• Published 1st Apr 2017
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Message in a Bottle - Starscribe



Humanity's space exploration ultimately took the form of billions of identical probes, capable of building anything (including astronauts themselves) upon arrival at their destinations. One lands in Equestria. Things go downhill from there.

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Part 2: Intrusion Testing

The radio aboard the Wing of Midnight didn’t alert them very often. Olivia knew that Equestria had little access to radio technology, being mostly limited to universities. With no significant force deployed, she had no reason to be waiting for messages to arrive. They just weren’t coming.

Motherlode hadn’t fallen apart in the last few days, despite the tenuous relationship with Grubber and the other soldiers. So far as she knew, the soldiers were perfectly happy to be ordered to leave the town alone - letting the ponies work unsupervised meant they could go on leave effective immediately.

For accommodations, they gave all the soldiers private suites. They had constructed the large public school with this purpose in mind from the beginning, so it was easy to switch things over. Out with the desks and in with some modular furniture, and the only aboveground structure they’d built could become a luxury hotel.

There was another concern, though, more than simply pacifying the soldiers with accommodations and distraction. The Storm King would still be expecting shipments. He wanted steel, mostly, though Grubber didn’t know why, or at least wouldn’t tell Olivia even when she put great pressure on him.

So they started sending steel. His production quotas would’ve been high for the city prior to its industrialization, but now… as she understood, keeping those trains running on time was a fractional effort for Forerunner.

“So we’ve bought ourselves some time,” Lucky explained, once all the leadership ponies from every aspect of their little organization were brought together in an underground conference room. “Our informant says the assignment was for a year. But there’s no way of judging if that’s true. Maybe the Storm King will come himself to inspect things personally at the end. Maybe he’ll blow up the whole ring with whatever he’s building.”

“We have another two months before he’s repurposed enough of the local administration that the ponies will start working against us,” Qingzhi said, as though remarking on something as dull as the weather. “There are already collaborators, but it will take more time to completely control the government. A more immediate concern is seeing to the needs of those who have already escaped from the Storm King’s control. The pegasus city of Cloudsdale, the Solar Fleet—these forces will rapidly decay as time progresses. Their infrastructure is destroyed and they are being hunted at every turn. We must locate them as soon as possible if we want them to be of any use.”

Olivia heard the sound before anyone else did—a ringing in the back of the room, the faint beep of a radio message on hold. Another second later, Forerunner tapped one mechanical hoof on the table. “Excuse me. You have an incoming call. I’ve told her I’m getting you.”

The room fell suddenly quiet. All eyes fell on Lucky, and the Alicorn finally nodded. “Who?”

Olivia could hear the dread in her tone, and imagined they shared the same brief terror. Celestia’s back. This entire nightmare has been her way of taking back control.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Forerunner said. “Calling with Flurry Heart.”

“Put them—”

But Qingzhi raised a hoof, trying to get her attention. “A moment, Governor. Before you take that, there’s something you should know.”

Suddenly everyone’s eyes were on him, Olivia’s included. What the hell do you know that the governor doesn’t?

Lucky didn’t say anything to make things easier on the general. He shifted uncomfortably for a few minutes more, before the words went spilling out. “I’ve had a man with Flurry Heart since Othar fell apart. Or… just afterwards.” From the growing confusion and concern from Mayor Pyrite and his wife, the locals weren’t exactly sure what to make of that. Were they afraid that they were willing to spy on ponies?

Assuming that’s what they’d been doing. “I’ve got a guess about who it is,” Lucky said, gesturing back at the locked conference room door with her wings. “There are five ponies missing. One, maybe two of them Discord sent to… well, only Discord knows. That leaves—”

“It’s him,” Qingzhi said. “I may’ve… encouraged him to mislead as many as he could. Sparing you the details, he’s been protecting the friendly princess since the Storm King took over. They escaped captivity about a week ago, and have been on the run together ever since. I was using him to bring her back here…”

“I’m curious about why I wasn’t told about this,” Lucky said, only a hint of annoyance in her voice. “But not curious enough to ask now.” She got to her hooves. “Come on, Prefect. We’ll take the call in my office.”

Then she glared all around the room, daring any of them to object. Qingzhi probably would have—but after keeping such important information from her, it wasn’t like he had the high ground on that subject. So he said nothing, and Olivia had to hurry to keep up with Lucky. I really need to get a replacement prosthetic.

“What the fuck was he thinking?” Lucky muttered, as they stormed down a stone hallway and around the corner. Her office wasn’t very far from this conference room. They’d adorned it with faux-gold near the doors, along with cast versions of the pioneering society logo. The locals expected a “princess” to have some degree of ostentation.

Deadlight was already waiting by the office door. “Forerunner said you needed me,” he said, and immediately the princess’s face relaxed.

“Well, if it’s you. Twilight wants to talk to us. God knows how she got a hold of us.”

They all piled in—Forerunner hadn’t sent a body, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be part of the conversation. Apparently he had been already.

“Has she told you anything?” Lucky asked, as soon as she was seated behind her desk. She’d pulled over a computation surface, and they all gathered around its microphone. “What she wants, or…”

“No,” Forerunner said. “She’s asking for you specifically, Lucky. I believe it is safe to assume she pictures our leadership structured in a similar manner to her own. That our government is absolute, and entirely vested in the hooves of our monarchs.”

Olivia opened her mouth to protest at being included—of everyone here, she had by far the worst past with this Twilight Sparkle pony. Her servant had offered Olivia kindness, and she’d taken advantage of that kindness to escape. The combat that followed had almost certainly ended the poor pony’s innocence forever. Few creatures could witness such suffering.

But she didn’t get the chance. “Put her on.”

Olivia winced, and a few crackling sounds emerged from the tablet in front of them, resolving into a voice. “I’m not going to wait here forever,” said Twilight Sparkle. “If she can’t talk, it’s best to be honest. If you’ve lost your princesses too, we need to know.”

“I’m here,” Lucky said, her voice neutral of any of the exasperation she’d obviously been feeling a moment ago. She gestured with one hoof at the bright red “mute” button on the screen of the computation surface, an obvious invitation for any of them to press it who felt the need. But so far, none did. “Sorry about the delay. You caught me in a meeting.”

On the other end of the line, Twilight Sparkle laughed. “In the middle of the night?”

Lucky nodded, though of course the princess wouldn’t be able to see her. “We’re trying to save a country here, Sparkle. I’m sure you can relate.”

There was a brief silence on the other end. While Twilight didn’t speak, another voice did. “Lucky! I’m so happy to hear from you! Perez said… but that isn’t the same as hearing you for myself. You escaped Othar! He told me… so many times… said only his new slaves made it out…”

Olivia could see the change in Lucky’s countenance. She turned towards the tablet, her ears perked up, and exhaustion was replaced with a smile. “Flurry Heart! Yeah, I’m good. I mean, it’s been terrible. You know… you’ve been there. Worst time to go back for a festival, huh?”

The Alicorn on the other end gave an exasperated laugh. “Worst vacation ever.”

“The two of you can catch up when we’re done with this conversation,” Twilight cut in, apparently recovered. “Please. I know how much you want to talk to your friend, Flurry. But we don’t know how much time we have. We need to figure out the future of Equestria here.”

“We’ve been working for the future of Equestria,” Deadlight cut in. “Since the first. You should join us. Lots of work needs doing.”

Again the line faded to static, but not for nearly as long this time around. “Maybe we have our own plan,” Twilight argued, in a voice that told Olivia instantly that she didn’t. “Maybe we don’t trust you after the last time you ‘helped’ Equestria.”

Lucky Break rolled her eyes. “Listen, Princess. I wished there could’ve been another way as much as anypony. But Celestia was… she was locked in the past. She wanted to keep everypony trapped there with her. We’re not sorry we escaped.”

“If we hadn’t, Equestria wouldn’t be in danger now. Celestia would’ve stopped this, or Harmony would’ve. But now that we’re not living its way, it’s not protecting us anymore.”

“Maybe,” Lucky agreed. “But it’s done, and here we are. The Storm King has made an enemy of the Pioneering Society—we intend to fight him regardless. But we would prefer to do it with your help.” She pressed the mute button, which seemed fine since Twilight had fallen silent as well.

“Too strong?” Lucky asked, her confidence melted. “I hope that wasn’t too intense. She was close with Celestia before.”

“We lost Othar,” Olivia said. “It’s hard for everyone. That doesn’t mean we get coddled, and neither does she. She and Flurry Heart are their last surviving Alicorns, right? If they want their nation to survive, they’re going to have to step it up.”

Lucky nodded noncommittally as Twilight’s voice came back from the other side.

“What do you plan, exactly? To take the Storm King’s place?”

There was another voice on the other end, though not nearly loud enough to be intentional. Probably Flurry Heart. It was a good thing that Olivia had taken to wearing the translator full time, because she needed it. “They don’t want to rule Equestria, Aunt Twilight. I’ve told you,” the voice said.

“I believe we subscribe to different political theories than you do, Twilight. The culture that sent us into space believed in liberty and self-determination. We don’t intend to impose anything on Equestria… and we also don’t think what the Storm King is doing is right. You can take it all back, so far as we’re concerned.”

There was less of a delay before Twilight’s next question. “You’re fighting a war for free? What do you want in exchange?”

“Somewhere for ourselves,” Olivia answered. She wasn’t sure what had prompted her to speak, but now that she had everyone was silent. Would Twilight recognize her voice even with Forerunner translating? “Maybe that’s in Equestria, maybe not. We were content with Othar. It was big enough for the next decade of expansion no problem. But the Storm King nuked it. All we want is a new home. We want the wars to end. I don’t want to wear a gun anymore.”

“I told you.”

Twilight seemed subdued when she finally spoke again. “I’m not alone here. I’m traveling with the Elements of Harmony, and my niece… obviously. They’re all useful. They’re some of the most respected ponies in Equestria. We’ve been traveling from one end to the other solving friendship problems and connecting places with Canterlot. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we do it together.”

“Done,” Lucky answered. “We want all of you. I know who you are. The pony who raised me didn’t like you much, but we don’t have to let that come into our working relationship.”

“And we’re not just going to do what we’re told,” Twilight went on. “If you really believe in… self-determination… then you won’t try to force us to save Equestria in a way we don’t want. I’ve seen the way Perez fights, and we’re not comfortable with that. We can save Equestria without giving up who we are.”

“You can,” Lucky agreed.

“I don’t think anypony wants you to turn into another one of him,” Deadlight muttered. “He’s probably the most frightening individual I’ve ever met.”

“It isn’t safe to give you our plans over the air,” Lucky said. “Or to tell you where we are. It really wasn’t safe to have this entire conversation, but here we are. I can send a ship for you. I’m sure we already have the origin of this transmission by now. Make yourselves ready to go.”

“I really bucked up, Lucky,” said a tiny voice on the other end. “I don’t think you want me. I’ll only ruin things for Equestria. I’ll make things worse.”

“Language,” said Twilight’s voice on the other end, very faint.

“You won’t,” Lucky said, her voice softening. “I want you back here too, Flurry Heart. Even if you don’t want to fight—I don’t know many people your age who would. I don’t want to. But being here is safer than… wherever you’re hiding, I’m sure of it.”

“I wouldn’t be,” Twilight said. “But I agree with her. If you weren’t an Alicorn, then I wouldn’t ask this of you. But we’re the last there is, Flurry Heart. We have a responsibility to protect the ponies who can’t protect themselves. Even when that causes pain for us along the way. Celestia set that example for us, and we’ll follow it.”

“I hope that means you’re committed,” Lucky said. “Because I need to know for certain before I send anything. This is… a big commitment. There’s no way they won’t see it and know that some of us survived. We’re sacrificing some of our stealth to come and get you. We need to make it count.”

“There’s another way,” Twilight said. “Rather than… we’re not helpless. We made it out of Canterlot without your help.”

Not without our help. Perez was there. But Olivia didn’t say it. As much as she disliked the princess and what she represented, Olivia wanted this arrangement to work out as much as Lucky did. They had a far better chance of success with their rebellion if they unified the forces they had left. Against an undying enemy, against creatures with superior knowledge of their world and everything in it, they couldn’t throw away potential allies.

“We could go somewhere far enough that we wouldn’t be seen…” Twilight continued. “You could pick us up in the mountains, or during a fog. Assuming there isn’t a magical way to find your airships…”

“We have stealth capabilities,” Lucky said, her voice stretching into the tone often used by politicians when they could’ve said much more, but didn’t want to. “But Celestia once used Equus’s defense mechanisms to shoot it down. The Storm King might be capable of the same thing.”

“No.” Twilight didn’t even hesitate. “Harmony hates him… even more than you. It won’t cooperate. All Celestia had to do was ask and Harmony would do what we wanted… including destroying threats to Equestria. From what I’ve seen, the Storm King is magically ignorant—he relies completely on his second in command for that, a powerful sorceress named Tempest Shadow. Without her, he would just have his brutes and their machines.”

Lucky muted the microphone again. “How about it, Olivia? Feel like flying out to pick up some friends?”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s pretty generous. I’m not sure anyone in Othar would’ve called any of them their friend. Lightning Dust told me about what they did to her life. I’m sure you heard those stories too.”

“I did,” Lucky said. “And it was shallow and cruel. But it wasn’t really their fault the Equestrian justice system wanted to make an example of my mom. I’d like to send the two of you, actually. Qingzhi is keeping secrets from me… I don’t want to trust him with this just now.”

“I will go if you require it of me,” Deadlight said. His voice was solemn, pained. “But I should be with Melody. She is due to deliver any day now. Tomorrow, if not tonight.”

“He can stay,” Olivia said. “I don’t want him to miss the birth of his kid because you didn’t think I could behave myself. If Deadlight lets me borrow the ship... Forerunner and I can handle it.”

Lucky nodded, then unmuted the microphone. “My friend Forerunner will coordinate with you with a pickup location and time. He’s much better about contingencies and procedure and backup plans.”

Flurry Heart’s voice squeaked in from the other end of the line. “We’ll see you soon, Lucky! Stay safe until we get there!”

The line clicked. “I’ll handle this conversation from here,” Forerunner said, not impolitely. “I already have some ideas to conceal our approach. Thanks to the abrupt deregulation of the Equestrian climate… well, there have been some spectacular storms. You’ll enjoy the flight, Major. Should remind you of Europa.”

Oh god.

But she didn’t have time to dwell on that.

“Thanks for coming, Deadlight. I’m sure Melody is already missing you.”

He nodded appreciatively. “Thank you, Princess.”

“I’m not a princess,” Lucky said, reflexively. “I’m a citizen. You could be too.”

Deadlight laughed. “Keep saying that.” He left, the door clicking lightly behind him.

Lucky’s horn began to glow. The effort obviously cost her, and for a second Olivia wondered if anything was going to happen at all. With everything that had happened, the new governor surely hadn’t had the time to practice her magical skills since Othar was destroyed. And before that, there was so much else to do…

A shimmering barrier appeared around them, reaching the doorway, the walls. It covered every inanimate surface, even the chairs. Olivia’s ears started to ring slightly—the sound of perfect silence grating on her. “Governor?”

“One last question,” Lucky said, her voice strained. Her horn was still glowing, and her teeth gritted together from the effort. “You asked for Qingzhi. He’s… replaced elected governments before. Is he going to do that now? I’ve spoken to many of his soldiers… if he asks them to raise their weapons against us, they will. When this war is over… will he be content to go back to civilian life?”

Olivia could feel the intensity of those purple eyes on her. If she tried to lie, would Lucky’s connection to the Equus station tell her what she was thinking? Ideas that would’ve been raw paranoia and superstition in her past life were entirely likely now.

So she didn’t try. “Qingzhi is a creature of his upbringing. I don’t know how much you know about politics in the hegemony…” She didn’t wait for Lucky to answer. “He was forged in the PLA during the final years before integration. He respects the law, respects authority. But he doesn’t come from a culture that values individual rights the way we do in the west.”

Lucky frowned at this, her horn sparking briefly. The barrier around them flickered, but then she managed to keep it up. “So you’re saying keeping information from me isn’t indicative of a deeper problem.”

“Not… yet,” Olivia said. “He’s going to do what the PLA trained him to do: deal with problems from most to least significant. Obviously the Storm King is on top right now. Then there’s the Ceres proclamation and the slavers west of Equestria. After that…” She rose to her hooves, nodding meaningfully. “Make sure you’re still the legitimate authority in his mind, and he’ll respect your orders. Our bodies are new, but Qingzhi is old—he was in his eighties when he was scanned.

“Once we put the world right again—give him a chance to retire, and he’ll take it.” I hope.


Sarah would’ve been far happier with their results if she had won them instead of having to buy them. With as much money as she’d brought, there was no mystery that they’d managed to convince the changelings to take the mission. And maybe that’s what Discord had in mind from the beginning. Buying the way through has worked for politics before.

Over the next few days, she watched mostly from the background as changelings argued over how exactly the expedition would be furnished. The changelings saw civilization on the surface as a universal enemy, and expected conditions to be extremely dangerous. Their greatest fear, which she heard repeated at every meeting, was that some drone who knew the way down here would be captured, and reveal the secret of their location to Celestia, and Irkalla would be invaded.

“Shouldn’t that be impossible?” Sarah asked late one evening, tucked into her private quarters in a top floor of the palace. She shared a room with Ocellus and James, where they were protected every moment by Thorax’s guards. Those guards had needed to protect them from assassins on at least one occasion—the dangers of living in a world where everyone knew they were immortal. The changelings seemed to treat death and the constant infighting between their factions as an economic duel, not one that was costing lives and blood. “What about all the feral changelings? If anyone who wasn’t you came down here, wouldn’t they just kill them? That’s why we had to change James, right?”

“It better be right.” James looked up from his little corner of the room, where he’d erected a desk and studied changeling books under a chemical light. They did have them, though they were stored on electronic tablets instead of paper. The display technology wasn’t the same as the one Sarah was used to—instead of crystalline displays, they seemed to use a thin wafer of metal that reconfigured itself with each page-turn. But the idea was the same. “I was told that being a freak was what kept me alive here. You didn’t hold out on me, did you Ocellus?”

The changeling groaned. “Of course I didn’t. Discord told me to protect you. Transforming you cost energy, and will cost more since you have to stay alive. But you’re not a citizen… Equestria has those. They could come down here easily, and maybe command the maintenance systems to leave their armies alone. So long as every invading force had a citizen with them, they could travel safely. You’re not an Alicorn, so… you were at risk.”

“Of course…” James descended into dark muttering about his “better” clones, and about being useless and unlucky. The more time Sarah spent with him, the more she was beginning to think he might be right.

But telling him as much probably wouldn’t help, so she didn’t. “Well, I don’t think that’s an issue. Our city was getting fucking trashed when we came down here. We don’t know by whom or why, but I bet you all the gold in Gringotts Equestria is dealing with it too.”

“I don’t know what that is.” Ocellus stepped into their little anteroom, pushing aside a curtain of plastic strips. The entire palace looked that way—more like an ancient vehicle that was decaying and being gradually replaced than a structure in its own right. “But it’s a good thing you didn’t tell my father or uncle that. If you were getting invaded at the time you left… that would’ve weakened your position considerably. Not to mention they would’ve thought it was evidence that Celestia still lived.”

Sarah frowned at the tablet Ocellus was levitating behind her. It had some official-looking markings painted onto it. Just painted. More like they found a stockpile of all this tech than they know how to make it. “Do we have a date yet?”

Ocellus’s eyes narrowed, but they’d been together long enough now that she knew how to tell the difference. Well, Sarah thought she did. “Just announced. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

“And the expedition…” Sarah gestured, and Ocellus reluctantly passed over the pad. Sarah skimmed over it quickly, finding she could read it just as easily as she could understand their language. Unfortunate for James, who hadn’t been given the same magical ability she had.

A total of ten changelings were going on the expedition.. Each side was going to send five, though Sarah was most interested in which of the prominent individuals they had decided to take. Had they… no. Ocellus was going to be representing the Prismatic Court side. And for the Old Hive… her father, Pharynx. Not the worst outcome in the world, then.

James and herself would be going too, of course, though neither of them counted as a member of either faction.

The tablet described a trip that would take them into the Canterlot installation, where they could verify whether or not the Quarantine had indeed been lifted. Following that, they would travel directly to the pony capital, so they could determine for themselves if Celestia was indeed destroyed.

If they could confirm a positive result, then they would try to follow Sarah’s suggestion and rendezvous with the Pioneering Society, so they might have some advanced friends on the surface who could aid them in their colonization. But if they couldn’t verify the truth of her claim, or on any of its points, then they’d return to Irkalla, taking the money and leaving Sarah and James behind on the surface for attempting to lie to them.

“I’m not a fan of this last part,” Sarah said, when she was done reading it. “It sucks.”

Ocellus shrugged. “I had to ask for it. It’s… better than you think.” She pulled up a cushion, resting against the wall. “You wouldn’t want to come back down here if the court thinks you impersonated a messenger from Discord and tried to lie to us. It would be… unpleasant. At least this way you can escape into the pony population. You can.” She turned, eyes narrowing as she looked at James. “You, male. You’ve got exactly one night to learn how to use your powers. I hope you’re ready to pay attention.”

“Use my…” James set down one of the books he was reading, tapping the side of his horn with a hoof. “I can use my ‘powers’ just fine, thanks. If you can’t see.”

Ocellus rolled her eyes. There was a brief flash of magic from her, and suddenly she was someone else. A light blue pegasus, with an elegant mane and sensuous curves. Not that Sarah expected James to appreciate them. “See?” Her voice no longer echoed, and for all that Sarah could see, she was just a pony now. Damn, that gets me every time. I wish I could do that. “You can’t go to the surface as you look now. I believe you, I think Celestia’s dead and the Quarantine is lifted. But it doesn’t matter—the ponies hate us for what we’ve tried to do. If you walk around like that, you’re going to get arrested and thrown in a dungeon somewhere.”

“So what you’re really saying…” James rose to his hooves, walking out from around the desk and inspecting her. He seemed to be focusing on Ocellus’s legs. Looking for the holes? “What you’re really saying is that if I can’t figure out how to shapeshift, I’m going to be stuck down here until you get back. And if the expedition doesn’t go well, I’ll be right where they want me when some pissed off changelings wanting some revenge make it back here.”

Ocellus smiled at him, stretching each of her wings in turn. “Maybe you’re not as stupid as you look.”

“Maybe,” he repeated, annoyed. “So teach me. You’re the one who was born this way. You probably have years of experience.”

“Centuries,” Ocellus corrected. “Yeah.”

Sarah turned to go, waving one wing towards James in a way she hoped was conciliatory. If it hadn’t been for the circumstances that brought them down here, she would’ve wished he could be back on the surface in Othar. Where he belonged.

I wouldn’t want to be changed twice. After everything he saw… But this was an opportunity. Sarah would only have one more day to try and learn more about this place, and she wanted to use that time. She made her way through the plastic into Ocellus’s bedroom, and listened to see if the changeling had noticed her go. But no—she was explaining things to James, and the stallion was responding with annoyance.

Ocellus’s bedroom looked in some ways the way Sarah would’ve imagined for a royal heir, if instead of being made by Disney all the parts had been salvaged from an old starship and welded together by someone with one arm. There was a fancy mirror of cracked glass, lined with flickering displays. Bits of precious metal obviously scavenged from parts had been turned into jewelry without being recast.

I wonder if they even know how. The more she saw of the Changelings, the more she thought that they weren’t creators, but scavengers. They had inherited this place, and were repurposing it to their ends. They didn’t understand it.

And that was where she had the advantage.

Sarah had already tried to get more out of the screens in Ocellus’s room, but without any luck. They were apparently only meant for showing family pictures, which didn’t help her present needs much.

The door into the hall was a telescoping metallic aperture, which opened when she presented it with the right scent, allowing Sarah to pass into the hall. She wandered for a short distance, appreciating the guards at either end of the hall. Changelings could copy many things, but the one thing she didn’t think they could imitate was each other. The colorful guards kept those forms as a way of proving their identities. And so far as Sarah knew, that meant she was safe.

Unless I do something incredibly stupid and get caught. Rather like what she was doing now.

But she wouldn’t have to go far. Sarah had years of experience with on-location network penetration. Back on Earth, that had been the biggest weakness of almost every organization she knew about. They were plenty secure against incursions from the outside, but security against an internal assault was far weaker.

I am trying to extract information from an alien computer system that I can only read thanks to magic or maybe technology I don’t fully understand.

There were plenty of other changelings around, though in this upper wing of the palace it was all the chromatic, non-parasite variety. So Sarah wasn’t too worried about being caught. They’d probably thank me if they knew what I was doing.

She found what she was looking for after about an hour of wandering—she had been planning this for some time, taking random trips in order to establish in the minds of Ocellus’s guards that she liked to go nowhere and appreciate the architecture. As she had expected, not one of them tried to stop her.

But just as one set of guards was walking down the hall away from her and the next hadn’t yet arrived, Sarah approached a door she’d been working on for the last few days.

Each pass gave her enough time for a few seconds on the control panel. But she was fairly certain they weren’t meant to be that secure. The pheromone keys were based on a system of half a dozen possible smells, each of which could be combined in a limited number of ways. She suspected they weren’t supposed to be keys at all, more like identifiers that the ship’s crew would’ve used to each access the sections that were theirs.

But that meant there was a limited number of permutations, and with enough time she could try them all. Sarah had done so, and now knew the combination. She’d been opening the door each and every time she passed it for the last few days now, just to see if security might increase as a result. Nothing.

Because you’re all just scavengers inheriting this place. You probably don’t know how the security system works. This time instead of just unlocking it, Sarah pressed up against it. The iris of interlocking metal slid open, permitting her inside.

The room beyond was lit by a thousand little glowing lights. Every wall and surface was a screen or a holoprojector, but by the look of it many of them were worn down with age or just physically destroyed. Sarah followed the bundle of clear wire running up into the ceiling and out of sight. There were bits of slime clinging to it, suggesting some ill-conceived repairs by the occupying changelings. But if I’m lucky, there’s some of the underlying operating system here.

Sarah was not a master hacker, but she didn’t really have to be. At least when it came to human systems, penetrating from the inside like this was really just a matter of poking around and seeing what people had forgotten to lock. The answer was often “everything.”

But not so much with the changelings. There was no chair, so she settled onto her haunches in front of one of the screens to work. It used a touchscreen, along with a little protruding rod of reddish metal that suggested a “magic” input would work as well. But Sarah was a bat, so she wouldn’t have much use for that. She’d have to get her hooves dirty.

A few minutes of nervous probing proved that the changelings were the exception to typical security policy. They hadn’t left any of their network exposed. Even minor system files were locked up, requiring access keys that Discord had probably given her but she didn’t know how to use.

But there was something else there, poking through the surface of the dead computer. She noticed it the longer she probed—systems in another language, that didn’t ever prompt her for scent keys and that didn’t use the magical input. It was still tough for her to know when different languages were in use, since it all seemed like English to her, but she was fairly certain.

After an hour, she had managed to isolate her suspicions, and opened up a console that led to… somewhere.

It looked completely different—instead of the symbols and utter lack of visual coordination, the secondary system was beautifully crafted, with complementary colors and rounded edges and lots of politely-worded messages. Even the system help cooperated, informing her that 87% of the Inanna’s resources were occupied running a single instance of something she took to be a virtual machine.

And that system was more like what she expected. No security, no passwords, just open files. What little remained. The computer reported serious physical damage in almost every system. The Horizon drive was destroyed, the reactor was running in emergency mode, and there was a serious “infestation” across all systems. The central computer had been damaged as well, right along with most of its data storage.

But some remained. Sarah managed to find a single video file hiding on a console in the crew deck, apparently still waiting to be transmitted. She copied it over to her own machine, then pressed play.

Through the ancient, cracked console, Sarah saw a scene that was radically different than the one that persisted in Irkalla today. Sirens blared in the background, a haze of smoke filled the air, and the figure looking at the camera had been bloodied.

It looked almost human. Taller than anyone Sarah had ever known, almost unhealthily so. Thin limbs, big eyes, no fingernails, and a few bits of exposed circuitry melded into the flesh on the forehead and one wrist. There were bandages wrapped around its chest, and red blood seeping out from underneath.

What was more, she could understand the language they spoke. Not one she’d heard before, but that didn’t seem to matter.

“Second officer Iris log… I’ve ordered remaining survivors of skeleton shift into cryo. It’s possible we’ve avoided detection by—” Sarah’s head throbbed briefly, and the words she heard turned into meaningless static. “We still haven’t read the bounce back on any active scanners. But…” The image briefly fragmented, this time unmistakably the degradation of ancient data. She could see the same fuzz on the edge of the image all the time, randomly flickering the colors and shifting the pitch up and down.

“...gravity waves. Can’t know without an active scan, and then they’d see us for sure. Accelerated to…” More static. “...of lightspeed. As good as we’ll get. Rendezvous with Agamemnon forecast in…” She looked away at something, probably a screen from the glow on her face. “...eighty thousand years. God bless the engineers who designed the radiation… hope it’s enough. Probably not. But what more could we do? Captain Fenrir would’ve wanted us to try. There’s no other destination that hasn’t gone dark. Can’t spare the power for anything else, or they’ll see through the blackbody.”

She leaned in close to the screen. That close, Sarah could almost forget how alien she was in other ways. However strange the subjects that worried her, this creature seemed strikingly human. “I hope the Agamemnon is ready and waiting for us. If they don’t see us coming for deceleration, then we’re going to fly right past this thing at a few hundred thousand kilometers an hour and miss our last chance.” She held something up in front of her—a glass cube with many little lines and etchings visible just under the surface, like a pond formed of many different fluids.

“We should’ve known the—” Again, Sarah’s head ached. She felt something pressing down on her, and the words spoken went untranslated. She could hear the voice still going, transmission intact. But she couldn’t make any of it out. “The Elysians knew what they were doing. If anyone ever gets this message, keep your head down. Hide until…” More pain. “...burns itself out. And hope they don’t burn your star system when they start firing.” She reached up, and the screen went blank.

The door behind Sarah clicked closed. “I see the pony has taken an interest in our history,” said a voice, almost cheerfully. “Too bad no one said she could.” Pharynx rested a rotting rifle down on the counter next to her, spinning the barrel until it pointed at Sarah.

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