The fourth day of the month marked the day Penumbra was to visit the Headquarters for the Defence Flotilla. Despite Arcadius being the capital of the Dominion, the vast majority of military command occurred on Chronove, with the machine world uniquely suited for the task with its impressive number of communication systems and artificial intelligences, allowing for orders to be beamed from Chronove to any Dominion unit in the galaxy within seconds.
The Headquarters for the Defence Flotilla, unlike many of its fellows, was more of a tourist attraction or public service building. Most of those who entered it were ordinary civilians, most simply wishing to research the military that protected them. It still had some military use, centered around its eastern wing, where the command for the 244nd Chronove Fleet was located, along with the command of the 255th Chronove Surface Legion - both units far removed from their Imperial counterparts: smaller, better-trained, better-equipped, less fanatical, and overall more of a ceremonial guard force than a true combat formation.
Penumbra knew it mostly for its kindly officers, who gave her as much tea and biscuits as she requested and listened endlessly to her stories that looped around each other so many times as to be essentially nonsensical. There was typically a gaggle of them waiting for her on the landing pad.
However, on this particular day, no one was there. As her sleek, glossy-black transport landed, she assumed they were just indoors, given the menacing black rain clouds forming overhead. As she made her way indoors as the first drops of rain began to fall, she was greeted by a reception room entirely empty save two Maniples of ten black armoured soldiers each.
Two of them stepped forwards, standing about Penumbra’s height, with six long fingers on each hand, their feet covered by armoured boots. They were completely encased in two layers, a thin but exceptionally strong black bodysuit, with slightly lighter armour layered atop, glowing orange filaments all along the segments, their helmets angular but still vaguely the shape of their skulls, bearing only a pair of glowing orange eyepieces linked to several smaller filaments, visibly providing power. Each carried a vaguely diamond-prism shaped rifle about a metre long, steely grey in colour, which they kept down but still clearly ready should they be required. They were Warrior forms, the genetically enhanced soldiers of the Irenton Dominion.
“Sunless-Halo-of-Penumbra,” one said, voice processed but still clearly identifiable, “come with us, please.”
They brokered no argument and so she gave none. They marched off into the structure on the assumption she would follow, which she did. They led her through corridors and halls that, on any other day, would have been full of people. The only others she saw were more Warriors, apparently on guard duty for something, or someone.
The someone was quickly identified, as Penumbra was led into a dark room containing two chairs - one conveniently designed to allow her to sit comfortably - a desk and another Warrior form. They wore no helmet, with their armour having a red glow rather than an orange one. His face made him out as an older Warrior form, one from the early days of the Dominion, identifiable as such in that he still looked vaguely like a Vortexian - the species he clearly hailed from originally. He had only a tuft of white hair on his head, with sharp ears pressed flat against his skull. His eyes were grey, as was his skin, with his lips thin and overall mouth small. He had, beneath his armour, a muscular but still relatively slim build, designed for maximum strength and agility with minimum silhouette.
“Please,” he said, “sit, we have much to discuss.”
The two soldiers who had led her to the room left, no doubt to guard the door. Penumbra took her seat, the obviously important Warrior in front of her tenting his twelve fingers as he thought of what to say next.
“It is an honour to meet you at last,” he said, “I had been trying to do so for a long while but this is the first chance I was able. I am Feather-of-Joyous-Path, a member of the Dominion Defence Intelligence Department. My department authorised me to question you as to the nature of what I was brought up believing was a myth, the War in Heaven.”
Penumbra tensed involuntarily, any mention of the War was sure to do that to her, especially from an officer of the Intelligence Department. “It was no myth,” she said, looking down at her clawed feet, the furless skin above sporting splotches of a silvery metal, “I still bear the scars.”
Joyous-Path nodded gravely. “I understand it may be difficult,” he said, “but, as it stands, you are the only person in the Dominion who has any sort of first-hand knowledge. We have tried to search records, but everything we have found is either speculative or outright incorrect. So, Penumbra, we need you to tell us about the War, everything you know.”
“Why are you asking me this? What is so important the Dominion needs it now? Why has it taken so long for anyone to wonder about this?”
The officer rolled his shoulders, momentarily uncomfortable - evidently, he was not fully certain on what he could and could not say. Regardless, he spoke. “During operations, one of our fleets came across a large area of free-floating mass in interstellar space. It was a ship graveyard, unlike any we have ever seen. This was not some collection of scrapped vessels, but thousands, tens of thousands, even, of warships, torn apart and drifting in space. Each is thousands of years old, but one was still partially active. Most of its data was corrupted beyond any recognition, but it contained a single, audio only, transmission. It was a call for help, as something had boarded several of the other vessels, tearing them apart in minutes. We need to know everything, so we can prepare for everything.”
Penumbra nodded. That particular threat, she was almost certain, she had not experienced, but had read enough about to be concerned by it. “My memory is hazy,” she sighed, “I remember only the end. When the Great Light was smothered. It was guarded by millions of daemons, some as large as buildings. Most of our group sacrificed themselves, holding off the daemons just long enough for us to enter the spire and kill it. It was manipulative, no, that isn’t a strong enough word. Within only a minute of speaking to me it had convinced me, convinced me to let it win. Only-”
She paused, raw and unfiltered memory flooding back. Her jaw trembled as the sudden pain of the memory hit her like a train. Her brain fought in a sudden and ultimately unnecessary desperate way to stem the tide of emotion, Penumbra’s well-trained mental fortitude was more than enough to protect her. “Only Celestia, with Nicholas, allowed me to kill it. Their powers combined cut off its connection to me. Then, she sacrificed herself to allow me to escape.”
Joyous-Path nodded, no doubt someone elsewhere was recording what she said. “How did you kill it?”
Penumbra chuckled hoarsely. “A power of Nicholas’ creation, three words imbued with power that would kill any daemon, the Light included.”
Joyous-Path tapped two of his fingers on the desk as he sat back, clearly thinking. Even in the relatively casual setting, it was clear he was a master interrogator by his style. He gave just enough that Penumbra couldn’t help but reply, but left enough blank that he gave nothing away. Training was clear in his facial expression, which remained perfectly neutral, the perfect poker face.
“Emperor Nicholas, then,” he asked, “the stories about him are real?”
Penumbra laughed again. “Real as in they undersell him. He had telekinesis strong enough to move anything he wanted, his magic was beyond anything I could ever even dream of wielding. He could change his form, come back from the dead, pull you into his own personal universe, manipulate matter in any way he wished. But, most of all, he could control time itself.”
Joyous-Path was surprised, though that was only present by the reaction of his soul, which Penumbra had started to observe rather than his face, which was going to remain stoically neutral regardless of circumstance. She couldn’t quite read his thoughts, that was something unique to Nicholas, she believed, but she could read relatively well how he was thinking. At that moment, he was thinking how could such a thing be possible.
“Time?”
Penumbra nodded. “Chronove,” she said, relishing in being questioned on a topic she actually knew about, “was once called the ‘Planet of Time’, due to a machine far below its surface, long since destroyed. Even in its unfinished state, it was able to transform Nicholas into a creature able to control time itself. If finished, who knows how powerful it may have been.”
Joyous-Path seemed from the imprint of his soul to believe she was lying, or playing with him in some way, though the imprint quickly changed to the same surprised but accepting appearance from previously. His face, unsurprisingly, remained the same as it always had, although his pupils had widened slightly.
“You say the machine is destroyed?”
“By Emperor Nicholas, shortly after its only usage. According to him, nothing remains of it. He tended to be rather thorough with his works, so I wouldn’t bother looking.”
Joyous-Path tapped his fingers on the desk again. However, he wasn’t thinking, nor had he been previously. Penumbra’s magic had highlighted a slight noise in his right ear, which, when amplified, revealed itself to be a communicator. Someone was, apparently, relaying him questions to ask, a number of which Penumbra didn’t know the answer to.
“I have one more question,” he asked, sitting forwards and tenting his fingers once again, “how did you access the Great Light?”
Penumbra allowed herself a moment to think, relishing in the knowledge she was in control. “A planet,” she said, “a Shield World, called Cradle. There were portals in its core, allowing us to enter the Veiled Edge and, from there, the Aether and the Great Light.”
Joyous-Path nodded twice, doubtless a signal to an onlooker. “Thank you for your time.” He smiled, rising from his chair and holding out a hand to shake. Penumbra grasped it in the talons on her left foreleg and shook. “It was a pleasure,” he said, with all the formality to confirm it wasn’t.
“Pleasure was mine,” she replied, more out of polite respect than an actual admiration for the officer, though she could certainly admire his poker face. She wondered, in that moment, what his face would look like if she kicked him in the chest.
She left the room, promptly being escorted back out of the Headquarters by the same pair of Warriors who had taken her in. The rain outside had gotten worse, coming down in heavy sheets, the sky a dark grey as clouds covered everything above. Several towers off in the distance, little more than metal cuboids from such a distance, reached high up into the cloud layer, puncturing it like spears. The ground of the landing pad, meanwhile, was slowly becoming one large puddle of rainwater, with Penumbra running through it to her waiting transport.
She shook herself off inside the warm, dry and well-cushioned passenger bay, using her magic to quickly dry her sodden coat before taking a seat, allowing herself to collapse back and be absorbed by the material. The transport was designed with comfort in mind, as evidenced by its takeoff: near silent and a smooth glide up through the atmosphere, taking its pleasant time in reaching its destination, a far cry from the utilitarian dropships that had been her first experience of space flight, which had rumbled and rattled the moment they hit air. Her personal transport, an accolade awarded due to the fact she was its only customer, always took well over an hour to land, allowing Penumbra to rest her eyes and body from whatever may have been aching her.
The landing back on Sanctuary’s Watch was so smooth that it was only noticeable by the announcement from the pilot, who, as custom, she thanked as she disembarked, welcomed home by warm, sunny weather, barely a cloud in the sky and a light breeze preventing her from overheating. Her landing pad, surrounded by a thicket of thin trees and a host of other vegetation, always provided pleasant scenery for her walks to and from her home in the observation tower.
The odd rabbit would often emerge from the edge of the path, content in Penumbra’s presence to not worry as she passed. Rarely, from the trees would emerge an Arcadian Forest Cat, with spotty patterned beige and black fur, face wide and fluffy, ears like little pyramids, standing a good half a metre tall. One particular specimen, which Penumbra had affectionately named “Cat” would await her by a rock some two-thirds of the way down the path every seventh day, where it would meow once and she would gently pet it whilst feeding it a small fish fillet she made sure to carry with her on that very day, inside a special container she carried in her saddlebags.
She had chosen her particular home on Sanctuary’s Watch for a variety of reasons, not in the least because it was far from anyone else, allowing Penumbra to more or less do more or less as she pleased all day. There was also another reason for her choice of that specific location, though it was one she much preferred to keep secret.
The bottom floor of her tower was spacious, with a large diameter and ceiling height, with the only objects being a spiralling staircase leading further up and a brown leather armchair underneath it. Ostensibly, the chair was for guests, the underside of the staircase being far too low for Penumbra to sit on it, especially given it wasn’t designed in the slightest for her build. In reality, however, the chair was not even designed to be sat on. Rather, solely to cover up the room’s secret third object: a cellar door.
Moving the chair was a simple matter of telekinesis. The door, however, was locked tight, Penumbra not even having bothered to make a key, or a hole for a key. Rather, the tumblers of the lock would be manipulated with her magic, which would unlock it and allow her to enter. In theory, that should provide an extra layer of security, though Penumbra had never needed security anyway, given no one ever visited.
The little trapdoor was just barely big enough to fit her if she squeezed in, with a stone staircase - only just big enough to fit her if she ducked - leading further down. There was no lighting, with only her magically enhanced sight - and the lack of space to fall - preventing her from taking a tumble down the cold stone. Relatively mercifully, the thin passage soon opened out, into a larger room, containing a single elevator, a terminal, and nothing else.
Penumbra had just enough room to stand up fully, though any jumping or tilting her head more than five or so degrees upwards would see her hitting the stone above. The elevator was incredibly old, not just in actual age but also appearance. It appeared to run on a number of brass-coloured gears and the platform itself was little more than a decently large square grate with four fences in the corners. The terminal, meanwhile, seemed far newer. It was still made of that brass-coloured metal she couldn’t identify, but had a glowing blue screen and responded to touch, it was also sleeker, the screen at maximum half an inch thick, with the column that held it up only two inches in diameter.
Fortunately, the elevator was a lot more sophisticated than it appeared, detecting Penumbra stepping on it and setting off downwards when she was fully aboard. It moved exceptionally quickly, too, but never seemed out of control. The ride was always silky smooth and took exactly forty seven seconds to reach its landing point.
Penumbra’s surroundings changed from stone to brass, cogs and gears visible through grates and the constant ticking of clockwork audible in the distance. The area she was in was enormous, open further than the eye could see, a far cry from the cramped entrance, millions of gears and axles turning, like the centre of a clock the size of a moon. This was the Clockworks, the core of Sanctuary’s Watch, a great collection of machines she knew from experience was alive.
Had Penumbra been scared of heights, she would have hated the Clockworks, with its innumerable bridges over drops of sometimes kilometres. She had once, as an experiment, dropped a pebble down from one of the gangways, she had expected to hear it land but had given up after half an hour of waiting. She had explored - at her rough estimate - about two percent of the Clockworks, though the further into the centre she got the more recognisable the terrain was. She had begun to recognise certain formations of gears, even going so far as to name a few of them. One, a collection of three giant cogs, each about fifty metres tall, evidently connected to a series of axles she couldn’t see, she had named the Trinity, after an old concept she had once read about - something about three separate pieces but still being one whole.
The Trinity marked the point close to the centre of the Clockworks, the centre being - in her eyes, anyway - officially reached when the cogs vanished, leaving only seemingly empty space above and below for kilometres. In reality, however, the situation was perhaps a little more terrifying.
Only at the very centre, where a series of portal frames stood, was there a light source that could be tracked down. Three consoles, each glowing blue semi-circles set into metal podiums, illuminated a very small area of the core, just behind them. In only the thin cone of the glow was visible thousands of WarSynths, their hulls slightly stouter than those she had seen before and made of that brass-coloured alloy. Each had a less wide headpiece, forming a fan-like shape above their singular eyes, who were definitely larger than their cousins’ but whose colour could not be identified in their deactivated state. They hung, silently, attached by something Penumbra couldn’t quite see, forming a layer of constructs only broken by the entrance to the core.
She had not come for them, however, rather, she had come for the consoles, specifically the left-most one from the entrance. Tapping a single button, something clicked, presumably inside the half-ring column the console was attached to, a small red box appearing in the middle of the console.
“Sunless-Halo-of-Penumbra,” the construct said in binary, “welcome back.”
“Hello Tick,” she said, using the name she had affectionately given the construct, “how’s things today?”
“Facility is operating at one hundred percent capacity, no issues of any kind to report.”
She smiled, she had rather taken a liking to the immense machine under her home. Even without considering its age, the sheer size of it was enough to leave her in awe, let alone the intricacy of it all. Clockwork, cogs and axles - simple machines all in all - were all formed together so beautifully. Tick was just one part of the immense machine, its purpose still unknown to her.
“How are the constructs doing?” She asked, giving one of the dormant WarSynths a once over with her magic, checking both how it was built and cleaning it of any dust - of which there was remarkably little.
“All constructs fully maintained, ready for activation if necessary. Sub-minds operating at nominal capacities.”
Everytime Tick spoke, he would give a happy little beep at the end of his binary. Tick himself - or itself - did not appear to be sentient, at least not fully, but Penumbra liked to believe his little beep was a happy one. Given how willing Tick was to allow her access to the facility, she took it upon herself regardless to give the little bot some emotion.
“Good, good.” She gave the console a friendly tap, as though petting a cat or dog. “Anything at all to report?”
Tick paused, immediately drawing Penumbra’s full attention. As a construct, and a fast one at that, he typically responded to every query near instantly. Something, it seemed, was taking a lot of his processing power, whether it was Penumbra’s question or something else was unknown.
“Affirmative,” Tick said, something he had never said in reply to a question of that nature, “detected long-range signal from SHIELD-047 SANCTUM. Would you like me to play the signal?”
Penumbra couldn’t answer quickly enough, “yes, yes, absolutely.”
Static, random, not the usual non-random binary, the static of a radio transmitter, filled the room. “Shield World crust breached by unknown entities. Cloaking Sub-mind offline. Communications damage critical. Construct damage critical. Shield World damage critical. Advise immediate quarantine of planetary system.”
The message did not repeat, no doubt only sent in radio due to damage to other, more efficient forms of communication.
“What is the approximate distance to Sanctum?” Penumbra, curious as to how old the message could be, asked. Given radio was on the electromagnetic spectrum, it would travel at the speed of light.
“One hundred light years.”
It had taken the message a century to reach Sanctuary’s Watch, with Penumbra no doubt being the only one to hear it. She had heard the name Sanctum before, though couldn’t quite remember where. It must have been sometime during the War in Heaven, no doubt about it.
Suddenly, it clicked in her mind: the report from Radiant-Dawn-of-Remembrance, who had, albeit indirectly, allowed her to find her true identity. Sanctum, the Shield World that had been her home, destroyed in the opening phases of the War in Heaven.
“Present me the coordinates of the origin,” she ordered, taking out a datapad to record them. Tick showed the coordinates in silence, Penumbra triple checking she had them correct. She nodded once sure they were.
“I will go at once,” she said, more to herself than anyone else, “keep the facility operating while I am gone.”
Tick beeped as Penumbra turned to leave, not quite entirely sure why she was heading to Sanctum in the first place. Something seemed to call her there, whether it was a natural sense of adventure, her curiosity or simply boredom, she didn’t know. All she knew was she had to go, if only to satisfy the urge.
“Equestria,” she mumbled, passing through the vast intricacies of the Clockworks, “time to go home.”