“So here’s what we should do,” Quattro said. “We go back, tell them we found a cave-in, and we tried digging it out but he’s probably under the rubble. We’re probably lucky he got melted by plasma. If we had to take his body back with energy weapon burns all over it I don’t know how we’d explain it.”
“You don’t think they’re going to find this place anyway?” I asked. “They’ll notice there’s not a 'big pile of rubble.'”
“Keep it secure…”
“Good point. We’ll try and salvage some explosives from the wrecked security robots,” Quattro said. “We can set them off back in the tunnel and close it up. We’ll dig it out once they’ve stopped looking.”
I shook my head quickly. “That’s a terrible plan. What if there’s lava on the other side of the wall there?”
“Contain the plague…”
“What plague?” I asked.
“Huh?” Quattro looked up.
“I thought you said something about-- never mind.” I scratched my right forehoof. It was itchy. The whole situation was starting to stress me out. “Anyway, I don’t know anything about explosives. Do you?”
“I’m a very dangerous rebel and troublemaker,” Quattro said.
“...Is that a yes?”
“It’s not a no.”
“Protect Equestria.”
I was looking right at Quattro that time so I knew it wasn’t her. “Okay, you had to have heard the voice that time.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” she said. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” She glanced at my hoof. I could sense her looking even with the sunglasses.
“I’m fine,” I said, for what felt like the tenth time. “It’s not like I’ve never busted through a wall before.”
She tilted her head. “Most ponies, I wouldn’t believe that.”
“Stop right there, criminal scum!”
“I heard that voice,” Quattro said, turning to look at our new guests. Ponies walked into the room from the massive door we’d opened, soldiers in armor and looking very unhappy. I wasn’t sure if they were just professionally unhappy like they had resting bitch face, or if I’d done something personally to upset them.
“It’s not the same voice,” I said.
The guards pointed weapons at us, and I backed up, not particularly wanting to be lasered or plasmaed today.
“What did you idiot prisoners do? There are alarms going off all over the command section of the ship! Consoles that haven’t turned on in centuries are coming to life!” A pony in a much better tailored and less armored uniform trotted in, and my jaw fell. She was a pale grey unicorn with navy-blue hair still pulled back into the same complicated braid I’d seen every day as a foal.
“Mom?”
She turned to look at me, and her expression went from ‘annoyed and about to yell’ all the way to honest and open surprise.
“Chamomile?” Mom asked. She shoved a guard aside who was pointing a gun at me. “Oh knock it off, she’s no danger to anypony. Chamomile, darling, what are you doing here? Don’t tell me -- you’re the one who found this?”
I nodded mutely.
She smiled warmly and trotted up to me, pulling me into a hug.
“You have no idea how proud I am. I’ve had ponies looking for this room for months, and you found it on your first day!” Mom let go and stepped back, looking me over and sniffing lightly at the air. “You look and smell like you could use a warm shower.”
“It’s been sort of a rough day,” I admitted.
“You’ve done exceptionally well,” Mom said. “Your father and I used to fight all the time about… well, it’s not important. That’s the past. What matters is the future, and you’ve just found something vital to the future of the Enclave!”
She turned and walked up to it, putting her hoof on the magical barrier. Her horn lit up with pale yellow-orange light for a moment and she stepped back, shaking her head.
“A very impressive barrier spell,” she muttered. “It looks like it covers the caster as well…” Mom cast another spell, then nodded to herself. “Well, it’s enough that we found it. That’s reason to celebrate!”
The armored ponies relaxed a little. The tension had sort of broken when Mom hugged me, but now they were barely paying attention to me. I guess they believed her when she said I wasn’t a threat.
“You’re in charge here, aren’t you?” I asked.
Mom turned to me and nodded. “I have command over the camp. Between being a unicorn and my particular expertise, the Enclave military has treated me very well. I always said you should’ve signed up for it, but your father hated the idea.”
“Excuse me, Ma’am?” Quattro asked, raising her hoof. “This is really a touching reunion and all, but--”
“It is a touching reunion,” Mom said, her expression straining slightly. “Unlike my daughter, I don’t know or trust you, prisoner.”
“She’s not a bad pony, Mom,” I put in quickly.
“And a lucky one, since she has my precious little girl vouching for her. Because I am in a good mood, you won’t be punished, but you will be taken back to your cell.” She nodded to two of the armored ponies, and they grabbed Quattro, escorting her in that gentle way you escort somepony you’re more than willing to shoot in the back. “I’m sure you were going to be given some sort of reward for this duty, consider it doubled.”
“Thanks?” Quattro shrugged. As she was marched off, she shot me a look. I couldn’t quite read it, but I still got at least some of the idea. She didn’t like my mom, she didn’t trust my mom, and she was worried about me. I was worried about me, too.
I watched her go, then waited until Mom finished casting a few more spells. I’d learned at an early age to tell when she was in a mental place where I could talk to her without being annoying.
“Is this why you wanted Dad here?” I asked.
“He was always exceptional at finding hidden chambers,” she confirmed. “He and I used to make a great team, until we didn’t.”
She turned away from the sphere and motioned to a guard. They produced a clipboard, and Mom jotted down a few notes before giving it back to them.
“We’re done here for now,” she said. “Have this passage cleared, and don’t let any prisoners into this room without my permission.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” the guard said, saluting.
“Come along, Chamomile.” Mom said. “I wasn’t kidding about you needing a shower. I can’t have a daughter of mine in that sorry state.”
Warm water and soap covered up a lot of sins. I was just about ready to be polite to all the guards and forget about being beaten unconscious once or twice.
The command section was a lot nicer than the camp I’d walked through outside, and the cells weren’t exactly luxury accommodations either. I hadn’t been in the prison itself long enough to even learn where the showers were, but I was absolutely sure they weren’t as nice as this. And I was only able to use them because my mom was in charge.
On the one wing, that was a pretty raw deal for the ponies still in prison for whatever crimes they’d done. On the other wing, it wasn’t my business. I’d been dragged here against my will too, and I wasn’t going to refuse a little comfort just to prove a point.
I got out of the shower and used a clean, warm towel to dry my coat. It felt great, except for my itchy hoof. I glanced at the closed door and then looked at my hoof. The healing potion had sealed the cut, and I didn’t see anything really strange. Maybe the itching was just from downing a potion that had been stuck in a wall for centuries? It couldn’t possibly still work the same way it used to, right? Even beer went bad eventually, and that didn’t even have any magic in it.
I stepped out of the bathroom and into the attached bedroom. It reminded me of when I’d been a filly and we’d gone on trips in cloudships together as a family. Steel floors, everything slightly aged and worn, and that sense of subtle vibration. Before I could think about it too much, something was levitated up in front of my face.
“Here, put this on,” my Mom said.
I took what she was holding in her magical grip and unfolded it.
“This is a military uniform,” I said.
“We don’t exactly have much civilian clothing on hoof,” Mom explained. “I’m just glad we had at least one thing that would fit you. Go ahead and put it on.”
I shrugged and slipped the uniform on, struggling with the buttons. They closed themselves after a moment, Mom taking it upon herself to make sure I did them correctly. She stepped up to me and led me over to a mirror.
“Look at that,” she said, motioning to my reflection. I was clean, wearing something that was brand-new, and I have to admit it felt good. “Now you look like a respectable member of society.”
“Hah, yeah,” I said. It didn’t feel right, being in the uniform. I don’t know how to explain it - it was the kind of feeling you might get eating candy stolen from a foal. Sure, it’s sweet and you’re enjoying it, but you know its at somepony else’s expense.
“I’m sure you have a lot of questions about what’s going on around here,” Mom said.
“What was that thing I found?” I asked. I had way more questions than that, but I had a feeling she wanted to talk about her work.
Mom smiled and stepped away to start pacing around the bedroom.
“Before we discuss that, I need to tell you about this place. Have you guessed what it is yet?”
“Some kind of cloudship?” I guessed. “But it would be the size of a city.”
She nodded, pleased. “You’re correct! That’s exactly what it was. They were called the Exodus Arks, and they were created as an alternative to Stable-Tec’s designs. You remember learning about those, right?”
I nodded slowly. “They were big bunkers, right? Built underground and just waiting until things were safe.”
“Correct,” Mom said. “It’s absurd, of course. The surface isn’t survivable, and it’s been two hundred years. But here, above the clouds, the Enclave continues to thrive. The designers of the Exodus Arks correctly foresaw that the ground wouldn’t be safe, but also anticipated the tragedy of Cloudsdale. Any solution would require the ability to relocate. The Arks could wait out the fighting where it was safe, then search for an area that escaped the worst of the war and settle there, bringing civilization with them.”
“That could still take a while. What if there wasn’t anywhere safe?”
“Another good question.” Mom nodded. “That’s where your discovery comes in. Each of the Arks was equipped with the most powerful construction and restoration technology ever developed. And you’ve seen it.”
“The big…” I struggled to describe what I’d seen. “Swarm?”
She nodded. “They’re called SIVA Cells. 'Self-Improving Versatile Assemblers.' Near the end of the war, ponies were experimenting with smaller and smaller machines. Robronco developed some prototypes, but they never made it to market. The SIVA Cells are a parallel development by BrayTech. Self-replicating self-organizing machines so small you need a microscope to see them! You’ve already seen some of what they can do.”
I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head.
“The nanometal,” Mom explained patiently. “It’s wild SIVA. Useless without the ability to program it.”
“It was holding the walls together in the intact section,” I recalled.
“Exactly! Without a template and orders, it’s growing wild, trying to effect repairs without knowing how to do it, like a pony with every tool in the toolbox and no idea how to use them properly.”
“Huh…”
“Once we’re able to unlock its power, we can use it the way it was intended,” Mom said. “We’ll raise up cities in mere days, scrub the deadly radiation and disease from the surface and make it somewhere ponies can actually live. We could grow as much food as we want -- more than that, we could grow medicine, clothing, anything we wanted!”
“That does sound pretty great,” I admitted. “Especially if we could reclaim the surface.”
Mom nodded. “It’s terrible how much was lost during the war. All those mutants and monsters down there have turned it into a nightmare. I’ve seen reports from scouting teams -- there are monsters that can tear right through power armor, undead horrors, radiation storms… if half of what I’ve heard is true, the surface just needs to be wiped clean so we can start over again.”
Something about it didn’t seem right. “If it’s so useful… why is it sealed up like that?”
“If we’re lucky, we’ll find some logs explaining it,” Mom said. “Maybe they were trying to repair the Exodus Ark and something went wrong. We’ll have plenty of time to do the archaeology after taking care of the ponies that are alive right now. That’s something your father never really understood.”
She touched my chin, giving me a sad look.
“I know,” I said quietly. He’d always cared more about garbage he dug out of the ground, decoding broken terminals, and the lives of ponies who died before the war than he’d ever cared about me. Maybe it had been the same for her.
I felt her aura twist my mane into something more ordered.
“Let me show you around a bit now that you don’t look like a prison escapee,” she said.
“Isn’t that exactly what I am?” I joked.
She laughed. There was a sharp, quick knock on the door before it opened.
“Ma’am, we’ve got a situation!” said the pony outside as he stepped in, throwing a salute towards my Mom. I vaguely recognized him from somewhere. “The patients in lockdown are-- what is she doing here?”
“Hm?” My mom raised an eyebrow.
“Ma’am, that’s a violent prisoner. She assaulted me--”
“That’s where I know you from!” I interrupted. “You’re the jerk I punched out! Wow, did I give you a black eye even though you were wearing a helmet? No wonder your commander thought it was funny.”
He sputtered, turning away and trying to hide the bruise.
Mom cleared her throat. “Lieutenant Rain Shadow, I see you’ve met my daughter. Now what’s this about the patients in lockdown?”
“Some of them are rioting,” he reported. “The medics asked me to inform you at once.”
“Of course they did,” she sighed. “Both of you come with me, and try to avoid punching him out again, Chamomile.”
Mom didn’t run, but she walked quickly, making it hard to keep up with her. She was going just a little too quickly for me to walk alongside her, and too slowly for me to run without going right past her, forcing me to sort of walk a bit, run a few steps to keep up, over and over again.
“How many are rioting?” Mom asked.
“Only a few, but they caught the doctors by surprise,” Rain Shadow said. “I was getting treated for my… injury, and had to help fight them off.”
“It must be because we uncovered the core,” Mom muttered.
“What patients are we talking about?” I asked.
“The nanometal is dangerous,” Mom said. “It can infect a pony -- the SIVA cells it’s made out of are small enough to get into the body, and they replicate like bacteria.”
“We’ve been trying to treat the miners that get infected,” Rain Shadow added. I was a little surprised he’d offer useful information. He apparently took my look of surprise the wrong way. “We’d cure them if we could. They’re in pain and we want to help.”
“All we’ve found that works is keeping them sedated,” Mom said.
I frowned and tried to ignore the itching in my leg. “I don’t get it. If the SIVA Cells are supposed to fix things, why would they infect and hurt ponies?”
“They’re trying to fix things. The problem is ponies aren’t a broken wall panel or leaking pipe.” Mom took a turn and I heard ponies yelling ahead of us. “Every time you use your muscles, they tear a little. Then they heal, stronger than before. That’s how exercise works. The SIVA Cells see your muscle get worn down and try to fix it. But they don’t know what they’re doing. They can’t build tissue and protein, they build machines. They’re jamming the wrong parts into ponies and making things worse.”
“That doesn’t sound pleasant…”
“It’s not.”
Ahead of us, I spotted the pony who’d interviewed me. The mare saluted as we approached, glancing at me but maintaining her composure.
“We’ve got the infected contained in the ship’s medical bay,” the mare said. “One of the medics is still trapped in there with them.”
“Thank you, Miss Sheen. We need to get the medic out,” Mom said.
I looked past them. There was a window into the medbay, with a mostly-closed steel shutter over it. I could just see inside through the gaps in the steel shade. Somepony, or something, was staggering around, twitching. I saw the glint of wet metal when it moved. Suddenly, it twisted towards the window, slamming against it. The window cracked, and the security shutter closed the rest of the way, cutting off my view.
“Why are they acting like that?” I asked, taking a half step back.
“The infection is extremely painful,” Emerald Sheen explained. “One reason we keep them sedated is that it gets bad enough that the infected… go insane.”
“Fun,” I muttered.
“After a few days without sleep, in constant pain, I don’t know how well I’d hold up either,” Emerald said. “Knocking them out is the best we can do.”
“If they’re getting resistant to the drugs we have available, we don’t have much choice,” Mom said. “You’re authorized to use lethal force to clear the room. If they could just have held out until we could get the SIVA core working properly…”
She shook her head, frustrated.
Rain Shadow shrugged. “You’re the only one armed, Sheen. Can you deal with this?”
Emerald Sheen frowned and nodded. “Please step back from the door, Ma’am. They’re probably going to rush it the moment I open it.”
Mom motioned for us to pull back a few paces down the hallway. Emerald waited until we were clear, then kicked a red button on the wall, and the door popped open with a hiss. She immediately fired into the space, red beams cutting through the air and into something on the other side. She fired a few more times, then stepped in and I heard more shots before she called out.
“Clear!” Emerald shouted.
Mom motioned to Rain Shadow, and he nodded seriously and took point, leading us into the medical bay. The place was a mess, and four ponies were lying on the floor in various states of having been shot to death with lasers. I stopped to look more closely at the nearest one. He looked drawn and thin, and half of his face was covered in metallic plates that looked almost like an insect’s exoskeleton made of silver.
“Be careful,” Rain Shadow warned, watching the other bodies. “They’re tougher than they look. Sometimes even kill shots just stun them until they can recover.”
“I found the medic,” Emerald reported, helping a pony in a lab coat out of a locker. “They don’t seem injured.”
“That’s one good thing, at least,” Mom muttered.
I saw movement to her side, right in her blind spot. A pony lunged out of the shadows, half her body a withered mess like tangled steel cables and crumpled foil. I shoved Mom aside and threw a punch that caught the infected pony on the jaw. They collapsed, and I stepped back and winced, looking at my hoof.
“Are you alright?” Mom asked. She looked at my leg. “You cracked your hoof!”
“It’ll be okay,” I lied. I'd done it before and I knew it was going to sting for days.
“We’ll get that wrapped up right away,” Mom promised. “Miss Sheen?” She pointed at the fallen infected pony, who was starting to stir again.
Emerald motioned for us to step aside, and the shaken medic started bandaging my hoof. I was looking away when the flash of red light came, but the sound the infected mare made, the howl of pain, made me wince.
Mom didn’t even seem to notice. She patted my shoulder.
“You saved me, Chamomile. I’d say that means you deserve a nice meal tonight, hm? You, your father and I haven’t sat down together as a family in years. It’ll be a nice change.”
She smiled. The laser light flashed again, and the howl stopped, cutting off in a gurgle.
I just nodded, my throat dry. I didn't feel very hungry.
Back home in Cirrustead, Dad and I hadn’t really had a proper dining room. I mean, we’d had one in theory -- there was a room with a big table and chairs and stuff, but I don’t think we ever had a meal there. There was always too much work to do, too many things for him to examine, and I’d sort of had to fend for myself anyway most of the time. I could count on my hooves the number of times we’d actually eaten together as a family.
Maybe that explained why I felt so uncomfortable sitting down across from him. That or the two soldiers standing behind each of us.
“Oh good, you’re on house arrest instead of being thrown in a cell,” he said, not sounding very happy about any of this. “I take it your mother finally noticed she’d gotten you arrested at the same time she sent for me.”
“Don’t be so rude,” Mom said, settling down at the head of the table. “I didn’t think to give my subordinates explicit orders about Chamomile, and they didn’t know how important she was. If it was really important to you, you could have mentioned her instead of sulking in your cabin.”
“Please don’t fight,” I said quietly.
Mom nodded. “Of course, dear. I was hoping to have a pleasant dinner and discuss tomorrow’s plans with your father.”
I always knew the military ate better than the rest of us -- it was common knowledge, and a big recruiting tactic they used. They needed the resources to keep us safe, and you were welcome to a taste if you were willing to get involved and join up. I just wasn’t aware of how big the gap was.
Platters of food were put down in front of us, the servers saluting after they’d filled our wineglasses. There were cloudapple tarts, a salad that was more vibrantly green than anything I’d ever seen, and what I think were actual potatoes - like the kind that grow in dirt! It was enough to feed us for a week. My appetite returned with a vengeance.
“I told you already,” Dad cut in, totally ignoring the food. “Give up on finding the core. It probably fell into the volcano, and even if it didn’t, it’s buried in gigatons of unstable rock. You could spend the next two hundred years trying to find it.”
Mom smiled. “I don’t need to spend any time at all finding it,” she said.
“Because you expect me to somehow divine its location,” Dad sighed. “I’m a good archaeologist, but I’m not--”
“I don’t need you to find it, because Chamomile already did,” Mom corrected. She gave me a proud look. “While you were complaining about being dragged away from your piles of garbage, she took the initiative and found the SIVA core, intact.”
“She did what?!” Dad spat, shocked.
I looked up from stuffing my face. I wasn’t going to let the food go to waste just because Mom and Dad were talking.
“I fought a robot, too!” I said proudly.
Mom giggled. “Yes you did, honey. She destroyed a sentry bot with her bare hooves. I wish Colonel Ohm’s soldiers were as talented.”
I could feel the glare from the soldiers standing behind me.
“Talented at breaking things,” Dad muttered.
“He’s just jealous,” Mom said. “He was holding out for a better deal and you went and did his job all on your own.”
“I wasn’t holding out for a better deal,” Dad retorted. “I was refusing to help with your insane plan. You’ve always been like this - you don’t respect how dangerous these things can be! Two hundred years ago we almost went extinct because ponies decided it was a grand idea to use magic and technology they barely understood in the pursuit of killing each other as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
“The war is over. What’s important now is rebuilding,” Mom countered. “What happened was terrible, but we can’t fix it with sticks and stones. We need the right tool for the job, and SIVA is that tool.”
Dad snorted. “If it’s so grand and powerful, maybe you can explain why the Exodus Blue crashed?”
“You say that like I don’t already know!” Mom rolled her eyes. “Evidence suggests that the ship was passing over the volcano on its way out to a holding pattern over the ocean, and the near-simultaneous detonation of megaspells across Equestria caused a thaumatic shockwave that set off a volcanic eruption. Pure bad luck.”
“So you did do at least a tiny bit of research. I’m impressed. Usually you just dig something up and push the biggest button you can find to see what it does.”
“This is why it’s so difficult to work with you,” Mom sighed. “You’re controlled by your fears. That’s why you’d rather collect bottlecaps and empty tins than put your talents to use. When the military contacted us about special projects, you turned and ran. Did you even tell Chamomile?”
“Tell me what?” I asked.
“Your father was the first pick for this job,” Mom said. “He turned it down. I didn’t. And instead of supporting me, he ran off to some backwater cloud-berg with you.”
“I did what was best for everypony. There are things too dangerous to use. There are things that should stay buried. This is one of them! Or at least it was until some idiot kicked over the wrong rock.”
Something inside me just snapped. Maybe it was the growing soreness in my foreleg, or the headache I was developing from listening to Dad complain. I stood up and slammed my hoof down on the steel table hard enough to dent it.
“I found it while I was looking for a pony that went missing!” I snapped. “At least I was doing something instead of sitting on my flank and complaining!”
Dad glared at me. “Chamomile--”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said. “I already know what you’re going to say. You’re going to call me an idiot and tell me I should have just kept my head down and not made any noise! Why? So you can stare at old trash and write little notes about how to tell if a bottlecap was made in Appleoosa or Phillydelphia?”
“That’s-- it’s important to--” Dad sputtered.
“Nopony cares except you! They’re just holes in the ground now anyway! What Mom is doing might actually help ponies! If half of what she says about SIVA Cells is true, it could save the world!”
Dad was quiet for a long moment, then he stood up. “Something I’ve tried to teach you -- and failed -- is that you have to learn from the past to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.”
Mom shook her head, obviously unhappy. “Take him back to his cell,” she ordered, and a soldier stepped away from his post to tap Dad on the shoulder.
Dad gave me one last look as he was escorted out.
“I was also trying to tell you that you put your hoof in the bowl of gravy,” he said.
I looked down and moved my bandaged hoof, blushing.
“Well that didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked,” Mom said. “I’m sorry, Chamomile. Your father is just difficult sometimes. I’m sure he does care about you, in his own way.”
I shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t matter.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Mom said. “I doubt that’s your father apologizing, but… ah, Colonel Ohm. How is the dig site?”
The armored pony gave a polite nod, pointedly not saluting. “We cleared the passage to the intact part of the ship. Nopony needs to worry about squeezing through or getting cut by nanometal spurs on the way there.”
“Excellent,” Mom said.
“I’ve suspended all other digging operations as per your orders,” Ohm continued.
Mom glanced at me and shrugged. “No point in mining when we found what we want already. The last thing we need is some prisoner making a stupid mistake and flooding the section with molten lava.”
I nodded. That made sense.
“We should be able to get along with about a quarter,” Ohm said. “If we’re not doing exploratory digging, we just need maintenance and manual labor for the existing tunnels.” He pulled some paperwork out of his armor. Mom grabbed it and glanced over it. “I recommend a reduction in the workforce size to conserve resources.”
“A… reduction?” I asked quietly.
“Fewer ponies to guard, fewer mouths to feed,” Ohm said.
“That’s fine,” Mom said. I watched her sign the orders. “Get rid of the less productive ones first, as an example to the rest.”
“Of course, Ma’am,” Ohm nodded. “We’ll wait until after the dinner service.”
“Hm? Why?” Mom frowned.
“To give them one last meal,” Ohm said.
“It’s a waste of food,” Mom said. “Have it done immediately.”
He nodded, looking equal parts glum and angry, and left. Mom turned to me and scoffed.
“Stallions get so emotional,” she said. “So how’s your dinner?”