Days of Wasp and Spider
by Luna-tic Scientist
===
The barrier that held the chaos at bay could be manipulated, but that would be too much. Instead the Pattern created a flaw, a point discontinuity at vastly higher energy than the rest of the bubble. Unfeasibly massive particles sprang into fleeting existence before reaching a carefully designed boundary and decaying into a few protons, more electrons and many, many photons. The final effect was exactly as intended; an omnidirectional energy source with a blackbody temperature of fifty five hundred Kelvin. With a soundless explosion of light, dawn broke across the surface of the planet for the very first time.
The unavoidable protons and electrons were a complication; eventually they would strip the atmosphere from the young world. More energy and a twist of space-time set the world's core spinning to produce a magnetic field; the shockwaves threw clouds of dust and vapour across the whole planetary surface. Another unintended consequence; a swirling pattern of lights in the upper atmosphere where the electrons were safely funnelled into the poles. The Pattern examined the phenomenon and decided to leave it alone; the roiling streamers generated complex and fascinating curtains of colour.
=== Chapter 4 (remastered): A Small Mercy ===
Packet fell silent, the act of telling his story taking him back to that room filled with smoke and pain. He scuffed the gravel with one forehoof, eyes distant. "I collapsed when I landed on the walkway and didn't see what happened next. They tell me Cooper relayed a message back to rescue command, who sent in another team to evacuate the Master. They pulled me out about ten kiloseconds later, after the reactor had been shut down." The stallion turned his head and looked thoughtfully at his left hip, the fur gone and the skin livid, but whole. "I don't remember much of that."
Fusion stared at Packet, uncertain of what to say in the face of such bravery. "That's good, Packet, really good."
Packet fluttered his wings in embarrassment, then shrugged and winced. "What about you?"
Fusion turned away slightly, unable to meet his gaze. "Not much to tell really. You know the theories, right? That magic is a result of local changes in the fundamental constants?"
Packet shifted slightly, looking uncertain. "It kind of makes my head hurt, but yes, I've heard that. Don't you have trouble with the way it contradicts what we were taught at the Church?"
"Not really," Fusion said, shaking her head. "There's still the question of how the changes obey the will of a magic user -- if the Maker isn't managing all that, what is? Although it's an interesting question, and you've got to wonder why God would respond to specially prepared gems and crystals." She looked a little guilty and her voice dropped to a whisper. "There was a lot of hanging around between my training sessions, and I overheard some of the things my Master was telling his student. She thinks the Maker is like a machine, it's got no will of its own and just follows orders... if you give it the right orders you can make it do anything."
Packet's mouth opened and shut a few times, but no sound came out. "I... I see. It makes me glad I'm not a Master -- imagine not knowing who created you and why!"
"Doesn't bear thinking about," said Fusion with a shudder. "Say, have you seen Random anywhere? She should be out of training by now."
"If that filly's special talent isn't teaching I'll be very surprised. No, I think she's taking one of the late study sessions today, so she'll be around later." Packet's eyes narrowed and he looked at the white mare with mock suspicion. "Are you trying to side track me? Come on, spill!"
Fusion fidgeted for a few moments, knowing she couldn't stall any longer. "My Master has me in the beam chamber of one of the big accelerators. All I need to do is deflect the beam, she can then study the effects, how magic is changing the properties of local space-time and so on."
Packet nodded. "So what went wrong?"
"I wasn't strong enough, I completed my orders, but it was too much of a strain and I overtaxed my magic. Damaged my horn," she said glumly.
"Ouch," Packet said, wincing in sympathy. "So they've got you on restricted activity until you heal. What happened here?" he said, tracing the curved scars that ran under her belly.
"My own stupid fault. I was so tired and forgot where I was. I just wanted to lay down for a second, catch my breath. Unfortunately I picked the shield emitter ring." Fusion's ears folded back with the embarrassment of the memory.
Packet grimaced. "Understandable. So how long are you off duty?"
"Another couple of days before my assessment. You?"
"Most of tonight under the tender ministrations of Spiral Fracture and the infirmary staff, then I'll be right back out there. I get to add power system construction to my skill list," he said proudly, then coughed slightly and turned away, unwilling to look Fusion in the eye. "They also want to add my experience to the learning centre archive."
Fusion grinned widely. "You were going to leave that little detail out weren't you? One of my friends, immortalised in crystal." Fusion remembered back to those sessions a few years before she was Blessed. Every day the class would get to experience the best examples of the true heroes of ponykind: some were scary, some hurt a bit, but all left you with lasting memories that you wanted to live up to.
While she chatted with Packet, Fusion caught sight of Gravity talking to a scarred green mare on the other side of the staging area. The two mares separated, with the scarred pony walking towards Fusion. From across the party, Gravity looked up and met Fusion's eyes, holding her gaze as the other pony closed the distance.
Fusion sighed inside then murmured to Packet. "Excuse me." She turned and stepped towards the other pony.
"Fusion," the mare said in a croaky voice. "How are you doing?"
"Hello, Back Draft."
Back Draft was Fusion's foalhood teacher -- in truth she was everypony in corral twenty seven's teacher. She knew a little about Back's history; the mare had been part of one of the emergency teams until she had gotten a little too close to one accident. A secondary explosion had killed half the team, while fast fragments had slashed her vocal cords, removed her right wing just above the shoulder and cracked her skull. Thaumetic medical was able to fix most things, but amputations and nerve damage took a long, long time.
So long that she was deprioritised from the treatment program and removed from the active labour pool.
Fusion smiled. "Getting better, day by day."
"Gravity said you might want to talk."
Oh she did, did she? Fusion thought. "She's just worried. I said some... things I probably shouldn't have, before I knew the truth of the matter."
Fusion kept her expression neutral while Back Draft studied her face. "Really? Listen, if you ever want to talk about it..."
"No seriously, I'm fine," Fusion said, scrabbling through her memories for something to distract the other mare. "Tell me, how is the latest batch of foals doing? I hear that Shock Diamond is getting into almost as much trouble as I did..."
===
By the fifth day Fusion was starting to climb the walls with boredom, so the arrival of Animal Scanner was a great relief. The crimson pony flew in as the sun was setting, alone this time, trotting up to Fusion Pulse with his equipment harness rattling. Removing the same instrument he'd used during her first inspection, the stallion nodded politely before studying her intently.
"How are you feeling, Fusion Pulse? Have you tried to use magic or fly since I first saw you?"
"No, no flying or magic. I've felt fine for at least two days, it's getting very frustrating." Fusion shifted her weight from hoof to hoof, impatient to get this over with so she could return to her duties. "Just you this time?"
"Yes," Animal Scanner said absently, "Gamma is a field surgery specialist." He gestured with the instrument. "Please stay as still as possible, I need to record these scans."
His horn glowed and a shimmering plane of red light appeared in front of Fusion's muzzle, then started to track up and down her body. Animal studied the display for a second to make sure the thing had connected with the distant Hive medical systems, then turned his attention inward to the images his magic was showing him. More sparkles and a brighter glow from his horn, and smaller disks of light moved slowly along the leading edges of Fusion's wings and up and down her horn. Fusion gritted her teeth at the sensation; a fierce itch was building up where her horn pushed through her skin, and it was taking all her willpower to resist the urge to scratch.
Animal's eyes came back into focus and he looked at Fusion and smiled.
"Based on these scans it looks like you are fit to work." He moved to stand next to her, his magic producing a startlingly accurate image of Fusion, apparently hanging in the air, legs dangling and head drooping. "You were pretty far gone at this point." The image split and zoomed in on her horn and right wing, Fusion watching fascinated, itch forgotten, as the feathers, skin and muscle were stripped away to show internal details. Her wing bones and horn started to abate away and the image enlarged further.
"This is you on the night of your injury. You can see here and here--" Little patches of the image were highlighted momentarily. "--small scale disruptions in the crystal structure. It may not look like much, but we really depend on a specific set of quantum properties to manipulate magic, and any systemic damage generally results in a vast reduction in capability. Fortunately," he said, gesturing to the crystal studded instrument still floating by his side, "unlike these synthetic crystals, we can heal. Equally fortunately, I can't detect any damage to the horn's growth bed, or the nerves attached to it. I take it you have had no headaches?"
A second set of magnified images appeared below the first. The fine electric pattern of cracks could still be seen, but the dark voids were filled in with bright, intricate crystals. At the base of her horn was a thick plate of bone and dense tissue; this was the growth bed. Nerves reached downwards from this to vanish between the hemispheres of her brain.
"It was pretty bad on the first evening, but nothing since then."
"Good. The initial pain was due to the formation of the fractures -- the horn is dead, obviously, but there is a kind of thaumic feedback to the nerves, which is why it hurt. No lasting pain means no nerve damage."
She'd heard something of this before, and knew that the feedback worked in both ways; the constant, unconscious desire of the brain to make sense of the information flowing back from the horn at all times prompting a tiny trickle of magic to repair the damage. The new material looked out of place amid the smooth helixes of the rest of her horn. Fusion traced one of the healed fractures with her forehoof, turning to look at Animal with a troubled expression. "This doesn't look like its gone back to its previous state. Will... will I be a strong as I was before?"
Animal nodded back at her. "Good question. You know when you've done a lot of exercise and your muscles ache?"
Fusion nodded, frowning at this apparent digression.
"Well, what you are feeling are a multitude of tiny tears in the muscle; a day or so later you'll feel better and the muscle has been repaired, stronger than ever. The same thing applies to bone and in your case, horn. Essentially you just over did it."
"Oh." I'm stronger now? "I can try some exercises?"
"Please, in fact I was going to suggest just that. It will give me a chance to check for any subtle problems."
Fusion turned and trotted to the rear of the corral shelter, smiling as she used a light touch of magic -- the first for almost half a million seconds -- to activate the external lights. Under the canopy, at the back of the facilities hub, was a collection of ten chrome spheres in five different sizes. She glanced along the row and picked up the smallest, setting it rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
"So far so good," she muttered to herself, feeling the gentle tingle of Animal Scanner's magic as he examined her horn as she worked. Keeping the first sphere bobbing, Fusion picked up the next and set it moving as well, then the next and the next. Before long, all ten were floating in stately wave from the smallest pair, a mere horn's width of aluminium, to the two spheres of tungsten as big as her head. Fusion kept them up for a hundred seconds, then glanced at Animal with a raised eyebrow. She'd been able to do this when she was a much younger foal.
"No difficulty or pain?" he asked.
Fusion shook her head.
"Good. How do you feel about an endurance test?"
"Sure. Do you mind if Gravity comes along?"
"Your sister? Not at all."
Fusion trotted off, coming back a few moments later with the dusky blue mare. She then fanned her wings a couple of times experimentally, took a few quick steps, and sprang into the air.
After so long stuck on the ground, flying felt wonderful. Squinting into the cold slipstream, Fusion pumped her wings vigorously to gain height, then folded them in to plummet earthwards. Pulling out ten bodylengths off the ground, she ignored the sudden twinge of pain in her wing roots at the bottom of the curve, focusing instead on the heady rush of seeing shelters flick past as she shot down the central avenue. A few ponies waved up at her as she past; one young colt even flew up to try and catch her, but his small wings were no match for her power dive. Laughing for the sheer joy of it, Fusion traded her speed back into height to rejoin Gravity and Animal, patiently hovering nearby.
"That was foalish; you could have damaged something when you pulled out of that dive. Then you really would have wished I'd brought Gamma Knife along," Animal said in an annoyed tone.
"Only a twinge," Fusion said in a small voice. "Sorry, it was just so good to get back in the air."
The stallion sighed. "Don't worry, you're obviously fine. Please take it a bit easy for the first day or two, though. Pulling a flight muscle while at altitude would be an embarrassing way to go."
The three ponies flew on in silence through the gathering darkness, towards the lights of the training centre.
===
Korn rubbed one paw over his muzzle, then used his claws to unpick an annoying tangle of fur at the back of his head. Glancing at the clock he bared his teeth in displeasure; eight kiloseconds after his supposed departure time and two kiloseconds after he was supposed to meet up with Inthra. Korn sighed, mind wandering over what they'd planned for this night... then winced when he remembered what she'd said when he'd cancelled. That wasn't going to happen any time soon. To think he'd been so pleased to get this studentship with the Academician... it was only later he had realised that her reputation for genius went paw in paw with an attitude that involved treating her underlings like servitors.
Well, almost like servitors. At least this one had survived the punishing schedule the Academician had forced on the research group. Fortunately, it looked like they'd found one with the right skill-set this time, assuming Vanca could be persuaded to take it a little slower. Korn forced his thoughts back to the main display and placed one paw in the manipulation box. On the screen a complex and apparently random pattern of swirls, spirals and straight lines exploded out from a central point, each in a different colour. Twitching his paw, Korn rotated and manoeuvred the pattern, tagging some lines and removing others to allow the computer to build its predictive model. Another few patterns and the system had learnt enough to do the work itself; Korn leaned back against the wall in the small, windowless cubical and gazed with disinterest at the rapidly cycling display.
"Finally," Korn muttered as his comms unit beeped suddenly, then ran a claw over the input pad on his bracer. The main display froze and shrank away, replaced with a medical feed from a veterinarian servitor out somewhere in the patchwork of corrals surrounding the Hive. He tapped the acknowledge control and typed 'proceed' in the supplementary orders box. All the various medical parameters -- heart rate, blood pressure, neuron firing frequency, thaumic flux and so on -- started forming little graphs across the screen.
Korn nodded a couple of times to himself -- they looked alright to him, but he already knew Vanca's opinion of his veterinary skills... so he also opened a link to the medical expert system. In a final window he opened a pair of thumbnail video feeds from the training centre's own monitoring systems; one on the facilities hub roof, the other actually inside the berm. The view from the first wasn't great -- the camera angle was too wide -- but he could see the red coated veterinarian and a blue servitor whose name he'd forgotten lying on the berm. In the second view, Fusion Pulse had just levitated a pair of metal spheres above her head and started them spinning.
With interest he watched the spheres blur as they accelerated, quickly calling up the centre's assessment systems to get an idea of the servitor's power handling capability, compared to its historical data. His eyes widened and he shivered slightly -- he'd seen the numbers when the servitor was selected for the project, and he'd been in the control room during the first proper experiment -- but there was something more... real about this feat. He'd seen light shows before, obviously; every Hive used the servitors' ability to generate convincing firework effects. Somehow the light show in the beam chamber had seemed to be nothing more. Maybe it was that the physics he dealt with was always so abstract, so apparently disconnected with the real world.
There was nothing abstract about a creature able to move several tonnes of metal at high speed with only a thought.
Korn started to write a message to Vanca, but stopped to peer more closely at the video feed from the pit. The view was getting hazy, even though the servitor appeared to still be in focus. He glanced back at the medical display then did a double-take at the thaumic flux readings and the calculated total power output. The other video showed a half sphere of haze centred on the white servitor in the middle of the pit, tendrils of fog rolling off the force field's surface.
Korn stared at the two video feeds open mouthed. Cold, he thought, inside that dome it must be getting really cold. "Energy is being siphoned out of the internal volume to...to... he said, voice trailing off. Power the servitor's magic, he thought.
On the wide angle video the two servitors outside the pit had gotten to their hooves and appeared to be shouting, while red lights started to flash around the perimeter of the berm. Then the red servitor produced a long cylinder and pointed it at the one in the pit.
"No!"
Korn surged to his paws, reaching out to the screen as if he could stop what was about to happen, even as a pinpoint of violet light flicked into the pit. Eyes back on the medical display he waited for the charts to drop to zero... but they never did. Back on the wide angle view he saw the blue servitor go flying backwards and the veterinarian turn back to the pit. Suddenly realising what he needed to do, Korn went back to the supplementary orders system and started to type frantically, but before he could send the message there was a white flash on both videos, and all the data feeds -- cameras and remote medical scans -- went dead. Korn stared dumbly at the 'remote server not responding' icons flashing up from all the various windows he'd opened.
"No," he whispered, then tapped Vanca's comms code into his bracer. There was a seemingly endless delay while the connection request went unanswered. Finally the little screen lit up to show the Academician in formal waistcoat and sash, the background a kaleidoscope of similarly smartly dressed people. "Well?" Vanca didn't look or sound pleased, but then she never did.
"Academician Vanca..." he paused, momentarily at a loss for words. "Korn thinks the servitor is dead."
Murmuring in the background, a questioning tone from somewhere, then the view jerked and rose as Vanca stepped quickly away from where she had been seated. "What! How did this happen?"
"The servitor showed an unanticipatedly high power output during a standard endurance test. It looks like the veterinarian interpreted this as a thaumic excursion and carried out a field euthanisation."
Vanca narrowed her eyes. "What isn't Korn telling Vanca?"
"Look at this." Korn called up the last few seconds of video and sent it to Vanca, giving her a running commentary while it played. A small part of his mind -- the fraction that wasn't busy panicking -- was gratified to see Vanca's expression change from anger, through surprise, and on to horror.
"Vanca will make some calls. Secure the data you have, then encrypt it with my public key and put it on two storage cells. Then -- this is important -- wipe the server and the log files. Vanca will send Korn her access codes shortly." Vanca pointed a claw at the camera and glared at him. "Korn will not feel tempted to use the codes to go poking his muzzle anywhere else. Vanca expects Hive Security will be auditing the Institute before another day passes."
Korn swallowed, heart thundering. Hive Security had a fearsome reputation. "Y-yes, Academician, Korn understands. What does Vanca want Korn to do with the storage cells?"
Vanca smiled thinly at the fear in Korn's expression. "Keep them safe." She cut the connection.
Korn slumped back in his chair, half convinced it had all been some kind of bad dream, until a tone from his bracer told him of a change to his security permissions. Turning back to his terminal he authenticated at his new level and set to work.
===
Vanca killed the connection to her student, lips curling up in a snarl. With a supreme effort of will she calmed her features and tapped the comm code for Councillor Indutu's office. A short pause and her screen lit up with the face of a young male with impeccably groomed fur. "Academician Vanca for the Councillor, it's urgent."
"This one is sorry, Academician, Councellor Indutu is not available," the male replied in a smooth voice.
Vanca clenched her teeth in frustration. "Indutu needs this information immediately." The fur on the back of her neck stood on end as she had a sudden premonition as to why the Councillor was not available. "You will tell Indutu that Vanca knows what caused the military emergency."
A flash of shock crossed the receptionist's face and was quickly suppressed. Vanca grinned widely; the creatures the Councillor had on comms duty all looked like pretty, empty things, but they weren't stupid.
Suddenly business-like, the male did something to a console out of the camera's view. "Please hold." The screen was replaced with the Synod seal.
Vanca paced up and down the short corridor outside the banqueting hall, obscurely glad to be away from the politics and influence pedalling she'd been forced into to keep her research program alive for almost a gigasecond. Vanca paused in her pacing for a moment -- that was nearly thirty years. If she was right all that would be over, what she had discovered would boost Lacunae Hive to pre-eminence, perhaps even to the domination of the other Hives. She shook her head, the stupidity of those ancient wars, the short sighted treaties that had split the six Creation Stones and prevented their use in modern times. She growled in the back of her throat. Where was that fool Indutu?
Abruptly her comms display changed and she brought it expectantly up to her face. Councillor Indutu sat behind a desk, pale fur looking dishevelled, while an inset window showed the head of someone she recognised from the news casts. A grey furred face raked by pale scars and flanked by mismatched ears, one little more than a tattered nub. Neither of them looked particularly pleased.
"Strategist Faungo. It is an honour," Vanca said, nodding to them both.
"What do you think you know, Academician?" he replied, face bland and voice empty of expression.
"A bit less than half a kilosecond ago the Hive's early warning sensors detected an thaumomagnetic pulse with a very specific signature. One matching the trace profile measured from the Hive's Creation Stone."
The Strategist raised an eyebrow, then smiled slightly, thin lips pulling back from abnormally large canine teeth. "It is up to Indutu, but Faungo thinks Vanca should be told. Faungo suspects she knows more than we do, anyway."
Indutu tiredly waved a paw at Faungo. "Fine, it's not like there's much to tell."
Faungo nodded his grizzled head. "This is a view from STAR five, a few seconds before the pulse."
The Solar Transmission Authority Reflectors -- or heliostats as they were generally known, vital for maintaining the output of the vast farms -- were nominally under the control of the Solar Transmission Authority, one arm of the World Court. Even though the Court didn't allow actual military hardware in orbit, the big orbital mirrors were such an obvious threat that each Hive was allowed military personnel on the ones operating in its territory -- and there was no law against having good sensors.
Vanca gazed in fascination at the video feed replacing the Strategist's head. A cloud swirled circle, the terminator a curved line separating the sunlit blue and green from darkness filled with sprays of night-time lights. A flash of static flickered over the window, then the view expanded rapidly, centred on Lacunae Hive's main arcology. The landscape was familiar, a dark shadowed pattern of hills and rivers scattered with pinpoints of white light surrounding the artificial mountain range of the Hive proper. A neat, circular hole had been cut in the pattern, a patch of absolute darkness.
"This is the underlying tunnel network," Faungo continued his narration. "Contact was lost with all the network infrastructure within the circle."
A complex tangle of tunnels, layer upon layer, overlaid the dark image. This was the true bulk of the Hive, chambers and subterranean structures spread like matted hyphae around a fungal fruiting body. Outside the circle these were lit with dense code markers for active nodes -- comms units, computers, every bit of networked hardware -- but inside there was nothing. It was like someone had taken a ten kilolength bite out of the landscape.
"The scale is impressive," said Vanca, slightly awed.
"Yes," said Faungo dryly. "Quite similar to a strategic thaumomagnetic pulse weapon. It was fortunate that a defence analyst noticed the lack of a thermal pulse that would have accompanied such a nuclear pumped thaumic device, otherwise this conversation would have been unlikely."
"The Deadpaw was activated?" Vanca said in a calm voice that belied the sudden feeling of cold that settled in her chest. Her mind's eye travelled out over the Hive's territory, out along the clusters of servitor-powered heavy lift launchers scattered throughout their land and ocean spaces. Early on in her academic career she'd specialised in weapon physics and knew better than most the devastation that could be released in a few tenths of a kilosecond by those massed launchers and their cavernous magazines. All of those weapons, along with other, more esoteric systems, tied into an isolated command network able to automatically retaliate in event of armageddon, the so-called 'Deadpaw'.
"That analyst will be receiving a commendation from the Synod." Faungo grinned his deaths-head smile, then continued in a mild tone. "That is the sum total of this one's knowledge. Is there anything the Academician would care to share?"
Vanca suppressed a slight shiver at that. From what she'd heard, that same tone of voice had ordered everything from the quiet internment of suspected enemy Hive agents to the bombardment of a civilian settlement during the abortive Three Day War with Baur Hive. Strategist Faungo was the nominal head of both the Hive military and its internal security force; as such he was not someone to offend. She talked quickly, knowing that every second could be vital. "The Strategist understands that the Institute's goal is to understand the fundamentals of magic? During this research, Vanca has used the servitor race as test subjects -- pony adaptability has produced some impressive results."
"It has been very expensive in servitors," Indutu grumbled. "The eugenics program exists for more than just Vanca's benefit."
Vanca ignored that sally. "Watch this," she said, sending the final few seconds of video that Korn had shown her.
The Strategist looked thoughtful, one claw tapping against his muzzle. The Councillor just looked impatient.
"Well, what does it mean?" Indutu said.
"The fog is water condensing, that means the air temperature dropped significantly during the test. The servitor was drawing power from its surroundings, rather than just itself."
The Strategist looked sharply at Vanca. "That's supposed to be impossible."
Vanca felt a surge of relief. Praise the Maker, Faungo actually understands! "Yes... but it does match the theoretical behaviour of the Creation Stones."
"There are stories... from when the servitors were created," the Strategist began.
"The last recorded use of the Stones, yes."
Indutu looked from one to the other, confused. The Strategist took pity on him. "The Academician thinks she has created a way to replicate the power of the Stones."
Indutu blinked, momentarily stunned. "That changes everything," he whispered. Then, in a firm voice. "What does the Academician need?"
"Immediate recovery of the servitor, or more likely its corpse, and any witnesses."
"Do it," the Councillor said to the Strategist. Then, turning his gaze to the Academician; "Vanca believes it is dead?"
Vanca waggled her paw. "It seems probable. The veterinarian on site used a mercy wand. Even so, an autopsy would be of great value. A live subject would be easier to work with, but the tests Vanca has in mind would result in its euthanisation eventually." The areas of the brain responsible for magic control were well understood; direct electrical stimulation would make the rest of the brain unnecessary. She looked at the Strategist, who had just finished speaking to someone out of camera view. "How long will it take?"
The Strategist smiled tightly. "Vanca's little test subject lit up every thaumatoloical sensor on this side of the planet. Everything Lacunae has is moving, as are our neighbour's strategic assets. If there isn't an attack carrier at the site by now, Faungo will want to know why."