//------------------------------// // Chapter 36 // Story: The Parliament of Dreams // by Wheller //------------------------------// Chapter 36 Sparky and Dizzy trotted back into the Discovery One’s crew deck. As they rode the lift down, they had noticed that the members of their group had since discarded their spacesuits. Amarilla and Juan Carlos had gathered the Spacesuits up and were mounting them on several holders. Several metres up spin from them, DC Hopely, Shortfuse and Grandma V were looking over one of the consoles. Sparky and Dizzy parted ways at the lift. Dizzy headed up spin to join with the rest of the group. Sparky headed over to Amarilla and Juan Carlos. 'Umm... Applejack?' Sparky asked. Amarilla looked up to her and shook her head. 'Please, I have not been Applejack in a very, very long time. Please call me Amarilla', she said with a sigh. 'Okay', Sparky said nodding her head in agreement. 'How are you doing?' 'I feel... different', Amarilla said. 'I have been explaining to Juan Carlos, he is... oddly understanding of my past, I did not expect him to accept that I was not who he thought I was'. Sparky looked over to Juan Carlos, who was tidying up the spacesuits, completely absorbed in the work. She couldn't help but smile. 'He's devoted to you, I don't think it would matter if you were a changeling infiltrator, he'd still be by your side'. Sparky realised immediately that that was a bad example, a changeling infiltrator pretending to be Amarilla would probably result with the gryphon ripping its limbs off. What she had meant by it if she was something particularly nasty, and she opened her mouth to explain what she meant, but Amarilla raised a hoof to shush her. 'I know what you meant', Amarilla said with a smile. 'I thank you for coming to speak with me, but I think the others could use your help on the other end of the ring', Amarilla added, and pointed up to the others. Sparky turned around and looked; Shortfuse and DC Hopely looked to be in a heated debate. She gave Amarilla a polite nod and trotted up spin to settle the dispute. ‘Now that we’ve got Discovery One I say we abandon that rust bucket Leninov and ride this ship home in comfort!’ Shortfuse cried out. ‘At least with this ship, we don’t need to worry about the possibility of not arriving home!’ ‘The Leninov is not a rust bucket! That ship will outlast the Discovery One by a hundred years!’ DC Hopely snapped back at her. ‘We only had one major scare, and that was when Amarilla’s hibernation pod went offline for a few minutes, but we got it back running!’ ‘Oh only one major scare huh? I suppose that’s good for you and your commie friends huh?’ Shortfuse asked. ‘Huh? Anastasia?’ ‘I am NOT a communist!’ DC Hopely snapped in defence. ‘SHUT UP!’ Sparky cried out at the top of her lungs. Shortfuse and DC Hopely jumped in surprise as they turned to look at her. ‘We aren’t abandoning the Leninov, we can’t. The Discovery One is too slow, it would extend our trip longer than we need it to be’. Sparky took a seat at the control console and pulled up the holographic interface and began to type. ‘Hannibal? I need you to run a simulation for me; I’m feeding you all the necessary data’. ‘Affirmative Sparkplug’, Hannibal said as his holographic avatar materialised out of thin air next to them. ‘I await your instructions’. ‘What are you doing Sparky?’ Shortfuse asked. ‘During my employment at FutureTec, I made myself very familiar with the design specifications of the Discovery One, the ship carries a reserve supply of helium-3 for emergencies. If we transfer that He-3 to the Leninov...’ Sparky said her voice trailing off as she pulled up a holographic map of their solar system, she plotted the position of the docked Leninov and Discovery One in orbit of Tartarus. ‘Hannibal? I’ve fed you all the information on the Leninov, if we transfer Discovery One’s reserve supply of Helium-3, show me how far we’d get before running out of fuel’. Hannibal nodded and disappeared from view to run the simulation. Sparky watched as a line was drawn from the Leninov’s position near Tartarus towards home, as it neared the end point, Sparky couldn’t help but smile. ‘Zoom in please Hannibal’, Sparky asked politely. She watched the holographic map as it zoomed in and her jaw dropped open, she’d been expecting to get close... but not that close. ‘You’re sure this simulation is accurate? Hannibal?’ ‘Based on information given to me, this simulation is accurate to a variance of plus or minus one decametre’, Hannibal stated matter of factly. Shortfuse and DC Hopely’s mouths fell open as well. A decametre out in space was chump change, and Hannibal’s simulation had put them at about a quarter of the distance between their home and the moon, and that was damn close. ‘Hannibal? Give me the time in RMT, please’ Sparky requested. ‘It is currently 2333 Rennich Mean Time’, Hannibal said. ‘Could you please run another simulation? Assuming that the Leninov departed at exactly 1200 RMT tomorrow, show me exactly where the planet’s rotation will be at the end of our trip, please?’ Sparky asked. ‘Why do you want to know that?’ Shortfuse asked. ‘Simple, we’re going to run out of fuel before we get back home, which means that we’re going to have to abandon the Leninov once we get there... and we don’t want to land in the Præsidium because of that, I have a feeling that the NKVD wouldn’t like it in the slightest. The Leninov’s cockpit is designed to separate and make a hard landing’, Sparky said. She watched as Hannibal’s simulation plotted the course from the Leninov to the planet below. They were going to get lucky and not be landing in the Præsidium after all. They were, however, going to be landing in the middle of Greater Ponyville... with all its tall buildings that they could be hitting on their way to the ground. ‘On the plus side... we’ve only got about a ten per cent chance of getting killed by hitting a building!’ Sparky said with a nervous smile. ‘Actually, I calculate the possibility to be exactly twelve point eight seven five three repeating...’ Hannibal began before Sparky interrupted. ‘You’re not helping Hannibal’, Sparky said with a frown. ... Kelso had never been to Viola Auditore’s flat before, and she was surprised to discover that it wasn’t anything how she pictured it was going to be. It was a small two room flat; the main room was half a kitchen, half a lounge, and at the far end of the room was a closed door which went into the bedroom. The flat was sparsely decorated; the lounge area held a single sofa, Across from it, mounted on the wall was a small holographic television screen. On the other side of the sofa was a small table with a vase filled with daisies sitting on it. The walls were painted a simple white, with the carpet a matching grey. Overall, the flat was very spartan, which was not something that Kelso had expected, considering the fact that Viola had taken kickbacks for who knows how long? ‘How long have you lived here?’ Kelso asked. ‘Oh... five years? I think? Something like that, I don’t really have a lot, I’m never here, so there isn’t much of a point’, Viola said with a shrug, she must have figured what Kelso had meant with the question. Viola sat down on the sofa and gestured for Kelso to take a seat next to her. ‘You’re going to like this, I promise’, she added. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure’, Kelso said, rolling her eyes. ‘Just trust me’, Viola said as she slid a small holographic terminal that was on the table directly in front of them. Pulling up the display, she pushed a few buttons and sat back. She was making a call. Kelso watched as a holographic image of a dark furred schäferhund appeared before her. ‘What?’ the wolf like creature said sleepily. ‘I was trying to sleep’. ‘Oh don’t complain’, Viola said simply. ‘Ana Kelso? Meet Otto Büchsenmacher, he’s an information retrieval specialist who freelances for the PPS’. ‘And by information retrieval specialist, you mean “computer hacker”, and by freelances, you mean, “he does what you tell him to do, and you don’t turn him in to the Police Internationale”, am I close?’ Kelso asked, rolling her eyes. ‘Welaran MI8, actually, they’re looking into him as a possible perpetrator of cyber terrorism’, Viola said with a smirk. ‘I don’t know how many times I need to say this. Hacking the website of the Welaran Home Office and replacing the image of King William with an edited one of him in a dress is not cyber terrorism. What it is, is funny, the welarans have no sense of humour’, Otto said with a sigh. ‘What is it this time, Detective Chief Inspector?’ ‘Tell me something Otto, have you ever wanted to hack FutureTec?’ Viola asked him. Otto cocked his head to the left in surprise. ‘FutureTec? You have my interest’, Otto said. ‘Good! Because you don’t really have a choice otherwise’, Viola said with a grin. ‘Unless you’d like MI8 on your doorstep; book a flight to Equestria, fastest flight, PPS will reimburse you’. ‘How generous of you, I will be there tomorrow evening’, Otto said as he closed out the call. Kelso looked to Viola with disdain; this isn’t exactly what she had been expecting. ‘A schäferhund hacker? That’s your plan?’ ‘Nope! The best hacker in the entire world, and that’s only the beginning’, Viola said with a smile. ‘Have a little faith, Kelso’.