“She’s waking up.”
Fokienia was drenched in sweat. And no matter how hard she tried, the world was dark.
But slowly, she woke her optical implants.
And the movements around her became clear.
A pony had just laid themselves in front of her. She couldn’t tell who it was. An earth pony, but beyond that... “Fokienia.”
“G-Governor?”
“Yes, Fokienia. It’s Golden Graham.”
She pulled herself up. Her hooves... they worked again! But when she tried to separate them, she found herself unable. “Am... am I in hoofcuffs?”
“Of course not. You’d break those things.”
Fokienia recognized that voice, and the figure that went with it. The brown unicorn. The retrieval unit team lead.
The memories prior to her awakening came back in full.
Vicious anger bubbled in her.
“Fokienia...” Graham’s voice sapped the anger from her, and she turned to him. “We just need to talk.” He stood from his prone position. She could see the corners of his lips turn up in a smile. From this close, her augmented vision provided her with an almost perfect replacement of sight. “And from what I’ve heard, you’ve talked to a lot of ponies since I’ve last seen you.”
Calmed by his tone, she still directed her words to the unicorn stood a fair distance away. “What is he doing here?”
“Actual Gold—”
“Gold Actual.”
“This would be simpler if you just—”
“It’s as simple as it gets, governor. I don’t do names.”
Graham sighed heavily. “Well, Fokienia. Mister Actual and I have... a mutual understanding. Well, he came to me, took me hostage, forced me into some negotiations... you know how these things are, I’m sure. After all, you’re both members of the Facility. ‘Project ponies’, as Commander Gale saw fit to call you. Dealing with political problems is very much your line of work.”
“Get to the point, governor. The package is on the way, and it’ll be easier if we get this done before then.”
Fokienia could see the lines of patience wearing thin in the governor’s movements: from the flick of his tail, to the subtle shift of his facial features. Ponies gave so much information through their movement...
“Fokienia. I realize now that when you gave me the name of Miss Periapsis, you were under the impression that I would do my best to stop the Project. It would take some effort, but I would try. And you would be correct. I did put my best effort in. And they responded fittingly.”
“They sent Cypress into war?”
Despite the fact she couldn’t see normally, the governor shook his head. “No. That was simply a byproduct of their actions. It was a problem that’s been fermenting for the better part of the last decade. Many of those corporations were locally founded, but the ponies they hired were more of the... well, non-Cypressean sort.”
“Are they still fighting out there?”
“Unfortunately, yes. However, Mister Actual was kind enough to inform his superiors that their blackout of station communications could be eased, given our mutual agreement. With the emergency bands unblocked, Commander Gale has begun regrouping Concord forces, and putting a stop to the worst of the riots.”
Fokienia thought for a moment, and Graham let her. “Is this ‘mutual agreement’ because of whether or not a pony is ‘Cypressean’?”
“Close!” Graham broke out in a grin, but he collected himself quickly. “I have the answer for you. But in order for me to give that to you, I need you to sate my curiosity.”
If she told him no, it would just delay the inevitable. She could wait out the clock and see what happened... No, she needed time. Time, and more information.
She could do that.
“Are those terms agreeable?”
“They’re... fine.”
“Well, good. Fine is good enough for me, wouldn’t you say the same, Mister Actual?”
The unicorn grunted.
Graham just turned back to Fokienia. “Tell me, what was Captain Cold doing at the system comm-relay?”
“We know what he was doing,” Actual barked. “We need to know what his message was, and who it was for.”
Fokienia’s heart beat. Did Cold and Ripshot succeed? She couldn’t ask... not without giving them the answer.
“Cold was saving Cypress.”
This seemed to genuinely grab Graham’s attention. “Was he, now?”
“The Concord base commander gave the order to send him out there. She was willing to do anything to save Cypress, even if that meant letting Cold take a fighter.”
“Really?”
“She’s lying, you...” Actual bit his tongue, and shook his head.
“That Captain Cold. He may have been a kirin, but he fought for what he believed in.”
“He’s still a kirin,” Fokienia added.
“Shut up,” Actual growled. He still didn’t move from his place across the room.
The governor laughed nervously. He scuffed a hoof against the floor. “Well, er, of course he is. I just meant that kirins don’t typically go out fighting the way he did.”
Something had happened to Cold. She knew that for certain, now.
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Fokienia. But I really must know, what was Cold doing?”
“He was sending a message for help.”
“To who?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Somepony in a ‘star system’? I didn’t even know about ‘space’ or the ‘galaxy’ until he showed me.”
“Oh...”
“She knows more than that.” Actual started moving. “Just let me—”
“I can talk just fine, Mister Actual. This is a situation that requires tact, as opposed to your... tactical approach.”
The unicorn groaned even harder, and fell back.
“Honestly, you’re being such a colt about this. We have a moment where we can finally talk as civilized ponies, and you want to go right back to violence.”
“I wouldn’t—”
“You fired a disabler beam at her point blank,” Graham said darkly. The room seemed to suddenly drop several degrees, as if it were following the octaves of Graham’s tone. But Fokienia knew that wasn’t possible... was it? “You point-blanked a very nice mare, and she was the only one who didn’t fire back.”
“Because I stopped her before she could.”
“From the short debriefing you delivered, it seems more to me that you spent more time trying to stop her than she ever did trying to stop you.”
Actual didn’t respond. He was stood so still that Fokienia saw the flickers of his movement fade from her vision; it was as if he had left the room.
“Thank you.” Graham turned back to Fokienia. “Fair enough, Fokienia. Captain Cold wanted help for Cypress?”
“Yes. He did. He cares greatly about the ponies here.”
“And I believe you. So, thank you, Fokienia. You told me what you know, so now I can tell you what I know.”
“If you tell her anything about my orders, I will—”
“Put a disabler to my head and pull the trigger? Is that what you’ll do, Mister Actual? I’m going to tell her my plans, and I can assure you, for as closely as we are working right now, my plans are much kinder than yours. And furthermore, they are mine to share.”
“And you’re an idiot.”
“Thank you for your input,” Graham replied dryly. “Now, can I please speak without your incessant interruptions?” When Actual faded into the darkness of Fokienia’s vision again, Graham was all too happy to turn back to her. “Perfect... Let’s start from the beginning.”
“Several years ago, Cypress Station was picked up by the Equestrian Core World Induction Committee. This is because our census reached a high enough population to be deemed a successfully settled system. Now, as a little refresher, the greatest strength of Cypresseans has been our ability to innovate in the face of such a desolate and isolated environment. Our star, blessed as she is, brings many challenges. For decades, we struggled with these challenges, and we overcame them through the Cypress Projects.”
Fokienia nodded, and through the dark of her eyes, she watched Golden Graham as he began to pace. She couldn’t help but take notice of his left hindleg’s limp.
“Now, our adoption into the ECW would have meant a great many changes for Cypress. On a minor level, we would lose our station title, adopting the more pleasant ‘Cypress Habitat’ designation. Pleasant so far as Equestrian citizens are concerned, as Cypresseans are great pioneers and colonists. But more significantly, the status of our sovereignty would change. We would be treated as an equal, and be given the same access to resources as any other core world. Unfortunately, we would also be held to the same regulations... we would be forced to adhere to any Royal mandates, and effectively act as an extension of the other core worlds. It’s a harmonic union, you see.”
“But Cypresseans have never had a need for that. We are collectivized by our struggles, coalesced into a single unionized body through our beliefs and history. We’ve always had to interact with other worlds, of course. We are a busy and rich station for commerce. But once we lost our need to depend on those worlds, our independence became our greatest strength. As a truly independent station, we reap the benefits of our Equestrian heritage and connections, without the need to pay fiefdom to the Crown. Now, we all love the princesses, but they tend to become... overbearing. It was not a princess who forged the way to the stars, but her student. Why would it be incorrect to follow in her student’s path, and develop our own? Ultimately, to share, of course. Many of our advancements have been freely given to the Equestrian Core Worlds, for the good of all ponykind.”
Unnoticed by Governor Graham, Fokienia watched as Gold Actual stepped away. He was quiet, and it was clear he’d slipped through a door as he disappeared down the hall. Free to move, she tried to get a better look around. She could see the faint outlines of ponies patrolling.
In the meantime, Graham went on.
“So my mission, as you very well can see where I’m going, is that Cypress would always remain independent. For these hardest working years of my life, I have put everything into ensuring Cypresseans keep the home that we built. To ensure that no non-Cypressean would ever hold direct authority over our actions and business. The destiny we forged is the one we ourselves forged. From the regolith roads of our wondrous cities, to the miraculous technologies that keep ponies happy and industry... well, industrious! The most authority we’d allow, if only to keep things amicable with the princesses, were the Cloudsdale Quadrant Concord.” He paused, and with a look over his shoulder, realized Gold Actual had left the room. He trot over to Fokienia, tone more conspiratorial, but still giddy. “Now, we’ve had our fair share of trouble with ECW loyalists, but it turns out the Project and I have a great deal in common. They want Cypress to stay independent as well!”
Fokienia saw the unicorn form of Gold Actual galloping down the hall. She stared past Golden Graham.
“Are you—? Oh, I’m sorry! You can’t see. I’m right here, Fokienia. Here, let me get that blindfold off of you.” As he unwound the thick cloth from Fokienia’s eyes, he prattled on. “At first, I worried they’d continued their research as a way of undermining Cypress for pure profit. But after some in-depth explanation, the militaristic operatives they were training were actually meant to aid in my mission. They were planning to usurp Concord in a more violent way, but now that they know that Cypress Concord are loyal to my cause, we no longer have to worry about that.” Stepping back, Fokienia met the beaming grin of Golden Graham with her real eyes. “So really, it was all a misunderstanding, but soon, we can have that solved, and the worst of our past put behind us.”
The wooden room they were stood in, Fokienia realized, was almost identical to the conference room she’d initially met Graham in. A projector on the wall was aimed directly at an empty space, and beside that space, a terminal and control panel were sat next to a setup that looked an awful lot like the computer Cold had in his ship’s quarters.
“Fokienia?” He looked behind him at where she was looking then back. “Are you well? If you’re worried, we’re in my office. There’s nothing to worry about anymore. You don’t have to run or fight.”
The galloping hooves burst through the wooden door. It didn’t break, but it did slam into a doorstop fiercely.
“YOU IDIOT!” Gold Actual roared.
Graham stumbled backwards in shock. “W-what?”
“You didn’t think I’d leave you in here without bugging the room, did you?” Actual tapped his ear, then started advancing on Graham. “And you told her exactly what we didn’t want her to know.”
Graham stopped, then coughed. He adjusted the tie of his suit. “To be fair, you just told her that you didn’t want her to know that. Not that she couldn’t.”
With Actual’s rage focused on Graham, Fokienia looked down at her hooves. She could see now that the thing keeping her hooves locked together was not a set of hoofcuffs, but something even more familiar: a magnetic lock, specifically designed for her. The small metal cube was a tough thing to crack... if she hadn’t spent hours learning to slip out of it over the years.
With a few slick shimmies, the logic puzzle she’d memorized slipped off. She stood, kicked it off to the side, and looked back over at Actual and Graham.
Actual was holding Graham by the scruff of his suit jacket with his telekinesis.
A part of her wanted to intervene.
And then... she looked over at the door.
“Fokienia...” Graham laughed nervously. His brows furrowed her way. “Run.”
By the time Actual had turned, Fokienia’s servos were sending her full tilt down the hallway.
The hallway of the governor’s complex was cramped and easily blocked, but the patrolling ponies were not prepared for her in the slightest. She barreled right through most of them with her sheer weight and stride alone. The only ponies who gave her trouble were the unicorns as they ducked into the side-rooms to fire disabler beams after her, but she didn’t have to put much effort into dodging their panicked shots.
A locked pneumatic door at the end of the hall easily caved into her electronic whims, and she locked it behind her with a happy hum. Now out of the corridor, she took a look around the massive room she’d stepped into.
The tall white fountain caught her off-guard.
The courtyard was filled with green patches and symmetrically planted trees. Above her, a great dome of glass peered out into space. There were other buildings scattered around the practically marble cavern, and they looked identical the one she’d escaped. There was no sign of anypony around.
But the one thing that did catch her eye was the distant shape of a hover-craft.
Galloping to the right, she peered over the edge of a railing and was treated to a wondrous sight: far below her, the city of Cypress Central appeared as little specks. She was at the top of Cypress! As the hover-craft roared up, she found the little landing pad close by, and smiled brightly as the Concord vessel landed.
There were a lot of ponies inside, she realized. But for some reason, a great joy was filling Fokienia right now. The giddiness of freedom was intoxicating; she had run not out of her willingness to appease Graham, but to taste freedom again.
And she was rewarded by the opening of the Concord craft’s doors. Just not in the way she ever wanted to be.
Commander Gale stepped down from the craft, leading a pair of officers who came after.
A pair of officers who came after with Cold.
He was unconscious, but he was alive.
Gale blinked at Fokienia. Her mouth was totally inoperable, it seemed—she didn’t even make a sound. Thankfully, she eventually did. “Fokienia? Did they just... let you go?”
She ignored Gale, too occupied with taking in everything around her.
Another pair of ponies stepped out, dragging a familiar red unicorn with them. It was the officer Cold had taken with him... Ripshot. The pony who’d saved Cold had come back with him.
They were both still wearing their spacesuits, which had somehow been turned black, but they otherwise appeared fine.
Fokienia could only care more.
When Specialist Ravenwatch came after them, Fokienia’s spirits somehow rose even higher.
“Specialist!”
“Huh? Oh!” She blinked. “H-hello, Fokienia, now’s not really a good time...”
“But did they send their message?” She looked back at the governor’s complex, momentarily realizing the circumstances. But that, too, crumbled under the sheer optimism Fokienia was feeling. After what the governor had just told her... all it would take would be one glance from Princess Celestia to save Cypress. One message to reach the princess.
Gale blinked, and turned to the specialist. “Message?”
“I-I, um...”
The air began to shift. Fokienia felt it in the grass she was standing in. It traveled up her hindlegs. And it was... bad.
The very earth she stood on was scared.
And that terrified Fokieina.
Fokienia backed up toward the fountain. More officers disembarked from the craft. Everypony was watching her with wary eyes. But nopony made a move. She had no idea why.
From the governor’s complex, she heard a great commotion. And then...
The pneumatic door was wrenched open, and its screech shattered the blissful sound of the spraying fountain. Sundown came through first, and Sequoia ducked through the opening he’d made. They galloped up to Fokienia.
Sundown was breathless, but she managed. “F-Fokienia... We saw you... run. What’s the plan... now?” She found herself staring at Commander Gale and the veritable contingent she’d come with.
Fokienia pressed up against Sequoia, he laid a wing over her. The fountain behind them continued to spray, and a light mist coated them.
“Something’s happening,” Fokienia whispered.
Sequoia didn’t have words. “You... you’re...”
“I’m what?”
Before he could reply, a flood of operatives and cyborgs from the governor’s complex filtered out into the courtyard. Trailing just behind them, Gold Actual appeared. He was still latched onto the collar of Golden Graham’s attire, but he now had an additional disabler levitated against the governor’s head.
All of that resulted in the Concord officers drawing their weapons. And following that, a second Concord hovercraft appeared. It was blasted with burn marks, and it was missing a door, but it was flying all the same.
Three parties stood in the courtyard. And to Fokienia’s surprise, she felt an inherent goodness among them all.
Nopony made a call-out, or moved at all. Most of the weapons were aimed at Fokienia, Sequoia, and Sundown, but a fair few operatives and officers—allegedly now allied—were aimed at one another.
“You’re you again,” Sequoia finally managed.
“What more do you want, Fokienia?” Gold Actual yelled out. “You got your answers. You heard what’s happening. This is Cypress. We aren’t letting Equestria stop us.”
Fokienia didn’t reply.
“For Project ponies, you can’t even keep your own projects under control!” Commander Gale yelled across the way.
“This isn’t your fight!”
“Oh, but it very well is!” Now, Gale levitated her long-rifle from her back, and mounted it in the side of her armor. “The mare’s harmless. There’s no need to fight anymore. So, what are you fighting for?”
“Harmless? That mare—”
“Wiped your team out several times? That says more about your leadership than her.”
“She did so with the help of the kirin you’ve got there.”
Fokienia couldn’t believe what was going on. The bad feeling was fading, and it was quickly being replaced by... something familiar. It was warm, but cold, and yet, good...
“He put more effort into caring for Cypress than you have. I’ll bet that you’re just as non-Cypressean as the mercs with you!”
“I—”
Instead of Gale’s next lash back, a new voice called on Gold Actual. “Your family was from Equestria!” an operative shouted out. All eyes landed on the random pony. Or rather...
Cascade? He’d flipped sides? Again?
Or had he ever?
Beside him, Fokienia saw Holly. She’d been disarmed, but she was safe. It made stopping to listen to the prattling bat pony all the easier.
“Yeah, you were from one of those mining fleets! I remember you babbling non-stop about it off-duty!”
“Shut it! I was born in Cypress—”
“Nopony believes that!” Fokienia realized she’d mistaken Cascade’s tone as anger, as opposed to the sheer wall of stubborn smugness it really was. He continued, this time aiming to share his jeers with Commander Gale. “Yeah, Gold Actual’s just as bad as the rest of us! Some of us actually care about Cypress. He’s as bad as the Project directors!”
“And how would you know anything about them?” Gold Actual seethed. “You’re talking out your flank!"
Fokienia realized what was going on, now.
This was the life ponykind had been intended to live. The way they’d behaved before they’d become inhabitants of the void. The way they acted in the history books she’d grown up in.
The way Equestrians acted: solving problems with words instead of violence.
“I’ve got ears in places you’d never believe!”
“But you don’t know the history as much as I do! You’ve been in the Project for what, three years? I know more about our prized mare than anypony else has right to know! I’ve spent ten years stopping her from getting out, ten years working this retrieval unit with every muscle in my body. Every last drip of saline, blood, and plasma.”
Fokienia could see the cyborgs shifting, and when she looked, she saw them looking at her.
“You want the truth?” Gold Actual threw Golden Graham forward, who crashed against the white regolith concrete. Actual met Fokienia’s eyes. “You want the truth about who you are, C0? You are the very pony keeping us all from the grasp of Equestria.”
Fokienia shivered. “W-what?”
“You don’t remember! We made it so you didn’t! You were the perfect genome, a filly with an albinism that where most saw flaws, we saw a gift!”
Graham, who’d been in the process of pushing himself off the ground, froze. Fokienia stared at him and Actual both.
“The directors staged an accident, and I fulfilled it! Their bio-engineered payload set off that chain of nerve destruction! Blamed some disease at the behest of the docs, and got your father—” he pointed down with his pistol “—to ‘shut us down’. To give us the cover we needed to keep our work going without prying eyes! To build you into the mare you were meant to be! Delivering that payload was the best thing I ever did!”
Graham pushed himself onto his forelegs. He stared up at Fokienia, his jaw agape, and his eyes a flurry of pain.
“We saw the military applications genes could do for us! We had the perfect base to build augmentations from! And we did it! You know you can see! Look at your new legs! Look with your new eyes! Look at what you’ve allowed us to bring to Cypress!” He gestured in the direction of the cyborgs.
And they looked to Fokienia with that same spark of emotions that she and Sequoia had just unlocked.
Gold Actual dry heaved for a hair of a moment, then stood back up. “We’re done! The Project is complete! Cypress can fend for itself! Not even the power of alicorns could stop us from keeping our freedom from the Crown!”
The soft voice that pervaded the silence in the wake of Gold Actual’s screamed confession was a yell of its own, and one that pierced the heavens themselves.
“But... you failed.”
Searing Cold stepped forward, hoof by hoof. He was still standing, and as he walked, flaking bits of his suit cracked to the ground below.
The seething of the unicorn carried on ten-fold. “You—you have nothing to say! You did nothing but take Cypress further away from freedom!” Actual yelled. “Taking C0 and trying to tell Equestrians about her was a gambit you made out of your own self-righteous need to muddle in the affairs of ponies!”
Cold didn’t speak. He continued his way up the street, his eyes intent on Fokienia. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she watched the bedraggled stallion pull himself on.
“Her name... is Fokienia!”
Gold Actual fumbled his speech as a fierce buck of an earth pony plowed right into his gut. His disabler dropped with his telekinesis, and he went flying across the street.
The governor dusted his hooves with regolith, and strode with purpose toward the felled unicorn. “I gave Cypress everything.”
The shattered voice of Gold Actual broke across regolith cobblestones. “You... weren’t willing to give enough...”
“You TOOK—” Golden Graham broke into a gallop “—my DAUGHTER!”
As Graham rushed after the unicorn, Fokienia felt herself pushed ever-so slightly.
Her heart sank as she turned to the force. “Cold...” she whispered.
The kirin clung to her weakly. “Stop him...” he managed.
Fokienia looked to Golden Graham. Looked to the unicorn who had done nothing but hurt her for half of her life. And in that moment, the good feeling in her froze still.
She could allow this violence to happen.
Or she could put an end to it.
As her mind put everything to process, her eyes caught on the tiniest detail. As Golden Graham galloped, his patchy left hindleg swirled with a flashing aura, before it burst in a flash of light. Where his hoof fell, instead of the steady staccato stride, a metallic clunk now reamed out.
The illusion faded in its entirety: it was a metal hoof, extending down from the top of Graham’s fetlock. It didn’t whir and whine, but it creaked and groaned.
It was him. It was really him.
Fokienia screamed, her voice the shrillest it’d ever been. “DAD!”
Golden Graham stumbled and slipped, missing Gold Actual by mere hooves.
As Fokienia galloped down the steps of the fountain, Holly flew by to take her place. She didn’t look back to see Cold being supported by her, or the love and faith she pressed into him.
Fokienia galloped over to Golden Graham. He stood there over Gold Actual, breathing heavily. His neat comb and tail were now a mess, and his tie loosed by his fury.
“Dad,” she whispered. “I... I never knew...”
Graham’s hooves were heavy, but he stepped forward to meet her. “They may have forced you to forget our family... but I never forgot my foal.”
“But... I’m not...” She grappled with her own words. “Am I what you believe?”
“I had a feeling,” he muttered, cresting close enough to hold her cheek. “When I first saw you... I wished it was you. I saw you, and I imagined what my little filly would look like as a mare. And she was beautiful. And bright with the colors she always wanted.”
“...They let me choose them.”
“And your name?”
Fokienia smiled lightly. “Sundown said it’d be a strong one.”
Golden Graham laughed. The laugh was deep, and joyous, a far departure from the tight terseness Graham once spoke in. A pure distillation of the kind of peace she sought.
Fokienia leaned down to the earth pony, and she allowed him to rear up and embrace her. Graham winced as he came to rest against her, but that was fine: together, these wounds would heal.
Above them, the dome sky shifted in color. A great wave of rainbows appeared in the black of space, leaving spatial ripples, like stones skipped across a lake. The reaming hum that followed it twinkled like the comets and stars in Equestria’s celestial sphere... and it resonated with the good feeling of harmony, friendship, and peace. The same feeling that now flowed freely through Fokienia.
The capital ship was not alone: it was followed by a mix of several dozen cruisers and destroyers, whose drives left imprints in space-time. Their entrance paled in comparison to the lofty capital—there was simply no contest with a vessel almost half the size of Cypress—but they still flashed the ponies below with a show of rainbows.
The grand armada settled into the space above the station.
And the princess willed an end to Cypress’ darkest hour.