Equestria Besieged

by law abiding pony

Subtly

Frost Feather Inn
Gryphus, capital of the Griffin Empire
0150 Hours

Silver Specter was a pegasus of many talents, not all of which would be a topic of high regard in polite society. Nevertheless his skill set was a necessary evil among those under the princess's rule. Until now he had not used his more unpleasant abilities, but an informant told him a rumor about a visiting Minotaur dignitary that required that tonight could get rather unpleasant. He was currently writing a letter to the princess incase he did not return.

C~

My apologies for sending you a letter so quickly after the previous one, but I have received word of a possible clue to your warning. It deals with the minotaur diplomat Remos Arcfur and a talk of some sort of treaty. As you know, the minotaur nation of Cervidas lies far to the south of Equestria with the Empire north of our nation. Considering both species are already at peace, have warm relations, and have open trade agreements already in place this had garnered my attention.

This could still prove fruitless, so I have set the message to only be sent if I do not return within ten hours. Hopefully you will not receive this message at all, and my concerns are misplaced.

Faithfully

SS~

Silver rolled the letter and removed a loosened floorboard in the corner of his bedroom and placed it in a box that had a small bottle of dragon's fire in it. He set the box's mechanism to the appropriate time and replaced the board and pushed the dresser over it. Then he gathered his black infiltration suit along with a small saddlebag and quietly departed the building through the window into the darkened streets. It was well after curfew and the only people walking the streets were law enforcement and less savory individuals. He had already spent many nights observing the typical patrol routes; who was more vigilant, and who was little more than a warm body. There were far more of the former than the ladder as he neared the high cliffs of the imperial palace. So much so that going in by air or ground was an impossibility.

Fortunately for the shadowy pony, the griffins were an entirely aerial species, and paid little attention to the ground, and even less to the sewers. Specter was a smaller than average stallion, even by pegasus standards, and was able to navigate the water system to emerge in the showers of the honor guard barracks. The wall mounted drainage grate was easily bypassed with a few well struck points with a hammer and chisel. The nature of his employment had warranted a silencing enchantment on the hammer and the banging went unnoticed in the empty showers. Crawling through the improvised opening and replaced the grate he snuck out along the wooden hallway. The griffins prided themselves on vigilant, but even they believed their own barracks was safe, even more so that of the honor guard. Silver crept his way to the entry hall that connected the barracks to the primary vertical passageway that allowed access to every floor in the palace, save the royal chambers. The guards at the door however, were too well lit and alert to move past, but that would not be a problem for long. Specter rolled up a sleeve to check his watch just as it clicked over to three AM.

Right on cue two honor guards walked out of their dormitories and proceeded at a stiff manner to relieve the current guards who were on the grand chamber's side of the doors. The pegasus slipped in behind the unwavering griffins, his cloth shoed hooves keeping his steps quiet. The pair of guards he was walking behind gave him the perfect cover to avoid the eyes of the griffins on the other side of the passage way as the new pair opened the doors and exchanged formal rites of transferring duties of the watch with the tired pair on the other side.

Specter barely avoided detection by the second pair of troops coming to relieve the pair that were stations on the barracks' side of the doors. The chamber itself had decent lighting, but there were still plenty of shadows for Silver to slide into. Knowing the minotaur diplomat was residing in the wingless half of the visitor's quarters, Silver bypassed several patrols along the ground while taking a very short flying jump to reach the third floor of his destination. Luckily, the griffins had opted for more patrols, rather than stationary door guards, so it was only a matter of choosing a griffin and shadowing him until reaching Arcfur's quarters.

Using the superior agility of his heritage, the pegasus pilfered the key ring off his mobile feathered cover and used the master key to slip into the minotaur's quarters just when the patrols would be facing the other way. At this point most other spies would not bother checking for trap of neither the magical, nor of mundane nature. Griffins would not weave such wards in a dignitary's quarters out of respect, and minotaur's magic tended to be highly combat oriented, not subtle. Never the less, Specter was a very paranoid pony while on the job and reached into his small saddle bags for a pair of imbued lenses. It offered non unicorns the magical sight equal to that of the crafter. In this case, that of the sun princess herself; such was the trust she had in him.

Dawning the lenses, Silver saw nothing out of the ordinary. The well furnished room had oversized furniture fit for the sole occupant. The pony made sure he checked his movements as he slinked his way to the bedroom and found the bull was asleep, the smell of alcohol laced breath permeated the chamber. Silver scanned the bedroom and found the writing desk and quietly started searching for any clues. Most of it was typical items, invitations to political functions, a journal that a quick skimming revealed nothing of interest that he did not already know. He was about to look elsewhere when the lenses revealed an extremely faint signature underneath the desk and attached to the underside. Specter silently moved the chair out of the way to gain clear line of sight on the signature to discover it was an envelope. With a clear line of sight the lenses revealed that the signature he was seeing was a red aura around the envelope of an alarm ward. He knew that whatever was in the envelope was not being warded by minotaur magic, although he could not tell if it was of griffin origin or not. He did not want to dispel the trap entirely, so he used a rather complex alchemical concoction known as Interferon that would disable it for several minutes.

Checking once more to make sure the bull was asleep Silver pulled the vial of Interferon from his bags and poured some of the dust onto his hoof and gently blew it at the envelope. He made sure the lenses were not touched by the dust and soon the red aura started flickering wildly. Without removing the envelope from the desk, he opened it to read the letter that was inside.

Present this letter at the Sav Sca next Saturday at the appointed time. Do try stay sober this time.

Silver memorized the letter and replaced both it and the chair. He knew now was not the time to try and decipher the letter's meaning and bid a quiet retreat. The path to leaving the palace was much easier than entering it, having only two close calls before he finally managed to return to his quarters. After closing the window and drawing the curtains he checked his domicile for any signs of tampering or intrusion. It was a small hotel room so the inspection was brief. Only after checking the hallway outside of his door for anyone lying in wait did he finally return to his chambers and breathe his relief at a job properly executed. Checking his clock he saw there was still five hours left on the timer for his previous letter.

"Plenty of time to update it." He whispered to himself. He stripped out of his covert equipment and hid them in several false bottoms he had installed in the dresser. After that he wrote down the letter he had found and placed it in the dragon fire box and pushed the timer back to late in the evening. The letter said to arrive in nine days time. I have half that to find out where this Sav Sca is and what might be happening there. For now I need sleep if I'm going to make an appearance at the coliseum.

Canterlot Dignitary Tower
1500 hours
November 18

To say Daria was not one for formal affairs would be an understatement of titanic proportions. Currently, she was slumped on the bed trying to rub the migraine that had been building since nine thirty in the morning. She groaned at the memory of the entirety of the day's sun court had been dominated by incessant questions by the nobility and other petitions ranging from the obvious to the inane and back again. The princesses only told the public that the sphinxes were from a different world, but downplayed the fact of their advanced technology and lack of magic for fear they might be constantly pestered by scientists and magi alike.

On a lighter note Ashni was able to walk throughout the day with only seven tumbles. Unfortunately, as she walked up the spiral stairs to reach the loft where Daria was resting and she smacked her jaw on the top of stairs making it an even eight. Daria witnessed it and forced a laugh down. Had it not been for her pupil's fierce determination to be fully adjust to her altered body, Barrane would have had pity instead of what she suspected was pride.

Ashni spoke while climbing back to her feet. "Given your face, I'm going to have to thank you for not giving me the native's language yet. You look absolutely miserable."

The commander grinned at that. "You should know that I never once attended any sort of ceremony if I had some way to weasel out of it. Humans never got the message that all that pomp and flare is a waste of time. And apparently neither do the natives." She added with a grumble.

"Do you think it's because sphi-, that we just don't have the same priorities? What unimportant to us, could be very much so to them."

Daria sat up and gave her pupil a pleased look. "I'm glad you understand that, which is why I sat through the whole thing. Today was a good lesson for us both, never forget the importance of diplomacy. Of both the pen and the sword." She jumped down to pull her kin in close with a holographic arm. "Let's try to stick to the pen for as long as possible eh?"

Ashni reflected on her still not fully sturdy control over her limbs. "I fully agree."

Daria released her and commanded her routers to come to life. "Now on to more immediate issues, let my friends here scan you for any complications whiles while I check the data from last night to see where this planet is. This is a good time to start practicing control over your technotelepathy. The routers will be outside of my range so I want you to just listen to them, but don't influence. Let them conduct the scan, if you start slipping they'll retreat out of your range and return later to try again. Got it?"

Ashni nodded vigorously, it would be her first trial at control, and she wanted to improve with her new telepathy as fast as possible. "Do you have any pointers?"

Daria thought about it for a moment before answering in a studious tone as she unconsciously spoke in her own instructor's manner of speech. "Know that your technotelepathy is more than just a sixth sense, as most humans tend to think of it. Your TNP is integral to your consciousness. For us, machines and computers sing a soothing litany when no one is controlling them." She purposely left out some higher level practices to focus on the very basics. "For now, I want you to just listen to the song of my routers while they scan you."

"Yes instructor." The excited pupil replied as the three spheres detached from Daria's harness and started circling her.

"Ugh, don't call me that. It's just Daria to you, alright?"

"I understand-" The commander tapped a foreleg expectantly. "-Daria." She said hesitantly.

"Good, this won't take long."

As Barrane left, Ashni sat on the floor watching the routers orbit her slowly as their sensors methodically checked her vitals and for other medical data. Soon after Daria left the bedroom the spheres started playing what Ashni thought sounded like a peaceful electronic serenade. She remembered very little of her old life, but for some reason, she knew it was the most indescribably wonderful song she had ever heard. To her, it sounded like three separate musicians singing three separate tunes which blended into a fourth one that was leaving her in a trance like state of bliss. She barely felt the passage of time until the silencing of the melody heralded Daria's return.

"I see you were too wrapped up in the siren song to do any damage." She said mirthfully as she recalled the routers.

Instead of feeling saddened by the tune's absence, she felt happier and stronger than before. "That was amazing. I could have listened to it for days."

Daria nodded slightly in understanding. "That’s were learning control comes in. The litany of technology is not in of itself addictive. But if we aren’t careful and don’t learn proper control we can end up dying from exposure or dehydration listening to it; whichever comes first." The routers stopped their orbiting as Daria previewed the results. "Looks like you're in excellent health with no complications, the transformation was a complete success." Seems her overly large itineris organ system is oddly stable. I was worried it might cause heart problems, but all the data says she's beyond healthy. She had a look of deep contemplation that was starting to worry Ashni. Maybe it has something to do with her original human genealogy, or an effect of transforming a human into a sphinx-

"Um, Daria?" Ashni muttered nervously. "Is everything okay?"

The commander snapped back to the present. "Yes, everything checks out." No need to frighten her with that bit of data, if anything it’s a boon. "So, I can go ahead and have the routers accelerate your fur and feather growth. You have been eating heavily since we arrived correct?"

The thought of having to eat four complete meals that the ponies at brought up and four more at breakfast was an unwelcome reminder of the overly bloated feeling and an excessive number of trips to the restroom. "I'd rather not think about food right now." She suppressed a sense of nausea.

Daria smirked at her discomfort. "Ah you gotta admit that cheesecake last night was pretty boss." Ashni's only response was to feel a second wave of nausea. "Either way let's get it started. Lift up a foreleg." The routers formed a tight orbit around her limb and accelerated the growth of her reddish fur and traveled up to just above the elbow within a minute and quickly repeated it with the other foreleg. "There, that looks much better. Now stand up so I can get the rest of you, I'll hold you steady so you can left your wings out of the way." Within a few minutes, Ashni's fur coat was complete, while her vibrant flame orange hair stopped growing just past her shoulders.

"Now the hard part. I want you to extend your wings as far as you can and hold it. If you do it right, your center of gravity will remain the same." The routers began orbiting both wings in a figure eight pattern when there was a knock on the door. Daria remained focused on the task at hand but shouted for the intruder to enter.

Princess Celesta walked in and saw the two aliens up on the loft and flew up to meet them. "Greetings Commander Barrane, I trust your time at court was entertaining."

Daria was glad to notice the joking nature in the alicorn's tone. "Paint drying would have been more enjoyable."

They shared a polite laugh with Ashni playing the silent witness. Celesta kept a regal tone as she spoke. "Did you find out where our planet is in regards to your empire?"

Daria's face fell. "I did actually. We're on the far fringe of the frontier between Sol and the Clarions; another space faring race that absolutely hates my kind. The war depopulated the whole sector and neither side has yet to try recolonizing the area. So as it is, we're too close to the Clarions for me to fabricate a normal subspace transceiver as that has an equal chance to bring the them here as it does my own people." Her face flashed with hate before returning to being morose. "I'd rather not inflect that hell on your people."

Celesta had heard of many races across the planet having blood feuds and was interested in the history of this one. "May I ask why they hate your kind so?" The alabaster alicorn took silent appraisement of the spheres that were accelerating feather growth. She had heard about their non magical nature and was glad she did not have to ask for a demonstration.

The routers were approaching the elbows of Ashni's wings, the feathers were growing in a brilliant golden color. Daria let off a dismissive snort at the question. "Because the Clarions are a bunch of religious fanatics that’s why. Some prophet of theirs a few centuries back warned of winged felines that would bring catastrophic doom upon their kind or something like that. So when Sol Force went to make first contact and one of us was on the diplomatic team, you can imagine how that turned out."

Celesta wrestled between sadness and morbid curiosity. "Was it a self fulfilling prophecy?"

Daria gave her a predatory smile. "Damn right it was. The Clarions had us outgunned and slightly out teched, but they constantly overextended themselves to kill us, they often times ignored human forces who would promptly take full advantage of the constant follies. Together, we reduced them to a handful of systems before they finally sued for peace. Unfortunately though, one of those systems is in near this sector so I can't contact my government without creating a Class seven F subspace communicator, which I don’t have the schematics for. Best I can do is create a passive distress beacon that only Sol Force would be able to detect, but that could take months or years."

"I'm sorry for your situation commander. You're more than welcome to stay in the castle for as long as you desire."

Daria waved it away with a paw while making sure Ashni's primary feathers grew in correctly. "It was an accident done while Luna was doing the best for your people. Apologies are unnecessary."

Celesta had experience dealing with almost every single sentient species in Equestria and could tell the commander was being sincere, the last thing she wanted was to make enemies. "I will relay your words to my sister, she will be glad to hear them. Should you need anything for your beacon, my guard captain will be able to acquire it for you."

She turned away from her work now that it was complete. "I will, thank you your highness."

Celesta dipped her head. With her more unusual guests tended to and after receiving confirmation that there was no harbored ill will, the princess felt it was time to turn her attention on more pressing matters. "If you'll excuse me, I must return to my duties. Farewell."

With the princess gone Ashni felt it was time to express her displeasure at being a wallflower. "Daria, is there any chance I can get the native's language too? Its starting to get rather uncomfortable not being part of the conversations around here."

Barrane cocked her head towards her companion while rechecking the medical data. "Well, all signs say you should be able to handle it, so I don't see why not. Just so you know, data dumping can be quite unnerving the first time."

Daria took it slow and the language transfer was finished in half an hour. Ashni tested it out by speaking in equestrian. "So if we're going to be stuck here for possibly years, what are we going to do in the mean time? I'd rather not just sit around and live off someone else's free hospitality, it just doesn't feel right."

Barrane gave a sidelong grin at the comment. "My thoughts exactly. But we can't do any of that until you’re a stable flier. The rest is best learned on the fly anyway. So if you want to earn this free room and board, you better hope you take to the air as easily as natural borne sphinx or that will be a while yet."