Use the Contingency. 63%
“I can make it work!” Pinkie declared, her voice confident. “Trust me, captain! Please.”
She never would’ve considered it if she were still on the ground. But Twilight was still ten minutes away, no matter what she did.
“Okay,” she said. “Rainbow, prep for evac. If this doesn’t work, run for the city in two minutes. She has that long.”
“I… believe I can keep up a shield for that long,” Rarity muttered. “Yes. I’m sure of it. Two minutes. You better get going, Pinkie.”
Twilight listened as they swapped channels, grinding her teeth together in frustration as Rarity’s panicked voice joined the others. “One of them got in! Rainbow can you… thanks, darling. Can’t express how much I appreciate your help.”
“Don’t mention it.” Rainbow said. In the background behind her, Twilight heard gunfire. “How are we on the Device? Pinkie?”
She wanted to teleport straight down, to stop them somehow. But a teleport from low orbit while descending at entry speed was likely to end with her becoming a red smear in the grass. Her crew didn’t need that.
“That should be enough power!” Pinkie called, about a minute later. “Everypony… I don’t really know what this is gonna do. So, uh… everypony smile I guess?”
A wave of static overwhelmed the channel, building louder and louder until the speakers cut automatically.
Twilight moved faster than she had in her life, hooves dancing across the controls as she adjusted the external camera. She was low enough to get a good view of what was below.
Some part of her knew what she would see: a spectacular explosion, turning the surface of the planet into molten slag for miles around.
But that part of her was wrong.
She was already crying—but there was no explosion. No crater, no energy warnings. Nothing. She was still too high up for the Prospector’s cameras to show her individual ponies, but she could see the outline of buildings down there, and something large and black around the Memorial.
Nothing moved. The cloud didn’t expand, and she saw no suggestions of firing turrets or ponies rushing around. Twilight sat back in her chair, swiveling it around again to face the coms.
“Proximus B Landfall base, this is Prospector actual,” she said, her training blurring together into a soggy mess. “Come in.”
No response. No blast of static this time, so that was good. Maybe it was some kind of EMP? Radio might be down.
But if it was, what did that mean for Apple Bloom? Had she just ordered her killed in front of her own sister? Node too, and that weird robotic animal thing that had been Applejack’s leg. Okay, she could live without the last one.
“Memorial base, this is Prospector actual,” she said again. Please come in. I’m… nine minutes out. Confirm landing viability, over.”
Nothing.
Twilight switched to the conversational channel, and again her speakers began to squeak with feedback. She switched it off quickly, after listening to be sure there were no voices that she was missing.
Well, something’s transmitting that. That’s a good sign, right?
Twilight switched channels again. “Equinox, this is Prospector. Come in.”
A few seconds of silence, then Spike’s voice answered over the line. “Equinox here. Doctor is… still unconscious. What happened down there?”
“No idea,” Twilight answered, voice desperate. “Pinkie and Apple Bloom activated the Contingency together. The camp is intact, but I’m not getting a response.”
“Do you want me to wake Fluttershy?”
“For what?” Twilight asked. “Just keep an eye on Sunset. Call the instant she wakes. I’ll update you when I land.”
“Got it,” Spike said. “Equinox… out.” It didn’t go out, though. He went back to snoring, right over the line. Twilight switched back to the main ground channel, trying a few more times. All without success. The ground got closer, along with her view.
The cloud was made of thousands of little metal shapes, six-limbed and with strange weapons mounted on their underside. They were flat, and possibly built to fly. She couldn’t tell, because every one of them had crashed out of the sky. They littered the ground in broken mountains, spreading away from the camp and up to the building.
One of the stationary guns had exploded, leaving a crater near one edge of camp. But as her camera resolution got closer, she saw none of what she’d feared most: There were no corpses.
As her ship got closer, Twilight rushed about in the storage lockers, pulling on the armor fitted to her alicorn body. There was no telling if it would be effective against alien weapons, but that didn’t mean she should be stupid and leave it behind. She fitted the energy rifle from earlier into her holster, complete with three charged cells. Her sidearm had regular bullets—the combination would have to be enough.
The landing pad was mostly clear by the time she touched down, settling down on long landing struts. She didn’t even bother with proper engine shutdown, just slamming a hoof on the emergency button and ignoring the blaring sirens that followed.
She didn’t rush right out of the ship—even Twilight wasn’t that reckless—but instead she searched each of the windows, looking for any sign of motion from the piles of broken equipment. There were none on the landing pad, but a large hill gathered outside Lab N. Nothing.
Twilight briefly considered firing the mining laser directly into the pile and seeing what happened—but there was at least some chance that actual hostility would be returned in kind.
She didn’t walk out of the ship, at least, but teleported directly out onto the landing pad, rifle in her magic.
Nothing moved. Up close, the little robots didn’t seem so dangerous. She nudged one with a hoof, and one of its flat metal arms deformed under the pressure. It didn’t move. Not so much as a camera pointed at her.
“Is anypony there?” she asked.
Only silence answered.
But it was no mystery where she would have to go. Twilight marched up to the lab. N now had the best access to power, thanks to all of Node’s fabrication work. It would’ve been the natural place to take the Contingency. And defend it.
She wouldn’t be getting through the front door—the pile of drones here was gigantic enough that it deformed the wall, and she didn’t intend to waste time moving them.
She went instead to the emergency fire escape in back, which the drones had left alone. IT looked like regular wall, but Twilight knew what she was looking for. On the other side was a lever, which she reached for with her magical senses. She yanked, then stepped aside.
A small explosive charge shook the field as cracks formed in the wall. It didn’t get flung into the air—that kind of force would’ve hurt the occupants inside. But scores in the steel and woven carbon canvas gave way, letting Twilight yank on the wall section. After a few seconds of effort, she pried it loose, and crawled into the tube-like emergency exit.
There was no airlock waiting, just the flashing red light of the emergency exit.
Her friends lay scattered on the ground inside, unmoving. Twilight froze, teleporting directly to where Rainbow lay beside the guns. Her armor was dented, and there was a little blood—but nothing that would’ve killed her.
She reached down with a hoof, dreading what she would find… but no, there was a pulse. Faint, but distinct. She was breathing too.
“Rainbow?” She asked, nudging her with a hoof. “Rainbow, wake up.”
No response.
Twilight shook her shoulder, then tried a simple wake-up spell she’d often used instead of coffee in the academy.
Nothing.
Twilight removed her personal radio, holding it to her mouth. “Equinox, this is Twilight. Come in.”
Static.
“Equinox,” She raised her voice, pacing quickly over to Rarity. She didn’t respond any more than Rainbow had, but just like her she showed only superficial wounds. She was still alive. “Equinox, this is captain Twilight Sparkle. Come in.”
Silence.
“Probably just… some kind of interference,” she whispered to herself, returning it to its clip. She still needed to figure out what had happened.
The interior of the lab was well lit, with work lights pointing towards the airlock. Two stationary guns were pointed at it, and the front wall was peppered with holes. Shattered bits of metal refuse littered the ground, along with the plastic clips that linked their magnetic shells together for auto-loaders.
But the exit was right in back, so she was directly beside where the Contingency had been used.
There it sat, lines of its construction glowing brightly. Pinkie and Apple Bloom were motionless beside it, with Node not much further.
“Node? Apple Bloom?”
They didn’t move.
Twilight slumped weakly onto her haunches, feeling utterly defeated. The stimulants were wearing off, and as they faded the crushing reality of her situation was descending rapidly.
For the first time since her mission began, Twilight didn’t have a clue what to do next.
It was a good thing she had i̥̭̞n̜̱̞̤͜s̵̺̟̣̥į̲͙̣g̞h̙̞̫̣̖͈̯t̨̫̖̦͈̟.
(Certainty ?? required)