//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: How Hard Could It Be? // Story: Changeling Space Program // by Kris Overstreet //------------------------------// In the depths of the Badlands, where few ponies ventured and even fewer ponies wanted to, there stood a single, lonely mailbox on a post next to the entrance of a nondescript-looking cave. The box had no name; merely a number, and that number was a single digit. Some mailponies might have questioned why tens of thousands of different names might appear on the letters delivered to that box over the years, but none of those ponies would have agreed to a mail route that required hundreds of miles of flight from the closest post office in Appleoosa. In fact, only one pony- a special contractor, not really a proper member of the Equestrian Postal Service at all- was willing to fly the route once per week. This was just as well, because it meant that Derpy Hooves, good-natured and less prone to panicky fear than most ponies, became the one pony in Equestria who could turn up at the entrance to Queen Chrysalis’s hive and not be immediately captured and cocooned. In fact, the guard at the entrance to the hive had stopped using his disguise around her long ago, and on this particular day he waved at her as she descended to Occupant, Box One, The Badlands with a middling-full saddlebag of mail. “Hi, Derpy!” Occupant called up to her. (His given name was Pedipalp, for the large flat fangs that became buck teeth in every disguise he attempted. He’d always hated the name, and the day the queen granted his petition for the name change remained the happiest day of his life. He had a certain slightly-confused but cheerful pegasus to thank for that.) “What have you got for me today?” “A big bunch of the usual,” Derpy smiled, landing and pulling a thick bundle of junk mail from the saddlebag. “Also a few things for your friends… another bill collector notice for Skip Town, some legal papers and a thank-you note for Ms. Cool Drink, a letter for Gwyneth the Griffon…” The more important letters flopped onto the sandy ground as Derpy fished out a bundle of newspapers from the bottom of the saddlebag. “And Mr. Double Face’s copies of the Canterlot Herald and the Manehattan Times.” Occupant looked up from his beloved bundle of junk mail. He lived for the weekly junk mail; it made him feel, for a little while, like the most important changeling in the hive instead of one good for not much else other than lookout duty. But Queen Chrysalis always wanted the newspapers immediately. He would have to put off looking with longing at the Elements of Harmony Commemorative Chess Set (1), customized checkbooks with pictures of kittens, puppies, and parasprites, and the newest furniture listings from the rent-to-own outlet in Dodge Junction. (1) Mouth-carved by the Crystal Empire’s greatest sculptors in pure crystal. Available for five easy payments, limited time offer. Once this set is sold out it will never be offered again. Don’t miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity to celebrate the triumphs of Equestria’s greatest heroes (and the baby dragon too). For an extra fee also receive the chessboard commemorating the Castle of the Two Sisters. Shipping and handling included. Also still available: the Wonderbolts commemorative plate series, brought back by special demand! Supplies are running out, so order today! “Thanks, Derpy,” he said, picking up the dropped letters and gripping them in one perforated hoof along with the junk mail. “Could you wait a few minutes while I make sure my friends don’t have anything going out today?” “Sure,” Derpy said, smiling her happy smile. “Do you need any more stamps today?” “I think we’re good for now,” Occupant said. Which was true. He’d never bought stamps from Derpy, or from anypony. Changelings almost never had to buy anything, not when they could use other ponies’ bits or just sneak off with whatever they wanted. “But Heavy Frosting made a basket of muffins for you, if you want some.” Derpy Hooves’ eyes widened and almost focused. “Thornberry again?” she asked. “I love thornberry muffins!” “No, it’s prickly pear this time,” Occupant replied. “The first ripe fruits of the season, you see.” He reached into the cupola carved just inside the cave entrance and brought out the basket. Carapace, who had spent years prior to the failed Canterlot invasion in deep cover as the pastry chef Heavy Frosting, was one of the very few changelings who could cook… but he could really cook. “Let me know what you think, okay?” As Derpy opened the basket and took out the first, still-warm muffin, Occupant rushed down the cave into the heart of the hive. The more quickly he delivered the newspapers, the more quickly he could read about how his two bits a month could help starving children in Yakyakistan… In the innermost depths of the hive, Queen Chrysalis sulked. She was not a happy changeling. She couldn’t tell for certain whether she was bored, depressed, or frustrated, but she was certainly not pleased, intrigued, enthused, content, cheerful, chipper, carefree, or any other emotions she could think of that began with C. And “happy” was so far down the list that she’d have to send a diamond dog digging halfway to Mareitania to find it. I should be in Canterlot, she thought, ruling my new domain. I didn’t make any mistakes. I played those ponies like violins. I broke up the Elements of Harmony as nice and neat as you please. I came this close to getting that Twilight Sparkle to kill Cadance for me, and I had a backup plan in place if they escaped. And when even that failed, which I could not have prevented, I was still able to stall for time and weaken Shining Armor until my changelings broke down his precious shield. I even had Celestia herself down for the count. Nothing should have been able to stop me. One moment I’m on top of the world, with Equestria’s last line of defense about to be swarmed over, literally, by my warriors, and one second later we all get a painful one-way ticket back to the Badlands. Nobody told me that love magic could supercharge a shield spell strong enough to do that. Who COULD have known? It’s the kind of thing that you’d see in one of those awful Daring Do pulp books, like when she escaped from the tidal vent Ahuizotl had caged her in because a balancing boulder that had sat undisturbed for thousands of years chose that exact moment to topple in just the right direction to break the cage sealing her in and letting her- Chrysalis rubbed the base of her horn. She’d been reading far too many bad pony fiction books lately, for lack of anything better to do. The changeling giving her infiltration report paused, noticing the queen’s discomfort, but continued with a wave of the royal hoof. Chrysalis was only half-listening anyway. After the failed invasion the hive had had to go back to subsistence raiding and infiltration. It said a lot about her skills as a monarch, Chrysalis thought, that within a few months the hive was doing modestly better than it had been before the invasion… which was still a borderline existence, but there was a little bit of margin and a few luxuries. The changeling network had cautiously extended itself across Equestria, careful to keep its disruptions to a minimum, never doing anything egregious enough to cause the ponies to come looking for them. But even this long after the invasion, Chrysalis kept well away from both Canterlot and Ponyville. She was not ready for a rematch with Celestia or Luna, and as much as she wanted revenge against Equestria’s newest princess she wasn’t ready to risk open war for personal gratification… not, at least, until she had a foolproof plan. Unfortunately, she hadn’t come up with a foolproof plan. In fact, she couldn’t even think of a functional plan. She’d had a thousand ideas, and she’d thought of ten thousand ways for them to fail catastrophically. At this point she’d filed and numbered them, and every day she would take a hundred or so out of the files, look them over, and try to find some way to upgrade them to Not Suicidally Stupid. And then she would go read another pulp novel to take her mind off how depressing it was. “… and after I staged the fight with her, I went to the bar and pretended to get broken-hearted drunk. After establishing that I staggered out and vanished into an alleyway. I then removed my victim from the cocoon, made it look like he’d just been mugged, and circled around the neighborhood, coming back disguised as a patrol cop who just happened to ‘find’ our poor, confused, hungover victim. I escorted him home to his wife, topped off my reserves on their overflow makeup love, and left before they could ask my name. I then used the Double Face disguise and my victim’s bits to buy a ticket to Dodge, and from there back home.” Queen Chrysalis, still brooding on how dreary was her lot, let the silence stretch to an awkward length before she realized the report was complete. “Oh! Um, yes, very well done, Widower. Take tomorrow off, then use Double Face to take train to Rainbow Falls. It’s not trade time, but see if there’s anything unusual among the permanent traders there.” Behind her someone cleared his throat. “Oh, yes,” she muttered, “and pick up some more pencils while you’re at it. We’re running low.” “Please,” said the handsome unicorn stallion chained to the wall, a heavy-duty magic restraining ring clamped around his horn. The changeling hive kept about a hundred or so ponies in cocoons full time, not counting victims who had to be returned to the wild lest others begin looking for them. Double Face was the only pony within the hive not cocooned, because (so far as Chrysalis could tell) the pony had no love for anypony or anything. He was, in changeling terms, a dry well. Seeing no point in wasting a perfectly good cocoon, Chrysalis had chained him up instead. Double Face had been a prisoner since about a month after the invasion, and he’d taken fairly well to it. He never complained about the food. He was invariably polite and even-tempered, and he knew when to make conversation and when not to disturb Chrysalis’s brooding. His only request was the crossword puzzles from Equestria’s leading newspapers as a way of relieving the boredom. Since the puzzles usually had prizes associated with them, he also asked that they be mailed back, which Chrysalis allowed. She was certain Double Face was a spy sent by Celestia, but neither she nor any changeling had been able to find any coded messages in the crossword puzzles. Possibly the puzzles allowed him to receive messages, but he wasn’t sending any out. So he wasn’t doing Celestia any good… and his face, a face nopony would miss, that nopony was really looking for, allowed Chrysalis to send her subjects all over Equestria. So… why?(2) (2) Since Double Face is generally unimportant to the rest of the story, the truth may be told; he was a very minor functionary in the Royal Guard who went looking for, and found, the changeling hive in direct violation of standing orders. He knows full well that he’ll be sacked for insubordination the moment he sets foot in Canterlot once more, so he’s content to remain imprisoned, getting free room and board, letting his back pay build up until he’s rescued or released or whatever. The crossword puzzles are a way of sending out messages, but after the first simple message- “Captured, treated well, situation not urgent”- he has sent no codes or information of any kind. He has, however, won a skateboard, a bespoke suit at a Canterlot fashion shop, and a set of silver hay forks. (3) A fact which had occupied Double Face’s mind briefly, before he decided that he had a soft thing going and didn’t want to risk it by trying to escape a deep, dark cave lit only by glowing green blob things and the occasional torch, then crossing over a hundred miles of desert with tens of thousands of angry changelings in hot pursuit, loaded down with his own body weight in cash. He limited his interest in the mound of money to the occasional conversation with Chrysalis about fun ways of spending it. These conversations were usually one-sided. The clatter of gold interrupted her chain of thought. (Chain? More like a Hearth’s Warming toy train set, Chrysalis thought. My mind forever going round in circles.) Widower had dumped the remaining contents of her last victim’s wallet on the bit pile, as was customary, before departing. It was a very, very large pile of bits.(3) Changelings almost never spent their own money, after all. Occupant brushed past Widower in the doorway to Chrysalis’s chamber. “My Queen! My Queen!” he chirped eagerly, bouncing up to the throne. “The mail’s here! Here are the newspapers!” He dumped the papers and letters at the foot of the throne, hopping back and forth, eager to get back to his dreary, unimaginative little drone life. “Thank you,” Chrysalis said listlessly. “The letters are on the table by the door. Please pick them up as you leave.” “Yes, my Queen!” Occupant chirped, leaving about twice as quickly as he had arrived. Please, Chrysalis thought, please let him not send off for another book club membership… “May I?” Double Face asked politely, rattling his chains in the vague direction of the newspapers. Chrysalis shrugged, levitated the week’s worth of the Manehattan Times over to her prisoner, and then looked over the handful of letters. Legal papers for Ms. Cool Drink; one of her personal aliases had just had her land grant approved for the mesa that rose above the changeling hive. Cool Drink, who depending on need hailed from Dodge, Las Pegasus or the south shore of Horseshoe Bay, had made occasional appearances in Manehattan and Baltimare to claim plots of Badlands property for “future mining interests.” In exchange for help with this effort, she had done various favors, mostly involving providing inside information, for influential ponies, and one such had sent a gracious thank-you note. Ms. Cool Drink was in a low-level bidding war for various properties, not just in the Badlands, with Gwyneth the Griffon, another of Chrysalis’s disguises. Gwyneth’s letter was an apology from a griffon-realm solicitor for failing in the most recent conflict between the two. Of course, if you combined the two false personas’ land grants over the past six months, you would find that three-quarters of the land within a twenty mile radius around the hive was now owned outright by the two jointly.(4) All the better, Chrysalis reasoned, to keep outsiders far away. (4) And the beauty of it was, between some quid pro quo here, some sweet talking there, and the occasional, sparing use of mind control when all else failed, Chrysalis hadn’t spent one red cent on the whole affair. Almost all the Badlands claims were free from the Canterlot bureaucracy to encourage future settlement. The other properties were likewise cheap as free, including safehouses in several pony towns, a mostly vertical plot of land in the town of Griffonstone, and several very large and partially submerged land claims near where the Hayseed Swamps began to blend into the Forbidden Jungles. And then there was the envelope stamped FINAL NOTICE LEGAL ACTION PENDING. Skip Town, or Honey Locust as his given name was, had not paid attention to past lectures on the importance of not leaving unfinished business behind. Worse yet, he’d used the hive’s address for his cover identity without permission, a major no-no. Perhaps a prolonged stint at digging duty, expanding the hive the hard way, would teach- “Oh, I say,” Double Face muttered, “this is most interesting.” “What is?” Chrysalis asked. Not that she cared what the probably-a-spy pony found interesting, but if it took her mind of the tedium of daily routine that was fine with her. “Seems a large chunk of what I was taught in boarding school has just gone by the boards,” the unicorn replied. “The entire nature of the universe turned upside-down and inside-out. Science these days, you know. Next they’ll invent trains that don’t need tracks and ways for earth ponies to cast unicorn spells.” “Thrilling,” Chrysalis drawled sarcastically. “But what’s the specific change you’re talking about?” “Quoting from day before yesterday’s Times,” Double Face began, continuing in the usual sing-song I-am-reading-a-thing-aloud voice, “Princess Twilight Sparkle’s recent release of a groundbreaking scientific thesis has the entire astronomical community in uproar. In her thesis Twilight Sparkle, recently crowned Princess of Friendship by-“ “You can skip that stuff,” Chrysalis hissed. “Er… blah blah blah, she, um, stated that, contrary to the theories of Clover the Clever, the world is not a flat circle enclosed by a vault of heavens from which the stars hang and along which the sun and moon are guided by the princesses Celestia and Luna who, um, more blah blah I’m afraid. Paragraph. Rather, according to the, um, blah blah Sparkle, the world we know is a spherical planet floating in a presumably airless void, through which meteors, comets, other planets and stars fly, and through which the sun and moon are nudged through the immense power and particular cutie mark talents of Celblahblah and Lublah.” “Don’t make a joke of it,” Chrysalis muttered. “You’re not that funny.” “Pardon, Your Majesty. Paragraph. Princess Luna, in a special interview with this Times reporter, confirmed the accuracy of Twilight Sparkle’s findings. When asked why she never corrected Clover the Clever, Luna replied, ‘Because she never asked us.’ Paragraph. Twilight Sparkle’s thesis goes on to say that the moon and planets are not merely spheres in the sky but other worlds, and that it might be possible in the future for ponies to visit those worlds. Princess Luna, the only known pony to have visited another world, reported that she was magically imprisoned within the moon’s fabric and never actually set hoof on the moon’s surface, and that when it comes to being the first mare on the moon, quote, ‘We do not count.’” “She slept through an invasion of the capitol,” Chrysalis grumbled. “You better believe she doesn’t count.” “Paragraph. This speculation in Twilight Sparkle’s otherwise excellently documented and defended thesis has raised the hopes of visionaries to make the dreams of science fiction fairy tales into reality. Already multiple companies are organizing from Cloudsdale to the Crystal Empire, competing to put the first pony into outer space. Paragraph. When asked about this frenzy, Twilight Sparkle said, ‘Who knows what wonders and treasures await us on other worlds? I can’t wait to see what we find on the moon, or Bucephalus, or elsewhere in the skies.’” The newspaper rustled. “Pardon,” Double Face muttered, “the rest of the article’s on an inside page… oh bother, I’m afraid the rest of it is nothing but the blah-blah you don’t want to hear.” Something began tapping like a woodpecker on a door inside Chrysalis’s mind. She got out of her throne and walked over to Double Face’s semi-comfortable corner. “Let me see that paper,” she commanded, plucking it off his desk with her magic. It took a moment for her to find the quote again, and once she did, she stared at it for a full minute or more. Who knows what wonders and treasures await us on other worlds? I can’t wait to see what we find on the moon… Never in her long life had Chrysalis seriously thought of the moon as a place a pony (or changeling) could go. It was a thing, an object of immense magical power, which until recently had served as a mystic prison for a spirit of wrath… … I have got to stop reading those horrible novels, she thought to herself. But if someone could go to the moon, touch the moon… claim the moon… then they could claim its power. And with that power… well, it would knock little Luna out of the fight, at least, and it would let her fight Celestia with a major advantage, even without a geeky dweeby meatheaded romantic like Shining Armor to draw on for extra power. And what about the magic power stored in the other planets, even in the meteors that lit up the skies now and again? There was untold might up there for the taking, enough to conquer Equestria. No, enough to conquer the world. And all I have to do is… get there first. Chrysalis thought it over very carefully. The danger, of course, would be that the princesses would sabotage her efforts before she was successful. Precautions would have to be taken to keep her efforts secret, or else the ponies would attack… … wait a minute. Maybe not. These were ponies, after all. The namby-pamby peaceniks in Canterlot would only attack the hive if they thought the changelings were attacking again. Which we are, Chrysalis admitted, but not directly. So long as I’m declaring my peaceful intent to explore space, they’ll either have to leave me alone or admit that their whole ‘friendship is magic’ mantra is a lie. Which they’ll never do. And if they sabotage me? Then I can reveal their plot, play the innocent victim, and force them to back down. And the beauty is, I won’t need to sabotage them. They’ll be too concerned for the safety of their precious ponies, so they’ll be slow and careful… while I, with my mighty indestructible changelings, can plow right ahead. So I lose nothing this time by taking the high road. So long as I do everything in the open… well, everything related to going to the moon, anyway… I’m untouchable. It’s the perfect plan. “GUARDS!” she shouted, startling Double Face into falling backwards against the cavern wall. “Call together the hive! The time has come to come out into the open once more!” Chrysalis laughed loudly, wickedly, eagerly. “We’re going to SPACE!” “Excuse me,” a soft voice asked unnoticed behind her. “If you’re done with the newspaper, might I have it back, please?”