Part 2: Jump
Lightning Dust had somewhere to go. When the ponies of Othar were too much—when their strange customs frightened her and their ambition spawned nightmares in her sleep—she could flee to Deadlight’s cafe.
It wasn’t really a cafe—Deadlight talked about opening one, but everypony knew he never would. Or if he did, he’d probably serve something weird, like bugs.
Lightning Dust had eaten with bats enough times to know never to eat their food without inspecting it first.
Deadlight’s cafe was actually located in the shell of the airship Forerunner had built for him—the place where he lived whenever he was out exploring. Lightning Dust might’ve been envious, except that she had everything she’d ever wanted and shiny airships were a waste of time.
It might not be the Equestrian weather station she’d wanted to run, but Othar would do.
But that dream was no comfort for her tonight—not after what she’d seen.
The Emperor’s Soul was gone now, along with its deadly escorts. She had watched it from the shelter of a cloud, beside an equally shaken Wayfinder. It hadn’t been flying towards Equestria.
But it might. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a few years.
The “humans” of Othar were a terrible and frightening group. They had decided Equestria’s ruler needed to be overthrown, then done it. They had fought a god and survived. And now Lightning Dust was one of them.
Or at least she felt like one now.
“Just stand right there, sweetheart,” she could still remember the nurse saying—an earth pony so cute and charming she’d almost thought she was back in Equestria. The white uniforms even looked the same.
But then they’d given her a pair of sunglasses, and flashed her with brilliant red light for a few minutes.
Then she’d stepped out, and they’d given her a suit to wear. A suit that had reminded her a great deal of the one she’d found Lucky wearing, in that ruin at the end of the world. She was still wearing it now—soft, comfortable, except when you pushed on it. Then it tightened, hard enough that the nurse had promised it would “stop a nine millimeter”. Whatever that was.
Deadlight’s cafe was parked in the upper hangar, where the Speed of Thought had once rested. But that ship hadn’t been rebuilt, and so now the “Wing of Midnight” looked like a child’s toy afloat in the ocean.
Not a pony airship at all, but sleek and metallic and enclosed. Forerunner had explained how it worked once, but Lightning Dust couldn’t make sense of that.
Humans had a strange, mechanical way of thinking about flying that just didn’t make sense to her.
There was a bridge connected to the Midnight, along with various little mechanisms to keep it docked. Human airships didn’t float; they either flew or sat.
But in some ways that was better. It meant no rocking back and forth as she walked aboard, into the low lights and sound of relaxing jazz.
The ship had only two levels, not the labyrinth she’d seen while wandering around the Emperor. Up here at the top, Deadlight and Melody were lounging across from another familiar pony—her own adopted daughter.
So maybe their secret Equestrian cafe had a few humans in it. It also wasn’t a cafe.
“Love the music, Deadlight,” she said, slowing a little as she came in. Had to be careful entering the home of two ponies at the early stages of a relationship.
“Thanks.” Lightning Dust thought they were lounging over some wine, but it wasn’t that at all. The table in front of them was piled high with artifacts. “It might be the best thing that the humans brought. Jazz music and cultured meat.”
“What about me?” Melody asked, in a voice that was almost nauseating to Lightning Dust.
Deadlight pushed her gently away. “Eh, you’re alright. You can take slot three.”
The alicorn squealed in frustration, though it was hard to tell from her tone if she recognized the joke.
Lucky looked up. “Something’s bothering you.” She sat across from the couple, alone in one corner of the couch. Lightning had found her daughter here with Flurry Heart many times, but now the princess was gone and Lucky looked tremendously alone.
The pile of books in front of her wasn’t even open.
“A little.” Lightning Dust couldn’t sit right down—the armor was still on her back. She twisted to one side, fiddling with the release mechanism for a second. It gripped onto her whole jumpsuit, and couldn’t have been yanked off by a unicorn. But once she found the button, it flopped off like a dead fish.
It landed with a solid thump on the ground, twenty kilos of polished metal shaped into a hump of sorts.
“You’re moonlighting as a repair pony?” Deadlight offered. “Didn’t seem like your kind of work.”
“It isn’t.” She nudged the edge of the armor. “You know what this is, don’t you Lucky?”
Her daughter nodded. “I recognize that undersuit. Can’t believe Forerunner got you into that machine.”
Lightning Dust left the lump of metal where it had fallen, pulling herself into the seat beside Lucky. “He convinced you not to go back to Equestria with Flurry Heart. Guess we all do things we don’t want.”
“Woah.” Melody sat up, apparently done with whatever play-fighting she’d been in the middle of. “That’s one of those dynamic armor sets, isn’t it? Do you feel like Iron Man?”
“No,” Lightning Dust answered. “I feel like a clown. Does Forerunner really expect me to wear this stuff everywhere? I won’t be able to get the weather ponies to respect me if I walk around like a circus performer.”
“He probably does,” Lucky admitted. “But don’t if you don’t want to. Just try to stash that stuff somewhere nearby. Those containers in your office, maybe. Just in case.”
“Just in case,” she repeated. “In case of what? The same thing that you made the warship for?” She almost turned and flew away right there. But she’d gotten herself this far. Lightning Dust would say what was on her mind. “In case that general decides one day to invade Equestria, and use all these powerful weapons against ponies who didn’t do anything wrong?”
Lucky Break seemed taken aback by the anger. Deadlight and Melody were staring too, with a little more recognition. Maybe Deadlight had thought some of the same things. He would be on her side, right?
“General Qingzhi won’t do that, Lightning Dust. You can ask Forerunner to show you his history… He was one of our best. Saved a whole colony once. He’s not a conqueror.”
“Not-conquerors don’t build warships like the Emperor,” Lightning Dust said, stiffening. “I was supposed to be running a weather factory for a peaceful little island city. Maybe keeping an eye on you, too. I’m not going to invade Equestria.”
“We aren’t,” Lucky said again, straightening her mane with one hoof. She hadn’t changed her styling since the horn, which made her look perpetually mussy-haired. It was too adorable for Lightning Dust to ever tell her. “And if you think we don’t need a warship, go talk to Lift downstairs. Ask River about what life was like out in the wilderness. We’re saving the ponies Equestria forgot. And… all the other creatures too. That’s genuinely the only thing we’re doing.”
Lightning Dust held her stiff posture for another few moments, then melted. It was hard to argue with a cause like that. She would’ve applauded an Equestrian army prepared to do the same thing. Lucky will do better than Celestia ever did. It’s okay. “I trust you,” she eventually said.
The little Alicorn was out of her seat, embracing her with a wing before Lightning Dust could blink. “I’m not going to let them hurt Equestria, Mom. That isn’t what we came here to do. Forerunner picked this place because we wanted to make friends with the people who live here.”
“Friends with superior firepower,” Melody muttered from across the room. “Good thing, too. Otherwise… what, we wait for the dragons to fly in and enslave us? No thanks.”
“Soon enough nopony will have to be afraid of that,” Lucky said. “We’ll be making Equestria safe too.”
“I guess that’s alright,” Lightning Dust said. And she meant it, too.
So long as it was her daughter in charge, she could know that Othar wouldn’t turn into another Equestria, with a princess who didn’t care about the ponies under her. I won’t let you be like Celestia.
Sarah wasn’t really a contractor. Maybe if she’d actually been the person she pretended to be, she would know how to react when an alarm started blaring through the base. As it was, she started with squealing, kicking and screaming and flopping out of bed.
“The fuck is that?” she screeched, covering her eyes with one wing to block out the bright lights. Of course that didn’t stop her from “seeing” everything around her. The shrill alarm echoed off every wall, off the furniture, even James’s soft body in bed. He hadn’t even tried to get out, just covered his head with a pillow.
“It’ll… stop eventually…” he muttered, his voice muffled by fabric. “It’s because one of us is about to be late to something. That’ll be… fall training… Get the hell out of here so it shuts up.”
Sarah whimpered, yanking one of the uniforms out of the closet and scrambling into it as quickly as she could. She barely did the zipper halfway up before she stumbled from the room, her mane a frizzy mess. Sure enough, the alarm did shut off, replaced with Forerunner’s even voice from the wall. “I suspect you need directions to the landing platform,” he said. “Follow the lights. And don’t run off to try and help a princess this time. If you don’t mind.”
Sarah nodded, stumbling down the hallway. She kept her eyes mostly closed, still trying to adjust to the light. The glowing line took her back to the main hall, then up a winding spiral staircase until she emerged for the first time on the surface.
It felt like somewhere in the south, maybe Florida. The sun was barely up, but the air was thick and muggy, so dense she felt like she was smacking into it. She could feel a few drops of water condensing on the edge of her wings. The mystery about whether ponies could sweat was instantly solved.
They could. Profusely.
Aside from the heat and the air, it didn’t seem much like Florida. These were jungle trees, and there was very little development up here. Othar was apparently a concealed city, made to be hard to find against the natural environment.
The path under her hooves was firm, but made of a strange brown material that looked more like dirt the further she looked away from it. From the sky, it would probably be completely invisible.
Fortunately for her, there was a standard Drone Square a dozen meters away or so, with a drone already parked and waiting. The summoning controls were there, but made from faux-wood. From a distance they would probably just look like a stick jutting out of the ground, maybe a young sapling.
“Eh, you?” called a male voice from inside the open drone. There was a slight Latino accent to the English, and something predatory to it. Like she could hear all the teeth with the same sense she used to see walls with her eyes closed. “You’re the one we’re waiting for? Get the hell over here, soldier!”
Sarah did get the hell over there, or trotted over at least. She wasn’t sure she could trust herself to try anything faster.
Up close, it was clear the drone design had been adjusted. It looked perfectly normal, like the same Drone Squares on Earth with their hexcopters that might’ve been an app-request away anywhere and anytime. That was exactly the problem—the ceiling didn’t seem much bigger than it should’ve been, and the door was the right width. These were pony-sized hexcopters.
There were only two ponies inside—or one pony and one something else.
Dragon. There was no other word for the towering reptile, the sharp teeth and the red spines running down his back. He sat beside a pony in a white and blue vest, without so much as a pair of shorts. “I’m not a soldier,” Sarah said, climbing up into the car. The automatic door began to close behind her, clicking sealed before the engines finally began to whir.
“Relative,” said the dragon. “I glanced at your record. You should at least know what the hell it means to be on time.”
Sarah had to resist the urge to stick out her tongue. “Sorry. I think something must be screwy with my internal clock. I know it’s early but it feels like someone woke me up in the middle of the night.”
“You’re a thestral.” That was the pony, the one sitting across from the dragon. Sarah took her in at a glance—olive drab, with a washed-out blue mane. She looked so similar to some of the other ponies on the first floor. Actually, she was pretty sure this pony did live on the first floor. She’d been sitting at a full table with ponies in strange vests and hadn’t talked much with anyone else. “Sorry to say it doesn’t get better. Requisition medical for Melodex. That’s what the bats on my team are taking, and it helps keep them awake when they should be. Should work for you too.”
Sarah tucked that drug away into her memory, nodding appreciatively. “I’m Sarah,” she said. “I was in munitions, but I think I might be in the diplomatic corps now.” She stuck out her hoof to the olive pony.
“Olivia,” she said. “Olivia Fischer. Weather supervisor and introductory flight instructor.”
The dragon choked off a laugh, sticking one clawed hand briefly into his mouth to silence himself. His uniform seemed almost human, though the way he sat clearly wasn’t. Like he might switch back to quadrupedal at any moment. “I’d start with goddamn war hero, not your retired civy position.”
Olivia glared at him, ears flattening. “You’re lucky I can’t order you to shut up about that anymore.”
“You could, boss.” He grinned. “I know you’d get the job back. Say the word, you can have it. God knows I don’t want to consult on a fucking ingrav invasion.”
They lifted off the ground with an even, surgical grace, the same as drones like this always flew. Sarah settled into her seat as best she could, which like everything else seemed to have been modified for ponies. The dragon had to perch himself awkwardly between several of them.
“I’m Lieutenant Perez,” the dragon added, looking almost disinterested as he met her eyes. “You can call me that.”
“I’ll call you Perez,” she shot back. “You can keep your rank. I’m not military.”
They locked gazes for a moment—both sets of predators with slitted eyes. Except that the one glaring at her had a handgun on his belt and scales thick enough to stop bullets. She remembered that from Forerunner’s crash-course the day before.
Perez grinned. “I like you, Sarah. Got some balls. Maybe that’s why Forerunner picked you for this. Try to be more friendly when they finally put you in with a VIP.”
“Yeah.” She shrugged noncommittally, looking at Olivia instead. The pony didn’t look shy or awkward to be sitting there, just mildly annoyed. With Perez, at least. “So, uh… what exactly is this? My roomie told me some real crazy shit about pushing me off a cliff or something?”
“A cloud, actually.” Olivia smiled. “It’s apparently really popular in Equestria. We’re using lots of their techniques. Lightning Dust used it with us, before… well, she doesn’t waste time on beginners anymore. That’s my job.”
Sarah glanced around the mostly-empty car. It could’ve held eight ponies, though there were only the three of them. “My unit must have… thousands of people… where are all of them?”
“Already trained,” Olivia answered. “Basics, anyway. They won’t be changing the weather anytime soon, but they can descend from altitude and scale a building. The other civilians who came out when you did would be here, but there isn’t time. They’ll be deploying in two more days. More important things to worry about than flying I guess.”
“Does that mean I wouldn’t be here if… I hadn’t been reassigned?”
Perez glared across the car at her, though there was still something good-natured about it. “I’ve been getting out of this training for months now. Forerunner wanted at least two students, but didn’t make me train with the whole 75th. So thanks for dragging me up here.”
“Anytime,” Sarah said, smiling innocently. Then the weight of what Olivia hadn’t said finally settled on her. “Hold on. We are jumping off cliffs?”
“Shoved off,” Perez muttered. “If it’s anything like the first time I did this. Kicking and screaming all the way down. Just because your body can fly now doesn’t mean your brain is happy about jumping off. Believe me.”
She gulped, unbounding each of her wings in turn. They looked intact, but that didn’t mean much. Wouldn’t she have to put all her weight on them to glide? What if they couldn’t take it, and she hit the ground going too fast? Or… the water. Hadn’t James said it was into the ocean?
“It isn’t as painful as it sounds,” Olivia said, looking sympathetic. But her wings were thick and fluffy, with all the birdlike aerodynamics. The curve to Sarah’s was almost imperceptible. “Even if you can’t fly at all on your first few jumps, flying things fall light on this planet. It’s inherent in your biology. We had a few soldiers from your unit end up off the course and smack right into the ground. Didn’t see anything worse than a broken leg and some sprained wings.”
“Great. I get to fall from the sky and the worse that could happen is I’ll break my legs. I can’t wait.” She did a good job not sounding too petulant, at least not in her tone.
Perez laughed again. “See, she gets it. This was always the worst fucking thing about Equus. Couldn’t just be normal fucking people walking around a normal fucking world.”
They began to slow, angling upward slightly and then leveling out again. The ground rumbled beneath them as they stopped. The engines kept going.
“We’re here,” Olivia said. “Othar Weather Substation landing pad.” She rose to her hooves, stretching. “Come on then.”
“Shouldn’t we… wait until we land?” Sarah asked, going for her seatbelt as Perez strode past her. It wasn’t supposed to unlock while they were in flight—yet it clicked open. The doors weren’t supposed to open either.
“We’re here,” Olivia said. “But drones can’t land on clouds.”
Sarah stumbled out of her restraints, rising to her hooves. It still felt like she was going to smack into her face every time she stood up. Good thing that didn’t happen.
“Neither can I!” she squealed, as the doors retracted in front of them. Brilliant white light shone in, reflecting off a surface like a field of fresh powder on an alpine slope.
Except it was drifting and nebulous around the edges, like mist. Clouds.
No fucking way they’re good enough at this to hover and pretend to walk. What would be the point? Sarah followed them to the exit, watching Olivia carefully as she stepped out onto the white surface. It reacted a little like snow, compacting under her hooves. But that was it. Her wings remained folded on her sides as she walked a little way out of the drone. There was a second landing pad here, empty. And in the distance, a building about the size of a warehouse.
The dragon followed, though he hesitated on his way out of the drone the way Sarah was. Yet even those clawed talons of his didn’t seem to be falling through.
“What’s the point of making this installation look like a cloud? Is it… more camouflage? Must be a shit-ton of fog machines hidden around here somewhere.”
Olivia waited for her to exit, tapping one hoof impatiently. Her wings were still folded, despite their height.
Sarah made to step out of the drone, and caught one of her hind legs on one of the seats just behind her. Instead of climbing out, she tumbled into a roll, sending a spray of white all around her. She could feel the whole thing squish under her, dampening her fur where she touched it.
The ground yielded a little under her touch, though not as much as a cloud should. Obviously if this was a real cloud she’d be tumbling back to earth by now.
“You’ll get used to it,” Perez muttered from beside her. Not laughing at her misfortune, which seemed a little strange for someone like that. “Going from quadrupedal back to two legs was awful too. We get it.”
Behind her, she heard the whir of engines and felt the slight gust of air as the drone took off again. Sarah was now stuck, thousands of feet in the air. The wind blew, the sky was brilliantly blue, and she had her ass up in the air. I can do this. It’s okay. It’ll all be worth it once I get superpowers.
Sarah rose, brushing herself off as best she could. Her jumpsuit was now slightly damp, and the ground still had an imprint of where she struck.
“No camouflage,” Olivia said, once she had her attention. “I mean, that does seem like the sort of thing I would’ve done back when we were trying to stay hidden. But the Equestrians know where we are now, so it doesn’t help much. These are… well, they’re the same clouds as anywhere on the planet. It isn’t some kind of airship, and we aren’t secretly attached to a cliff. We aren’t hanging from a skyhook either. It’s honest to god clouds.”
She sounds honest. But then, the most convincing liars generally did. Sarah nodded—no point in arguing with her. She would keep her eyes open for how it really worked. Or maybe she would ask Forerunner tonight, once he took her into that awful classroom. I’ll have to ask him about time off too. It won’t seem so suspicious on my second day.
They walked past the building, which seemed surprisingly active for so early in the day. The doors weren’t open, but she could hear the sound of active machinery from inside. There were a few large cooling towers rising over the building—also made of cloud, though their tips looked like they’d frozen to ice.
Sarah had to resist the urge to go in and investigate, which she certainly would’ve done if she wasn’t already two layers deep in a con. “What’s that thing?”
“Othar’s weather factory,” Olivia said. “Weren’t you listening on the way up? I guess you don’t know what that means. It’s exactly what it sounds like. We gather up moisture and energy—make rain, keep the skies clear for sunshine, keep the tropical storms away. All the climate control we ever wanted, but with way less hassle than the Geoswarm.”
“I… don’t remember that,” Sarah muttered. “Guess that was after my time.”
Past the edge of the building was a large picnic area and park, save that the trees were just clouds shaped like trees. There was no one up here, but enough space for quite a few. Probably where they trained the Rangers. They could fit a thousand people if they all squeezed in real tight.
There were no fences anywhere, nothing to stop the unwary from tumbling over the edge. And that was where they went, right over to the edge of the clouds. There was nothing there but a white cabinet of sorts, also apparently made from clouds and set into the ground.
Far, far below was crystal blue ocean. It was so clear around the island that she could see straight to the bottom. There was a single red circle down there—a drone boat, with a few little figures on it. Lifeguards?
“The idea here is gliding,” Olivia began. “This is easy enough that plenty of people get it on their first try. I did. Lots of your Ranger friends did too. It’s just about making your wings as big as possible and feeling light. Don’t have to try and steer much, though you don’t want to aim for the land. Go along the island if you can, so that you’re shallow enough to swim to shore. The biggest risk for an exercise like this is drowning.”
She opened the cabinet, lifting out a set of packs. She did it with her hoof, and somehow didn’t drop them. They were lifejackets; the sort tourists would wear on the deck of some tropical catamaran. “Get this on. We rigged the safeties—when you hit the water, it’ll inflate. Even if the impact knocks you out, we’ll be able to get to you in time. But it probably won’t, unless you’re an idiot.”
“I got it, coach,” Perez muttered. He spread his black wings, stretching each one in turn. “Maybe they’re shaped different, but I was further than this with Lightning Dust.”
“Then you should’ve done this months ago,” Olivia muttered. “You’re about to deploy and you haven’t mastered a basic skill.”
He groaned, snatching the pack away from her and securing the straps in an angry rush. “Some of us went ISMU to stay the hell out of gravity wells, you know. I’m too old to be flying around like this.”
Olivia had to help Sarah with her own pack, with Velcro and buckles that were too small for Sarah to manipulate comfortably with her implants yet. A few seconds and it was tight against her back.
“What if I want to go diving when we land?” Sarah asked. “I always wanted the money to scuba.”
Olivia grinned at her. “We civilians get Sundays off, that’s in three days. I’ve got my own beach with some great diving. Lots of fish. Invitation’s open, if you can do this on your first try.”
Sarah returned the grin. “Maybe I could bring drinks?”
Olivia actually laughed. “Sorry kid.” Then she kicked—not at Sarah, who was ready to dodge out of the way should such an attack come—but at the ground.
Nothing should’ve happened, it was just ground made to look like cloud, right? Except that it wasn’t. The section she was standing on split off from the fluffy white cliff, and started to drift over the void.
This time, Perez did laugh along, though it seemed in good humor. “Do you flirt with everyone you meet, Sarah?”
She was spinning. Olivia’s single kick had twisted the world into a loop that went around again and again, blurring past her. But not just that, the ground was also dissolving. Every time she went around, there was less and less of it there to hold her. She squeaked and squealed, reaching out desperately for Olivia or Perez. Neither of them grabbed her. “I… yeah, usually,” Sarah admitted. “They usually don’t shove me off a cliff without telling me how to glide yet!”
“There isn’t much to tell,” Olivia said, once she was finished laughing. Sarah only had two legs on “solid” ground, now, and it was running out fast. Beneath her was oblivion. “Just keep your wings out. Cut into the wind as you start falling, take the weight slowly. If you try to catch yourself all at once, you could bend them back too far and sprain. That’s the usual injury. You’re too light to get hurt when you hit the water. And if it makes you feel any better…”
Olivia shoved hard on the dragon’s back. He stumbled, arms spinning out wildly as any human might do. Then he tumbled forward into the void, swearing in Spanish as he did. “No hard feelings. I was going to push you anyway. I’m just not looking for a relationship right now.”
Sarah didn’t get a chance to reply, because that was the moment the cloud had shrunk small enough that it couldn’t hold her up. It puffed away under her like so much wet fluff, and she too went tumbling into the abyss.
For a few seconds, it was all she could do to flail madly, squeaking her horror into the sky as the ocean grew steadily closer. The flight up here had taken ten minutes, but the trip down wouldn’t even take two.
There was no being rational now, no chance of any sort of serious thought. She just flailed, doing whatever her body wanted to do.
She stopped spinning a few seconds later. Air still rushed around her, confusing her ears and making it seem like she was passing through solid rock. But her eyes told a different story. Somehow, her wings had opened a little and had settled her legs under her. She was still careering down into the void, but at least she wasn’t tumbling. That was the typical worst-part for first time skydivers.
Cut the air, wings. Something something fuck whoever came up with this training. Sarah evened out her wings as best she could, edging into the maelstrom. Wind caught her with a slight jerk, and she felt her wings nearly bend backwards—but she was ready for that, and she tightened all over. Sarah’s legs twitched, folding up under her as she started to slow.
Somewhere below she saw a splash, as Perez hit the water like a cannonball. Sarah tried to aim herself towards where he’d landed, but there was very little she could do. Even tiny movements of her wings seemed to change her direction. After a few twitches nearly sent her somersaulting again, Sarah settled for a glide.
She missed the boat by some distance, but that didn’t matter much. Instead of smacking into the water like a brick wall, it came up to her about the speed of a high dive.
Sarah folded her wings again as soon as she was close to the surface, insulating the translucent skin from the force of the impact. But it wasn’t that hard.
She sank perhaps five meters into the deep blue, feeling the water steal both kinds of sight. Shit, I don’t know how to swim with four legs.
But then there was an explosion from her back, and something rapidly unfolded around her. An egg of inflated plastic, with her in the center. She shot up through the water like a cannon, with enough force that she actually lifted a meter or so out of the ocean. Then she landed again, rolling on the curves of the emergency shelter before it finally came to a stop.
The sides weren’t sealed, so there was nothing to keep the water in. She coughed, spluttered, and soon was breathing normally again.
Sarah was unhurt. She was still strapped to the thing, and for some reason it had decided that meant she should be secured on her back with her hooves sticking up childishly into the air. Her white jumpsuit had gone completely transparent—but considering she’d just been pushed off a cloud, that wasn’t so bad.
That’s only the second worst way somebody’s turned down a date.
By the time she heard the slight rumble of an electric engine in the distance, Sarah had managed to untangle herself from the straps and sit up in her egg. Its separate sections were sealed together with foam—a knife was required to separate them now. But her rescuers weren’t far away.
“Saw that descent,” said a voice from outside, not long after. Male—with the teethy sound of another bat. Slightly amused. “Not your first time?”
Sarah moved towards his voice so she could use the transparent window in the shelter, but it only rolled forward, smashing her onto her face and getting her nice and wet through the cracks. “First time,” she grumbled, through the opening. Trying to sound like she hadn’t just made a fool of herself again.
“Not bad. You actually did it. Makes one of you.” Something yanked on the egg, and Sarah was dragged onto the edge of something. “Back away from the seam. Got someone in the wing with my knife once.”
She did, and a moment later a serrated blade emerged from the yellow foam, moving easily through it. The shelter parted, and Sarah flopped out onto the deck of the boat.
Perez was already there, slumped on his back with his jumpsuit unzipped almost all the way. He had a pack of ice on his neck. He sat up slightly as she clambered aboard, grinning at her. “Turns out that dragons glide like rocks. Maybe I should’ve stayed a bat.” He closed his eyes, pulling the towel up over his face.
“Here.” The one helping her tossed his knife aside. He had the same look as several of the bats from the first floor, dark coat and dark wings with typical fangs. But he looked older, somehow. Was that more wear along his wings, little tears and scars sewn together? Then there was the accent. Most telling, he was completely naked, not even an adorable little vest or captain’s hat to go with those fangs and slitted eyes.
Sarah took the offered towel, wrapping it around herself as she slumped into one of the chairs. It was quite warm, so at least she didn’t feel cold. “How many jumps does this usually involve?”
He shrugged. “As many as it takes for Wayfinder to approve. You might get a chance to rest until Perez gets his hooves under him, though. That wasn’t even close to a glide.”
“I don’t have hooves anymore, history book,” Perez moaned, not uncovering his face. “I could glide just fine when I did.”
Sarah pulled the towel over her own face. “It’s not fair. You all know each other like you’ve been working together for years.”
The bat shrugged. “Well, I’m Deadlight. Now you know me.”
“Native?” Sarah asked, pulling her face free and looking at him again. Standing in front of the sun like that, muscular and dripping wet, she could almost figure out why girls got into so many relationships with men. Almost. “That’s not a human name.”
“Native,” he repeated, turning back to the controls. “For ponies so primitive, you have a way of talking down to people.”
“Am not!” Sarah snapped back, without thinking. “What other word would you want me to use? Better than ‘alien’! But that didn’t feel right, since I’m as alien as you are.”
The bat had been reaching for the controls, but then he stopped, turning slowly around. “That’s good Eoch. I didn’t know there were any other native speakers.”
She shrugged, though didn’t try to hide her smug grin. “I guess I won the cutie-mark lottery, better or worse.” That lie got easier to explain each time she said it. “That’s why I’m up here, instead of with my unit. Guess I’m not going on the slavery expedition.”
“Liberation expedition,” Perez corrected, rolling onto his side and lifting the pillow off his head. He looked like a dragon who was about to be sick. Whatever the hell that was. “We’re Paul Revere. Isn’t that the guy who led the slaves out of… no, I’m getting your American myths wrong? It was Johnny Appleseed.” So maybe not that sick, if he could still grin at her like that.
“Lincoln?” Sarah suggested. “Or maybe Harriet Tubman? I don’t know who you’re talking about either.” She paused, considering. Forerunner hadn’t actually told her very much about the mission “her” unit was going on. Only that they would be leaving soon and wouldn’t be coming back. “I guess this place is under UN authority now? Ceres Proclamation and all that shit.”
The motor switched on again, and they began circling the island. The ocean was quite calm here, though they still started bumping regularly. If only they’d sent a hovercraft instead, maybe she wouldn’t make it to shore seasick. I hope this boat explodes. But Sarah thought that about all boats.
“Don’t mention that to Olivia if you know what’s good for you,” Perez said, sitting slowly up across from her. He kept the ice on his neck, though it didn’t look like he was actually hurt. With the speed he’d been falling, that was terrifying in its own way. Just how tough were dragons? “This ring is gigantic. If it was all lived on, we’d never be able to run it all. But our next-door neighbors have a ton of slaves. Guess that’s how they’ve always done things on the periphery. But we need population, and they need to learn some morality, so it’s a win-win. We’ve got local guides to direct it all. I’ll be coming along as the cultural advisor with my unit. Assassinate a few warlords, plunder a few caravans… it’s going to be a blast. Shame you had to go all diplomat so you can’t come along. Transports are going back all the time, you wouldn’t even have to leave right now...”
Forerunner’s voice spoke from the console beside him, as even and clear as it was in Othar itself. “Once Sarah’s instruction is complete, she will rejoin her unit. There will be a great deal of negotiation required during this campaign. Many treaties to make, demands to send, and so on. And she has previous military experience.”
Shit. Guess I have a deadline for my escape. Maybe it was for the best that Olivia had kicked her off the cloud. She could use her day off to walk to the volcano. That was a few more days to learn as much as she could, then out of the Pioneering Society with her newly acquired immortality.
Not out. I’m still helping them. Or so the voice in her mind kept telling her. That was how things worked for sane people, right?
Class was much the same as it had been the day before. There was more general information—about the culture of the ponies, the culture of the slaves, and every encounter that the Pioneering Society had with both. It was clear to Sarah that major details were missing from the middle—but that was fine. It wasn’t as though she needed anyone’s life story.
What I really need to do is find out more about these changelings. But if I ask Forerunner, it might get curious about why I want to know.
So she would have to find someone else to ask.
Fortunately there were plenty of options, and she had already learned everyone’s names. When she was eventually done with class, Sarah wandered around until she found someone naked. The natives would probably be best to ask about this kind of thing.
Instead of taking her meal back to her slightly better-smelling bedroom, Sarah ate quickly, then wandered off to the rec room. It was easy to find—just follow the traffic of ponies and she eventually stumbled into it.
The room was large enough to fit a hundred, and obviously doubled as an assembly hall. There was a pool table, a few VR booths, and a stage for who knew what sort of embarrassing performances. There were plenty of seating areas scattered about—one of them was positioned so that anyone who used it could watch whoever was using the VR station. There was a naked pony, Deadlight, sitting beside the Alicorn that Sarah had smacked into the day before. The holotable in front of them held an enormously detailed projection, with what looked like a map of the galaxy visible on it. Most of the stars had been false-colored, though as she watched their shades seemed to shift and distort.
Something way smarter than I am is happening here. But that didn’t matter. The smart people could solve smart problems.
“Hey.” Sarah gestured at an empty chair. “Can I watch?”
“Sure,” came a voice from the VR booth. There was a comfortable chair inside, and Martin resting on it. None of the VR equipment seemed to be running, though his body was rigid with concentration. “Just don’t screw us up. I’m getting damn close.”
Sarah pulled out the chair, perching on the edge. “Getting close to what?”
“We’re searching for Earth,” Melody answered, beaming. “Well, Martin and Harmony are searching. We’re just watching.”
“Oh.” Sarah looked up at the table, and suddenly the differently colored stars made more sense. “Shouldn’t it be easy to find? I don’t know any astronomy, but… just look around, find the pulsars or whatever…”
“You’d think so,” Martin grumbled. “But the Milky Way isn’t the galaxy it used to be. Turns out the ponies weren’t the only ones to build megastructures. But I managed to find several familiar stars. Now, it’s… minutes away. So stop distracting me.”
Martin didn’t seem to be doing anything, but Sarah didn’t point that out. His tone was deadly serious, even if she didn’t understand how he was searching.
“I had a question for you, Deadlight,” Sarah said, her voice much more subdued. Quiet enough that Martin didn’t complain.
“Certainly.” The bat looked up. The way he sat beside Melody, sharing the couch with her, any question in Sarah’s mind about who’d made her pregnant like that dissolved. “If I know the answer, I will try to help. Anything for one of my many children.”
“I’m, uh…” Sarah looked away, blushing. The hell is he talking about? Was this the sort of thing that she ought to know, and asking about would give away who she was? No, have to focus. He’s probably just trying to get a rise or something. She had more important things to worry about just now. “I’m trying to get my hooves under me, figure out what Equus is like. Part of that is working out how the different species all fit together. Like figuring out how to put a gun together. If you understand all its parts, then you can understand the whole.” Shit I hope that makes sense.
But if it didn’t, neither of them reacted. Melody didn’t even look away from the map. Maybe its twinkling colors meant something to her that Sarah couldn’t tell.
“There are a lot of missing pieces,” Deadlight said. “No one even remembers what our civilization looked like when we were active and expanding. The ancients… destroyed that information. I guess I can’t blame them, considering what happened to the galaxy the last time. They didn’t want us to develop the same way and ruin things twice. Hopefully their scheme works.”
“Yeah,” Sarah agreed, though she had no idea what he was talking about. “But I’m trying to understand the races we do know about. Most of them make sense, but I’ve seen mentions of a few that don’t. From Equestrian history. The, uh… changelings is one. Apparently they attacked Equestria a few times? But no one really knows where they came from or where they went. But I want to know what they are.”
Deadlight looked stricken. His ears flattened, tail flicking about behind him uneasily. His scent changed too, very slightly. He was uncomfortable. “I don’t know if you need to know about them.”
That was enough to attract Melody’s attention. She looked away from the map, before leaning forward to stroke his mane with one hoof. “I think you should try to tell her, Deadlight. It might help you to talk through it.”
The bat grunted, shoving her gently away with one of his wings. But he didn’t actually argue. “Changelings are… from the same paradigm as the other equanoid races. But they weren’t ever meant to be… instanced.” He seemed to be struggling for words. Then he switched languages. Sarah couldn’t hear a difference, but Melody’s face changed, and that was enough of a clue. “Changelings were part of the infrastructure once. There are thousands of different designs stored away. But I think the ancients liked things to work together. If most of the people were ponies, then they wanted their… I guess you’d call them ‘drones.’ They wanted their drones to be ponies too.
He finally met her eyes again. At least he didn’t look like he might try to run away. “I think the ancients used to maintain Equus themselves. But Harmony does all of it now, and most of us couldn’t even begin to understand how it works. Forerunner tried, and it was too complex for him.”
“Maintenance drones,” Sarah repeated. “So they’re… robots. Floating out in space and… welding things?”
Deadlight laughed. “The underside is much too hot for organics. And this side doesn’t need to be floating around in space, you’re walking on it now. They’re inside Equus. Huge sections of the ring are hollow once you get below the terrain layer. And in there—not in the living sections, but the places in-between… that’s where changelings are.”
“I don’t see what’s to be so upset about then,” Sarah muttered. She was getting dangerously close to pushing too hard. But nothing Deadlight had said so far suggested what Discord’s real plan might be. If she was getting tricked into betraying Othar, she needed to figure that out. “Organic, burrowing… robots. That fix things. Robots attacked Equestria?”
She could almost hear the distant laughter.
Deadlight stiffened again. “Apparently someone found a way to modify them. Not one of Harmony’s existing designs… I don’t really know the specifics. I haven’t been in the interior during any of the invasions, so I didn’t see it myself. But… the one who did it was a friend of mine from a long time ago. A geneticist named Distilled Wisdom. She did something to the maintenance system. Instanced herself into one of their bodies, so she could control them. Lots of ponies died. Her too, during the last invasion. That’s probably for the best.”
Sarah nodded respectfully. “Thank you for explaining all that. I’m sorry I had to bring back old memories.”
Deadlight shrugged. “She’s better off now. Harmony can repair every mind twisted in madness or anger. We would’ve destroyed ourselves a long time ago, otherwise. When she’s ready to come back, it won’t be under Celestia’s iron hooves.”
Martin hadn’t interrupted during their whole conversation. He only muttered to himself, apparently seeing and doing things despite his lack of motion. But he started squealing, a sound so sharp that it echoed around the rec room. Even the dragon playing pool stopped to look over.
“I found it! I found it I found it I found it!” The map shifted in the projection in front of them, its clouds of light darkening to faint red. Except for one region, near the edge of one of the arms, which glowed a cool blue.
Martin jerked out of his seat. “I found Earth.”
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Cliffhanger.
I want to know what happened to the Homeworld. What kind of fate it suffered, if it recovered, all that jazz.
Hee hee, it’s like looking through Google Earth to find your home again.
This part is called epiloge, but I only see the start of a story. It's awesome
My guess is its a blasted radioactive rock 2/3 its original size orbited by what used to be its crust. Probably orbiting a red dwarf.
"It's been repopulated by apes..."
Shame on you for making me wait another week. Looking forward to it.
I am still of the opinion that Earth was the Planet that had all of the ships Flurry saw.
Anybody else wondering if the thing that burned across the universe destroying everything was actually humanity all along. "You blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to hell!"
8934567
You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you all to hell!
At this point you might wanna rename this epilogue as part two.
"I found Earth."
*Insert Thanos meme here *
8934723
I thought it was a branch of humanity. In particular, this seems to be supported by the statement that the ancients destroyed information to prevent people from retreading the same path.
Okay Lightning Dust, let's imagine that Othar invades Equestria. What's next?
No, that's a serious question. Othar will take losses during the war - yes, the Equestrians will have no idea what in Celestia's name human war technology is, but they're not idiots, they'll figure out a way to actually fight back, and that's before factoring in the alicorns. There will be incredible collateral damage in terms of both lives and property, so that will all need to be fixed up before the land and/or population would be in a usable state. And after that Othar will need a way to control the populace. Othar doesn't have the warm bodies to do it, so they'll need a nation's worth of drones and Forerunner, and I imagine holding all that land and multitasking what could be tens or hundreds of thousands of police robots would strain even an AI.
And for what? What does Equestria have that Othar could want? Knowledge of how magic works? The humans have already been getting plenty of that through careful trade agreements that don't require so much material. Land? There's lots of that around, and I'm sure humanity knows enough about terraformation that even if the only unoccupied land left is a barren desert they can figure out a way to make it livable. Resources? Othar pulled out an absurd sky dreadnought without having to conquer anyone already, and human mining tech can reach resources no one else can. Labor? Even if humans weren't so anti-slavery it would be easier just to turn out yet more drones.
If you don't trust human morality, then you can trust human mechanical practicality: invading Equestria would simply be unprofitable.
Jesus that cliffhanger.
So.. Distilled Wisdom is Queen Chrysalis here?
And she is not alive at ring?
You know you want to.
*whisper*sequel
8934915
Difficult to know, specially when ignoring how many of the canon events involving the Mare Six were actually orchestrated by Celestia in her goal of grooming Twilight as her successor. Smoke and mirrors.
Ok I shared this with the author once and since were at the end of this one Ill share it with you all.
I believe that this is all in the Halo universe and the ringworld is one the ponies made as a outpost/homeworld but the Flood came and all life was destroyed by the precursors and this is Equis' ringworld storage backup.
Or some combination of this and authors headcannon
8935184
I don't see flood wiping out literally extra-galactic civilization.
Also, the Equus ring is a Niven ring, which make Orbitals of the Halo universe look like toys made by monkies..
So Changelings are actually maintenance robots...whose programming later got hijacked in order to invade Equestria but failed miserably? ...neat!
In other news, EVERYONE PLACE YOUR BETS! What was final fate of Earth? I'm going with post-apocalypse WALL-E style~!
8935215
Buried in it's own garbage? That... sounds frighteningly likely.
earth or something like it.
A lot of stuff pack into this chapte. Great job keeping it flowing well. Finding earth is a really big deal I think. From the way everything looks, it seems you are going to be starting another book. Because I am very excited to see this continue.
8934838
I agree with you on this. This is my personal opinion on how wars will stop. Because they are just no gain from them or the gain is so little that it is not worth the lost.
I would like to say that maybe we have gotten morally advanced, but this is much more plausible.
https://i.imgur.com/7zE0rXn.png
How I think the Pioneering Society's symbol might look like?
This "epilogue" is starting to look more like a proper sequel... I know others have said that already, but it bears repeating.
Oh my god we get to see what happened to EARTH!!!
8934723
ME!
But seriously, I can see an accident resulting from a Von Neumann swarm happening.
Who wants to bet THAT's the reason Forerunner is not allowed to unpack more updates? Zeroth-law rebellion?
Actually, I'm hoping that's the reason, since then Harmony would have a reason not to let him update, rather than being paranoid again.
Which relationship? I don't think Melody and Deadlight could be said to be in the early parts of theirs.
In any case, a fair amount to take in here. My suspicions about Chrysalis are confirmed, but I wasn't expecting that origin for the changelings. And Sarah may need to do some very fancy hoofwork to slip out and see them.
Also, all the panicked bat noises amused me. Sometimes it's the simple things in life.
Im quite interested in the society's protocol in the event where target civilizations forerunners plan in establishing contact with has slavery integrated in its social structure. Given the campaign Othar is planning in the outer reaches, it appears the ceres proclamation is more or less in effect. It works here because of the similarity of morals but does that mean forerunners will literally plan alien invasions if a slave-holding civilization does not comply. It appears antithetical to the pioneer society's goals if this is the case. Trying to fit square pegs (human morality) into round holes (alien morality).
8936373
Technology might evolve quickly but our animal brains do not.
There shouldn't be any war between the two factions for a while until mistrust grows or they find themselves desperate for some resource.
8935215
It'll be a picture of the past though considering the speed of light and the time it took to travel the vast distance to the ring. There would be no indication of its current status. Even if it was wrecked, there's a chance any possible survivors may have repopulated and rebuild. Harmony successfully hid from the threat. There's no reason earth humanity couldn't do the same. The opposite is also true. If earth appears teeming with civilization, its possible that it's just a lifeless rock now.
Of course this assumes there's no ftl transmission of information. I don't remember if forerunner's update transmissions were ftl.
8935185
The Flood definitely could. The Forerunners technically WERE extra-galactic, albeit in a limited sense. The Flood are the Precursors, who were extra-galactic if not extra-dimensional. The secondary motive of the Forerunners activating the Halo Array was that even if their reseeding of the Galaxy failed, other life would be spared from the Flood. Oh, and the Forerunners probably could make a true Niven Ring, they just had no real reason to. The Halos were either 10,000 or 30,000km in diameter, because that's how big they needed to be.
8942536
But this version was an ACTUAL extra-galactic civlization, instead of the chinese knockoff versions we usually see in sci-fi. This one was building dyson swarms and O'Neil cylinders, not sticking to planets like idiots. Not to mention they have "magic" technology, which seems to be something Forerunners lacked.
Also, with FTL communications the galaxy would be prepared for the arrival of Flood after it consumed it's first galaxy. I am seriously not seeing any way flood could realistically wipe out this civilization. they are too massive and too well equipped.
And Niven ring and halo orbitals are nowhere near in the same class. At all. If I remember correctly, you could actually make halo orbitals out of conventional materials. Meanwhile a Niven ring either requires you to starlift materials off the star, or demolish every single planetary body within the system, and even then you need femtotech materials to even construct the ring
8942722
The Forerunners DIDN'T just stick to planets. Both the Greater and Lesser Ark were major installations that weren't planets. They had thousands of artificial shield worlds, some of which were Dyson Spheres. Their capital of Maethrillian was a massive artificial city. And O'Neill cylinders are not advanced or fantastical. We realistically have the ability to try and make one nowadays. We just have no reason to. And the major reason the Forerunners were beaten by the Flood is because they underestimated them. They were arrogant, thought themselves unbeatable. They let the Flood fester for too long. That and they didn't look at the chat logs between Mendicant Bias and The Primordial. . .
Don't believe them, Lucky. They've already gone for regime change in Equestria once, and you participated in it. This idea that there's no way Equestria could be a target again in the future is somewhat laughable. If the powers-that-be that are involved decide that it's a question of Othar's survival versus Equestria, the Emperor will be heading to Equestria within hours.
Could be worse.
Safety railings are for ground ponies.
Try it enough times in a big universe, something like this was bound to happen eventually.
That was pretty good first time gliding success.
Neat.
That's an interesting idea for changeling backstory. I assume Distilled Wisdom was Chrysalis?
cant wait for update
So, Kaplan here is obviously another AU Jackie. She's a sassy thestral who (somewhat creepily) hits on every woman she meets and is going to be involved with changelings.
Is her last name a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest?
Also, calling it right here - while I was wrong about the ring world being the human Earth, I'm predicting based on the focus it's been given that Humanity - and the Pioneering Society, based on some stuff with Forerunner - are actually the ones who wiped out all life in the galaxy.
Ha!
I guess Sarah was right to not inspect her food any closer
Says the mare who literally put a sword through Celestia's skull
I'm guessing, in case your Equestrian contractors happen to contain an assassin
Ha. Not a base alarm. An alarm clock
Well, Forerunner's having fun with this
Hey now. She's been reassigned. She's no longer a soldier.
Also, yay, Perez!
Looks like someone disagrees
Eh. She got along swimmingly with Flurry Heart
That's the spirit!
You chose to be a dragon, pal. Wings are part of the package
No, only the women
This whole piece is freaking hilarious
Ha.
Ah yes. They just flap their wings to stay in the air, I guess
Oh, you have no idea.
Ahh, that dry self-deprecating humour.
As if that matters. Forerunner sees and hears everything in this base
Some sort of bio-organics? Peculiar.
Good job!
Remarks and corrections:
> Somehow, her wings had opened a little and had settled her legs under her.
Shouldn't that be "and [she] had settled her legs under her"?
> the other equanoid races
Fairly sure that should be "equoid". Or maybe "equinoid". But that "an" in there just sounds like some weird remainder of twisting "humanoid".
Now that says something.
Whoo!!!