//------------------------------// // Ch. 3 Along for the Ride // Story: The Brightest Shine // by Cozy Mark IV //------------------------------// The Brightest Shine Written and read by Cozy Mark IV & Jan. McNeville (Link to the dramatic reading on YouTube) Disclaimer: This is a non-profit fan-made work of prose. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the property of Hasbro. Please support the official release Chapter Three: Along for the Ride … One week later ... The blurred shape of the monster flashed in and out of view as Steady drove it onwards through the clouds. It ran. They always ran. From the very first time Commander Hurricane had tracked one down and in every battle since, the hardest part had been finding and chasing the demons, fighting to get close enough for a strike. Then came the ducking of hooves, dodging the bite of those freezing teeth, and the chill to the very core when a blow could finally be struck and the thing dissolved. Now for the first time their very flightiness worked to the pegasi’s advantage. Steady heard a high pitched whistle above and to his right, and answered it without thought. When working and fighting in the clouds the pegasi relied on a code of whistles to avoid collisions and carry out complicated formations. Not that this was a particularly complicated formation. A net required so little skill that even the young recruits were lifting their own weight. The demon he was chasing dodged right and Steady countered, herding it ever to the south as the noise of other demons driven by other soldiers became audible all around him. A glance at his compass confirmed his direction, and around him, the impenetrable mass of gray clouds began to echo with more calls and sharp whistles as the soldiers drew the net ever tighter. The ever shifting mass of gray shapes scrambled any sense of direction or orientation – it took long training to navigate in a soup like this, and only the whistles around him gave any indication of his real direction and speed. As far as is eyes knew he could be flying in any direction, five thousand feet above the ground, or just five; like the addled dream of an uneasy sleep, the clouds surrendered no clue about what lay just out of sight, only ten feet away. In a flash, one blob of cloud resolved itself into the shape of a pony, and a familiar voice called out over the roar of the wind; “Hey Steady! How many did you bring this time?” “Three more! You?” “Just three?” He shouted back, “You’re getting rusty, you old codger!” Another windigo suddenly doubled back on them and tried to charge by over their heads, and Steady had to move fast to turn it back. The network of whistled commands was now quite loud, and he could begin to make out other pegasi flitting in and out of the clouds around him as the beat of their wings was joined by the growing thunder from the ethereal demons’ hooves. The clouds were thinning at last, and as they did, the massive size of the herd before them became clear to the awakening eye. Hundreds of the things rumbled through the sky, hemmed in on all sides by other soldiers like himself and driving ever onwards towards what end they did not know. The pegasi knew. The days of watching these ice spirits reincarnate only hours after a battle were no more. The sun had seen to that. As the last clouds thinned and fell away the true scope of the drive became clear; at least one hundred fifty pegasi drove the two or three hundred demons on into the warm, clearing air. The breakneck speed they flew at and the adrenaline rush from the drive kept them all going, windigo and pony alike as the clouds resolved themselves into a huge plane, miles and miles high, that they had just emerged from like some specks of dust falling from a grey stone wall. Ahead of them a bubble was carved out of the clouds, many miles wide and tall, and the ground was at last visible far below them, stretched out like a soft white carpet, dotted here and there with tall tree tops or the occasional roof. The demons didn’t like it. They were creatures of snow and cloud, at home in the blank gray of the winter sky and the clear vista spread out before them spoke of exposure and danger. The pegasi’s job always became more difficult now, but after days of practice they were ready, and any strays were swiftly bucked and stabbed until they rejoined the charging mass. The light around them grew steadily, but its source was still unclear. The open air grew around them as they left the sanctuary of the clouds further behind, and a dim ring of orange light began to show up ahead, like the outline of some great slumbering eye, dimly visible and flickering slightly at the edges. Suddenly the eye opened. Like some creature from the depths of Tartarus, blinding, burning light and heat poured forth, incinerating the first demons before they could even scream. The rest of them tried to flee, but by now they were far too close to the sun, and the sound of their shrieks echoed through the valley below as hundreds of them burned away into nothing, never to be seen by a pony again. Steady beat his wings to gain altitude, shielding his eyes as the source of their artificial eclipse moved back into a lifting role. It hadn’t take long to find four of the heaviest lifters in the force, and they had been carrying the sun suspended beneath them for days now, trading off in shifts as the pegasi drove north into the homeland of the windigos. Each saddle not only supported the sun, but also shielded the wearer inside a reflective bubble that kept them from being roasted by the intense heat pouring off it. As Steady watched through squinted eyes, a different pegasus let her line go slack, and as the other three lifted the sun, this pegasus took up a position in front of the sun, projecting a cone of shadow against the northern cloud wall several miles away. The next group would be due in but a few minutes. “Hey, Steady! How’s it feel to be on the winning side for a change?” Another friend called as he took up a station beside the commander. The echo’s of the demon’s screams were only now finally fading away, and a shudder ran down his spine as Steady tried to smile. “It feels a lot more productive. We should start to see some warming soon if we keep this up.” “You know it! Leave it to Hurricane to turn a rout into a victory march. We’re burning them up fast, and they’re not coming back now. It’s only been a week and they’re already getting hard to find out there. Those first few days we could bring back three hundred in five minutes! How long were you out there hunting? Steady turned, banking in a long slow circle above the sun and basking in the fierce heat. “Nearly four hours. And they’re not just getting harder to find; the west and east teams are doing a run every two hours, but we’re having a rough time finding them to the north…” “Ha! The fools must have left their homeland undefended, sent everything they had south!” Steady remained silent as the other soldier grinned widely. “It’s like the fourth Ep rebellion all over again; Herd the fools together, a spear here, a kick there, and soon enough they’re nothing but a herd of mindless beasts and it’s raining ponies off the edge of the cliff!” Steady grimaced and changed the subject. “How are our guests doing?” “You mean the pack of she-dicks they’ve got the green recruits shepherding? You worry too much. Hurricane’s making sure they stay out of trouble. We all knew she could lead, but who knew she was a diplomat too?” … Shining Mind looked out over the edge of the basket once more to clear her head. The small wicker basket was confining enough to put her on the edge of claustrophobic panic, but balanced against the miles and miles of open air in every direction it could be… managed. It had been as they were rudely hoisted aboard their new homes that everyone had discovered Spec’s fear of heights. The unicorn had spent the first six hours clinging to the bottom of her basket for dear life, and still insisted on keeping her head below the outer rim so she could maintain the illusion she was in fact in a large swing, only a foot or so above the ground. The four of them were divided between the two baskets that had been designed for lifting supplies. The pegasi understood that an army flies not on its wings, but on its stomach, and from time to time, convoys of such supplies could be seen passing by far below them. Above them, a sort of mushroom shaped canopy had been strung, catching the hot air rising off the sun below and keeping them bobbing in the breeze. A couple of pegasi on duty with them kept the two baskets from hitting each other or wandering off, but showed little interest in the physicists. Pie reclined against the back of the basket, her eyes half shut. “I feel like we’re on some kind of never ending train ride. Every so often the conductor blows the horn,” she made a noise halfway between the windigo’s howl and a train horn, “and we’re just stuck here waiting.” She closed her eyes and put a hoof to her forehead. “Are we there yet?” The light from below cast odd shadows on the canopy over the basket, and the burning sunlight caused impressive avalanches and waterfalls far below as nearly a year of snow turned into a torrent of water, coursing through valleys and down mountain sides. The view above was even more spectacular. As the sun burned, it didn’t just thaw the land below, it also set up powerful thermals of warm rising air that went up and up and up, towering into the sky and sometimes even clearing the clouds directly overhead. After nearly six months without sight of the sun or stars, more than a few ponies lingered in their tasks to look up at the small patch of sky cleared by the tremendous heat of the artificial sun. When it skipped across their skylight, the real sun seemed dimmer, but even more beautiful than they remembered, and the sky seemed to sparkle as though the world had been sprinkled with glitter, flashes of every color dazzling the eye as they stared high up into the blue. Indeed, during the three days that week where the sun had been visible high overhead, more than a few ponies had collided while staring at it, though even in late June, the high northern latitude apparently rendered the sun safe to look at. The thermals also served to showcase the true might of the force gathered around them. The three tribes had known war before, but never before had the full might and fury of the Pegasi Command been airborne in one place. The rising thermals meant that all a pony had to do was spread and lock their wings, and the rising column of air would carry them skyward without so much as a wing beat. The sight of thousands and thousands of pegasi, many with weapons and armor circling over the sun in a huge column towering miles into the sky was something none of them would ever forget. In the other basket a few hundred feet away, Spec and Verdant were enjoying lunch together, laying on their backs as the sunlight filtered up through the wicker, casting shifting points of light on the billowing canopy overhead. The usual unease Spec would have felt at being almost a prisoner in a cell with an Ep had been displaced those first few days by the sheer terror of the height at which they flew. The lowly Earth pony had done what she could to make the researcher comfortable, distracting her by getting her talking about their work, or, when she was too terrified even for that, by telling her stories of her home and family. A lot of it passed unheard, but with a captive audience, some of what she said got through, and as the first couple days had passed, Spec found herself opening up to her. She had even taken to calling her by her name. Now, several days into their flight, boredom and homesickness had finally brought up the question most on her mind. The one she feared the answer to. “Verdant? Do you think we'll ever get to go home again?” The silence stretched on for a long time before Verdant answered. “I don't know. If the pegasi succeed in driving back the winter spirits we'll be able to grow food again, to sustain the cities... But I don't know if it will really be home.” “I know what you mean. All my life I've worked and studied to make something of myself, so I can fit in, go to the royal court and not feel out of place among all those important ponies. Now after what's happened...” The silence stretched on again, so long in fact that Spec looked up to see Verdant staring at her with a strange expression. “Spec... You're already more important than any member of the royal court, and... and you're a better pony than most of them.” Spec looked confused. “But I don't have any of their wealth, their prestige! Yes, I keep up with the court fashions, but I don't have the talent to make dresses like that. If I walked into a dance tomorrow they wouldn't even know my name.” Verdant sighed. “All of that wealth and power doesn't make them better ponies.” She seemed to think about it, then asked softly, “Do you remember the stories I told you about my mother?” Spec nodded, “Did you ever wonder why I never mentioned my father?” “I... no, I didn't even think to ask...” Spec answered, looking sheepish. “That's because my father is a member of a noble house. He spent his days in the marble halls you want so badly. And when the doctor discovered I wasn't going to be born with a horn he expelled my mother from the house to work the fields.” For once, the usual, thoughtless reply would not come. Spec's unease showed on her face as she worked the usual accusation over into a question. “But... I thought Eps – I mean earth ponies, were always trying to climb up the social ladder?” Verdant held her gaze as she replied. “Spec, I think you know that for the lie it is. My father beat and raped my mother, and if that doctor had found a horn on my head, then the only contact I would ever have had with her would have been as my wet nurse.” Spec just stared in shock. One heard the stories of course, but they were just stories... weren’t they? “I... I'm sorry, I had no idea...” Unexpectedly, Verdant smiled and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Don't be. My mother loved me very much. When I was younger I used to help her clean some of the mansions, and I got to see how unicorns like my father raised their children. He may have had money, but he displayed more love to his pets than to his children. I used to sneak into the library to study after the lights were out when I was supposed to be cleaning and some nights I could hear the crying through the wall.” Spec's eyes were wide, “You mean they're really...?” Verdant relaxed a little as she sat down next to her. “I'm sure they're not all as bad as my father was, but yes, that is considered normal in those social circles.” Spec found herself shivering as it all began to sink in. Most of her life had been spent with her nose in a book, intent on her studies; there had been little time or reason to question social norms. In a moment of courage, Verdant took pity on the shaking unicorn, and put a foreleg around her shoulder. “It's okay, Spec. It's not your fault.” “Thank you for warning me. If I had known...” Verdant just smiled. “Hey, what are friends for?” The next several days had seen their friendship grow under the continued stress of their traveling situation. Every so often the pegasi would lower the sun towards some high spot on the ground below and hold it in place while the ground was cleared of snow, ice, trees, and anything that could be made to burn. The resulting clear spots became supply dumps and sleeping barracks for the soldiers coming off duty, but the same courtesy had not been extended to the four of them. Using the small relief hole on the corner of the basket had been quite embarrassing enough in such close quarters, and though sleeping had not been a problem, the unwanted attention they had been getting from the soldiers was. It turned out the pegasi's name for their tribe was not always used derisively, and it wasn't long before the three unicorns had to field some very... direct solicitations. When it became clear that they were not interested in bedding the entire command, some took the hint, but the more brazen pegasi began putting on very public displays of their equipment. It was on that fourth day that Flare had flown up and landed on the rim of their basket, only to find Spec in near hysterics. It took several minutes and Verdant's help to calm her down, and as she began to explain, a particularly well endowed stallion with a dark green mane chose that moment to give them all a clear view. “Oh, for the love of-” Flare muttered before bellowing in voice that would have shattered glass, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRANDMA!” The stallion blushed red enough to resemble a holly bush and flew off with his legs clamped tight together as Flare fell back into the basket laughing. As two very shocked ponies stared at the mare, she managed to get herself under control enough to explain. “Sorry, girls, I forgot some ponies have trouble with this kind of crap.” Poor Spec looked like she was about to explode. “Trouble? Trouble?! In the last two days, you... barbarians have offered me every sexual act I have every heard of, and at least as many that I haven't! And when I made it quite clear that I wasn't interested, then you started flying by and flashing your genitals!” Flare gave her a level look. “They're called dicks, you know.” If anything, this only incensed Spec further. “They weren't all stallions!” Flare's face suddenly brightened into a wide grin. “Really?! Did you get their names?” While Verdant's jaw fell open in consternation, Spec had suddenly begun to turn very red indeed. “Um... No! No, of course not!” An astonished Verdant looked back and forth between the blushing unicorn and the disappointed looking pegasus. After a moment, Flare brightened. “Oh, well. At any rate, I think I have a solution for you.” “You do?” Verdant asked shyly. “But we've already asked the ponies that bring us food and they just laughed at us.” “Oh come on now, you girls have got to learn to stand up for yourselves. Here, let me go get some rocks and I'll be right back to teach you.” “Teach us what?” “How to use this, of course.” Flare replied matter-of-factly as she tossed the slingshot into Spec's startled hooves with a wink. “It's a valuable skill every mare should know.” Blunt as the suggestion was, it had worked surprisingly well, and within an hour, Sand Storm wasn't the only pony with a deep respect for Flare's marksmanship. … As evening darkened the already dim day into total blackness, the sun was once more lowered to clear a new supply dump and camp site for the advancing force, sending up huge plumes of steam and smoke in the process. The the night teams were only just now straggling in with some ridiculous complaint about not being able to tell night from day, and bringing with them supplies taken from last night's campsite. Steady and his team had now been on the wing headed north with the sun for over a week, though his duties had kept him from checking up on its' creators. He had already been at the end of a long shift when Commander Hurricane had summoned them for a briefing on the night's new strategy. Several scouts had reported a deep valley to the west into which they could lower the sun and hide it from the windigos, and she had already sent out the teams who would be driving their quarry in from a much wider area. If the plan worked, they would gather together every one of the demons within a hundred miles of the south, east and west, then raise the sun and end them all in one brilliant final battle. One young commander had asked why they would not be going north, only to be reminded that less than thirty percent of the original demons remained. “Tempting as it may be to drive them out of their own homeland as they did to us,” Hurricane admonished, “with so few remaining, it will take decades before they can rebuild, and the survivors will keenly remember the power of the sun. “The further north we go, the colder it gets, and it will become harder and harder to operate effectively. Let us leave the survivors with memories of the pegasi tribe flying high and proud, not shivering in the cold that is the windigo homeland. We have nearly finished what we set out to do. That is enough.” Now, so near the ground, the sun still carved out a bubble of clear air around it, though Steady had noticed it was really more like an ellipse than a proper sphere, with the sun always north of the center no matter which way they were flying. Tonight, and this close to the ground, the ellipse became a bubble centered over the cluster of mountain peaks that came together to form a small plateau. What once must have been a beautiful mountain field had been frozen for over a year when they arrived, and now under the roasting heat of the artificial sun it was turning into a rocky lake. “Hey! Where are the unicorns?” Steady called out as he pulled alongside one of the guards responsible for their guests. The young soldier laughed. “They're over the sun where they always are. This is their usual bath time.” Following his pointed hoof, steady caught a brief glimpse of the canopy that supported one of the baskets as its edge flitted in and out of sight inside the huge plume of steam coming up from below the sun. Steady felt his face reddening. “And just whose bright idea was this, Private?” The soldier's jovial look disappeared in a flash as he remembered who he was talking to. “Uh... None of ours sir!” “Really?” Steady asked flatly while the younger stallion squirmed. “Then it was the unicorns' idea to go in for a steam cleaning?” “Uh,... not exactly, sir.” “Then exactly whose idea was it?” “Well... The Sergeant only assigned two of us to herd the baskets, and... we couldn't lift them even if we wanted to. The unicorns have been asking to land, but we're not authorized to-” “Private, who is your commanding officer?” “Sergeant Drill, Sir!” “And he has some forty ponies under his command, does he not?” “Yes, Sir!” “Then I suggest you go tell him that Commander Steady is going to want to meet with the unicorns in one hour, and that he expects to find them happy, dry, and on the ground. Is that clear?!” … An hour later, Steady landed on the plane of hard stone and smoking rocks that had once been a meadow. The sun had melted the snow into a torrent of water that had washed most of the topsoil and plant life down the mountain side, exposing a couple of long sealed caves in the process, and what little had been left behind caught fire and burned down to nothing in but a few minutes leaving behind nothing but stone. He wondered idly how long it would take before some bright young thing pointed out the similarities between this camp site and an enemy city. Before him, a cross-looking grey unicorn with an unusually poofy black mane was irritably giving instructions to a harried looking Ep as they clumsily attempted to assemble a pegasus military-issue tent with less success than might have been expected from a couple of physicists. Next to them, Spec was attempting to run a brush through Pie's mane and tail which had puffed up to three times their normal size, making her look as though she had been struck by lightning. “I told you, it does this every night, I just have a naturally curly mane!” Pie complained as Spec attacked her errant tail with the brush. “You just have to- OW! You have to wait until it dries out again!” Steady resisted the urge to face hoof and coughed to announce his presence. “Good evening, ladies. I apologize for not checking up on you sooner; the Commander has been keeping us all very busy these last few days.” Pie and Spec paused long enough to give Steady dark looks, but it was Shining Mind who spoke up. “It's about time you showed up! These conditions have been completely unacceptable!” “Yeah!” Spec agreed as she cleaned a big clot of yellow hair out of her brush. “We've been traveling for just over a week now, completely cut off from basic supplies!” “Yea-OW!” Pie flinched as Spec came after her with the brush once more. “And do you have any idea how long it's been since I finished my last book?!” Pie and Spec, poised in the act of agreeing with her found their mouths hanging open as they tried to catch up. Instead, it was Verdant who suddenly joined the discussion. “Yeah! You only let us take what we could carry, and it's been five days-” “And eighteen hours since I finished the last book we brought with us!” Shining shouted in indignation as she finished Verdant's sentence. The reply Steady had prepared suddenly didn't work anymore as he shook his head in an effort to clear it. “My apologies, but the force travels light, and libraries aren't exactly easy to pick up and move.” “You're moving a sun, aren't you?!” Steady grimaced and conceded the point. “I'll speak to the communications chief when we're done; I'm sure he'll have something to keep you occupied.” And before she could rally again, Steady gave the answer to the question he had been expecting. “I must also apologize for the conditions of your lodgings this past week, I had understood that you were getting to sleep in the camps at night with the rest of the force. The baskets you have been riding in are the biggest we have, but they were never intended for a week-long trip. We still need you with us should anything happen to the sun, but you can trade off if you like, set up a day and night shift so you can get some time on the ground.” The others appeared grudgingly satisfied by this, but Shining Mind wasn't done yet. “And what do you intend to do about the training situation?” “Training situation?” “Yes! Before we handed over the saddles, I gave each of the pegasi who carries one a quick overview of the sun. Since then you've given more and more soldiers the okay to carry it, but none of them will listen to the basic information!” Steady raised an eyebrow. “How long was this 'quick overview'?” “I kept it to only four hours!” Shining replied indignantly. Behind her, Verdant, Pie and Spec all grimaced at the memory, though Steady didn't notice. “Well, for the first time in nearly a week I actually have a few hours to rub together. The war is going well, and-” “Has the temperature risen yet?” Spec's question caught them all off balance, and it took him a moment to reply. “I don't know if we've seen an increase yet, but it's only a matter of time now. By our estimates, we've done in about seventy percent of the windigo population, and though it has gotten colder, we've also been driving north into their homeland. Back home, I'll bet the snow is already starting to melt.” Spec seemed unconvinced, but before she could prod him further he turned back to Shining. “Now, how about I walk you over to the officer's mess and you can give me that same 'overview'? Maybe I can pass on some of the most important parts to the officer in charge of training?” … Two hours later as the cooks were closing up the portable kitchen for the night, and thirty hours without sleep was catching up with him, Steady was beginning to second guess his offer. “Now as you remember from appendix 4C, the real sun generates its heat and light by nuclear fusion just as ours does, but the real sun does this by compressing and heating it's fuel using it's enormous gravity. It also doesn't do a very efficient job of it; if we could bottle a piece of the sun's core equal in size to our artificial sun, it would only put off two or three hundred watts, about the same as a compost pile. So while the operating principal is the same, our artificial sun actually has to generate pressures and temperatures well beyond that of our sun to achieve it's energy output. And while most ponies know the sun is nearly 333,000 times as heavy as our world, not all of them know that its surface gravity is only 28 Gs.” Steady's eyes fluttered closed for a moment and he had to force them open again. “You don't say?” Shining was smiling widely as she hadn't since her first (and last) guest lecture as a visiting professor of physics at the university. “Oh, but I do say! Gravity is increased by mass and decreased by distance, so though the real sun is huge, it's less dense than you would think, so that means greater distance between the surface and the mass itself, leading to a surprisingly low surface gravity!” “Fascinating.” “It is! The gravity of the star heats the hydrogen and other light elements until they lose their electrons and form a plasma, and then that plasma is heated still further until the nuclei of the atoms slam together hard enough to fuse into new elements. The reason they release energy is because of the balance of forces inside the nucleus. “The electrostatic force comes from the protons, and that pushes other protons away over a large distance, kind of like two magnets pushing each other apart. The nuclear force acts over a ridiculously short distance, just a few protons or neutrons across, but inside that distance it's a way stronger attractive force. Now, if we slam these light elements together hard enough to push past the electrostatic repulsive force, then the nuclear force grabs the new atomic particle and won't let go. The total nuclear attractive force in these light atoms is stronger than the total electrostatic repulsive force, so the net result is a more stable, lower energy atom, with the difference given off as heat, light and motion.” Steady shook himself and tried valiantly to grasp hold of something he could understand. “Lower energy state?” “Yes! Let's say you have a boulder on edge of a cliff. For the purpose of this exercise, we'll call it Tom. Now the repulsive force of the cliff and the air pushing up on Tom is exactly equal to the attractive force of gravity pulling down on Tom, so as long as nothing happens, the boulder stays still in a stable energy state.” Steady felt like his eyes were trying to cross. “Tom?” Shining blushed slightly. “I try to name things when I teach – someone once told me it makes them easier to remember. Anyway, if we come along and push Tom sideways, off the cliff, the attractive force of gravity is suddenly much stronger than the repulsive force of the air alone pushing up. Tom falls to the bottom of the cliff, and in the process of getting to that lower energy state at the bottom of the cliff, he releases a lot of energy in the form of noise and crushed trees and rocks. Atoms work just the same way, they just pack more of an energy punch than Tom does. “So as long as the total attractive force is stronger than the total repulsive force, fusion will make energy, just like pushing Tom off the cliff, but after a certain point, element number 26, Iron, the repulsive electrostatic force starts to become stronger, so at that point, making elements heavier than iron actually takes energy, like lifting Tom back up the opposite side of the cliff. This has all kinds of implications for stellar cartography!” “I thought we were talking about your artificial sun.” Steady half pleaded, making Shining blush sheepishly again. “Right! Sorry. Now our artificial sun doesn't weigh much of anything, so we couldn't go the gravity route to get fusion. Our 'sun' is made up of thirty-eight obsidian stones shaped like log splitting wedges. We enchanted them with complicated magic, but the base principle is simple enough; each wedge floats at a specific spot in the network that holds the whole thing together and exerts a tremendously strong compressive force at a microscopic focal point in the exact center. Our first prototypes used other materials that were easier to work with magically, but they all failed under the heat. Obsidian is a volcanic glass that's really heat tolerant, but also really stubborn when it comes to magic; that's why we had such a time getting anything to change after we lit it. We still can't get close enough to shut it down... Anyway, we put spells into it that direct the heat and light outward, and just like water flowing down a hill can be tapped with a water wheel to do work, we rigged a spell that taps the energy surging out of the core to refrigerate the thirty eight shards and generate the force that holds it all together.” That last part had caught steady's attention. “So... you didn't build in an off switch, and you can't shut it off when it's running. Does that mean that it's going to run forever?” “Of course not. Spec, Pie and I have been working on a way to inject something into the core that would shut it down. Remember how any element heavier than iron takes energy to fuse?” It was Steady's turn to look sheepish as she peered expectantly at him. “Uh, yeah, didn't you say something about a cliff?” “Exactly. Twenty-six protons is the bottom of the cliff. It's the perfect balance between the repulsive electrostatic force of the protons vs the attractive nuclear force of everything else. Anything with more than twenty-six protons has a slightly greater repulsive force, and hence is starting to climb back up the cliff wall. Go far enough, up to the radioactive elements like uranium with ninety-two protons, and you're so high up the cliff that Tom starts to slide back downhill on his own. The electrostatic repulsive force gets so strong that the atoms start to break up on their own, releasing huge amounts of energy as they slide back down the hill toward the bottom.” She paused and looked up thoughtfully,” There are even some unicorns who think that we could use this to create a power source, thought of course that's just silly. Uranium is incredibly rare, so unless someone finds a huge deposit and mines it, it could never happen.” Steady felt like he had almost grasped what she was saying, only to lose her again half way through. Ponies had always respected his intelligence, but next to a pony like Shining he felt like a little schoolcolt again. Yet as hard as it was to follow her in his sleep deprived state, he still couldn't resist trying; it was a rare treat to meet a mare who was neither his superior, nor his subordinate, and yet who could still hold her own in an intelligent conversation. “Our best bet at this point is to try to find pure krypton – it's a noble gas that won't burn easily, and it's atomic number is thirty-six, putting it well up the wall of the cliff. If we can get it to one of the sun's intake ports, it will fuse it, sucking all the heat right out of the sun and shutting it down. Then we just have to pick up the pieces and take it home. The only other way would be to drop it, which would cause that explosion I warned you about.” Steady nodded sleepily. “Yes, I definitely remember that warning.” “Good. Because if the sun lifting pegasi cross the beams of magical energy suspending the sun, they'll cancel themselves out and then the sun will fall. I just hope they've been teaching each other everything I taught the first group.” Steady's sleepy red eyes had suddenly snapped open as the last sentence registered. “Crossing the saddles' suspension beams will cancel them out?!” “Well, yes. Every unicorn knows you can't cross beams of force.” “We're not unicorns!” Shining Mind paused with a hoof halfway to her mouth and a look of dawning comprehension on her face. “Oh... Right...”