//------------------------------// // XXI - As Life Evolves // Story: Empty Horizons: Sea of Stars // by Insipidious //------------------------------// The Admiral lifted her head high and felt the wind blow through her mane. The stars swirled around her wings, little specks in the comforting black murk all around her.  Looking up, she saw her world and everything on it. The little lights that were Equestria, the multicolored meandering sparks at the south, and even the violent eternal storm looking at her almost like an eye. The sun flew past her, as did the moon, connected by strings made of the stars themselves.  With a laugh, she bounced off one of the stars, landing on the rings of a blue planet and sliding around as if it were made of ice. Some part of her mind told her this wasn’t right, but she told that part to shove off. She was going to have this.  “Admiral!” Sparkler called. “Admiral?” “What is it?” “Ship closing fast!” The Admiral swiveled her smooth, white chair around to face her personal advisor. “How long do we have until they reach us?” Sparkler pressed the neon buttons on the console with her hair, grimacing. “Hard to tell, the drive signature’s not of a recognizable make…” “It’s them,” Rook said, hooves clattering on the smooth, metallic floors.  “How can you be sure?” the Admiral asked.  “I would never forget my people,” Cozy growled from within Rook’s throat. “They will not take kindly to our presence this close to the Neutral Zone.” “Shields up,” the Admiral ordered, sitting down with a smirk. “They want to make trouble? They won’t stand a chance.” “Torpedos ready!” the Captain barked. “They’re charging weapons…” Sparkler whimpered.  “Hail them first,” the Admiral ordered, glaring at the forward window that didn’t quite look like a window. “Let’s see what they have to say…” “It won’t be welcoming,” Cozy grunted.  “Connection established,” Orange reported.  The window jumped away from displaying stars to displaying utter blackness.  “GO BACK TO YOUR WORLD.” “Never!” the Admiral shouted. She was no longer on the bridge of the ship. She was in the darkness.  “YOU CAN’T IGNORE THE PROBLEMS OF THE PAST. YOU MUST SOLVE THEM BEFORE YOU BRING THEM OUT HERE.”  “The past…?” No response was forthcoming.  She felt cold. So very, very cold…  … Rook was dripping water on her.  With a groan, the Admiral removed her face from the glass on Rook’s tank.  “Finally,” Silver grunted, still scribbling away at a diagram of the Eternal Storm. “I’ve had her drip water on you for about five minutes. You were really out. You’ve well overstayed your welcome.” The Admiral rubbed her eyes, glancing around at all the new pictures Silver had drawn. “So many…” “You’ll get them when Meteor does. I’m not seeing anything very new. Here.” He gave her one of the globes he had made. “This should fit into that fancy mechanism in your submarine. Have that Orange fellow crack it open and replace it.”  The Admiral took the globe, placing it in one of Silver’s sacks and throwing it over her back. “Is the packaging free?” “All contained within the cost of the eye,” Silver reported. “Now take your seapony and get out of here.” The Admiral took one last look at the maps and the star charts before grabbing Rook’s tank and pushing. They left Silver’s little cave, coming out into a midday Sanctaphrax, the oppressive sun reigning high in the sky.  “...Geez,” the Admiral rubbed her head. “I stayed up way too late.”  Rook gurgled.  “Well… hmm.” The Admiral stretched her limbs, waking herself up. The images of the dream kept flicking back to her… she wanted to laugh in excitement and grimace in confusion at the same time.  Rook tapped the glass.  “Hmm?” Rook pointed a hoof to the air and jumped, breaching the water’s surface. “Yes, we know you want to go to space. I do too.” Rook nodded, but rolled her hoof, indicating there was more to it. Seeing that the Admiral wasn’t getting it, she drew a shape on the glass: that of a narrow triangle.  “The rocket? You want to see it? It’s gone.” She drew two more. “The rockets? You saw the rockets at…” Seeing the sparkle in Rook’s eye, the Admiral smilred. “Oh, you want to see how they work?”  Rook nodded vigorously.  “The best way to do that would be to visit the warehouse. There’s some partially built ones there. We could spend all day if we’re not careful…” She put a hoof to her chin. “The day’s shot anyway, though, and I’m not in the mood to be finding new jobs right now. Let’s just go.” Rook clapped excitedly. The Admiral turned the tank toward the Navigation Tower, carting her along through Sanctaphrax’s tubes.  After a minute, she stopped. Rook looked to her with wide eyes.  “Rook?” Rook stared right at the Admiral.  “And… Cozy too? You listening?” Rook’s face twisted into a miffed expression, but she nodded again.  “We thestrals live quite a bit longer than ponies, but even with that… I’m not young. And we’re a long way off from getting up there. But you… you will still be around.” She put a hoof to the glass. “You… two. If I don’t make it to that time, you will. When you get there, remember to explore the stars.” Rook placed her hoof to the glass and nodded vigorously.  “Good grief, I’m turning into Leyline…” the Admiral laughed to herself. “Let’s go Rook… Cozy. I’m going to teach you about rockets.” Rook clapped her hooves excitedly.  “Also, Cozy? You’re the modern form of a curse. Your name doesn’t fit.”  Cozy glowered at the Admiral, making a throat-cutting motion with a hoof.  “...Message received, it’s your name.”  ~~~ “Okay!” Vespid said, excitedly pushing a tank with a live seapony into Leyline’s new lab. The seapony in question was gnashing at the edge of the glass with a ferocity so intense it was a wonder nothing broke. Vespid ignored it. “I think I’ve gotten to the bottom of it! Behold!” She whipped out a syringe filled with thick, black tar, holding it high in her wing. “Pure, distilled wyrdness, taken directly from this bad boy right here!” Leyline stared at her.  Sparkler stared at her.  Tirek stared at her.  Vespid was careful not to drop the syringe onto the floor in shock. Instead, she put on the most innocent smile she could manage, which wasn’t very impressive. “Leyline… what in the name of the two sisters is going on?” “I…” A glazed look came over Leyline. “Well… you see…” “Lovely, the schizophrenia's acting up.” She turned to Sparkler. “Explain?” Sparkler coughed. “This centaur behind me is Lord Tirek, and Iota says you’re allowed to know about him. He can absorb magic and put it wherever he wants. Our current ‘goal’ is to create an apprentice for Leyline using him, but it’s not working. We’re able to create Gifted, but their talents haven’t been adaptable enough. I think it’s a lost cau—” “It is not a lost cause,” Tirek said, his voice startling Vespid. “We just need to know more about how ponies attach to their special talent so we can choose one likely to display magic prowess or something similar.” “You need me to analyze the nature of cutie marks, not the corruption.” Vespid raised an eyebrow. “I just spent the last few weeks slaving over a hot stove over this, using magic charms and nuanced circles and gathering everything I could about the life-force, and now you don’t want it?” “I am the cure for the corruption,” Tirek declared. “You do not need to synthesize anything.” He opened his mouth and drained the seapony of every bit of the curse. The scars, tail, fins, and blood remained. However, as the cutie mark vanished, the irises returned.  The uncorrupted seapony sat there, staring blankly at nothing.  “As expected, there is nothing left of the original inside,” Tirek commented. “But I can remove any amount of the curse I wish. All you’ve done is distill a way to cause it.” Vespid glared, putting the syringe away. “Vespid, your research—” Leyline began.  “I’m still continuing it, senile old fool. But since you asked me here I’ll tell you what you want to know. Cutie marks!” She picked up a piece of chalk in her wing and ran to one of Leyline’s chalkboards, dusting away a magic diagram. “Cutie marks are a dumb name for one of the most fundamental aspects of ponykind that we’re losing. I am not lucky enough to have one, but both of you are.” She noted that Tirek scowled when she ignored him. Good. He should know his place.  “From a magical standpoint, the mark indicates how your body is aligned with the thaumic field. Leyline already knows this. But he hasn’t the foggiest idea why ponies align with certain aspects of the field and not others, that’s biological. Or, if you wanted to be a bit more specific, psychological. Though even that doesn’t quite tell the whole story.” “Get to the point,” Tirek grunted.  Vespid ignored him. “A Gifted comes about when a pony comes of age, mentally realizing they have the potential to do something. More often than not this is coupled with a physical action, cementing it within their psyche. This psychological imprint sends hormones through the body that coalesce at the pony’s flank and whatever their magical focus is: horn, wing, or hoof. “The trick is that this happens in all ponies. The rush of hormones has been detected in every single one of us. It’s just that something changed about the nature of magic or our relation to it, because the alignment with the field fails. No connection is established. I suspect this was a rare medical condition in the Old World, but now we’re all cursed with it, only a select few being immune. The immunity doesn’t seem to be hereditary, nor does it seem to be related to the corruption at all, but you don’t want to think about causes, do you? You want results. “Well, that’s simple. Find a unicorn who felt as though they were called to wizardry or magic studies in their young life, but were never gifted with the power to do so. Everypony has a talent, just not everypony is able to make the connection to the field to fully realize it. Give a construction worker the connection, they’ll probably get a talent in better construction. Give it to me, make my wings even more precise than ever. Give it to a unicorn who feels as though his life was stolen from him at a young age, you might get lucky.”  Tirek nodded. “So we need a personality test… annoyingly slow.” “Put out an advert asking for unicorns interested in working with magic,” Vespid suggested. “The few who listen would be those with the calling.” “Too public,” Sparkler said. “They could trace it back to Tirek, and he needs to be a secret.” What are you up to, Sparkler? “Then… test for magical aptitude.”  Sparkler shivered. “No…” “It’s just a needle to the base of the horn,” Vespid said, dismissively.  “I know,” Sparkler muttered. “I had it done on me. It’s not pleasant.” “It’s still the most reliable way to test for it. Horn luminosity can be measured very precisely,” Vespid reminded her. “You could probably do a mixture of interviews and the test to narrow down the pool. Or, if you wanted to play the long game… raise a foal from birth surrounded by magic and teach him the ways of the spells. Upbringing has a very high correlation with special talent.” “We don’t have that kind of time,” Leyline sighed. “I’m too old. I need to pass my knowledge on now. I’ll order the tests... “ “Some ponies horn’s break!” Sparkler blurted. “It’s not a safe procedure!” “It’s not like they were using them anyway,” Tirek commented. “It’s just an ornament… but if they have the strength, they will be worthy of my power.”  “Then ah bet ya’d like t’ go through th’ experiment too, right!?” Tirek grinned. “Of course. These horns aren’t just for show, after all… it will be nice to get a proper measure of my power.” Vespid smirked. “I’m looking forward to sticking a needle in your head…” ~~~ Hailing Fog found the warehouse sitting just to the side of the College of Navigation’s tower. She was wearing a simple dress not unlike one a student might wear, since she needed to be inconspicuous. This was made difficult since she needed to be wearing her radio pack, but disguising it as a backpack was simple enough. Even though it was midday, she was still able to sneak around relatively easily through the various bits of discarded machinery littering Navigation’s grounds. It wasn’t exactly the most popular of the schools. Only two ponies were there: fellow students themselves, walking down a path, not paying her any mind.  She confidently trotted up to the warehouse. Unlike the towers, it was built out of solid sheet metal in a rectangular prism. There were two entrances: massive double doors that were locked from the inside, and a smaller door that was kept shut with a padlock. Her goal was the latter.  Luckily, it had not been hard to pay one of the local thieves to steal the key off Meteor as he’d stormed off in a huff. Maybe the hired little filly would be able to sell her “mythril” ingots for more than they were worth, perpetuating the fake market Fog had begun.  She became giddy as she thought about the amount of chaos the mythril would cause. She’d sold a lot more than she’d been expecting to as part of the act.  Strutting forward like she owned the place, she placed the key in the warehouse lock and walked right in. The passing students didn’t bat an eye.  It’s all in the confident strut.  She closed the doors behind her, taking a moment to examine the warehouse. It was a mess. Several globes were stacked in one corner, an unfinished personal airship occupied the center of the space, and numerous boxes of unused supplies sat collecting dust. Currently, there wasn’t a single pony in the warehouse.  Her goal was in the back: two dozen rockets in various stages of completion, ranging from barely more than a collection of spare parts to missing nothing but painted identification numbers. Even though nopony was watching, she kept walking like she belonged here, not like she was in a panic to get in and out. Coming up to one of the all-but-complete rockets, she traced a hoof across its edge. “She puts so much work in you… heh.” She pulled a small, green explosive out of her dress’ folds, placing it on the rocket’s bottom edge, out of sight. “Boom goes the sky-stick,” she sang. She removed the backpack-radio-pack and set it on the ground, under a convenient tarp. Methodically, she took wired explosives out of her dress and placed them under the other rockets, spreading them out so the few she didn’t mark would also be consumed in the ensuing fireball. All of them wired back to the pack with super-thin wire that was a lot more visually jarring than Fog would have hoped. She found some loose wire in a nearby box and dumped it out to disguise her work. Then she placed Meteor’s key under one of the explosives. It would be taken out as well, just to add to the stallion’s inconvenience.  If Fog’s colleagues were doing their part right, they should have been setting explosives on the rockets at the launch pad. They would send a signal that the radio boxes would receive and detonate the charges.  Down goes Baltimare’s corruption again. Such a shame these have to go with it.  The doors to the warehouse opened with a metallic echo that made Fog’s hair stand on end. She ducked behind a box of old sea charts.  She was lucky she did—Meteor was one of the ponies who came in, and there was a fair chance he would recognize her. She didn’t recognize the mare with him, though.  “Not all the merchandise is complete,” Meteor said. “But what is will be a wonderful addition to your armaments.”  The mare nodded. “Baltimare saw your demonstration. We are glad that our relationship has paid off. We will pay for however many units you can spare, assuming they are constructed properly.” “As you can see…” Meteor tapped one of the rockets, sending the metallic echo through the already echoing warehouse. “I have many more under construction here. And I would be willing to sell you the blueprints… for a promise of continued support in other endeavors, of course.” “Consider it done. A ship will arrive within two days. You will know who they are from the Guardian pin they show you.” “I had to inspect some coin that looked very similar to one of those, today. Scared me a little, to be frank.” “Hmm... We will devise some other method to contact you in the future, but there should be no imposters.” Wanna bet? Fog thought, already plotting how to best make use of this information to make Meteor’s life living torture.  “I leave you to your devices,” the mare said, trotting out of the warehouse.  Meteor let her go, moving to work on one of the unfinished rockets. Fog froze; that was one of the ones she had put an explosive on.  Don’t see it… Meteor glared at the pile of haphazard wire strewn between his rockets. “These damn interns, this is going to take forever to clean up.” Whew… Then he started cleaning it up. Tugging on it, the thin wire that connected the explosive to the radio box snapped. This should have made it harder to find the explosive, but inconveniently it broke in such a way that it stuck out from behind the rocket very awkwardly.  Meteor saw it almost immediately. Following the wire to the base of the rocket, he frowned as the device presented itself to him. “What are y—” Realizing what it was in shock, he backpedaled several steps. He almost ran out the doors of the warehouse, but something made him stop.  Turning back, slowly, he called out. “The door was unlocked. But there was nopony in here… you’re still in here, somewhere, aren’t you?” If I had gotten out the door would still be unlocked, somepony could have forgotten to re-lock it when they left. This isn’t the most likely deduction to make! “I know you’re in here…” Think about it… “You would have blown this up with me inside it already, if you could…” That has nothing to do with this, gah! I mean, yes, I would, but I didn’t expect you to be here or blow a— Shaking her head, she stopped her thoughts. He may have used a few leaps of logic, but he knew she was in here. She’d have to get out despite that. Meteor approached the rockets once again. He was still concerned about the explosive, but had convinced himself he was safe, so he took to examining it closer. “In fact, if you won’t show yourself, I believe I’ll just disable these. Just have to find the receiver.” Can’t be having that. Carefully, Fog removed the safety on her hidden horseshoe blade and prepared to attack. There was a slight shik as the weapon extended, but Meteor didn’t appear to notice. His ears didn’t even twitch.   She jumped him, angling the blade for his neck.  From her vantage point, she hadn’t seen the pipe he had rested a hoof on. He kicked it around, hitting her square in the jaw. Such a haphazard attack wouldn’t have done much if it didn’t make her twist around, cutting her left cheek wide open. With a shriek, she fell to the ground, struggling not to let a single tear escape from her eyes. Don’t show weakness, even now. Meteor slapped the knife out of the way with the pipe, glaring at her. “You… you’re that salespony!” “No… refunds…” Fog managed.  “You have that right.” He lifted the bar up and brought it down on her head.  ~~~ Sparkler didn’t know what to do.  They were about to start experimenting on living unicorns en masse, Tirek had some kind of plan for world domination, Leyline was too desperate to listen to reason, and Vespid was just as eager to dig her wings into living flesh as always. She was the only sane one in the room, and that was saying something! No one here was raised as a desert warlord, but all of them would have fit in just fine the way they were acting right now.  Sparkler didn’t know about Tirek’s backstory but she didn’t particularly care if he fit the bill or not. All she cared about was not letting some centaur with a vendetta against ponykind have any sort of power.  Also, experimenting on ponies was bad too. She was sure of that. Nopony should need to risk their horn like that.  But what was she going to do? If she acted out, Tirek would have every excuse to just take her magic. If she tried to leave, he’d stop her in some way. Leyline was too far gone, and Vespid was too fixated on scientific progress.  And even if she wasn’t, did Sparkler really expect Vespid to help? That mare’s moral code had left her before she was even born. Even now, Sparkler could see no emotions in her face. No remorse. She was sitting over a table, filling syringes with the complex chemical mixture used for the magic aptitude test.  The sights of the syringes made Sparkler tremble. She remembered having one of those pressed into the base of her horn. “The savage Gifted is remarkable! Such an unusual talent!” Not that unusual when you get it killing an entire tribe of ponies who marked you for death because there were too many mouths to feed. It helps to know exactly where they are! She must have let out a pained wince, because suddenly Vespid was looking at her very closely.  Then Sparkler saw it.  The syringe of pure wyrdness.  Vespid had just put some of it in one of the magic test syringes. The first one.  Vespid nodded to Sparkler slowly, returning to her work as if no exchange had happened.  Sparkler glanced around. Tirek was busy reading a book on the effects of the aptitude test and Leyline was passed out on his desk again. Neither of them had seen Vespid dope the syringe.  And Sparkler wasn’t going to tell them.  Maybe Vespid would be useful after all.