The Transporter

by Unit_ZER0

Part 03: Redline

“…Perhaps you’d better start from the beginning.”

Earth Mover looked across at the human and the thestral. Clearly, this was not going to end well –for her- if she didn’t start talking.

“There is a chance that the case we’re carrying is the Ark of Queens”

“That means nothing to me, you’ll need to be more specific.” Sergeant Stormcloud stated flatly.

With a resigned sigh, the changeling continued. “The Ark of Queens is an artifact from changeling lore. It contains the genealogy and history of the original seven queens, their hive locations, and territories across Equestria. It was lost over a thousand years ago, when the Princesses began to unify the land, and establish its borders. It is said that the queens allowed this because they did not wish to be revealed, and that the three races living in harmony would provide a more stable source of food.”

“You mean they’d be more easily able to replace ponies in key positions, right?”

“No! Changelings don’t normally replace ponies! That makes no sense! What would be the point? Passive emotion harvesting takes longer, but leaves more to be had later, versus directly infiltration a community by replacing someone who WILL eventually be missed, it’s just too risky.”

“Before we go any further, what emotion does your hive harvest?” Cole asked.

“Curiosity, mostly, although the idea of each hive harvesting a specific emotion is an oversimplification. We have emotions we prefer, but any strong emotion will do, especially the more positive ones. Emotions like hate or fear are powerful, but can make us sick. We need food and water too, just not as much as a pony.”

The sergeant narrowed his eyes speculatively. “You seem awfully knowledgeable for an infiltrator or drone. And your eyes are different too… You aren’t a queen, right?”

“No, not hardly. But I will be one day.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Cole broke in. “If your species is organized even a little bit like an insect-like hive, queens must be both rare and valuable. Why put someone like that at risk, sending them out into the world?”

Here Earth Mover sighed, and gave a resigned smile. “It’s mostly just a coincidence. Queens, at least potential queens in my hive, are required to serve in all the roles within the hive: Larval Tender, Digger, Soldier, Infiltrator, Scout, and so on. The first queen of our hive decreed that in order to be an effective queen, one had to experience life at all levels of the hive, so she could rule fairly and impartially. It was just a coincidence that I was learning under an infiltration specialist when the Ark was found.”

Here the sergeant made the connection: “if your hive focuses on feeding on curiosity, it makes sense you’d masquerade as a student…”

“Sergeant, if you could please pull those blades away from my thorax, I’d really be grateful.”

With a twitch of his lips, Stormcloud pulled back some. “I’m still going to keep a close eye on you.”

Here Cole took up the conversation: “I saw just now, and when you loaded the case, that your magic is yellowish-gold. The bolts we’ve been dodging were green and blue, care to explain?”

“I’d guess the changelings out there are from Chrysalis’ hive, and maybe one other. After her defeat, Queen Chrysalis has been laying pretty low, and sending her scouts and soldiers out as hired help to other hives. The ones out there were part of a group that was supposed to secure the Ark, and bring it back to either my hive, or another.”

“And when we didn't stop, they gave chase.” The human finished.

“What did you mean when you said you’d die?” The sergeant inquired.

“If what we have here is actually the Ark, and I have no reason to suspect that it isn’t, then the princesses will have a pretty good idea of where to look for other changeling hives, as well as how to detect other hive’s members. If I had to guess, when Chrysalis and her army were ejected from Canterlot, the spell that did so must have only affected changelings from her specific hive. I was there when it happened, and I was unaffected.”

“And if they know where to start looking, even after over a thousand years, it’ll make finding and rooting your fellow changelings out all the easier.”

“Are you really worried they’ll kill you on sight?” Cole asked.

Earth Mover just looked at him, then half nodded/glanced at the sergeant still poised to attack should she make a wrong move, and returned her gaze to him. Cole nodded once in understanding, and put his gun away.

“Sergeant,” he began, “I don’t think the changeling is going to attack.”

After a moment, the thestral visibly relaxed –slightly- and returned to his post beside the Ark. “Just keeping vigilant, Sir.”

---

As the Elantra continued to race into the night, Cole noticed the faint lights and shapes of structures in the distance. He then switched the FLIR view back to the forward camera, and the low buildings of a frontier town became visible. Turning, he regarded his insectoid passenger.

“I take it that’s Dodge Junction ahead?”

“After what I’ve told you, you still intend to carry out your assignment?”

“I agreed to transport the case back there, and I always complete my mission.”

At the clear signs that she was about to protest, Cole continued: “Not that this situation isn’t far more complicated than it first appeared. We will deliver the package, but I think the sergeant here can at least vouch for your non-hostile reactions to us, right sergeant?”

“I don’t like it, but I have to admit, she hasn’t caused trouble. I’ll need to talk to my captain, and from there my princess, but I can say for sure that she won’t be attacked on sight at least. How things go after that, remains to be seen.”

“I don’t feel comfortable with this, but I don’t think I have a choice.” Earth Mover admitted. “Things have been tense after the invasion attempt, and the queen has been worried we’ll all be discovered. How to approach the princesses, and more specifically, how to deal with the paranoid reactions of the populous, that’s a pony of a different color.”

“I’m sure they’ll at least give you the benefit of the doubt, right?” Cole asked.

“Ponies are very much herd creatures,” she countered. “No offense sergeant, but when one of you panics, the rest follow in short order.”

“Ponies might, we thestrals are a bit different. But I have to agree, the idea of accepting changelings openly is a very touchy one, even if not all changelings were responsible for the invasion attempt. I suspect its due in part to the fact that you’ve been so secretive. Ponykind in general has no idea how to react to what they don’t understand. And as a result, the usual reaction to the unknown is fear.”

---

As the trio continued to discuss the implications of revealing the changeling race to ponykind in a non-threatening manner, and the potential obstacles created by Chrysalis’ failed attempt to invade Canterlot, the Elantra drew closer to Dodge Junction. When Cole could see the rail line, and the dark trail it left in the surrounding desert, he spun the wheel, and the car began a gentle turn westward. Once they were lined up parallel to the rails, the ride smoothed out noticeably, and Cole took the speed up to a reasonable 160KPH.

Up ahead, near Appaloosa, a new threat was beginning to stir.

When the arrangements had been made to try and intercept the Ark before it could reach Canterlot, several contingencies had been implemented. One of which was to set up teams in both Dodge Junction, and in Appaloosa to intercept whatever means the ponies would decide on to actually move the thing. The development that they had decided to enlist the help of a human to move it had been unexpected, to say the least.

The Appaloosa team had only minutes to prepare an intercept, seeing how fast the human vehicle could move. An additional force that did not help their efforts was the fact that the vehicle made very little noise unless one was exceptionally close. It didn’t rattle like a cart or wagon, and the dust plume it threw up in its wake made a chase from directly behind a bad idea.

The brilliant beams of light that pierced the darkness as the Elantra cruised along made actually spotting the machine easy, yet they also made its approach speed deceptive, and the vehicle was on the intercepting changelings in an instant.

Cole had only the briefest impression of dark, chitinous bodies, holding what looked like a large net looming in the headlights, before the net was tossed over the vehicle, and, unsurprisingly, the Elantra swept past, completely untouched. Later analysis of what had happened would reveal that the compression wall of air pushed in front of and around the car had caused the tossed net to be lofted upwards, and then drawn down violently behind, before it was roiled and twisted in the vehicle’s wake, hopelessly tangling its would-be captors in their own net.

“Did you guys see that?!” Cole asked, startled. The entire attack had taken place, and failed, in less than two blinks.

“I did,” sergeant Stormcloud responded. “Looked like a net. You didn’t tell us there would be other attempts at capture along the way.” He said, looking suspiciously at the changeling.”

“I didn’t think they’d be necessary.” Earth Mover replied nervously. “There may have been contingency plans put in place, but this is as unexpected for me as it is for you.”

“Can’t you just contact them, tell them to call off the attack?”

“Not exactly. Changelings can communicate telepathically, but only with members of their own hive, and even then usually only between themselves and their queen. We use speech just as you do for most things.”

“And since we can’t stop and talk, since that’ll just give them a better chance to attack, we’re going to have to outrun them…”

With Appaloosa long behind, Cole focused the FLIR off into the distance, the better to spot a similar approach before things got out of hand. Before long, he hit another realization.

“You said there was a gorge that we’d have to cross, right?” he asked.

“Yes, The Ghastly Gorge is crossed by the rail line up ahead, and we can use the bridge to cross. I think if I use my magic to grip the edges of this vehicle’s wheels, it can balance atop the rails.”

“If we get on the rails now, we can hopefully get to the bridge before the pack we just passed can get word to any comrades they may have in the area…” the sergeant put in.

Earth Mover concentrated, and twin tracks of golden light appeared in front of the speeding Elantra. With a little finessing, Cole was able to steer the car onto the tracks, and in a blink, they were atop the rails, where the ride smoothed out considerably. Earth Mover scaled back her magic, concentrating it in four sparkling “shoes” of light that gripped the wheels of the human machine to the tracks, yet allowed it to roll freely.

Cole looked over at his insectoid passenger, who seemed relaxed, despite the constant minor effort of maintaining the constructs that allowed them to stay on track, made obvious by the faint glow that surrounded her horn. “Nice work.”

“Thanks.” She replied.

It was then that circumstances threw them another curveball.

---

Under the bridge spanning the Ghastly Gorge, the changeling in charge of placing the pulsating crystals gave his team’s handiwork one final check, and then flew off to the gorge’s far side. As soon as the lights of the vehicle they were hoping to stop crested the horizon, his horn flickered once.

---

With the FLIR at maximum zoom, Cole could see several miles down the track to the gorge itself, and the bridge that crossed it. Suddenly, he saw a flicker of movement in the display, and then it whited out. Beyond the windshield, the bright flash of the explosion reached them first, and then the booming rumble of the demolition rattled the Elantra’s windows.

Sergeant Stormcloud reacted instantly. “Cole, slow down.”

Surprised, the human complied, slowing the vehicle down to a near crawl as the thestral turned toward the changeling. “Earth Mover, can you create structures with your magic? Ramps, for example?”

“Sure, I guess, but why-“

“Good. Cole, here’s what we’ll need to do. Thestrals can do some of the same things Pegasi can do, so I’m going to give us a boost with a thunder burst. But you’ll need to be going a specific speed for it to work best. Can you accelerate slowly, and I’ll tell you when it feels right?”

With a curt nod, Cole began to accelerate, gradually approaching just about 142KPH, when Stormcloud told him to hold it there. As the human complied, the sergeant began to concentrate, and lightning began to crackle around the body of the car, coruscating down the sides, as the thestral began to build a thunderhead in the pocket of turbulent air immediately behind the vehicle. Once the charge had reached its peak, Stormcloud turned to Earth mover.

“Can you give me two ramps, just in front of the severed sections of track?”

“Sure,” she replied, seeing the sergeant’s plan.

Cole fully grasped the situation, and readied himself.

As the Elantra held steady at the desired speed, Stormcloud continued to feed energy into the thundercloud he was forming, until the lightning flared, and he shouted: “NOW!” and the cloud exploded with concussive violence, shoving the Elantra down the track towards the edge, as Cole mashed the accelerator to the floor.

The car picked up speed in a rush, and the residual magic from Earth mover’s efforts to keep it on the rails left twin trails of fiery discharge down the track. In a fraction of a second, the human machine had reached its top speed of almost 225KPH, hit the magically constructed ramps at the end of the truncated span, and leaped out over the empty gorge.

Comments

[Lord Legion]

left twin trails of fiery discharge down the track.

Possible BTTF III reference there?

[AppleTank]

static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/back_to_the_future.jpg

[Unit_ZER0]

6168510 Convert 142KPH to miles per hour...