=== Chapter 15: The Wages of Sin ===
(Five's first appearance can be found here)
Light and dark, dark and light. Walk and trot, wake and sleep. Everything blurs together; every light is the same as every other, and I can't tell one from the next, except for the slow accumulation of horn marks I make on the damaged tile. The work chime wakes me from a dream; it is a strange, formless thing that is more smells and sounds than images. Two ponies, both nearly twice my height, their faces, even their coat colours, obscured by the unknowable tract of time between then and now. The only clear impression I have is of their smell, a mixture of clean growing things and spices, and something of their voices. The actual words they speak have gone to the same place as the other details, but I still remember the tone. They are trying to keep their words light, wishing me well as I am steered into the back of some floating box-thing, but there is an undercurrent of fear. It makes me sad to know that I never had a chance to ask them what it was they were afraid of.
There is a sudden glow from the big circular screen. My excitement builds; the memories of the last ponies I ever touched is washed away by the desire to do what I have been training for all these countless cycles of light and dark. There is a twisting pattern of neon orange on the screen, a shape that I fix into my mind. It is complex and ever-shifting, but I'm good at what I do. Ignoring the warning ache at the base of my skull, I build a copy of the pattern in my head, carefully making it cycle through the same repeating shapes. The pain gets steadily worse, but I maintain my focus; my Masters will be angry if I am too slow, but that is nothing compared to their rage if I get the pattern wrong.
The pain is starting to make it hard to breathe, but I am ready now. The orange pattern in my head is a perfect match for the one on the screen; I bite my lips as a distraction, savouring the moment. The glow of pride causes the discomfort to subside and I lower my head, reaching for that well of inner strength to give my pattern the special push that will make it real. Even through tightly closed eyes I can see the room blaze with orange light, and my pain is washed away with the joy of success. I pour my whole self into the pattern, the power being pulled away and joining the efforts of the Others. For a time we are one, joined with a closeness that no mere physical interaction could match.
The pure pleasure of closeness and warmth is what I have been waiting for; it makes the long, lonely turns of light and dark seem like no hardship at all. Use of my power takes considerable effort, but it is worth it so I can be with the Others. I can feel that they have the same desire to be with me -- there are no words, just unconditional love and the simple joy of being close to somepony else. Dimly, I feel my legs start to wobble and I stagger, all of my energy focused on connecting with the Others. There is a warning tingle at my throat -- my Masters are telling me it is time to come home -- but I don't want to go. This task is what I've been trained for; surely something that feels this good is meant to be?
The tingle becomes a shock, then a rolling buzz-crackle of electricity that finally pulls me away from my unseen family. The orange glare fades and I am left standing there, splay-legged to stay upright. Panting and dripping with sweat I collapse gracelessly to my belly, just before I would have fallen anyway. The Master's reward floods through me, filling my insides with a liquid warmth that makes my hindquarters twitch and shiver. This is what I get for being a good filly, for successfully completing the tasks I am set. Heart rate slowly subsiding, I can only think how I'd gladly trade in my reward for another few seconds with the Others.
Soft sprays of cool water emerge from a few points on the domed ceiling, the moisture a welcome relief for my overheated body. It washes away the smell of my exertion and the Master's reward; the sensation is so nice that I throw back my head and let the water pour down my muzzle and soak the fur of my chest. Just as I'm starting to feel cold, the rain stops, replaced by a strengthening breeze. The wind is warm and I stand with my nose into it, nostrils twitching as I try and distinguish individual scents from the mélange of pony smells. There is a new note of excitement present in the odours; it is obvious that these ponies have also been rewarded. Starting to walk into the wind I nod to myself. The ponies I can smell must be the Others.
Now dry apart from the fur under my mane, I trot on in the comfortable daze that the Master's reward always leaves me. Time passes, although I could not tell you how much -- once I experimented by counting breaths, but that was disrupted by the monotony of this place. There are more lights and darks, more little piles of food. Occasionally -- at times that are never predictable -- I am called on to do my job, and these are the moments I live for. The Others are still there and always welcome me, even though no single individual is ever identifiable. Their touch and scent changes slowly, as if individual ponies are joining and leaving the group. This gives me hope that some time, perhaps not too far away, my Masters will be happy with my work and they will send me home. I will go, of course, but with a heavy heart. I can't imagine what life outside of this room and away from the Others will be like.
===
The temperature in the rubble-choked corridor was rising, the air redolent with the scent of burned flesh and plastics. Gravity paused for a moment, one hind leg lifted clear of the ground, listening for the sound of furtive movement amid the crack and groan of falling concrete. She snorted, ears folding back; the other noise, a kind of jet-engine roar, had started a few tenths of a kilosecond ago and was rapidly drowning out everything else.
What is that? I can almost believe it's a rocket, but why would they have one in here? She flexed the elevated leg, trying to work through the pain. Fighting the Dogs through the corridors had seemed like a good idea; as long as she kept moving, they could only bring light weapons to bear. Unfortunately, some group of power-armoured soldiers had escaped her initial attack; she'd been focused on her own targets, so they'd struck at her flank.
Magic had slowed the projectile, but not enough to prevent it from punching through her defences to strike between hip and knee on her right hind leg. Redshift's stolen armour had saved her life once again, but it had been close. Gravity glanced back at the battered section; the once smooth and dark ceramic was bowed in and surrounded by a network of pale cracks, looking like an icy puddle stepped on by a hoof. Lucky I didn't break the leg. She flexed it again, dropping into shadow sight to inspect the surrounding spaces.
The power suits were magically dark and she lacked Fusion's ability to see concentrations of energy, but they were made of high density materials... unfortunately such things were common in the security base. Vague, overlapped forms -- the twisted shapes of buckled reinforcing girders and the ever-present fragments of armourcrete linked with metal cable -- filled her mind with layered shadows. Here and there were the bright lights of crystal thaumic devices, either some freak survivor of Fusion's initial attack or dropped by fleeing Dogs, but they did little more than provide a distraction in her search.
Stowing the pair of knife-missiles on mountings Redshift had added to her barding, Gravity hefted the last remaining segment of hull armour. The bar was a full length long, cut much thicker that the ones she'd used as missiles, its chisel-pointed tips now blunt and mushroomed from constant impacts. They are smart, these Dogs... are they just very still, or have they retreated? She picked a likely shape, something that might have been a figure crouching behind a tangle of roof supports, and jabbed at it with her weapon.
The bar snapped forwards, vanishing in an explosion of concrete dust and metal sparks, punching a clean hole through the twisted mass of alloy. The shape on the other side moved abruptly, darting behind a mass of collapsed partition walls. She grabbed at it, but the purple polygon of an anti-magic field sprang up before the telekinesis could bite, and the thing slipped away. Now highlighted and obvious, Gravity sent a hail of rubble after the fleeing armour suit, punching through the thin fibre board like it was paper. The figure stumbled but kept on running, so she jumped in pursuit, bar-weapon held tightly to her side.
They know they can't face me directly, but they are still here. Little, almost subliminal, movements in the periphery of her shadow sight were a constant distraction. Most of the time they were just that -- the irregular settling of a ruined structure trying to find equilibrium -- but there seemed to be a pattern to some of these. Am I being hunted? Let them try... Gravity smiled, then smashed open a cavity in the angular mess of broken wall material, pushing outwards to form a zone of clear air. Still too much stuff in the way for an easy strike, she thought, expanding the attendant cloud of rocks that served her as a cross between ammunition reserve and smokescreen. Joining them were a pair of violet ovals, seemingly made from softly glowing glass, floating along each flank and reaching from tail to muzzle and hoof to withers.
Absently, the process operating at a near instinctive level, she probed and sorted the rubble around her, adding the heaviest and most compact objects to her retinue, even while she pursued her quarry. The floor under her hooves, swept clean by her magic, was different from the other areas she'd galloped, flown or smashed through. No carpeted office or fused-stone corridor; this was a monolithic slab of high density concrete, laced with strands of interlocking metal. Part of the internal armour for the base? She frowned; overhead was the same material, a great slab that had to be at least two lengths thick.
The bar at her side twitched, then she pulled the strike as her target darted around one of the roof support pillars, built to the same heroic scale as the rest of the area and too thick to get through easily. Gravity snarled and powered forwards, catching a glimpse of something angular strapped to the base of the pillar.
A bright green glare, the pure colour of a new leaf, filled the space between the two slabs with solar intensity. Gravity twisted, the world suddenly pitch-black apart from glowing threads that sought to slice her body like cheese wire. Dazzled by the initial flash and blinded by the sudden photochromic reaction of her helmet's visor, she clenched her eyes tight shut, magic reaching out to feel for the source of the beams.
A high-pitched buzz and matching vibration came from wherever the beams landed, and Gravity thought briefly about flakes of ceramic exploding off the armour's surface as the coherent light burrowed towards her vulnerable flesh. An instant later there was a stunningly loud crack and something struck her left pauldron, just at throat level. She staggered, the force field on that side vanishing as if shattered, then fell as the leg gave way. No! She imagined some Dog soldier, paws wrapped about the grips of a large weapon and taking aim for a final shot, and struggled to clear enough of the pain to focus on the complex teleportation pattern.
It wouldn't work, so Gravity gave up and hunted for a more familiar solution to her problem. Random waves of motion rippled through the matter within her grasp, then she pushed with all her might. Her attendant swarm of rubble exploded outwards with all the force of shrapnel from a thousand-kilo bomb, smashing deep craters into the already compacted walls. The lasers went out, their beams going wild before cutting off, and there was a sense of movement, of vague shapes running away.
"Run! I'll catch you," she shrieked, spitting the words out into the dust-laden air. "You'll never esc--"
There was another explosion, not the whipcrack of that heavy railgun, but the sharp thunder of high explosives. At the other side of her cleared space the support pillar disintegrated, and the uppermost armourcrete slab, all thousand tonnes of it, dropped on her like a hammer onto a mouse.
===
"Master, wake up."
The voice was rough and barely identifiable, and nearly drowned out by a harsh, pulsing whine from somewhere nearby. There were other noises; the hard clack-clack-clack of hoof on stone and heavy, wheezy, breathing from nearby. One eye cracked open, but the view was a close roof of soot-stained feathers connected to a wall of singed fur, flexing and shifting with internal motion. Below, illuminated by a pale radiance coming from his own skin, was the floor, moving past faster than he could run.
Orgon coughed, then sluggishly moved one arm, trying to rub a paw over his eyes. For a moment it was as if he was entombed in concrete, then whatever was holding him relaxed and he could wipe one shaky set of claws through the fur of his face. The sound moved, abruptly getting far louder, and he suddenly recognised it. "Put this one down," he croaked.
The wing shifted, showing the tired and burned shape of Merlon cantering down a dark corridor. Many People were here, but they stepped aside to let his servitor through. The mare twisted her head slightly to glance at him, then turned to face forwards once more, her jaw set and ears folded back. "No, Master," she said in a pained whisper, tremors running down her flanks. "It is not safe here, and you can work just as easily while I carry you."
Orlon opened his mouth, then closed it, nodding. With one claw he stroked his bracer's controls, silencing the priority alarm and opening the call on the little backup display, the only thing that worked after the destruction of its thaumic hologram generator. On the palm-sized span of photopolymer was the scarred and grizzled head of Strategist Faungo.
"So the Sector Chief is still alive; this one was beginning to think he had perished. It looks like it was a near thing." The camera's lens was wide angle and showed plenty of background despite being mounted on Faungo's wrist; the Strategist was walking briskly across a concrete apron, followed by a group of the general staff, both Security and Military. Behind all this were ranks of heavy airtanks, the squat lenticular shapes jumping into the air like they were little more than toys. Delta-shaped formations of the vehicles flicked by overhead, flanking the swept-arrowhead shapes of attack carriers.
"Yes, Strategist," Orgon said, trying to clear his throat. The words brought all the pains of his body into focus; the hot itchy feeling of burns running from head to hip down one side and the throb of bruising at knee and elbow were suddenly distracting. He swallowed, working his jaw, wincing at the sudden sting of abraded flesh. Will there be any part of this one that doesn't hurt, come tomorrow? he thought, eye tracing the patches of singed fur either side of his bracer. "These ones are in urgent need of Arclight support; the rogue--"
"Faungo knows. The closest units are at Naraka, and they are already in position. Others have been diverted from the perimeter patrols, but they will take time to arrive." He smiled humourlessly. "Perhaps this will convince the Synod of the need to construct more."
Then why has Arclight not been activated? Orgon opened his mouth, then closed it again. "Is there still no sign of the second rogue?" Merlon shook her head silently and the Sector Chief sighed.
Faungo paused in the shadows under a delta-shaped attack carrier. "Orgon sees the problem. Lacunae does not have an endless supply of Arclight units, and they are large and fragile things. This one will not risk activation until both of the rogues are revealed."
"Understood," Orgon said glumly. The Strategist will let the Pit and every Person in it burn. "What are the Strategist's orders?"
"Keep this... Gravity Resonance servitor occupied by any means necessary. This one is taking steps to draw the other one out." The camera view changed as the Strategist stepped into the belly of an aircraft, switching from his bracer to a point on the wall. Row upon row of armour suits were spread-eagled against the curving hull, and Faungo started to climb in to the nearest one.
"What does the Strategist intend? This one already has significant forces in the deep tunnels under Naraka, which should at least slow the other servitor, even without the Pit's reaction teams."
"This one has had servitor psychologists working on the problem, and they suspect that the corral may be a fertile place to recruit others." He frowned at the camera. "Especially after what Orgon's Agent did. Salrath maimed one of the servitors in full view of the whole herd while Arclight was operational. That could have undone much of the Blessing's conditioning."
And this one knows that the rogues have already recruited others. Orgon swallowed, ignoring the pain in his throat, and his ears folded back. How many in the corral are already subverted?
"Faungo sees that Orgon understands. Good. Keep it occupied, Sector Chief." The chest of the armour closed, leaving only the Strategist's head, looking comically small against the bulk of the suit. "These ones go to threaten the creatures’ chance of building a power base. Time is short; the World Court's audit teams are in the air, supported by units from Soro and Baur Hives. The Synod would very much prefer it if this problem was contained before they arrived... or at least, before the Hammer comes over the horizon."
===
Spiral Fracture watched as ponies materialised out of the dark amid the orchards surrounding corral twenty-seven, their wings flaring as they cantered into landings amid the leaf-litter. The night, already cool enough to make her breath steam, seemed to grow a little colder. Right now, Fusion and Gravity are about to kick the Masters where it really hurts. She fidgeted, playing with the now less-than-comforting bulk of her communicator where it sat amid the fur of her chest, waiting for the six ponies to gather together. The afternoon, during which she'd left the little rebellion to carry out her normal duties at the corral, had been a horrible mix of routine and a ghastly, creeping tension that built unbearably as the time to act approached.
Scalar Product trotted up to her, nodding in greeting. "Everything quiet?" he whispered, eyes and ears sweeping the sky. "How is Elliptic coping? Fusion has kept me so busy that I haven't had a chance to really think."
Not stupid, that pony. There was an underlying nervousness to the stallion's normal bullish tones, and Spiral nodded with sympathy. "Your mate is fine," she said, then flicked a wing to encompass the whole group. "All of your families are doing as well as can be expected. I did have to pay a few a visit earlier to make sure they were asleep, but given everything else that has happened..." Spiral shrugged, then jumped into a silent hover, the only sound the rustle of leaves in her downdraft. The others followed suit, and the little herd flitted between the trees towards the corral's shelters. "Any last-kilosecond changes?" she whispered, flying just over Scalar's head.
The orange stallion flicked his ears. "No. My team will go in and disable the labournet comms repeater, then empty the feedstock bunker and keep watch, while Triple Point goes with you to start on the sleepers."
Too many ponies, not enough time. "Under the guise of helping ponies ward off bad dreams, I've already made a start." I spent the evening lying to those I was sworn to protect, and then carried out unnecessary medical procedures. The needle of guilt was nearly as bad as the simpler pains of Punishment, and she shivered, ears folding back. This better be worth it.
The flight reached the edge of the corral and split into two, Scalar's group arcing up to land at the tip of the Church, right on the landing platform reserved for Priests attending the foal's Blessing ceremony, while Spiral dropped silently between the shelters, alert for any sign of movement. Still asleep, thank the Maker. She nodded to Triple Point, who reached out with her magic.
The green glow of horn light was startlingly bright to her dark-adapted eyes, but the pair sleeping quietly on the wood-chip floor didn't stir. Quick touches first deepened their sleep, then stunned the nerves in each hornbed. Examination of the actual horn came next, identifying the zone of modified material at its base and targeting it with a carefully controlled pulse that filled the volume with tiny cracks. Spiral watched every step in the process, biting her tongue at the slightly clumsy technique of the other mare, but neither pony did more than twitch during the procedure.
"Excellent, Triple. I know we're on the clock here, but don't be tempted to rush; it would be easy to maim a pony just by accident. You know which ones you need to do?"
The green and yellow dappled mare released the breath she'd been holding, seeming to sag a little. "Thanks, Spiral. Your sharing was very realistic, but to actually do it..." She shook all over, then walked quickly to the next shelter.
Spiral watched her go, then headed to the next shelter on her list, probing with her mind for the distant feel of Lilac. The sharing opened with a rush, bringing with it vague sensations from other bodies.
...the taste and scent of burned plastics in Gravity's mouth. A near-subliminal image of Fusion walking past a long row of glass-fronted rooms, each holding one or more ponies. The feel of Scalar casting complex, unfamiliar magic in an angular room lined with mirror-polished black stone and filled with communications equipment--
Spiral damped down the sensory leakage, focussing instead on the mind connected to all those other ponies. Lilac; we are underway. How are you coping? Don't let those others overwhelm you.
I'll be fine, Spiral, came the youngster's thoughts, although they were a little faint and seemed to blur slightly in time with some particularly intense event occurring in one of the other minds. Fusion is in Naraka now, and Grav seems to be happy digging through the Security hub.
There came an intense image of a Security aircar, boxy with armour, breaking apart under the lash of metal accelerated to speeds that rendered it invisible. Lilac, please focus. We are relying on you to keep us in touch... I know it is tempting to watch, but you must leave Fusion and Gravity to work. Spiral swept the three sleeping ponies ahead of her with her magic, applying gentle touches to their brainstems to keep them unconscious.
Sorry. His tone sharpened and the leakage of other lives faded away to a barely identifiable murmur, only obvious if you knew where to look.
Spiral kept a gentle touch on his mind, letting the background whispers steady her with the knowledge that she was not alone, and dipped her head to scan the next family on her list. Together with Triple and the two other ponies, they went from shelter to shelter, working through the corral.
===
A kilosecond later, when they had freed perhaps three-quarters of the ponies, Spiral was shocked out of her focussed state by Lilac's sudden, urgent thought. Scalar says there are loads of airtanks and at least two attack carriers coming, with more close behind. Five hundred seconds max. Too many; he can't stop them.
Spiral ignored him for the moment it took for her to finish the pair she was working on, then allowed the full meaning of the words to sink in. I thought we'd have more time! Her eyes flicked out along the row of shelters that she'd not visited yet, catching a glance of a panicked Triple Point staring back at her, ears flat back and wings flicking with agitation. "I'll keep going and get as many done as I can." Should have had everypony working to remove the Blessings, she thought, or Trocar here, or something! "Get to the infirmary and get the wounded out, then get ready to help me with the teleports. Stay out of sight until then!" Can't have the dead coming back to life just yet...
The mare nodded and galloped off, followed by the other two, and Spiral bent her head to stripping the Blessing from the next pony. No time for a light touch, no time for anything, other than burning that ugly spell from as many horns as she could. Ponies groaned or cried out, jerking awake as she cauterised little patches of horn material without numbing the nerves first, and the rising noise started to wake those ahead of her.
At the next shelter the stallion of the pair was already on his hooves, his eyes and ears sweeping the surroundings and unfocused magic making firefly patterns over the surface of his horn. "Hey, Spiral, what--"
# All ponies at corral twenty-seven will evacuate the area immediately. Spiral Fracture CW8002 has delegate authority for the duration of the emergency. #
The message, transmitted from every labournet communicator, shocked him into a stunned silence. "What do we do? Can't we stop whatever--" he said, gaze locking onto hers. Around him gathered other ponies, all staring at her, little whispers passing on her location to those just emerging from their shelters.
She shook her head, mouth suddenly dry. Come on, filly, treat it like a drill. She was the corral's emergency manager, a job that went hoof, horn and wing along with her medic duties¸ but the idea of actually ordering all these ponies about... No, it has to be you, Spiral. All the others that came along are dead, remember? Oh, Trocar -- I wish you were here! "Everypony! We have been targeted by an enemy hive; we have to get out of the area. I have been given new magic to help us escape."
"It's not going to be like the Three Day War is it?" a voice cried out from the middle of the throng, full of fear and tension.
Spiral shivered. Few ponies had made it out of that stricken arcology; most had been killed by Baur Hive's gryphon death squads hunting the Masters they protected, or were lost in the collapse after the reactor complex blew. The memories of those that had were legend, and required experiences for the older foals during schooling. "I don't know, Doppler." Oh, Maker, I hope not. Tension twisting her insides, Spiral galloped to the edge of the corral, then wheeled to face those who had followed her.
Lilac? Is Trocar ready?
Her mate's thoughts broke in to the sharing, his senses expanding into her own and bringing a feeling of rushing wind and cold, icy mountains towering above the deep valley they'd selected as an initial destination. I am... but I won't be able to stop them from leaving again.
I know. Get ready to play catch. "Ears up and eyes forward! I have a special spell just for this." Oh, Maker -- please let this work... two jumps is hardly enough! Spiral brought the pattern to the front of her mind, modifying it just so, then gave a little push--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--appearing ten lengths away in a flash of green light, swaying drunkenly. "I can send you anywhere, as fast as I can cast the spell." Everypony was staring at her, open mouthed, then the air was filled with an excited babble. Not enough time for this! Spiral pushed again--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--jumping back to her original location, just as the herd rushed forwards. "I'll explain everything when we are all safe," she cried, and it was no effort at all to colour her shout with fear. "Form yourselves into four lines and I'll get to you as quickly as I can. This is very important -- when you appear you will be high in the air and going fast--" The mare lay on the grass and folded her legs and wings in. "--do not open your wings until you slow down!" The assembled ponies stared back at her with wide eyes, confusion on every face. "Just do it -- or I'll be repairing dozens of dislocated wings!" she snapped, voice near hysterical with panic. "Remember and pass it on to the ponies at the back -- legs in, wings in, eyes shut."
The shift in her tone must have convinced them, because the nearest ponies leapt forwards, colliding with each other in their haste to comply. "Trocar and his rescue team will be here in moments to help, so everypony must get into position right now," she said, in a slightly calmer tone
Ponies fell to the floor in a disordered wave that spread out through the herd, each pony following the lead of their nearest neighbours. That's right; follow-follow-follow. Keep them too busy to think, too busy to realise that the Maker is no longer talking to them, too busy to notice that the other ponies helping me should all be dead. Spiral took a deep breath, filling her mind with the sight, sound and smell of Trocar's distant mountain valley and funnelling that information into the teleport spell. Finally ready, she picked the closest pony, a trembling bundle of feathers and fur, his muscles so tense that they were like iron.
Okay, Prismatic, you get to go first. This specific teleport was one she'd practiced with Fusion, drilled it time and time again until the arcane patterns seemed to be carved into the surface of her brain. The presence of Trocar, holding position at the arrival point, reinforced the memory, and keeping the complex arcane pattern in the front of her mind actually seemed easy. Spiral took a deep breath, pulled off his communicator disk, and twisted the world--
--the stallion appeared in the dark air, barely a length from Trocar's muzzle, flicking away like he'd been thrown with all her might. There was a sudden scream, doppler-shifted and fading fast as the range opened, then Prismatic cautiously opened his wings, curving around in a wide arc, eyes wide and head whipping from side to side as he tried to take in everything at once. "Come and fly behind me, help catch ponies as they come through," Trocar called out, and the pony nodded--
Spiral broke into a huge smile. "He's safe," she said, then cast the spell on the next pony, pulling off his communicator as she did so. At the back of the herd there were sudden shouts of 'stay down, keep your eyes shut and your wings in', as Triple Point, Scalar and all the other 'dead' ponies teleported to the periphery of the herd, their horns already glowing.
===
Gravity panted, eyes shut tight against the glare of her own magic, breath warm in the small space she'd managed to keep open in between the collapsed armourcrete layers. "Stupid filly... didn't you learn anything?" she muttered, then groaned. There was another string of explosions, distant, quiet things more felt by their shockwaves through the material overhead than by sound, and the weight she was holding up abruptly became punishing. "Want to make sure, eh? Very sensible."
She reached for the teleport pattern, but it wouldn't stabilise, blurring in and out of focus in time with the pulsing pain in her shoulder and hind leg. More effort, this time to keep the details of her plight from the ever-watchful Lilac. It seemed that the youngster was otherwise occupied, focussed on the images coming back from Spiral as she stripped the Blessing from everypony at the corral, and the little traces leaking through from Fusion in the cool, white corridors of Naraka.
Her magic probed the thickness of material around her, hunting for something she could use. The only space within four lengths in any direction was the void she occupied, a low, domed cavity kept open by the singular force of her own power. The armourcrete layer the Dogs had brought down on her head had not cracked in a single place like glass over a pebble, but had fragmented and sagged, the individual tetrahedral subcomponents held in place by endless tangles of embedded fullerene cable. If she relaxed it would close the little gap and crush her like a hoof on an insect.
Can't dig out; there's nowhere to put the spoil. The mass below was a little thinner than the one above, especially since the Dogs had collapsed still more material upon it, and she sharpened her telekinetic pressure, changing the shape from a sphere to something more cone-shaped. The narrow end of the field started to push into the tough material below, pushing the tetrahedra apart. Overhead, the scarred roof pressed closer, and Gravity wriggled and twitched, forcing her legs down into the funnel forming beneath her while tucking her head into her chest.
Within a pawful of seconds the structure seemed to have stabilised, and she relaxed her grip on the armourcrete, sensitive to the slightest movement. The cramped volume left to her was too small to even turn her head, and her gasping breaths took the limited air and turned it into something damp and smothering. "But at least I can think," she muttered, pushing aside the teleport spell for the familiar power of her telekinesis. Without the need to support a length-square section, she could focus it down to something smaller than a hoof, forcing open cracks that extended through the material and out the underside.
That done, the slightest twitch of her wings -- all she could manage in the tiny space -- set the air moving, pulling away the foul exhalations and drawing fresh, although it was still tainted with the scent of powdered rock and explosives. The magic was only a fraction of her capabilities, even before she'd been connected to the moons, and hardly noticeable unless another pony was close by and watching carefully. Gravity did her own check, noting the distant glimmer of the only other pony in the Security Hub, small and barely visible, even against the depleted thaumic background. She really has been moving... I honestly thought she'd try and stop us. At least then we could have spirited her away from this place.
Her attention drifted onwards, into the dark cavity at the bottom of the central shaft. Here were the shapes of armoured vehicles, mostly flattened spheres with thick, high-density hulls. They were larger than the pair she'd destroyed in the depths of the Institute, and Gravity struggled to resist the urge to break into the hangar levels and see how tough they really were. They will be waiting for me when I go through the main doors; no chance of surprise... The idea of being caught at the focus of one or more of the lasers with no defence made her shiver. I'm actually safer here than anywhere else. She smiled and laughed quietly, the sound close and strange in her cramped bolt-hole. They'll have to nuke the site to catch me off-guard.
"Which they just might, if this goes very badly for them." Gravity shook her head, forgetting the close confines and striking the armourcrete with the side of her muzzle, and looked again. There was movement in the shadow world, heavy shapes lining up within the complex support structures below the main doors. She stared with interest; there was already a lot of fallen rubble at the bottom of the shaft, and it was possible that they just wouldn't be able to launch the things.
The rumbling groan reached her even buried under all that thickness of armourcrete, a sound like the grinding of two giant boulders. I guess that answers that question. "Lilac," she said, sending thoughts into the sharing, even as she murmured the words out loud. The sense of being somewhere else intensified, enhanced by the youngster's similar subterranean environment.
I'm ready, Gravity, he thought, body twitching unconsciously as he felt the confinement of her own. The square-sided chamber had an unfinished look, and was filled with neat stacks of half-length cubes of granite; all the spoil that they hadn't dumped at the bottom of the lake. He must have felt her interest, because the room was clearly illuminated by a floating point of white light, magnified and reflected countless times by the frosty, mirror-finished walls.
Just relax and let me guide you. Gravity reached in through the sharing, twisting Lilac's magic into the correct shapes. That's it. Now all you have to do is...
A pair of those lens-shaped airtanks squeezed out through the still-opening doors -- there was no laser-pure crystal thaumic glow, so Gravity imagined the dusty insides of the shaft being illuminated by the hard glare of plasma drives -- and started to accelerate towards the surface, bodies rotating to sweep the damaged walls.
--push!
In Lilac's darkened cavern there was a pulse of purple light, and a stack of blocks vanished--
--to reappear on one side of the shaft, with exactly the same velocity as when they were at rest in Lilac's cavern. Moving at over a hundred lengths a second, the two-and-a-half-tonne cubes of granite sprayed across the airtanks' path, but managed to miss them completely. A momentary correction and she had Lilac, his magic essentially just an extension of her will at this point, cast again and again.
The vehicles, only really visible as slightly darker silhouettes in her shadow sight, staggered under the rain of boulders, but did not go down. Too tough. Lilac, I'm going to have to go in directly -- are you okay to continue sending the rocks?
Y-yes, I can do it.
There was enthusiasm in his tone, but also fatigue. Don't try too hard; keep some magic back in case you need to move. Gravity registered his assent with a fraction of her attention, her excitement already building. She formed the pattern -- without the added strain of holding up a kilotonne of armourcrete, adrenalin was doing a wonderful job of holding back the pain from her injured leg -- and pushed--
~~~discontinuity~~~
--materialising in the wrecked hangar. There was a hoarse cry from somewhere behind her and she wheeled, magic snapping a half dome of violet light over her body, only to be greeted by the trembling form of the tech, still clinging to the skeletonised tail fin of one dropshuttle. She grinned in his direction, then quickly ripped more material from the downed aircraft, something that made him cry out and hug the fin even more tightly. Pipes, bars and panels tumbled through the air, forming themselves into a quintet of crude pony-shapes.
Fur, then feathers and armour, congealed over the metal debris, and Gravity lowered her head to the life-sized dolls, smile widening as they bowed back in return. Are you ready, Lilac? Assent came back through the reopened sharing, so she pushed her decoys over the edge and followed them down into the dusty air.
===
Three circular aircraft, little more than patches of deeper darkness against the midnight sky, flicked overhead in complete silence. At the midpoint of their track, each released a rain of darts that fell with far greater velocity than mere gravity allowed, spreading out to cover the remains of corral twenty-seven's herd.
The endless stream of teleports stopped and polychromatic magic stabbed upwards to sweep the projectiles from the sky, but at the slightest touch they detonated with stunning violence. A tiny part of Spiral's mind, in the bare milliseconds before the blast struck her, fought to assemble a force barrier to protect herself and as many ponies as she could reach, but the tangle of teleportation magic took too long to dismantle. We've killed them all, she thought, just as the shockwave hit.
Actinic flashes strobed across the whole width of the sky, flickering and pulsing in rhythms that reached in through her eyes and scrambled what little sense she had been left by the concussion. Near sightless, her body reacted, legs and wings churning up the grass and it tried to take her away from the technologically induced madness; she only faintly registered the rain of heavy, multilimbed shapes crashing to the ground around them all.
The flashing stopped and thought started to return. The need to escape was still filling her mind and, body not yet responding, she reached for her magic. A bare whisper of power, not even enough to jostle the nearest gryphon, was all she managed, before the world caught fire. Invisible flames covered her head, back and anything else exposed to the sky, a searing, blast-furnace heat that should have left her convulsing with lethal burns. Instead there was just the pain, pouring down from the heavens like an a rain of acid, as bad as from the Blessing at its worst but without the nuanced and well understood reason for its existence. She screamed, loud and ragged, and the others screamed with her. There were gunshots, things she'd only heard by proxy in Gravity's memories, but horribly recognizable despite that.
Her will vanished under the onslaught, taking with it the arcane power and the patterns that wished it into existence, but the pain carried on for a subjective lifetime. Then, as if it had never existed, it was gone. Gasping and gaping like a gaffed fish, Spiral looked out over the grassy lawn she'd picked as a staging area. Lit by harsh lights that moved in orbits high above, ponies covered it with a varicoloured pastel carpet of pain and distress, looking around in confusion at the angular gryphon-shapes that stalked among them.
Here and there were the dead. Ponies with bellies ripped open or heads smashed by high velocity projectiles, painting their nearest neighbours carmine. But only a few. Why didn't the Dogs just use real weapons and slaughter us all? Spiral tried to get her mind to focus on that question, but thoughts came slow and uneven, when they came at all. The gryphons were working their way through the herd from the perimeter inwards, attaching something to the horn of each pony.
About half way into the herd there was movement; a pony lifted his head, a glimmer of magic congealing about his horn. It was Axiom, one of the many ponies that worked in the local power complex, lying next to the blood-splattered body of his mate. Maker, no! Please don't do it, you can't win-- Spiral let out a moan, willing the stallion to submit. An instant later he was screaming, but the pain in his cries was tempered with fury, and his power built anyway. The nearest gryphons all turned, their weapons at the ready, and brilliant points of green dancing over Axiom's body. Spiral reached for her own magic, feeling his efforts and trying to disrupt his power. "Masters, please, I can stop--" Her shout ended in a high pitched wail as the burning wind found her once more, blowing out her magic like a candle in a hurricane.
The gryphons fired, and Spiral was left staring at the ruined remains of Axiom, as hard, scaly talons gripped her head and slid something onto her horn that shackled her power and drowned it under an endless ocean.
===
The gritty, smoky and overheated air whipped past as Gravity fell into the pit in the midst of her own little herd. Careful magic let her slice through the air, keeping out all but the faintest hint of burning flesh as she dropped through some energetic plume of combustion products and approached the half-opened doors. They were huge things, extending the full width of the shaft and made of the same armourcrete as the more hardened sections of the base, spaced into layers designed to absorb or deflect the heaviest fire. The Dogs below -- Fusion's thaumomagnetic pulse had obviously been attenuated by distance and intervening matter -- had found a way to get the big doors open, at least enough to slip a their airtanks through.
At this distance she had a better view of the main hangar decks, an overlapping mess of high density armoured hulls that stood out against the more normal armourcrete and steel. There were a scattering of antimagic fields, hard-edged polygons of purple light that were only really large enough to hold a single trooper, but very few considering the numbers of vehicles.
A whisper of unease stole up the mare's spine. I can't believe I've killed all of them down there... most of the damage is above these hangars. A flick of wings and she steered away from the relatively small opening, sending the flock of doppelgangers in her place, heading instead for a patch of armourcrete close to the edge of the doors and ignoring the pair of battered airtanks still twisting and searching for her. They were flying, but only just; even though the teleported projectiles had not killed them, it was obvious that the barrage of rocks had stripped most of the sensors from their hulls.
No lasers on these machines. The airtank's main guns cracked, shockwaves pummelling the dense air as they fired nearly blind, and several of the decoys dissolved into a spray of burning metal fragments. The others, manoeuvring violently in a simulacrum of desperate evasion, dropped past the gauntlet and through the doors, then vanished in a converging barrage of laser, railgun and hypervelocity missile fire. The whole bottom of the pit lit up with green, blue-white and orange flashes at the same time as arcane feedback made her head ache, thunderous detonations rolling over her moments later.
There was that trap laid for me... they obviously had contingency plans, for all that we surprised them. All the decoys were gone and the floor of the shaft, those giant hangar doors, the bright landing pad markings on their upper surfaces now half buried in rubble, was getting close, so she folded her wings. Her power reached out, narrowing to a needle point and potent with force vectors that all pointed at right angles to her direction of motion, striking the tough surface at the same instant as the rapid flicker-flash of force fields diced it into neat mirror-faced cubes.
There was a large mass, directly in her path. One of the heavy airtanks, held in an oversized rack that no doubt served it as a launching rail. It was one of many; each was stacked one over the other like a column of artfully balanced river pebbles. A zone of magic inhibition sprang up around it, and she fell through the shell of purple light. Her magic faltered and everything abruptly became more difficult; what was once near effortless was suddenly a struggle. Unable to sustain the tricky balancing act required to generate her cutting fields, Gravity slammed hooves-first into the upper hull, wings stroking furiously to kill her velocity.
Gravity's injured leg gave way and she tumbled down the smooth curve, feathers biting air as she went over the edge and fell past the prow, down the stack of lenticular aircraft. They were larger than the ones she'd encountered in the ruins of the Institute's transfer hub, but not massively so. Flattened spheres about three lengths across and two thick, studded with sensors, intakes and drive nozzles, weapons, and other unidentifiable devices. Like the pair that had escaped, these had long railgun barrels in place of the laser mirrors she'd seen before. The armour was also heavier, nearly as thick as her foreleg was long, and composed of a myriad of tiny tetrahedra, all tightly bound together and visible as complex detail to her density-sensitive shadow sight.
Twisting, she spun in the air, turning the fall into a dive and passing out of the airtank's antimagic field. Effortless power came back in a rush, only to die again when the next airtank's field came alive. A glance showed her all she needed to know: throughout the volume of the main hanger, a space five hundred lengths across and two hundred and fifty deep, the polygons of magical defences were springing up. So dense were the fields that there seemed to be no free space left at all.
The mare snarled, swooping past a gantry and yanking free one of the girder-trusses. It was harder to work but, although similar in function, these fields did not have the same power as the machine that had attacked her at the Institute. That device had been a general purpose suppressor, while these were more geared to simple thaumokinetic strikes, and seemed unable to keep her pinned down, as long as she kept adjusting her arcane tempo.
Gravity reached for the teleport pattern, trying to jump free of the cluttered environment, but the interference was enough to stop the complex magic from becoming real. Intentional or not, this is a trap. The delicate touch of fear became stronger, and she dove between a pair of the airtanks, just as a stream of projectiles punched dents in nearby support structures and whined off the much harder hulls. Lilac! The thought was met with silence, and she fumbled for the sharing, hunting along the rapidly fading pathway for the familiar touch of the youngster's mind. Mustn't-- They had fall-back plans if contact was lost, and if Fusion abandoned her far more important mission to protect her...
Suddenly, there was panic, but it wasn't hers. The babble of the stallion's thoughts flooded her own, near incoherent with desperate urgency. Thank the Maker! Lilac, I'm still--
You have to help -- they are killing them!
"Show me," Gravity snapped, jabbing her hull-alloy staff into the gaping muzzle of the nearest airtank turret that was trying to get her in its sights. Her staff-weapon, made of the same high density materials as the vehicles around her, was becoming increasingly hard to wield with any real force, and she nearly lost her grip at the jarring impact. It must have been enough, though, because lightning flashed within the long barrel, turning into a shrieking plume of incandescent gas as the superconductors failed and shorted out.
She flipped over, bringing her wings in and darting under the belly of the damaged tank, planting her hooves on the turret of the one below. It was also moving, but these machines were obviously not designed for agile opponents at such close quarters. More motion, this time from eyeball-like sensors on the underside of the one above, and Gravity distractedly smashed each one in quick succession, before doing the same to the airtank below her.
The vehicle she was standing on had another of the long-barrelled railguns, and this close to the mantlet she was within the sweep of the weapon and sheltered from the rest of the hangar. Starting to sweat inside her armour from the effort, Gravity resharpened the end of her staff, protected it with a force field, and then, with a grunt, drove the tip between the hull and the turret. There was a loud groan and a crack, then the whole bowl-shaped mass lifted up a tenth of a length.
Slightly safer for the moment, Gravity reached back down the sharing, grabbing a hold of Lilac's magic and pulling in the clairvoyance images. Dimly, she felt his body shudder at her less than gentle usurpation, but paid it no mind.
--a grassy field lit from some harsh overhead source and strewn with bodies, many obviously still alive and cowering, others screaming and writhing as if under the Blessing's lash. The flare of magic, vague and uncertain, a pony trying to strike back at his tormentors, followed by the harsh crack of gunfire--
Lilac's thoughts cut across the imagery, making everything waver and blur. I can't talk to Spiral or Scalar any more, and there are no ponies being pushed to the rendezvous point, and-and--
Lilac's thoughts were almost indecipherable, and Gravity relaxed her grip. Does Fusion know? In the real world, the hull shifted under her hooves, vibrating and twitching like a live thing as the drive lit and spat needles of blue plasma from multiple nozzles. She strained against the bar, using its leverage to increase the force she was applying to the turret, and something gave inside the aircraft, the whole mass abruptly tilting upwards as the bearings sheared. Brilliant pulses of green light struck nearby and Gravity flinched, but the shooter didn't seem to have line of sight.
No, I couldn't get--
...her attention, Gravity completed, keeping the thought from the sharing, then reached for her sister. Fusion, there are Dogs and gryphons at the corral. I think they will know where you are very soon. The gun barrel wedged against the underside of the tank above and she pushed harder and twisted, jamming the upended turret into the gap. The whole vehicle shuddered as something struck the other side, sending fragments whining in random directions. Her force field caught the ones heading for her body, although the effort made her head swim. More gunfire, a continuous sleet of small stuff that was obviously unable to penetrate the hull and only served to stop an easy escape. They suspect I can't jump... well, they got that right.
There was a moment's pause, as Fusion digested the images she'd sent, then: I'll go, I can see you are--
No! Gravity thought, cursing for not suppressing her own sensory feed, then clamping down so Fusion couldn't see what she was doing. You must not leave without our foals. She reached into the space left by the turret mechanism, pulling out and discarding tangled clumps of machinery, then poked her head through the hole. They are repositioning to get a clear shot, but I think I can slow them down... Eyes narrowed, she grinned.
But they'll slaughter half the corral -- what's the point in saving a few if the rest die? There was frustration in Fusion's mental tone, and the sensation of magic being formed was obvious.
If you go, they will move the foals and any future trap would be that much harder to circumvent. More to the point, to come home without them... Terror, carefully controlled, stole back down the link, and Gravity nodded in satisfaction.
Very well, but if you don't get out right now...
I will. I've got a plan. Past the internal structure of the airtank's core was a small stall just large enough for a pony -- fortunately empty -- and either side of that were gimballed spheres, each holding a Dog. "Nice doggies want to play a game?" she shouted over the sounds of gunfire and drive motors. The words were private, blocked from the sharing. One was frantically working, paws dancing across great swathes of controls that the internal systems had coloured the bright red of failure, while the other had twisted in his seat and was shakily pointing a stubby pistol in her direction.
"None of that," she said, pulling it from his grasp and ripping open the meshwork that separated the two Dogs from the rest of the airtank. A flick of magic pulled them both, kicking and shouting, onto the hull with her, then she pushed them further out, holding them in clear air above a fifty length drop to the floor below. Their protests died at that point, as did all the gunfire. "What do you know... they do want to keep you alive," she called out. "I lost my bet."
"Why is the servitor doing this?!" one of them shouted back, her voice high and distorted with panic.
Gravity didn't answer, just held them steady while she dug around in the mass of hardware, hunting for the thing she needed. There, in the thinnest hull section, right out at the rim of the lens, she found it. A quick twist and the magic defences failed, leaving her in a zone free from magical interference. Jumping now. One last look around, and her gaze alighted on the stacked ranks of silvery darts that were obviously the railgun's ammunition. These liberated, she stuck her muzzle out of the turret opening and waggled her ears at the floating Dogs.
"You gave wings to all your creations -- it's a pity you didn't see fit to do the same for yourselves," she said, smile widening as realisation struck the airtank pilots, then pushed--
~~~discontinuity~~~
===
A hundred seconds later and a suppressor ring was on the horn of everypony present. The numbers of gryphons had swollen dramatically, until there was at least two for each of the captives. Spiral tried to breathe steadily, ignoring the trip-hammer beat of her heart and the constant urge to move, to run, to fly, to do anything to escape the corral. Her own guards, three bulky gryphons so covered with scaly armour and equipment that she had no idea of their subspecies, stood around her, one holding each wing and the third pointing its shoulder-mounted gun at her head. They had not been gentle; the sharp surfaces on the undersides of their talons were red with blood, and more ran sluggishly from cuts where they gripped her.
They want Fusion and Gravity, that's why all this is happening. The assembled mass of ponies was mostly silent and still, cowering and fearful, with only the occasional quiet whinny or snort, quickly silenced by back-taloned blows from the cat-bird soldiers. The unnecessary aggression spoke volumes about the gryphons; there was as much fear in their movements as there was in that of the ponies, and they twitched at the slightest movement. We are bait, hostages just like our foals were. The realisation made silent tears of fear and rage run down her cheeks, blurring the harshly lit scene into a distorted chaotic swirl of glare and bright colours. How could it have been any other way?
Something howled overhead on jets of air; an arrowhead-shaped aircraft that was only visible in the reflected light from the orbiting airtanks. Bipedal shapes were dropped from its belly, looking like fat spiders on their arrester lines, clawed paws digging deeply into the grass as they landed. They stalked through the assembled herd, four with weapons drawn and the fifth acting like it was hunting for some particular pony or ponies.
The Dog found what it was looking for, and rough claws pulled Spiral, Triple, Scalar and the others involved in the little rebellion out and dumped them away from the rest. Little gasps and wordless exclamations, quickly beaten into silence, rippled through the rest of the ponies; in this moment of relative calm, any chance they had of not being recognised was long gone.
The lead Dog made its blank-faced helmet open, revealing a black-furred and scowling face. "Where is Fusion Pulse TC4668?" she demanded, with a snarl that showed a startlingly-white set of canine teeth. None of the ponies answered; some looked away or lowered their heads, while others, Scalar in particular, stared back defiantly. "This one has given the servitors a direct order! Where is TC4668?" She made a gesture with her right paw, making blue-white sparks crackle between the metal claws at its fingertips.
"Never, we'll never--" Scalar howled as the Dog's paw gripped his throat, his body vibrating and twitching as if being prodded by hot needles. The electricity vanished, leaving the stallion gasping and shivering, but his ears were flat back and his eyes wild. "I have felt the lash of the Maker's Test, Dog, and there is nothing you can do to me that will make me tell--" he spat, teeth snapping shut and the tendons of his neck standing out like cords as the sparks leapt once more. After a count of ten the paw relaxed, but Scalar just glared up at the Dog and panted, great, gasping breaths that made his sweat-soaked flanks heave.
The soldier's eyes narrowed, and she glanced down at a display on her wrist before returning her gaze to Scalar, then smiled nastily. "Bring this one the pony Elliptic DD2206," she snapped, studying the stallion intently.
Scalar's eyes went wide and he made to stand, but one of his gryphon guards slammed a fist into the side of his head and he dropped back down, stunned. "No! She's got nothing to do with any of this..." he said, trailing off as Elliptic was pushed to the grass in front of him.
The mare, her delicate green coat and feathers marred by flecks of red, didn't fight the gryphon guards, but just looked back at Scalar with an expression of utter confusion. "But you were dead! I-I saw your body and scattered your ashes, and-and now you're back and-and--" She cut off when the Dog made a sharp gesture with one paw. "I'm sorry, Master, I don't understand any of this. W-what are your orders?" The last words came out sounding hopeful, even through her trembling tone, and Elliptic twisted to look up at the soldier, ears forward and attentive.
"The pony will convince its mate to tell this one where Fusion Pulse TC4668 is." She held up one paw, making electricity crackle between the claw-tips.
Elliptic's eyes went wide and she tried to shy away from the blue-white snap-crack, only to be prevented from doing so by gryphons who held on to her head and wings. "Scalar, talk to the Master. I don't know what's going on, but you must t-t--" She gasped as the paw came closer, hooves making unconscious little running motions until those too were held still.
Scalar surged forwards, only to be beaten down again, and was practically buried under his own gryphon captors. "I'll kill you, I'll kill you all if you so much as touch--"
The Dog placed her paw gently on Elliptic's neck, and the mare convulsed, screaming high and loud in time with the flicker-pulse of electricity. A moment later the touch was withdrawn, and Elliptic slumped in the talons holding her, making great, gasping sobs interspersed with a faint keening sound. "Please, Scalar, please..." she whispered. The paw approached again and Elliptic closed her eyes. "The Masters are the paws of the Maker," she babbled, over and over again. The electricity bit and her words dissolved into a series of grunts and squeals, her wings thrashing hard enough to knock her guards off balance.
Scalar just stared at his twitching, writhing, mate, his mouth opening and closing. "No," he said finally, his throat so closed up that the word was nearly incomprehensible, "I can't."
The soldier shrugged, then reached back to draw her laser from where it was clipped against her backpack. She hefted the device, making the thick connecting cable sway slightly, then pointed it at the fleshy part of Elliptic's shoulder. "This could cut right through the pony's body... but it doesn't have to." Muscle exploded in a flare of green light, leaving a bloody crater the size of a foal's hoof. The mare screamed again, ragged and full of shock, her cries muffled when the gryphon holding her head transferred its grip to her muzzle. "Lasers don't penetrate well. The pony's mate has a lot more hide this one can burn," she snarled, moving the laser a little further along and firing again.
Sprays of atomised blood had coated Scalar's head and chest, and more was pouring down Elliptic's side to soak into the grass. Spiral twitched, earning herself a sharp squeeze from one of the gryphons holding her wings, and settled for silently probing the nasty band of crystal thaumic machinery that was locked at the base of her horn. "Let me help her; she'll bleed to death if I don't--" She cut off as the soldier fired a third time.
"Stop!" Scalar cried, "she's at Naraka. Fusion has gone to Naraka to get our foals back."
"See? That was easy, wasn't it?". The soldier straightened up, closing her helmet visor and muzzle guard, then turned to the gryphon waiting at her side. "Load these ones," she said, waving the laser over the little group, then leaned towards Spiral, tapping her sharply on the muzzle. "Command suspects that this pony is the leader of this little mission," she said, "and is wondering if the rogues from the Institute are watching through the pony's eyes."
Ears still twitching at Elliptic's fading cries, Spiral shifted her gaze to the confused mass of ponies still huddled under the gryphon trooper's guns. "No," she whispered, "that's monstrous."
"This is the price of treason, servitor." Her voice was suddenly amplified, booming out over the herd. "Kill one at random, every thirty seconds."
Hard claws closed on her body, holding her head still, but she didn't try to move, instead watching as the first unfortunate pony was dragged away from their companions. Where are you, Gravity? You were supposed to be watching us, Spiral thought, tears running down her cheeks. Panicked whinnies and frantic neighs cut the air, nearly drowning out the mechanical noises of the orbiting airtanks, then there was a single, sharp, crack.