The quarters they found for Felicity and her "friends" left a great deal to be desired. The deck had huge gaps, and an entire section of wall had been covered by a thin plastic sheet. It bowed out constantly, as though the pressure might rip it free at any moment. But it didn't, at least not while Felicity and the others entered the room.
"We're working on something better," Escape Gear said apologetically. She was the last one through the door, clutching the nearly-limp form of Delta in her arms. She lowered her down onto the room's single bed. If there had ever been a mattress, it was gone now, along with any sheets. There was just a metal slab, with a few mysterious organic stains near the side of the bed. "But that's easier said than done. Resources are, uh... short."
She froze, watching as Delta began to spasm and kick all over again, stretching weakly out with each limb at random. Her eyes twitched whenever they were up, but then she flopped to the side, so that she could only see the wall. It probably wasn't intentional. "Tea, not... not understand. Very confused. Help?"
"I will," she urged. She had to stand on her hindlegs to reach the side of the bed, where she could pat the poor creature with one hoof. "I'm sorry this happened, Delta. It wasn't what we meant. Once we get enough magic, we should be able to fix it. Right, Harmony?"
Harmony settled onto his haunches just beside her. "Not at this time. My directives forbid the destruction of a unique mind. Delta is not part of Harmony, yet. Until she is, to change her back into a simple machine would be equivalent to murder. We will not." Interesting how he switched to such a formal tone when he spoke like that. Arguing with her made him uncomfortable? Maybe she could use that.
"Not right away, but soon." Felicity turned away from the struggling pony. She just couldn't watch her fight—pulling this particular fish out of water was her doing. "I assume this ship is working on getting back in the air?" she asked. "Now that we have a reactor..."
Escape Gear broke into a bout of energetic laughter. The sound was somehow more mechanical than Felicity would've liked. More of the strangeness of her body. "I don't know if you got a good look at the ship, captain. But she's never making it into orbit again. The Varch'nai only build a rare few ships to survive landing in an atmosphere, and this isn't one. She will never fly again."
"Then why did..." She opened both wings, puffing out her chest. In this stupid body, she only barely made it to Escape Gear's waist. "So why did we just fix the reactor? If we're doomed... might as well just lock things down and go back into the ice until rescue arrives."
Escape Gear shook her head once. "That's how I probably would've thought about it, before my tour here. But Varch'nai think about all that differently. We need enough juice for the central coms array to cut through this planet's unique interference. The same crap that stranded us down here... it's not magic. But sending minds is delicate stuff. Even nano-scale degrees of variance can have a devastating impact. But that process is going... slow. Nowhere currently, since we had to divert every technical crewman we have to repair the life support. They're working on getting a pod ready—guess we better make it three pods."
She pulled over a nearby lump of rusty metal, one of many that had apparently fallen from the ceiling. She settled down on it like a stool, folding her arms. "Plan is to get you into a pod like the rest of us. Crew will reinforce that deck, keep it intact long enough for rescue to come our way and scrape up our meat parts when it's convenient for them. With coms restored, we could remote back into the fleet. If nothing else, we can see how the battle is going."
Felicity listened to all of that without interruption, though very little of that plan was particularly appealing to her. She had already trusted to a Varch'nai biopod once, and that ended with her marooned down here. Though it had ended with her accidentally accomplishing the mission her original ship had set out to do, kinda.
"Harmony has got to be pissed about this," she finally said. "So many minds in this system, and none of them particularly safe. The war can't be over, or we'd already be rescued. Something is still happening up there."
"You see the urgency of our recovery," said a voice. What she'd taken for a section of debris suddenly lit up with a display. It had a large crack running down the center, and only worked on one half. The screen adjusted, displaying a slightly distorted, almost human figure on the other half. Captain Pasquale, the same one who had decided to lock her away rather than risk her being dangerous to his ship. "This entire process has diverted resources we can scarcely afford to misplace."
Her whole body tensed as she made her way to the screen. Past Delta on the bed, who had stopped flopping around by now. Her eyes were wide, unblinking. She was clever—probably she was listening right now. You just wanted to keep me safe, Delta. "I'm sorry to be an inconvenience to you," she said, her voice flat and diplomatic. She could still manage that, even if her voice was high and childish. "I should have taken my skimmer right past your wreck, and left you to freeze. Your crew would be too dead to waste their time with distractions like providing life support."
It was too hard to gauge his reaction on the other side of such a poor display. But it took him a good while to say anything, over a minute. "We are having some difficulty with repairs to the communications array," he said. "Even before I ordered them suspended, there seemed a significant possibility we will be unable to repair them. We have plenty of power—there are a number of emergency beacons available to us. But that would involve sending out a broad signal without knowing who or what might hear that transmission. We leave ourselves at the mercy of the battle, and will remain stranded here until forces arrive to intervene."
Felicity nodded once. "I agree with your assessment, for whatever it's worth." She glanced sideways at Harmony. The little colt had followed her over to the display, though he didn't seem to be watching it. There was no telling what senses he wielded. Maybe he listened right through the computer.
"It can be repaired," Harmony said. "I have made detailed observations of local conditions. An adapted graviton-wave emitter can be constructed using salvage aboard this vessel." His horn glowed.
Suddenly the figure in the screen seemed to be watching something else. "A moment," was all he said. The screen went black.
"Never heard anyone talk to Captain Pasquale like that," Escape Gear muttered, ruefully. "But I guess that's what happens when you're stuck in a hundred square meter dictatorship for a few centuries. Think maybe he got a little too comfortable getting his way."
And he is probably recording everything we say. She didn't have the energy left to care what he thought.
"The Varch'nai are extremely resourceful, resilient to long deployments, and mentally stable," Harmony said, surprising them both. "However, they were ultimately designed for orbital conditions. The stress of being marooned for so long has broken crews before. This one has remained functional despite centuries. Worthy of commendation... so long as their mental damage does not interfere with their mission."
Yeah, I'm sure it won't, Felicity thought. Just keep fighting under helpless conditions for hundreds of years. You'll still be in perfect shape.
The screen lit up again, this time with several faces. Captain Pasquale was joined by a few more figures—strangely, not in armored suits. Then again, the room behind them also couldn't possibly exist—it was a station in obvious high orbit, with a huge picture window open on a view of a bright blue planet, with a star faintly visible in the distance.
"This design makes no sense," said a second voice. Another male, though that distinction meant very little with the Varch'nai. The accent was thick enough that Felicity had to focus to understand a word he said. "This will not form a stable gravity-wave signal. If we're lucky, it would just explode."
"I trust my people," the captain said gruffly. "If my engineers say it can't be built, then we won't. I've just spoken to the quartermaster—your design here manages to use just about every spare component of any complexity we have left aboard. If this thing fails, our odds of getting coms back up go way, way down."
Harmony's attention snapped back to the display. "It relies on principles the Varch'nai never mastered, Captain." He stepped up to the screen, nudging Felicity gently out of his way. She was so surprised she moved without resistance. "There is no time for deliberation or doubt, Captain. We speak with the Harmony. You will join our composition, or I will remove you from it."
The captain stiffened visibly. He glanced sidelong at the engineer, then the screen went out again.
Escape Gear whistled. "Well damn the balls on you kid. You know what kind of punishment Varch'nai use on their prisoners?"
Harmony looked up, his expression entirely neutral. "The Varch'nai were instantiated from ancient records of a war-fleet that once targeted one of my science vessels. The only reason I did not destroy them more quickly was to allow for time to integrate each mind. Many were so incompatible with Harmony's directives that substantial revisions were made." He flicked his tail towards Felicity.
"For her ship, no restructuring was required. Every member of her species possesses the same fundamental drive towards socialization and cooperation. They desire friendship—this is satisfactory to Harmony. The Varch'nai did not, so we gave them something else. Every mind, mechanical or silicon, has been ingrained with irresistible compulsion. As the fragment of Harmony most likely to integrate with them during a confrontation, I have all the necessary tools to secure their cooperation, or terminate individuals who refuse to comply."
Felicity's mouth hung open, and she stared at the helpless-looking little colt. That ring cutie mark made him seem so innocent and friendly. And he had been her friend, through their own centuries-long quest. But on the subject of friendship, it did not appear that Harmony was willing to compromise.
"They know it, too," Escape Gear said, very quietly. "Everyone does. I heard them speak often about their desire for freedom from you. How far away they will go to build a home for themselves, where Harmony cannot reach. Some aren't sure you'll keep your promise to free their minds, when this mission is complete."
Harmony clicked his tongue absently. "I know that the Harmony is true to the word they give. Any society requires trust, and that trust cannot be maintained if agreements are not kept. But beyond that—" He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just supposed to keep you ponies alive. I've barely been able to do that."
Something heavy flopped onto the floor beside them, loud enough that everyone turned to face the bed. But Felicity already knew what she would see—Delta had somehow managed to get herself out of bed, and now lay sprawled sideways on the floor. Only this time, she'd managed to get four limbs under her. Had she been watching the way they walked, or was this just a coincidence?
"Tea," she said. Her voice was so quiet that Felicity could barely make it out. "I am... a predator. I am changed. You are changed. This ship, your friends—they are not people. They consume." She stared up at the ceiling, eyes weak with terror. "What have I done?"