The doors of the lab opened at exactly 8:00 A.M. Satyrn nudged Vylet awake and they made plans to meet up with Sylver just before curfew to sneak out and explore the cave. Vylet started to voice second thoughts about the plan after Rayna suggested that another swarm could attack as a result of their poking around, but Satyrn convinced him that they could just fall back to the ship, and that things would end up it like it did in the first attack.
There was a knock.
Sylver looked up from his bed towards his door.
“Uh…” he struggled to make himself conscious enough to make sense, “don’t come in I have…” he trailed off. “I have…”
Another knock came.
“Plants… PLANTS,” Sylver jolted awake and leapt out of bed. The starship’s residential policies included not growing anything outside a lab. Beneath Sylver’s bed, rows of coffee beans were endeavoring to sprout, which he had realized, aloud, that they could compromise his qualifications to stay in a captain's’ quarters suite, which was a type of room for high ranking officials.
The knocking continued.
“JUST A MINUTE!” Sylver shouted, frantically covering his various seedlings. Once he had succeeded in doing so, he opened the door. Satyrn stared back through the doorway.
“Oh, it’s just you,” Sylver exhaled.
“Just me?” Satyrn looked hurt.
“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Well, then how did you mean it?”
Sylver stood there hesitantly.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Satyrn laughed and hugged him.
“I’m just kidding,” she assured him. Sylver laughed nervously, but with subtle relief.
“You want me to… what?” Sylver’s tone was bewildered.
“I need you to help Vylet and me sneak out after curfew,” Satyrn repeated. She had explained to Sylver what she and Vylet had discussed during their experiments and what their findings were. Hearing these things concerned Sylver immensely, as he was a particularly high trusted official to Celestia. He was essentially being asked to betray that position.
Sylver sighed in reflection, “I don’t know if I can help you.”
“But—” Satyrn blurted.
“I don’t doubt you, or Rayna, or whatever, and maybe you’re onto something, but my honour and loyalty is with the royal family.”
A bleep came from a cabinet at the foot of Sylver’s bed. Sylver’s horn started glowing and a coffee maker flew out of the cabinet alongside a mug. He willed the coffee to pour into the mug, nonchalantly.
“Don’t you find these circumstances suspicious?” Satyrn implored.
“Yes. I do, but what am I to make of it? What if Celestia is just protecting us?” Sylver rebutted.
“Or what if she’s protecting herself?” Satyrn suggested.
Sylver placed his mug on his desk. He stood and turned to Satyrn.
“You’ve been long affiliated with the royal family yourself, ever since you moved to Ponyville. This vigilante persona you’ve taken on is completely unlike you, no matter how much of a hero you’ve been to Equestria,” Sylver said.
“Do you think I want to believe any of this too?” Satyrn raised her voice, startling Sylver, “I’ve grown up with classes and books about friendship and magic as the center of Equestrian culture. History tells me that in centuries past, Equestria’s problems were solved with friendship and teamwork. Where is that?”
Sylver was silent. Satyrn continued. “The dark ages of Equestria, when Discord reigned, that’s when chaos and warfare were the answers to everything. Sure, maybe friendship can’t solve an economic crisis, but surely you don’t mean to tell me that the Princess was always like this. I only know what I’ve been told.”
As Satyrn paused, the room became hauntingly silent. Sylver hung his head and hovered the coffee maker back into the cabinet. He looked at Satyrn intently.
“No. She hasn’t. I remember when we relied on the Elements of Harmony. No killing, no wars. I mean, Twilight is the Princess of Friendship. Celestia gave her that title,” Sylver replied.
Satyrn nodded. “I should ask you, do you know where the changelings came from?”
“They transformed when Starlight—” Sylver was interrupted.
“Before that. Where did they come from?” Satyrn’s tone was coarse.
Sylver sat at his desk and rummaged through his thoughts. After a few moments of silence, he looked back up at Satyrn, conceding an answer. “We read through the history texts last night. Ponies, and griffins, and dragons.. We know they all evolved from somewhere. There’s no evolutionary data for changelings,” Satyrn noted, “out of every place we could have made first contact in the entire universe, why do we land on some cryptically barren asteroid with changelings?”
Sylver raised his eyes. It was of the ridiculous notion and concept of blind honour that many have toiled for eternities for an authority that holds no compassion or ethic for the laborers in their control. Though treachery retains the stigma it had been conceived amidst, it is in the most patriotic of revolutions that those who fight in just are persecuted as the villains of the story. This is, perhaps, the thought that occured in Sylver’s mind, as a paradigm shift came about thoughts he expressed further.
“You’re asking me to become a traitor for your cause,” said Sylver.
“My cause? I just want to figure out what the hell is going on,” Satyrn retorted.
“Alright, then.”
“Alright?”
“I’ll help you two through the lower decks. I’ll meet you at 23:30, but I’ll need you to stay on comm. I’ll try to assess and assist from my room.”
Satyrn’s mouth had hung open. Her eyes wandered as she considered what there was to say.
“Right now, what you have is a hunch. This is how much I trust you, kid,” Sylver reinforced.
“Thank you,” Satyrn’s voice was sincere.
Sylver got up and trotted over to his bed and lifted the sheets to reveal the coffee beans underneath.
“I’m already kind of a traitor anyway,” Sylver said.
They chuckled together at the beginnings of two varieties of infidelity: the movement to uncover the secrets that they suspected Celestia to be keeping, and the act of criminal botany, related to the growth of coffee beans and tea leaves.
A normal afternoon in the ship was a busy afternoon. Engineers scuttled about the hangars, marines marched up and down the corridors, and astronomers chattered about in the observatory. During the day, the ship was like a miniature city (and was occupied by more ponies than there were in a few of the small villages across Equestria). Since operations on the asteroid surface were suspended for the time being, many of the active researchers were left without much to do. Watchful eyes were everywhere, so breaking international laws were a difficult feat to get away with.
Satyrn had been asked by Celestia to lead a patrol of 25 marines earlier, scouting the perimeter of the ship in the event of any attempt at an infiltration. Around 13:00, she led the patrol to the bridge, where they were dismissed for the day. Satyrn started towards her room in the residential district. She trotted past custodians wheeling various carts and machinery through the halls between storage units and hangars, likely filled with tools and materials for building and maintaining the numerous spacecraft.
Approaching her room, Satyrn found that the door had been unlocked and was ajar. She advanced with caution and entered the room. Initially, nothing seemed erroneous or misplaced, but upon further inspection, Satyrn noticed that her gunblade had been taken out of its case and was now sitting at the foot of her bed. She came into the room completely, and bent down to examine it.
In an abrupt moment, light chirping noises came from below the bed, and Satyrn swiftly clutched her weapon. She activated the blade’s energy core and it droned to life. The noise alarmed the creatures under the bed, causing various hissing and chirping sounds to be emitted before two changelings emerged from beneath the bed to dart out of the room.
Satyrn took flight and pursued them. They buzzed past attendants and researchers, often provoking shrieks of terror and surprise. The changelings bounded in and out of rooms and halls in an attempt to confuse Satyrn. In a moment, they had disappeared within the crowds of ponies in the hangar. When Satyrn caught up with where she assumed them to be, she had lost them completely. She surveyed the hangar and tried to spot them.
She hovered around the hangar, trying to narrow down any possible escape routes they may have taken. After a minute or two, she gave up and contacted Sylver. He picked up immediately.
“Hey, Sylver, I need to meet you in your room in a minute. It’s urgent,” Satyrn said.
“Uh alright,” Sylver replied, dubiously.
“Great,” Satyrn hung up. She sprinted over to the residential elevators. Around the halls, technicians and attendants were picking up various papers and equipment they had dropped when the creatures had buzzed past them. Satyrn apologized profusely as she flew by. A few moments later, she reached Sylver’s room and burst in.
“Sylver, they’re here!” she shouted
“Who’s here?” Sylver inquired.
“The changelings, there’s two of them in the ship!”
“But they all died,” Sylver said, his expression was barren and unconcerned.
“Obviously not all of them,” Satyrn tried reasoning.
Just then, Sylver entered the room, catching his breath.
“Satyrn, you’re here!” he exclaimed.
He looked into the room and saw himself talking to Satyrn and chuckled. “Wow, he’s good. Who’s this? I’ve had a couple of impersonators come to a few parties, but this one tops them all.” Satyrn looked back and forth between the two Sylvers in the room, and then glared at the one sitting on the bed.
“Hey Sylver, why don’t we get some coffee?” she said, sweating.
“Sure! I’d love to try some,” he said.
Satyrn looked over at the Sylver in the doorway, who was squinting bitterly at the Sylver on the bed.
“I take it back,” the doorway Sylver said, “This is the worst fucking one.”
The Sylver on the bed began to transmogrify grotesquely into a changeling. Vulgar cracks and squelches filled the room. Before it could escape, Satyrn lunged for the changeling and pacified it with a sedative round from her gunblade. In a moment’s notice, the changeling had become unconscious.
“That was unsightly,” Sylver commented. Satyrn grabbed him, and they headed back towards the hangar.
“How hard do you think it’s gonna be to find the other one?” Sylver shouted.
“I can use my AMCD to track their Kytzdominum composition,” Satyrn replied, as her hooves pounded against the metallic floor.
“That’s the chunky stuff right?” Sylver questioned.
Satyrn ignored him.
They reached the main hangar and Satyrn drew her AMCD out from her scarf. In most cases, Satyrn was adamant against using the Adaptive Magic Channeling Devices, believing they unfairly rendered unicorns obsolete. Having inputted Rayna’s diagnostics on the Kytzdominum, a monocle-like glass piece swiveled over her right eye which allowed her to scan the room. After a few moments, the AMCD highlighted any traces of the compound in the room. One pony was highlighted in red amongst a group of engineers.
“There he is,” Satyrn said.
They dashed towards the group, they were working on a transport spacecraft. The pony in question was soldering some wires on the backside of the vessel.
“You!” Satyrn shouted, grabbing the stallion by his collar. The engineer shouted and tried to punch her. She threw him to the floor and put the barrel of her weapon in his face.
“You can surrender or die,” she warned him. The other engineers started pleading with Satyrn not to hurt the earth pony, who was now cowering on the floor.
“Oh for the love of—” Satyrn grunted, and she pulled the trigger.
The blast sent him flying backwards, as he transformed back into a changeling port-mortem. Sylver and the other engineers exchanged gasps of both surprise and confusion. Then, the group of engineers started cheering and praising Satyrn for defeating the creatures. Sylver rushed over to examine the body. After a moment, he looked back to Satyrn before approaching her.
“You didn’t have to kill him,” he said.
Satyrn looked over at the body with contempt.
“You do what you have to do,” she disagreed.
“We could’ve interrogated him, too.”
“What is the meaning of this!” a loud, regal voice boomed through the hangar.
Everypony turned towards the north entrance, which led to the ship’s bridge. Princess Celestia descended delicately from the ledge. She landed before Satyrn and Sylver.
“Changelings, your highness!” Satyrn exclaimed, “Two of them were found in the ship. I’ve killed this one,” she gestured to the body.
“Changelings?” Celestia’s arrogant tone made Satyrn shiver, “Who told you there were changelings?”
Satyrn’s eyes widened, realizing that she had not divulged her findings or research to the Princess yet.
“Relieve us all of your wild imagination, Satyrn. Where is the other creature?” Celestia said.
“My room,” Sylver replied.
Celestia looked condescendingly down at Sylver.
“Right,” she said, “I suppose we should all keep one as a pet, then.”
Satyrn and Sylver exchanged glances, shrugging at each other nervously.
“I shall send for the other to be brought to the stockade. The body can go with the others,” Celestia nodded towards the hangar bay.
Two royal attendants came up and started dragging the body outside onto the asteroid, where the other changelings still lay.
Life as normal returned in an instant to the hangar, and to the rest of the ship along with it. Satyrn and Sylver stood there for a few moments to process the events and words that had transpired.
Princess Celestia’s private office was never messy. She tidied her books and documents every two hours, unless she was sleeping. On the far wall, opposite to the doorway, a variety of screens and buttons comprise the classified Equestrian Admiralty Console, its grandeur and confidentiality tempts any who have the privilege of being in the room. Various tea sets and paintings decorated the room in a particularly quaint fashion.
The Princess dialed a few numbers into her dynamic communicator and waited. After a moment, a voice came over the speaker.
“Sister, it’s been a few days,” Princess Luna spoke, the audio was crushed and tinny.
“Yes. Luna, how are affairs in Equestria?” Celestia inquired.
“Well,” Luna began, “unfortunately, protests are spreading into the capital. We are trying our best to keep the situation under control for the time being.”
“I see. I’ve left the country in capable hooves, I’m sure,” Celestia promised.
“So you have. And how are affairs on CX38?”
“There was an attack. It was only a small swarm, though I’m sure there are none left on this one.”
“I’m glad everything is alright,” Luna sighed with relief.
“No casualties or injuries on our end,” Celestia said.
“Is there anything else we need to discuss?”
“Yes, in fact.”
Celestia looked over at a photograph of Satyrn, Elden, and Amber. She stood up and walked over to it, speaking over to the transmitter on her desk.
“I’m afraid the girl might know something,” Celestia’s voice was cautionary.
“Satyrn?”
“Yes. Two of the creatures attempted to ambush her on the ship, after the first attack. She referred to them as changelings.”
“She is a historian, sister. It would be quite clear to somepony like her.”
“Changelings haven’t resembled their primal state for nearly forty years. We know he’s changed their DNA before.”
“He’s corrected more mistakes with every variant, yes, but they still closely resemble the ones from Equestria,” Luna reasoned.
Celestia sat back down at her desk and sighed.
“Maybe you should tell her. She has a right to know why you’re out there,” Luna continued.
“That will jeopardize everything we have worked for! Can you not see that?” Celestia roared, her mane became a fiery blaze and her luminous eyes became a hellish red, but only for a moment. She closed her eyes to calm herself.
“This is your burden to bear, sister. I’ll not parley in your accord, regarding this,” Luna said.
Celestia’s eyes fluttered open.
“So it is,” Celestia spoke curtly.