Chapter 4
‘Tia! Pay attention!’ Luna said, nudging her sister. The royal unicorn sisters sat on the observation deck of the royal airship as it glided softly and gently towards the docking tether. Celestia looked down towards the ground as they passed over a settlement.
‘Is that Dream Valley?’ Celestia asked.
‘Huh?’ Luna said as she looked down at the settlement below. ‘Oh yeah, them. The reactionaries threw a fit when they heard that our flight plan was going to take us over their settlement. “We don’t want no hydrogen blimp over our town!” Can you believe that? The nerve of them and it’s called a zeppelin! There’s a difference’.
Celestia couldn’t help but smirk. That was her sister all right, ranting about the ignorance of others. Though to be perfectly honest, Celestia didn’t know what the difference was either, and she knew better than to ask. If she did, Luna would rant from now until the end of the flight about how the airship was rigid... or something.
Celestia looked out the window, and discovered that there was a white coated Pegasus mare sitting on a cloud, watching as the airship went by. Celestia’s eyes met hers, and the Pegasus mare waved to her. Celestia waved back, feeling more than a little silly and turned and looked away.
The airship approached a docking tether some 50 or so kilometres away, it closed the gap and soon enough, the airship was hooked into the tether, and the automatic systems began to pull in the boarding ramp to the airship.
Celestia and Luna walked towards the gangplank where they met their mother and father and walked off the airship and onto the platform.
Queen Gaia was quite possibly, the largest pony that any would ever encounter, standing at nearly four hundred centimetres, the pure white Alicorn with a flowing multicoloured mane. Celestia was clearly her daughter, and the resemblance between the two was uncanny. Celestia would look nearly identical to her mother in a few thousand years time.
Emerald Sparkle was standing on the gangplank, waiting for the royal family to arrive and giving them a smile. She was clad in her eyeglasses and wearing a white lab coat as required of the members of the project.
‘I’m so glad you all could make it’, Emerald said happily. Celestia couldn’t help but notice that Emerald was struggling to keep a smile on her face.
‘We wouldn’t miss it for the world!’ Gaia said her deep, regal voice. ‘This is quite the occasion, after all’.
‘It’s this way! Come with me!’ Emerald said with a sort of fake enthusiasm. Celestia could tell that something wasn’t right.
Queen Gaia, King Aether and Luna walked ahead, while Celestia lagged behind to speak to Emerald Sparkle about what was going on.
‘Emerald? Is everything all right?’ Celestia asked.
Emerald Sparkle’s head shot up in surprise. ‘What?! Of... of course they are!’ she said unconvincingly, causing a look of anger to appear on Celestia face. Emerald was lying to her; she couldn’t stand it when ponies lied to her, especially when they were practically family.
‘You’re lying, Emerald. What is going on?’ Celestia asked firmly.
Emerald Sparkle caved. ‘I... I found out that I was pregnant this morning’, she said softly.
‘Oh!’ Celestia exclaimed, she didn’t know what she had been expecting, but it was certainly not this. ‘Congratulations! ... I didn’t even know you were seeing anypony’.
Emerald Sparkle shook her head. ‘I’m not’.
‘Then... oh, Emerald... I...’ Celestia began, but was quickly interrupted.
‘Celestia? Please, I can’t deal with this right now, I’m sorry, but can we talk about this later?’
‘You’re not thinking about... are you?’ Celestia asked.
‘Please, not right now, the project is what’s important right now’, Emerald said quietly. ‘We can talk later’.
Celestia finally gave in; she nodded her head in agreement. If that was Emerald Sparkle’s wish, then she would have to respect that.
Emerald and Celestia caught up with the rest of the royal family, and continued over to an elevator which took them out of the docking tether and down to ground level. Emerald led the way to the testing site. The outdoor complex was a maze of trenches that had been dug for the occasion.
At the far end of trenches, was the actual bomb itself, was being rolled of the bunkers of the development facility on a sort of motorised tracked trolley. Emerald showed the royal family to seats where they could watch the demonstration from safety.
Queen Gaia, however, approached the bomb. She was curious and took a closer look at the construction.
‘How does it work?’ Queen Gaia asked.
‘Oh, it’s quite simple; really, there is a piece of fissile material at both ends of the bomb, to detonate the weapon, the piece in back is shot at the one in front, when they hit... boom’, said one of the research ponies, a black coated earth pony with an equally black mane. His amber eyes light up with excitement.
‘Oh, thank you... your name is?’ Gaia asked.
‘Cromwell, your majesty, Oberlander Cromwell’, the pony said with a smile. ‘You should take your seat, your majesty, we’ll begin the test soon enough.’
Queen Gaia nodded in understanding, and returned to her seat. She watched as Oberlander Cromwell, worked the tracked trolley and pulled the bomb up out of the trenches. It sped down the range where it was loaded onto the back of a Ute and driven off to a safe distance down range.
After about an hour, Cromwell and the Ute drivers returned, and a voice began to speak over loudspeakers. It was time for the test.
‘Best not to look directly at it when it goes off’, Emerald Sparkle said. ‘It’s going to be bright’.
The bomb exploded, a column of fire burst into the air, forming into the shape of a mushroom and sending a shockwave that kicked up dirt and tossed it into the air.
...
Life in Dream Valley was a quiet one, so it was not surprising that everyone began to panic when every window and glass object in the town shattered simultaneously for seemingly no reason whatsoever.
...
The dust began to clear over the test site, and everyone looked up over the trenches down the range to where the bomb had been detonated at. There was a large crater that was visible, along with the charred remains of many of the Hoofson Bay Area’s maple and evergreen trees. The test had been more than successful.
Emerald Sparkle became legitimately excited, the years of theory and designing had payed off. Now she could begin adapting this concept to civil power, the generation of electricity.
Princess Celestia, however, was the only one who was not impressed, or excited, in the slightest. Rather, she was mortified. So much destruction... how could anything positive come from that?
And Emerald Sparkle wanted to use this concept to generate electricity for ponies? If the process was going to be anything like that, then better to have them in the dark!
‘Your majesty! The airship!’ Oberlander Cromwell cried out, pointing a hoof at the docking tether. The shock wave had pulled it free from its mooring, and the wind was pushing the hydrogen zeppelin up and towards the test site.
Queen Gaia looked up and discovered what was going on. That was something of a problem, as everypony were not able to go after it. With the exception of Oberlander Cromwell, all of the researchers were unicorns, as were the royal family with the exception of the King and Queen.
‘I can get it’, Gaia said spreading her wings and leapt into the air.
Queen Gaia was a different kind of ruler than most, she preferred to do many things herself, and as a result, the royal household had few servants. Gaia flew up towards the airship, the strong northern winds had pushed the airship over the test site, and unbeknownst to the queen, into the heavily irradiated air. She bit down on the steel cables dangling from the mooring rings on the front of the zeppelin and began to pull it back to the docking tether.
‘That’s the queen for you’, Emerald Sparkle said. ‘She loves to get her hooves dirty’.
...
The sun began to shine directly into Celestia’s bedroom. It was morning, Celestia didn’t know when she had fallen asleep, but she must have slept right through the night. She pulled herself out of bed and went over to the window.
She looked out over Canterlot, and down on the city, she could see the tiny dots of her subjects going about their business even in the early morning. Celestia wondered how many of them thought that she raised the sun each day, and how many of them dismissed the idea as preposterous. Stories told of Celestia and Luna raising the sun at the beginning of each day and the beginning of each night. Though Celestia figured that there had to be some ponies that figured that these were just that, stories.
Celestia ended the line of thought, she needed to get ready for the day, and she couldn’t really keep the foreign leaders waiting.
Well, she could, but then Luna would have her head.