//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12 
// Story: Hegira: Rising Omega 
// by Guardian_Gryphon 
//------------------------------//

Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
Twelfth Month, Tenth Day, Celestial Calendar

Sildinar

I exhaled slowly, and purposefully, keeping my sight picture steady the whole way through the movement.  I easily brushed aside the faint temptation to shake my head ruefully; Were it not for the tense circumstances, my perch would have been a perfect, relaxing place to be on a beautiful day.

The sun had warmed the tile roof under the feathers of my chest to a perfect temperature, the air was balmy, with low humidity giving birth to a shockingly blue sky, punctuated here and there by gorgeous white cloud formations lofted on gentle, refreshing breezes.

It was the sort of day that was perfect for a rollicking flight, a cold drink, and then a long doze on a high perch.

I grit my beak.  I knew full well that whether or not I would spend the evening celebrating, or mourning, would rest on the outcome of the moments ahead.

My eyes flicked briefly to the other Gryphons' sniper nests, briefly making reassuring eye contact.  

I worked to suppress a low chuckle deep in my gut.  'Nest.'  An ironic choice of term Humans had settled on for a Sniper's dug-in position.  Humans may have coined the term, but I decided it was my kind who would truly do it justice for the first time.

My right ear flicked forward reflexively as the din of the crowd changed subtly in the distance.  A far off set of coordinated hoofbeats and wing-beats, moving concurrently with the cheering, heralded Celestia's imminent arrival.

I cycled the weapon's action to chamber the first round, slowly, deliberately, sweeping my gaze across the crowd as I did so, and murmuring almost inaudibly.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are..."





IJ

I kept my head centered, but allowed my eyes and ears to flit back and forth with practiced regularity.

The atmosphere of joy, and adulation pouring forth from the spectators added an additional layer of complication, dulling my emotional senses even as it crowded my physical ones.

Thousands of Ponies lined the streets, interspersed with the occasional Zebra, or Buffalo.  

The panoply of colors alone was dazzling;  Mane, fur, and clothing alike.  Sunlight from the clear blue sky glistened on metal brooches, ornamental hoofguards, and all kinds of clasps.

A hidden weapon could come from any direction, and it would be almost impossible for me to spot it visually.  Not for the first time, I wished that Celestia had not stripped away the Gryphon lifecode I had once been sent to steal.  

A partial morph of a Gryphon's eyes, and unique optical processing brain structures, would be able to make sense of the crowd ten thousand times over, with plenty of mental headroom to spare.

Shaking myself internally, I remembered that I had several pairs of Gryphon eyes covering that for me already.  As I stole a furtive glance in Stan's direction, I reflected on my one shared advantage, and my two unique ones.

I had all the agility of a Gryphon, from my Changeling side, or all the speed of a Pegasus, though not both at once.  And I had two things a Gryphon never would;  The ability to take the hit of a blade, hoof, spell, claw, or arrow to a vital organ, at least once, and suffer no lasting injury whatsoever. 

And I had the ability to sense emotional affect.

Any other living being would need to rely on not only their senses, but slips and tell tale signs given off by their quarry.  I could determine malintent no matter how good the attacker was at cloaking outward physical indicators.

They would have to drop their mental shields to attack.  The concentration needed to keep me from pinpointing them in an instant was too intense to maintain while calculating a strike.  I knew that intimately, from repeated personal experience.  

I had been in the infiltrator's hooves countless times.  That too was a unique advantage only I could lay claim to.

Nonetheless, I found it frustrating.  Gritting my teeth, I suppressed an instinctive urge to react violently as the carriage jolted over a particularly rough cobblestone.

I could sense that the attacker was present.  Even proximate.  But the intense concentration of the guards around us, and the equally intense admiration, and happiness of the crowds, created an opaque haze of emotion.  

It was a miasma, like thick smoke from a fire, the kind that clung to fur, and nostrils, eyes, and lungs, fouling every sense.

The most I could glean was that the attacker was likely to my left.  Stan would unfortunately be the first in the line of fire, if that was the case.  Again I had to shake myself;  He was far from the inexperienced, oblivious dolt I had first run into all those years ago.

I had invested a hoof in some of his training personally.  And anything I had failed to beat into him, I knew the Gryphons would have covered ten times over to boot.  Stan was probably one of the only Ponies alive who could lay Shining Armor out flat on his rump in a fair bout.  

Something I half hoped I'd get the chance to see him do.

He was no showboating all-flare, no-fight Wonderbolt.  
Not anymore.  

And to me, though I wouldn't have admitted if asked, that was a comforting thought.





Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
December 9th, Gregorian Calendar

Alyra

"Maintain ascent speed.  The safest place for you right now is orbit.  Any cover your point defense can give is appreciated, but do not alter course, or shortchange your own defensive cordon."

Martins' tone left no room for interpretation in her instructions.  None of the ships' captains seemed inclined to disagree regardless; They all knew how many lives were in their collective hands, hooves, and claws.

Based on the data filling the central holotank, it looked as if their help would be unnecessary.  The Shenzhou's first volley had crippled the enemy's forward weapons.

I knew Mom and Dad had conspired to load and prepare Shenzhou's weapons.  Dad had clued me in on some of the details right before we launched the ship to put it out of reach of anyone on the ground.

In case I needed to brief anyone else, he had told me the complete weapon compliment, right down to the six HASP Heavy Anti Starship Projectile antimatter-tipped torpedoes.

If Shenzhou's particle lances had pierced the enemy defenses, and eliminated subsystems in the first volley, only one HASP would be needed to cripple, or even destroy the enemy ship.  I understood the math well enough to know that.  It made the angular, nasty looking silhouette of the enemy ship a lot less intimidating to look at.

"Shouldn't have poked the bear."

I noted the Councilor's murmured sentiment, and raised one eyebrow.  Martins smirked, and shook her head, elaborating aloud.

"They probably came in here expecting to face ground security forces, equipped with railguns.  A few anti air missile batteries.  Maybe even the anti-asteroid point defenses on the colony ships.  Instead, they got several dozen gigawatts of particle energy crammed down their throats. Whoever they are, the PER didn't pay them enough to die today.  And they probably won't live long enough to really contemplate regretting it."

Skye chuckled grimly as she peered over Astris shoulder at a tactical readout, adopting a mockingly contrite sing-song tone.

"Dear Humanity;  So sorry.  We had no idea you had something that could harness the power of hyper-accelerated particles at this magnitude.  No punch back?"

Astris shook his head, and exhaled, frustration and disdain written clearly all over his muzzle, and oozing forth undisguised from his words.

"No, you pedantic mammal, we knew *exactly* how your weapons worked before we decided to 'poke the bear.'  We simply have other advantages that make your unexpectedly timed display of raw firepower...  Irrelevant."

Silence descended like an iron weight.  

I could feel the bottom drop out of my stomach in all too familiar a way, as the meaning of Astris' words registered with my mind fully.

Martins stared blankly, eyes wide with a blend of shock, and non comprehension.  Skye backpedalled furiously, as we both noted a subtle red glow forming around the edges of Astris' eyes, and horn.

I was the only one to fully apprehend the danger in time, drawing my pistol instantly.  In the relative quiet of the tense interlude, the whine of the capacitor was blatantly audible, underscoring the weapon's potential power forcefully.

Martins finally found her voice, gripping the edge of the holotank with her fingers, to the degree that the blood flushed out of the tips entirely.  Her voice was equally strained.

"You?!  You are the mole?  Astris...  Why?"

The Unicorn snorted, and shook his head, hooves dancing across the control panel before him with casual, almost arrogant ease,  that was mirrored in his tone, and expression.

"Astris had no say in the matter.  Indeed, he's been most distressed these past months.  What's left of him.  Even now, he knows your feeble attempt at surprise tactics is futile.  His despair is palpable."

The possessed Astris whipped his head to the side, and his horn began to glow more brightly with sickly red magic, as his eyes bored into mine.  I didn't flinch as Astris' voice took on an otherworldly quality, and a threatening edge.  I knew his kind.  Wisp or no, an enemy like that demanded absolutely iron will in response.  

Show no fear.

I had a lot of experience with hiding, and suppressing fear.

"Put.  The Weapon.  Down.  Child."

I moved my right index talon purposefully from the ready-safe position onto the trigger, ears flattening, and eyes narrowing as my voice matched Astris' threatening register note-for-note.

"I'll lay you out so fast that no one else in the room will even be able to see it while it’s happening."

To Martins, and most of the mission ops crew, the battle erupted in the space of a microsecond.  For me, Astris, Skye, and the other Equestrians in the room, it was a noticeable and tense pause.  Calm before the storm.

I fired first, Gryphon instinct beating out all else.  The Wisp's mind was equally fast, if not faster, but his stolen body was considerably hampered by Unicorn biological limits.  His magic, however, was not.

The blast from the particle pistol was effortlessly deflected by Astris' thaumatic shield, blue bolt pinging off interlocked red hexagonal fields.  Auntie Skye, bless her, was prepared with a follow-through, letting loose with a stun blast that looked, to my eyes, powerful enough to knock out even Dad in the unlikely event it could land a direct hit.

Astris was far ahead of Skye, however, having already begun to duck before the other Unicorn even fired.  The moment his shield was no longer a necessity, he re-threaded the spellweave, and launched the energy directly at Skye's head, crackling with visibly lethal power.

While Skye's mind was not nearly so fast as mine, or the Wisp's, it was still more than quick enough, and wise enough, to save her life.  She had begun her own ducking manuever the second her attack blast left the tip of her horn.

Astris' bolt whizzed past her left ear, slamming into the ceiling of the chamber, and dislodging several display panels.  As I drew my sword, and backflipped away with the assistance of my armor thrusters, Skye ducked around the side of the holotank, engaging Astris in a running firefight composed of blue and red thaumatic bolts, several of which shredded most of the holotank's internals as they missed.

The Wisp was hampered by the fact that he was outnumbered, doubly so as a result of my body being up to the task of matching my mind, where his was lacking.  Though he launched half a dozen blasts at me, I batted them aside using my sword with practiced ease, returning fire mercilessly with the pistol.

The Wisp had no intention of winning the fight, however.  He only wanted to escape.  

Within seconds, Astris had reached the door, and blasted it away, ducking around the corner and out of sight under the cover of a particularly vicious barrage of magic pulses.

Skye exhaled sharply, and slammed one hoof against the holotank's remains, spinning around to take stock of Astris' workstation, and the commands he had entered.  After a brief tense moment where her hooves and magic flew over the console, she exhaled reassuringly.

"It looks like he intended to set the main weapons to fire on the other ships.  Alyra pulled a fast save there...  We had literally seconds leftover."

Martins pursed her lips, and glanced up at the ceiling.  It seemed to be her habit when addressing voice commands to any digital system.  It was a pretty common Human gesture.  Even I'd done it unconsciously, the few times I'd ever addressed an AI.

"Computer, lock out all weapons and external tactical functions.  Authorization Martins, Pi one one three eight."

I bounded towards the door, tossing hurried breathless words over one wing as I went.

"C'mon!  We can still catch him!"

The sound of screams, weapons fire, and shaking deck plating issuing forth from the bridge doors, spun me a hundred and eighty degrees in my tracks instantly, all trace of intent to pursue wiped from my mind.

Dad.  Mom.

Trouble.

As I instinctively took up a defensive position by the door, Skye joined me, gesturing with one hoof for Martins to take cover behind us.

Skye and I exchanged a single glance, wordlessly agreeing to wait for the enemy to come to us, should they survive whatever was going on in there, rather than force the door.

To everyone's relief, after another four seconds the doors parted to reveal Neyla, framed from behind by a scene of absolute carnage.  Father came into view over her shoulder, eyes widening as he spoke, taking in the disheveled state of the compartment all the while.

"What happened here?"

As Skye and I holstered our pistols, Martins spoke in angry clipped tones.  The Councilor locked eyes with Dad, and then Mom, while I dashed forward, pulling both into a hug.

"Astris is the mole.  He's been possessed by...  Something."

Skye nodded, and glowered at the remains of the fight, a similarly frustrated note pervading her words as she quickly assessed what Astris had done via his workstation before instigating the firefight.

"A Wisp.  He tried to set our guns to fire on the other ships.  Alyra put a stop to it.  We've locked down the weapons systems to prevent him from trying again."

Dad pulled me close under one wing, beaming down with a clear expression of pride, before allowing his frustration to regain a solid hold.  Words poured from his beak as quickly as he could form them, while his mind ranged ahead, trying to suss out various possible outcomes.

"We can't risk re-activating any weapon systems until all boarders are repelled.  Intruder alarms went off for the bridge, engineering, and forward torpedo room.  If he doesn't know we disabled the weapon systems, he soon will, and he'll call for backup troops if they're available.  The other two compartments represent the enemy's best chances at taking out not just Shenzhou, but the other ships, and even the compound as a whole."

Neyla nodded, having clearly reached the same conclusions, verbally tying together the train of thought eloquently for everyone with a single word.

"Antimatter."  

Skye nodded, and groaned, elaborating as her lightning intellect made the same logical leaps.

"The core is the largest store of it, but it won't be as easy for him to weaponize.  If he could just shove two of our four torpedoes out the forward launch doors, and set off the others inside, that would set off a chain reaction, blowing away us, the compound, and the colony ships."

Martins glanced at a status display, raising an eyebrow and inhaling deeply before speaking.

"How long until the enemy can fire their own weapons again?"

Dad shook his head, and moved to the room's emergency weapons locker, removing two carbines, and several pistols as he spoke.

"Not soon enough to be a primary concern.  They obviously had no idea how our particle beams would affect their shields until it actually happened.  I don't think they expected them to be so effective, even knowing as much as they doubtless do through Astris...  Our only concern now is to secure engineering, and the torpedo room, before he gets ahold of that antimatter."

Mom nodded emphatically as Dad passed her one of the carbines, then moved on to me, Skye, and Martins with the pistols, providing us each with double armament taken together with the sidearms we already had.  

Skye snorted, and forced a breath upwards from her muzzle, pushing aside a stray lock of her mane.  She took the pistol from Dad in her Thaumatic field, checking the power cell action and the safety as she spoke.

"We'll stay here.  Defend Mission Ops, and the bridge.  I'll try to cut through the communications jamming, see if we can call for backup.  We'll be ready to open fire on spiky, scary, and ugly out there just as soon as you give the word."

Neyla cycled the capacitor of her own weapon as she finished explaining the shared line of thinking aloud.

"We're a skeleton crew.  Once the critical compartments are secure, we seal them, then flood the remainder of the ship with spillover from the coolant loop, effectively killing any present, or future boarders without harming anyone else, or having to hunt them down.  At this stage the potential damage is the least of our concerns.  We can then fire the particle beams again and, as you Humans say..."

She shouldered the carbine, unintentionally striking a fearsome, absolutely awesome pose as she completed the thought.

"...Nail them to the wall."





Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
Twelfth Month, Tenth Day, Celestial Calendar

Carradan

"I know what you're doing.  It won't help you.  Or her."

I violently suppressed my initial reaction to the Changeling's words, both physical, and mental, doing my dead-level best to cover for it with the expected, near constant anxiety of the situation.  

The jig wasn't necessarily up yet.  

I was forced to suppress relief, in like kind, at the infiltrator's next words.

"You can't trip me up by babbling incessantly.  I can simply shut that part of you out.  I know you as well as you know yourself already.  She won't see me coming.  She can't.  Her love for you blinds her."

I resumed my rhythmic, slow, intentional wriggling, desperately working to get into the position I needed to get to the next part of my daring little plan.

I didn't need the Changeling to slip up.  That wasn't even on the table as far as I was concerned.  A significant portion of my training with IJ had dealt with the intricacies of Changeling abilities, including infiltrators.

The vital element in the situation, the x-factor that I was counting on to snatch victory from the fire, was that knowledge.  And the fact that my opponent knew jack spit about it.

I was fully aware the Changeling had far too much focus, and far too fast a brain, to be tripped up by simple conversation.  But to be as safe as possible, the infiltrator needed to block out some of the distraction.  Dull his connection to me.  

Particularly his senses.

That was my chance to damage the containment pod's sac, and escape, before the Changeling could do anything about it.  Though the pod itself had a degree of ability to dispense sedative, it was limited.  It was also effectively an extension of the Changeling, separated though they were.

If the infiltrator knew what I intended, I knew he would likely be rendered unconscious before I even had time to comprehend what was happening.  I'd been knocked out before.  Quite recently.  I wasn't lookin' for a repeat.

I got back to my inane jabbering, silently praying all the while that the infiltrator was well and truly pre-occupied.  Both with his task, and with dulling our link.

"You know, I never actually finished physics at college.  I cheated my way past it.  College... That's a scam of an institution where Humans pay to go get drunk off their asses, party, waste money, and finally cheat their way into a scrap of paper that raises their likelihood of getting a decent job from zilch, to maybe one in thirty..."

I flexed my wings as hard as I dared, transferring a significant amount of the energy from the wriggling motion outwards into the pod.  I tensed inwardly, but nothing changed.  If anything, the image of the Changeling's viewpoint dulled further.

"...Not that we should need them for the most part, logistically speaking.  Jobs I mean.  Though I guess colleges either...  Post-singularity safety nets and all that...  If they were actually any good..."

Emboldened, I began to slosh gently back and forth inside the sac, fighting mightily against the sedative.

"...But I do remember *High School* physics.  High School was such a God-awful place.  Worse than College.  It's like a torture device specifically crafted to suck the life out of Human pupae.  Or what you'd call Human pupae.  But hey, the resemblance is strong;  Awkward phase between being young, and being an adult, where a Human is mostly smelly, slimy, doesn't move or say much..."

As the pod began to develop a real swing, I began to time my wing jerks and hoof motions to coincide with the pod's motion, imparting further momentum each time, though at a maddeningly slow rate.

"But see, I do remember that part of it.  And I have a friend.  You'll probably never meet her.  I'm going to rip out your colon and feed it to you first.  But she's an amazing Unicorn.  And a bit of a mad scientist..."

I knew by that point that I was talking as much to stay lucid as I was to keep the Infiltrator's link dulled.  I could almost taste my objective, even more powerfully than the sickly-sweet ooze of the sac venom.  

It was so close.  

The surface of the room's desk whizzed by underneath, adding to the dizzying effect of the sedative, but it wasn't quite enough.  

The object I was aiming for was on the very far edge of the rolltop.

"...She's taught me a lot.  But don't you dare tell her.  Not that you'll live to meet her.  I'm going to kill you when this conversation is over, so I hope you're enjoying the time you've got left.  Anyhow, one of the things she's taught me a bit about, is the science of electricity.  One of those things they don't know much about over here.  Thaumatics 'n all that.  Magic and Tesla's mojo apparently take a lot of coaxing to mix..."

I winced, and shivered.  A sensation of cold, and numbness began to race down my bones.  As the sac sloshed back and forth, more and more of the sedative was eeking into my system.

"...But mix, they can.  And ya' see, I'm a Pegasus, and one of my best friends is a physics nut...  

At last, the pod brushed against the object, ever so slightly.  I knew he had to get the timing right on the next swing, or the only hope of escape would be knocked to the floor.  The world seemed to constrict down into a tiny point of amber light.  I hoped the consequences of my actions would not only cut me loose, but would also give my body the jolt of juice it needed to be combat-ready.

"So I know how to make magical lightning."

As the sac again touched the mage light perched on the desk's edge, I concentrated, pouring every ounce of my will into my wings.

For a split second, my heart dropped, and the world turned to endless black.  A tiny electric spark passed between the mage light, and my wing, but nothing else happened.

The sensation of falling backwards into unconsciousness only lasted a tenth of a second.

Instantly, blackness turned to pure white.  I couldn't hear the sound; My ear-drums were too busy crapping themselves to death.  All I could process was a loud ringing.

Any bystander without Pegasus, or Gryphon eyes would have been blinded.  Any Human woulda been permanently deafened.

The maglight vaporized, as did most of the material of the containment pod.  Lightning raced across my wings, and into every metal object in the room, melting several of the more conductive items, including parts of a small tea service as it sought the best paths through the mage-light to ground.

Every feather, and every hair of fur on my body went rigid with the shock;  But they, like everything else inside and on me, were completely protected by those God-blessed natural Pegasus affinities.

Rather than blasting my heart and brain into refried pork, the miniature thaumatic lightning strike behaved like a fast-charging cable, dumping wild unfettered energy into every cell of my body.

What a rush!

I stood for only a moment, chest heaving as foul smelling steam from vaporized sac fluid outgassed from my blazing-hot feathers.  They were still glowing.

I knew that the infiltrator would have noticed the severance of the link immediately.

There were moments left.  At best.

I raised my head, and glowered out the window, gritting my teeth until my jaw protested as I began to build up energy in my wings again.  

A whole hell of a lot of energy.

Though I knew the Changeling couldn't hear me, I muttered under my breath as I began the run-up to the window, closing my eyes and bracing for the impact of the glass.

"Time's up."

I was about to pull what the kids used to call 'a pro gamer move.'