//------------------------------// // Chapter VI: The Descent // Story: The Conversion Bureau: Setting Things Right // by kildeez //------------------------------// -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0550 HOURS THE HMS ILLUSTRIOUS NORTH SEA, OFF THE NORWEGIAN COASTLINE, BOUND FOR KARELIA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David turned over restlessly in his seat. It was obvious that the AW101 he was flying in had not been built with comfort in mind, but then, what did he honestly expect from a military chopper? Gold plated armrests and a tuxedoed man with a French accent to wait on him? "I swear, this wouldn't be so bad if they’d allowed us to hold on to our damned luggage," Andre grumbled, brushing a few locks of blonde hair out of his eyes. “They didn’t have to take freakin’ everything!” Well, okay, they had Andre. He was French: that was something! Maybe he could ask the guy to deck himself out in a tux and serve them all drinks at some point, Lord knows the others would gladly approve of the old stereotype of a French waiter. Hell, Andre might even agree to it as a favor of sorts! Yeah, sure, right after he finished punching him in the face and asking if that "goddamn Kraut" had put him up to this. Maybe that was one idea he could just let pass. As David wondered around in his thoughts, Anton grinned and reached into his flight jacket, adjusting the shoulder harness holding him to his seat just enough to reach in and pull out the flask he'd been drinking out of during the flight. He held it up like a gold trophy at a sporting event, a grin of victory plastered across his face. “They did not take everything, little ones.” "Oh my God," David gasped, Anton's grin spreading to his face. "Don't tell me you seriously did the stereotypical Russian thing and worked like hell to save your booze!?" "Some stereotypes are there for good reason, mine yankee-doodle tovaricsh," The Russian replied, taking a swig from the flask before handing it to Felipe. "Drink up, everyone. I have a feeling we'll need it." Though it was obvious the young Brazilian wanted nothing to do with it, Felipe uncapped the small, silver flask and tilted it down his throat, wincing and coughing violently, but managing to keep it all down as he passed the flask on with a painful smile plastered on his face. Yeah kid, I'm not feeling it either, Dave thought even as he took a swig himself. As expected, the drink burnt the entire way down, feeling more like acid than anything alcoholic, but a second later the familiar tingle of being warmed from the inside out washed over his body, radiating out from his chest. His face morphed from a distasteful grimace to a contented sigh, and he passed the flask on to the next person waiting for a drink. He turned his head, peeking out the round window built into the chopper’s side. The Illustrious, once a long blip on the horizon, now dominated the view. He could even make out the rows of fighters parked on deck, all with little, ant-like dots racing around them, working furiously. “Nothing like a threat to all humanity to get the military’s collective rear in gear,” he muttered, and it wasn’t just the British. Off in the distance, he could make out at least half a dozen more black dots representing warships, probably American, Norwegian and Russian, all hanging out just over the horizon. No doubt a couple dozen other nations would be joining them soon. “Davey?” He turned to see his Russian counterpart standing there, having slipped out of his harness, holding his flask out to Dave’s face. “There’s still a little left. The others thought you should have it.” David did a quick scan of the faces around him. Every one of them shared a variation of the same puckered lips and scrunched-up noses, as if they’d all just had to watch a toddler eat one of its own boogers. Even Liu, the only man ever to drink him under a table, had the corners of his mouth turned down in distaste. The American smiled and accepted the final few sips gladly, this time releasing only a contented sigh aimed in the Chinese diplomat’s direction, much to the man’s obvious chagrin. He handed the flask back and kept that smile up until the helicopter touched down, when he used the sudden bump to let loose with a massive gag capped off with a cough. “Pussy,” Anton snickered, apparently having kept his eyes on David the entire time, just gripping the overhead support struts to stay on his feet. “No, just not used to drinking turpentine, is all,” Dave spat back, feeling a surprising amount of satisfaction at the grimace that earned from the Russian. The rear hatch dropped open and a pair of men in flight uniforms with the Union Jack stitched to the arm ducked inside. One of them took a quick look around, then turned to Anton. “You guys are the diplomats?” “Who wants to know?” The Russian replied, keeping a steely glare on the pair. “Who wants…Her Majesty’s Navy, that’s who!” Anton gave him a look as if to say Is that supposed to impress me? But he followed up with a quick, curt nod, which the soldier was more than happy to accept as a yes. “Follow us,” the other soldier said, and the pair jogged out of the chopper and waited on the tarmac, turning back to the group as the blades whipped the wind up all around them. The diplomats quickly shrugged off their harnesses and went after them, thudding down the ramp and onto the deck of the Illustrious as one, marching together in perfect step without a second thought. The men in camo led the group away from the helipad and back towards the bridge, jogging past men loading up weapons, performing systems tests, and rushing equipment from one part of the landing strip to the next. A civilian might have been impressed by the sheer effort being expended for a war that hadn’t even occurred yet, but Dave kept his mind focused, his eyes on the massive tower jutting out from the otherwise flat landing strip. He hadn’t always been a civilian, after all, and it was easy to fall right back into that old line of thinking from his days as a marine, back during a time when he’d stood on the deck of a carrier not too unlike this, when…when… God above…Christ alive…don’t tell me that’s her! Please, Jesus Christ almighty… He shook the memory off, shoving it right back down to the furthest reaches of his mind, as far from the light of day as he could bury it. There was a time and a place to deal with shit like that, and now wasn’t one of them. Problem was, as a psychiatrist might have found, it had been neither that time nor that place for the past five years. He had just about finished shoving the memory back into the hellish pit from which it came when the group reached the tower. A large, steel door was opened for them, and they all ducked inside, panting with the quick jog they’d been treated to, though not as heavily as one might think a bunch of diplomats would pant. The soldiers stood at attention next to a door at the far side of the small, metal room the diplomats found themselves in, standing ramrod straight and in complete silence. “Well, nothing like a brisk jog to get the old heart movin’,” Lisa joked once she’d caught her breath. Which was just before I did, David noticed, she must jog. Well, I guess, duh, with a body like that. “Speak for…yourself…Limey…” Anton huffed, his hand reaching for his coat out of habit, then pausing when he remembered the pair of men watching them. “Cripes…haven’t done that in a while.” “Yeah, and it shows, tovarisch,” Liu joked. “Shove it up your ass.” “Atten-SHUN!” The soldiers cried, somehow standing even straighter than they had been. David had to force the urge to follow suit back down, not wanting to explain why he was standing in the perfect posture drilled into him by the Marine Corps to the rest of the group. In a few moments, the door between the soldiers squeaked open, and through it stepped a large man in the pure-white uniform of an admiral, and again David had to suppress the urge to salute. Foreign navy or not, the uniform of an admiral, especially one as highly-maintained and decorated as this guy’s, was an impressive sight. The Admiral surveyed the group with a pair of weathered, old eyes, set beneath a cap that only revealed a few strands of red hair that had escaped beneath its brim. He would be the perfect stereotype of an old sea commander if he just had a massive set of whiskers, but nope: his broad chin was as clean as a baby’s bottom, to David’s semi-disappointment. When he spoke, it was with an old, gravelly rasp combined with his British accent, making him sound like the sort of guy who sat alone in the corner of a pub, just daring someone to start something. “Hello, and I am Admiral Peters,” the gravelly rasp said. “You lot are the UNCDI reps for the Isles?” “That’s correct, sir,” Lisa said in a timid little tone that, to Dave at least, fit her about as well as clogs on a duck. She offered her hand, which the Admiral took with a firm shake, causing everyone in the room to release a collective breath they didn’t know they’d been holding. “I’m Lisa Townshend, for London, and these are my associates from each of the other Security Council nations.” Those weathered eyes scanned them, seeming to pierce right into each person’s soul as they passed over. They dwelt on Anton for a moment, the Russian returning the look, each man just looking at one another. Not glaring, per se, but more like sizing the other up. Then the Admiral moved on to David. “You the Yank?” He asked. “Uh…yes sir,” Dave said, a bit taken aback that he’d been pointed out so quickly and with such ease. In a flash, he had the image of the Admiral having him thrown overboard because of some deep-seated grudge with Americans that nobody dared question. But the Admiral simply nodded, a quick thank you for offering up a simple fact, nothing more. Then he turned to step back through the door he’d walked in through, his hands folded neatly behind his back. “Try t’keep up,” the old navy man said. He didn’t have to repeat himself. The group was practically on top of him, remaining at his back as they walked at a pace just barely slower than the jog they’d just been put through. Their heels all tapped on the metal plating, the Admiral keeping the pace up as they rushed past rows of closed doors with muffled voices coming from inside, some jovial, some argumentative, a few obviously drunk. “Sir,” Lisa said, remaining at the Admiral’s side. “If I may be so bold…” “No questions.” The Admiral said briskly. “I’ll tell you when you can ask, but not here. Too many ears.” Lisa looked a bit surprised at his quick admonition, but nodded and kept pace with him, keeping her eyes locked straight ahead and her mouth shut, all the while allowing the men a decent look of her behind as it swayed in front of them all, like a carrot at the end of a string. Even Dave couldn’t help but chance a couple quick glances from the bottoms of his eyes while keeping his chin raised. The Admiral led them to a large freight elevator and swiped a keycard, produced from one of his many pockets. Then he removed his hat and leaned in as a retinal scanner worked over his eyeball, which revealed a numeric keypad from a small slot in the wall, into which he entered a long, impossible-to-follow code. At last, a section of the wall next to the freight elevator opened up with a pneumatic hiss, revealing yet another elevator. “Clever,” Franz remarked. The Admiral didn’t even look over his shoulder, only stepping into the elevator with the full expectation that the group would be right behind him. He wasn’t disappointed. Once they had all crowded together, the Admiral pressed a large, red button on the far wall and the door slid shut. The elevator jerked once and began the long descent into the deeper underbelly of the ship, machinery humming away somewhere beneath them. “I apologize for my brashness,” the Admiral said. “Time is of the essence, however, and military protocol strictly prohibits me from discussing this matter someplace where there could be even a chance of eavesdroppers.” “And this elevator qualifies because…” Dave said. “Of the amount of money we poured into making this entire part of the ship just that sort of place,” the Admiral replied, a knowing smile on his face. “I’d go into details, but then I would have to kill you.” “Sir,” Lisa interrupted, again in the uncharacteristic, mousy tone. David couldn’t say he cared for it, deciding right then and there to bring it up with her at some point. “If I may be so bold, what is this all about? We were taken from our headquarters rather abruptly, and nobody seems willing to divulge any answers, especially in the face of the…uh…the anomaly.” Sure. Anomaly. That was a fair enough name for it. Dave might have gone with “harbinger of man’s doom,” but that was just him. “The anomaly is exactly why we’re here,” the Admiral explained. “As I’m sure you lot have already been made aware, an SAS platoon was on maneuvers off the Isle of Man when the new portal appeared.” Anton nodded once again, as curtly as he had before, and the Englishman took this as a sign to continue. “Well, that platoon managed to get their hands on some Tachyon Inhibitors and subsequently launched a top-secret raid into the other side.” “Oh my God…” David gasped, along with the rest of the group. “What did they find!?” The Admiral sighed, peeling off his hat and running his fingers through his thinning hair. “There is no simple way to put this,” he explained. “So I’ll keep it brief: the SAS managed to capture this other Equestria’s version of Target Alpha.” The elevator fell into stunned silence. “The Princess of Day…” Chen muttered in a tiny, childish voice. Everyone recognized the Princess’s old codename on the International Court’s most wanted list. Chen followed up with a long, mumbled string of curses in his native Han. “Y-you’re serious,” Anton stammered, his eyes wide. The Admiral nodded, this time throwing in a smile that lit up his whole face. “I am.” A loud thump filled the room as Franz’s eyes rolled back in his skull and his body slammed into the floor. Felipe stooped to help him up, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Thank you…” an uncharacteristically small voice said. Lisa again, keeping herself supported with one of the rails lining the elevator’s walls. “Thank Jesus…Thank Christ! Oh, thank you, thank you,” she cried out in relief, sinking to her knees, sobbing the words over and over again. Anton was the first to reach her, patting her back as she bawled into the stainless steel floor. Everybody understood. It was one thing to know the evil bitch was scheming thousands of miles away from your home, but when your entire country was under threat? Especially considering what she had done the last time, just when humanity thought they had been on the verge of beating her? That was something else altogether. Lisa had just gone from wondering if her home would be a radioactive wasteland tomorrow to knowing it would be safe for another day in less than twenty-four hours. “Oh my God,” Andre gasped, looking up at the Admiral. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? This is where you’re keeping her.” “For the time being,” the Admiral shrugged. “Mother FUCK!” David yelled, suddenly snapping out of his stupor. “She’s here!? On this ship!? Why aren’t we evacuating and nuking her from orbit, then!?” “Relax, kid. We have enough Tachyon Inhibitors on her to fight the Collision Wars all over again. We could keep both her and the original Celestia locked up here, and they’d still be about as powerful as a gnat. In fact, we are sort of doing that right now.” The whole group exchanged looks. “What do you mean by that?” Anton asked, ever the fearless leader. “There was something else,” the Admiral sighed, twirling his cap on one finger. “The SAS squad that captured the Princess captured another Alicorn.” “Jesus…” Andre moaned. “That can happen? There can be more than one at a time?” The Admiral nodded. “It seems as though our Celestia wasn’t entirely honest with us, or with her own people. Big surprise there.” “That’s where we’re going,” Andre mused, his face suddenly growing pale. An inane look crossed his face, a sudden smile that David found all too unsettling. When he spoke again, his accent became almost stereotypically thick, as if what he had learned had turned him into a cartoon version of himself. “We’re going to see ze pretty pony pwincess.” The Admiral nodded. “You lot are supposed to be the experts on international relations and how these four-legged bastards are supposed to react to us. You’re probably the only people in the entire European sphere even remotely qualified to deal with this.” “That’s an utterly terrifying thought,” Dave muttered dryly. “So, who gets to chat up the evil, genocidal, bitch?” “We’ve decided on that, actually: the Princess appears to possess the capability of English-speaking, much like the ponies of the first Equestria could speak Mandarin immediately upon entering our world.” “Actually, it was simplified Han,” Liu put in. The Admiral waved him off and continued. “It’s obvious that whatever magic voodoo bullshit was in play at the start of the Collision Wars are in play here, just like it’s obvious that whoever goes in now should be able to speak the language.” “That’s everybody in this elevator,” Andre quickly pointed out. “Well, maybe ‘speak’ isn’t the right word,” the Admiral turned to Lisa. “We were thinkin’ it might be best if a native speaker, someone who spent their whole life around the language, went in there first.” She stood on a pair of shaking legs, pressing herself to her feet with Anton’s help. “I-I dunno,” she said, still supporting herself on the rail. “I-I can try…” “Lis, you just learned your country isn’t going to be a crater tomorrow morning, when everything in the last twelve hours said it would,” Dave pointed out, stepping up. “You could use a breather. I’ll do it.” On the outside, he made sure to spend every effort he could on appearing cool and calm. On the inside, every one of his instincts screamed to him how bad of an idea this was. How absolutely he was signing his own death warrant. How completely this would be painting a target on his back for one of the most powerful creatures in the universe to hone in on. But he just had to take one look at Lisa to know he was doing the right thing. She was just regaining the ability to stand; Lord knows she was in no shape to face down Hitler reincarnated as a talking horse princess. The Admiral scowled, evidently not keen on switching out one of his countrymen for an American, but relented easily. “Just so you know, we’ll be right in the next room while you talk to her. She’s restrained, but that doesn’t mean you should approach her or try to pet her or any shit like that.” David’s heart dropped into his stomach, had a nibble of the donut he’d eaten for breakfast, and catapulted itself right up into his throat. “Wait, you’re saying I’m gonna be in the same room!?” “We want this first meeting to be face to face,” the Admiral replied. “We’ll record everything and hopefully, from her reaction to you, we’ll be able to gauge how much she shares with her counterpart. That’s the deal. That won’t be a problem, now, will it?” Yes, it will be a big fuckin’ problem! Dave almost screamed, but one more look at the way Lisa still trembled allowed him to hammer his jaw shut at the last moment. “No. It. Won’t.” He managed to squeak with a little smile. Sure. Who wants to see their 30th birthday anyway? “Excellent, then it’s settled,” the Admiral said just as the elevator came to a halt. “And just in time, too. Ladies and Gentlemen, we’re going into the lair of the beast.” The doors whined open onto a long, stainless steel hallway that looked like it hadn’t been touched until recently, and even then in passing. Dave took a whiff of the air, and his nose wrinkled with the scent of engine oil. “Huh. The lair of the beast smells kinda like my grandma’s house.” The entire group turned on him, their looks telling him they were honestly questioning his sanity. “What?” He asked. “Grandma was a bit of a car freak.” “Way to kill the mood, yankee-doodle,” Anton smirked, though his tone suggested that he wasn’t joking. The group set out along the empty hallways, passing vacant bunks and empty cantinas with darkened vending machines that hummed in an atmosphere that otherwise would have been eerily quiet. “Where are the guards?” Lisa asked aloud, breaking the silence for a blessed moment. “On the floor above us, behind a few layers of heat-proofed metal and sitting upon a pile of inhibitors,” the Admiral replied. “Trust me, if they are ever needed, that’s where they need to be to even begin containment. Everything down here, from the doorways to the prisoners’ water supply, is controlled from up there. If this Princess is even a fraction as powerful as the first, she would just slaughter any man we have down here before the guys upstairs had a chance to react.” “Good enough for us diplomats though, right?” Andre smirked. The Admiral said nothing, only leading them to the next set of metal doors. “This is where we part ways,” he announced, pulling a keypad out of a hidden slot in the wall and punching in yet another long, overly-complex code. He stood to the side, shouting over the pneumatic hiss and grind of another hidden door sliding open, a flashing warning light casting his face in a strange, orange glow. “We will be watching everything from upstairs. A few guards will be sent down later to help you all settle in. Are there any questions?” There wasn’t. The Admiral nodded, and saluted once, standing perfectly straight. “Godspeed to you all,” he said, then dropped his hand and strode back to the elevator, his back still as straight as could be. The group eyed one another, standing in silence until the door opened fully and the warning light stopped blinking. Anton was the first to step forward, a determined look in his eyes while he ducked through the entrance and into the dim light beyond. The rest of the group still stood there, nobody wanting to be the next ones through, and then Anton’s hand appeared from the other side. Swallowing his fear, David took it, grasping the aging Russian harshly, and then he held out his hand. Lisa followed suit, laying her hand in his and offering hers out to the next person, and so they continued until everybody held a hand in a long, unbroken chain. Then, holding their breaths, the group ducked through the portal and into the unknown, some praying, some hoping for the best, all holding onto the hand in their grip for dear life, hoping that the next person in line maybe had a bit more courage than they did.