Chapter 49. Clockwork Spiders
Eventually, our little party had set off to find out what was concerning Snow. Someone or something had tried to gain access to our habitat. What their intention was, we had no idea. As such our representative was both the most heavily armed, and of the highest diplomatic rank. It didn't hurt that I filled both roles personally. Who was I kidding? It wasn't like we could send anyone else, was it?
Snow's secret passage through the hull, to the hangar, was well hidden. To reach it, she had guided us through a maze of walls, wires and machinery, areas completely devoid of light. Delighted at the opportunity, Allie showed off her new cast light spell, and the tip of her horn was providing us with some light, and a lot of weird shadows, mostly because of her diminutive stature.
At times, the little princess could be quite comical. Her multiple layers of clothing made her look somewhat bulkier than usual. Unlike the rest of us, she didn't have the benefit of the HELaTS temperature regulating abilities.
When we finally arrived at the entrance to the passage, we found a door that looked much like any other high-security door in the habitat – a giant, circular plug, hinged from above. A hoof scanner was beside it, a single, red lamp glowing above it. It bore a small plaque that read OUTER HULL and HANGAR ACCESS.
I was surprised that Snow would have access to such a door, for at least two reasons. First, all top-tier doors required an alicorn to open them. Second, considering that most ponies had thought Snow to be mad, no pony would have deliberately given her access to anywhere.
Snow lifted her hoof to the scanner.
"Please wait while your qualifications are verified", the scanner said. "Test and debug subject recognized. Qualifications accepted," it said, but the door did not move. "All other ponies must also present themselves for scanning or clear the area before the door can be opened."
"Test and debug subject?" I asked.
Snow nodded.
"Ha! A security blunder!" Brainstorm chuckled. "It appears they forgot to remove the test protocols!"
Snow pointed at the hoof scanner, then at me. I guess that was one way of avoiding the use of confused words.
I moved forward, and presented my hoof to the wall-mounted machine.
"Please wait while your qualifications are verified", the scanner said. "Access denied. You are not qualified to enter this facility. This access attempt has been terminated."
Snow looked heart-broken, slumping. Her eyes sought out mine, her expression begging suggestions for a way through.
"Don't worry, Snow," I said. "I may be the queen, but I'm used to doors not acknowledging me. I lack the required wings. That's why we brought the key with us."
"Lid release?" Snow asked.
There was that word lid again. What had she said before, when she wanted to get out of the padded cell? Lightning lid clear. No, it wasn't that she wanted to get out at that moment. She wanted them to hurry up and open the door, so we could enter. So lid was likely a reference to a door. It was only ninety degrees out of context, physically speaking. Release, in this case, seemed pretty obvious.
"Door unlock?" I asked, immediately hoping that my unconsciously simplified speech would not offend her. "Yes, Snow. That is why we brought Allie with us. She is the key."
I turned to my daughter, who was eagerly waiting, a pace behind me.
"Now, Allie, if you would be so kind."
The little alicorn approached the scanner, reared up, and placed her hoof on the button within.
"Please wait while your qualifications are verified", the scanner said, and after a few moments, it spoke again. "Top tier access granted. What is your command?"
"Open the door. Allow all present company to pass through," Allie said. "Make the change permanent."
"Command accepted."
Immediately, the door began to cycle, its internal servos spinning up to extract the locking pins.
Snow bounced in excitement. She really was enjoying having company. How was it possible that ponies had assumed she was mad for this long? Had they no skills of observation? Did they simply believe what they had been told, and entertained no thought that she could be sane? Admittedly, she had spent the last two millennia down in the lower levels, where there was minimal understanding of medical conditions, but that didn't excuse others from failing to notice she was not mad.
But what about before then? She apparently had medical staff looking after her, and they hadn't known? Even I knew about aphasia. My great-grandmother had it after suffering a stroke. I was a pre-teen at the time, but could still remember the nurses explaining the problem to me. Perhaps they had simply been too busy getting ready to leave the planet to really care about one harmless, artificially grown pseudo-pony.
"It's a pipe," Allie said.
"Pardon?"
"This route of Snow's is a pipe. Look."
Allie wasn't wrong. Usually these round security doors were merely set in a circular opening in a wall, a regular, cuboid room behind them. To call this route a corridor would not be right. It was more like a tunnel, or as Allie insisted, a pipe. There was no flat floor, making it impossible to walk in anything but single file. Its diameter was just large enough for the larger members of our species to walk through comfortably, suggesting it was really just for alicorn use.
Snow entered, me stepping in immediately behind her, cutting off Allie. She pulled a face.
"Behind Cacha, please," I said. "Brainstorm, do you mind bringing up the rear?"
"With a view like that, not at all," he chuckled.
"Don't look at my butt that way," Allie said. Sometimes the development of Allie's mind surprised me.
"You are not my wife, little one," Brainstorm said. "Besides, with you rugged up like that, there isn't much to see."
"Snow mate cross," Snow said, looking back over her shoulder. That was easy enough to understand.
"Remind me not to crack jokes," Brainstorm muttered, ushering Allie into the tunnel after us.
As soon as we were all inside, the door lowered, plugging the entry, and with it, cutting off what little light there had been. That left Allie's horn as the sole source of light, until Snow switched on her survival-saddle mounted lamps.
Looking past Allie and Snow, I could see we were approaching a dead-end, a featureless wall. It did not faze Snow, who kept a steady walking pace. The first sign I noticed that indicated there was some sort of sliding door ahead was the scuff marks on the end wall. The marks were in an arc, the curvature of which suggested that the door was quite large, easily three times the diameter of the tunnel in which we were walking.
The first sign of it opening was an expanding lens-shaped gap to the left. As the gap expanded, I realized it was not merely a door that was opening, but and entire length of tunnel that was moving into position. Snow did not falter, her pace such that she stepped into the new section of tunnel moments after it had aligned. After a few paces, she did look down at the floor, then back at us, realization painting itself across her face. She did not share her thoughts.
I was puzzling over that when the tunnel started moving, the floor dropping. The whole section of tunnel was rotating again! It reminded me of the way bullets were stored in Richard the Great's revolver, with the exception of there being a single chamber here. We were currently walking through that chamber, as it was being rotated. It also explained why the tunnel was pipe shaped – it was the only shape that would allow us to walk through it while it was rotating.
By the time we arrived at the other end of the rotating segment, it had lined up with another fixed tunnel, this one towards the bottom of the cylinder's rotation. As expected, once we had traversed its length, there was another rotating section ahead. This one lined up with another tunnel at yet another angle relative to the first. It had to be an attempt to prevent there being any direct line down which an enemy shell could penetrate. I could think of no other reason for this craziness.
Getting fresh air into the tunnel would be a challenge, too. I could see no vents anywhere. Each section must have been getting purged of old air before it opened to us. If it stopped rotating, trapping us, we would surely suffocate. That would not be a situation I could shoot my way out of.
The other thing I could not understand was why the builders hadn't used a teleporter as they had on the bridge. Ah, perhaps this section had been created as the habitat shell initially grew. No thought would have been given to pony magic. But then, hadn't the bridge also been grown during the initial process? Was it possible there was a route like this through to the bridge, that had simply lain undiscovered for two millennia?
This led to me wondering about the other weak points on the hull – the guns and the main exits, neither of which we had activated or accessed for further investigation. Moving parts, rotating cylinders – their complexity must be mind numbing.
The last section of rotating tunnel slowed as it aligned with the final fixed stretch and we filed into it, walking towards the final door. All up, it was a short walk, compared to that of a typical freerun, yet the feeling of being constrained, trapped, was most unpleasant and exhausting. I, for one, would be glad to reach our destination.
Again, we had to wait as one of the top-tier plug-doors went through the laborious process of extracting its locking pins, before finally pulling back and lifting clear. Barely visible at first in the darkness beyond, there was a faint blue, flickering light.
Snow stopped, causing some muzzle to rump collisions from the less attentive and those that followed too closely.
"Nice to feel you, Cacha," I said quietly.
"Sorry," she muttered.
"Cross cross cross," Snow said, looking back over her shoulder at us.
"Something is upsetting you?" I asked.
Snow dropped, her pose one of stealth. She pointed out the door. "Cross. Sky cross."
"Something is wrong out there?" I asked.
"Up," Snow said, nodding.
"Okay," I said, readying my weapon. If it was invaders we were investigating, it would be best to be ready for them. For my ammunition, I selected a potent spell, but one with limiters. I didn't want it puncturing the shell of the habitat, especially out here, where the hangar walls would be quite thin. That loaded, I formed a turret on each shoulder, and was rewarded with a somewhat freaked out expression on Snow's face. Apparently she hadn't known I could do that.
"I guess I am the heavy weapons HELaTS prototype," I said, shrugging.
"Ah!" Snow said. She knew about being a prototype.
"It's a good thing I loaded my pistol with real ammunition, isn't it?" Cacha asked.
"Maybe. For all we know, we are about to investigate an electrical fault. One is merely being cautious. On that subject, Allie, please move behind Brainstorm, and stay in here, as quietly as you can."
"But I want to do something," she insisted.
"You will be. You are going to watch and listen to what is going on. When you can't see, you will visualize what is happening. You will mentally form an escape plan for yourself, if things go badly. These are all skills you need to learn. We will call you out if there is nothing to worry about. Okay?"
"Okay," she said, rolling her eyes. Hopefully she would grow out of her teenage rebellious stage by the time she was two.
"Right, Snow, do you want to lead the way, or do you want one of us to go out first?"
Snow didn't answer, edging forward, then out through the door. Quietly, Cacha and I followed behind, and into the cavernous space beyond, presumably the hangar. Brainstorm held back, just inside the doorway. Should he need it, he had both cover, and a good position for shooting. He could also make sure Allie stayed put. For that, I was grateful.
Now that we could see them directly, the blue flickers and flashes were a lot more orderly than they had first appeared. A pyramid of blue light hung in the air, slowly panning across the contents of the hangar. The base of the pyramid, interrupted by the form of a large vehicle, was faintly visible on the far wall. The vehicle itself, wrapped in blue haze, was like nothing I had seen before.
The vertex of the pyramid, somewhat brighter, was not too far away from us, and marked its point of projection. The thing producing the pyramid of light was several times taller than us, had multiple legs and...
"Clockwork spiders box penetrate!" Snow gasped.
"Ah, she's coming around."
"Aneki, can you hear me?"
"Mum?"
That had been quite a nightmare, and it left me feeling as if I had missed a jump while freerunning, or been hit by an exploding changeling queen. And my legs were aching again, much as they had when I first began to transform into a Hellite.
Elements of the dream had been unexpectedly real, but other parts of it were totally unbelievable – the usual, messed up distortions that were common to dreams. What twisted part of my mind had come up with the machine that was a mockery of a pony? The mental images of its relentless slashing, striking and whirling with eight limbs that all bore blades, were pure horror.
Faint light had been coming from strange angles, partially hiding everything that was happening – shadow play on a black velvet background. The scene of Cacha's head coming off in the midst of other flying pony limbs, flying through a graceful arc, her yellow mane fluttering behind it, was the pinnacle of my fears.
And the blood: unbelievable amounts of blood had sprayed everywhere.
I had tried to shoot the monster time and time again, and for all the success I was having I might as well have been throwing flowers at a concrete wall.
There was no way something like that could have happen in reality. No way.
But then... what had I been doing last night? Yesterday? I... couldn't remember. The day had started weird, with Allie waking me during the night, and we had gone off to see that Albino pony...
I didn't like where these memories were leading. Seeking reassurance I reached for Cacha, only to find her form somewhat undersized.
"Allie?" What was she doing in my bed? Not that she wasn't welcome – it was just unusual.
"Mum, you're finally awake!" the small filly enthused. There were stains around her eyes from excessive crying. Whatever had upset her was going to face a mother's wrath.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," a mare said. Stormie? What was she doing in my room. No, this wasn't my room, was it? Stormie leaned over the bed, feeling me, gently prodding me, her fingers working over my forelegs, across my shoulder, my flank and – just how much was she planning on feeling? Sometimes her touch hurt more than it should have.
"Ouch. Huh? What's going on?" I asked.
"Post traumatic amnesia?" another voice suggested. It was Doctor Strange Glove. And why was she in here?
Uh-oh.
"Cacha. Where is Cacha?"
"Sorry, Aneki..."
I cut her off. "She's dead? She died? I remember it all too well. We were cut to ribbons by that pony-machine-thing. It cut her head off!"
I must have shrieked that, judging on the flinching of those around me, followed by every pony reaching in to calm or constrain me. Seeing that I made no sudden movements, they retreated a little, Allie being the exception. She was hugging me for all her worth.
"Calm down, Aneki. Calm down. Cacha..."
"Calm down? Cacha is dead, isn't she?" I promptly burst in heaving sobs. No way. Why did life keep doing this to me? Cacha had been the one constant while my life kept taking one weird turn after another. She had been a faithful and honest friend. She was my... my other half!
And that was that. I practically didn't care any more, about anything. My mind was paralyzed. Rational thought was gone. A mental image of my daughter poked at me, reminding me that she was still there. Oh, hell. Life didn't matter any more. I'd be a miserable mother like this. I howled louder.
"...ve. Ane.."
How long would I have to bear this crushing grief? Not long, I suspected. At the rate it was crushing me, I'd die of a broken heart by the end of the day.
"... re you liste..."
And if it didn't? Would the grief eventually turn to rage? Who would I take it out on? Snow? Everypony? The freakish, mechanical pony-thing from outside the habitat?
"...eki! Do I ha..."
Would I simply curl up and turn into a vegetab...
The hoof across my face caught my attention, somehow.
"She can be saved, Aneki. Cacha can be saved."
I blinked, stunned. The grief still had me in its grip, not quite prepared to let go yet.
"What?"
"I said that Cacha is... still alive," Stormie said. That pause worried me.
"But how? I saw... I saw her head go flying."
"It was a bit more than her head, you silly pony. Her body is black, isn't it. You probably couldn't see it in the dark," Stormie admonished me. "Besides, even if it had, we could have saved her."
"What? How?" I wasn't entirely sure which statement I was asking about. "Her head was black at the time, too. Armor, remember?"
"The hellite... HELaTS modifiers wire a secondary neural network into a pony's brain. It's the exact same way they convert the brain of a corpse into a computer. Brainstorm and I worked out how to recover a pony from just that network. It was practically the same method we used to rebuild ourselves, when we left our tank," Stormie said.
"I think I was asking about Cacha," I said. Trust a scientist to give the wrong answer. "Where is she? I want to see her."
"She's still in the recovery tank. She needs major reconstruction, but we didn't want to start until we could talk with you."
Recovery tank was the generic term now being applied to the gender conversion tanks that were no longer being used for their original purpose.
"So, how much more of her than her head was cut off?" I asked, grimly, as my grief gave me another firm jolt. "And why wait? Of course I want her back."
"That cut went though her body, just below her heart. There is other extensive damage, too. She has no legs," Doctor Strange Glove said.
"So, she did die. Are you trying to reassure me or make me feel worse?" I asked.
"Well, at least you now know," Allie said.
I thought back to the twisted memories of the fight, to the frustration, the blood, the pain... and the lack of a conclusion. Had I knocked myself out again, or had Cacha's death been the trigger? Did I even want to know?
"How do you think Cacha would like to be rebuilt? As a stallion or as a mare? We can do that now." Stormie asked.
"Do you really think I am in any state to be answering that sort of question?" I asked. "Is it even a question that should be asked? She would want to be rebuilt as a mare, of course. She only wanted to be a stallion for me, but I prefer her as she is... was."
"So, you do prefer mares after all."
"As a sexual partner, no. I prefer Cacha for what she is – an extension of myself." I snorted. "And my daughter's other genetic parent was an alicorn princess." I had no idea why I said that, other than the point that gender didn't seem to matter much in my life.
"Oh, the irony."
"What about everypony else? Allie looks okay. Are you okay, Allie?"
"Physically, I avoided damage, but mentally is a different matter. Having to collect parts of your mother so she can be reassembled is more than a little disturbing."
Say what? Pieces of me? "What did you say, little one?"
"That thing we encountered didn't stop with Snow and Cacha. It also sliced you up before Brainstorm was able to kill it," Allie said. "The difference is that your injuries were limited to the loss of your forelegs, and wounds that didn't do any internal damage, so your recovery has been relatively quick."
"Aneki, dear," Stormie said, "Brainstorm and I have developed an improved version of the HELaTS modifier. We were able to use it to repair you."
I lifted my right foreleg, and looked at one of the places that had hurt when Stormie poked it. There was a clear scar there, just below my knee.
"What? So you just glued my legs back on with these new modifiers?" I asked, sarcastically.
"Pretty much," Stormie said. "Brainstorm, who was carrying a couple of doses in case of emergency, injected you with them at the scene."
"Then I had to hold you together while the modifiers did their work," Allie said, grimly.
I shuddered, then dry heaved. Clearly, I hadn't eaten anything recently.
"Are you okay, Aneki?" Stormie asked.
"Obviously not," I muttered. "Apparently, I was conscious for that whole ordeal, because I just remembered it in all its nightmarish, gory, and very painful detail."
"Yes, you were, Mum. You were awake all the way up until we got Cacha and Snow back through that tunnel, and to ponies who could help."
"I don't remember any of that... yet," I said.
"You were not particularly alert at the time," Allie said. "You were a sort of mindless zombie. We had to keep giving you instructions."
"Oh." Why did this sort of thing keep happening to me? Oh, that was right – I had wanted to know the secrets of H'ven, hadn't I?
"We can counsel you, if you need it," Stormie said.
"Later, maybe. It's only going to happen again, one way or another. What about Snow? Did she survive? Can she be rebuilt if she didn't?"
Stormie looked at me for a good minute before replying, and my heart tensed itself for the worst.
"You catch on rather quick, don't you," Stormie finally said. "She's in the other recovery tank. Her healing is fairly advanced. While she had major organ damage, her torso was not cut apart like Cacha's was. We are trying some experimental modifiers on her."
"Haven't you learned not to do that yet?" I growled, thinking back to their treatment of me as an experimental subject when we first met.
"She gave us her blessing, in as much as up, up, up can be understood."
"She was conscious?"
"Of course. It is a little hard to talk when in a coma."
"All the same, what if the modifiers don't work?"
"Then it will be life as usual for her," Stormie said. "They don't put her at risk."
"So what will these modifiers do?" I asked.
Stormie just tapped her forehead twice, the context of which I could not interpret.
Rest was in order, I was told, so I had found myself restricted to bed under doctor's orders. Eventually, orders or not, I found myself becoming frustrated with lying around in a hospital bed, so I had excused myself to Allie, and walked off on my own to do a little thought gathering, and soul searching while stretching some muscles. My first stop had been the mares' room, just because it was a destination that was outside my hospital room. Had I really needed to use the facilities, there was an en-suite in the room I was staying.
What a mess that had been! The habitat had nearly needed to find itself a new queen, firstly, because I nearly got myself killed, then secondly, because grief had turned me into a total disaster. I didn't think I had been indulging in self-pity. That grief had been mind-crippling to the point where taking time to feel sorry for myself was impossible. Simply put, I had been too busy grieving for Cacha.
I was still grieving for her, although to a lesser extent. She would recover, but what a mental basket-case she would be. I could imagine her being very fragile for a long time.
On the other hoof, according to Stormie, Snow had been relatively up-beat about the whole deal. Then again, Stormie hadn't had lessons in Snow-speak yet, and had been relying on translation services provided by an extremely upset filly.
Having washed my face, and tidied my mane and tail, I emerged from the mares' room, and bumped into a black, blue and green wall of stallion.
"Ah, good. You are up and about," Brainstorm said to me.
"Evidently, I am," I agreed. "The stuff you glued me back together with seems to have done the job relatively well."
"Better than you can imagine. You walked back from the site of the attack to the hospital yourself. What's more, you were carrying Snow on your back, with a little levitation help from Allie."
"You carried Cacha?"
"I did. I was also supporting an active stasis field spell, to prevent the conditions of Cacha and Snow from deteriorating," Brainstorm said. "Come with me, please. There's something I wish to show you."
"Okay," I said, falling in beside him. "You don't seem surprised that I don't remember what happened."
"Hardly. You were in shock. We were able to get your body to do basic things, but you weren't there."
"Can you blame me?" I asked.
"No, and in a way, it was a blessing, as I am pretty sure you were still in some physical pain."
"That seems to be the one thing you can't eliminate from your modifiers, isn't it?"
"Actually, I'm sure the pain had more to do with the great slash down your side, and that your forelegs had actually been cut off, right through the bone," Brainstorm said, perhaps a little miffed that I had again accused him of causing me pain. Hey, he did cause me pain several times!
"Well, thank you for making pony-glue then," I muttered.
"Anyway, that's not what I wanted to discuss. I really want you see the parts of our enemy that I managed to salvage."
"Where are they?"
"In our lab. I went and fetched several pieces of it after I'd delivered you all to the hospital and helped stabilize the others."
"I'm curious – this new modifier couldn't help the others? Why did it work on me and not them?"
"I used the second dose on Snow as her injuries were not as bad as Cacha's, but it proved to be inadequate for the task. We were able to reattach her legs, but the internal injuries were too great for it to repair. The failure did show where we needed to make improvements, so we are working on a new batch even now."
"You couldn't use the same modifiers you used to reassemble yourself and Stormie, when you first got out of your tank?" I asked.
"A variant of those is what we are using to rebuild Snow and Cacha now, but to answer your question, no, they would be useless in the field, as there are no external resources from which they could draw."
"Ah, I get it," I said.
Brainstorm closed the door to the lab behind him. Unlike the high-security plug-door to the lab in the lower levels of the life support chamber, Brainstorm's lab in Habitat ten was blessed with an ordinary, rectangular one. The contents of this lab were not that different to the previous one. In fact, a lot of these items were the items from the lab above, either recovered from the stash, or salvaged from the old lab, and installed here. Now that nopony was trying to kill Hellites, retrieving them had been a relatively easy task. Of course, with resources as limited as they were in the habitat, there had been very little chance of getting the materials to build the new lab from scratch.
Brainstorm waved a hoof in the direction of a substantial collection of pieces that had come from the machine that sliced us apart. Fortunately, they were free of any blood or gore, making the experience somewhat clinical.
"So, here we have the parts of the clockwork spider," he said.
On the floor, I could see parts of its limbs, parts of its body, and its nasty blade-like fingers. Assorted other parts were also sitting on the floor of the Storm labs, the exceptions being the pale grey, pony-like head, and some of the smaller pieces of internal workings, which were up on the main workbench.
"Clockwork spider?" I asked.
"That's what Snow called it. Presumably she meant something like machine with eight limbs. As we don't have an official name for the thing, clockwork spider is as relevant as any other choice. And the bonus is Snow gets to say something right for a change."
"We can hope," I muttered under my breath, wondering if trying to actually say that might result in yet another perversion of our language.
I walked over to the bench that was supporting the killing-machine's head. It was significantly larger than the head of any pony I had ever seen, alicorn adults included, but was most definitely pony shaped. There was no coat-hair, but it did sport a luxurious, blonde mane. There were four ears, though, one pair immediately behind the other. Her eyes, currently closed, were adorned with lashes that would be the envy of any mare in the habitat. Her? Had I just decided this killing-machine was a female? It was definitely very feminine by our standards of beauty.
"Is it safe to touch?" I asked, cautiously extending my fingers from my hoof.
"I believe so, but keep your hooves away from its mouth, just in case."
I was about to ask why, when its eyelids snapped open, its crystal blue eyes stared directly at me.
"Eek!" I managed, staggering back and falling onto my rump in a most unladylike manner. The surprise over, I regained my hooves, and composure. "Okay, I see. It's not quite dead. Has it done anything else?"
"Not a thing," Brainstorm said. "I haven't decided whether it is an autonomous function, or if there is some sort of intelligence still active in there. Short of cracking it open, it may not be possible to determine."
"So, crack it open," I said.
"Feel it."
I did, reaching up and touching the side of its face, well away from the mouth. It was firm, but supple, not unlike my own armored skin. Behind the skin was the solidness of bone. That was to be expected. I didn't see what the problem was.
"Look under the forelock," Brainstorm suggested, so I did. There I found a wound from one of my unsuccessful shots. A small area of the artificial flesh had been blown away, revealing a little of the skull. It was completely undamaged.
"Tough stuff," I said.
"That is an understatement. Pick up that piece of armor on the floor, near your hooves," Brainstorm said.
Looking down, I found I something that resembled a part of a giant insect leg among the collection of remnants. The piece was longer than I was tall, but made of quite thin material, and had it been of something common, such as metal, it would have been heavy, but well within the capability of a HELaTS to lift. I wrapped my fingers around it and tried to lift it, finding I could not budge it from its position on the floor. It rocked a little, but that was all.
"What the?"
"Hull material," Brainstorm said. "It's made from the same, multidimensional material as the hull of the habitat. Now you understand why cracking open the skull will be difficult. Hours with a cutting spell at best, and as we don't know how thick the skull is, we will have to do it in many shallow passes so we don't damage whatever is inside."
"No wonder my shots didn't faze it," I said.
"You have blown holes clean through this sort of material on several occasions. This time you were being too conservative with your choice of ammunition spell."
"Can you blame me? I nearly put a hole through the life support chamber wall, last time I let loose with an unrestricted shot."
"You should have realized what you were doing wasn't working, and upped the ante."
"I think by that point, I was in blind panic," I admitted.
"Panic?" Brainstorm asked, frowning.
"Yes. Panic. My friends were injured or killed within seconds of us encountering that monster. It was bearing down on me at an alarming rate..."
"Oh, I keep forgetting that despite you being so heavily armed, you are not trained for combat, or even for security work."
"Perhaps I should rectify that," I said.
"You and me both," Brainstorm agreed. "It is many centuries since I last had anything resembling training, and that was only as part of the underground."
"Do you have any idea who we should ask?"
"The changelings. I expect it was they who trained the former death-squads."
"But we beat them!" I objected.
"A few amateurs with big guns got lucky. Imagine the effectiveness of a few well trained soldiers with big guns."
"It will be a very small army," I muttered.
"You and me. Maybe one or two other unicorns at a later date. Yes, it will be a small army. It will also be a very potent one."
The head blinked.
"Should we be discussing that in front of this?" I asked.
Brainstorm chuckled. "I doubt it understands our language, but all the same, probably not."
"Anyway, what has been done to prevent more of these things from getting into the hangar?"
"Not a single thing." Brainstorm shrugged.
"What?" I spluttered.
"Seriously, what could we do against that, short of positioning one of the heavy weapons HELaTS in the hangar? There are only three of us. Stormie is pregnant. You are recovering. I am here."
He had a point.
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6717972 it's always better to first dissapoint grammar nazis. What gives them problems can always be fixed and in the end you're left with a much better dialogue.
6791393 Maybe it's just my droll personality showing through.
They only can win if they really hurry because spider robots presumably can prepare crazy plans and forces very fast.
So how long until they send some out into the world, and what nuance rampant modifiers have done to the place?
Reminds me of the ones in Portal 2...
Heh. But of course
Huh. Maybe try Allie first?
Oh, clever.
I'm missing intonation here. Is she reprimanding Brainstorm? I mean, that same thing could be said wistfully or downright sad, too.
"crack" jokes, huh? After all that talk about butts
Innteresting. Probably with diversion corridors connected if you'd go through without the correct access clearance.
I hope that doesn't mean "there's no breathable air"
I can't stop laughing at this sentence
They... got through the hull? No wait, she referred to the hull as "egg" or something before. Though, they're already outside the hull at this point, aren't they?
Ohhh crap. Cacha is dead?
Oh. huh. Innnteresting.
Eh? Seems obvious to me. They're fixing her brain. She must still be quite out of it to not get that.
Yeeah, glue is great for sticking things together, but it isn't exactly building material.
I'm suddenly worried about the fact the chapter title has that in plural.
Well, that was heavy stuff. Yikes. I hope Cacha comes out all right. Too bad they can't just ask her the gender thing directly now.
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The grammar nazis are here to help you! Any mistake is a learning experience!
(And I don't give you "hell", do I?
So, either aliens, rogue supermutants, grotesque super-security or something completely different.
6791438 You are not a grammar nazi. You are a proof reader. You actually help! I contacted a "promotional group" with the story once, and frankly, they didn't have anything nice to say. I doubt they even looked at the story because they were so busy looking at the words. Because of that, I tightened things up a fair bit. You remember - back when I was looking for an editor (and not one person volunteered).
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Heh. I'm used to doing tech support; I've built up surprising amounts of tact and patience helping people with Command & Conquer related problems. Well, admitted, it kind of depends on how I'm approached in the first place. If someone starts off with being a total ass, I won't hold back either
Clockwork Spider is female?
No Clockwork Stallions then?
I like the rotating sections disrupting the direct line of radiation through the shielding tank, with the complexity makes you wonder if theres more locations they link to, as a spiral spring connecting tunnel wouldve worked as well between two shell fixed points?
Its taken how many thousand years for that spider to get through the hull, converting it into its own material, but it means the rest of the conversion can now be taking place, turning the Habitat into Ringworld base, or even improveing the ringworld base material, depending what was used before?
Holy shit.
Wow, what a surprise.
I was originally hoping this was a rescue from the other ponies that escaped on the other colony ships. Still, the similarities and differences in the head have me worrying.
Now to make modifiers so the HELaTS can have hull material pieces in them as well.
I screamed (and jumped) with joy IRL when this update appeared!!! I have never ever done that for another story!
For the actual story comment:
They need to immediately investigate the electrical energy being used by the 'spider'. It may or may not use magic.
I bet the pony base nature is caused by the spider being a former pony left on equestria being consumed and transformed by the ringworld/spokeworld modifiers as the planet was consumed.
The pony mind is long gone, but it's entire initial goal of "oh god the world is being eaten for real i dont want to die" was probably boiled down to "get inside the habitat at all costs" and the new mind inherited that order as a primary directive. If true, this would explain the lack of current activity.
The alternate possibilities are much less friendly.
I can't wait to learn from the other's memories: how did Aneki beat it?
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Isn't that a little OP?
So how did they manage to kill the spider thing? Or did I miss the part where they did it? Because, you know, they could do it again in a more controlled fashion to crack it open...
Also, no need to open the skull up. if the thing is anything like a pony, you have clear access to the brain through the eyesockets, nostrils or back part of the mouth. Your pick.
6801947 Brainstorm blasted it with the same sort of spell-ammo that Aneki put a hole through the changeling queen/mane way/buildings with.
I swear this just keeps getting better and better
This story was a refreshing change in scenery compared to other fimfics.
I love your worldbuilding and how you manage to keep the events beliveable.
Reverse engineering those modifiers to do new novel things. This has such a "Homeworld" feel to it.
I think it is about time they cracked open one of those ship cannons.
Technically, couldn't they program modifiers to disassemble specific things? The carrier modifiers are already programmed to do that, take nearby material and hang around holding the actual modifier, which it holds the materials for. Couldn't you then reprogram the carrier to instead take the materials from a specific thing? Possibly even put it somewhere else?
Also, the cannons on the habitat. They seem to have enough fire-power to blast the multi-dimensional material, maybe try programming those? Or maybe they're already programmed to fire upon any perceived threat? The clockwork spiders included?
I want to say humans. Here's my case.
1: Humans know of spiders. Other planets may not have them, but Earth certainly does. However, other aliens may just have the mentality that more legs is better, or it's based off themselves.
2: Humans were able to build nukes in response to threats greater than or equal to them. Then they continue to create better, more effective weapons. The weaponry shown here has human design (Pistols for example), and the cannons show fire-power significantly less than that of a nuke.
3: Humans are seeking ways to extend life and make themselves more powerful. Either through cybernetics or genetic enhancement. It's displayed here that both are used at once, the HELaTS being bio-robotic. Humans also developed nano-machines, so the technology shown is well within their capabilities.
4: Humans are selfish and violent. But some show good qualities. The humans may have built the ring, but those with good qualities wanted to save the ponies, and thus shared technology allowing them to escape. This is within human capability, as they are the cruellest species on planet Earth, purely for being empathetic.
5: Humans have theories about multiple dimension as well as two things occupying the same space. The ability to create the materials shown here are also within their capacity, as well as the ability to make "expanding domes".
6: Humans know the expression "Magic is just science we don't understand" well, as well as knowing the fact that magic does not exist... As far as they know. Thus it makes sense that these are humans, as the Alicorn said they relayed a similar expression in response to magic, dismissing it as technology they didn't understand.
7985978 But mainly, humans are assholes.