//------------------------------// // And Karno was its Name... Oh... // Story: Cryo-7 // by Metal Pony Fan //------------------------------// "Thank you, Mr.Plane." Chief Cirrus glanced around the table. With the exception of one unconscious pony, her entire team was gathered. Their Mobile Command, an armored airtruck, similar to those used for cargo, sat in the cordoned off area in front of the clothing store. With the amount of damage inside, they wouldn't be reopening anytime today, and nopony could think of a better location. "Well?" The chief addressed her team as they sat around a map table. A stabilized cloud of ionized water was trapped in an electromagnetic field, and forced into the shape of the surrounding topography as the map was projected from below, giving color to the cloud's form. "What do you think? Given Mr. Plane's story, Miss Kettle's, and everything that has occurred involving Wingless Dawn so far, I feel we must consider the possibility." "I'm not sure I believe this nonsense about this supposed, 'alicorn,'" said the largest pony at the table. He was a unicorn, and built like a sumo wrestler. His green coat was speckled with darker, mossy flecks. "She's clearly a unicorn in her ID photo, don't you think somepony would have noticed wings?" "That's fine, Home Brew," the chief shrugged. "I'm not sure I believe it myself, but, unicorn with wings, pegasus with a horn, or just plain unicorn, she's still missing." "If you buy this colt's story," reminded Grey Hound, the older unicorn who happened upon the earlier argument between Redhoof and Miss Kettle. "I, for one see no issue with it. He is asking us to look for a pony with a warrant. We would be looking for her either way." Another unicorn raised her hoof from the far end of the table. She wasn't an official member of the response team, but the member of the motor pool who happened to be on duty when Cirrus placed the call for the Mobile Command Unit. She was stuck here until padlock protocol expired, but wasn't sure what her job was at the moment. It was a moment before Chief Cirrus noticed her. "Yes, Miss Chop? You're stuck here with us, please, don't be afraid to speak up." "Oh," the unicorn put her hoof down, and cleared her throat, "If I may ask, why would you enact padlock protocol over a missing pony?" She gestured to the small, but well-stocked armory locked behind a steel cage beside her. "It seems like overkill." "That brings me to the second part of the story." The chief sighed. "As Mr. Plane stated, he and his friend were asked to come here by the Chairman." "Or, so he claims," reminded Home Brew. "And, Miss Kettle confirmed," the chief offered as a counterpoint. "She claims to be the Chairman's secretary, and the estranged daughter of Black Pot." "Ah, damn," Grey Hound muttered under his breath, "should'a known them Wingless bastards were part of this. You've got a sore spot when it comes to them, Chief." "That's understating it, Grey." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, if Miss Kettle is to be believed, the Ground Guard attempted to procure a nuclear device from off-world." "Shit." Home Brew leaned forward. "Did they succeed?" "No," Chief Cirrus reassured him. "They obtained two alien devices, but they were cryogenic suspension chambers. If you remember, the Ground Guard was wiped out recently. Well, it seems that the chairman was behind it." "Nice!" Quick chop chuckled nervously, as ponies looked over at her. "Whether or not you agree with his policies, you've got to admit, the Chairman is pretty cool." "Yes, well, moving on," the Chief brought up a hologram to redirect the conversation back on point, "the chairman took possession of these chambers, and this was in one of them." Ponies watched as the hologram focused, forcefield shifting to let some cloud rise above the map to provide a matrix for the projected light. It formed a portrait of a young unicorn, one that everypony in the room, except for Astral, had seen before. "His niece? Dinky?" Quick Chop asked in disbelief. "No way!" "Apparently, not his niece," Grey Hound pointed out. "How long was the filly frozen? "According to Twilight," Astral offered, "these Cryo-chambers were sealed millenia ago. Then placed on seven ships, and sent out to populate the galaxy. One ship with thousands of these chambers went missing back then, and the chambers are just now starting to pop up across the galaxy." "Sounds like a matter for historians," Grey Hound said, leaning back. "Explains Catch taking an interest." The chief nodded, and manipulated the hologram, pulling up some recent news footage. "And, unless I'm mistaken..." Influential ponies from across Tirassa gathered for grand banquet in the mist above the table. The Chairman and Dinky sat at the head of a horseshoe shaped table, as a pegasi poured drinks for them. Dinky thanked the pegasus, and Chief Cirrus paused playback as she gave the server a hug. "That grey pegasus, the Chairman's personal housekeeper, is Dinky's mother, the pony from the second Cryo-chamber. She is currently missing." Quick Chop raised her hoof again. "That still doesn't explain the padlock command." The chief let the hologram play for a few seconds, then paused it again. She then zoomed in on the earth pony sitting closest to the Chairman. He was sneering in disgust at the filly. "Green Hoof. Lieutenant Red Hoof's father." She took a deep breath. "Miss Kettle says he's planning to assassinate the Chairman." "She's wrong!" Red groaned, rolling over on the floor. "My father is loyal to Tirassa." With a grunt he dragged himself to a first aid kit latched to the wall. His hooves fumbled sluggishly with the latch, eventually dumping it open, and spilling most of its contents on the floor. But he found what he needed, a small plastic ampule of electrolytes and stimulants, and shoved it in his mouth. He crushed it between his teeth, closing his eyes as the bitter, sugary solution filled his mouth. He let the solution tingle against his tongue for a moment before swallowing, breathing deeply as the fast acting medication washed away the stun fatigue syndrome. The chief was the first to speak. "Are you feeling alright, Red?" He slowly opened his eyes, fixing her in an angry glare. He spat out the empty ampule. "You shot me," he said quietly, "how do you think I feel?" "You weren't listening to me, Red," the Chief replied, just as quietly, "I had no choice." He stomped his hoof. "I wasn't listening, because it's absurd!" He shoved away from the first aid kit, spilling what little was still inside as he reached for the armory cage. Four ponies drew weapons on him as three different colors of magic held the cage door shut. He stared, angry and unblinking, at the door as his hoof rested on the handle. "I'm not that stupid," he growled. "I'm going to go speak with my father, and take care of this misunderstanding before it tears this city apart. I'll bring back the members of Wingless that he pardoned, because they're the ones that are behind this." "You're that sure of it?" Astral asked. The angry earth pony pointed his hoof at him. "Stay out of this, Outworlder!" He looked back at the chief. "My father does what he does for the good of Tirassa." Nopony noticed a second ampule of medicine being dragged across the floor in green magic. "Keeping daughters away from their mothers is one hell of a twisted good." She pushed herself up a little as she took the medicine, and wearily shook her head. "All because they were unicorns, born from a pegasus?" "It's better for them, isn't it?" Red shoved the armory door open, shattering two colors of aura. The last remaining color pushed back quickly, but Redhoof had retrieved a heavy hoof mounted blaster and secured it to his hoof before the door latched back shut. "They'll be raised by ponies who can understand and teach them magic. Any pegasus should want their kids to be better off than they are." "And a pegasus born to unicorn parents?" Miss Kettle asked as she leaned against the wall. Red didn't have an answer for that. He looked down, and focused himself on adjusting his weapon. "Agree with them, or not," Home Brew shrugged, "there are reasons for the way things are." "Stupid reasons," Miss Kettle scoffed, "vain, prideful, arrogant reasons. There's an entire galaxy out there, and we're stuck in a centuries old tribal war!" "You obviously feel very strongly about this." Red Hoof smacked his weapon to make sure it was strapped securely, then retrieved a heavier armored vest from a locker across from the armory. "Throwing my father, the mayor, under the hoverbus won't magically remove all opposition to the Chairman's views. A thousand years of pain isn't so easily forgotten, much less forgiven." He started towards the door, but Chief Cirrus stepped in his way. "Then, is every pegasus personally responsible for the horrors of the past? Those two brothers whose shop got destroyed? Did they personally starve and torture earth ponies? That filly you coaxed out of a tree last month? Did she whip a unicorn for trying to meddle with the clouds?" Red gave an angry snort. "Either shoot me again, or step out of my way." "No, Red." The chief shook her head. "I can understand your position, he is your father, but, if you're wrong-" "Then I need to find out for myself," the earth pony said quietly. Chief Cirrus clicked her hoof against his blaster. "With that?" "If he is involved, Wingless might be forcing him to help, I have to be ready for them." The chief nodded. It was just like Red to cling to hope when there was none. "Use the hoverbike, and take-" "You're letting him go?" Miss Kettle interrupted. "Did you ignore everything I said?" "It would be worse if I stopped him," the chief replied. "If you want to inform the Chairman, Quick Chop can set up a radio for you. The rest of us will focus on the missing ponies." She turned back to the table, switching the cloud hologram back to an overview of the city. Behind her, Red Hoof hurried out the door despite Miss Kettle's protests. "Let's start by examining the method of disappearance." Miss Kettle stalked over, and grabbed the Chief by the collar as the warbling thrum of a compact gravity drive revved to life. It rose to a peak, and quickly faded as the hoverbike it powered sped away from the command center. "I hope you know what you've done." "Refuse to keep a son from his father?" Cirrus asked without looking over. "Teleports," she told the team, "both incidents involve a two pony teleport. If we map the start and end locations, maybe we can see if the teleports were pulled off course somehow." "That's, um, not how it works," Grey Hound gingerly pointed out. "Teleportation doesn't behave in such a linear fashion. You step outside the normal fabric of space, and through the folds. There are no straight lines." "It's more like the equations for other than light travel, just much less powerful." Astral spoke up. He had never mastered teleporting, nor even managed it once, but he had studied it. Most faster than light travel relied on a similar mechanism. Which meant absolutely nothing to anypony unfamiliar with space travel. "You ever play Karno?" Astral asked quickly. "Think of it like that. You have a start, a goal, and the light in the middle is your traveler, needing to connect both locations." The chief nodded. "I think I understand, but extradimensional geometry was never a strong suit of mine. How do we plot, or even represent, travel outside of the fabric of space?" "I have a Karno simulator loaded..." Quick Chop trailed off, realizing she was enthusiastically volunteering info about a major policy violation. But, it was more important that they find the missing ponies. "In the nav computer." She rubbed the back of her neck. "Within a small enough distance, a teleport, or a slipstream jump, can be displayed within the normal three dimensions, and only be off by a small margin of error. Within the gravity well of a planet, you really only have shallow curves away from the straight line you would expect. Imagine the fabric of space as fabric draped towards the center of the planet. You have soft, predictable arcs. We could run a teleport simulation, and come up with possible vectors of shift off the straight line path, and see if there is an area of intersect between these vectors." "Get started," was all the chief could say. "I'm not going to be much help with this, I can tell that. But, keep me posted."