Chapter 39: Celestial
There had been casualties, it turned out. Without enough of the sword-proof armor to go around, her cannon crews wore only what most of Hayden’s soldiers wore: cloth uniforms. They had spent their resources on better weapons, not anything else. It was the best they could do.
Three of her ponies had been killed—though one of those was assumed, as a heroic earth pony named Bronze Bell had severed the cables holding in one of the guns, using it to dislodge the remaining griffons and save the rest of his crew. Unfortunately his leg had been tangled with one of the ropes, and he’d been yanked down with it. At least he had died well. There was blood on the floor when Hayden arrived, and the signs of battle everywhere. Maybe half a dozen of the crew had taken small wounds, but should be fighting fit by the time they took off again.
Little injuries did not make a pony less able to work cannons.
Honed Edge was already there, with Hayden’s heavy tool bag slung across his back. “What are we doing?” he asked, wandering through the empty room to stand in the gap left by the missing gun. “If you’re expecting us to make a replacement gun…”
“No.” Hayden pointed at where the door closed. The gasket had been torn, and the metal outside bent. It was just a few inches, but still impressive that any number of griffons could manage it using just their talons. “The airlock into the Excellus won’t open without a seal. We have to make that close again.”
“Hmmmm.” Honed Edge moved to the front of the cargo area, sticking his hoof near the floor where it settled. The hole was just about big enough for his hoof to pass through it. “We’ll have to open this to work on it. Good thing we’re facing away from the dock. Wouldn’t want ponies to get too good a look at this, eh?”
Hayden shrugged. “Plenty of them can fly anyway.” She pointed at the opening. “I figure we might be able to strip some of that flexible stuff from one of the interior airlocks. The ones on the converted crew cabins. Just… try not to use more than one door, if you can.”
“No promises.” Honed Edge removed a hammer from the bag, tossing the rest aside. Unlike the dexterity tools, this one had a strap to hold it onto a hoof, since force was required to use it effectively. “Don’t open the door yet, I’ll go out there and get this back into place as much as possible first. Then we’ll know how much of this stuff we need.” He prodded at the gasket with one hoof. “Celestia only knows what this even is. Stronger than leather, flexible like rope, and it holds air like glass.”
“Rubber,” Hayden answered. “Or… well, something like rubber. The kind we made would never have survived this long. It decays over time, and this stuff looks intact despite…” She didn’t actually know. “Well, a long time. Equestria could make the regular kind, though. Just not in time for it to be useful for us. Just salvage one of the other doors and try not to use more than you need.”
“You got it.” He saluted, vanishing down the hall.
Hayden occupied herself visiting the wounded next, waiting to get her message. She was not kept waiting long.
“She’s here, she’s here!” called a panicked officer’s voice over the radio. There was only one person “she” could possibly be referring to. The one person who Hayden’s guards could not possibly have kept back. There was none of the joy and relief that would’ve come from Luna… which meant this was the other.
Hayden nodded a quick farewell to the injured pony she was speaking with, darting to one of the computer panels on the wall. She selected the intercom system, then pressed hard. “Let her aboard with her guards, nopony else. Take her to the bridge.” There was no sense trying to keep Princess Celestia from the most vital systems. Princess Celestia was said to be more powerful than her sister. Her sister that Hayden had seen destroy an armored airship this size in a single spell.
Dammit, what the hell are you doing here? How’d you get here so fast? Celestia was the one variable she knew she couldn’t account for, the one she had hoped they wouldn’t have to deal with. She couldn’t be resisted martially, only through other means.
Hayden hurried up the hall, conscious all the time that Celestia was probably not far away. They were using the ramp on the rear of the ship for loading, which meant that the princess would be coming up from behind. Hayden reached the mostly-empty bridge. Empty except for a few officers huddled around the maps and the sonic rangefinder, along with communications. Hayden pointed to all of them except the one watching the cameras. “Get out. Princess Celestia is coming. Make sure the crew is ready to leave the second this meeting is over.”
She couldn’t be sure if it would even be possible to flee. Couldn’t know what Celestia planned to do to her. Maybe the princess would act like Diamond Glow, and just try to kill her. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been the target of Celestia’s wrath.
Evening Star took several deep breaths. She settled in the captain’s chair, forcing herself to stare out the windows. Far away, she could see the Stonebeak army regrouping. They had pulled out of range of the city, but did not look like they were going to make a retreat. More like they were reconsidering their strategy, and maybe burying their dead.
The door behind her slid open with its characteristic hiss. “Princess Celestia,” announced Skylark from behind her.
Hayden rose, not because she thought this princess deserved her respect, but because she knew it was expected. She turned, lowered herself into a bow that was barely respectful enough to pass muster. Not half as deep as she would’ve given Luna.
Princess Celestia hardly seemed to notice the gesture. There were no guards with her—only the princess herself. She wore golden armor, a little like what Evening Star had seen from the military police. Like the police, if that same basic design had been taken to an armorer, along with hundreds of pounds of real gold. It was so heavy-looking that Hayden marveled she could even move. Yet the princess showed no strain at all as she made her way in, not even a slight slouch in her posture.
She looked to the officer Hayden had left in the room with her, gesturing out the door with a tiny nod. Unlike when Diamond Glow had tried ordering Hayden’s men, this pony rose and saluted stiffly, then hurried to obey without even glancing back at his general. They might resent Celestia for what she’d done to them, but that wasn’t the same as actively disobeying her. It was impossible to stand in a room with her and not feel her power.
Celestia stood still until the door automatically closed. As soon as it did, Hayden straightened from her bow, not waiting to be invited. She could not disrespect the princess in public, that would demand a punishment. But in private…
“You have no idea what you’ve done,” Princess Celestia said, completely unprompted. She strode through the pristine bridge, inspecting the various consoles and stations without invitation or permission.
“I know it didn’t look good for Seaddle. I destroyed the army that was about to ravage the city.”
Celestia acted like she hadn’t even heard her. “You should know…” She stopped, a few feet away. “It would have been better if you had returned with Star Swirl. Your captivity would have prevented all this. It would’ve been better if you were destroyed on your first day.”
Hayden shrugged one shoulder. “It would be better if the one ruling Equestria weren’t so willing to chop its limbs off and feed them to the wolves. Where I come from, we don’t act that way. We remove leaders who can’t protect people. Trading lives for safety is an unacceptable price.”
Princess Celestia actually laughed. “Your hypocrisy would be more amusing if I knew it weren’t costing Equestria so dearly.” She looked away, making her way forward and staring out at the screen. At the Stonebeak fleet, marshaling in the air far away. “You do the same thing every day. Every general must trade the lives of her soldiers in exchange for peace. Every soldier who enlists is making that same sacrifice. They realize that there is something more significant than themselves, and they are willing to die for it. The sacrifices I ask of Equestrians are no different. The difference is between us.”
The room got warmer, and the overhead lights seemed suddenly pale by comparison. “I know the danger we face is far greater than that.” She gestured with a wing out at the projection, dismissively. “The Stonebeaks are the cockroaches eating the scraps of a better age. Without crystal magic, their lands are inhospitable. Every year more of that magic fails, and more of them die. It was only a matter of time. The real enemy threatening Equestria is existential. When it rises, it will not enslave, it will devour. It will tear apart meaning, it will consume the soul. I have seen it. Carcosa’s fall shook the planet from its orbit. It destroyed the very foundations upon which our world spins.
“But Equestria has no army like that. Hunger and griffon aren’t such bad ways to go. At least the death of the north would’ve been quick. But now… now when they die they’ll do so knowing they’re damning their friends as they do. You can’t even imagine it. You may even be fighting for it. No agent has been as successful as you.”
Hayden tried to take all that in as best she could. Some of it made sense, anyway. Some of it she had suspected. “I know what you think. You think bats are an… infection. An incursion of Outsiders. You’re right.”
Celestia already had her mouth open to argue—she stopped, staring. Confusion, surprise. “So you admit it then. You intend to destroy Equestria, then tear creation apart.”
“No!” Hayden didn’t laugh, though she felt like she should have. “I was able to find the infection. Well… not me. An inventor named Avalon. He’s the one who gave us this ship. Your sister and I are working with him to try and cure it.” She raised a hoof. “If you’re about to tell us we can’t, you’re wrong. We already have. I had it worse than any other bat, and we removed it.”
“You can’t remove something from itself,” Celestia argued, her horn glowing faintly white. “You are nothing but an agent of the Outside. You used its tactics, its guile, to survive the Stonebeaks and hunger long enough to bring them down on us instead. And once we’re weakened, you will destroy us.”
Hayden growled in frustration. This was a complete waste of her time. Princess Celestia sounded like she had made up her mind weeks ago. Convincing her was impossible, probably.
So she reached, commanding by will what she had only ever done through instinct before. Hayden summoned Achelois, and held it before her in an invisible grip. Not actually aimed at the princess, but close enough that Celestia would see what it was. “If I was, could I hold this?”
Princess Celestia’s horn stopped glowing. Her mane stopped billowing, and her eyes widened. “No. You could not. How… how have you done this?”
“You’ll have to ask Avalon,” Hayden said, sheathing the sword. She ignored its whispers—it kept telling her about just how much Celestia was suffering. She couldn’t end that pain today. “He’s working on a way to do it for everyone. Some kind of… machine. I don’t know the specifics. Despite what that buffoon you sent said about us, we really don’t want Equestria to fall. Lots of ponies in Icefalls have friends and family here. We came to help. I like to think our actions so far speak for themselves. If we were monsters, would we have destroyed half their army for you?”
She gestured around her with both wings. “We’re just one ship, but we want to help. We represent the goodwill of Icefalls. We’re willing to fight for Equestria.”
Princess Celestia remained silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, it was with obvious reluctance, as though she didn’t even believe what she was saying. “We are having a strategic meeting in… less than an hour, now. My sister said she would attend. She has not yet arrived, but I trust she will. You should… perhaps… do so as well.”
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... holy shit Celestia, do you even listening to yourself?
This will either be extremely good or extremely bad.
So it's probably going to be a chaotic concoction of both.
It would be a first for Hayden's luck if this turned out to be as good as it looks, so I can only assume that griffon army is going to turn out to be just the forward scouts or something, and the real army is going to turn up with ten times as many troop carriers while they're in the meeting...
An interesting bit of cosmic backstory slipped in there, explaining just why Celestia is so terrified of the Outsiders... though she seems so traumatized that she sees their work in almost everything she fears.
Still, even her frightened delusions have their limits. Now she has to deal with what Hayden really is after one strips out the darkness, and that there's something left at all. And that's saying nothing of what Hayden herself will have to deal with at that strategy meeting. This is going to get complicated. Possibly even political.
(Also, Tia? There's an important distinction between military casualties and throwing one of your provinces to the catbirds. Part of it is the question of which ones actually volunteered to die for their country.)
8873242
Remember though, the refugees were surprised that Icefalls was a volunteer military. Equestria uses conscription, probably heavily given how it tends to work. So from Sunbutt's perspective there isn't a difference between military and civilian casualties. Civilians are just soldiers who don't know it yet from where she's standing.
Obviously this has its problems, not the least of which is it makes for very cold and pathological decisions
I am glad Celestia is able to see some reason. Good thing Evening Star can summon that sword!
Dude... Tell her.
Let her know only you have been cured and that your forces already acted under control of the Outsiders when they... Aggressively subdued the idiot she sent.
She needs to know that while you and some of your people are "clean" the bulk are not.
Painful truths, but she has to know so she can prepare.
At the very least it appears we have a tentative peace between Equestria and the bats. Hayden being able to summon the sword really helped clarify a few things.
8873187
That is actually logical, i think you see this the wrong way. Imagine there was an army who were all infested with Xenomorph Larva and they were willing to fight with you against some other country who was invading yours.
This is how Celestia would see it. She was hoping that the enemy would deal with all the Xenomorphs. Not that would have been a good idea since they would have hatched anyway as slaves.
8874393
Except that argument is entirely too simplistic, and applying it implies that Celestia is dumb.
It isn't just an infected population of soldiers who knew the risks, (btdubs, they didn't,) its a general population of which only a portion that are easily identifiable are infected. Moreover, it isn't just that population at risk, made painfully obvious by, y’know, the griffins attacking Seaddle with what should have been a roflstomp army.
The argument also ignores the fact that she wants to put exactly zero effort into trying to fix the infected ponies, and even allows for the infection to further spread because she has to be some kind of idiot to think that they would all meekly go into the maws of hungry griffons instead of, y’know, running away. Like any sensible person would do when presented with a no-win scenario. Really, Celestia's lucky that Evening Star is a better, braver person than she is.
To extend the xenomorph analogy: Celestia isn't saying "take off and nuke the entire site from orbit" with the understanding that there is no saving the situation and so should just save those that can. She's just saying "nuke them", and nevermind who gets caught up in the destruction. She's that person who lights a fire in their own house to kill a spider.
8874410
Maybe, you are correct that she should have put a lot more effort into the "nuke it from the orbit" option if she truly did believe the ponies as a threath. Now her actions to deal with the issue just seem lacluster, weak and crue. But could be that the Ponies of the north WOULD have gone meekly to the night if there has not been human to lead them. Celestia is the Alpha mare and her abandoning them to die might be enough for the pony herd to self-destruct in some manner.
Celestia is at the least indecisive, or too afraid to act strongly for some reason. Could be she does not want to be that mare who nukes cities from the Orbit for the greater good. That was always the domain of Luna and she could just go "oh dear was there no other way?" about the issue.
And yes, i do not think this Celestia is too bright, or at the least she has the wrong priorities to the case in hand. Or like i said she is lost because she used to rule in tandem with Luna... who made all the hard choises.
8874416
Hmm, those are fair enough points. It's still frustrating as all get-out that she somehow has authority over anyone while acting as she does, though. I guess I'll just have to wait and see where things develop.
8873480
But she did, and by holding Achelois she proved it. A simple and elegant solution that completely shattered Celestia's worldview.
8874424
You're thinking with a modern mindset. They are closer to the dark ages, currently. Life wasn't as valuable, there was no such thing as a distinction between civilians and military, noble born where worth more by dint of simply being. Celestia, being royalty, is worth more than they all.
It's not a matter of Celestia being callous, it's a matter of culture. To their time she's extremely caring. She knows the true enemy is so much worse than pony eating griffon slavers that letting the north die would be a mercy. As far as she knows, and she did live and see such monsters in her past, healing them is impossible. They don't have the scientific way of thinking que figured yet, not everything is made to be questioned.
To Celestia, she IS being merciful. She IS doing all she can, according to her beliefs and knowledge. Those just happen to be, compared to Hayden's, outdated and flawed. For her to think and act like modern Celestia out even a modern person would be horrible writing.
8874529
If we're applying medieval ethics to the situation then we open a great many doors, but even then she's less of a bad person and more of a bad ruler. Because while in practice the rulers rule and everyone else can sucks rocks, those rulers were in theory very much expected to protect those they ruled. If a city gets sacked, guess whose at fault for not knowing enough to have the army ready to stop it? If ponies start getting infected, guess whose fault that is for not preventing it? If those ponies start spreading their infection, guess whose fault that is for not stopping them?
Celestia is functionally the head of state. That she allowed calamity to strike makes her incompetent under the medieval ethics, and it's only the fact that she's likely to outlive any critics that stops her from going down in history as "the unready" for the complete shitshow she's allowed to occur.
8874558
Playing devil's advocate, politics do come to mind. Even before all this kerfuffle the north was already rather abandoned. That was Luna's domain, and the nobles didn't seem to give a rat's ass about her or the ponies that lived there. They didn't give enough resources to decently man their fortresses, and had no interest in sending their troops to defend it. And when dealing with medieval nobles, that means Celestia has her hoofs tied. Sure, she could argue against that, but then there's her royalty mindset and taking the words and values of the nobles above those of the people.
On being ready, that only applies if you have the resources to do so. She doesn't command the ponies beyond her personal demesne. Their nobles do. She can call her vassals to war, but it's their choice to obey the call. She could retaliate if they deny, but is the cost of a civil war worth it? If her isn't the biggest militia & household troops, she simply is not the greatest power in the country.
That's not to mention that the enemy she believes to be facing is way worse than letting the north burn.
Complementing that, she's not a president, she's a queen. And they are not nearly as individually powerful as she'd have to be. There's no such thing as a formal military under the state's command, out if there is it's rather diminute compared to the most powerful houses' forces. Hell, it was straight said that the one from the noble that tried to kill Hayden had more troops and money than the crown. Those guys can do whatever the hell they want, as Celestia simply hasn't got the forces to quell a rebellion from them without risking undermining the entire political stability of the kingdom, if at all being able to face them.
TL;DR: it's not that simple, lives are resources to be spent and not something valuable, in those times.
8874597
I literally disagree with every point you made, but I can agree that things have gotten complicated and it would probably be a better idea to defer judgement until we know more. Agree to disagree in peace?
8874818
Sure. Debating is fun, though!
8873480
While most bats haven't been cured, didn't Avalon show Hayden that he had extracted the outsider from other bats before doing it to her?