Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
December 6th, Gregorian Calendar
Skye
"This is remarkable...."
Fyrenn brushed the side of the metal cylinder with one claw. He had a habit of doing that with inanimate things that interested him. As if to cement its reality in his head, or something like that.
I mentally noted its nearly twenty meter length, and two meter diameter as he swiveled to face Martins once more, and asked my next question for me.
"...What's the total weight?"
The Councilor inclined her head, and raised both eyebrows. The figure surprised me initially, to the point that I thought she might have gotten it wrong. Human memory could be frighteningly inaccurate.
"Four hundred and thirty five metric tons."
I blinked, narrowed my eyes as I did some more quick math, then shook my head as I stared into the intricate layers of filament contained within the core's central chamber. A gorgeous engineering achievement if ever there was one, but there was no way it was that light.
"Not possible. That would mean you were able to reduce the density of matter-antimatter containment equipment to a preposterously low figure. Most high-end superconductors are incredibly dense, and difficult to shape like this. The technology doesn't exist, not even in the most experimental university labs."
I knew. I'd been inside more than one of them.
A new voice rang out through the darkened chamber, taking all but Martins by surprise. She was the only one who didn't swivel her head.
"That's because it isn't merely Human technology. This is as much a thaumatic generator as a Terran technological one. The unique handling method also significantly reduces the danger in the event of a reactor breach; In most failure-modes, the antimatter stores are shunted right out of our plane of existence when the containment field is terminated, regardless of cause."
The newcomer Unicorn stepped out of the hatchway, and proffered me one hoof.
"I'm Astris. The Councilor's attache."
Martins snorted as I reached out to bump Astris' hoof. She interjected before anyone else could reply.
"Attache doesn't do him justice. He's a world-class astronomer, adept mage, and not a bad physicist either. Unfortunately his responsibilities these days are mostly logistical. But he does that at a world-class level too..."
I inclined my head and smiled slightly. He sounded exactly like my kind of geek.
Alyra cut into the silence next, a look of confusion matching her flattened ears, and bemused tone. My own ears perked reflexively with excitement. That kid was a dynamo; Whenever she opened her beak, she had insights that could match or exceed any of ours.
"Hang on. If the whole point of packing the explosive device in an engineering crate was to get it into this compartment... But the reactor is designed to be safe, even in an explosion... Then why go to all that trouble? Why not pack the device in a better-shielded scientific equipment container?"
Aston ruffled the feathers between Alyra's ears, and offered the young Gryphon a wide grin.
"Good catch kiddo. The obvious answer is that they thought they could do more damage this way. What's less obvious is why they thought so..."
Neyla peered into the center of the reactor cylinder, as if the prying heat of her gaze could somehow re-ignite the fires within. When the Gryphoness spoke, it was a slow, measured statement. Again, that excitement. Of all the people I'd ever talked to, Human or Equestrian, who weren't university educated, she'd been the only one who really 'got' Quantum Physics.
"I'm not a physics expert, but I've finished my fair share of JRSF competency training courses. Couldn't you theoretically trigger a runaway reaction by timing your explosion correctly, and ensuring the detonation occurs so quickly and violently, that the failsafe is rendered useless?"
Astris shook his head firmly, and his muzzle tightened into a resolute mask of well restrained, but still obvious frustration. I even thought I detected a tiny hint of patronizing in the Unicorn's voice.
Minus ten points. Wrong turn buddy.
"No. The containment system is a positive interlock. All the antimatter, and the ongoing reaction, are suspended in Thaumatic fields generated by these filaments. The field is slightly out of phase. When it collapses, everything inside is pushed out of this plane of existence; Absorbed into the lowest inert levels of ether as pure Thaumatic energy. Even a small breach in the casing, or a minor crack in a filament, will cause this to occur. What you're describing is impossible."
I knew my face had lit up with the telltale glow of inspiration. Everyone always told me it was almost as comically obvious as a lightbulb going off.
I could practically feel the gears turning upstairs as something Neyla had said took root, and about three dozen pages of mental equations finally started to converge.
I brushed past Astris with a bit of a definitely not intentional flouncy tail-flick against his nose, moving directly to Neyla. Alright, it was one hundred percent intentional. I didn't bother to address him anymore, directing my thoughts mostly to Neyla.
"No... No it isn't impossible! You're a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for, you brilliant bird-brain."
Neyla offered a confused, but interested glance first to Fyrenn, then Martins, Hutch, and Aston. I continued unabated, even as Astris snorted in consternation. I didn't want to give him the hoof-room to butt in.
A brilliant blue wireframe of energy exploded from my horn, filling the room with the finished equations, and a small scale model of the ship, with the reactor core highlighted.
How Human engineers got anything across to each other without the innate ability to turn thoughts into images was definitely a testament to their determination, and languages.
"If you vaporized all the filaments at once... Mind you not cracks, not blowing them to pieces, but instantly reduced them to their purest components, you would get the same effect as if---"
I stopped abruptly, put one hoof to my forehead, and shook my head, trying to both maintain the lightning-fast train of thought, the magical projection, and simultaneously translate my findings into something a lay person could comprehend.
Images and equations were great, if and only if your audience had some kind of context. I changed tack. Half of being a good engineer is being able to communicate well with people who aren't.
"...No, picture it this way; If you pull a tablecloth out from under fine china fast enough, it stays right where it is. Newton's laws see to that, if you balance the equations properly. Same kind of thing here. But we're not talking about glassware. We're talking about Antimatter."
Spinning, I triumphantly jabbed one hoof into Astris' chest, seemingly oblivious to his offended expression. I know that Fyreen, at least, knew better. His smirk told me so. I was just extracting my own small petty revenge for Astris' patronizing demeanor toward Neyla. He deserved it.
The equations suspended in my holographic field began to expand, almost without limit, keeping time with the increasingly furious pace of my words. Stan says I could put professional auctioneers to shame.
"Now, it will be *Thaumatically charged* antimatter. And suddenly suspended in a theoretical, natural, unconstrained field. The antimatter feeds the Thaumatic energy, which in turn bleeds inefficiency of an imperfect, imbalanced transference off as heat and light, which in turn overloads the containment field. The antimatter touches the expanding gas cloud that used to be the side of the reactor core, and..."
My hologram abruptly vanished in an expanding ball of light. The brightness was significant enough that all but the Gryphons were forced to shield their eyes. I'd done that very much on purpose. Sometimes your audience needs some visual impact to get the point.
As soon as the eruption had come, it was gone. Silence fell for a moment. A pause for dramatic effect, as well as my own processing to catch up, before I finished the thought in a much slower, more somber tone.
"...If my math is right---"
Neyla proffered a sharp glower at Astris as she briefly interrupted. Bless her, that sister of mine.
"It always is."
I sighed, and winced. The number I'd arrived at was more than a little upsetting.
"...You'd be looking at two hundred and sixty three. Gigatons. Of explosive force."
Hutch broke into a short fit of uncontrolled coughing, and for a moment I thought he might vomit. Fyrenn went in for a hearty back slap to try and help the General keep it down. Aston sat down hard against the wall, murmuring softly.
"That's enough explosive force to..."
Fyrenn finished her math, and then her train of thought. Somehow when it came to explosions, he was passable at math. And his conclusion was exactly right.
"To wipe out the entire region. And if you set off one of these, on each ship, at the same time?"
I shook my head, and sat back on my haunches, filling in for him where his arithmetic had started to break down.
"You'd toast most of Africa, at a temperature that transforms lead into liquid. You'd have to stand on the facing surface of the moon to be able to see the entire explosion in a single field of view. Your total population casualties wouldn't be that bad in relative terms, given the low density of inhabitants here... But the EMP would circle the globe ten or twenty times at full strength. Even hardened military systems would be wiped out irrevocably."
For almost a minute, no one spoke. Martins was the first to break the deep contemplation.
"Are you telling me that we've inadvertently built a cluster of Human-civilization-ending warheads for the PER, positioned in the most ideal location to suit their ends?"
I exhaled slowly, and nodded, borrowing a word from an old acquaintance that seemed to sum things up nicely.
"Eeeyup."
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
Twelfth Month, Seventh Day, Celestial Calendar
Carradan
I closed my eyes, and focused as hard as I could on the soothingly mundane sounds of the room. My left ear twitched reflexively as a log snapped in the fireplace. It was such a weird thing to get used to, the way those fuzzy little protrusions seemed to have minds of their own.
But they grew on ya. Literally and figuratively.
The rustle of Gryphons' feathers mixed softly with the crackle of ice wrapped in linen cloths, as their own wraps were pressed against sore muscles, or bruised spots.
Occasionally the dissonant note of hooves shuffling against fabric, as Shining reseated himself, or the soft rasp of IJ's chitin wing projections, interrupted briefly.
I steeled myself, knowing what was coming, then twisted his neck firmly to the side, wincing as pain arced down the muscles, then sighing in relief as it abated into a dull sore throb. Gingerly, I raised one hoof, icepack balanced carefully on the tip, and pressed it to the pain's epicenter.
Gooly that was some good relief.
No one in the room had spoken since the group arrived; Guess no one felt any particular need. There was more than a little bit of anger, frustration, and concern, but it was all directed decisively outward, towards whatever nameless intruder was still jerking our collective chain.
Slimy bastards. Trying to paint my fiance as some kind of murder insect.
I don't think I'd quite forgiven prince high-and-mighty for his previous tone towards her yet. But I was getting there. Almost being blown up together is a great way to get over your differences with someone. It's worked for me before.
All heads turned as the door to the kitchen opened. Celestia and Luna entered, seating themselves wordlessly, and setting about making tea with a clearly practiced expertise, even as every other gaze present, mine included, drilled into them, willing them to answer unspoken questions.
After the sisters at last exchanged a doleful glance across the surface of the huge, rough-shorn oaken table, it was somehow silently agreed that Celestia would speak first.
As her sibling spoke, Luna finished making all eight cups of tea, and distributed them with shocking speed, balancing each cup simultaneously in her thaumatic field with no effort whatsoever.
Very very occasionally, I envied the Alicorns and Unicorns that power. But then I'd always remember that I could outrace a tornado, even in the worst shape of my equine life, let alone when I was in top form. Given how good hooves and mouths actually were for handling delicate things, I always decided that I'd never make that trade if it was offered.
Flyin is just too damn fun.
"The good news is that we have persuaded Lord Tackethane to give us time to complete our own full investigation before he briefs the rest of the government on this... 'Occurrence.' The bad news is that we had to enlighten him as to our murder situation. And we agreed upon a deadline of forty eight hours."
Shining grimaced, and levitated an icepack away from his forehead.
"All, or nothing then."
Luna nodded once sharply in affirmation, her voice clipped, and confident, but somber.
"All or nothing. Our Royal standing, and the presence of our trusted Gryphon allies have bought us more leeway than we could have otherwise expected. Now our first question becomes---"
I interrupted reflexively, reporter instincts kicking into overdrive by force of habit as my train of thought got up some steam.
"Who is the other infiltrator? Someone outside that room had to have been in cahoots with the walking bomb, and known how to ensure there would be the worst possible witness present to see a Changeling ally presumably trying to murder him, and one of his Royal Sovereigns."
IJ shook her head slowly, taking a small sip of her tea and fixing an empty patch of the kitchen's spotless stone walls with a vicious glower. Her voice was frighteningly calm. I knew her best, and I easily detected the telltale undercurrent of rage at the foundation of her words.
I was willing to bet Kephic and Varan caught the tail end of it too, though I doubted they knew just how angry she really was. When my gal was well and truly pissed, even the devil would piss himself, and run.
"We know one thing now which we did not before. One of my trusted defenders is slain. Replaced."
We all fixed the Changeling Queen with curious gazes, each in our own way, from the trusting query of the Gryphons' cocked heads, to the unreadable masks of Shining, and his Alicorn rulers, down finally to my half-smile that I hoped would provide a little encouragement.
IJ elaborated without shifting her own middle-distance death-glare. She was headed nuclear. I almost pitied whoever was going to end up on the receiving end. But boy howdy I wanted to make sure I got to watch all the same.
"We... This new-old kind of Changeling... We are not capable of the technique needed to turn ourselves into a, for lack of a better term, 'walking bomb.' The needed mechanisms are part and parcel of the bastardization of our lifecode that keeps us enslaved to the Hive."
Shining raised an eyebrow, then winced, and pressed one hoof to a cut on the bridge of his muzzle.
"Wait. So we have a case of Changelings, disguising themselves as Ponies, and somehow bypassing all safeguards we've put in place to detect such things within the castle... For the express purpose of then mimicking *other,* different Changelings... In order to try and discredit this alliance, by convincing everyone that there's actually no difference between them..."
Sildinar nodded slowly, and inclined his head, raising his tea cup as he responded. The drinking vessel, designed for dainty Equine state functions, appeared comically small in his weathered, muscular claws. Those were claws that had definitely been inside a few enemy skulls before, though I thought I also spied the effects of years of other, less violent hobbies too.
Maybe woodworking, and cooking. Those seemed to-type for him.
"An accurate assessment. The Overqueen clearly sees IJ's 'little' rebellion as a significant risk to the future stability of her reign."
I raised a hoof, remembering to be a little more polite, before tacking on a correction to the Gryphon Prince's statement.
"Her species, even."
Varan stared down into the slurry of remainders in his teacup, twitching one ear in thought.
"Fascinating."
Luna exhaled slowly, and her gaze fell, along with the mood of her speech. I didn't like it when the Alicorns were depressed. That was almost as scary as when the bird-brains were.
"Effective as well. If we cannot uncover clear proof of Chrysalis' motives, and machinations, in ironclad detail, then our battle in the court of opinion is lost. It will not matter if there is no proof, and even reasonable doubt, that IJ and her guard were complicit. The suspicion will be a seed of darkness powerful enough to uproot the entire negotiation."
Kephic flexed his claws around the bottom of his teacup, soaking in the warmth of the liquid as he spoke. Some things were just universal whether you had a frog, fingers, or claws.
"Then we need to find a body."
One by one, the rest of us in the room began to nod as we caught on. I took the silence as license, and elaborated anyways, giving a voice to the general internal train of thought. Being a reporter you pick up a surprisingly competent knowledge of basic forensics.
"Riiight... We know at least two someones have been replaced. We know who one of them was, so we even know exactly what we're looking for. Chitin, and bone, neither can be reduced to anything easily disposable without applying a lotta heat... Unless they disintegrated the corpses with magic?"
I shot a questioning glance at IJ, who shook her head, even as Luna beat her to the verbal explanation, to my immense relief.
"Such spells are energy intensive. There is no way, whatsoever, that one could have been cast without my notice, anywhere within ten miles. Let alone twice within the same structure."
Shining held up a hoof, and tilted his head to the side.
"Question for our feathered friends. I've heard it said that it takes about the same heat required to melt iron to disintegrate Human bones quickly, and nearly thrice as much for the bones of Equestrian species, on average. True?"
Kephic nodded sharply, and gestured to the kitchen's central ovens. Now there was a little factoid I didn't know. I made a mental note as cookies-n-cream-feathers took over the exposition.
"Yes. In Human terms, that's about one thousand, five hundred 'degrees' in 'celsius.' Or about half the temperature of our best alloy forges. You can do it with much lower temperatures, but it takes time. Days. Weeks. Depending. But who would notice? Kitchen ovens and heating boilers usually have a thick layer of ash and partially spent fuel in the bottom, and..."
The speckled Gryphon's voice trailed off, and all our eyes moved inexorably to fixate on the kitchen fireplace.
Luna spoke without shifting her gaze.
"We must search every hearth, boiler, oven, and forge in the castle. Immediately."
Oh boy. Scavenger hunt. One of my favorite party games.
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
December 7th, Gregorian Calendar
Fyrenn
I groaned, and stretched as I placed my right claw onto the access panel. Across the hall, a soft beep issued forth as Neyla did the same, and further down the corridor the unmistakable 'snick' of magnetic locks heralded Skye, Hutch, and Aston's departure towards short but blissful rest within their own guest rooms.
Much of the night was gone already, but we all knew the unspoken truth, relayed to us by a myriad of sore muscles and aching heads. Skipping out on sleep entirely would prevent us from being fully alert, and proficient, for the remainder of the investigation.
The energy debt of travel had to be paid, at least in part. Or else.
Alyra bent, cocking her head to one side, as the room's door slid back. A small stack of DaTabs lay on the floor just beyond the threshold.
I shook my head, and scooped up the thin slabs, taking a few steps into the room and unceremoniously dumping the miniature computers onto the desk. The space was spartan, yet quite comfortably appointed; Designed with minimalist, but discerning sensibilities.
"Mail. I'll worry about it in the morning. Most of it's probably junk."
I had half a mind to just brush the entire lot into the recycler. I wasn't even an Earth citizen anymore. What kind of mail could I possibly be receiving, besides junk mail? Almost everyone who mattered to me was either in the building with me, or in Equestria, which ruled out personal correspondence.
As I collapsed into a heap on the bed, I unstrapped my sword, and laid it against the headboard, forcing the rest of my thoughts out verbally, through a yawn.
"You don't have to get up early with me tomorrow. If you want to sleep in, then don't let me wake you as I go."
My daughter shook her head, and gently placed her new sword beside mine, before leaping gracefully over the edge of the bed, into a curled bundle of fur and feathers tucked into my side. One of my favorite perks of parenthood. The peace that comes from hearing the breathing of my child as she drifts off to peaceful sleep.
As I carefully placed one wing over the young Gryphon, she smiled and shook her head, giving birth to a gaping yawn of her own, before voicing her response.
"I asked to be here, so I want to be helpful. Or at the very least, I want to learn everything I can."
I smiled, and laid my head to rest on my forelegs, exhaling deeply and letting a sense of peace wash over me as my daughter nestled down for the night under my left wing.
"That's my girl."
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
Twelfth Month, Eighth Day, Celestial Calendar
Carradan
"Conduct any examination gently. It's definitely been in the fire for several hours. The connecting joints have started to turn brittle.... And her head was... Removed. It looks to have been thrown in some minutes later than the body itself."
Kephic laid the corpse on the empty surface of a wooden work bench, gingerly folding back the cloth containing his grim find. He did his best to avoid making eye contact with IJ as he delivered his warning.
Celestia and Luna looked on mutely, flanking the grim-faced Princes of Equine, and Gryphon kind.
For my part, I forced myself to watch the Changeling Queen's expression, as the charred but still largely intact corpse of her guard was revealed; Her yellow chitin marred extensively by black and gray heat scoring.
Those unfamiliar with IJ might have characterized her expression as cold, or dispassionate. The Gryphons and I knew better. Her tension, and anger, was so powerful it practically hung in the air as a dark mist.
Pity the moron who started something they could never hope to finish.
I knew IJ best of all, and to my experienced eye, her rage was not so much that of a friend angered by personal loss, as that of a leader, furious at losing someone under their protection, and command.
I exchanged a worried glance with Shining. The Unicorn Prince seemed to have caught on as well, which made sense given his own furor at the loss of one of his own.
It suddenly hit me that the two of em, Changeling and Unicorn, were more alike than either would yet admit out loud. Maybe there was hope for the Prince after all. If IJ decided not to hate him, I'd never really be able to hold anything against him. Maybe I'd get another drinking buddy out of the mess after all.
Varan raised an eyebrow, and pointed with one talon, listing the points of his initial assessment with his usual Vulcan clinical precision, his voice echoing through the empty armory.
"She fought very hard to survive, but it was over swiftly; No one heard, or saw anything. The beheading happened post-mortem. The fight took place in close-quarters. There are no small defensive wounds, only major trauma points, the majority of which seem to have been made by a sharp, curved object. Almost certainly a Changeling attack spur. Together, that indicates that the aggressor approached in a familiar form. Something that lowered her guard..."
The golden Gryphon trailed off abruptly, then reached out to turn the corpse over, with utmost care. I thought I even saw a hint of sad tenderness in the motions. Id always known it, but it never ceased to surprise me, seeing how much those guys cared for others, especially other warriors, no matter how distant the relationship.
That little observation was quickly subsumed by rising concern, as I saw what Varan, and his brother, were after.
Kephic asked the question aloud, to which I think we were all very nearly sure of the answer already.
"Is that what I think it is?"
Sildinar reached to one side, and lifted a day-guard foreleg gauntlet from a rack of identical gleaming gold metal plates.
Uh-oh.
Wordlessly, he placed the alloy metal plate up against a perfectly matching divot in the dead Changeling's neck chitin.
Shining uttered a single, resigned, frustrated word, as the obvious implications sank in. The sheer Humanness of his phrasing drew a wry, worried glance from me.
"Damn."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
December 7th, Gregorian Calendar
Fyrenn
My eyes snapped open just in time to see the clock on the wall strike 06:30. The dimmed red projection occupied the corner of the otherwise blank wall-screen which dominated one side of the room.
As I stirred, motion sensors in the ceiling detected the movement, and the room's ambient light level began to rise gradually, starting at a comfortably dim amber.
When my wing moved, Alyra rolled over, stretched, and yawned. Her eyes blinked open, and she offered me a warm smile, speaking only after another fit of yawns, each more endearingly sweet than the last.
"I call dibs on first shower."
With a smirk, I gestured expansively with one claw, and put on the best British accent I could force.
"As you wish, your highness."
She stuck out her tongue as she leapt off the bed, chuckling quietly to herself as she slid open the door to the bathroom.
I turned to the discarded stack of DaTabs on the desk, and began to sort through them as the sound of running water filled the room. I mumbled aloud to myself as I sorted the thin plastic wafers, most of them colored a simple generic gray.
"Junk. Junk. Invalid tax documents..."
Buried towards the bottom of the pile, a green colored DaTab caught my eye. Plucking it from the pile, I turned it over briefly in both claws. It had a telltale white stripe through the forest green field; It was certified priority legal mail.
The date stamped in silvery holotext on the back left corner indicated it had been sent almost four months previous.
That gave me pause. I spent a long moment wondering what the contents of an official legal document, mailed through the Earthgov postal system to me, might be.
It was something important enough that when the official JRSF flight itinerary had listed the Genesist complex as my destination, the DaTab had been forwarded there by a special private courier. A red sticker affixed to the front glass testified to that.
Beneath the small red 'DCHL Shipping' sticker, a second white tag indicated that the sender had requested formal notification of receipt. Powering on the DaTab would likely send that notification automatically.
Pitching it in the recycler to be chipped for components and raw materials would most certainly not.
After a momentary pause, during which I wrestled with his gut, I decided that there could be little real consequence to powering on the device. I had no official Earthgov citizenship, and so there was no chance whatsoever that any Earthgov legal proceeding could touch me.
Curiosity won out.
With a flick of one talon, the paper-thin computer sprang to life. A logo occupied the screen for the first three seconds; 'Mitch & Surrie - Attorneys at Law.' The moment the emblem vanished, plain white text on a dark gray field populated the screen.
I was able to read the entire document in an instant, and parse it logically in half that time again. The emotional impact didn't arrive until fully three seconds later.
Gently, I switched off the offending object, and set it neatly into the desk's single, minimalist, empty square drawer, which I then promptly locked. Mostly to add an additional barrier to the instinct to snap the damn thing in half and put what was left into the chipper.
I then lifted the remainder of the DaTabs in a single three inch thick stack, and snapped the whole cornucopia of bills, advertisements, and assorted miscellany, in half.
Then in half again.
It wasn't enough catharsis. But it was a start.
Finally, my claws ground the supposedly shatter-proof plastic into a collection of talon-sized flakes and chips, which I dumped unceremoniously into the recycler. Like I should have done for every last one of them from the start.
I knew my face betrayed my emotions. I was never as good at keeping them down as Kephic, let alone Varan, or even Sildinar. I also knew that I needed to stay on task for the moment.
By the time Alyra had finished her shower I had managed to plaster on a carefully constructed sense of calm. I was proud of myself for that. I even managed a small smile in response to her own radiant grin of excitement, as I in turn headed for the showers, and she went to begin her morning sword practice.
Privately I wished that my turmoil could be washed away as easily as the grime of travel, under the tide of hundred thirty degree shower water.
Then I began to imagine jamming the source of that turmoil into the boiling stream, and turning the heat up until the offending person's face melted off. That made me feel slightly better.
But only slightly.
Melting his face off was always an option.
Alyra
"Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated."
Martins gestured towards Dad, who began to make his way to the front of the room, along with Neyla, Skye, and Aston. Hutch had volunteered to sit with me, towards the opposite end of the conference room's large granite slab of a table.
The remaining spots at the table were filled mostly with Humans, and Ponies, representing the department heads of the first wave of ships, and the heads of the permanently stationed ground crews.
The Councilor introduced the group as they took up places on either side of the oval room's curved wall-screen.
"Given the severity of the recent attacks against this organization, and given the clear pattern of escalation, I've asked an old friend for his help. He is an expert in asymmetrical warfare, tactics, and weapons. He brings with him experts in science, programming, tactics, information theory, thaumatics, and field command, all of whom are deserving of your absolute trust in these matters."
Martins raised an eyebrow, and gestured with one hand, seating herself gracefully as she finished the introduction. I liked the way she talked about Dad, and Mom, and Skye, and Hutch. She seemed like the sort of person who would be a good friend. The kind of person Dad always surrounded himself with.
"You've all been briefed, in utmost secrecy, as to the potential consequences of failure here. Today's meeting is about developing a definitive short-term action plan. I am, as of this moment, turning joint leadership of this crisis over to Fyrenn, and his team; I will not consider any solution to be too drastic in this instance, and I expect the same level of non-linear thinking from all of you here. There are no stupid ideas, except the ones that you keep to yourselves."
Dad took a moment to survey the expectant faces assembled at the table; Three dozen of us in all, counting Hutch, Martins, and me. After a brief glance at Mom, he began speaking with a firm, definitive, frighteningly clipped tombre.
"You have only one option here. Get those ships off this planet. By the end of the week."
He scanned every face in the room, twice from end to end, as a shocked murmur broke out. After several seconds, he raised one claw for silence, and elaborated, with an expression that clearly indicated he would brook no argument.
"If you decommission the drive cores now, you'll fall catastrophically behind schedule. Who knows when you might find a solution that renders them completely safe, assuming you ever would. They could still be used against the Earth, if not physically, then certainly politically. Your only option is to launch now, and to succeed."
One of the department heads, a woman with silver-gray hair, but lively youthful green eyes, interjected sharply.
"Assuming we could pull off accelerating the launch schedule by three weeks, which is an exceptional risk to the crews I might add... What stands to prevent the PER from enacting their plan with the next set of drive cores? Or the one after that?"
Neyla was ready with an answer before anyone else could even draw breath to add their own thoughts.
"The PER won't stand for allowing even one group of ships to leave. It represents a direct strike against their primary line of ideological attack. All you have to do is publicize the accelerated schedule. Then they will come to us."
One of the Ponies, a young male Unicorn, shook his head, and snorted, eyes widening in shock.
"You want to bring them here, *on purpose?!*"
Aston folded her arms, and inclined her head towards Dad.
"I'm not always a fan of his tactics... But I would be lying if I said they ever failed to accomplish the objective. In this case? I agree with everything he's got to say. Bring them here. Face them on *our* terms. And put a permanent stop to them. Any other course only invites future disaster."
She was making a smart move, throwing her weight of command behind him. What he and Mom had suggested was certainly the only way I could see that made any sense. Basic tactics. Make your enemy come to you rather than going to meet them on their terms.
Neyla nodded, and smirked, chiming in again before anyone else could, to drive the point home.
"We Gryphons have a saying; 'Cut out the heart of a Hydra, and none of his heads matter.' We always plan, in every battle, to win every possible future engagement then and there if possible. Reel your enemy in, and brutalize them on your own terms. Mercilessly unto death. When they are least expecting it. You will never be troubled by them in the future."
Astris spoke up from his position to Martin's left, narrowing his eyebrows in frustration. His attitude bothered me. Not the kind of 'can-do' I had come to expect from Ponies. And he was supposed to be a bit of an egg-head too. Maybe I was just biased because of Auntie Skye, and her effortless sense that anything was possible.
"We are engineers, and scientists. Not warriors. We're not equipped to fight a battle."
Fyrenn reached over Martins' shoulder, and tapped a key in the table's embedded controls, bringing the wallscreen to life. Schematics for weapons, vehicles, and armor flashed across the display in rapid succession.
Martins picked up on his point, and narrated on his behalf, cinching the crux of the argument pretty well for everyone.
"We are sending these seeds of our species out into unknown, potentially hostile space. We know there's a high probability that intelligent life exists out there, since we've already met some of it. And we know at least some of that life is hostile. You all know as well as I do that we never intended to send our progeny out into the dark without arming them. To the teeth, and beak, and muzzle."
Dad nodded, and gestured at the screen with one wing, folding his forelegs definitively.
"Shenzhou isn't making this launch, and that's a known factor. That leaves armaments, fabrication devices, security personnel, and even combat vehicles, available and ready to defend this facility."
Skye snorted, and raised an eyebrow, glancing up at one of the schematics.
"Heck, you people designed this stuff to be used on worst-case hellworlds. Most of it could function on the surface of *Venus* if it had to. That puts it a couple brackets *ahead* of any Earthgov hardware, let alone what the PER can bring to bear. So what if you only have a couple dozen of the defense tanks and APCs... You haven't seen what these Gryphons can do with just *one* tank..."
I knew exactly what she was talking about. She had told me the whole story. It was one of my favorites.
Silence fell. Though many of the department heads and board members traded uncomfortable glances, none of them could find a good objection. Dad nodded sharply, and Martins toggled the screen to a planning overview of the complex while he spoke.
"Alright then. We have three objectives. One; Secure this complex militarily, and plan for a forthcoming attack. Two; Regain OpSec, and complete the sabotage investigation, to ensure that the remaining ships are safe, and any remaining saboteurs are caught. Three; Plan for the logistics of an accelerated launch schedule, so we can get these ships out of here by twenty three hundred, day after tomorrow."
Martins raised an eyebrow, and gestured expansively towards the room.
"You heard him. Who wants to put forward some thoughts first?"
There were only three other Gryphons in the room, and the eldest male raised his claw.
I guessed that he was approximately Dad's age; He had primarily gray and brown feathers, and his golden eyes were narrowed in determination. When he spoke, his voice carried a strong North American accent, suggesting that he was a convert. His words confirmed it.
"Ex-Lieutenant William McBride; I've got some experience with tactical armored divisions. Let's talk about deployment options."
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
Twelfth Month, Eighth Day, Celestial Calendar
IJ
"There are *how* many Day-Guards in the castle, at any given moment?"
Stan raised an eyebrow as his query landed squarely in the middle of the group. The lights of Luna's study were dimmed, but the inexorable glare of the sun was doing its best to peek through the blackout drapes.
None of us had slept at all during the night.
Shining's brow furrowed, and he sat back on his haunches, exhaling in shared frustration, and exhaustion. The faces of the rest of the group bore similar signs of weariness, some I could sense more exaggerated than others.
"One thousand two hundred and fifty. That's the official standing deployment order, based on my strategic plans for daily defense, from my days as Guards' Captain, which are still in use if I'm not mistaken. There can be anywhere between one and five hundred *further* conventional guards-ponies here on any given day, due to training, or the fact that the Castle is a major logistics hub."
Stan shook his head slowly, and his ears flattened, along with his tone.
"Well, obviously we can't search, interrogate, and turn over the barracks of over one and a half thousand guards. And that's discounting the notion that our face-phasing friend shed their most recent look, and got the 'eck out of Dodge. Or put on a bat-Pony face instead perhaps...?"
He directed a sideways questioning glance towards Luna, who immediately shook her head. It was, I thought, a very good question given the context of what he knew. But I'd served long enough on the Castle grounds to know why the answer would be no, even before Luna finished elaborating.
"Silly nomenclature notwithstanding; My blessing that I give to the Night Guards, makes them able to sense the presence of that same magic amongst each other. For precisely this reason. If the intruder were that foolish, they would already be captured."
Sildinar raised a claw, and cocked his head to the side, airing his train of thought even as it developed. Gryphons very often did that. Both the airing of their thoughts as they were still being formed, and the bird-like head tilt.
"It wouldn't make sense for the intruder to shed their Day-Guard aspect. Not yet. They haven't accomplished their objective, which is to derail the alliance pact... Being among the trusted military guards of the Royal Family is most certainly the best position from which to wreak further havoc. Yes?"
I nodded firmly, and allowed myself a very brief sideways approving glance, directed at the roan Gryphon Prince. As usual, his tactical acumen was above average, even for a species who were so deeply steeped in martial tradition.
I even allowed my tone to have some unconcealed respect for his observation.
"Very astute. Yes. Speaking as one tasked with a very similar mission, once, I can tell you that their Highness' greatest security weakness has always been the insistence on avoiding magical augmentation and screening of the Day Guard. They're by far the preferred infiltration vector."
Celestia sighed, and to my eye she seemed to lose a tiny bit of the glow in her mane. Varan exchanged a worried, stealthy, microsecond of a glance with his brother, which only Stan and I seemed to catch.
Both brothers had been present when the Solar Monarch had expended herself almost to the point of death to save Vancouver.
In our shared estimation she had never fully recovered, and was still struggling in some manner that Luna was not, in spite of the younger sister's own slow progress. Luna had at least been steady, if slow in her recovery from saving Canterlot.
I'd felt the very slightest tremors of the backblast myself, far underground as I was at the time. Shunting that kind of energy off the material plane was no small feat.
As Celestia spoke, I internally concluded that there were high non-zero odds that she was essentially faking her recovery.
"It is a long standing tradition. We are not a martial race. We win our battles through economic, and diplomatic means. To heavily militarize, screen, and augment our population-facing forces would send the wrong message."
Shining shook his head slightly, but held his tongue out of respect. Luna, and Sildinar, both seemed to catch the tail end of his barely concealed frustrations. Based on their expressions, and what I knew of their own thought processes, they shared those frustrations in full.
In my time undercover at the castle, Luna had often discussed the various weaknesses, and losses, that stemmed from keeping the Equine military largely ceremonial.
I felt no need to restrain my newfound sharing in those frustrations, and I was quick to make my point. Firmly.
"Keeping tradition, when you know that it puts those same people you're trying to defend at greater risk? Is futile. And stupid. In the extreme. This is why, for years, you've been wholly without intelligence regarding the inner workings of the Hive, but they have had virtually unrestricted access to information about *you.*"
I gestured with one hoof in the direction of Sildinar, Kephic, and Varan.
"Were it not for them? You'd be dead already. The Gryphons are the only race both geographically positioned to fight Chrysalis, AND willing, AND able martially. And they can't protect you forever. Militarily, yes, but politically no. One day, your insistence on tradition is going to see you off to Tartarus, by way of a chitin spur buried in the back of your neck while you sleep. You've already come perilously close, more than once before. Why tempt fate?"
A thick, uncomfortable quiet fell over the study. Outside, the sounds of Day-Guards marching in drill formations in a courtyard added an ironic underscore to the moment.
As quickly as the tension had come, it was gone. Celestia sighed once more, and hung her head, shaking it, and speaking in an almost defeated tone. She knew we were right, she was simply struggling to admit it to herself.
"We have strayed from our topic. Now is not the time for recriminations regarding the past, or squabbling over the future; Now is the time for dealing with the issues of today; The immediate danger of the here, and now."
At least her recalcitrance was not borne of arrogance, the same way it was within the upper echelons of the Day Guard itself. I could at least respect that she felt bound by principle. My former 'superiors,' on the other hoof, I'd found to be a slack jawed collection of prancing self important morons.
Sildinar inclined his head, and rose, stretching his wings, and twisting his neck to relieve cramps as he interjected forcefully, but warmly.
"Yes. And none of us are any good to our tasks dead on our paws. I suggest, strongly, that we all get at least three or four hours' sleep. We can approach this with somewhat fresher minds later in the morning."
After a brief moment, in which it looked as if she would object, Celestia nodded. Once again the Gryphon Prince proved himself to be a highly practical, cunning leader.
Luna nodded as well, and with that the floodgates opened, and the group streamed from our seats towards the door.
In the corridor outside, the majority of us paused to converse in smaller gaggles, and pairs, as Celestia's hoofsteps receded down the corridor towards her own quarters.
When he was sure she was out of earshot, Shining spoke up, addressing Stan, myself, and the Gryphons.
"None of you are really all that tired, are you?"
Sildinar scoffed, his pretense of cramps and exhaustion having shed away like a snake's old skin.
"Do you jest? I've known *you* to stay awake for four days on end, when the crisis was serious enough. What do you take us for?"
Stan raised an eyebrow, and grinned, catching on to the point of the ruse quickly. Not for the first, nor last time, I was quietly thankful that he had the good sense to follow on with a charade, even before he knew its point or purpose.
"We're gonna go play detectives now, ain't we?"
Kephic nodded sharply, and clapped Stan on the back firmly.
"Absolutely."
At last. Real progress. And to think the Hive hated Gryphon-kind so much. They were turning out to be the best allies anyone could ever wish for.
I was swiftly starting to realize why Celestia bent over backward to stay on solid terms with them.