The Thessalonica Legacy

by Dashukta

Separate Ways

The Thessalonica Legacy
Chapter 17: Separate Ways

They hauled the defeated Blakist back to the headquarters building where they interrogated him in the middle of the old hangar. Under Twilight’s withering glare, he broke readily. With no fight left in him, he told them everything; how he infiltrated the Militia with orders to ensure Capellan success so they would quickly move on to the next planet and leave the conquered worlds ripe for conquest by the expanding Blake Protectorate; how he planted the bomb on the Silvertongue to prevent them from leaving and prolonging the fight and how he tried to frame Corporal Virat; how he tried to sow discord among the crew, and finally how he had planned to make his escape.

Though he told them everything they wanted to know, he remained unrepentant. He was convinced that his actions had been noble and just. He knew his cause was right with the fervor of a true believer. The Word was the true light in the universe, he said. No matter what happened to him, nothing would stand in the way of the Master and his plans for the Inner Sphere.

“What’s going to happen to him?” Twilight had calmed down and was now showing more characteristic concern for the prisoner. She and Captain Tartaglia were strolling around the courtyard.

“We’ll take him with us. He’ll be put before a military tribunal on charges of assault, attempted murder, espionage, and treason. A formality after his confession. MI5 will put him through…harsh interrogations. In the end, he’ll be executed.” Tartaglia showed little emotion.

“After all that, you’re still just going to kill him?”

Tartaglia raised an eyebrow, “A little while ago you were prepared to slit his throat.”

Twilight winced, the memory of her actions burned her conscious. She didn’t want to think herself capable of that. “It just… it just seems so… barbaric. Isn’t there some other way?”

“The other way is I use my authority as commanding officer and have him shot as a spy right now.”

“So, you’re going to kill him either way?” sadness crept into her voice, “Couldn’t we try something else?”

Tartaglia stopped and looked down at the lavender unicorn. He raised a quizzical eyebrow, “What do you have in mind?”

****************

The ponies were disgusted at the litany of names Corporal Virat called Ackermann, even if they didn’t understand most of them. She had joined them at the headquarters shortly after Ackermann had been captured. The ponies were thrilled to see her again, especially Fluttershy who was very grateful she had nothing to do with the sabotage.

“You’d best be glad the Captain and Twilight took pity on you, you damn toaster-worshiper,” she growled while loosening the bonds on Ackermann’s wrists, “If I’d been there, I’d have let her stab you, then shot you for good measure after cutting off your…”

“That’s enough, Corporal,” Ling cut her off. They were standing as a group on the edge of the plateau on which the ancient spaceport was built. The Felicity Klimkosky loomed behind them, fully loaded, fueled, and ready to go. It only awaited the last few passengers.

Removing the cable, Liz shoved the hapless Blakist roughly down the edge of the plateau. He tumbled and rolled down the slope, cloaked in a cloud of yellow dust. Sliding to a stop, he looked back up at them, confused.

“Gonna get pretty loud real soon. I’d recommend you start hoofin’ it” Ling yelled down after him. Ackermann yelled various obscenities back up at them, but they fell on deaf ears as they turned and walked away towards the DropShip.

“I can’t say I’m exactly a fan of this plan, Miss Sparkle,” Captain Tartaglia fell in next to the unicorn, “dropping a man in the middle of the wilderness with no food, no supplies, not even a knife? Shooting him would be merciful in comparison.”

Twilight looked up at him, “At least we’re giving him a chance. Out here he can try to make a go of it, and he’s removed from your world permanently.” She’d been trying all day to rationalize her plan to herself, “Just think of it as banishment.”

“And if he does survive, then you’ve got a hostile running around on your world with an ax to grind.”

Twilight smiled weakly, “He’s thousands of miles, or uh, kilometers, away and on an entire separate continent. I think we’ll be fine.”

****************

They did not enter orbit for their return to Equestria. Since they knew the route, had good maps of the landing zone, and had plenty of fuel, the DropShip made a straight run of it. Flying high and fast, they were back on the ground in the span of a few hours.

The Felicity Klimkosky landed on the same broad river floodplain on which it had originally touched down on its arrival deep in the Everfree Forest, almost on top of their old landing site. It seemed they had barely arrived before a fleet of chariots descended from the sky pulled by burly pegasi in burnished armor. Spike had of course sent a message to Princess Celestia announcing their impending arrival back in Equestria and the charioteers had been dispatched on her orders to deliver the promised helium and fabricated parts. Once the goods were loaded in the DropShip’s cargo bay, the Equestrian guards would escort Twilight and her friends safely back to their homes in Ponyville.

Outside of one of the Felicity Klimkosky’s four ‘Mech bays, the humans and the ponies said their final goodbyes. Applejack admonished Dr. Langley to keep her wound clean while the doctor thanked the farm pony once again for her help and fidgeted with her makeshift sling. Fluttershy was still too shy to directly approach any of her new friends to say goodbye, so Liz joked with her about their initial attempts to communicate. The shy pegasus thought fondly back to their time next to the holly bush; it seemed so long ago.

Rainbow Dash was a little bummed she hadn’t managed to acquire a souvenir from the old Human settlement. With a sharp tug, Ramirez ripped the Valexa March Militia patch from the shoulder of his fatigues.

“I can always get another one,” he said, tossing her the embroidered piece of fabric for which she thanked him profusely.

This touched off a miniature swap-meet of sorts in which Equestrians and Humans exchanged a variety of small, innocuous artifacts. In reality they were trinkets—patches, handkerchiefs, scarfs, some unused first aid supplies—but to the recipients they were sentimental treasures; a link across time and space.

“It is a shame you have to leave so soon,” Twilight was taking one last stroll with Tartaglia around the DropShip. “I enjoyed learning of your world—or worlds rather. I’d like to be able to see your universe sometime.”

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Tartaglia replied, “There’s no way I could guarantee your safety, even from my own government.”

Twilight nodded, “I know. It does worry me that the link between our universes seems so…easy to cross. If there are others like Ackermann out there, or even only half as bad, I’m afraid of what would happen if any of them ever stumbled across us here.”

“Captain Mawsley and I will destroy our logs of our trip here. Unless the crew leaks some rumors, with any luck the secret of the way between our two worlds will die with us.” He paused, “Fortunately, it seems everyone aside from Ling, myself, and a handful on the JumpShip are still unaware of the relationship between Equestria and Terra. I intend for it to stay that way.”

The chariots were halfway back to Ponyville when Pinkie Pie called out for them to look back the way they came. With mouths agape and eyes wide, they stood in the backs of their transports and watched as the flaming dart of the Felicity Klimkosky rose higher and higher into the evening sky.

****************

Ramirez set the paintbrush down on the lip of the can and stepped back on the narrow maintenance gantry. The color still wasn’t quite right, but it would have to do for now. He had raided the desert camo supplies first, but not finding what he wanted there he had resorted to mixing his own with some primer and some red for the VMM’s characteristic tiger-striping. He wanted to start on the outlining, but a look at the chronometer told him there wasn’t enough time. The Felicity Klimkosky’s massive engines accelerated them at 1 g, imparting a sensation of normal gravity on the crew within. Shortly, though, the engines would cut off and they would by thrown back into microgravity during their docking with the Silvertongue.

He sealed the paint can and wrapped a sheet of thin plastic around the brush. Picking them both up, he took one last look at his handiwork. Across the right chest of his Valkyrie he had scrawled in a flowery script of bright pink,

‘PINKIE PIE’

“Not bad, Mech-jock,” he glanced down below him to see Liz gazing back up, “Some white outlining would really make it pop.”

“She’s got a name now,” he said, patting the warmachine affectionately before activating the lift controls to lower him to the deck floor.

“I see that,” Liz smirked, “Though I still think you should have gone with ‘Big Stompy’.”

Ramirez chuckled, “Nah, I think I like this better.” He headed off to wash out the brush before the paint dried, “What’s up, Corporal?”

“Captain wants you to accompany him to the bridge of the Silvertongue again,” she jabbed a thumb over her shoulder and bit her lower lip.

“Figured as much,” he noticed her expression, “I take it that’s not all, is it.”

She look around quickly to make sure they were alone, then leaned in conspiratorially, “Look,” she whispered, “The Militia’s gone. Done for. I know it, you know it. We all know it. We’ll complete our mission, but it will all be a moot point. There’s no way the AFFS doesn’t know about the invasion by now. If they haven’t sent help yet, it’s not coming.”

“What’s your point?” he asked her, not quite sure where she was going with this.

“With the Militia gone, they’re going to give us the option of reassignment. Stick us with another unit. But, see the others and I have been talking. We’re going to buy out.” Her voice dropped lower, “Ling has a friend, used to be a Hauptmann in the Lyran Guards. He’s setting up a mercenary outfit on Galatea. The Leftenant is willing to sponsor us; put in a good word. Harris, Nao, Quigley, and I are all going soon as we can. You in?”

Ramirez stood for a long moment. This was not a decision to take lightly. She was right, of course, by now the Militia would be declared a loss and the survivors either disbanded or assigned to other units. Life as a mercenary could be risky, romantic, and with some luck quite lucrative.

“I’ll… have to think about it,” he said finally.

****************

“Scootaloo, slow down!” Sweetie Belle cried out as she and Apple Bloom ran after the tiny orange pegasus filly. She shivered and pulled her scarf tighter around her neck. She didn’t understand it, but somehow it felt colder here under the trees of the Everfree Forest than back in Ponyville. This was no place for them and she knew it. If Rarity knew she was out here, she’d certainly be grounded for…well, forever.

Scootaloo huffed and beat her little wings impatiently, “Come on, Crusaders! Don’t you want to go to Zecora’s?” Nothing seemed to daunt the little spitfire, not even the perils of the Everfree.

“Well, yeah, but…why couldn’t we have waited for Miss Twilight to take us, or Miss Fluttershy?” Apple Bloom asked in her rustic drawl, “B‘sides, don’t ‘cha remember what happened the last time we came in here?” She shuddered. If Fluttershy hadn’t shown up when she did, that cockatrice would have made short work of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“Well, if we get to Zecora’s quickly we won’t be out here long enough to run into anything, now will we?” Losing her patience, the little pegasus increased her lead on her friends, he wild purple mane disappearing around a bend.

As they followed the little path through the trees, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom huddled closer together. Every little rustle of wind or snap of a twig set them on edge. How could Scootaloo be so calm, even relishing the danger?

Thinking it might take their mind off things, Apple Bloom tried to strike up a conversation with the diminutive unicorn, “So, has your big sis told ‘ya anythin’ about where they all went to the other week? ‘Cause I ain’t got nuthin’ out of Applejack. Every time I ask her ‘bout it, she shuts up tighter than one of Granny’s girdles.”

Sweetie Belle shook her head, “Nuh uh. Sis won’t tell me anything, either. I caught her doodling dress designs the other day, but they look to be for some weird monkey-thing, not ponies.”

“Monkey-things?” Apple Bloom mulled it over, “Did ‘ya happen to snitch one of them drawin’s? I’d like to see one of them monkey-things.”

“No, I didn’t think about it,” the hoot of an owl made her cower in fear.

From down the path, Scootaloo called out for them, “Hey, girls! Come look at this!”

They ran to catch up with their friend, but when they reached the spot, she had disappeared. Another call drew their attention over the side of the road and down a shallow ravine. Scootaloo was there standing on top of a strange metal contraption.

“What in tarnation is that thing?” wondered Apple Bloom out loud. It looked like some sort of weird chariot or carriage, but made of metal painted mottled green and brown and with big, rubber wheels. There were a pair of padded seats sitting side-by-side under a tubular meal framework and a strange wheel mounted in front of one confirming that it was obviously a conveyance of some sort, but looking all around it, they couldn’t see anywhere for a pony to hitch up to pull it. From the fallen leaves, it looked like it had been sitting out here for several days or even weeks.

“Looks like it slid down here off the trail,” observed Sweetie Belle, motioning to a line of deep gouges in the soft soil extending from the wheels up to the top of the ravine.

“And it got wedged into this rock somethin’ fierce,” added Apple Bloom.

Scootaloo sat herself down on one of the padded seats, “Hey, look, there’s some pedals down there,” She hooked a forehoof through the wheel to steady herself as she reached down to press one of the pedals. When she put her weight on it, the wheel moved unexpectedly.

Apple Bloom squealed in surprise “When you moved that thing there, the wheels moved!”

Scootaloo released the steering wheel like it would bite her and stared at it intently, “Hey, there’s a button here.” She reached out with a forehoof and gingerly touched the rubberized button next to the steering column. The starter motor whirred to life sending all three fillies tumbling back over themselves, screaming.

“M-maybe we should tell somepony?” Sweetie Belle suggested, gathering herself up. Her friends nodded in agreement, their expedition to Zecora’s forest cottage now totally forgotten.

****************

“Owww!” Twilight winced as she stretched out her leg. She had decided to take part in the Running of the Leaves yesterday, and her leg muscles ached something fierce. What was keeping Spike with that ointment? “Spike? Where are you?”

“I’m right here, geeze,” the little dragon trundled up the stairs and into her bedroom with the tube of greasy ointment. Twilight’s horn glowed as she snatched the tube from his hands and began smearing the concoction across her flank and legs. “Serves you right for pushing yourself like that,” Spike huffed.

“Well, I couldn’t finish lower than I did last year. Applejack and Rainbow Dash would have teased me to no end.” The cream went to work almost immediately, soothing her overtaxed muscles.

“That’s what you said yesterday, too,” he rolled his eyes, “Just don’t expect me to get you a sympathy card.”

“And you said that yesterday, too” she snarked.

She hobbled from her bed down the stairs to the balcony where she had moved her best telescope from the platform on the top of the library. Or really, Spike had moved it with much grumbling. Her legs were too sore to make the ascent, but she wasn’t going to let that put a damper on her stargazing. She plopped down heavily on a cushion and adjusted the telescope, pointing it towards where she knew the constellation Orion would be once the sun finished setting and the night truly began.

The moon was low in the sky, and her gaze lingered there. She wondered about their visitors, mentally comparing the timetable the Captain had described to her with the time that had passed since the Felicity Klimkosky’s departure.

It wasn’t very bright, and it didn’t last more than a minute at most. She watched as the light built in intensity then suddenly winked out. It was something she had never seen before; probably something no living pony had ever seen. For once, though, she did not run for her books. She had a pretty good idea exactly what this phenomenon was.

She closed her eyes as she levitated a blank parchment and quill over from the desk. She had been thinking long and hard about this letter, and still wasn’t quite sure she was happy with it. Setting the parchment down in front of her, she began to write.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I can now confirm that the human starship, the Silvertongue, has successfully departed from our world and, hopefully, our very universe. I have just observed a flash of light consistent with Captain Tartaglia’s description of a hyperspace jump emanating from the space between us and the moon. Judging from their proposed timetable, it appears the jump occurred more or less on schedule. Though I will miss my conversations with the Captain, I do genuinely hope I will never see him again, as that would be the best confirmation of his safe return home as I could hope for.
I know it was not part of my duties as your temporary ambassador, but I did learn some valuable lessons about friendship from this adventure. I have learned that people from very different cultures can find common ground and even become very good friends. I have also found that, in times of trouble, you can draw on all your friends both old and new to see you through and that you can trust in all your friends to help in their own special ways. Lastly, I have learned that compassion defines greatness, and that even when dealing with somepony who is well and truly beyond all redemption, if we can still show compassion to rise above their level, it will rub off on our friends and lift us all up.
Finally, I wish to inform you that it appears we have succeeded in minimizing cultural and technological bleed-over from the Human visit. I have inspected the ‘souvenirs’ my friends and I kept from our visitors, and they all appear to be quite innocuous. Only some scant human lettering would raise any eyebrows to a casual observer, and nopony would be able to read it anyway. All in all, it appears our attempts to confine our knowledge for the time being has been successful.

Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle

She rolled the parchment and bound it with a ribbon, “Spike, could you please send this?”

Spike trundled over from where he had been finishing up some last-minute organizing before heading off to bed. He took the scroll and with a puff of his breath sent it on its way. Twilight noticed as he went back to his duties that he was humming to himself, but she couldn’t quite place the tune. She realized he had started mumbling the lines to himself just in time to hear the lyric “We’ll send the bastards straight to hell…”

“Spike!” she whipped her head around, “Language!”

“What? Sorry.” He stopped singing but continued humming the ditty.

Shaking her head, Twilight turned back to her telescope, only to be interrupted by a frantic clatter coming from downstairs.

“Miss Twilight! Miss Twilight!” she recognized the voice of Apple Bloom, Applejack’s little sister. Sure enough, before she could even fully rise from her cushion the little yellow filly came tumbling up the stairs followed closely by her friends Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.

“My little ponies? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be home and in bed?”

Without hesitating, Apple Bloom launched into a rapid-fire litany, barely even pausing between her words, “We were on our way to Zecora’s ‘cause we thought she could help us get our cutie marks but please, please, please don’t tell anyone that ‘cause we’d get in trouble for goin’ into the Everfree but we found this weird thing and it looks like a carriage but there’s no way to hitch up to it and it has parts that move other parts and it made this loud roaring sound like it was alive and we came straight to you ‘cause your real smart and you’d probably know what it was and…” her breath finally gave out.

Twilight blinked trying to process the excited filly’s barrage, “Ok, wait a second here. Was this thing green with rubber tires and what looks like seats?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” asked Scootaloo.

Twilight’s mind reeled. Across the room Spike was still humming the Militia ditty. She gave a frustrated sigh. She could tell tomorrow was going to be a long day.

Spike looked up from his chores, “Should I get you another scroll?”

Comments

[Treilacl]

I love da end to this chapter!

[Bronzer]

if we can still show compassion to rise above their level, it will rub off on our friends and lift us all up

I think you miss-understood something, Twilight. The captain didn't spare the nut-job because any of your compassion rubbed off on him. He did it because he didn't want a civilian to kill someone. This fic smacks of ponies assuming they are morally superior without even trying to understand the humans in the least. I think it is because they are intimidated or because human technology makes them feel inferior and they try to distract themselves from that feeling by acting high-and-mighty.

All in all, it appears our attempts to confine our knowledge for the time being has been successful.

You know, as they interact more with their world, the ponies will notice that the hand-using species all have things that they (the ponies) do, such as hammers and doorknobs and handles on cups among countless other things. They'll also notice that all of the quadrupedal species use entirely different things meant for beings with hooves instead of hands. I have no doubt that questions will arise and Celestia's attempts to make the ponies questioning it shut up will just make all the other ponies suspicious and curious about it. Assuming word of the jeep doesn't get out from the Cutie Mark Crusaders (which, lets face it, it will). Spike will fold under pressure (like he always does in the show) and spill everything (also like in the show), including that the humans are the source of pony culture, city names, and technology, and that Celestia covered it up. Then Celestia will be in deep shit with her subjects and Luna will be like "I told her not to do it".

Celestia's real reason for covering up knowledge of the existence of humans is likely that she wants the ponies to be seen as (and feel) superior to other species. Ponies might feel and be seen as lesser if it was known that their technology, culture, and naming conventions of their cities comes from aliens. Of course, there is no doubt that the other species on their planet know, so it'll come out anyway. Unlike most rulers, Celestia will still be around to take the heat.

[Edguy0009]

5602126
Maybe maybe not.