//------------------------------// // Chapter 31. Stale Air // Story: H'ven Sent // by otherunicorn //------------------------------// The members of our slightly expanded herds had agreed to tackle the evaluation of using the disused tank as a mini-habitat after a good night's sleep, not that there was any visible difference between night and day down here. We set off at the crack of... when everypony was awake and fed. To get down to the upper service catwalk for the tanks from the living quarters, we had two alternatives. We could head a mile or so towards the outer wall of Habitat Eleven, then take the ramp down to the catwalk, or we could take the unicorn approach. I wasn't that keen on the latter, but over my objections, I found myself floating, descending the relatively short distance to the catwalk that ran along the tops of the tanks. The catwalk itself was alternately barely visible, then hidden by the holes through the suspension platform, so it had been a simple matter of looking for a hole through which it could be seen. The drop was several stories, so floating down into extreme darkness, with no control over where I was going, was quite scary, and I made that perfectly clear by yelling my opinion at the two who were lowering me. Berry and Crimson took off at a gallop, clearly planning on getting out of range of the unicorns before they could be grabbed. I could hear Cacha expressing her disapproval while she paced on the spot, torn between getting out of range, and wanting to get back to me as soon as possible. "Dammit!" she yelled. "I'll be with you in a few minutes, Aneki." I heard her take off, going as fast as she could. I hoped she wouldn't run into something in the dark. Then again, her name was Catwalk Runner, wasn't it? Finally my hooves landed on the catwalk, and I willed myself to stick to it. Actually, I think I did more than just will it, as my magic threw off the levitation field Stormie and Brainstorm had been using. Catwalk, sweet catwalk, I could almost kiss you! "Why the fuss?" Stormie called down from above. I could see the silhouette of her head leaning into the hexagonal opening. "You can't possibly be afraid of heights." That wasn't a question, either. "No. I'm afraid of suddenly finding myself floating off the ground without warning!" I yelled up at the two unicorns peering down at me. "I used to have nightmares of that happening when I was a foal!" "You aren't a foal anymore, Aneki. Deal with it. We're going to come down now, one at a time, obviously," Brainstorm stated. "It's your turn to act as the backup levitator." "You trust a minimally experienced unicorn with your lives? Are you nuts?" I countered. "Oh, grow up, Aneki," Brainstorm chastised me. "You have proved yourself more than capable on multiple occasions. Now, here, catch!" Stormie floated into the opening, and I instinctively threw up a levitation spell to keep her safe. It only took moments for her to be lowered to the catwalk safely by my side. My trip down must have been as quick, despite its seemingly, terrifyingly long duration. "See, easy," Stormie said, giving me a pat on the rump. "Now for Brainstorm. I'll lift him. You are on backup again." Despite my self doubt, Brainstorm made it safely down to the catwalk too. He immediately turned to face me. "Aneki, I suspect we will find ourselves needing to do that a lot now, if we are to keep our charges safe. If we can levitate ponies to the difficult to reach repairs, there will be less chance of them falling to their deaths. Maybe wings would be better, but we don't have that option," he explained. "Oh, yes, that is a point. We are going to be busy ponies, aren't we. The sexless will have to get used to coordinators who actually help and care for them, instead of treating them as disposable assets," I commented. "I doubt it will take them much getting used to," Stormie stated, "although I expect trust and friendship will be longer in coming. Now, which was the tank we were meant to be looking at?" I raised a hoof and pointed into the darkness in the direction of the nearest tank. In fact, we were already standing over its massive body. I was merely pointing at the access point at its crown. "That one, I believe." "Then let's get going," Stormie suggested. "It would be embarrassing to have the others catch up to us before we've even moved. A few hundred paces later, we were nearing the crown of the tank, and the assembly atop it. In fact, we could have safely dropped off the catwalk and onto the top of the tank itself, its radius so large that this close to the center, the top was almost horizontal. The others backed off from their gallop as they approached, slowing to a trot, then a walk as they joined us. Cacha, despite being the last to leave, was the first to arrive. She immediately came up alongside me and gave me a quick, reassuring snuggle. "You would probably have enjoyed that run," she said. "No doubt I would have. I'm looking forward to exploring with you. I'm not sure if I want to rig up a set of lights facing ahead, or whether to just try to rely on my eyes at speed," I mused. "Try both," Cacha said. "Lights could be fun. Seeing in color would be cool. Mostly, the few lights that are scattered about and the illumination from our eyes are enough." On the subject of lights, there were a few around the equipment at the crown of the tank, and they lit up as we approached. The best way to describe what the top of the tank looked like, from where we stood, would be to call it a cylindrical room, and spacious one at that. Some equipment was outside that room, while presumably other equipment was contained within. A monitor panel stood outside that room, mounted on a plinth attached to the catwalk, which opened into a circle, encompassing the room. The monitor panel seemed like the logical place to start, so I walked over to it, and glanced over the gauges. The indicating needles of all of them sat at the left end of their travel, at zero, but that didn't convince me. The panel had no life. No lamps glowed, either to illuminate the gauges, or any of the indicators. "The panel is dead," I stated. "Cacha, what makes you think the tank itself is empty?" "I wasn't even born when it happened. Don't ask me. That the panel is dead now means nothing. It could have been shut off to conserve power." "Fair enough. I'm not going to learn anything from staring at it, then, am I?" There had to be back-up pressure and temperature gauges somewhere. There was no way such a seriously dangerous tank had been equipped with only a single remote monitor. There had to be something else, probably contained within that cylindrical housing that covered the crown of the tank. There also had to be a way to get into that housing. Eventually I found a hoof scanner, but there was no door to go with it. Putting my hoof to the scanner and pressing the integral button presented me with something I was not expecting to hear: rejection! "Your race is not qualified to enter this facility," the scanner stated. Race? What was it on about? Didn't it like Hellites? Were Hellites even a race? Perhaps it didn't like unicorns. "Cacha?" I called, "Unless you are a unicorn and I know nothing about it, could you put your hoof in this scanner for me please?" I requested. "There are no pointy bits on my head, girl," she responded as she approached the scanner as requested. She raised her hoof to it, pressed the button, and, like I had been, was told to bugger off. "Well, that's mighty rude of it, isn't it?" I commented. "Is that the same response you get from the systems locking you out of the ship's main guns?" "I don't think so. They never mention anything about race," Cacha said. "Perhaps it wants a pegasus." "That is the one thing it can't have," Brainstorm interjected. "Cut it open, Aneki. Any authority that once existed in this place has been lost. We are now trying to save ponies in a hostile environment. Almost anything goes." "I guess that's one way to look at it," I commented. That stuff was hard to cut! But then, that was the idea of it. Security would mean nothing if every unicorn that came past could create a new door within moments. I could have simply loaded up my gun with its first disintegration spell, and blown a hole through it, but that was so messy, and noisy, not to mention being destructive. Eventually, I had settled on creating a very parred down version of the spell, and eroded a fine cut into the material. I didn't make the opening particularly big, either, just large enough for a mare to squeeze through, which upon removing the separated material, was exactly what I did. The logic behind me doing so was sound, because as soon as I was in, the interior lighting activated, giving me a perfectly clear view of the door operating mechanism. There was no lock on this side, either. I gave it a tap, and a substantial section of wall moved out, then slid to one side. The opening was the same width as the catwalk, presumably to allow equipment to be brought in or out as required. The others wandered in and began looking around, discussing what they saw, as well as pondering how exactly they would convert the tank, should it be suitable. I turned my attention to the top of the tank itself, and the equipment attached to it. That was odd. There was a deep line in the surface of the tank, running in a circle about ten pony widths in diameter, as if a section of the tank could be lifted clear. If it was to be pressurized, such a groove would be a major weakness, most likely leading to failure. Then again, this was supposedly a failed tank. I thumped it with my hoof. It felt solid. It sounded solid. It had the same audio signature as the suspension platform, and the wall to the equipment room I had just cut into, suggesting it was made from the same mystery material. Could this be an inspection port that was sealed up on completion of the tank? Perhaps its edge was conical, so that the pressure pushed against it, ensuring it sealed. Hang on, what was that written here? No way. There had to be some other reason for that being written there. An error? A delivery mix-up? I looked across at the bundle of pipes and cables that entered the tank, outside of this area marked by the groove. Sensor lines, heating, cooling, pipes that looked like the standard, medium pressure variety used for sewage, water and nutrient lines, cables for electricity: That was a really odd combination of pipes for a liquid nitrogen tank. And there was that matter of no pressure or gas mixture changes being noticed when this tank supposedly failed. I noticed a metal panel attached to the port through which the pipes and cables were passing. It was situated at the perfect height for a pony to operate any controls it may bear, yet was noticeable blank. In being blank, it served no purpose at all, perhaps bar one: to hide something. Walking over to it, I reached up and grasped the top edge, then pulled. I felt it give a little, so I tugged harder. It twisted and groaned a little. There was probably a hidden catch or two holding it in position. Damn it. I added my magic into the mix and gave it a mighty wrench. Suddenly it gave and swung down, broken latches dangling from one edge. Revealed were a set of meters and gauges, not unlike the dead set out on the pedestal. I was right! I had known they had to be in here somewhere. Unlike the others, they were not dead. Perfect! I would be able to check out the status of the tank without doing anything dangerous. The last thing I wanted to do was take a bath in liquid nitrogen. Come to think of it, should that happen, it would be the last thing I did. Okay, first to check was the pressure... and that was reading was... atmospheric pressure. Maybe the tank really was empty. Temperature? That was at ambient temperature too. Both suggested the tank was indeed empty. Gas mixture? What? A row of small gauges indicated a nitrogen/oxygen mixture with traces of other gasses. Again, it matched the atmosphere out here. Something was wrong though. How was I able to read these temperatures and pressures so accurately? Why was there even a gas mixture display? Damn, so that was it! These gauges were incorrectly marked for monitoring a tank full of liquid nitrogen. They were more suited to... "Umm, guys?" I called, "this tank... it's labeled Habitat Ten." "So? It must have been left over from when they build Habitat Ten," Crimson suggested. "Or was delivered to the wrong site, and as such was more economical to just install it than try to correct the shipping error of something this large," Brainstorm suggested. "No, I think this is Habitat Ten," I stated. "This tank is Habitat Ten." "No way!" Cacha exclaimed. "The gauges are marked with pressures and temperatures suitable for living quarters. They don't go low enough or high enough to cover the temperatures and pressures involved in keeping liquefied gas. This tank never failed. It was never filled with liquid nitrogen. When the monitoring station outside failed, ponies believed what the panel showed them, but as you said..." "...no change in pressure, or gas balance was noticed in the atmosphere," Cacha finished my sentence. "You are saying this is a second habitat, hidden within our own?" Stormie asked. "Could habitats one to nine also be hidden in here? That would certainly skew our perception of what is going on!" "It is possible, I guess. There may be no habitats outside of our outer sphere..." Cacha said. "Or worse. What if Habitat Nine is inside Habitat Ten?" I asked. "Is Habitat Eleven inside an even larger habitat itself?" "So how do we get into it, or how do those in it get out?" Brainstorm asked, changing the course of the discussion. In response, I stomped on the large red button that was also on the panel. A buzzer squawked into operation, clearly reluctant to be revived from its multi-millennia long hibernation. Flashing amber lights added to the illumination of the room. Something could be heard spinning up below us. "Brainstorm, Stormie, scan for modifiers, and kill any that try to escape from there," I suggested. "Good idea," Stormie agreed, the spell immediately beginning to build on her horn. "I'll scan." With a modifier killing spell growing on his own horn, Brainstorm positioned himself beside Stormie, crouching, as if that somehow made him more ready. Something below us thumped and rattled as if trying to force stubborn or seized machinery to move, then with an ear torturing screech, the section of the tank, marked by the groove I had noticed earlier, slowly lifted, foul smelling air blasting out at us. Brainstorm didn't even wait for a word from Stormie, launching his spell. Its faint, pale blue veil swept around the room, thousands of little sparkles marking its passage, as droves of modifiers were destroyed. Fortunately, the spell did not penetrate us. I didn't fancy having any of the modifiers that were part of my weapon systems exploding inside me! The spell escaped through the open door, continuing its destruction as it spread out into the empty spaces of Hell. Fascinated by the spectacle, we all assembled at the doorway, watching it spread. Eventually it wore itself out, fading into nothing. "Wow, pretty," Berry stated. I bet she would appreciate the luminescent ammo. "That's a lot of modifiers!" Crimson commented. "Nothing out of the ordinary escaped from the tank," Stormie added. "Most of those modifiers were already floating around down here." "What? We were walking around in clouds of modifiers?" I asked. They certainly hadn't been as dense as when I had encountered the clouds of them in the trap that had converted me. Instead, their density was more like that of regular dust. "That was not unexpected," Brainstorm said. "I see I'll have to cast a stronger version of that spell and really clean this place out if we ever want to be free of genetic sabotage. Now, let's have a look at what we have opened." "Pee-ew, that air stank," Cacha commented, "There can't have been any fresh air in there for years!" "The life support chamber smells different to down here, too," I said. "Places where somepony lives will always take on an odor. "I'm not so sure I want to meet whoever smells like that," Cacha stated, "But I assume I am going to have to accompany you down into it? "You don't have to come if you don't want to," I said. "Oh, I'm going where you go. The question was whether or not you were going to go down there," Cacha clarified. "Of course I am. Nonetheless, it would be a good idea for somepony to stay up here in case things go wrong," I suggested. "Crimson," Brainstorm said, "Would you and your mare like to stay up here. We'll keep you in the loop via communicator." "Suits me fine," Crimson agreed. "Berry, what about you?" "That's fine with me," she said. "The coordinators doing the dangerous stuff themselves is just... wow! Look after yourself down there, sis," she added, directed at Cacha. Turning, we faced the opening into the tank, into Habitat Ten. The section that had lifted now formed a local roof, under which was a ramp. Some lamps glowed dimly, and some flickered, or pulsed on and off. At the base of the ramp, now visible in the eerie light were, piles of debris, odd bits of ceramic bundled in with rags of various colors. We took a few steps closer, stopping part way down the ramp. Those were not pieces of ceramic. Those were bones, skeletons. Okay, so maybe this tank did fail.