Days of Wasp and Spider
by Luna-tic Scientist
=== Chapter 17 (remastered): No Good Choices (1) ===
A long, circuitous walk later, taking every path in the corral and through the crop fields around it, found Fusion sitting back at the family shelter. She'd been getting more and more concerned about the lack of a reply to her suggestion, never having had such a long delay before. More kiloseconds passed and she was having problems hiding her nervousness from Slipstream when he came to repair the food pellet mechanism she'd sabotaged. To distract from her nerves, Fusion studied the golden stallion as he worked on the facilities hub.
Slip did as much as possible with mouth and wing elbows, only using his magic for things too small to easily manipulate. His horn flickered fitfully as he undid the front panel's fastenings, teeth clenched and sweat soaking his fur, as if this minor magic was pushing him to the point of exhaustion. Fusion yearned to help, but she'd learnt long ago not to make the offer. He'd been very upset when she had; it was only after Helium had taken her aside and explained, that she realised what a terrible thing she'd done.
This tiny existence was all he had. He was no use to the Masters for anything else and had been effectively written off. He was ignored by them; he had no communicator, no food allocation and no official shelter at the corral. Doing these odd jobs -- basic maintenance, tidying the grassed areas around the shelters, hauling loads of fresh food to the individual cold stores -- was the only thing that kept him from taking one last trip to the infirmary.
In return, the other ponies shared their food and shelter with him and made sure he was kept busy. Even if he wasn't doing these little jobs they would have helped, but that wasn't the point. The work gave him a sense of being useful, of contributing to the Master's efforts. Without the work he was dead.
While he laboured, Fusion studied him closely with her shadow sight. His horn glow was more obvious when viewed like this, but appeared dark and misshapen, shot through with fissures and cavities that extended its whole length. The damage was severe; perhaps only one percent of the horn material was untouched, with a similar amount for the magically active parts of his wings. The mare shivered at the sight. If her first accelerator run hadn't been stopped when it was, she'd look like that. Probably not, she thought, because the second after that I'd have been a fresh carbon shadow on the back wall.
It's what she didn't see that attracted her attention.
There was no sign of the Blessing. The dark cave of his skull was as empty of magic as a foal's. He was free from the spell, probably had been ever since his accident. But he's still trapped, she thought. "Slip? How old are you?" What she wanted to ask was 'when was your accident', but that seemed to be a little abrupt. Like her foalhood teacher, Back Draft, he'd been a part of the corral for as long as Fusion could remember.
Slipstream, his head buried in the guts of the facilities hub, grunted something indistinct and flicked one ear at her in a signal she interpreted as 'give me a second'. A few more noises and he stepped back, the mangled remains of the sabotaged motor in his mouth. He put the apple sized thing down next to his bag of tools and turned to face her.
"About five gigaseconds up until my accident, then about another half gig here," he said, looking at her with an odd mix of embarrassment and defiance.
"Just curious," she said hastily. "After my own accident... well let's say it gave me a lot of time to think and some idea of what it must be like. Then I realised that I've always seen you around and never really talked to you." Fusion was only just over half a gigasecond old, seventeen years by the more archaic method of counting. Hating herself, but desperate to know what she might inflict on another pony if things went wrong, she asked the most personal question of all. "How... how do you cope with it?"
His ears drooped and he looked away. "Sometimes very badly. It's the dreams of flying that are the worst. Sometimes after one of those I'll wake up and, just for a moment, I'll think my wings still work. Perhaps one day I'll find a cliff and give them a proper test..." He tailed off, lost in thought for a second before he noticed the expression on Fusion's face. "Just idle thoughts, little filly, don't take me seriously. The work helps a lot. Speaking of which, do you mind...?" he said, gesturing at the half dismantled unit with one wing.
"Of course," Fusion said, flashing him an awkward smile. "Thank you for all your help."
He shrugged and went back to work, both ponies waiting in an uncomfortable silence for the next few kiloseconds. Finally Slip finished up and nudged the remains of the motor in Fusion's direction. "I've never seen one fail like that before," he said, "it should be reported to the design team for testing, just in case it's some odd manufacturing fault."
Fusion's heart thundered and her stomach dropped at the thought of some experienced tech examining the motor and reaching the conclusion that the damage was deliberate. Her mind raced to find some way out of this situation, then it was so obvious that she nearly laughed in relief. He's got no official status, he can't do it! she thought. With a gentle touch of magic she picked the small machine up and looked at it closely. "I'll do that, thanks," she said. "I've not had lunch yet, would you like to join me?"
He did, and while they ate Fusion quizzed him on the contents of his tool bag, the oddly shaped objects all designed to be gripped in the mouth and allow the almost magicless Slip to do some of the simpler tasks that a healthy pony took for granted. The one that impressed her the most were the fine grippers; held between the teeth, Slip used his lips to manipulate the attached v-shaped sliver of metal, using it to position components the size of a rice grain. He'd made them all himself over many, many days from scrap materials, building ever more complex tools from the simplest starting points.
Finally, they finished eating and Fusion stared after the golden stallion as he left, precious tool bag between his teeth. Somepony with that level of intelligence and innovation and they just abandoned him, she thought, wishing she'd taken the time to get to know him sooner. Anger building, she picked up the discarded motor with her telekinesis and walked stiffly around the back of the facilities hub, out of sight of the rest of the corral.
Her horn flared brighter as she gripped the metal shape, bearing down on it, crushing it until it was a smooth sphere and radiating heat from the pressure she'd applied. Unsatisfied and still dangerously angry, she pulled the ball into an egg shape, then elongated it to a wire, cutting that wire into fragments almost too small to see and throwing them to the wind.
===
Free from the confines of both the cell and any restraints for the first time in what felt like forever, Gunnulf padded slowly behind the slender female Master, this 'Salrath,' who seemed to have the clout to extract him from the clutches of the Military prison system. He still wasn't clear exactly what he was going to be doing, only that it would involve working with Security's special forces, the 'Rippers'. Not actually in the Rippers, though, more as a semi-independent observer, following his commander's orders while still being responsible for Salrath's interests.
For Gunnulf, used to the clear chain of command in the Military, this seemed to be a very strange way to run things -- the possibility for conflicting orders was obvious. As far as he understood it, he was to act as the Agent's representative on operations, almost like a proxy for Salrath herself. Even to Gunnulf's limited imagination this sounded rife with danger -- what if he made the wrong decision -- but it wasn't like there was any choice; it was this or the disgrace of a forced labour camp. At least this way he could redeem himself in the eyes of his family.
Then there was the way Salrath had acted. He'd heard that the Masters had trouble telling individual gryphons apart, especially among members of the same subspecies. This he really didn't understand, although he gathered it was something to do with their eyesight -- like a pony, their night vision was excellent, but lost a little in acuity. This was certainly not the way it was with gryphons. His own eyes had been tested to be in the top fifth of his peer group, and this was in a species whose eyesight could only be matched by sensors with talon wide optical surfaces.
Like the predator he was, Gunnulf took in every detail of the Agent as she had talked. Eyes that could detect a rabbit from a kilolength in the air studied every hair, every quiver of her muzzle, every flicker of her ears. He'd not had much of a chance to watch one of the Masters at length before, but even with his limited experience he could tell there was something odd about this one. A twitchy, almost furtive air -- she had been constantly glancing around as she detailed his new assignment.
Gunnulf hadn't realised at the time, but now he recognised the look; it was similar to what he'd seen on his squadmates, when they were a megasecond into one of Combat Flight School's simulated missions. The look of someone expecting an attack at any moment. He'd found the realisation quite unsettling, and wondered for a moment if this Master had the full authority to commandeer him like this. In the end the point was moot; he really didn't have any choice.
At the exit Salrath signed him out, giving him a new command collar and a slim visor that blossomed with pale green data as it synchronised itself with the local network, displaying the gryphon's new unit, basing location and initial orders. It all looked simple enough; report to the sector Security Hub for his new billet and issue equipment, then attach himself to what looked like a guard unit.
This also seemed a little odd -- trained special forces troopers on guard duty -- but he was used to the high-flying reputation of the 'Talons'; perhaps things really were different in the Rippers. There had been rumours, whispers between the others in his old squad, about Security's gryphon forces. Unflattering things, about how they were a refuge for the defective and the incompetent. Well, not me, he thought, I'll show them what a real gryphon can do.
The Agent studied him critically for a few moments as he fumbled the earbud into position. "Does the flysoldat understand his orders?" she said.
She's talking to me about another gryphon? he thought inanely, blinking at the Master's odd way of speaking. Up until this point he'd had almost no direct interaction with the bipeds. This is something I'm going to have to get used to. "Yes, Agent Salrath," he said.
"Excellent. Carry on."
With that, she nodded once and left him in the reception area, still confused by this turn of events, and thinking that any second now he'd wake up on the thin mattress in his cramped cell. He stared after her, still watching even after the lift doors closed. Shaking his head in disbelief, Gunnulf nodded to the gryphon at the security station -- receiving only a sneer that he answered with a grin -- and accelerated to a gallop through the automatic doors and out into the bright early morning sunshine.
After the seemingly endless kiloseconds locked up in a cell too small to open more than one wing at a time, the sudden blast of crisp air was a joy. Gunnulf revelled in the freedom of the skies, swooping along the trails of the forest preserve that ringed the detention centre's entrance pit. He flipped the visor up, ignoring the augmented reality waypoint markers for his own sense of direction, heading for the sector Security Hub by a route a little more circuitous -- but a lot more fun -- than really necessary.
Finally his collar shocked him slightly -- nothing much, just a warning tingle -- and he pulled the visor down and reoriented on the Hub's entrance. Flight paths here were tightly controlled, this was one of the reasons the collar had zapped him, and the simple waypoint view had been replaced by a translucent tunnel that curved through the sky like some gigantic snake. All around him were the black dots of other flying things, each highlighted by a green diamond in his augmented view.
He grumbled a little at this; all these overlays actually put too much clutter up and were distracting; he'd much rather rely on his own eyes. For a moment Gunnulf was tempted to pull the visor off, but then he remembered the collar and how it rested against the still tender skin of his throat. Perhaps I can ask them to adjust it, he thought, the memory of lightning and burning feathers making him shiver.
His quarters at the aerie had been what you'd expect for a creature of the air. Light airy structures, high up on the Hive's slopes and designed to catch the wind and make for effortless, soaring flight. As a trainee, he'd had his own room in the military cluster, covered at the top to keep out the elements, but with openings at each end for ease of landing and take-off. There'd even been enough space for company, if you were good friends.
Not so here. Like the rest of the Security Hub, the gryphon barracks were underground, a spur off the central axis of the entrance shaft that gave the place its nickname, the Pit. He imagined the place looked like a giant spiked collar, tunnels and shafts radiating out from the hollow core. His first stop had been to poke his beak into his new quarters, just to check his effects had been delivered. Getting there had required a little more precision than he was used to.
The barracks were a wide concrete tube lined with sleeping niches, set well back from the entrance shaft and accessed by a long -- and fairly narrow, only wide enough for a couple of gryphons -- tunnel, presumably to clear the chambers immediately adjacent to the central shaft. His own quarters were right up near the ceiling, and needed a tricky curve and flip to enter cleanly. Inside it was about as bleak as he'd feared, little more than a slightly larger version than the cell he'd just recently left.
At least I don't have to stay here, he thought, eyeing the next order on his list. Armourer.
That was on the other side of the Pit and, despite the seeming best efforts of the local vehicles to run him down, he soon had a close fitting set of fullerene-ceramic scales covering chest, flanks and wing leading edges. The kit, along with an unfamiliar and very lumpy harness that he was told contained antimagic defences, soon filled the storage spaces in his sleeping niche. Settling down on the padded surface, Gunnulf rested his head against the ridge that served to prevent him from falling out while asleep, and started to read up on his new equipment, ready for familiarisation training the next day.
It was still dark when the command collar chimed to tell Gunnulf he had new orders. Long megaseconds of practice allowed him to come awake and be alert in moments; eyes still closed, he popped the earbud from its slot in his collar, jamming it in one ear to listen to the synthesized voice. He blinked, then pulled his visor from its charging cradle and put it on. "Replay message, text only," he whispered into the darkness.
Cool green letters against the vague shadows of his quarters confirmed his confusion. He'd been ordered to report to one of the hangars, to 'assist the security detail' currently guarding a group of servitors, and to 'observe and report on any servitors visiting them'. What happened to my training? he thought plaintively, suddenly relieved he spent a few kiloseconds ploughing through the dry manuals. I'm really not in the normal military, am I?
Noting the time -- he still had a chance to grab some breakfast, and it would only take him moments to get to his duty station -- Gunnulf poked his head out of the exit hole, then dropped down to glide along the barrack's central core and into the mess hall. Gryphons weren't the most social of creatures, even family groups tended to stop at the mated pair and their immediate offspring, so a lot of the early military training went towards breaking down the 'personal space issues' many of the predators had.
Gunnulf was well aware of this, and thus was expecting a certain amount of standoffishness from the other troopers, but even he was surprised by the response his arrival triggered. He was greeted hostile stares and more than a few threatening beak gapes and hisses of displeasure. Shrugging it off -- he'd not been enormously popular back in his old unit, either -- he nonetheless felt a little uncomfortable by all the negative attention and quickly grabbed a basket with his beak, shoving it under the dispenser and waiting while the machine read his ID from his collar.
He blinked in surprise at what was delivered. He'd expected the same mess of gristle and stringy meat he'd received at the prison, but this... he could actually identify the species! A furtive glance at the nearest diners showed him that this was not the case for anyone else. There must be something to being an assistant to one of the Agents, he thought, I don't think even the sersjant ate like this! Shrugging, Gunnulf picked up the basket with its warm and slightly damp contents, carrying it over to an empty spot in the hall.
Dropping the basket, he sank to the floor and started to eat. There was no furniture, as gryphons didn't need the stuff, so the whole surface was made from a barely flexible rubberised compound, also making it perfect for claw to claw training. Time was pressing, and he gulped down the shreds of rabbit and mutton -- perhaps a little more ostentatiously than absolutely necessary -- before dropping the basket in the recycling slot and flying back to his quarters. Squatting on the sleeping pad, he passed a diamond rasp over the edges of his beak, making the already sharp edge like a razor. Spreading one set of talons, he took the rasp and honed the tips until they glittered, then swapped claws and did the same again.
Next up was the familiar-yet-different battledress. He ran one claw over the insignia on each shoulder; three jagged red slashes against a white gryphon skull, then dropped the armour set and started to unroll the harness. The wide straps of the mounting harness were the same design as the ones on his original set and had all with the normal problems associated with newly issued kit; it would be days before the woven material sufficiently adapted to his body shape to stop it from rubbing in unexpected places. The under harness centred around a semi-rigid section that looped around both wing roots and extended along spine and sternum; here he took his time, as most of the equipment's weight was ultimately transferred to this part. Lighter straps extended down all four legs to his wrists and ankles.
Over the mounting harness went the armour set. Black curved plates with the characteristic mesh pattern of fullerene-ceramic on a shock absorbing backing, split down both sides so he could get his wings through. The back had a solid knot of mounting hardware, the underside of which locked to the harness and made the whole rig almost a part of his body. Gunnulf clipped the side panels together, then pulled the elasticated armoured 'socks' over each leg in turn, securing the ends to the mounting harness at hip/shoulder and ankle/wrist.
Wings were always a bit awkward, but as all that could be fitted with was a thin layer of very fine scales along each leading edge, it just required him to get the attachment loops between the correct feather shafts and flick his wings once to get it in place. Gunnulf refolded his wings and bounced up and down a few times to settle everything, then pulled on his equipment harness, a short and lumpy 'waistcoat' that went from throat to bottom of his ribs and attached to the armour. Last was his gun -- no ammunition, of course -- locked to a rail that attached to the armour's mounting block between his wing roots.
A tap of his collar and the visor lit up, synchronising with gun, long range communications gear and a secondary control unit on his upper foreleg. This was something his old armour didn't have; apparently the new rig had enough extra hardware that the leg panel was needed to let him easily operate it. He glanced down and ran one claw over the screen, watching the display come alive and present him with a list of options. Tempting, he thought, but I probably shouldn't play with the active defences in here. Shaking his head, he stuffed the few unused items back into storage, then pulled on the skull-cap helmet and jumped down into the barracks corridor, spreading his wings and flying towards the central core of the Pit.
===
Celestia was setting again when Fusion's communicator finally gave a beep and started whispering from some undefined point inside her skull.
# Fusion Pulse TC4668 will report to Sector Twelve Security Hub entrance seven at thirty five hundred. #
Fusion swallowed, throat suddenly dry, cursing under her breath at Korn's brevity. As it stood she had no way to know if this was acceptance of her request, or... Surely they would order me to come immediately if they were suspicious -- or more likely, just order the rest of the corral to hold me while a security floater comes for me. None of that made any sense, but the fear gnawed at her, making her withdrawn and uncommunicative when her parents finally returned from their work shifts.
She'd also had to tell the rest of her family that her eye wouldn't be fixed any time soon; they had been very upset, perhaps more so than Fusion herself had been.
The evening passed all too quickly, despite her wish that it would last forever. The night was even worse; sleep broken by nightmares of a Master -- head little more than a mouth full of knife-like teeth -- chasing her through burnt out corridors, and then made unobtainable by her anxiety about her appointment. Fusion used the empty kiloseconds to try and decide what to do if her visit turned out to be some kind elaborate test of her loyalty. She couldn't quite shake the thought that she was still under suspicion, despite the results of Salrath's field expedient test. Stupid, she thought, they'd have called me in or come to collect me yesterday. Still...
Can I do it? she thought. The consequences of getting caught were severe and probably immediate, if Salrath's actions were anything to go by. She would have to be prepared, not let herself get caught in a position where she couldn't defend herself. ...but only if I'm willing to carry it through.
The mare made a little involuntary whinny at the thought, all those nightmare fantasies flashing through her mind. At the slight noise, Gravity, a warm patch of indistinct darkness leaning against her flank, twitched and muttered something in her sleep. Fusion froze, willing the other mare not to wake. She didn't, and Fusion let out a silent sigh. Being discovered would be a disaster and she'd have to weather whatever treatment was dished out to her.
The weight of responsibility was becoming crushing. Would it just be better to euthanize myself? she thought. It might be the only way to avoid hurting anypony else. For a moment the urge to head over to the infirmary was almost overpowering; the muscles of her legs bunched in an unconscious precursor to standing.
With an effort of will the mare relaxed her legs, thinking instead of the span of time that ponies had been servants to the Masters. All those names on the Church wall, the vast majority dead and gone. She thought back to her decision not to fight Salrath, and the rush of pure power when she had connected herself to the sun.
Perhaps... if I did have to fight I might actually win? I've learnt an awful lot of new magic in the last few days, Fusion thought. It would be far better to free Gravity first, but... The mare swallowed at the thought of having to overpower her sister and forcibly remove the Blessing. With Tangent Vector, the green colt back at the training field, it had been easy. She had been so much more powerful than the foal that suffocating his panicked efforts had been like blowing out a candle. Gravity, on the other hoof, was nearly as strong as she was. She'd have to use her full, unnatural, strength and strike without warning, otherwise either one of them could be injured in the struggle.
Not to mention the unwelcome attention the fireworks would attract.
Fusion looked down at Gravity as the mare wriggled slightly and snorted quietly in her sleep. The spells the Maker thing had given her still sat in her mind, little crystalline shards of memory waiting to be experimented with. What are they? she thought. Can I trust them? Fusion shivered, unfurling one wing slightly to settle it over her sister. If tomorrow does go badly, I'll have to go all the way, not stop until everypony is free of the Masters.
Fusion shook her head in the darkness. Here I am, a single mare plotting the overthrow of a world full of Masters, she thought, the unreality of the situation threatening to make her laugh out loud. For all this dreaming she knew almost nothing about Lacunae Hive's military capability, let alone that of its enemies. Even the total number of ponies or Masters in the world was unknown to her.
===
Dawn came with unwelcome haste, marked by a pulsing chime from her communicator that prodded Fusion from a fitful sleep. Blearily, the mare extracted herself from the rest of her family, whispered a quiet 'see you later' to Gravity when her sister -- still half asleep -- raised her head questioningly, and walked out of the shelter. The cold snapped at the now exposed areas of her body, bringing her to full wakefulness in a way that the alarm could never do. Breath steaming, she shook her head vigorously and spread her wings in the golden light of the early morning sun.
"Good morning, Celestia," she whispered to her namesake, feeling the warmth strike through her coat despite the cold air. Even without concentrating she could feel it, not just as a source of light and heat, but as a source of potential, of waiting. For a moment the mare was horribly tempted to open that link and see what it would let her do. Fusion paused, suddenly suspicious, but there was no alien tang to the thought, no feeling of crystal. All mine, she thought wryly, this time.
A few fast strides and she brought her wings down hard, the ground sinking away as each beat pulled her further into the sky. In contrast to the dark reputation of the place she was headed for -- even the Masters spoke of Security in hushed tones -- the land she flew over was astoundingly beautiful. Light, almost liquid in the way it spilled through the little valleys and forests that covered this area, lit up the low mist and filled the landscape with an ethereal glow, as if everything shone from within. The mist would linger for a few more kiloseconds until the sun burnt it off, but until then it was like the world was made of light.
The forests, all a patchwork of greens and ambers, rolled away beneath her hooves. Fusion didn't really know the area too well -- unless a pony was part of the weather team there was little reason to travel -- so she dipped into her shadow sight periodically to check her bearing and range. At this height the universe was almost completely black, with only the occasional point of pastel light marking out another pony on some unknowable errand. Down below it was another story.
The landscape glowed with a hard neon radiance, hidden rivers of laser pure colours flowing under the ground. She was far too distant to make out the individual pinpoints, but the Master's subterranean cities glowed from all the magically active gems and crystals that formed a large part of their technology. Rectilinear blocks connected by twisting veins that branched and split and merged, not on just a single level but layer upon layer down into the ground. It was like looking at the circulatory map of a body, some monstrous creature spread out across a whole world.
The only time you ever saw it was from up here; at ground level all the lights merged together into an indistinct haze. It was pretty in its own way, although the sight did nothing to improve Fusion's spirits. So many... she thought, fighting the hypnotic pull of the lights. The patterns made for excellent navigation aids, but you couldn't actually see ground level easily; the temptation to fly low over the lights was hard to resist and bound to end messily. The mare corrected her path slightly and opened her real eye, hunting for a sign of her ultimate destination.
"There it is," she muttered, slowing and starting to spiral up to the correct altitude to enter the Security Centre's access shaft. She was a little early so took her time, examining the facility both magically and optically.
With normal vision the place was impressively large; a funnel-shaped pit maybe a kilolength across at the mouth, tapering down to half a kilolength before descending as a straight sided cylinder. A continuous stream of winged and mechanical traffic flew in and out of the tube, the outbound flights fanning off to all points of the compass. As the mare gained height she could start to see into the pit itself; at this time of day it was in deep shadow, so was illuminated by a ring of titanic floodlights that shone down from the cylinder's walls.
She was too high to see much detail, but even this close to dawn the cavernous entrance was a literal hive of activity. Fusion checked her surroundings; nothing -- machine, pony or gryphon -- was within easy visual range. She was especially careful about the half bird, half cat carnivores; their eyesight was almost supernaturally good, but even the sharpest of eyes would find it difficult to pick out the glow of a minor spell at this range and against a lit sky.
All magic involved the convincing of matter or energy to behave at odds with the classical laws of physics; most could be interpreted as local reductions in entropy. Fusion concentrated for a moment, visualising the correct geometry in her head before filling the shapes with a whisper of her power. The scene in front of her billowed and distorted wildly as carefully shaped zones of air were pressurised by gentle, but very specific telekinesis, stabilizing into a distorted, but highly magnified image of the entrance pit almost directly below her.
Fusion started to flutter her wings in a hover, trying to keep her body still enough that the limited range of motion of her head and neck would keep her eyes at the focal point of the invisible lens array she'd created below her. This was the dangerous bit; from the ground she'd be appear as a distorted image of herself -- although hopefully she was high enough that nobody would notice. A few more subtle adjustments and the view sprang into sharp focus.
Lining the vertical walls of the pit were the destinations of the inbound flights; row upon row of openings and hatches, some small enough for a single pony, others big enough to take heavy cargo floaters. As Fusion watched, a pair of the black vehicles that haunted her nightmares shot out of one medium sized opening, paying no heed to the winged fliers in their path. Those in the way, a mixture of pony and gryphon as far as the mare could tell, scattered in panic to avoid impact; one unfortunate gryphon tumbled wildly as he was caught in the turbulence of their passing.
Fusion's eye widened. It wouldn't pay to spend too long in that congested airspace.
Shadow sight showed a similar picture, except here she could see how the entrance connected to structures under the ground. Unlike every other entrance she'd seen, there was only one artery connecting it to the rest of the underground world; the rest of the installation was completely isolated. The site itself was large and curled around the entrance pit like a snake swallowing its own tail. She could see the open volumes of hangars and the general shapes of artificial caverns, but that was about it. There was a layer of something that glittered and gleamed over everything else; her shadow sight couldn't penetrate it.
Shaking her head, Fusion switched back to her real eye and dove for the entrance platform, following the little whispers from her comms disk as it guided her to the correct hatch.
===
As openings in the pit went, this one was on the small side, an empty platform maybe five bodylengths square set half back into the wall. At the back were a closed set of Master-scale doors, an interface terminal and a single bored-looking gryphon guard. The gryphon, currently sitting on his haunches and slouching against the side wall, perked up when the mare settled to a four-hoofed landing at the edge of the platform.
The gryphon, a little shorter, but more heavily built than Fusion, was one of the common 'eagle' hybrids, with startlingly white head feathers contrasting with the dark golden-brown plumage that covered what she could see of the front half of his body. His wings, apart from the leading edges which were covered in black armour scales, were half unfurled in what the mare would have interpreted as aggression or excitement in another pony. He was dressed in an abbreviated version of the battledress she'd seen at the training centre; a harness-like structure that covered his front and hindquarters with flexible black scales, all glittering with the characteristic patterns of fullerene carbon weave. A light-weight smartgun, linked to a slim visor lit from within by an odd diffuse glow, sat on a rail over his right shoulder.
The armour was cut back around the mid shoulder to give the required freedom of movement for flight, as well as over his foreclaws to keep the large, highly polished -- and currently gloved in flexible plastic to keep them sharp -- talons free. His big yellow eyes followed her as she walked up to the terminal, wings relaxing slightly as the screen lit up at her approach.
So engrossed was she in the display, that Fusion didn't notice when he padded silently up behind her.
"What are you here for?"
The voice was scratchy, filled with menacing overtones and came from just behind her left ear. Predictably, Fusion yelped, wings flaring out in shock and catching the trooper across the face. The mare danced sideways, horn flaring bright enough to cast shadows as she wheeled to face her ambusher. The spells, always close to the surface of her mind in these last few stressful days, popped into sharp relief, almost visible as she formed the necessary patterns.
In an instant the gryphon was overlaid with little purple squares at shoulder and chest as her energy sensitivity picked out the locations of his armour's superconducting power packs. Further glows appeared, representations of the spells Fusion was preparing; a force wall barricade to keep the gryphon at bay while her telekinesis gathered around him like a giant clawed paw, ready in an instant to snap shut with all of the mare's panicked strength. The power built with frightening speed; all this was complete in far less than a heartbeat from the last syllable leaving the soldier's beak.
"You should see your face!"
Fusion froze, the spells only an instant away from becoming real, as the words combined with the open beak and bright eyed expression on the half bird's face. He's laughing at me! she thought. Her anger rose, threatening to bubble over and break the fragile control she had over the power she'd collected. A brief struggle and she got a grip on her emotions, letting the power fade and smiling weakly at the soldier.
"You got me," she said, a little shakily. You don't know how close you came to ruining everything, she thought, the sudden horror of what she might have done making her flanks damp with sweat.
The gryphon had the good grace to look a little guilty, even if the laughter didn't quite leave his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said in the same scratchy, hissy voice they all seemed to have, "When I saw how intent you were I couldn't resist. I've been here since midnight and you're the first person I've seen." He paused, looking thoughtful. "I think I'm getting a bit stir-crazy. Anyway, you seem a little lost, can I help?"
Fusion, who hadn't had any luck persuading the terminal to divulge her actual meeting location, gave a genuine smile. "That would be very kind, thank you."
He nudged her away from the screen, balancing on his haunches to press one plastic sheathed talon against his heavy looking collar, while touching the terminal's input panel with his other foreclaw. "Can't access much, but I should be able to find you." He did something to the panel and Fusion's picture popped up, captioned with her full name and ident string. "Fusion Pulse, huh? You ponies sure have funny names," he said with a side-long glance. "I'm Olvir Bergthor, by the way."
"Good to meet you, Olvir," Fusion said politely, sure she'd mangled the alien sounding name despite a careful attempt at pronunciation.
"Ah, here's the problem; you're too early. The system only releases the information a few hundred seconds before due time. "Quite how that is supposed to improve security is beyond me," he said with a whisper, casting a slightly nervous glance over one shoulder. "You'll have to wait. You can stay here if you want."
There was a hopeful note in the gryphon's voice. He's bored, Fusion thought, relieved to have somewhere out of sight to wait the half kilosecond or so until her appointment. Perhaps he can tell me something about this place?
"So why are you here -- if you can say?" he said, finishing the sentence hastily.
"My orders are a little short on detail; hopefully to talk to the group of ponies that were brought in a few days ago -- might be as much as a quarter of a megasecond?" Fusion paused, then decided to see what this soldier could tell her. "You haven't seen anything, have you?"
"Oh, that bunch, the load that were pulled in after that big alert," he said.
Fusion hadn't quite thought about it that way; she knew that there had been a response, but this meant the effects were much more wide reaching than she'd thought. "Yes, that sounds like them," she said, ears drooping with remembered guilt.
"The rest of the barracks has been talking about them. Can't tell you much, I'm afraid; they've got some of the Rippers guarding them. Us regulars aren't allowed near."
"Rippers?" Fusion asked, starting to feel alarmed.
"Internal Security's version of the Military's 'Talons', you've heard of them? No? Well, they're front line shock troops. We've not been able to understand why; you ponies never normally cause any problems." He looked thoughtful, scratching under his collar with one careful claw. "In fact, I don't ever remember ponies being kept here." Olvir cocked his head at Fusion in an obvious questioning expression.
"I wish I knew," Fusion said, "it makes no sense to me either. I was told that they were here for investigation--" She bit off her reply, shying away from what Salrath had told her when she'd first met the Agent. Please let Korn be telling the truth, she thought, even though she was certain he'd been lying.
The conversation drifted off to areas relating to both their roles in serving the Masters; Olvir had as little experience of ponies as Fusion did of gryphons, and was curious about everything. She used that to her advantage, discovering interesting things like the numbers of gryphons stationed at this base, the kinds of things they did and where they lived during 'off' periods.
By the time her communicator pinged and told Fusion her final destination, she'd had time to demonstrate her telekinesis to the fascinated soldier; in return he'd shown her his gun and armour, talking about what it was like to shoot and pulling off his visor to let her squint into the heads-up display as he pointed the firearm at various locations on the Pit's wall. The mare filed all this away, unable to escape the nagging thought that she'd have to come back sometime soon -- this time without orders -- and rescue the missing ponies.
An instant later, the terminal updated to show the same information. The gryphon glanced at the screen, nodded and pointed out across the central shaft with one talon. "See that hangar just below the second ring of lights, just left of centre? That's the one you want," he said.
Fusion nodded; when she'd swept the pit with her shadow sight she'd noticed the collection of pastel glows in the centre of that space. They were nothing like the hard, pure colours of the Master's crystal thaumic technology and she'd suspected they were ponies. "Thank you," she said, smiling warmly at the soldier and gathering herself for takeoff.
"Hey, no problem. Best of luck!" he said, voice rising to a shout as the white mare stepped off the platform and fell into the pit.