8
December 20th, 2551
Royal Palace, Canterlot, Equis
Twilight sat in her chair and stared hard at the piece of equipment on the table before her. She was supposed to be studying it and helping Dr. Halsey create a new means of jamming the Covenant cruiser’s communications, but so much had been going on lately that she found she could barely focus.
First, she went to space and saved a SPARTAN’s life. Then she found out that there was an alien spaceship prowling around up there, ready to destroy them at any moment. Then, it turned out that the populous was more riled up than anyone thought and an extremist group rose up trying to take control. On top of that, the Crystal Empire had been taken over, meaning her brother and sister-in-law/childhood friend was in grave danger and –
“Twilight?” asked a far away voice. “Twilight, are you still with us?”
She blinked twice and the room came back into focus.
She was in a room of the Royal Palace, far above the snow-covered city below. At the table with her sat Dr. Halsey and several stacks of notes on both human technology and Equian Magic. On the far side of the room stood one of the SPARTANS of Gold Team: 093 – Grace, she’d been told – holding a shotgun and watching the proceedings impassively.
“Y-Yes,” she stammered. She took a deep breath. “I’m with you.”
Dr. Halsey placed a comforting hand over hers. “I understand why you’re so distracted. What we’re attempting to accomplish today should help us keep your planet safe.”
Twilight sighed, looking away. “I know,” she said. “It’s just . . . it’s a lot to take in. There’s so much going on.”
“There’s always a lot going on,” Halsey told her. “You’ll get used to it eventually, I’m sure. Wars make life complicated. Especially wars on this scale.”
“I suppose,” Twilight nodded, her mouth twisting into a frown. She wasn’t sure if this was something she wanted to get used to.
Halsey glanced around for a moment, as though searching for a change of topic. Then, she seemed to pull something out of the air. “Twilight, have you ever heard of Technomancy?”
“Technomancy?” the woman had her attention now. “No.”
“I would think not, seeing as more advanced technology is mostly nonexistent in your world,” Halsey said. “In our world, it is the stuff of old fantasy novels. Fiction. But this world has proven to me that much of what has been going on in fantasy novels is a reality here. In theory, Magic and technology could have an interesting relationship.”
“Technomancy . . .” Twilight muttered, trailing off into thought. “What exactly do they say about it in your novels?”
Halsey placed a hand over her chin. “There’s a couple supposed uses. It could be possible to attain Magic through technology. Though I highly doubt that, given that no human has accomplished this. It could also be possible to enhance, manipulate, or otherwise influence technology through the use of Magic. I believe that this is what we could possibly recreate with your powers.”
“You’re suggesting we . . . invent an entire branch of Magic?” Twilight asked, her eyebrows disappearing into her bangs. Admittedly, it was something she’d always dreamed of doing, but it was such a daunting task and she had no idea where to start, so she’d never attempted it. But now . . .
“Essentially,” Halsey said, the ghost of a smile passing over her lips. “Yes.”
“Let’s get to work!” Twilight said, her nervousness forgotten in the face of this new academic challenge.
The doctor glanced over towards the door. “Grace – come here.”
The SPARTAN obliged. She set her shotgun against the table and – after Twilight Magically reinforced the remaining chair – sat down.
“Yes ma’am?”
“You’re good with explosive and deconstruction, yes?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you good a building and deconstructing UNSC technology?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Excellent,” Halsey said. “You may remove your helmet – we’ll be needing your assistance here.”
Grace reached up and removed her Grenadier helmet and placed it upon the table. Grace wasn’t as pale as some of the other SPARTANs that Twilight had seen without helmets. She had a light olive complexion and straight, brown hair pulled back into a very small bun at the back of her head. She had scars on the edges of her jawline and a long, thin one starting at the arch of her right eyebrow and ending at her hairline.
“What do you need, doctor?” Without the helmet on, her voice was low and gentle.
“Help me disassemble this control antennae,” Halsey said.
The two began to take apart the device, setting aside metal pieces, screws, wires, and bits that Twilight didn’t have a name for yet. She half watched them, but was more focused on Halsey’s notes.
“What kind of effect are we looking to come up with?” she asked, her brow furrowing.
“We can use our technology to jam the Covenant’s communications,” Dr. Halsey said. “Grace; hand me that – yes, thank you. However, if they send out a call and repeatedly get no response, they’re bound to realize we’re onto them and will attack. If we can find a way to create a fake response that adapts to what’s being said, we’ll be a step ahead of them.”
“Interesting . . .” Twilight muttered. “Maybe if I could combine spells that create speech and duplication spells . . . I don’t know . . .”
“We’ll need to find out,” Halsey said. “Try a few different things. See what works and what doesn’t. We may be creating a whole new branch of Magic, but we don’t need to do it all today. We just need one spell. Done.”
“Right,” Twilight said. She snapped her fingers. A spark of purple light danced off her fingers and horn, and each piece of the now totally disassembled antennae shot into the air and arranged itself as it was supposed to fit together; each bit floating a few inches away from the others. Twilight stood up and circled the floating tech, Halsey’s notes clutched in her hands.
The three of them spent the next three hours working over the equipment and Magic. Twilight tested various spells and their effects, while Dr. Halsey and Grace managed to tweak the design somewhat to allow better Magic flow throughout the device. They played games of call and response using Grace’s helmet radio in order to see if anything was going according to plan. Unfortunately, whenever Grace sent out a communication, it either didn’t go through, went through, or didn’t go through and received a wash of static as a response.
“Well,” Dr. Halsey sighed, sitting back in her chair and placing a hand over her forehead. “It’s rare for me to say this, but I am officially out of ideas.”
Twilight rubbed her temples with her hands, her eyes closed. “I am too,” she sighed. “I don’t understand. In theory, this should be working! I’ve set up audio spells, I’ve set up barrier spells, I’ve set up counter spells, I’ve done everything that I can think of to make this work.”
“Maybe there’s some sort of interference?” Grace offered. “The signal from our tech and whatever energy your magic gives off might be countering each other out. It’s like linking a detonator and an explosive; if the signals don’t match, nothing works.”
Twilight and Dr. Halsey both stared and the woman for a moment, then looked at each other.
“Maybe . . .” Halsey said.
“Maybe the reason why this isn’t working right is because the energy is too different?”
“And if we found a way for your magic to give off the same electricity that our technology runs on . . .”
“We could get the spells to work! Grace, you’re a genius!”
The SPARTAN mouth twisted for a moment, then settled into a half smile. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Hold on,” said Twilight, concentrating and focusing all her energy on the device. In order to sync the Magic and electricity to the same kind of energy, she would need all her focus.
She closed her eyes as the Magic flowed through her. She heard the hum of the electricity rushing through the wires within the inner workings of the antennae. She felt the warm, buzzing embrace of Magic as she called to it. Her breathing slowed. She stood very still. She was like that for an entire minute, just concentrating on uniting the two entirely different methods of power.
Then, Grace’s comm. link buzzed.
“I’m getting a response.”
_ _ _
Roth sent his energy sword straight through the gut of one of these . . . things.
What were they?
Not human, no. Thought they spoke their ugly language. Not completely animal, for they had intelligence.
Perhaps they were some kind of mutt.
He wasn’t sure, but at this point what did it really matter?
“Shipmaster,” said a deep voice from behind him.
Roth freed his sword from the belly of the creature and it sank to the ground, limp. He turned. Toho ‘Rakamee stood behind him, placing a new crystalline cartridge into his Needle Rifle. Flanking him were a pair of minors, checking their own weapons.
“Yes?” Roth asked. “Report.”
“We’ve cleared out the settlement,” Toho reported. “Discarded the bodies as you ordered. None shall know of our presence here. We seem to be on a farmstead outside of most civilization.”
“Good,” Roth said, deactivating his sword and placing it at his side. “We must return to the outpost.”
“Shipmaster. Why did we come here?”
“I needed to be sure.”
“Of what, precisely?”
“Sure that they were just like the humans,” Roth said. “And I was correct. On all accounts but one.”
“And that account is what?”
Roth gestured to the body of the creature he had just slain. “Do you see its horn? When I attacked it, the horn glowed. It attempted to fight back with some sort of energy I have not encountered before. Despite their strange nature, perhaps these creatures have access to some ancient rites that we know not.”
“What should we do, shipmaster?” asked Toho.
“We will not be burning this world,” Roth decreed. “We must study and learn from these creatures. We must get word to our ship so that they may call for reinforcements. We must invade.”