Four fillies and one dragon proved to be very poor nurses. Of the lot of them only Chance had any formal medical training, and that was with two-legged primates using a medical science centuries ahead of anything in Equestria. Their patients in many cases had received no treatment at all, as many had only been injured moments before the Fury landed. Were it not for the supplies they kept aboard, Chance had no doubt that half would have been dead before they reached the hospital.
"I thought Celestia had decided not to make the Nanophage publicly available," said Truth over the speakers. He wasn't reproachful. Actually, his voice was as cheerful as ever, which Chance found subtly disturbing. General Artificial Intelligence or not, inhuman intellect or not, there were many concepts that he did not fully understand. Death was the foremost example, though Chance had never seen that more painfully illustrated.
They weren't ignoring him per se, even as Chance led the way to the first patient, an older mare with several large chunks of shrapnel penetrating her barrel. Blood had pooled below her, though they knew enough not to remove the foreign objects. Do that, and she was sure to bleed to death. Her friends were in various states of numb panic, though Spike and Sweetie Belle were alert enough to actually help her. Both carried little white and red cases.
"What's that symbol?" Apple Bloom asked, as Chance dropped the case she had been carrying. She ignored the question, flicking the clasps with her magic. The case sprung open, revealing thickly padded foam. Within the foam were six syringes, two red and four blue. The top half of the case made the instructions very clear: the red injection was to be administered as close to the base of the neck as possible, while the two blue should be administered in the chest, near the vital organs.
Truth, on the other hand, was not occupied with lifesaving procedures and was free to answer over the speakers. "It's called the Rod of Asclepius, Apple Bloom. It's the universal symbol of human medicine."
"That sure is a funny-soundin' name," she murmured, though there was a hollowness to her voice that Chance could not mistake. Ponies were too delicate to see things like this, too sheltered. It was a testament to the toughness of her friends that they kept going. "Why is there a snake?"
"It's actually a very interesting bit of mythology. He was an ancient god of healing, who learned how to heal any injury listening to serpents. He became so skilled a healer that he could eventually resurrect the dead. Another, more powerful god had him killed to prevent overpopulation. The staff-"
"That's enough, Truth," Chance interrupted. "These ponies don't have much time, and Apple Bloom has to see how this is done." Chance had been strictly forbidden to teach this technique, and forbidden to administer it to anyone not directly approved by Twilight Sparkle. She had never really accepted the ruling, which was why she had asked Truth to make these medical kits in the first place. Celestia might rule Equestria, but the country's only OMICRON Core answered to Second Chance.
"First, the red one goes in right at the base of the neck." Chance lifted the hypodermic in her magic, removing the plastic cap. "Make sure you squeeze out a little before you do it, since if you get air into a vein it can kill the patient. It's better if you do get a vein, but... the nanites don't really need one. They're just faster that way."
"Why are there three small needles instead of one big one?" Spike asked, watching more intently than Scootaloo or Apple Bloom. If he was hovering on some sort of personal breaking-point, he showed no sign of it.
"The insides are actually the same," she admitted, lowering the largest of the needles carefully to the mare's neck. It was awful technique, but that probably wouldn't matter. "These were designed for people critically wounded. The Nanophage is smart enough to know where you inject it. The first injection goes straight for the brain and keeps it alive even if the heart stops. The other two injections go and find all the important organs, making sure they keep going. One big needle would work but not nearly as fast. For ponies as badly hurt as this, seconds can be key."
Chance quickly administered the next two injections, and lifted the half-empty case in her magic again. Her eyes wandered briefly over the outside, tarrying on a faint inscription set into the plastic. "Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity." She gritted her teeth, gesturing around the room. There were many ponies just as badly hurt as these, and standing around explaining the medkits was far less important than getting them used. "Just as I did it, right there."
Beneath her, the older mare had already resumed breathing, however unsteadily. No doubt her heart was beating again too. Asclepius wasn't the only one who could bring back the dead. "We don't have to lose a single pony if we work quickly!"
Work quickly they did. Of all of her friends, Sweetie Belle and Spike made by far the best team, moving through the crowd twice as fast as Chance did despite the fact that they had never used technology like this before today. Sweetie Belle's whole body was tense as she walked, and before each of the ponies she would drop down and say. "You're okay. Nopony else dies." And in the time it took her to say it, she was already done and moving onto the next one.
Nopony did die, not during the entire flight to the hospital. Truth reported that Canterlot General was overflowing with injuries from the attack, and recommended they set down outside Ponyville instead. He would let the hospital know they were coming. By the time they set down in the grassy field just outside the hospital, there wasn't just a crowd of emergency medical staff waiting there, but also the siblings or parents of each of her friends.
Of the whole group, only Scootaloo pretended not to see them, directing the orderlies and the medical teams aboard and leading them belowdecks. Chance and Spike didn't watch. There was only one pony waiting for them, though neither could've asked for more. It was Princess Twilight Sparkle, teacher, mentor, monarch, mother. They embraced her, and before a word was spoken they were all crying. They weren't the only ones in that field to be crying, either. So many had been hurt in Canterlot.
"My little heroes," Twilight said, the first to clear her eyes and speak. "What would Equestria do without you?"
Chance laughed in spite of herself. "We broke the rules, Twilight." Even as she said it, the first stretchers were being unloaded, carried past them into the large square hospital building. The guilt was burning in her, nevermind all the good they had accomplished. "We used nanomedicine, to keep those ponies alive during the trip. We-"
But Twilight shoved a hoof in her mouth, silencing her. "It's okay." She glanced sideways, at the steady stream of ponies being brought past them. Only now did Scootaloo reunite with her parents. "I think those ponies' families would be very happy you broke the rules for them." The hug ended. "There's a war now, Chance. Lots of rules are changing. I don't think Celestia would mind."
"I thought I saw a dragon the other night," Spike said, more than a little uneasily. "Why would a dragon be attacking Canterlot?"
Twilight hesitated. "We should go back to the castle," she said, nodding emphatically. "We have lots to talk about, and not much time."
* * *
This was going to be one of the easiest missions Sir Charles Gray had ever commanded. Actually, it was his first real command. He was the least of all King Richard's knights, the youngest and the worst connected. It was the chance of a lifetime to be able to impress and serve the first alien race they had ever encountered, and prove the effectiveness of an alliance. It was just a bonus that the mission itself was piss-easy.
"I want one of your drones circling and relaying information about the horses' positions," he said over the radio, in the same tone he might've used in the office asking to borrow her stapler. "I'll have one of mine do that too. Together we ought to be able to watch them all. Keeping them safe is just as important as sending a message to these other primitives here. Overgrown lizards, all of them."
"Aye, Sir." Lindsy did not comment on the chatter, but then she almost never did. She could be downright cold when they were on assignment, but Charles had always admired that level of focus. She was not quite the pilot he was, though. Not quite so good at multitasking. Sure enough, it was her own drone that she chose for the observation loop. That meant she could spare more of her concentration for the fleet at her command, while not needing to worry about keeping her drone safe since it wasn't actually doing any combat. The only problem was that it gave the enemy a clear target.
But he didn't lecture her about it, not now. Once he had a clear map of where the pegasi were in reference to the rest of the city, he let a probability program chew through everything he saw and identify the most threatening potential targets. False color highlighted ships with the largest, most accurate-looking guns, as well as some stationary embankments he saw on towers and structures. Some colors changed further, as Lindsy selected those targets that would be easiest for her ships to reach. An ordinary mission would not have been so casual, but it was not as though there was much to fear. The dangers highlighted to his view were really only dangers to the ponies. The only way any of their drones would be brought down was freak accident.
Charles paid little mind to what the ponies were doing, except to notice the strange bursts of electromagnetic radiation that flared briefly across his vision. His own drones peeled into a roll, and his mind effortlessly split his mental resources between each one. Compared to a real battle, this was nothing. Federation aircraft all had real pilots, which meant that individually they usually performed better than drones. They had ways of searching for the ship that contained him, and if they found it it would mean swift victory.
There were no Federation ships here, though. Charles was conservative with his ammo, allowing a program to find the most vulnerable spots on the airships and firing only on those. All had crews of course, and many fired on his drones with guns or even cannons. They didn't stand a chance. Drones flew above the city like a swarm of angry bees, passing over the entire city in about three seconds and turning around for another pass. Only computer-guided weapons could have hurt them.
One colossal airship, easily bigger than a house, began to tumble downward, falling far slower than gravity would suggest. He found the powder magazine on another, and detonated it with a rocket meant for bunker-busting. Easy. It was like playing a child's video game. He wondered if these creatures had thought as much when their ships were over the Equestrian city.
At once, his gut turned over. "Military targets only," Charles said suddenly, over the radio. He hadn't attacked anything besides the ships yet, but his memories of a few days ago were fresh enough. "We won't be like them. No intentional civilian casualties." Of course, raining burning buildings down on the city was bound to cause plenty of those, but probably far fewer than they could've inflicted by targeting housing structures and schools. That was what these creatures had done to Equestria. That was what the Tower had done to the Federation, and the Federation had done right back. There were no orders against it. In a traditional conflict with a traditional enemy, it might even be a good idea. But Sir Charles Gray would not fire on a civilian target.
This wasn't fun anymore.
"Of course, dummy!" came the voice of Rainbow Dash, over the radio. Apparently he had sent that as a general transmission, not just to his second. He wasn't actually authorized to give orders to the Equestrians, though there hadn't been anything wrong with the suggestion in any other way. "Is this really all they got? A few towers and some ships? They didn't see this coming anymore than we did!"
Gray's sleek drones found ground targets, and bombarded them with high explosives. It wasn't like a gunpowder charge, where the shock would weaken a structure's integrity and the subsequent fire might bring it down. His rockets were designed for this, concussive shells with flesh-shredding shrapnel and micro EMPs. They wouldn't start many fires, since little of their energy was wasted as heat. But they wouldn't leave survivors behind in the ruins they created either.
Their efforts were attracting attention. It might have been five minutes into the assault or it might have been ten, but distant rumblings signaled something else was coming.
Charles expected great reptilian shapes rising from the mountains. He even welcomed it, since how many people could claim they had actually slain a dragon? More to the point, it would have been wonderful to put the overgrown lizards in their place with a little modern firepower. Even if they were as strong and fast as King Richard had reported, his ships were equal to that. They were strong and fast too, and ultimately disposable.
There were many caves and tunnels near the city, this he had seen from the satellite images. What he saw streaming from them now was almost beyond belief. A cloud of small creatures emerged from the depths, each so thick that the sky began to grow dark. There were millions of them, black and glittering and heading for them like the largest flocks on old Earth, back when there had still been an ecosystem. It didn't matter that each one was only about three feet long, even smaller than the ponies. It didn't matter if all they had were teeth. In numbers like that, his drones would suck them into air intakes, collide with them and shatter glass. Computers were very good at automatic obstacle avoidance, but there needed to be a path without obstacles for them to do any avoiding.
The ponies. They must've heard the buzzing sound because a glance at the overhead view showed they had begun to move in the opposite direction, favoring the west side of the city over the swarm coming from the east. But no... there was another swarm coming from that direction too, no smaller than the last! How many of these creatures were there? What even were they?
"Retreat!" Charles called into the radio, over the general channel again. "There's too many, we've got to pull back!" Could he re-assemble the carrier before the millions reached it and forced it out of the sky through weight alone? A quick calculation answered in the negative. Even if the pegasi retreated immediately, there was no chance they could gather inside the carrier before the first waves would have arrived. Why hadn't these creatures been deployed at once, and prevented most of the damage to the city? The answer came without any of his programs, as an ache deep in his soul: the destruction of the attacking force was more important to them then protecting their own city. It was a horrific, sickening thought.
But Charles had not been put in command because he was stupid. His electronic brain simulated the process of human thought for perhaps three seconds, which was all it took for him to formulate an insane plan of retreat. "Start forming the carrier!" he ordered Lindsy, even as he transferred about a third of his drones to her. The absolute minimum required for the smallest carrier they could form with just combat drones. Obviously the one he was piloting was not among that number. "Ponies, reduce your altitude now! Get behind something big, but still fly towards the carrier if you can!"
"Aye, Sir!" She obeyed without question, even in the face of the oppressive buzzing that even he could hear through the ionization engines in his fast-moving ship. Already many of his drones were having to correct their flight-paths to avoid the fastest of the creatures. The pegasi were retreating, but not fast enough for all of them to make it. There were going to be casualties. All of them would be casualties unless he did something soon.
He did. Charles pulled his own ship into a vertical climb at maximum acceleration, getting as much distance from the creatures as possible. The sound of just one engine on full burn shook the whole city, and a bright blue contrail lit all the way up. Of course, it was really just an excuse to give himself more mental power to precisely calculate the positions each of his ships needed to be in. Drones soared through the air, speeds adjusted as some accelerated and others slowed down so that they were all set to collide with the encroaching edges of the densest swarm.
Each fighter was powered by a tiny microfusion reactor, whose design completely precluded runaway reactions. They weren't fission reactors that could be forced to overload by removing control rods, nor indeed was there any way to accelerate the rate they produced power. They wouldn't even scatter radioactive waste, since only ordinary hydrogen and helium were involved.
But that didn't mean the ships couldn't be blown up. Charles sent the universal kill command to five of his remaining fighters at exactly the same time, just as they began to collide with members of the swarm. In perfect unison, every remaining munition, every ounce of energy, and all the hydrogen in their tanks was detonated. A hundred thousand of the creatures died instantly, those closest to the edges. The greatest damage was in the pressure-wave, expanding outward in both directions from the explosions. A gale of flesh-melting heat drove the swarm back, and caused many more of the creatures to simply drop from the sky. The ponies had taken shelter as he had instructed, and the combination of something to hide behind and significantly decreased altitude meant that most of them were still moving. Had there been casualties? No time to count. "Fly for the carrier!" he bellowed over the radio.
If the swarm noticed that its size had been cut in half, it showed no sign. It was already regrouping, moving again towards the ponies and the half-formed carrier. Two halves converged into a central mass to advance on them again just as Charles detonated all his remaining drones in an explosion no less spectacular than the first. The results were no less effective, and mud buildings in the city beneath began to collapse under the weight of the dead, filling the streets in broken fragments.
Charles's drone began to stall, and he pulled sideways into a slow dive, with just enough incline that he began to accelerate in the direction of the nearly complete carrier. There was no place on it for his own drone, but that didn't matter. He could follow it just as easily as be a part of it. Lindsy was a qualified pilot.
"I'd like to see a Federation squad try that," he muttered to himself, more than a little smugly. His plan had worked; the carrier was assembled and the ponies were inside. They had probably done more damage than the exact 24 buildings and there would be no diplomatic message left behind, but in the face of these odds he was sure he'd be getting a medal for this mission anyway. Even better if all the squishy organics had survived. That would be a powerful message to send to the enemy, that even in their own territory with the best preparations they could not hope to win against this alliance.
None of them saw the dragons until it was too late. They came from nowhere, simply appearing as though emerging from advanced active camouflage. Charles saw them perhaps a second before they reached the carrier, even as it began to accelerate. "UP, NOW!" he screamed over the radio, hands tightening so much on the controls that they cracked under the pressure.
Even with the reflexes of a machine they were not fast enough. Massive scaled creatures, at least forty feet long apice, collided with the carrier with all the inertia suggested by their size. Thick armor plating caved in, but the not-yet-dry sealant foam all over the carrier crumbled instantly. Flames erupted as the largest monster unleashed a torrent of flames directly into the crumbling carrier. A fourth landed atop the mass and tore one of the drones from its place as though it were made of styrofoam, armor buckling as it ripped the cockpit open and unleashed its own flaming assault on the pilot.
On the pilot. They knew. God, how had they known which one had Lindsy? Had they been watching the whole time? She didn't even get a chance to scream. One minute she was there, and the next the combat network immediately gave him control of all the remaining drones. A dozen thermal warnings popped into his vision, as well as sensor readings from inside. Several of the ponies were already dead, more were injured. The dragons were decimating them.
He swore into the radio, tears streaming from his face. It was falling apart! They were all doomed! Ponies were burning before his eyes, the dragons would kill all of them! In one of the cameras, he saw the native captain, badly burned but pulling her own men back, sheltering them from the flames and searching for a means of escape. Even so, there was terror in her eyes. She was staring death in the face.
Maybe he would've given up and detonated all the drones. But they had killed Lindsy, right before his eyes. And here he was, flying in from above. The perfect angle to make a difference. "Get inside!" he called to the remaining ponies, opening the cockpit of every drone near the ponies. Of course, they were designed for human pilots, but humans were larger than ponies by a significant margin. Two could probably fit in each one, if they packed in close.
The dragons were massive and powerful, but they were also tactically clueless. Attacking the carrier was smart, but holding on afterwards? They would pay for that. The drones on the sides accelerated downwards and away from the formation at their maximum velocity, carrying two of the four assailants away. When there was enough distance between them and the main force, Charles detonated those drones, and their unwilling passengers right along with them. One of the dragons he impaled, accelerating the rearmost drone so that it passed halfway inside the beast before both tumbled sideways from the sky.
The last of the monsters, the one that had killed Lindsy, he targeted with his own drone. First a low-grade concussion rocket knocked it far away from the crumbling formation. He fired all six of the bunker-buster rockets his fighter carried into its belly, one after another. Only a smattering of shattered blue scales survived to fall charred back to earth.
The swarm was bearing down on them, and besides that cries of reptilian rage without a source shattered the air around them. The surviving ponies were packed uncomfortably inside the cabins of the six drones he still controlled, though he was pained to see there was not enough room for the captain. Judging by the state of her wings she was not going to fly away from this easily. She had probably already gone into shock. She looked resolved, ready to die.
Like hell he was going to let one more person die on this mission. But there was so little time. A second's delay and the swarm would descend on them. Charles pulled his own drone down to her level and opened the cockpit. Air rushed in around him, hot with the smell of charred flesh. "Get in!" He flew as close to her as he could. There was no room for two of course, not when one of them was human. He wouldn't be able to get the cockpit to close around them both. Even as he accelerated the other drones slowly, he opened his arms to catch her.
There was no argument. Rainbow Dash jumped, and Charles caught her, helping her clamber into the cockpit and closing it behind her. Of course, that left himself balanced precariously on one of the wings, like a 1920s barnstormer. He jumped onto the roof of the cockpit with inhuman dexterity, wrapping both arms around the nose of the ship like a vice.
He dropped the remaining ordinance the drones carried on another upward climb, doing his best to fracture the swarm and whatever reptilian beasts were bearing down on him. He heard many roars now, though he couldn't spare enough concentration for his own body to even look backward and see. And it worked. The now-occupied drones made their way up and up and up, accelerating as rapidly as he thought was safe.
Not fast enough to stop one of the largest and fastest of the insect-like creatures from landing beside him on the surface of the drone, sharp limbs digging deep into the armor and holding fast even when he kicked the engine into a quarter-second of full burn.
This just kept getting better and better! He couldn't reach for his sidearm without taking one arm off the front of his ship, and risking tumbling into the void. Nor, it seemed, could the creature move without being dislodged. The force of air pushing against him was quite intense, though so long as he kept the ship's speed down he could survive it, and he accelerated away from the rest of the swarm.
The creature was strange, as though someone had put an Equestrian pony and a spider in a blender and given the result so many tumors its exoskeleton began to fall off in huge chunks. Its proportions were uneven, and oily fluid drained from a dozen different seeping injuries. How was this thing even alive enough to fight? Even as he watched it lowered its head towards the wing, pointing a horn-like protrusion on its head down at the armor and blasting it with sizzling green energy.
"Shit!" he swore, even as a dozen or so warning indicators came into his mind. The creature paused, seemed to look up at him with its horrible insect eyes, and fired again. This time the drone visibly shook, its momentum faltering slightly. It didn't seem as though the monster knew the drone's vulnerabilities, but whatever it was using was scrambling his drone's electrical systems.
There was little time for thought. Charles turned, baring his artificial teeth at the monster even as he accelerated the drone a little, so much that even his superhuman strength found it difficult to hold on. It wasn't enough to dislodge the creature, or stop it from firing twice more. Smoke was trailing behind them now, along with bits and pieces of melted body armor. "Hey!" he shouted over the roar of air around them, as loudly as he could, swinging with all his strength to kick out at the creature.
The monster slid backward along the wing, digging deep gouges into the metal. It made a horrific noise of pain and anger, and fired its next shot of green force directly at Charles. The energetic projectile seemed completely unaffected by the air around them, striking him directly in the chest. His muscles all spasmed in random electrical firings, though he managed to keep his arms wrapped around the front of the ship and concentration controlling all the drones. There were advantages to being able to completely ignore pain, even while parts of his chest melted away before his eyes.
That was about as long as it took to maneuver one of his (now occupied) intact drones above and behind them. It fired a few well-aimed shots at his command, directly at the alien insect.
The monster exploded, its insides sliding backward off the drone and falling to the earth. "See you in hell!" Charles called backward after it, gripping more tightly around the front of the drone. He took them up, higher and faster than would be easy for their pursuers to keep pace with. Still, he doubted they would have just given up.
Unfortunately, there was nothing Charles could do about the damage to his drone. The automatic-repair circuits were not functioning, and he didn't have the equipment to repair it. Further, any drone he was actively holding onto would be limited to subsonic speeds. Even as his own ship began to fly lower and slower, he occupied every bit of his brain programming simple instructions into the remaining drones. Now that they were separate, there was nothing stopping them from engaging their active camouflage, lifting back into the stratosphere, and flying back to Canterlot. He sent the program, along with a dump of all the data his senses had recorded during the battle. The aircraft would be helpless to do anything other than avoid basic obstacles, but he counted on them making it back. At least some of them would survive this debacle.
"We're... going to crash," Charles said over the internal speakers of his drone, even as the others left them in another upward climb. "Nothing I can do. One of those monsters... no way to repair it... I'm going to get us as much distance from the swarm as I can. Hopefully far enough the rescue team gets here before the swarm does..." His own systems were having trouble, though combat prosthetics had considerably better self-repair circuits than drones did. Not that it would matter if they crashed at this speed. The trick was going to be deciding when to slow the ship down. The longer they kept going, the longer they would have to get away from the crash-site. But if he pushed too far, the drone might not survive long enough to slow to a safe speed and they would die anyway.
Well, Rainbow Dash would. Then again, her injuries might be fatal anyway. There wouldn't be any hospitals out here. His cortical recorder would survive a crash, and a rescue team would recover it eventually. Maybe he ought to push harder.
Amazingly, the pony captain was still conscious. She sounded weak, and in agony he could hardly even imagine. But she was alive. "We should jump." She coughed. "Let your airship keep flying... So they don't find us... I've still got one good wing. That should be... enough to get us both down to the ground..."
Charles doubted the captain was in any condition to fly them both, but her plan did have merit. If they jumped, the drone could keep going for many miles before it got out of range or crashed. The swarm might pass right over them when it got here. He looked down, as they passed over yet another range of tall hills. Small mountains? Besides, his people could track his recorder here even if it didn't work. It sounded as plausible as anything they might try.
"Okay, get ready!" The cockpit opened. Charles drew out the extra-large emergency pack from behind the seat and took hold of the pony with his free hand. They were blown back from the drone almost immediately, though there was a very long way left to fall. Together they fell, twisting further and further out of control and clinging to one another against the impact rushing up to meet them.