//------------------------------// // Chapter 15: Aeronautics Research // Story: The Warp Core Conspiracy // by Unwhole Hole //------------------------------// M’Ress emerged from the site-to-site transport into an area of ponderous humidity. This in itself was surprising and unpleasant; she had been under the assumption that like most planets, this one would have housed its experimental aeronautics facilities in a desert. Much to her chagrin, though, she instead found herself in a swamp doing its best to masquerade as a forest. She immediately grasped the trunk of a large tree and climbed into the foliage, ignoring the assault of various swampy aromas on her sense of smell. Climbing forward carefully, she looked out at through the leaves. It was night, and apart from the swamp it was a night of great and profound beauty. The moon was an enormous crescent in a black sky filled with a view of seemingly endless stars unspoiled by electric light. The darker portion of the moon, though, glowed with the orderly light of its colonies, generating light from some unknown and archaic small-horse technology. Near the horizon, one star shown just barely brighter than all the rest. It was the sun of this word, its true orbital center—not the artificial beacon that rose and set in a mockery of heliocentric theory. Before her lay the facility, sealed in by a chain-link fence. It was tall and the top was lined with razor wire—or what M’Ress at first took for razor wire. It was, in fact, not razor wire, but rather ordinary wire instead. Having wire with built-in blades or barbs was apparently too aggressive for the small-horse folk, and the signs of “Please do not enter” posted at even intervals on the fence were apparently taken to be adequate. M’Ress, though, was a Caitian warrior—ostensibly—and took no orders from a mere sign. She instead slunk down from the tree, crossing through the darkness, and quickly scaled the fence, passing over it with a simple leap. Considering her mission, she had been given a chance to change, and was no longer burdened by the hideous human invention of “pants”, nor their equally unfashionable “mini-skirts”. The clothing she had taken instead taken a more traditional garment, patterned to break up her shadow in the way of the great meat-beasts of her home world and darkened to obscure her in the shadows. Humans, to a Caitian, were loud and clumsy things, primates whose evolution had been guided almost solely by the impetus for the development of increasingly complex machinery. They might even have been comical save for the fact that for some unknown reason evolution had chosen to shape most intelligent life in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants as looking almost identical to them. Regardless, a Caitian was a far sleeker being, and M’Ress passed across the short grass on all-fours in total silence, avoiding the dim lights of the pony watchtowers as she passed. Her entry point had not been random. The ponies did not posses vehicles in any meaningful sense, apart from self-drawn carts. Still, there was something like a road used to receive supplies. A receiving area for their shipping department. M’Ress approached the door, sliding across the wet grass to the very wall of a well-lit pony guardpost. In the darkness, M’Ress had seen the pony inside: a female, one of a disturbing blue color, with a yellow mane and of the type that bore wings. She wore what M’Ress had at first taken to be an extremely skin-tight uniform but, on approach, realized was some kind of well-applied paint. Paint patterned like vestiges of armor, complete with her rank and serial number and applied with exacting precision—to a pony who looked so utterly bored that she was on the verge of tears. At this juncture, M’Ress paused, leaning against the brick tower in a position where she could not be seen from the guard's window. The tower-guards had been sparse and had not noticed her approach, but she needed to deal with the sentry-pony if she was to get into the shipping area. A load was on the way already, lit by torches and pulled by a single struggling pony. It was still in the distance, but she needed to think fast. She had managed to convince Uhura to give her a phaser, and phasing the pony was always an option—except that according to McCoy’s readings, the physiology of ponies was highly variable and sensitive. A unicorn like the one one the Enterprise could, supposedly, withstand several phasers set to “kill” with barely a scratch, but even the so-called “tickle” setting could be lethal to a pony whose physiology varied even slightly. M’Ress was not aware of how the winged ones differed from the horned ones, apart from the anatomy and apparent social caste. For a quadruped, therefore, she supposed that the best option was quiet strangulation until unconsciousness and then performing her mission before the guards eventually found out. She was preparing her strangling fingers when she heard the sound of marshmallow-like hooves on the flagstone path. She looked up, sure she was caught, because a winged male was staring right at her—an equally tealish fellow with an excessive amount of hair and a brilliantly oversize suit of guard armor—and also, somehow, stubble, despite being a pony. This specimen was, however, apparently a being of great mental density, because he totally missed the half-naked cat-woman crouched outside the sentry. He apparently had other plans, which apparently included the mare in the shack. He stopped at the threshold, leaning on it and striking a pose. M’Ress had to hold her nose against the choking scent of his excessive cologne. “Heeeeey there Lightning Dust, fancy seeing you here. Did you come all the way out here to see little old me?” The pony let out the most exasperated sigh M’Ress had ever heard—and considering how much time she spent on the Enterprise with Spock, that was impressive. “Zephyr. I’ve worked here for FOUR years. You know that. You do this every. Dang. NIGHT.” “Well I can’t help it, honey, this is the Department of Shipping, isn’t it? So put me in a box and slap your home address on the front, because I want you to open my package...” “It’s not THAT KIND OF SHIPPING you—you—” She put her head in her hooves and whispered to herself. “I was a Powered-Pegasus candidate...I was going to fly rockets...now this...” He moved extremely close to her, almost tipping over because of how much armor he was wearing. “That uniform looks like it’s painted on, Lightning. Are you getting fat, or maybe...trying to impress me?” “I will break you Zephyr—” “Break me in? Well, if you insist. Not that I haven’t been broken in. Because I’ve totally snuggled a mare before. Lots and lots of mares. Like, a whole pile. A heap, one might say.” “Zephyr, just sign the paperwork so I can go home and sleep before the morning shift--” “Hey, hey. Hey. Shssh. You don’t need to be so tsun, Lightning. I thought we could stay, talk a little, maybe have you preen my enormous and fluffy wings?" There was a floofing sound as he spread them. "These are some impressive wings, aren't they? No need to be intimidated. I mean, on a scale of one to ten, you’re no Rainbow Dash, but you know what they say, ‘Three is good enough for me!’” There was a sickening crack, and then a thump of a body hitting the floor. Lightning Dust, the female, stepped out of the shack, shaking one of her front hooves. “Should have armored your dang face, you dang idiot.” She started walking off. “Stupid inadequate workplace harassment policy...I could have been flying rockets...” M’Ress paused, then looked into the sentry hut. The male pony was snoring loudly, collapsed on the floor. M’Ress was no doctor, but her diagnosis was that he had been booped in the snoot with enough vigor to cause unconsciousness. Which worked well for her. She reached up and tapped the switch to open the door, just as the shipment arrived—and then slipped inside with it. The light was bright, and it took her eyes a moment to adjust. As she did, she immediately ducked for the shadows—only to trip over something heavy, warm, and covered in feathers. Something that cried out in surprise as the both of them were toppled to the floor. M’Ress, unsure as to what manner of tiny-horse ninja had been able to somehow cause her to trip with enough force to nearly dislocate her own shoulder, stood up, her strangling-fingers ready—and saw a gray winged mare in a brown uniform rubbing her head. The mare stood up and looked straight at M’Ress—or at things to either side of her. Neither of her eyes faced any sort of reasonable direction. “Hey...wait a minute,” said the gray pony, frowning and stroking her chin, attempting to squint in two directions at once. “Do you work here?” M’Ress paused. “Yes?” The pony visibly brightened. “I thought so! Sorry I tripped you, I just don’t know what went wrong!” She bent over, slipping and falling on her face, but managing to stand again with a clipboard in her mouth. “Sign here for the delivery please.” When she said it, the clipboard fell out of her mouth and clattered to the floor. She stared at it in untold frustration. “That just keeps happening...and I don’t even know why!” M’Ress picked it up, clicked a pen, and signed. She then gave the paperwork back to the pony, who took it in her mouth. “What is the order?” “Four tons of dimeritium, a bunch of weapons-grade crystals, and a load of shiny stuff with a funny name. Siliracoons, I think, but I didn’t seen any raccoon in the bucket. This time. Very, very heavy stuff. My arthritis sure does hurt, but for my daughter’s college fund, it’s worth it!” She blinked—or rather winked twice, in rapid succession, because she could apparently not synchronize her eyelids. “Actually, she works here! Little Dinky! She works in the central research place, with Twilight Sparkle! I think. I haven’t seen her in months. She must be so busy with all the wizards. They might be able to write her a letter of recommendation for college, so she can be smart and not like me!” She paused. “Can you write one? A letter from an alien would be really neat!” “I’m not an alien. I am a pony.” The small derped horse blinked, again without proper synchronization, and paused. Then she smiled. “You are? Oh. Well, I do have drain bamage and partial blindness, so it’s hard to tell.” She picked up the clipboard, only to drop it when she spoke again. “I’m going to go before Zephyr wakes up and I get harassed again. I don’t really understand what he’s saying but I have deduced, through science, that stallions probably cause children. And I can't afford any more.” She picked up the clipboard, only to drop it again. “As soon as I figure this one out...” M’Ress, finding the presence of this pony somewhat distressing, departed quickly, still unsure as to what strange materials lay under the canvas tarp of her cart. Instead, she found her way into an empty office, one that had apparently been abandoned for some time. Looking around, she quickly found what she was looking for. Above her, there was a drop-ceiling. Which, in effect, was a ceiling suspended by wires to disguise the true ceiling, which was covered by pipes. At least seven cultures in the known galaxy had independently invented the drop-ceiling, one of them having done so before the invention of fire. The Caitians had never devised such a system, but M’Ress’s grand-uncle had been the reason why drop-ceilings were no longer used in Starfleet Academy. She jumped on the desk and then with one great leap pushed herself past the white foam tiles and into the space between them, grasping the pipes and wires behind it to move silently over the office and the dividing walls, moving herself deeper and deeper into the facility while being totally unseen. Unfortunate, this was limited by the fact that she did not, in fact, know where she was going. Which left her to meander aimlessly, peering through into offices and halls, listening, sniffing, and doing her best to gather information. Sometimes she would push a tile slightly out of the way and peer through the gap. The one constant that she was surprised to find was the uniforms: all males wore similar armored or partially-armored versions, while all females wore their painted on. She paused suddenly, though, at the sound of a commotion. Carefully, she focused down the gap between a light fixture and into the room below. It was a lobby, complete with a reception desk. A male pony of default variety was seated there, dressed in a non-armored uniform, while a mare was addressing him. She was clearly not a worker, though; instead of wearing paint, she wore a blue trench-coat, large sunglasses, and a kerchief wrapped around her head—and apparently elegant black boots which were only barely visible under the coat. “Please, miss, I can’t let you through--” “And I am telling you, dear, that is SIMPLY unacceptable! I will have you know that Twilight Sparkle is a dear personal friend of mine, and I DEMAND you let me see her!” “Miss, Twilight Sparkle is a very busy pony--” “Which is EXACTLY why she called me here! As a stallion of culture, I can tell you clearly know who I am, darling, and you know I simply DO NOT make house-calls except only for my most EXCLUSIVE of clients, and the Princess’s own protege requested a custom dress in time for a meeting with Celestia and Luna themselves. For a progress report on whatever science things you do here, I am told. Do you want to be the one to tell Twilight Sparkle herself that YOU are the one who delayed her DRESS?” “Without High-Commander Sparkle’s explicit request, I can’t let you in! That’s the whole of it, company policy! Flim and Flam told me themselves—I mean Mr. Flim and Mr. Flam.” He gestured to a kiosk nearby. “I can—I can sign you up for tomorrow’s tour, if you like? It only costs seventy bits and you get to see the assembly floor, and the offices, and we have a really fun demonstration where we do a show in the planetarium, but that’s mostly for the fillies and colts...and costs extra...” “I am not here for a TOUR, I am here for my FRIEND!” The young stallion looked exasperated. “Ms. Rarity, I...there’s nothing I can do. I’m really sorry.” She glared at him, then harrumphed loudly. “Well you are absolutely no help. And although I am absolutely PEEVED that my time has been wasted, I appreciate your politeness. Now could you be at least slightly helpful and direct a lady to the washroom? This kerfuffle has absolutely RUINED my makeup, and I will not be seen looking like a disheveled street urchin.” “Oh, sure.” He stepped out from behind the desk. “Down the hall and second door on the left is the little’ filly’s room. We usually charge to use it, but for all the trouble I put you through, you can go for free.” “Well...thank you, I suppose.” The pony harrumphed once more and walked with an unusual degree of elegance down the darkened hallway to the washroom. M’Ress, against her own better judgment but powered entirely by feline instinct, followed. Entering the restroom ceiling was not hard, and she gently pushed away one of the tiles over the stall just as the mare was sitting down on the closed toilet seat. M’Ress immediately moved to push the tile back rather than witness an aspect of alien physiology that she assumed should be best left unknown, but paused when instead of opening the seat, the mare swiftly disrobed, removing her kerchief, her coat, and the clothing beneath. Below it all, she was a perfectly white unicorn mare with long, flowing blue mane. Then, before M’Ress could contemplate why this small horse had become naked, the mare produced a small sewing kit and pair of scissors before setting to work at an alarming speed. She began cutting pieces of her clothing apart and sewing at an incredible pace, the needle perforating through the fabric and drawing the thread with machine-like efficiency. M’Ress watched in fascination, unsure as to why this small horse was compulsively sewing and how a being with no hands was so incredibly capable at it—but within less than a minute, her question had been answered. The pony held out her newly-assembled clothing, inspecting it and cutting the last of the threads, and then put it on. In a matter of mere moments, she had disassembled her outfit and reassembled it into a perfect replica of the uniform that the desk pony had worn, down to the stitching on the hat—all made from the fragments of the clothing she had previously been wearing. The pony tied back her mane and donned the cap, stepping out to adjust herself in front of the mirror. “What a darling professional outfit you have, dear,” she said to her reflection, fixing her makeup in the process. “Ready for another day at a boring, uncreative job I see?” She smiled, and then exited the washroom. M’Ress had no other option but to follow. This was simply too interesting. The mare walked down the hallway, not toward the desk but deeper into the building. M’Ress followed until the mare came to a door. One that was apparently locked by a kind of card-reader, or what these small horses used in the place of one. The mare produced a card—but even at a distance M’Ress could see that it was little more than an index card with her face drawn on it. The face was admittedly well-drawn, but it was still only a piece of paper. She swiped it at the reader and seemed surprised, then did so again, growing increasingly frustrated—even though M’Ress assumed that, surely, she did not expect this to work. It was not a real card. Then, from down the hall, she saw a stallion approaching the mare—and he paused a moment to look at her. She looked up, and seemed absolutely delighted to see him. “Oh thank Celestia!” she said, bounding over to him. She seemed on the verge of tears, and her makeup was already starting to run. “Thank heavens you’re here!” “Is...something wrong?” “I should say yes!” The mare waved the card at him, to close and too fast to see. “I went through one of the magic-dampeners in building fourteen, and it absolutely RUINED my ID card! I can’t open the door, and my shift starts in--” she checked a pocket watch and gasped. “Oh no! I’m going to be late! And I can’t be tardy again, oh, my pay will be docked for SURE, and I was saving up for the most elegant set of silk stockings!”: “St...stockings?” The stallion shook his head, and then walked right to the door. “You should be more careful, you know. I lost three ID’s in those dang things, they make you pay for the replacements. Here. If you take the back hallway, you can skip the floor and get to the back. The door locks there don’t actually work anymore until the next building. Budget cuts and all.” He held his own card up to the scanner and it clicked, opening the door. The mare gasped, then threw herself on the stallion, kissing his cheek. “My hero!” He blushed heartily, then cleared his throat. “Yes—well--um--working in cooperation to bring Equestria into the Space Age! Just be more careful next time.” “Oh, I will! Thank you, dearie!” She passed through the door while M’Ress squeezed through a square opening with several round pipes running through. She got through just in time to see the mare wiping her lips, reapplying lipstick, and swinging the stallion’s ID card lanyard around on her hoof with a smile on her face as she made her way deeper into the factory. The factory inside appeared to be some manner of complicated artisinal workshop, with numerous tools and stations, but no one present. Which was odd. For one, M’Ress was unsure what, exactly, they were making, and furthermore, it made no sense that a factory would be closed at night. Not when they were in a hurry as the desk-stallion had claimed. Unless the important part—the part the wished the most to see—was made in another building. The mare apparently seemed to agree. Her path was direct, using the route the stallion had suggested, passing by other workers and guards without them apparently noticing that she was an outsider. She had said that she wished to see Twilight Sparkle, who M’Ress knew was the one in charge of the operation—and the one she also wished to find. The one that Captain Kirk seemed to believe might be up to something, with Celestia’s cooperation. So she followed the mare, who apparently knew the path—or knew how to find the way. At several points, she stopped to carry on conversations with the passing workers, at each point gleaning slightly more information. Claiming that she was due for an important meeting, only to be chastised for taking the long route, that Flim and Flam were having the meeting elsewhere—asking hurriedly to those passing where she could find the route, always appearing frazzled and on the verge of tears when seconds later she would be cheerful and smiling once again, fixing her makeup as she moved. She easily passed doors using the stolen ID, and passed through guarded security checkpoints with a darling smile and a wave—and at least once with a wink at a wide, muscular mare behind the checkpoint desk. The only time she slowed was not in response to the ponies, but when her exorbitant level of charm encountered a locked door. She held out the ID card, but the crystal device meant to detect it blinked the wrong color, a shade of violet instead of red. The mare frowned, and she looked to either side of her. There were no ponies around, and her horn suddenly ignited with light. This light began to swirl and to configure itself into various complex shapes, matched by a secondary glow from the reader-crystal. When she saw this, her expression fell. “I don’t know how to read this,” she said, her voice faltering slightly. Then she paused, and more confidently, “it isn’t a problem. I know the coding language, I just need time.” The symbols expanded, increasing in complexity. And as they did, a pair of heavily armored stallions appeared at the end of the hallway. The mare saw them, but did not falter in the slightest despite obviously attempting to pick a lock to an area of security clearance far higher than the one her stolen ID would allow. They stopped, staring, looking at each other unsure of what to do. M’Ress, the cat in the ceiling, held her breath in anticipation and felt her hand closing around her phaser. She was not sure why, but she was prepared to strike form above. “Um...what are you doing?” “Fixing the locking mechanism,” sighed the mare, sounding annoyed. “You would think for a facility so new that we wouldn’t need to run so many diagnostic checkups. But this is what you get when you skimp on the quality of your crystals.” “Do you have a work order for that?” “Of course I do. It’s in my flank pocket.” She tilted toward them slightly. “I’d take it out for you but I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment I’m afraid, these cheap crystals will fracture if I let go. You'll have to reach in, I'm afraid.” The stallions stared at her pocket, both blushing profusely. “Um—no, we’ll take your word for it.” “Yeah. Leave it to Flim and Flam. Paid for by the lowest bidder, am I right?” “And they only paid him half the bid.” The stallions laughed along with the mare as they walked off. Seconds later, the crystal fractured and fell to the floor—and the door opened with it. The mare passed through, closing it behind her and replacing it with a replica crystal of her own, taken from her flank pocket—one of a different color without the same glow. M’Ress watched her go. She had gone into a juncture between two buildings. As far as M’Ress could tell, the facility consisted of several. The outer ones were small, full of offices and other support functions, but the inner ones were larger, probably where the actual rockets were manufactured. From outside, she had thought she saw a tower in the center—a tower separate from the other buildings. She supposed that was the R&D department where the wizards lived and where the prototype warp cores were assembled. It was also surely where Twilight Sparkle dwelt. There was no ceiling connection to the central ring—but there was a vent. M’Ress poked her head out, looking around, and then pulled the baffle off the vent and climbed in. The hole was far too small for a human, and perhaps too small for a pony, but not too small for a being with a floating clavicle. It was big enough for her head, and therefore big enough for the rest of her. She entered the vent, finding it dusty and dark, and passed through it with as much silence as possible. It smelled of ponies and dandruff, with hints of various chemicals used in the processing of rocket ships. There also appeared to be a case of foul vermin; hairy, fruit-like things that ran away gibbering on M’Ress’s approach, screaming about “not being furrie-nummies” and being “am alive”. This vent, fortunately, did not narrow. That would have spelled a sudden end for the mission. Instead, its width remained quite consistent as it led across the feeder corridor and onto the main factory floor. For a time, M’Ress lost sight of where, exactly, she was, but suddenly found a part of the air circulation system where the ductwork widened. A fan to one side of her revolved slowly, casting strange shadows, but she had enough space to sit and stare out of a grate from the shadows. Below, she saw the factory floor—and saw that it was vast. Rockets were in various stages of assembly, with scaffolding placed around them as they were built in sections. This area was apparently dedicated to assembly, although was not presently in use. M’Ress was unsure why, but aware of the possibility that there was simply no longer a demand for sub-light rockets to the moon. At least not enough to make their production profitable. This company, it seemed, had bet the entirety of its finances on their newly developed warp-drive. Below her, for an inexplicable reason, a stage had been set up and an area before it delineated with tape. The view through her grate was excellent, and she had a clear view of what she assumed was a large meeting. Ponies of various sorts were milling about. All of them were male, and all were dressed in either armored-style uniforms or thinner technical ones. After a moment of searching, M’Ress found her mare, the one she had been following, in the midst of what appears to be a pleasant conversation with a thin pony with glasses and a lab-coat style uniform. All of them began to assemble in the delineated square, standing roughly in formation. There was a moment of pause while M’Ress considered her situation. Why she was here was not clear to her, but she supposed it did not need to be. Her instinct—what Kirk called the “gut”--told her that she needed to be here. For some reason, the white clothing-mare was here too, and it was obvious that she was some form of spy. M’Ress, likewise, was a spy, if only in this application. Such a thing, she thought to herself, was only a possibility in Starfleet. That her life had come to this. Then, while contemplating this, she suddenly jumped nearly out of the vent at the sound of a massive explosion. Suppressing a squeal, she was sure there was an accident. The spy had planted a bomb. The spy WAS a bomb. That this was the end of Shiboline M'Ress, to be blown to small chunks by a horse-driven blast in a rocket factory on a planet ruled by small foul-scented horses. Except she was not blown to small chunks, or even chunks of any size. Instead, she peered out the vent through the shadows, looking down to see that the stage had fired pyrotechnics for some reason. Despite seeming horribly irresponsible in a literal rocket factory, this was apparently the means of dramatic entrance ford the company owners. Both of them appeared in clouds of smoke, both dressed in suits and making a grand and symmetrical gesture. The ponies in the crowd cheered for their beloved bosses—and to M’Ress, the surprise and awe seemed genuine, if driven from a place of equine naievity. The pair of twins slid across the stage as the lights lowered, the spotlights hung from the scaffolding directed onto them as they stood below the vast and shadowed rockets on the factory floor they owned. “Friends! Comrades! Employees!” “Proletariat horses!” The mustachioed pony glared at his younger brother, but continued with his act. “Welcome to our bi-weekly STAFF MEETING! But before we start, the one you REALLY came here to see!” A hushed awe filled the crowd as the younger twin fumbled for something. M’Ress saw it, but only barely. It was some kind of box with a lens on the surface, tethered by wires to something behind the stage. The unicorn dropped it and kicked it to the center of the stage, and the air over it suddenly ignited, forming a plume of blurry vertical lines that quickly resolved into the shape of a pony. It was a hologram. A very good hologram, far better than Starfleet could achieve, although still slightly translucent. The pony depicted was a purple unicorn with long hair styled into a rather ridiculous set of bangs. Like all female ponies at the facility, her uniform was painted on, but it bore markings and styling that were unique from all the other ponies M’Ress had seen, indicating a vastly higher rank. She was not facing the crowd, but turned suddenly gasping in surprise. “Who what where why?!” She turned to Flim and Flam, then paused, and raised an eyebrow. “...which?” Flam winced. “The staff meeting, Ms. Twilight?” Twilight’s hologram gasped. “Staff meeting? But I didn’t bring my staff!” “But they’re right there,” said Flim, confused and pointing at the crowd. The holographic Twilight Sparkle turned to face the crowd, and then giggled. “Oh. There they are. Hello organics!” “Hello Twilight!” the called back. “We love you Twilight!” cried the stallion with glasses. “I know you do. I do not feel the emotion defined as love, though, so don’t get any ideas. But, yes, I am definitely Twilight Sparkle. Sorry I couldn’t be there in the squishy, disgusting flesh. I’m suuuuper busy right now doing rocket surgery. To make the rockets, so we can go to SPACE! And find all the SPACE BOOKS! And READ all the space books! Then SHELVE THEM! SHELVE THEM ALL!!” She paused, clearing her throat. “In an orderly fashion, of course. But yeah, faster-than-light travel is super hard. You know that.” “No we don’t!” “Don’t argue with my adorableness! I have work to do and long-term friendships to ignore, so while I do that all you adorable little squishies can listen to Flim and Flam. I literally pay their salaries so that I don’t have to do the boring stuff. Just math. Math all day, math all night.” She shivered. “So much math.” A disturbingly wide smile grew on her face. “In fact, I like math so much, I abandoned the very idea of friendship to make ROCKETS. For REASONS. If Celestia hadn’t sent me here?” She giggled. It was a high, manic sound. “I’d still be back in Canterlot, living all alone and writing weird spells.” She looked up suddenly, making eye-contact with M’Ress through the vent. “Like some kind of old cat-lady.” The smile grew even more intense, revealing an unusually high number of teeth, her eyes looking outward blankly in both directions. M’Ress felt all of her hair stand up on end. Something popped. Holographic confetti spewed over the crowd, who was elated. "That's right," said Twilight. "My confetti is fully functional. Twilight OUT!” She suddenly vanished, going to do Twilight things, apparently. Flam cleared his throat. “Our beloved eccentric, gentlemen. Hard at work getting that new FTL drive working for the Princesses. Which leaves us upper-middle management here to deal with the day-to-day operations.” “With emphasis on the ‘upper’,” added Flim. “Yes,” continued the elder twin. “You see, our primary reason for calling you here was to discuss the naming for the new Lunar-rocket product line. You see, we wanted to add more powerful verbiage to our machinery. Not foolish primitive names like ‘Starprancer’ or 'Ascendence’ or ‘Silverline’.” “Those are dumb names.” “Indeed. They indeed are. You see, friends, we need POWERFUL words. Like ‘Longitudinal’. ‘Policy’. ‘Crowdsourcing’.” “‘Granular’.” Flam glared at his brother. “We discussed this already,” he hissed. “We are NOT calling the rockets ‘Granular’. It makes them sound gritty. Like sand.” “But I like sand. It’s coarse, and rough, and irritating, and gets everywhere. Just like mother.” “I am NOT dealing with your mommy-issues on a live stage you—you--” He cleared his throat and regained his composure. “That said. We’re making an impromptu change in the schedule, if you don’t mind.” “And you’re paid not to mind, so you don’t.” “What we’re going to talk about instead is security.” M’Ress felt the fur on her spine rise, and stifled an urge to hiss. They could not possibly knew. Except that it was apparent that they did. She gripped her phaser. It was most certainly not set to ‘tickle’. “Now, now, there’s nothing to be concerned with,” said Flam, carefully. “You simply need to understand, fellows, that rocketry is a distinctly Equestrian science. One created by ponies, and for ponies. But there are many, many forces out there that would seek to steal it for themselves. And we can’t allow that, no, not at all, and simply for their own safety. You see, something like a yak, or a griffon, or a hippogriph--” “Which is basically a weird griffon--” “--they simply don’t have the ability to do it safely. They simply lack the intelligence. Not like you all, who are clearly so very smart. We would all be in terrible danger letting creatures like that operate rockets. Us as well as them. It would be disastrous.” He walked to the front of the stage. “And then,” he said, lowering his voice, “there are those that would simply destroy our advancements.” “But—but why would they be so mean?” “Because they don’t like beautiful things. They don’t like to see the world advancing. So they destroy things they don’t understand.” He lifted his head. “All the other governments could be a threat. Yaks and griffons, of course, but also the donkeys. The diamond-dogs, the Abyssinians, even our so-called allies the changelings, even--” “Communists,” hissed Flim. Flam frowned, elbowing his brother. “So I think it’s a good time to review company policy on security. You there, in the front?” A pony in the front was pushed forward. “M—me?” “Yes. What’s your name, little pony?” “Well, awe shucks, Mr. Flim--” “Flam.” “Oh. Oh right, well, might sorry, it’s hard to tell the difference apart from that awesome moose-stash you got there on your face. Why, my pappy once had a moose-stash just like that before the bison done did catch him stealing pie and waxed it clean off--” “You’re name, you idiot?” “Oh. Brayburn, sir.” “Brayburn. What is biggest, most important, critical company uniform policy?” “Oh, that’s easy, no vests because they look stupid. Even if they’re actually super cool, and you management-types just need to be happy I didn’t go and elect to wear the chaps that go along with it--” “NOT that rule. The OTHER ONE.” “What? Oh. The stallions get the uniforms. Mares don’t wear clothes.” “Mares. Don’t. Wear. CLOTHING.” Flam stepped back on the stage, smiling at his brother. “Exactly. Even Twilight Sparkle herself follows this rule, as you just saw. Mares DON’T get to wear ANY clothing. This is very, very important.” “But sir, I’m not a mare. ‘Cept on weekends some time down at the salt bar, you know, to blow off some steam. Of if I get thrown in the poison joke. Again.” “IGNORING THAT,” snapped Flam. “Anyone APART from him, then, can you tell me why, knowing this rule...” The spotlight shifted position, suddenly erupting with a circle of light on the mare that M’Ress had been following. “Why is THAT one wearing our uniform?” “Because she’ll catch cold!” cried Flim. Flam stared at his brother. “No, you imbecile. Did mother drop you? She doesn’t work here! She’s an outsider! A foreign communist SPY! GET HER!” The ponies, upon realizing this, immediately converged on her—and she struck out, upturning one of them with her telekinesis and kicking him hard with her back legs into another pony, knocking him down. It was apparent, though, that she was surrounded, severely outnumbered, and physically delicate. They had not noticed M’Ress, though, apparently. M’Ress promptly rectified this situation, deeming that it was time to exit her hiding place. There was little thought as to the why of this, but she felt like the spy needed to be protected. Something instinctual informed her of it, and something else told her that the tall unicorn stallion had been lying. This was not a foreign invasion. The spy knew something valuable. She was what M’Ress had been sent to acquire. With one massive thrust, she shoved the grate out of the vent, causing it to fall on and level several ponies. She jumped down on it, pushing them back to the ground as they tried to stand up. “GAH!” screamed a stallion. “CAT LADY! My allergies! MY ALLERGIES!” “No, you idiot, that’s an Abyssinia! Help, HELP! She’s come to seduce us!” “I’m being seduced! I’M BEING SEDUCED!” M’Ress did not hesitate. She had hoped that, as a Caitian, she would have some manner of innate warrior instinct. As it turned out, she did not. This forced her instead to rely on her apex-predator instincts instead. She hissed and pounced on a pony. He squealed, flailing, and the herd-prey instinct of the ponies took over, and terrified, the scattered, if only for a moment. M’Ress looked over the crowd to see Flim and Flam looking over their shoulders as two armored ponies helped them escape, shuttling them into an elevator—and they stared at her as they rose suddenly away into the rocket scaffolding to safety. They saw her, and they knew. “You idiot, get down!” cried the mare, sending out a plume of brilliant sparkling magic into the face of a pony that was about to give M’Ress the poke with his horn. The unicorn cried out in surprise, finding himself covered in glitter. “It’s in my mane, IT’S IN MY MANE!” M’Ress picked up the pony she had pounced on and threw him into the others, clearing a path. “GO! We need to go NOW!” “What, pray-tell, was your FIRST CLUE?!” The mare ran, and M’Ress followed, only to suddenly be knocked to the ground, finding her legs unable to move. She turned as she fell, only to find another rope wrap suddenly around her torso, a second lasso being thrown around her. “But how—you have no hands—you can’t lasso—’ She looked up to see the disturbingly handsome stallion with an obsession with vests holding onto both ropes with her teeth. “Now hold on there, kitty-missy, this is for your own good, you can’t be in here and I’m doing a citizen’s arrest so just hold on and don’t—” A pair of floating scissors sliced through the rope holding her arms, and M’Ress clawed through the one on her feet. She then lurched forward to grab another stallion and throw him at the attractive one—but was promptly stopped when the stallion she had grabbed did not rise. Confused, M’Ress looked down to see one of the default-type ponies. She realized too late that this form of pony, despite lacking wings or a horn, was of significant density and thickness. They were made of solid meat. The meat then proceeded to, in a single motion, turn around and buck her in the chest. Several ribs snapped from the force as she was thrown back. She landed hard, gasping and hissing, with the pony staring wide-eyed. “What did you just do?!” cried a Pegasus. “I bucked her, I didn’t—she’s--” “Get a medic, you hurt her! MEDIC! You can’t just kick cats OR ladies, let alone lady-cats, what are you, some sort of--” M’Ress suddenly felt herself pulled to her feet, a process that was exceedingly painful. “MOVE, Caitian, I don’t have time for this!” cried the armored mare. “Before they get organized!” M’Ress, grabbing her chest in an attempt to force her ribs back to the proper position, started to follow—and managed to get about ten feet before something grabbed her. She turned sharply, slashing at the rope, but felt her arm suddenly twist and her shoulder pop painfully. There was no rope to sever, nor anything visible apart from a thin film of plasma surrounding her arms and one of her legs. Although there was no solid mass to it, she could barely move, and her arm had suddenly become useless. She turned her head as far as she could to see a unicorn, its horn glowing with a plume of strange plasma, apparently holding her in place—and she suddenly found she could not breathe. The pressure on her chest and neck was growing greater. The mare turned, her own horn erupting, and M’Ress was thrown to the side as her body erupted in a second color of plasma that counteracted the first in a violent and searing explosion of force. The attacker jumped back as if struck, and M’Ress was thrown to the ground by the blue field. “GET DOWN!” The mare pushed her, in the process drawing a heavy Klingon disruptor from under her uniform and firing a beam directly into the stallion’s face. The stallion went limp, falling to the floor in a heap—and proceeding to writhe around at random. “GAH!” He screamed. “I’ve been made floppy! The tingling! IT TINGLES SO BAD!” The disruption hissed several more times, resulting in the violent flopping of several more unicorns. M’Ress, likewise, drew her phaser, pointing it at a winged horse about to leap upon her—and had it promptly knocked out of her hand. “Are you insane?! You’ll kill him!” “But you have a Klingon--” The Pegasus leapt onto her, proceeding to beat her with his soft, colorful hooves. M’Ress was surprised to discover that he was, in fact, profoundly weak, and the event was about as uncomfortable as being attacked by a large bird or very large moth. “Take that, and that! How about a hoof sandwich? How about some NEKO wafers!” M’Ress shoved him, and he immediately fell to the ground with a cry. “I’ve been got! I’VE BEEN GOT!” The other ponies stepped back in awe and terror, and it was suddenly apparent—as if it had not been before—that they were simply not built for even the most crude rudiments of combat. That evolution had managed to forge the absolute pinnacle of weak, soft, peaceful beings. “Are you...joking?” She suddenly felt herself being pulled, and was drawn toward the door. M’Ress found that it was blocked by a pair of ponies, the sort without horns or wings. Even if they could not fight, that kind was notably meaty, and they could certainly block a door. While having the ponies attack one at a time was probably tolerable, they had already managed to cause substantial injury to M’Ress’s body. If they finally decided to all attack at once, no matter how soft and adorable they were her and the mare of mystery would almost surely be overwhelmed. The mare, though, charged at the two. “You’re not getting past us!” said one, squaring his shoulders. “Your eyes are spaced too far apart, your coat-color had not been fashionable since the seventies, and GREEN is an UGLY color for a MANE!” The pony’s eyes widened and he crumpled to the floor, his companion crying out. “Medic! MEDIC!” The meaty stallion was crying uncontrollably, his friend attempting to console him. “His feelings! She's attacked his insecurities directly! Somepony help him, his feelings are hurt! Get a security blanket! I need a CELESTIA-DARNED security blanket, STAT!” “B—bu--but green is my faaaavorite collllor!” The mare and M’Ress were able to get past them, and the mare pulled the crystal locking mechanism out of the wall, causing it to slam closed. “I broke the door but I’m afraid they’ll eventually find a way around it.” She was gasping for breath. “And my lung capacity is...not what it has previously been. I apparently do not like exercise. Well of course I don’t like exercise, it makes me SWEAT. But the lung capacity would certainly be useful. Except I did not know I was EVER going to do THIS--” She shook her head. “We need to move. I think I know the layout.” “If I could use my phaser--” “You haven’t tuned it, a type-II phaser would be disastrous to a non-unicorn.” She levitated her disruptor. “Point it at a pony again and we’ll see what this one does to a Caitian. I simply cannot allow a fellow pony to EVER come to harm.” “Unless it involves crushing their self-esteem, apparently.” The mare grumbled. “My name is Rarity.” “Yes. I know that. I am Shiboline M’Ress. I was watching you from the vents.” “Which explains why your fur is absolutely filthy. All this work and you got just as far using the WORST possible way.” “I did not have the option to seduce my way to victory.” “You would be surprised. Maybe a hat. And a nice floral sundress. Instead of...that.” “What is wrong with my choice of clothing? It is efficient!” She looked around her. “Should not we be running away?” The mare was producing something from her coat, wrapped in wax paper. “No. We’re already surrounded and they’ve sealed the exits.” “Then...what?” She unwrapped what M’Ress took at first to be candy—until she realized that it was glowing. It was a fragment of a crystal, brilliant violent in nature, and leaking a disturbing and unpleasant light. “What is that?” “An extremely large amount of an extremely addictive drug I’m afraid.” She popped it into her mouth, chewed it with a disturbing crunching sound and, grimacing, swallowed it. She winced and let out an agonized squeak as she began to shudder and the color of her sclera began to darken. “You see, a type two unicorn is not normally capable of teleportation. So I do apologize for what is about to happen, as this will be...rough. If you start to feel the eternity of the void seeping into your soul, I really do suggest looking away. It’s...longer than you think.” “Teleport? Wait, what--” A look of horror suddenly crossed the pony’s face, and she let out a terrible high squeal of agony. She fell to the floor, convulsing. M’Ress bent down, putting her hand on the unicorn—only to pull it back in pain. She was hot, to the point where she was starting to steam or smoke. Her mouth was foaming, and when she opened her eyes, her schlera were stained a shade of deep purple. “It hurts,” she said, sounding confused and afraid. “It hurts so much, I don’t—why--I can take the pain, I can absorb it, I can insulate your brain just hold on--” Her horn ignited with a blast of purple magic so powerful that M’Ress was forced back from the heat. Then, in a flash, there was nothing but sound—and then not even sound. Nothing at all. The intrinsic horror associated from suddenly not existing was profound and, had she been fully conscious of the true nature of the nothingness and the intrinsic abyss surrounding her, M’Ress would have become immediately insane as she witnessed eternity slowly pass in the flash of a second. But the spell was both too adequate and too incomplete to allow that. She felt herself thrown outward, and inward, swirling as if in a vortex or a tempest—and yet still and utterly silent. And, for a brief moment, she comprehended that they were not alone. That something lurked in the darkness. That there were things living there. Some things watched from a great distance, but some where much closer, although barely perceived. Tortured, sad things that wept as they decayed. They were sleeping. But one was not. She perceived it. Greater than the others, older and more powerful, a pair of pale blue eyes slowly tracing her, and she comprehended its silhouette against the darkness. Of a gaunt, diseased thing, transfixed in an unholy crucifixion, a fetus decades old that watched barely from the darkness, half-perceiving in dreams of strange machinery. Then came cold. Humidity, and moisture, and wetness. M’Ress retched as though she had spent two weeks straight licking herself, and found she could not stand from dizziness—but she knew that she was being pulled. “Come ON!” gurgled the unicorn through a mouth dripping with a substance that reflected silver in the pale moonlight. “We have to go, we have to go! Get up, GET UP!” M’Ress did her best to stand, but slid with the mare down a muddy embankment into the dirty water below. “I can’t—I can’t move, my body, the Witch, Vangard--” “You don’t need to run, just crawl!” Rarity gestured to the trees. Though her vision was blurry, M’Ress saw them, and noted that they were beautiful. A strange and alien thing, but a beacon of calm in the swamps. They were gnarled trees that grew like oaks, but with weeping branches like willows. And they were covered in beautiful flowers, blue, with orange spots, that fell to the water and bloomed like lillypads. As they sat near them, Rarity coughed as she inhaled the pollen. M’Ress felt an urge to sneeze. “These trees--” “They won’t follow us into the trees. Come on. Can you swim?” “All Caitians...can swim...we just...don’t like to...” She departed into the water, her feet treading much and strange swimming things rubbing against her. The pony likewise paddled into the water dotted with flowers from seemingly hundreds of trees that grew on the banks and in the water itself. From behind them, M’Ress heard the high voices of ponies, and saw light. Surely they would see them. Surely they would catch them. “Look, cat tracks! Big ones!” cried a pony. “They’ve been here! Quick, down the mud--” “Wait, stop! Look at the trees! The TREES!” There were hushed and panicked tones, and the ponies took several steps back. Rarity had been correct. The ponies would not follow them into the strange and solemn mangroves. “They couldn’t have gone that way.” “No. No, they couldn’t. They must have looped to the west gate!” “They’re probably hiding in the poison joke patch! Quick, get Brayburn!” And with that, they departed. M’Ress and Rarity continued their path through the cold water, swimming as best they could, until they reached the mud on the far shore. There, they collapsed onto the muddy bank surrounded by spotted flowers. “That...could have gone better.” “We made it out. For now.” Rarity coughed, and stood up. “But we can’t stay here.” M’Ress groaned, because as cold and wet and injured as she was, she knew that the pony was right.