated it when they broke into this geode.”
Rainbow frowned. “What about the mech we fought?”
Penny gestured to the scrap around them. “It was collecting the scrap for this AI. The AI was controlling it. Or at least giving it instructions. As for where it came from… Probably wherever that huge dead demon-looking thing came from. Blin, certainly was evil enough...
“It was a machine too. It was sitting here in a huge geode full of fuel. Probably survived the ages in hibernation. Woke up with the AI, was hacked into trying to fix it so the AI could deliver it’s operator’s message.”
Penny turned to look Rainbow in the eye. “We won't learn more without searching for the gate and tunnel your uh, comrade mentioned. Do you really want to risk running into something like that?” Penny pointed to the massive skeleton above them.
Rainbow didn’t even hesitate with her answer. “HA! Nope!”
Penny nodded then sighed wearily. “Then we are out of here. The AI is off now. We solved the problem. We can get paid and get out of here! Let’s go visit my dad and see if he will help with our friends.”
Rainbow paused and bit her lip. “What about checking their base here? Or the bars like we planned?”
Penny groaned and facepalmed. “I’m sorry. I forgot. I did almost die today. Blin… We will do that before we go. Please, let’s get out of here. I still have goosebumps.”
“Yeah… Let’s get out of here,” Rainbow agreed with a shiver.
Penny turned and walked away, heading towards the geode’s exit. Rainbow began to follow her with a moment’s hesitation. She felt like she was leaving behind something important. Not just to her, but to all of Ponykind.
She wanted to stay and see if the ancient mech could tell her more, but… The bones. The titan’s bones above her. They were wrong. She understood that now. They were her source of the gut feelings she was having. She shouldn’t stay here. It wasn’t safe.
“Blue! Hurry up!” Penny called loudly.
Rainbow walked away from the mech, heading for Penny. Then she saw it. A single pony skeleton, almost entirely embedded in the crystal which made up the floor. It was a pegasus, like her. She could see the wing bones very clearly.
The skeleton had scraps of a metallic cloth jumpsuit wrapped around it, and a lone hoof protruded from the crystal. The skeleton wore a small, elegant bracer which seemed to be halfway between jewelry and utility on the protruding hoof. The ancient piece of technology glimmered in the dim light, its silver body and arcane looking copper inlay somehow untarnished. The glittering manacite stone set in the bracelet glowing very dimly.
The pegasus had been killed, and landed on its back, as if it had been swatted out of the air. Rainbow’s eyes widened in terror. The scraps of fabric looked like they had once been a uniform.
If that pony had a uniform on, and that AI called me a Battle-Sister… Rainbow gulped, unable to shake the feeling that she was standing on a mass grave of her people.
I need to go. Now! Rainbow decided. But… Not without something for a mage to examine. Our history isn’t what we think it is. We need to know that really happened!
Rainbow gently reached out, slipped the ancient piece of technology off of the dead pony’s bones, tucked it into her saddlebags, and flew after Penny.
Maybe Twilight can figure this out after I rescue her.
