Chapter XIX
“No,” I said repeatedly as I made my way across the empty lab. There were voices behind me, clearly trying to get my attention, but I was only aware of them in the same way that I was aware of the fact that oxygen exists, or that the sky is blue.
Or that you somehow managed to bring your dead friend back to life, that nasty, annoying part of my brain said to me.
“No, no, no, shut up! I don’t want to hear that!” I said as I reached out, grabbed the handle to the door in front of me, and yanked it open, allowing me entrance into the room beyond. With a little more force than I intended, I slammed the door closed, plunging my world into darkness.
It took me a little longer than I would care to admit to realize why it was so dark in here, but eventually I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to get anywhere by standing in a broom closet all day.
I was incredibly embarrassed as I came out, but that feeling was swiftly eclipsed by the absolute nope that I felt when my eyes landed on the small, metallic cat that was waiting in the room beyond. “No!” I said as I pointed at the cat, then turned back into the closet and closed the door again.
“Alex, you can’t stay in the closet forever. Eventually, you’re going to have to listen,” I heard Robert’s voice say.
“No! You’re wrong because you’re dead! This is all a dream, and I’m going to wake up in my bed at any moment!” I shouted as I sat heavily on my rump.
“Alex, this not dream. This real, but you not bring dead back,” I heard Moon say through the door.
“Oh yeah? Then how do you explain-” I said, then tore open the door, all while pointing my finger at the small metallic cat masquerading as Bob. “That.” I then shut the door again before they had begun to answer.
“Alex, he not your friend. Not exactly, he…” Evening started to say, but then trailed off as something occurred to her. “Well, how would describe? Not familiar with magic.”
Though Evening had whispered that last bit, I still heard her, my ears having regained quite a bit of their previous sensitivity since my recent transformation back into a human, and subsequent slow transformation into… whatever I was becoming.
I still looked plenty human, but the changes were more noticeable now: I could hear things I knew that I normally couldn’t hear; smell things that normally would have remained unnoticed; my eyesight was steadily sharpening, and my two different skin tones were a lot more even now.
Oh, and my pupils seemed to want to expand to fill my eyes completely. That was a thing that was happening.
“Not so,” I heard Moon say, interrupting my musing about my new form. “I in dreams. Make discovery. He not know specifics magic, but very familiar with concepts magic. Example: no magic on planet, yet somehow have word that translate directly to Necromancy.”
At that little revelation, I heard Evening gasp in understanding. “Or like how know not talk about calculation device when talk about golem?”
“Exactly. He has concept magic, though some may wrong, because never have real magic,” Moon further explained. “Think best if find out reason first, though. Good that feel Necromancy bad, still find out why, go from there.”
“Well, I’m not really sure why it’s bad in the real world, but among the legends and myths of my home, Necromancy has always sort of been bad because it disrupts and disturbs the dead from their rest,” I interrupted them, letting them know that I had heard their whole conversation.
There was a pause at that, followed quickly by Sun clearing her throat. “Well, that certain good reason, but not real reason bad. Necromancy bad because Veil… harmful… to living.”
There was a pause at that as I thought about this. “I’m sorry, but what’s the Veil?”
“The Veil… is thing, draw souls of dead to other life. It not evil, not bad, but bad for living. Living touch Veil, living lose mind,” Sun said carefully.
However, as gently as she tried to break that little tidbit to me, it still made me flip my lid. “I’m gonna lose my-” I started to say, but stopped when a dull, bone shaking thud reverberated throughout the whole castle, making me forget my previous worries. “What was that?” I asked as I opened the door to the closet a crack.
“I-I not know,” Evening said, her face clouded in worry.
“Not know either, but I think not good for all,” Sun said as she moved towards the exit. “I go, find what wrong. Stay, continue explain Alex, then help him Robert.”
As I watched her leave, I couldn’t help but feel distinctly uneasy. I knew full well what lurked in the skies above this planet, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the aliens had gotten bored with their little charade and had started to bombard the city.
“Anyway, let’s get back to work,” I said as I slammed the door all the way open, startling the other three occupants of the room. “We still need to make that computer so that your weapon works, and me hiding in the closet isn’t going to help anything.”
Everything had suddenly become so clear at the sound of… whatever that noise was. I knew that if this planet had any hope of surviving what was to come (or indeed, what was already happening), I couldn’t afford any distractions.
That included whether or not I had accidentally brought someone back from the dead. I may have disturbed Bob’s rest, may have brought the wrath of the dead upon my head, and even may be on the right track to loony town, but as long as lives were at stake, I found it kind of hard to care. “Bob, I’m sorry that I disturbed your rest and brought you back. I hope that one day you can forgive me, but for right now, while I still have a little sanity left, we’ve got to make sure that They can’t take this world,” I said, taking advantage of the disturbance I had made to say my peace.
“Alex, stop and listen to the alien ponies. You didn’t bring me back from the dead,” he said as he loped up to my ankles. “I even told you that when you first saw me, but I don’t think you were listening very well then.”
That, of course, stopped me in my tracks. “Wait, then how in the heck did I turn you into a cat?” I then looked up at Moon and Evening, my face a mask of confusion. “How did I turn Bob into a robot cat?”
“You didn’t. That not Robert. At least, not exact,” Moon said sadly.
“Alex, Robert died. But when people die, if enough violence, enough tragedy, enough regret, can… leave part of soul behind,” Evening said slowly.
“Wait… what are you saying exactly?” I asked, trying to wrap my brain around what they were telling me.
“We say that when die, Robert left piece soul on you. Piece soul that you use to give cat intelligence. Not Robert, but much like Robert. Think of cat as echo of what once was.”
“Or a ghost,” I said as I sat heavily at a nearby desk. As I did so, a thought occurred to me. “Wait, you said fragment, but this sounds and feels almost exactly like Bob. Also, how the heck did I get a fragment of Bob’s soul stuck on me to be able to do this? I wasn’t anywhere near Bob when he died!”
“No? Not near?” Evening asked curiously, then turned to Moon. “That stop that theory, but give evidence to other theory.”
“You guys had a theory?” I asked, a little surprised that they had come up with something so quickly.
“Yes. Theory based on state of Robert’s fragments, need run tests on you confirm, but pretty sure theory,” Evening said firmly.
I raised my eyebrow at that. “What do you mean by the state of Robert’s ‘fragments’?”
“She mean that Robert soul not single fragment, but many,” Moon said carefully. “Forty-eight, be exact.”
* * *
“Concentrate your efforts on those blazes there, ponies!” Captain Star Blaze shouted as he directed the Canterlot Weather crew to where they were needed most.
“What happened here, captain?” a familiar voice asked him from behind, causing him to quickly turn and salute to the Solar Princess as she landed.
“Something fell from the heavens, Your Highness. We haven’t been able to get to it yet, on account of all the fires it caused, but eyewitnesses say that it appeared to be some kind of meteor,” Star Blaze reported.
Celestia shook her head at that. “You and I both know it was nothing of the sort. Get those fires out as soon as possible, get the wounded to the hospital, and ensure that everypony is accounted for while I go investigate the crash.”
“Already on it, Your Highness. We would have had ponies at the crash as well, but the fires are too hot there, even for our best enchantments,” Star Blaze said with another salute.
“Good. Oh, and captain, also be on the lookout for anything suspicious. Especially if it relates to the other crash,” Celestia said as she took off.
“Yes ma’am.”
* * *
Celestia honestly had no clue what was the cause of the second crash, but based on the available information, she could eliminate some possibilities. For starters, she knew that it wasn’t some kind of alien bombardment, simply because of the lack of any further strikes. By that same logic, she could also eliminate an invasion pod from the list of possibilities, not to mention the fact that the destruction of the pod would have killed the soldiers inside.
This left only two other possibilities: It was an accident, or some kind of warning shot.
So it was with some trepidation that Celestia dove into the very heart of the flame. Captain Star Blaze hadn’t been exaggerating when he had said that the fires were too hot for their best enchantments, but Celestia’s link to Equis’ Sun ensured her safety even in the hottest of places.
Once she had reached the source of the blaze, she reached deep inside herself, drawing on the vast stores of magic she had at her disposal. With a thought, she transferred most of the nearby thermal activity to herself, which was then automatically transferred through her link to where it could do the least amount of harm.
With an almost whimper-like sputter, the entire blaze went out, leaving Celestia standing next to the burnt out husk of twisted metal that sat in the center of the impact crater. As she carefully strode closer to it, she reaches out with her magic, pulling the slightly ajar hatch completely open, wary of what horrors it might contain.
It was empty.
If Celestia had been on the dense side, she probably would have assumed that whoever had been inside had died and been consumed in the flames. The problem with that theory, however, was the fact that the inside of the pod was relatively unscathed. Aside from a little bit of singeing, as well as a bit of superficial damage to the devices that the pod housed, there was very little evidence to suggest that there had been a fire at all.
“Either there was no one in the pod in the first place,” she said as she looked up into the clear blue sky. “Or whoever was inside got out before it crashed.”
She thought about this for a bit, then shrugged as she took off with a single beat of her alabaster wings. “Well, if this thing has a Calculation Device, I’m sure that ~Alex~ will be able to discover whatever secrets it holds.”
She just hoped that whatever he found out was worth the lives that had been lost during the crash.
* * *
“What the heck is happening? Why have we lost control?” Captain Hazalk yelled as he typed his override into the computer console again, but to no avail.
“I don’t know sir, but- Oof!” Wendalaz said as he tore open a console. “If we don’t regain control soon, they’ll tear us apart!”
Hazalk tapped his personal comlink, hoping that it hadn’t been hacked along with the rest of the ship’s systems. “Attention all personnel: we’ve lost control of the ship. I repeat, we’ve lost control. The bridge has sealed itself, cutting us off from helping. If there is anyone near the computer core, I want you to either shut it down, or kill it as soon as possible. Is there anyone there? Over.”
Hazalk waited for a few seconds, his hearts hammering uncomfortably in his chest as he waited for an answer. He was about to try the com again when it buzzed to life, causing him to feel both relief that he could still get his orders to the rest of the ship, as well as fear at the sounds of combat he heard on the other side of the line. “We hear you, captain, but it may take us a few minutes. The ship’s automated defenses have gone completely haywire, and we’re having trouble reaching the core.”
“Just be glad that the ship is hardwired to not be able to jettison anyone out into space, Verilo.”
“Yeah, but we’ll run out of air soon if we can’t get that stinking computer back under control,” the sergeant said.
“We have more important things to worry about. There’s a ship out there doing its best to tear us apart, and if we don’t get this bucket back under control…” Hazalk trailed off as he ripped open another panel, trying to help regain control from his end.
“Gotcha sir,”
“Is there anyone else alive out there? If so, get down to the computer core as quickly as you can and help Verilo and his team kill it,” Hazalk ordered. He then tossed aside his comlink as he crawled into the panel he had opened, hoping that more of his crew had survived, but expecting the worst. “How are we doing so far, Talian?”
“Our ship is doing a pretty good job, all things considered,” the lieutenant answered dryly. “The life expectancy of our class of ship alone against a Nova Class is about seven minutes, so we’ve already exceeded that by about four minutes now.”
"That’s… odd. You think they would have wiped us out by now, especially since we fired first!” Wendalaz shouted from where he was on the other side of the room.
“Not unless they want to take us prisoner. Remember, we’re not exactly at war right now, though this could very well be the beginning of the hostilities!” Hazalk shouted back.
“You would also probably like to know that we have more survivors than just Verilo and his team. Commander Yvtil and a few surviving techs are pinned down in Engineering, and Doctor Ulia and her team are sealed in the medical bay,” Talian reported.
That’s good. Yvtil should be able to keep those techies alive for a few more minutes, and the medical bay is hardwired to lock down and go on its own air supply during a high alert, just like the bridge, Hazalk thought as he severed the console he was working on from the rest of the network. “Keep me apprised if anyone-”
Before he was able to finish that thought, however, the whole bridge went dark, followed closely by the red emergency lights coming on, causing him to sigh in relief. “Talian, tell Verilo to get that backup core up and running as soon as possible! We need to get out of here before-”
“Sir, that wasn’t Verilo,” Talian said, nudging the captain’s leg. “Here sir, you’re going to need this.”
Hazalk pulled himself out of the console he was working on, grabbing the comlink that Talian was offering him. “Hello? What happened out there?”
There was a bit of a pause, followed by the sound of the comlink cutting back in. “I’m sorry sir, but I saw no other course of action,” Yvtil answered. “It was either pull the plug, or get killed by our own security system.”
“You shut down our reactor?!” Hazalk asked in disbelief. “That’s… that’s brilliant!”
“Um… no sir, it’s not. We’re sitting ducks out here, and-” Yvtil started to say, but was stopped as Hazalk keyed the comlink again.
“Commander, stop for a second and tell me what you hear.”
There was a long, awkward pause as Hazalk waited for an answer. “Sir, I don’t get it, what are-” Wendalaz started to say, but was hushed into silence by Talian.
“No, don’t you hear that?” Talian asked carefully.
Finally, after a couple more seconds of waiting, the comlink buzzed to life again. “I’m sorry sir, but I don’t hear anything,” Yvtil said in exasperation.
“Exactly, There’s no impacts, no rumbling, and more importantly, no weapon fire,” Hazalk said pointedly.
There was a pregnant pause as the others took a moment to digest this new information. “Sir, do you mean…?” Yvtil asked hesitantly.
“Oh, you know that’s what I mean,” Hazalk answered her. He then cleared his throat, well aware that he was about to give one of the strangest orders he has ever given. “Attention! All hands, if you can hear this, please check in as quickly as you can. We’ve regained control of the ship, but that is soon about to change. We’re about to be boarded. Standard boarding procedures do not apply in this scenario, however. I repeat, do not follow your training and fight to the last man. In fact, if you see someone that is not a Krin, I want you to lay down your arms and surrender. I repeat, do not engage, lay down your arms, and surrender.”
There was another pregnant pause at this, which was soon broken as Lieutenant Wendalaz cleared his throat. “Uh, sir? Do you think that wise?”
“Oh yes. They could have destroyed us at any time, but they didn’t,” Hazalk pointed out. “I’m pretty sure we should wait and see what the Quzin have to say before we start shooting blindly, don’t you?”
Wendalaz just sighed in defeat at that. “I hope you’re right, sir.”