//------------------------------// // Sonata // Story: Spark // by Fyn16 //------------------------------// Sonata The piece was beautiful, a flowing, melodic chorus of instruments in perfect time. High strings trilled, and the lower-octave sounds filled the music with a deep, but inviting warm thrum, and all the while the conductor drove the band on, not urging, but guiding the musicians as they continued. In Octavia’s mind’s eye, this was a reality. The truth, though, was that she was nearing the end of day two on this accursed airship, and she was still locked in solitary confinement. Her captors were becoming less hostile, of course, but tensions were still high. With nopony to talk to, Octavia had resorted to composing music in her head, a tactic which made a surprisingly effective distraction. If only I had a pen and paper, she thought as she finished a particularly complex concerto. It was a talent of hers- composing music. Most ponies assumed that her treble clef cutie mark had been earned simply because of her skill with instruments, but in truth, Octavia was an excellent composer as well. Perhaps it was because of this that she could at least tolerate this isolation. As she lay back on the floor, the door creaked open and a very tired-looking pony walked in with a plate of biscuits. “Dinner,” he said gruffly. Octavia sighed. “Thank you, as always.” The pony said nothing, as Octavia had come to expect, and turned around, closing the door behind him. Any second now, the lock would click and Octavia would be on her own again. She eyed her dinner with relative distaste. Having the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for two days straight was hardly appetizing. Still, it was better than eating nothing, so… She paused, one biscuit halfway to her mouth. Something was off- the lock hadn’t clicked. It had to be some kind of trick. There was no way her captor would willingly leave her door unlocked. The practical side of her mind told her to stay where she was and eat her meal, but part of her also saw a chance at escape, or at least an attempt at calling for a rescue. Curiosity eventually got the best of her. Octavia set down her cold biscuit and headed for the door. Slowly, quietly, Octavia pushed the door open. She winced as the metal hinges creaked, and paused for a moment. Then she went to work once more, inching the door open just slightly enough to peek through the crack. There was nopony outside. Even though night had cast its shadow over the airship, Octavia could see down the small hallway quite clearly. She opened the door a little more, looked both ways down the hall, and stepped out. A chill ran down her spine- she was, at least for the moment, free. A moment like this wasn’t going to last- Octavia knew that. Sooner or later somepony would realize that her door had been left unsecured. With that in mind, she grabbed a saddlebag from the wall and draped it over her, covering her cutie mark and erasing her most identifying feature. The airship traveled under blackout conditions, to avoid being seen by any watchful ponies on the ground, and Octavia would have to rely on this if she was caught. From a distance, in the dark, it was possible she could pass as one of the Awakening. Deciding that it would be best to simply not find out, Octavia crept up the stairs to the main deck. The trapdoor opened flawlessly, with barely a perceptible creak. Sighing in relief, Octavia clambered out of the hatch and up into the starry night. She paused for a moment, watching in awe as the Sol passed through a puffy, white cloud. It was majestic, inspiring, and… concealing? The musician watched as the cloud overtook the deck. She could barely see her own hooves in front of her. Nature was on her side tonight, it seemed. As quickly and quietly as possible, Octavia made her way towards the control bridge. She had an idea- one of the points that had been stressed during the safety presentation she’d received before setting hoof on the Sol was that the main cabin always had backup radios in case of a communications failure. All of the radios had emergency frequencies listed on them, and one of them would be just small enough to easily conceal in her “cell.” If she could manage to smuggle one back with her, calling for a rescue would be simple. It was only a few hoofsteps to the control bridge, but utter stealth would be required, something Octavia wasn’t sure she was ready for. Gathering every ounce of courage she could muster, she stepped towards the entrance to the bridge, sticking as close to the wall as possible. Two Awakening ponies passed by above, on the observation deck, but Octavia forced herself to keep moving. If she stopped, or ceased to act natural, the entire escape would be for nothing. Nopony was on the stairs leading up to the bridge, and the door was ajar. She peeked inside and immediately drew her head back in. She hadn’t considered there would be a pony at the controls. Mentally reprimanding herself, she considered her options- she could go below deck and forget about the whole plan, or she could continue on and hope she wasn’t spotted. Stealing one more quick glance, Octavia made up her mind. The pony at the controls was fixated on his route. If she was lucky, he’d never even know she was there. Taking a deep breath, Octavia carefully and quietly tiptoed into the room. The radios were on a wall right behind the pony. Carefully, she reached towards the first radio she could see… “Hey, what’s going on?” the pony asked nonchalantly. Octavia froze in her tracks, every instinct telling her to run. Instead, she turned her back to the other pony. “Grabbing one of these radios,” she said, trying to make her voice just a bit lower in case her voice was recognized, “Silky Sunset said they might need one.” “Sounds good,” the pony said, sighing, “for a moment there, I thought I was being relieved of my post. Can you let her know I’ve been up here for the past five hours?” “I’ll tell her,” Octavia said. “Excellent. Night cloak you, sister.” Octavia winced. There had better not be some specific response to this, she thought. “And you as well, brother,” she said, trotting out as quickly and quietly as possible with the radio. She made it down to the main deck when an all-too-familiar voice startled her. “Raven Wing, get some sleep. I’ll take your post now.” Risking a glance back, Octavia saw Silky Sunset emerge from the Captain’s cabin and approach a Pegasus on the deck of the gondola. The pony nodded gratefully and exchanged a few hushed words before heading towards the sleeping quarters. Seeing her chance, Octavia darted into the trapdoor and tried her best to close the hatch as quietly as possible. She watched through the gradually diminishing crack between the door and the deck as Sunset took in the night sky. She hadn’t turned around, and most importantly, had no idea that the trapdoor was closing. As the dim light of the crack finally died out, Octavia let it drop slightly, the old wood eliciting a light groan. Not wanting to wait around to find out if the noise was noticed, she bolted back to the storage room and shut the door, leaving it unlocked. The sound of approaching hoofsteps sent her into a panic. She could pretend to be asleep, of course, pretend she was never aware of the unlocked door, but… the saddlebag! In her haste, she’d forgotten to hang the saddlebag she’d taken back up. Quickly, Octavia looked around the room. The hoofsteps were still approaching, and were almost at the trapdoor. She’d have no time to bring it back out to the hallway, but there were a few empty boxes in the storage room. Acting quickly, Octavia threw down the radio and saddlebag, and covered them up with one such box just as the trapdoor outside opened and the hoofsteps transitioned to the stairs. Wasting no time, Octavia collapsed to the floor and shut her eyes, forcing her breathing to slow down. She lay still, barely daring to breathe as the door to her room opened. There was silence for a few seconds, then the voice of Silky Sunset spoke. “Idiots,” she sighed, “can’t lock up a simple door…” the hoofsteps started towards Octavia, then stopped. “At least you’re still here.” She sighed, then Octavia heard a rustling that she could only assume was Sunset sitting down. “I guess since you’re asleep, I don’t lose any credibility for saying this, but… you were right the other day. I don’t know the first thing about leading these ponies; I was meant to follow orders, not give them. Am I even doing the right thing here? I don’t know, but I’ve started us on this journey and I don’t have a choice. I can’t just turn this airship around. I never wanted to keep you and your friends here, but my companions have expectations of me now. I can’t just throw those out the window. That’s not what scares me, though. What scares me is that a month ago, I thought Celestia and Luna were the biggest threats to this country. Now, I’m not so sure. Part of me thinks… we are.” There was another long sigh, followed by the sound of Sunset standing up again. “Just listen to me,” she said, “if you could actually hear me now, everything would be ruined. I don’t even know where I was going with this. I’m going back outside. Maybe seeing that beautiful night sky will reinforce my old beliefs.” Octavia wanted desperately to sit up, to say that she heard everything and understood completely, but she couldn’t. Even when the hoofsteps left the room and the door closed, she couldn’t, because the fact remained that Sunset was her captor, and she was a hostage. Even if the Awakening’s leader could be convinced to help her and the other hostages, the rest of the Awakening on the airship would quickly put a stop to any rebellion. Calling for help was still the best option. Once she was sure that nopony was outside the room, Octavia removed the radio from beneath the box and pressed the transmit button. She was almost surprised to find that it actually worked. Spurred on by her success so far, she ran down the list of frequencies until she came down to one labeled as a Manehattan ground response emergency frequency. Quickly she tuned the radio to it. All that remained was getting the message across… … Colonel Cloudsplitter rubbed her tired eyes as she munched on some relatively tasteless peanuts. It was the second late night at the squadron building in a row, and she was starting to feel the effects. Things were looking up for Nimbus and Storm Runner, though. They’d made contact with Bright Future and were already less than a day away from the Badlands. What worried her, however, was what might happen to the two when they inevitably came into contact with the Sol. As Aviators, they were capable of defending themselves, but Cloudsplitter hardly wanted an airship full of dead hostages on her hooves. They would need a way to neutralize the Awakening threat, and right now that task fell to her. As she munched a few more peanuts, the radio on her desk squawked to life. She immediately turned up the volume and slid it closer. “…transmitting from Sol… emergency frequency…” Cloudsplitter grabbed the radio and replied instantly. “All channels, I’ll take this.” After receiving an affirmative from the Manehattan police and fire departments, Cloudsplitter fine-tuned the radio to clear up the transmission. “Caller from Sol, please repeat.” “Hello? Oh thank Celestia… I’m on the Sol- the airship that was taken hostage two days ago. Who am I speaking with?” “I’m an operative commanding a rescue mission for your airship,” Cloudsplitter replied, “you can refer to me as callsign Cicada.” “I can’t give my real name- I don’t know who’s listening,” the voice replied, “but you can refer to me as ‘Sonata.’ All of the hostages are alive, but I don’t know where we are. How soon is your team coming for us?” “Calm down, Sonata,” Cloudsplitter radioed back, “they are en route as we speak, but I need to know where you are. Our operatives need to be able to get in and rescue you and the others without putting you into unnecessary danger. Do you understand the seriousness of this situation?” “Yes, of… of course.” “Good,” Cloudsplitter said, sliding a diagram of the Sol onto her desk, “then listen carefully- remember the control bridge? The place where you found the radio, I’d assume?” “Yes,” Octavia replied, “but if you’re asking me to go up there, that’s not possible. I only got out because somepony left my door unlocked.” “Right…” said Cloudsplitter, “well, I need you to find a way to get out again. The best way for our operatives to find you is to track the Sol’s transponder. It’s a device that uses radio signals to report the airship’s position, and right now it’s turned off. We need you to turn it on.” “I’m sure I can find another way to get back up to the bridge, but what am I looking for exactly?” Cloudsplitter consulted her papers again, specifically one that detailed the panel layout. “Next to the control wheel is a radio display. At the side of the display is a yellow switch marked ‘emergency.’ The switch turns the emergency transponder on. Even if it’s only on for a second, we can pick up the signal and track your location.” “I’ll see what I can do,” Octavia responded, “I’m sorry, but I have to go now. I think I hear a patrol coming.” “Sit tight- we’ll get you out of there,” Cloudsplitter said, closing the transmission. As soon as she was sure Sonata was through speaking, she tuned the radio back to Nimbus and Storm Runner’s frequency. The Aviators would need to know what she had just heard. Tomorrow, if everything was to go according to plan, the attack on the Sol could begin.