//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: EXECUTIONER ONE // by Hurgusburgus //------------------------------// Griffons were, by nature, proud and fierce. Above all, they valued honor, courage and martial prowess. With this mindset, they obviously valued might over knowledge – in comparison to other countries' militaries, they were rather simplistic, but they made up for it with a will of steel and unmatched discipline. As history will often prove, griffons were both likely allies and enemies, and any truces or alliances established with them are shaky and tenuous at best. Equestrians had clashed with Griffon Empire on several occasions in the past, and had proved to be worthy foes – the griffons' military strength was matched by Equestria's magically-adept forces. In the present, the relationships between the two heavyweight states of Equis are lukewarm at most times. Neither side tried diplomacy with much enthusiasm because all knew the attempts would fail very quickly. Which is why Celestia regarded the small scroll of parchment laying on her desk with utter contempt. A group of griffons had noticed Executioner One crossing the border into Equestria. And now, she had received a letter from the Griffon Embassy, telling her she'd have a guest – the Emperor himself. Even though the letter said 'requests', she knew it was pointless to decline – he'd just show up with a bunch of his guards instead. Telling him to get his feathery rear back to his throne probably wouldn't help, either. Thus, the beleaguered diarch heaved a great sigh and summoned a maid, instructing her to prepare one of the guest rooms. If that pompous old bird was still the same, she'd need aspirin. Lots and lots of aspirin. Executioner One lumbered across the ground, the tops of the tallest Ponyville's buildings soon coming into its visual range. A positive feedback ran through its systems at the notion of its mission nearly accomplished. It diverted more power to its drivetrains, picking its pace up some. The horns blared loudly, a deep, sonorous note echoing far and wide, followed by a lower, one. Some of Ponyville's on-duty weatherponies took note of this and darted off to the town to deliver the news of the machine's imminent arrival. In a matter of minutes, a sizeable crowd had accumulated, perched on the roofs of buildings or vacant trees. The huge machine had been gone for a while, and some of Ponyville's inhabitants had become worried by its absence. Now, how, however, as they watched its blackened, soot-covered bulk slowly shuffle into everypony's view, they cheered – whatever the Elements had asked its help for had obviously been taken care of. As the mech's passengers disembarked, the cheering doubled – some of the captives had friends or relatives in Ponyville – to say they were delighted to see each other again would be an understatement. Executioner One stood nearby, unmoving, its trapped intelligence observing the unfolding scene with a certain degree of happiness – although it was made for war, it was also a guardian, meant to protect those who couldn't do so themselves. In a small way, the broken mainframe was actually tolerable. Graaak~ Correct that. Tolerable to a degree. A surge of energy brought its attention to the ball of light popping into existence a ways off from the crowd. When the light faded away, it revealed one Princess Celestia. Immediately, everyone bowed to her. Even the mech inclined its hull slightly towards the alicorn – in the absence of any ranking Coalition or Imperial officers, it had decided on registering Celestia as the highest figure of authority for the time being. Celestia smiled kindly and turned to look at the Elements of Harmony, then the rescued ponies before returning her attention to Twilight. “I presume your mission was successful, then.” Twilight chuckled sheepishly at that. “Yeah, I guess you could say that... We can go over the details at the library, if you'd like to.” “Of course. There has been a new development that should be explained to you as well.” “Oh, my. It's nothing bad, is it?” Fluttershy muttered, worry clear in her voice, and Celestia sighed softly, pondering that question for a couple of moments, eyeing Executioner One levelly. “That remains to be seen...” The interior of Golden Oaks Library appealed to Celestia's senses – it was tidy and in order, with nothing out of place. If there was one thing Twilight was exceptionally good at, it was organising things. As the unicorn in question had once said – 'I'm OCD like that.' The memory made the alicorn's mouth twist in a brief smile before she sat down on a free cushion and coughed softly, bringing everypony else's attention to her. “Now, then. How did the rescue mission go?” She hummed to herself, a hopeful smile on her face as Twilight and her friends retold of what happened on their trek. She'd hoped it had gone flawlessly. No chance, Lance. Her small smile shrunk with every passing sentence as Executioner's actions were brought into light. Oh, no. Oh no no no no no... By Faust, no... WHY. She would have called this to be a trick of Discord, were he not encased in stone. The mech was clearly just a diplomatic incident waiting to happen, nonetheless. Zebras and Saddle Arabians were the nations she was on better terms with, but minotaurs and gryphons... Oy, what a can of worms. The biggest, wormiest, canniest, er... can. She sighed deeply and rubbed her face, then looked at Twilight dourly. “Well, I suppose there's nothing any of us can do about it, then. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, I suppose. For now, however, we need to prepare for a different sort of trouble – gryphons know Executioner One is in Equestria. The Emperor himself is going to arrive here. I suspect his reasons are more than mere curiosity, so we should remain on our guard. Twilight, I want you to talk to our automaton friend, and ensure there are no further incidents.” The purple unicorn nodded and trotted off. Celestia stood up and sighed again. “I could really use a bubble bath right now...” Rarity perked up at that and spoke up. “W-well, the Ponyville spa is open at this time. They offer exquisite services, and for reasonable prices, if that would satisfy you, Your Highness.” Celestia cocked her head sideways and hummed. “That does sound rather appealing. Come on, then. Let us forget the world's problems for today and spoil ourselves!” She smiled and stood up, motioning the five mares after her. Pinkie Pie was the first to join. Others followed suit, encouraged by the pink mare's enthusiasm. Twilight hummed to herself, eagerly drinking in the information displayed on the screen – after she'd laid more rules down concerning the impending visit of the gryphon emperor, she learned more about the beings who were the cornerstone of Empire's military, the most highly disciplined fighting force at their disposal – The clone legionnaires of Ortalia. Their beginnings can be traced thousands of years into past, when a great war was sparked between the two meganations of Ortalia. The reasons have long been forgotten and the archives holding the relevant data were incinerated by nuclear firestorms ages ago, but whatever caused the conflict erased any chance of diplomacy between the belligerents as they brought nuclear winter upon their world in mere weeks. Once surface became uninhabitable, they constructed massive underground bunkers. Their space capabilities were limited to orbital bombardments and intercepting hostile payloads. Even as their populations dwindled into nothingness, they refused to end the fighting, instead creating clones to fight in their stead. Eventually, their creators also died – with nothing else left to do, the clones kept warring across the wasteland of their once prosperous world. Upon the brink of their extinction, they were discovered by an expeditionary fleet of then-expanding Asahi Empire. Though the Asahi were cautious of the clones' single-minded war, they saw great potential in them. Against all odds, they unified the remnants of clones, ending their incredibly destructive war and set about making Ortalia habitable once more – as requested by the clone leader, it was restored to be barely habitable, claiming the wastelands would be prime trainings ground for troops, Ortalian or not. With the resources of Empire freely available, they rebuilt the clone legions into the fearsome troops they are now – standing at three metres tall, four arms and six eyes, decked out in the heaviest armour and weapons a single legionnaire can carry, they are an intimidating sight even to the most hardened of veterans. Numerous secondary and tertiary organs ensure greater damage threshold, and cerebral implants are capable of saving a copy of a legionnaire's mind and retrieve it to be installed into a new body – therefore, while they may lose soldiers in combat, their experience can be recovered. In this manner, combined with the incredibly rigorous training on their homeworld, they have created the best soldiers around, ones that will never retreat or surrender until they have achieved either victory or death. Twilight leaned back slightly from the screen, watching the video displayed there, utterly enthralled – hundreds, no, thousands upon thousands of clone soldiers took up positions in a huge multi-tiered trench, complete with blindages, pillboxes, and all manners of turrets. Behind them, lines of their combat vehicles deployed – high-calibre assault guns, anti-tank guns, mortars, howitzers, minethrowers... The entirety of this arsenal was aimed at what seemed like a carpet of teeth, claws, eyes and chitinous bodies that rushed towards the entrenchments. Shadows fell across the fortifications and the purple unicorn's breath caught a little in her throat at the large, ponderous machines lining up their shots at the seething mass. By some unheard order, the longest-reaching weapons opened up in a thunderous rhythm, carving wide swathes across the stampeding Brood, but the gaps were quickly filled up by the overabundance of drones charging towards the fortifications. As they closed their distance, more and more weapons opened up, until it was a wall of energy projectiles and bullets scything down the hostile aliens that charged heedlessly right into the killzone. A curious thought popped into her mind and she toyed with the interface, zooming out, and saw that it was not a single isolated battle – the planet was literally divided in two, circled by a huge trench system. She zoomed out and stared in silent awe at the warship squadrons moving to secure the locations that had no troop presense, namely the oceans and seas. And to think this is happening every day and I didn't even suspect... The unicorn wondered to herself. A couple of moments passed before she decided to focus more on less-unnerving topics from now on. The idea of evil, hungry space bugs that wanted to eat your planet wasn't very nice, in all honesty, and she scrolled idly through the list of available files... Kselmar Highway Liguria The Rebel Queen strode through the heavy downpour, her rugged boots letting her maintain a steady pace as she forged onwards. Most people would struggle to keep up with her. Then again, most people didn't possess muscle tissue three times normal density and durability. Or maybe they weren't her aide, who kept deftly jumping across the giant rents in the once perfectly smooth nanoasphalt – Vasari had bombed the ever-loving shit out of the roads. The trench coats kept them dry and relatively warm. Soon, they reached a small Rebel outpost – upon seeing her, the troops there stood up, ramrod straight as they abandoned what they were doing. They slammed a fist over their hearts and spoke as one. “My Queen!” Lieia eyed them levelly, before giving a slight nod. “At ease, men. Just passing through, to the Site.” The Site had become the unofficial moniker of the location where they'd lost Executioner One. Despite this disastrous and odd event, they had managed to utterly crush the Vasari opposition nonetheless. The soldiers nodded and sat down, huddling around a pair of portable field stoves and she and her aide continued onwards – she took note of the salvaged Vasari emplacement weapons and sighed inwardly – the Rebel supply lines were stretched precariously thin, and even though the occasional defector ship would arrive with a modicum of supplies, they'd be gone in a matter of hours. They needed to get that starbase in Alioth system up, immediately. With that sector secured, their mining flotillas could move in and secure the precious metals for further refinery and thus, acquire sorely-needed resources for their fleet repairs – most of their warships were kept running with abundant amounts of snot, duct tape, tears and prayers, so to speak. Even the mighty Ragnarov Titan, her dread-inspiring flagship, Deliverance was in need of repairs, and with munitions reserves running low, she had issued an order to only restock its magazines to quarter capacity, letting the rest of its ammo be recycled into something the rest of Rebel ships could use. A warship more than a hundred kilometres long made a pretty damn good battering ram, after all. But, if they were able to secure Alioth system, she could assemble a battlegroup and raid a Loyalist supply depot at Karlstad and alleviate the situation to a degreeMy Queen? Hm? “My Queen? We are here.” The young man intoned politely, drawing the tall woman's gaze to him. Coughing quietly, he continued, pulling out his dataslate, and began to tap away at it, avoiding his superior's gaze – it had been such an honor she'd chosen him as her assistant, but her eyes always scared him. “The Site, huh?” “Indeed, My Queen.” I really got to stop everyone calling me like that. I'm no damn queen. Her gaze drifted across the waterlogged muck – the ground had been churned into thick mud by the legs, wheels and feet of men, vehicles and mechs. Note to self: have some insta-crete laid down. If everyone wades through this shit, they're going to get bogged down big time. A small collection of flags and antennae wavered in the rain a ways off, marking the spot where Executioner One had ceased to exist. Nearby, a group of Linebackers trudged past, clad in their power armor and toting chainsaw halberds, singing something loud and she smiled for a moment – a genuine smile, not the barely-concealed facades she'd had to make use of lately. The Linebackers were reckless, bold, and brave, throwing themselves from one battle into another – their parties were the loudest, the damage in said parties' aftermath was the greatest... But when you needed to absolutely thrash something, they were your go-to men and women. Her eyes experienced a brief jolt of pain and she saw her sight magnify as she noticed someone familiar – an old friend of hers, an Asli by the name of Naela'Sholas. The alien was herding a group of Vasari prisoners down the ruined highway. She was a rare one – very few used to take prisoners nowadays. But Naela was an Asli – kindness came to them as naturally as breathing. A trio of her serpent-tailed waterkin slithered past in the mud, holding sharp composite spears, clad in light armor. They seemed to be the only ones enjoying the rain. She returned her attention to her aide. “So, is there anything out scientists are able to shed light on?” Regretfully, the young man shook his head. “No, My Queen. The energy readings are scarce and not enough to come to a conclusion.” His datapad flashed once and he blinked in surprise before looking back at her. “We've... we've received a ping from Executioner One. Happened ten minutes ago. Faint, but the signal signature is unmistakable. The rest of Xalathii present are convinced it's still operational. Even though they didn't have enough time to narrow down it's position properly, they have a rough estimate – Kaylsto's Abyss.” Lieia let out another inward groan. Kaylsto's Abyss. The ass end of fucking nowhere. Perfect. “Well, do they have any idea what's it doing, floating in deep space?” The aide shook his head again. “No, My Queen. Phasing to Kaylsto's Abyss would take two months, at the minimum. And combing through a nebula-” “-will take even longer, yeah.” The supreme Rebel leader sighed heavily before straightening out. “Well, then. Let's see if we can find something at the Site. Maybe we'll have more luck than others, hmm?” She began to walk, simmering in annoyance at the mech's current whereabouts. “At once, My Queen.” The aide nodded and followed her, humming to himself. No rest for the wicked, it seemed.