//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Hegira: Rising Omega // by Guardian_Gryphon //------------------------------// “Don't adventures ever have an end?  I suppose not.  Someone else always has to carry on the story.”  ― J.R.R. Tolkien “The world is so much larger than I thought.  I thought we went along paths- -but it seems there are no paths.  The going itself is the path.”  ― C.S. Lewis Earth Calendar: 2117 Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact) Twelfth Month, Third Day, Celestial Calendar "Sister?" Celestia paused for a long, uncertain moment.  Her sibling remained silent, and motionless.  A shadowy form against the even darker backdrop of a waning moon.  The lack of lights in the Lunar Monarch's study left it a cold, forbidding space, trimmed all in silver and deepest blue. "Sister." The elder Alicorn repeated the word, with a firm but warm tone, that strongly hinted at the depths of concern beneath her relatively tame visage. Luna glanced up from her musings, and offered Celestia a piercingly emotional glance equal parts remorse, resignation, and gnawing concern.  The Night Ruler's words, and the flat, almost prophetic tone of their delivery, did nothing to allay Celestia's concern. "The nightfall of this age is upon us.  A darkness moves through the edges of the land.  Gathering.  Preparing.  Ready to exploit our time of weakness..." Celestia moved to sit on the balcony beside her sibling, shivering involuntarily from the words, and the sting of the winter air.  Luna finally locked eyes with her sister in full.  The tears the younger Alicorn had been biting back were suddenly painfully apparent at close range. Her voice began to crack as she finished putting verbal form to her dark thoughts. "A weakness which I opened us to.  And now all will suffer mightily for it, as our age comes crashing to a fell end.  In silence, and in ruin." As Luna began to cast her eyes downwards, the Solar monarch reached out, and firmly held her chin up with one hoof, forcing her sister to keep their gazes locked.  Celestia's words issued forth, as firmly as her gesture. "You need rest, dear sister.  You are far less a realist, and more a pessimist, when you are exhausted.  We both still feel, so keenly, the drain of our saving acts these eight months past.  More than that, you need to accept that the loss of the Elements was not your fault."   Celestia sighed, and turned her gaze to the brilliant panoply of stars above.  She continued slowly, drawing some small comfort from the brilliance of the sight before her. "You had every reason to think them unsafe in our care, and they arrived as expected at their destination.  No one, not even Cadence, could have foreseen the fault in her castle's defenses.  It was older than most of recorded history." The elder Alicorn sighed, and turned her eyes back to her sister as she continued her admonishment. "I do not doubt that evil things are now stirring, readying themselves to snuff out the light and life of our civilization.  But to do so?  They must step out of the shadows, and into the last of the light.  And then we will see them.  We will know our enemy.  We will face them at last.  And we will make an end of this..." Celestia rose, and her face hardened as she finished, her voice acquiring a rare and potent edge of steel that was highly uncharacteristic of her peaceful nature. "We will make an end of this which will long be remembered.  And in doing so, I would not even know where to make a start, were you not by my side.  We *each* have our faults.  And without you, mine would have seen us carried away into darkness long ago." Luna raised an eyebrow, and for a brief moment, a spark of distant morbid humor twinkled in her eyes, and her tone. "Couldst we have what you have quoth in writing?" Celestia smiled, and gestured to the warm light of the castle's main corridor. "Come.  A late tea is brewing, and I need your council." Luna rose, and followed her sister to the door, head tilted to one side in a gesture of curiosity. "My council as to what?" Celestia turned as she entered the corridor, and exhaled slowly, nodded her thanks and dismissal to Luna's Nightguards as she spoke. "In the words of the Humans, 'We have company for dinner...' " Earth Calendar: 2117 Equestrian Calendar: 11 AC (After Contact) December 2nd, Gregorian Calendar "Astris...  What is this exactly?" Councilor Martins pursed her lips as she examined the DaTab, the clank of her boots echoing off the gangway in nearly perfect synchronization with the softer thump of Astris' hooves.  The unicorn winced reflexively, and sighed as he delivered an explanation. "Two more people backed out.  From the Atlantis roster.  Husband and wife...  A microbiologist and a triple PhD systems engineer." Councilor Janet Martins stopped, leaning momentarily on the gangway railing and pinching the bridge of her nose, the DaTab folded under one arm. She stared out at the fruition of her decades and decades of work, and sighed.  Fifteen immense silver arrowhead shapes, each three times as long as a football stadium structure, and nearly half-again as wide. Their scale was difficult to grasp at first.  It was only after one began to perceive the roughly twelve thousand miles of tracks, loading gantries, gangways, and the ant-sized people scrambling about the superstructures, that one could truly comprehend the size of each ship. Each and every vessel was intended to carry fifteen thousand people, and the first fifteen ships were only the first of five waves.  In the distance behind the first rows of gargantuan silhouettes, an identical fifteen frames were swiftly taking shape. The components for two of the other three waves had already been completed, and were merely awaiting free assembly docks.  All in all, earth hoped to send out one million, one hundred twenty five thousand living souls.  A seed.  The genesis of something far greater. Martins exhaled a ragged, slow breath, and glanced down at her companion.  The Unicorn had been her assistant for several years, and in that time he had become as much a friend and confidant as an administrator. "That makes the eighth withdrawal this week." Astris grimly followed Martin's eyeline, watching as a two story thirty foot long crate of food supplies was carefully moved down a magnetic track, into one of the great ship's side loading bays. "Ninth." Martins winced, and shook her head once more. "People are frightened, Astris.  It's one thing to talk about exploring strange new worlds... Planting new life, and new civilization...  But when you confront people with a cryotube?  When the PER is breathing threats and hatred?  It's a whole different ball game." Silence reigned for a moment, as the two friends swept the barren African plains with their eyes.  The space was given over more to steel and duracrete than to sand, dirt, or petrified trees.  Great gaping assembly pits, twenty lane access roads, and high speed monorail tracks cut the desert floor into geometric patterns visible with the naked eye from the surface of the Moon. Bunkhouses, research labs, fueling towers as large as ten city blocks, cold storage bays, and logistics warehouses filled the remaining free ground.  Megalithic gray slabs, marching infinitely into the distance. It was a small country unto itself, bustling with the frenzied activity of a quarter million crew, and five times that number in construction, support, and loading personnel. Martins exhaled and threw up her hands, turning to look down at Astris. "By the time we launch we may have half as many Equestrians onboard as Humans.  So this brings our deficit to...  What?" Astris rattled off the names and numbers by heart.  Memory and logistics were his job, and the Unicorn was exceptionally talented at his job. "Six on Vostok, four on Voskhod, one on Mercury, none on Gemini, three on Apollo, twelve on Salyut, eight on Shenzhou, three on Tiangong, seven on Challenger, five on Discovery, three on Endeavour, fifteen on Atlantis, seven on Columbia, thirteen on Soyuz, and nine on Mir." Martins sighed once again, and collected her thoughts.  She turned back to face the nearest loading operation, sweeping the myriad immense cargo pallets with her eyes as she opened her mouth. The words never came. Martins winced, and buried her face in her arm as a brilliant flare of light filled her vision.  Her ears screamed out for mercy as shock and pressure waves arrived, bringing with them a raging fury of sound that seemed to herald the end of the universe. The heat from the explosion was easily felt on uncovered skin, even at a distance of half a mile. At last, Martins and Astris found themselves able to look up as the ringing in their skulls abated, and their eyes adjusted to the momentary luminous assault.  The final echoes of the detonation slowly died away, reverberating time and again off harsh, solid surfaces. Martins hissed as she beheld the damage.  An entire loading gantry attached to the Shenzhou, the nearest of the ships, had been wiped from existence.  The damage extended nearly all the way to the ground level access road, and back up against the hull of the ship, which was carbon-scored in several building-sized patches around the loading bay aperture. The interior of the loading bay had devolved into chaos, as the force of the detonation toppled crate stacks and threw people aside like ragdolls. Astris whistled, and his eyes looked so wide, Martins wondered if they would simply pop from their sockets. "Threats and hatred, Ma'am?  That looks like a hell of a lot more than threats and hatred..." Martins grit her teeth sharply as she steadied herself against the gangway railing, fire rising in her eyes and her tone alike.  A piercing emergency condition siren crescendoed in from all sides, accenting her words as if by design. "They've crossed a line.  And God as my witness, they are going to wish they hadn't." Astris blinked repeatedly, stammering to get his words out as he watched a swarm of emergency vehicles filled the access road. "Pardon me ma'am, but what do we have that could scare off anyone that fanatical?" Martins raised an eyebrow, and snorted her response. "We have a favor to call in." The Councilor turned on one heel and strode off, contrary to all normal human impulse, in the direction of the unfolding disaster.  Her silhouette was framed by columns of smoke, and flame as she grit out her instructions in a fierce timbre. "Get me a fast Equestrian courier.  *Yesterday.*" "There has been...  A complication." Veritas nodded towards the image on her viewscreen, pursing her lips in frustration.  The emotion spilled over into her words, but only as the tiniest hint of a shift in tone. "I can see that for myself.  The incident has already become public knowledge.  This presents a definitive obstacle to the plan.  The Genesists are now aware that the threat constitutes more than mere words, and they will act swiftly to secure themselves.  How did this happen?" The figure on the screen sighed, and shook its head. "The fool of an infiltrator failed to pack the device with proper EMF shielding.  Nearby scanning equipment set off the timed detonator ahead of schedule.  Only a loading bay and a few segments of hull plating were damaged." Veritas nodded slowly, and leaned in towards the monitor.  The relatively dim, but concentrated light of her office spilled over her mane, causing the surface to glisten like some far off starfield, as cold and heartless as her words. "If necessary, see to this matter yourself.  The Genesists are seeking a solution...  An enemy to strike...  So give them one.  Feed them the remaining assets on site if you must.  Make it convincing.  But ensure that the plan proceeds as outlined, and on schedule." The figure nodded, then tilted its head. "What of the Shenzhou?  We are now short one device." Veritas shook her head, and sat back, focusing her eyes on the blank pearlescent white surface of the room's back wall.  The twin teal orbs glittered with an unholy, unearthly light; eerily unfamiliar to all who looked upon them.  And unmistakably malevolent. "Inconsequential.  Based on the news footage of the damage, the Earth Creatures will not be able to fully repair their 'Shenzhou' in time to launch it with the other fourteen vessels.  Therefore it is of no concern." A small smile cracked the surface of Veritas' muzzle as she terminated the connection with a wave of her hoof.  As the unicorn rose, and made her way to the center of her inner chamber, she murmured softly to herself. "Fourteen are sufficient to make our point." Earth Calendar: 2117 Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact) Twelfth Month, Third Day, Celestial Calendar In The Darkness, the void of voids, the space between, the voice of the one-who-would-lead reverberated softly.  Cast in the frigid fires of celestial matter, yet as dark and soft as a black silken curtain. "The plan moves to schedule, in spite of recent events.  Proceed with final preparations on all fronts.  Begin with the defilers.  The skin changers.  The usurpers.  A potential alliance is burgeoning between them, and their weaker cousins.  See to it that this does not come to pass." As if leading an immense orchestral crescendo into a thoroughly sour note, the voice of the one-who-would-lead rose to a fever pitch, backed by the affirmations of her billions upon billions of subjects. "Show them FEAR!  Shatter their plans, and defile their associations!  Show them HATE!  Sow discord, and STRIFE!  Show them DARKNESS! Show them DEATH!" "In bonds of family six set out; To seek The Dispossessed, In joy and sorrow, grief and strife, bearing morbid stress. Where Sun and Moon the expanse share, the six will find the power, To put an end to Darkness... Strife... The war of Night's own hour..."