Zero gravity was a strange thing, Myxine considered as she floated aimlessly in the captain’s room aboard their Assault Triumph DropShip. She had received a report from one of Patina’s drones, who operated the communications systems, that Patina had successfully completed her mission groundside. Convincing the Princess of the Moon to leave was something the trio of queens; herself, Patina, and Magica agreed to convince the more aggressive of the pony princesses to leave Equestria and hopefully do her own thing. That and Patina had laid out what was inevitably coming.
When one thought about how humans had massive starships called WarShips that were bristling with the absurdly powerful naval-based weapons. It was something to know such powerful weapons can easily destroy a Griffon Bombard Airship, which was armored to Tartarus and back, it made one think on how much more powerful the humans were. Apparently, the ‘naval’ weapons that were built as anti-air and anti-ground defenses; it was only a fraction of the power that human variants possessed as they had long since calibrated their weapons through open warfare. They had managed to begin the construction of an orbital facility that would house their hives and have facilities to build omni-series machines of war, additional DropShips, and hopefully build their own WarShip. The key issue was building their own Kearny-Fuchida Drives according to data Patina had within multiple data-drives. Considering the data was spread across the multiple drives like puzzles, it was taking all three of the queens to piece the data into usable blueprints. They were almost done, but when Patina had been chosen to go ‘talk’ to Luna, Myxine and Magica both turned their attention briefly to the new line of fusion engines that was to be enhanced with their magic to provide a smaller, but higher output of energy to power newer model of DropShips and hopefully to their own WarShips.
To think that humans could, if they wished, could simply come into orbit of Equis; stay in orbit and bombard the planet with absurd firepower that could theoretically level mountains. But even knowing that particular option was rarely used was not something Myxine had chills going down her spine. The only way they could stand hoof to toe with the humans was to have at least one WarShip to negotiate on somewhat equal grounds.
Unless they were the clans. Then they could be issued a batchall or they could request it on their terms. Then they might be able to use them as guides to the wider universe.
But Myxine knew that was a bet on whether the wider Inner Sphere or Clans would consider them a sapient species… Despite being horse-shaped aliens to the humans. As she looked out the ‘window’ of the DropShip’s Captain’s room, she released a sigh and promptly left the room.
She had a friend to pick up.
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“That went better than it should have.” Myxine muttered as they stood in the cavernous bays of the DropShip, watching Patina guide dozens of Changelings to bring in the 800 tons of raw metals and ores to facilitate the construction of their space station. “How did you even find these?”
Patina merely chuckled as she walked over to where Myxine was holding documents that outlined what the cargo was and how much of it there was. Still clad in her skin-tight scout armor with her helmet hooked to her side by a clip, Patina’s mane was slick with sweat and stuck to her skin. But her eyes were still full of light and excitement.
“If you must know, those are from ‘secret’ warehouses owned by a particular organization. They just store the ‘excess’ of their subsidiaries in these… ‘secret’ locations.” Patina said in an off hand manner as she looked at the large array of wooden boxes filled to the brim with metals. “Who would have thought that those arrogant unicorns kept such large stockpiles away from being used to better Equestria?”
“If we do this right, it will benefit all of Equis and give us a significant foothold on the negotiating table with the humans.” Myxine closed her eyes as she passed the document to a drone wearing the foreman’s cap. “If we focus on yours, mine, and Magica’s hives; how fast can we build an orbital shipyard?”
“...” Patina’s smile faded right then and there as she shook her head. “One and a half years? That’s being very optimistic. Calliphora is doing what she is supposed to do and Ambrosia is still planning her moves. Not to mention that they have access to the ground based sensors that can see us.”
“What if we build it on the surface of the moon?” Myxine inquired suddenly as she turned her head to look at the rising moon. “If we build it into the moon, the chance of discovery is low and we could claim that we are charting the local space so we miss the meetings.”
“This is coming from the most ‘by-the-books’ Queen?” Patina’s smile returned partially as she placed a hoof under her chin. She ignored the glare being sent in her direction before standing next to the Queen of the Waters and then at the moon. “Then yes. If we work nonstop and push all our hives to the brink, we can finish in a year. We’ll burn out fabricators, some will perish from the vacuum, and we will most likely become all the more quirky in the end. But yes. We can do it.”
“Good.” Myxine sighed before her nose crinkled. “Go take a shower, Patina. You smell like a rotting fish.”
Patina only looked sheepish at the barb before finally taking a sniff under her suit. Drones that were working nearby could hear Patina dry heaving as she swiftly moved to go take a shower.
She didn’t smell like a rotting fish, but rather like a body rotting in the middle of summer.
Ugh.
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Magica narrowed her ruby red eyes as she used her magic to cut perfectly shaped hallways into the roughly mined out sections of the underground moon base. It was up to her and her hive to accurately empty out sections of the underground base so that Patina’s drones could come behind them with the components to make the hallways airtight and functional to their purposes. Building a massive base on the moon was something she would have thought as idiotic at one point, but when she thought about it, it was better than building an entire new base floating in the middle of the void.
What she found surprising was that when in space, the efficiency of magic decreased enough to be noticed. But when on the surface, magic seemed to return to its ‘normal’ values as if nothing had happened. It was a learning experience. Thankfully, magic seemed to have no problems on the moon. She had thought that the Princess of the Night would barge in on them, but for the past three months; they had no alicorn visits as of yet.
Jumping forwards without the effect of gravity had been disorienting at first, but she had gotten used to it. Well, more than used to it as she enjoyed simply jumping massive distances for no reason but that it was a new experience. That and when she was handed medical issues on being in a zero-g state for prolonged periods, she jumped into creating a spell matrix that allowed the effects of standard gravity on the base and on future ships. It was mostly complete, but allowing a spell matrix to suck on so much energy made it relatively useless on JumpShips and WarShips that required all the energy they needed. Their current workaround was to link a XL non-magical fusion engine directly to the armored container housing the crystal with what appeared to be hundreds of lines of enchantments ‘written’ there by using precise laser tools. Even then, they still had to wear the comfortable space suit to make sure they didn’t die in the void of space. The self-sealing, small thruster equipped space suit also had 48 hours of life support; so she and her drones worked twelve hour shifts just like Myxine and Patina were doing as they led their own hives into getting this massive moon-based complex ready for operation. For three months, they toiled away to clear nearly a giant empty space which would serve as the dock and shipyard for their WarShip Efforts. Nearly two kilometers in length and nearly three in width made it a harrowing work as it also had to be nearly two kilometers deep.
They had sadly lost an overall fifteen drones to accidents and other issues, but it was done swiftly by using massed explosives and cutting spells to sever any odd formations of stone. They lost one of ten fabricators as it broke down rapidly from producing nothing more than explosives and some had entered the fabricator housing to cause extreme damage to the internal components inside. While it had been repaired in time, they still focused their time to creating the storage locations, living quarters, massive hydroponics bays, and various smaller hangar bays for the construction of DropShips, Omni-mechs, Omni-vehicles, and Omni-fighters.
It was a mess of a base, but it was their base. On the moon.
She really doubted anyone could claim what they were doing was better than building a massive bunker on the moon.
As she finished connecting her hallway that would lead to the newly built mess hall, she nodded to a drone behind her who had been putting down wires and other piping behind her. The drone nodded and moved to the side allowing the queen to pass by. She knew that the mess hall was serving spicy ramen today. She couldn’t wait to get out of this suit and head to dinner as her shift just ended.
“Kommodore Magica, please report to the Command Centre. Kommodore Magica, please report to the…” The female drone’s voice was pleasant to listen to, but Magica could only cry internally. Why must her dinner be taken away? Why?
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“So you must the aliens that Demi-Precentor Jones found all those years ago.” A stern, yet firm voice spoke from the speakers as Magica entered the Command Centre slightly peeved at not being able to eat dinner first. Her foul mood, however, died down entirely when she looked at the massive video screen that would normally display the numerous video images of the cameras designed to look upwards. The ‘fabled’ human, male considering his voice, spoke to the other pair of Queens who looked strangely serene. The male had short dark brown hair and a face seemingly chiseled out of marble, while his smaller dark blue eyes studied the new queen as she had entered. “And we are all here now, Changeling?”
He was wearing a mostly blue uniform, which looked very much like a large blue overcoat, and possessed a badge of what appeared to be a fox’s head coming out of the waves. Magica quietly noted Patina’s mood was that of being incredibly worried at something.
“If you must know, orange one; Demi-Precentor Jones and her Explorer Corp fleet was called for Batchall by my predecessor and lost the challenge. We then processed much of the information that was in her archives to only discover that she had found aliens. You.” The man spoke calmly as he observed the sitting trio of ‘Queens’. “In fact, she gave you their data, their knowledge, and some examples to give you an advantage when Freeborn idiots decide to stumble into this star system.”
At their silence, he merely smiled and continued.
“She even allowed for their hidden archives to be shared. This we found out when we observed unknown DropShip activity on this planet. My, my… You are brave using the Celestial series of battlemechs, you know?” He chuckled as he motioned for several images to be put up on their side of the screen. “As you can see, it takes three jumps in the middle of nowhere to locate this place. You can even say that this star system could be a write off for many pirates and colonization attempts as it cannot be efficiently routed through with what is going on in the Inner Sphere right now. But we understand where you come from, Patina Gear. Nearly killed while young, and now look at where you are now.” He chuckled in his deep voice, seemingly in some hidden mirth that they were not following.
“So, let’s make a deal. A deal that guarantees a future amongst those that could care less about your freedom.”