//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: Relics // Story: The New Lunar Republic: Leviathan // by RedWinter //------------------------------// Relics Commander Winter Reverie galloped down the haunted halls, fleeing the demons snapping at his heels. His breathing sounded heavy and labored in his helmet. The unicorn was alone in facing the darkness that dwelled in the heart of the vessel, running with all his might and augmented strength towards the blight that had rooted itself in a place it did not belong. His squad was lost. The roars that followed him were not meant for fleshy throats to utter. As he went deeper, the tableau of horror, of otherworldliness only escalated. The very hull of the ship began to twist and convolute, metal taking on a more pliable form. Energy reactors that were hundreds of years old sputtered infectiously as strange forces disrupted their internal reactions. Bones crunched noisily underhoof. The halls were carpeted with them. A howling sound chased him even though he knew there was too little atmosphere for sound to carry properly, let alone through his armor. Up ahead a small light grew in strength, opening into a wide chamber that was the finest of all the sweet delights of madness. Several decks had been ripped open to form a large cavern in the mash of ships. A great obelisk stood in the center. It was in the shape of a double helix, spiraling up to twin points. Red glyphs pulsed with ruddy light. The throbbing in Winter’s head grew worse, pulsing in time with the slowly throbbing light. The structure looked as if it had not been constructed, but rather grown. It was too perfect for even the finest of machine lasers to cut into such a natural, yet alien formation. The deck around the base of the pillar was melted and smoothed like hot candle wax. Bodies, some decayed, some fresh, some dust surrounded the obelisk. Many were frozen in their last act of worship to the sacrilegious icon. Others were locked in struggle with others, killing each other over some underlying will of the icon, or perhaps over possession of the metal prongs glowing with crimson fervor. Howling, roaring, screaming, the things, the shadows that had been chasing Winter could not advance into the chamber and thrashed impotently at the threshold. Whispers from the obelisk courted his mind, promising all manner of riches and rewards in exchange for obedience. “Though the evils of the dark shall beckon, I shall not heed their words, for the true Lady of the Night is with me. Her sacred name lends me strength for she is the Goddess, sitting upon her Throne of Dark.” Why fight, asked the power lurking beyond the veil of reality. Why pray to a Goddess who is merely flesh? “Blessed Luna, grant me strength. Mighty Luna, I walk into darkness now and ask for your clarity, your sight, your benevolent presence to walk at my side as the evil gnaws at me. My faith in you is absolute, my shield, my sword.” Winter Reverie advanced, step by step into the maelstrom, into the maw as the presence yawed before him, waiting with baited jaws ready to snap closed and devour. What can you do, little morsel? What powers have you besides spouting your impotent scripture? Girded with such a flimsy ward of empty words, what can you possibly do to a real god? “I can do this.” Winter Reverie widened his stance, locked his armor joints, flicked the firing setting on his twenty millimeter auto cannon to full auto, and pulled the trigger. He did not stop until his ammo reserves clicked on empty. *** “You can’t be serious about heading into that thing.” Abacus challenged. Together, Winter and Crystal had scanned the field of derelict ships to locate a megalithic conglomeration of fused structures near its heart. Gravitational and other, stranger forces had forced together a cluster of dozens of ships into one gargantuan hulk. He and Crystal were discussing how best to approach the stellar mess when the scientist had made her defiance known. Commander Reverie sighed. “If we want to use the jump point out of this system, we’re going to have to. In the middle of that chaos is something that is projecting what we call a Dead Field. It emanates cancellation wavelengths to disrupt the natural gravitational forces of the jump point as well as immeasurable electro-magnetic variables that are death to ships systems and even dangerous to unshielded power cores.” Abacus’ brow knitted together in fierce academic refusal. “Impossible, Dead Fields are just superstitious nonsense. There’s no force in the known universe that can actually remotely ‘jam’ a jump point.” Winter Reverie spun his command throne around and addressed the mare respectfully. He had had similar reservations many years ago. “Early in my career one of the first power armor squads I was assigned to was on an Assault Cruiser that was tasked with heading to an outer rim system where a colonization expedition had gone missing. They were worried that there might be an Imperial flotilla there that was trying to sneak around. We got through the jump point and a powerful EMP pulse had us floating dead before we knew it. “Then the crew started going insane.” Abacus still looked dubious, but her expression slowly shifted to horror as Winter’s tale unfolded. “Mass suicide, murders left and right. Voices drove many mad. Of the original crew of six hundred, only a third made it back. Crystal figured out that the field was emanating from a formation like the one you see now. “We tried just blasting it, but every time we tried, something would go wrong. Targeting systems went haywire, any missiles or torpedoes veered wildly off target or worse, exploded in their tubes. Even lining it up visually and doing it on paper, our shots never landed. I finally had to take my power armor squad and hop from derelict to derelict to get to the source. We went in and destroyed it ourselves with direct firepower. I was the only one who made it back out.” Winter Reverie indicated where the anomaly was on their sensors. “What you're seeing there is not its actual location. Even at this distance the field's effect is enough to make it impossible to hit with any of our guns. After the field was gone, we still weren't out of the woods. Our reactor was toast. It took two solid weeks to scavenge a half way working one. Enough to jump back and send out a distress signal.” “But, what could have created this? What did the admiralty have to say about your report? Didn't you tell them what happened?” Abacus stated with scientific skepticism. The Commander laughed cynically. It was the nihilistic amusement only experienced naval personnel could muster. “Because all our sensors and recorders were wiped, and because we didn't bring back any evidence of the artifact itself, it was chalked up to acute jump space dementia. The jump point was flagged as dangerous, we all got a lot of psychological evaluation, our ship was scrubbed then scrapped, and the crew was broken up. That was the end of it.” “You're kidding.” The mare stated flatly. There were many stories, substantiated and not of the effects of prolonged time spent in jump space. An indescribably stretching of the being that had been attributed to suicide, dementia, even psychosis. “Didn't you ever figure out what it was though?” Her professional curiosity needed to be assuaged. “Crystal traced it back by matching our deaths and reports against others going all the way back to the original colonization efforts made at the beginning of the Solar Empire. There haven't been many cases like ours because usually the ships just disappear.” The pegasus fluffed her feathers proudly. “She pieced together the patterns going across centuries.” Winter's muzzle split into an affectionate smile. The truth is that some of the first jump drives really weren't infallible. They pretty much are now, because of our improved monitoring systems for them. It was possible for an underlying wave current to build up in the drive, and if the current wasn't purged and the drive was used there was a chance the point of jump space breach would collapse in on itself. Instead of accelerating through the medium at the normal speed, the breach collapse would annihilate all their forward momentum. “And if they had no speed, and no way to accelerate...” “Then instead of days or weeks, they'd spend years in jump space.” Abacus finished. Winter nodded gravely. “Not just years. Hundreds. Thousands of years could pass before they reemerged. And yet, the wave form breach still maintained their estimated jump time before the collapse so they would arrive on time. On the ship though, time would have passed infinitely faster. I do not claim to know what really happens in that intervening period to create the anomaly that emerges and generates the Dead Field, just the conditions that facilitate it.” “So, when will we start to feel the psychological effects of the field?” Winter dialed back the display to view more of the system. “We're about eighteen AU from the jump point and the graveyard. Honestly, I have no idea what kinds of effects we'll feel at this range. Remember, there is no actual recorded happenstance of what we're seeing. There's no way of knowing. Or for that matter if any two fields share comparable properties. Crystal and I were plopped into the middle of it, not stuck half a star system away. “If given the choice, I'd have us take a different jump point, preferably in the opposite direction and loop the long way around. We do not have that option. Last tally, even on half rations we have nowhere near enough food to make such a long trip, not to mention that every day this ship is away from Republic space is a day the Solar Empire grinds closer to home. So, I'm going to take my team in on the Vengeful Omen and destroy the source. Since our first encounter I've made sure to proof the Omen's power core against such interference.” Abacus tried to think of an alternative. “Why not just take the Leviathan through the field and straight to the jump point? Just bypass it entirely.” “And what if when it enters the field, the anti-matter reactors don't overload in some way we can't understand? Remember, this power has never been quantified, and does not belong in the regular universe. Better we do what we know works than try something that just endangers more.” It was hard for Abacus to think up an argument to his logic. This was something that he had experience with that she did not. Still, she could hardly believe in such a gross oversight of the navy in terms of what had happened to Commander Reverie's old crew. “This does present a unique opportunity. You see all those ships?” Winter had a small gleam in his eyes when he swept a hoof to encompass all the derelicts of the graveyard. “What do you see, Doctor Abacus?” “Ships. What about them? Do you think there will be any supplies on board them we can use? I suppose if they lost integrity that anything void frozen would have been preserved.” Her mind quickly calculated the possible salvage. “The ships are the supplies. You said that the Leviathan has mining capabilities. What about salvage tech? Why bother mining asteroids when we have processed metal by the shipload just floating in orbit around that jump point?” Abacus had never thought of derelict ships as a resource because she had never considered running into such a find. She found herself smiling at all the things she could build with that much metal. And ship metal of all things! Preprocessed, and even aged! It was purely an aesthetic, but Abacus was picky about such things. “While I'm on that derelict, I need you to be ready for the field to go down and strip that field bare. I know that this ship isn't fully finished.” Part of Abacus' soul, the part she had dedicated to birthing the Leviathan, twinged. “We can use everything we can get. Ammo, weapons, even new corsairs.” Then, another part of Abacus, the part that created, that reveled in seeing her creations brought to life swelled in joy. “Corsairs? Wait until you see my Serpents.” *** “So, you want us to march into that death trap?” Nightingale asked incredulously. They were suiting up and readying their weapons in the Omen's armory as it made its way towards the Death Field. “Pretty much.” Winter replied. He had just finished explaining the horrors he had faced the first time. “It's not just for us. No one deserves the kind of fate getting caught in that field means.” Although he would never say it, there was an element of revenge motivating the Commander. Vengeance motivated many of his actions, but an opportunity to again destroy the force that had claimed some of his first power armor team. Trepidation filled his heart at bringing his team, the one he had formed over many years, his family into the hell that he knew awaited. “I want everypony to pack extra ammo, and a melee weapon. We're going to be dealing with tight quarters and guns aren't guaranteed to work. Breaching charges too. Lots of 'em. No telling how many walls we're gonna have to go through to get at the source.” Winter opened a fresh crate of shaped explosives. He floated out a dozen of the small discs and attached them to his armor. Each was composed of powerful magnetic clamps and a powerful thermal payload. Similar tech was employed on the connection points of the battlerider clamps to bore through hull and board enemy ships. A dozen were a little excessive, but the unicorn remembered wishing for such tools during his other escapade. The others made similar preparations, and distributed the rest of the explosives crate. They all looked up as the ship switched over to emergency lighting. The special core shielding absorbed the attack of the first EMP pulse, but many systems still suffered failure. The field was not in itself very large, but disturbingly fierce and concentrated in its efforts to disable the fresh prey vessel caught within the web. Even with special protection, Commander Reverie didn't want to risk the Omen to prolonged exposure. His team made their way to an external air lock and readied themselves. Winter Reverie quietly thanked Luna and the universe at large for the smaller mercies. The field only affected power cores of a certain size, leaving the power matrixes of their power armor unaffected. A Corsair would make things easier, yet even those fighters were subject to disruption in the Death Field. With the help of the auxiliary thrusters on the armor of Rosethorn and Nightingale, they launched themselves towards the nearest derelict hull. Internal crystal filters kept their air supplies limited only by their reactors. There was a certain serenity in sailing through the space bound graveyard of ships. Silently the vessels orbited the huge hulk in their midst. Many were broken or shattered from collisions suffered over the years from space debris or other ships. Crystal took the Omen back out of range of the field to await the success of her Commander. She had no doubt that he would succeed. Her faith in him was unyielding as adamantite alloy. He had faced such a threat before and emerged triumphant. The mare remembered the horror they had faced last time. She had been on their old Assault Cruiser, early in their career in the navy together. The voices scratching at the inside of her skull, the insane breakdowns of the ponies around her, all of it came back to her as she passed through the field. Flourish prayed to Luna for strength, and for her to watch over Winter Reverie. *** Back on the Leviathan, Abacus tried to track the movements of the Commander and his squad as they hopped across the gaps between the derelicts. It was in vain. Every sensor sweep, no matter what kind, all came back either scrambled, or nonsensical. Even the direct armor feed through the Omen was just static. *** After several hours of leaping, flying, and teleporting through the void, they alighted their metal clad hooves on the surface of the source of the anomaly. They found a working airlock that Circuit Board could access. The six of them piled inside and closed the door behind them. The entire formation was composed of approximately thirty vessels into a distorted ball roughly five kilometers at its widest point. They followed Winter's lead as he trekked firmly forward. He knew it would be at the center of all this. Cabling and power conduits spilled from the tilted ceiling like spilled entrails. They trekked through the decaying guts of the ship as unwanted guests. They had barely traveled two dozen meters into when the first trap was sprung. “This place gives me the heeby fucking jeebies.” Nightingale voiced quietly over the comm. Acrylic, trailing behind stepped on the wrong section of decking. Whether some ancient booby trap, or some pent up power surge waiting for the right pressure, a chain of detonations could be felt climbing to escape. A hole was punched clean through to space with enough force to catapult the heavily armored stallion straight out. “Acrylic!” Viola shouted in fear for her brother even as she was thrown against the wall by the backlash of the decompression. There was silence for a moment before a stream of the foulest curses flowed back through their helmets. “Scared the crap outta me, but I'm good. Kinda launched through space here, but, y'know, I'm okay.” Getting over his initial surprise, the heavy weapons trooper was more irritated than anything. “Do you need us to come get you?” Asked Rosethorn. She flexed her flight stabilizers in readyness. “Going too fast. I'll probably be out of the field before you take it down. I'll pop a beacon and have Crystal pick me up. You gonna be able to finish this thing without me, Commander?” “Just try not to bash into any space junk, trooper. Luna protects.” “Aye, sir, Luna protects.” Winter gestured for his team to continue. Deeper and deeper into the twisting passages, the soldiers marched. The other members of the squad might have wavered, might have given in to the fear creeping into their hearts without the steel of their leader. He showed no hesitation, not a single one of his steps faltered. “I am a servant of Luna, and I know no fear. Though the shadow of death closes around me, I shall snuff out that darkness with the purifying presence of she who sits on the Throne of Night.” Winter Reverie guarded not only his team's bodies, but their souls as well. Two more ships in they found a junction and the first of what now crawled through the cursed halls. Their trek had for the most part been silent save for the Commander reciting uplifting rhetoric. A scratching, scuttling noise could be heard far into the twisted beyond. In smooth unison, the five power armored ponies readied their weapons. For what seemed like a small eternity, they waited. The sounds drew closer, louder, seeming to approach within meters of their position. Then all was quiet. And still they waited, ready. The enemy dropped from vents, crawled from holes in the floor, poured out of the walls and flooded towards them from every direction. They were once ponies, and other strange aliens besides. They were the undead, animated by the unholy energies of the field that had consumed so many. “Open fire.” Winter Reverie ordered. Firepower from five walking tactical assault, self-powered suits of armor scythed in five different directions. This team, even down a member, was a well-oiled machine. The sound of their guns wove a symphony of destruction. Like a maestro, Winter's autocannon set the beat with twenty millimeter explosive time. Then there was the double bass staccato of Nightingale's shotguns. Followed closely by the high-pitched burn of Circuit's lances of magical fire. Viola had her tactical railgun, firing shaped metal slugs at such speed they ripped apart any organic matter they touched with kinetic backlash. The mare was as much an artist with the precision weapon as she was with her instrument, carving through bodies with grace. Rosethorn completed the orchestra with her own weapon: An eight barreled Avenger minigun. It did not kill, it shredded with explosive tipped rounds. It did not shout nor thunder, it purred. She was second in command for more than just her acuity in battle. The mare was easily one of the deadliest soldiers Winter had ever met in his years of service. Within seconds the halls were choked with the dismembered corpses of the undead of their symphony. In such numbers were their foes though, that the still moving pushed through the walls of the fallen relentlessly. Bit by bit, meter by meter, the abominations bought the distance with the bodies of their fellows. They closed the distance until the muzzle flashes lit the contorted faces of the monsters. Many of the monsters sported mutations brought on by the strange forces at work. Some had grown extra limbs tipped with spears of bone, or rending claws and fanged mouths. All were bent on killing, on adding the intruders to their ranks, no matter how many of their own might fall. A former unicorn with its mouth open battered past the end of Winter's gun, aiming to lock its jaws around his armored throat. The Commander rammed the barrel of his pistol down its gullet and fired twice. He shot both of his guns until his pistol was empty, the anti-matter disintegrating several unarmored bodies. “Swords! Draw swords!” A powered sabre was not an uncommon addition to an armor user's arsenal, and Winter made sure that all of his team were versed in its use. After that the fight was not something neat, it was butcher work. Hacking, carving, and blasting their way clear of the waves of flesh and coagulated blood. Although the undead threw themselves ceaselessly at the five, they did not fall. A full suit of powered armor weighed more than two thousand pounds. A single kick from a pony equipped thusly can dent ship hull. Against completely unarmored targets, it was like throwing wet paper against stone. Winter Reverie knew though, that eventually they might find a seam or joint with their claws and splintered bone. “Forward, forward sons and daughters of the Republic! Nightingale, you're on demolition duty. Make sure our way is clear.” The pegasus was only able to grunt in acknowledgment before flying ahead to set a breaching charge. The three ponies bound to the ground marched forward through the press, stepping up onto the carpet of bodies while Rosethorn gave them covering fire. “By the living stars, there's no end to them.” Grunted Circuit board as he swept his sabre in a telekinetic arc, decapitating two and slicing off grasping limbs. “There must be a colony ship in among this mess. Thousands of colonists, all subsumed. Let us free their souls from these hellish prisons. Purge the unclean!” Viscera and chunks of torn bodies squelched under their hooves. It was slow, brutal work. They chopped, stabbed, and blew holes big enough to walk through. There was a bright flash as Nightingale ignited her set of the breaching disks and melted a four meter wide hole through two dozen meters of hull. The mare rejoined them, and together the wedge made their way to the path forged through heat and fire. There was a steep drop, and they landed heavily into a great hall. “I think we found the colony ship you were talking about, Commander.” Noted Viola as they gazed at the slaughterhouse around them. The walls were lined with hundreds, thousands of tubes. It was a method of colonization ancient beyond reckoning. Nearly a thousand years at least, back when jump space was only slightly faster than the speed of light and any soul wanting to see other worlds had to be put into suspended animation if they didn't want to be a hundred years old. Nearly all of them were broken, their contents plundered. The inhabitants awoken only to face the nightmare their ship had become. There was a moment of respite for the squad as the undead were left behind for the moment. Winter Reverie heard screaming from the inside of his mind and knew that they didn't have much longer before the maddening effects of the field would start to affect him and his team. “Give me all the rest of your charges, everyone. I'm going straight down.” They all looked at him like he was crazy. “Commander, what...” Rosethorn challenged. “Do as I say, Rosethorn. None of you have faced this thing before. I need all of you to keep this rabble off my back long enough to kill what's animating them.” They knew better than to question him. They trusted him because he had proved himself time and time again, on countless battlefields, in innumerable boarding actions, he had lead them true. Winter grabbed the bandoliers of munitions and set a trio of the magnetic disks on the nearest wall. The others got to work creating a barricade, ripping entire pods off their housing to stack them up. He went straight through and deployed the next set of charges. The soldier just kept going. He walked slowly, unerringly towards the source of the corruption tainting even the air. The melded hulls were meant to be a maze, a labyrinth designed to entrap any intruder in its twists and turns. Reverie was never one to follow the path laid out for him. He burned through the walls of the maze, and damn the road. There was a sort of buffer zone as Winter galloped to the festering heart. Across bones he trod, while screams and howls chased his passage. Near the core, he passed along the painted hull of a ship called the Absolution and took a moment to read the name painted in faded gold lettering along the wall of the consumed vessel. Into the abyss he ventured, until he stood before the source, the black stone, the red glow. With faith in his goddess, he brought down the unholy icon, animating the flesh of those who had died under its influence. With cannon and his last two breaching charges, the soldier destroyed the obelisk and everything around it. As it was destroyed, a tearing sound could be heard as whatever energies were anchored by the artifact were released. Silence, sweet, relieving silence fell in the hulk as the remaining undead fell apart, dissolving into a biological soup. “Aegis wishes Rosethorn.” He finally said. “This is Rosethorn, you take care of our problem, sir? The creepers all kind of... went to pieces.” “Aye, the Death Field should be down. Have Circuit find an intact power core and set up a remote overload trigger. This metal still bears the signature of the field. I don't want any of that on the Leviathan, or making up any of our repairs. Before we jump out we'll put these lost souls to rest.” “Sir, some of the civilians might need convincing to abandon so much metal. Should we really give 'em the temptation?” Asked Rosethorn. “Good point, let's see if we can't get a few of the engines going and blow it before we let the Leviathan get too close. The sooner we're done with this, the better.” The unicorn felt tired, but could not allow himself to relax, even if the danger seemed to have passed. Not until the task was done. Slowly, the interference from the residual field faded and the Vengeful Omen was able to close in and assist in locating exterior engines on the conglomeration and started it on its way. Roughly an hour later, Winter Reverie was standing on the bridge of the Omen when the planned overload of five cruiser grade power cores still active in the hulk went critical, breaking the entire structure down to its constituent molecules. The decontamination magic of the Assault Cruiser purged any lingering foreign matter from the team, wiping away every last trace. *** The Leviathan was a voracious vessel, and eagerly consumed the pieces of hacked apart hulls, and even swallowed some of the smaller ships whole to be taken apart later. The crew found many bones and preserved bodies. All were respectfully put into caskets and sent towards the sun for proper burial. It was a common tradition of many cultures that achieved space travel because out of a supernova walked all life. All planets formed from stardust and from those planets bloomed the civilizations, so back into the stars the bodies were returned, to one day be cycled by the universe into new planets, and new life. In the Leviathan's station sized docking and construction bay, the ponies of the Vengeful Omen and the Cradle were frantically busy organizing and separating the salvaged scrap. Teams worked to cut the huge slabs into more manageable pieces using huge industrial cutters. It was dangerous, often backbreaking work. It was also a lot of fun. For the former raiding duty crew of the Omen, laying into ship hull was a very special joy all its own. Looting is its own reward after all. The civilian workers had never experienced such excitement. For the civilians there was a certain rebellious thrill in breaking things. It was insane frenetic activity compared to their usual work stuck behind terminals. The pilot of Corsair One, an enthusiastic thundercloud colored pegasus stallion was busy directing an incredibly heavy welding beam through the bow of a frigate when a blue earth pony bounded past him and paused long enough to shout over the crashing, sizzling cacophony around them. “This is so exciting! I mean, with all the ships and how the Commander went into that scary thing and ooh!” She giggled joyously and scampered off. He turned to the mare hovering next to him with a bemused look. Corsair Two shrugged her shoulders. “Civies.” He muttered to himself. The Leviathan and its skeleton crew salvaged the entire graveyard with such alacrity, they would have put the entire repair core of the Republic to shame. *** “Three cheers for the Commander!” The dining hall echoed with over three hundred voices. “Here's to the pony who laughs in the face of death!” Acrylic raised a mug full of plundered wine. In among a merchant ship there had been a container with a few dozen casks of airlessly preserved spirits. The large earth pony had only seen the tail end of the action, but the cleanup and and the rest of the experience had been relayed to him through the others. Him and the rest of the power armor team were in the Leviathan's main dining hall, still armored, but helmet-less. A good portion of the Omen's crew and a fair few civilians were in attendance, clamoring to get a real life view of powered armor. Even packed with so many, only a fraction of the seats were taken up. The orating earth pony leaped atop one of the long metal tables and continued, Viola accompanied his telling with her instrument. Music drifted through the crowd of excitedly talking ponies. Above it all, Acrylic continued with his tale. “There were monsters infesting the ships, all ground together, dead and grotesque!” He lunged forward with a ghastly visage and several onlookers reeled back, smiling in fright. “Brought back to life by the infestation leaking through from the other side of warp space. The stuff nightmares are made of, up and walking around, stalking those cold halls, waiting for fresh victims.” His voice had lowered steadily, making the crowd hush and clamor in close to hear him better. “And then came Winter Reverie!” The stallion crowed. “He knew no fear as he marched into the unknown! Our Commander faced horrors no mortal has laid eyes on and did not balk. He cut through zombies like they were stalks of grain. Without a moment of hesitation he fought to the heart and burned out the infection.” He raised his glass high, splashing a little out of the mug. Nightingale, Rosethorn, and Circuit were closest and touched their mugs to his while Viola continued her accompaniment. “To Commander Reverie, slayer of the dead!” *** Winter was not at his own party because he was in his stateroom trying to pry the armor off his cybernetic leg. He was not a glory hound by nature. Praise kindled a warm fire under his ego, but undo adoration such as what was happening in the mess hall just made him uncomfortable. The unicorn had just fought through quite a traumatizing affair and needed some time for personal reflection to come to terms with his ordeal. It wasn't something that could be washed away with a little target practice. Besides, he didn't drink on principle, finding alcohol to be a crutch for lesser minds. He had left instructions with Crystal to take the Leviathan through the jump point as soon as they reached it, staying on the bridge long enough to make sure the salvage effort of the derelict ships was well in hoof. The juddering transition happened during his ritual of disarming, bringing him some small comfort that they were safely away and heading from the former site of the dead field at extreme speed. His efforts at becoming disrobed of metal and servos was being hampered however by the heavy plates around his artificial limb. While treading through the carpet of dead and dying monsters, one had gotten its jaws around him long enough to bend the alloy together. After wrestling with it for quite some time, doing nothing but wrenching the leg around in its sophisticated shoulder socket, he contemplated teleporting to the machine shop aboard the Omen. Just as the unicorn was considering the cuts he would have to make and the subsequent repairs to his armor, the door chime tinkled melodically. Enough of the anti-matter reactors were online to allow jump drive activation, resulting in restoration of most of the Leviathan's systems. Winter hobbled over and saw through the security screen that it was Abacus looking rather unsure of herself. Surprised, he hit the door release. The mare jumped a little in shock. “Can I help you, doctor?” He asked neutrally. She stared at his armored form for a moment. The Commander did not wear his helmet, so at least she could look him in the eye. “Ah, well, you know um, I was, um, wondering if you wanted to know what we salvaged from the field.” She stuttered, then rambled, staring intently at the hull beneath his hooves. The mare rubbed her front legs together and glanced up. “Of course, please come in.” He stepped back and gestured. Normally he would not be so forthcoming, but the frantic energy of fighting and the aftermath lingered. So long as he kept busy, the nervous shakes were kept at bay. Distraction was ideal. As much as he would have liked, he couldn't let himself become insular to personal contact, especially with civilians now that there were so many aboard. Abacus hurried inside and stood just past the doorway uncertainly as Winter moved with a stiff-legged gait back to his armor rack. He gave the stubbornly pinched greave a few more tugs before huffing in frustration. The stallion seated himself at the table and waved for her to proceed. She stared for a moment at his damaged leg, imagining the force needed to compress the alloy. “Oh, yes, the uh, report. Well,” she set one of her spiders on the table, popped a holographic display and scanned down the initial findings. “We've gotten a fair amount of food that was preserved when whatever ship lost life support, but a lot was spoiled as well. No real munitions as most of the vessels were just exploratory or expeditionary. There was a trio of ancient Empire frigates and a cruiser but their stuff is so outdated all we can do is melt it down and remake it. “We've got a lot of materials for hard slugs and enough to maybe make a few more Void circuits. Construction has already started on a few Serpents. Really, there's enough metal to last us weeks of building, but not the special rounds for our big guns or many torpedoes. All the reactors should be live and kicking by the time we exit jump space, so all our energy weapons will be good to go. The railguns too, as long as we keep the composition of the slugs simple. “And do you want me to do something about that?” She broke off her summary as Winter continued to fidget and fuss with his armor. “What? Oh, yes I suppose.” He lifted his leg up onto the table and a cadre of the scientist's spiders used tiny precision cuts to separate the pieces of damaged equipment from between his ankle and knee. It took a few minutes, still being a section of the most advanced personal protection known to ponies. The two halves were excised with metallic pops and Reverie sighed in relief. Not in any physical discomfort, rather just annoyance. The outer casing on his leg was pitted a little, but designed for worse. Artificial nerve bundles gave him rudimentary sensation through the limb as well as control. Having lived with it for so long, the nerves had fused quite completely with his own and through biofeedback was as responsive as his original limb. Abacus watched him move it with something akin to awe. Often even with advanced medical and magical treatment, such dexterity that Winter casually displayed was hard to come by. "Can I ask you something, Commander Reverie?" For a moment, Winter's eyes narrowed in minor annoyance. "If it's how I lost this leg, then no, you may not ask it." The mare shook her head. "No, no, I just was wondering about your vitals they're... strange. It almost looks like you're going into cardiac arrest." Winter Reverie considered whether to answer her question. Looking at the scientist, then to his now freed leg, he decided it wouldn't hurt. "I understand why you may be confused. I have extensive internal cybernetic reconstruction as well and..." Suddenly he found it hard to speak, unexpectedly choked at saying out loud what was in his breast. It wasn't something he talked about, or really thought about. He blinked and looked at the table, playing with one of the spiders with one hoof while unconsciously rubbing his chest with another. "I have two hearts."