//------------------------------// // Gunpowder, Gelatine // Story: Bionic Titan: Operation Damocles // by KorenCZ11 //------------------------------// Dusk found his mother staring out the bridge window, overlooking the blue planet below. It was completely vacant as most of the crew had moved down to the combat bridge deeper in the ship to prepare for the upcoming operation, so she stood alone, gazing down at the target. In a few moments, they would commit the greatest atrocity the world had ever seen. Before all that comes to pass, however, he wanted to ask her a simple question. “Ma’am?” She turned, her ears and instincts perking up at his voice. “What is it, my darling Dusk?” A warm smile on her loving face, her bright violet eyes with gold sprinkled along the irises, her pink-white coat, her waving dawn sky mane. The image of the mother who’d raised him. The life suit she was wearing, the helmet at her side, the thing that she was about to do, however… He’d always heard whispers and rumors of the long-forgotten Equestrian Sun Queen, but now he was about to see her for the first time in his two hundred years. Dusk cleared his throat. “While I understand why we’re doing this, why is it that you, personally, are doing this?” The smile died on her lips. She turned back to the window, and motioned Dusk forward. After reaching her side, she sat and Dusk followed suit. “You know, I’m quite the old mare, Dusk. From the time I was born on a planet so far away that we haven’t yet reached the technology to rediscover it, from the day Luna and I found ourselves lost in this world with creatures just so similar yet so much more primitive, to the day I found love and abandoned it all, to the time I lost that love and found it in a new form with you and your older sister, it’s been… two thousand two hundred and fifty years. You aren’t so young yourself anymore, but can you grasp the length of time Luna and I have lived through?” Memories flashed through Dusk’s head. His childhood had never seemed so far away. Venturing into space, the wars leading to establishment of Luna City, the current turmoil surrounding titan technology. That ten percent of his life he could call his childhood was a mere one percent of hers. The war, the politics, the bloodshed. She’d had tenfold more of it than him and was at the forefront of it for an entire millennium. Dusk shook his short black mane. “I can only imagine, ma’am.” Celestia nodded. “Indeed. Imagination is all we have when we consider things like this. As a ruler, your imagination is the only tool you can use to perceive your opponents, to understand their movements, to figure out and intercept, then outplay or crush them. No matter where they are. Enemies foreign or domestic, and let me tell you, nothing is worse than a domestic enemy. In situations like that, you find mercy to be an illusion.” She pointed at the target through the window. “Do you know what that is, Captain Dusk?” Nothing could ever accustom Dusk to the Equestrian Sun Queen referring to him as her superior officer, even if it was just aboard his ship. Fighting off the icky feeling, he answered, “White Hive, the Changeling stronghold in the eastern hemisphere, ma’am.” “That, my dear Captain,” Celetia began with the slightest tremble in her voice, “is the result of mercy. You warn them once, they come back again. You warn them a second time, more forcefully. Your own people side against you, they call you discriminatory, they bang their drums, they protest in support, and you know very well that any of them in that part of the world would be captured and sold as a slave the minute they set hoof there. You relax, you back off. And then, they come a third time.” She let out a breath so hot that the air shimmered and steamed in front of her. In all his two hundred years, Dusk had never seen his mother this angry. More than the fear of her iron hoof was a deeper, primal fear of the eldest alicorn in the known universe. Celestia continued, “Sometimes, looking at the world I’ve created, or perhaps, left to its own devices, gives me the strongest desire to burn it all to the ground. There’s a long history here. A love and hate relationship I’ve developed with it. When I left it all to Luna, she got her turn to feel my fatigue, but I suppose she’s just better suited for it. I get too invested, my emotions are too explosive. But don’t you think I have every right to feel this fire within me when my people are attacked? And yet, even that angers me less than Luna’s reaction to it. Twilight’s reaction to it.” She shook her head and took a deep breath. “No plans for retaliation, superficial punishments in sanctions and budget cuts, they didn’t even bother expelling the changeling diplomats! Who is living in the mad world? Is it me, or them, Dusk?” Unsure what to do standing in front of his raving queen, the pink-white stallion simply stated the facts. “Well, as I’m here and Oxford is covering for you, I believe our loyalties are clear, ma’am.” Celestia scoffed and stood. “Oh, please, Dusk, don’t give me such a political answer. We are in a war that one side refuses to acknowledge, and it’s our side. If we do not show that we can wield our power, it creates the image of weakness that got us here.” She sighed. “The very image that I am responsible for.” Feeling something like a lost boy, Dusk followed after her. “But, Mother, that wasn’t your fault, you weren’t there!” The elder alicorn turned on him, her imposing figure dominating the space. “Exactly!” She shook her mane, the dawn sky lost in the sea of stars behind. “I’d become selfish. I gave up on everything for my own ends, and for what? You and Twilight are my blessings of course, but to have left the world you must live in to decay to this degree? If only I had been more patient, if only I hadn’t been so ruled by my own emotions, If only I had…” she shuddered, “...taken a page from my father.” Suddenly, Dusk wondered if he shouldn’t stop his mother from going forward with this operation. He had been warned about that forbidden ‘grandfather’ before. She might genuinely not be in her right mind. This was extreme, but Dusk was willing to justify it based on the changeling’s attack on the capital last year. Their brand-new weapon, the ten-meter tall pony-like ‘titan’ machine tore through Equestria and was only stopped at the castle by Luna herself when all else had failed. They had all been rightfully angry when the official statement said it was a rogue action by a rogue scientist, knowing full well that a machine like that could’ve only been built with the full weight of several major corporations and governments behind it. But to mention the stallion who nearly wiped alicorns from existence… This was bordering madness. He put a hoof on her. “Mother, you don’t mean that, do you?” At the shift in her son’s tone, Celestia recomposed herself. “Of course not, I’m sorry.” She brought him into her embrace, making a mental note to take it down a bit. “Perhaps, to you, a year is still a good deal of time. But to me, this horrid anniversary might as well be yesterday. They attacked my home, they attacked my people, but worse than any of that, they attacked my family, Dusk. It's been eons since Luna was in so much danger. And it still burns me inside to this day.” Overhead, the com system pinged the bridge. “Captain? We’re in position. We can begin Operation Damocles at your signal.” At once, Celestia tied her mane into a bun, then donned her helmet. Secured to the life suit as it began to circulate air, the ancient mare was about to go into battle for the first time in centuries. “It’s time, Dusk. Give the signal.” The young alicorn hesitated. There were many things about his Aunt’s policies he disagreed with. The ban on space exploration being chief among them, but her strictly deterrent approach to the arms race the world currently found itself in had kept the peace fairly comfortably for his entire lifetime. Depending on how the changelings respond to what they were about to do, this would only be the first. In the best-case scenario, this would simply force them to stand down and rebuild. In the worst case, it would be the beginning of a world war. Yet, doing nothing but ‘keeping the peace’ had gotten them here to begin with. “Put the Asteroid in combat mode. Prepare the Harbinger for deployment.” Celestia leaned down and put her helmet to her son’s captain’s cap. “Thank you.” She popped her neck and prepared her magic. “They will both know as soon as it is done. If they accuse you of anything, you are to direct the blame to me. It is an overdue burden for me to bear. This is not a world you should have ever had to live in.” Hoof to his temple, back and wings straight, Dusk saluted. “Yes, ma’am! It is an honor to work with you!” Crushing guilt could only stand against the flames of rage for so long. “Likewise, Captain.” Then, Celestia warped.