Chapter 19
“This is the voicemail of Commissioner Skyla Matt-!”
He lets out a sigh, hanging up on his daughter’s voicemail before he looks out the window, out at the glittering sky. “You know, Skyla, I can’t help but think something’s smelling funny down here,” he mutters. He’d just gotten off the phone with Admiral Wolf- who had informed him of everything Commissioner West had told the Admiral… and of how Skyla wasn’t answering her phone.
Unfortunately, though, he can’t seem to put his finger on exactly what’s setting him off- and Admiral Wolf had thought he was getting jittery about nothing. He hadn’t said that, though- what he had said was more that he didn’t see anything that might trigger that kind of feeling, and neither did he have that feeling.
Of course, the Admiral had told him that Skyla was always far better at identifying problems than he himself- and recommended he get in contact with her.
So here he is.
He drums his fingers on his desk for a minute, before raising an eyebrow at the notes he’d made while talking to the Admiral.
There’s one detail he’d missed, up until now- and that the Admiral had missed as well. The Admiral had called her on her cell, and had called the ship; however, he had not called her at the ship.
So he tries that, keying the complicated addressing codes for such a call into his terminal. It’s only got a slim chance of working- but if the ship’s outfitted with an automated comms subsystem and is in automatic mode, it should- in theory, at least- automatically route the call to her wherever she happens to be.
If it doesn’t have that automated system, or does and is in a manual mode, though, he’ll either sit at the dialtone until someone does something at the comms consoles or have his call refused outright.
He finishes the sequence, and requests the call. As expected, it connects right away; every request to that massive ship has done that, so it clearly has at least some layer of automation to the comms.
“Captain Matthews is busy at the moment,” a calm, female voice states from his terminal, making him raise his eyebrows. “Is this matter urgent?”
He blinks. “Ah, yes, I believe. And confidential.”
“Confidential information cannot be transmitted over this channel; security checks have failed.”
His eyes widen, and he nods. “Alright, thank you.” He hangs up, and leans back against his chair, letting out a low groan. “Security checks have failed… Alright, who was snooping on the line?”
Before he can start looking, though, a fresh com request comes in. After a glance, he accepts it.
It takes his terminal a couple of seconds to launch the connection, during which he can hear the processor fans kick up a couple notches. He raises his eyebrow. “This is Space Lord Matthews,” he greets.
That same voice comes back. “This is the Starship Athena, responding to your request for an urgent communications channel with Captain Matthews for confidential information. A secure connection has been established; do you wish to proceed with your call?”
He touches a key, glancing at a side screen to review the security on the connection. It’s… He pauses, and takes a closer look. He can see the full path the call is taking- and most of it is hardline. The only part that isn’t is on a direct laser beam- not even a com laser.
Not to mention, it would seem the Athena has encrypted the connection so many times as to be almost ridiculous. His own terminal is applying six very complex layers of encryption to the signal, before sending it on; the com server just downstairs is applying a dozen more. After that, on every one of the thirteen steps the connection makes before it reaches the Athena- including that laser- it acquires another layer of encryption or twenty… and this massively encrypted signal finally reaches the ship.
“Uh… Yeah, why not,” he finally states, returning to his main screen.
“Request confirmed; contacting the Captain.”
Princess Luna is busy.
Three ponies have disappeared, each one important in their own right. Twilight is the reason they’re gone, of course- though, just as obviously, it was entirely accidental. The intended passengers had been Twilight herself, Starlight Glimmer, and Pinkie Pie.
But the spell remains. On paper, that is; every thaumic trace of it disintegrated as the spell came to a close.
Princess Twilight has managed to burn out her horn- but has been able to identify what she did wrong, and apply corrections to the spell.
On paper.
But now, she’s building the spell matrix. She’s not doing it alone; no, Twilight was able to calculate the activation threshold, and it’s beyond what she can do herself. So, she’s working with Princess Cadence.
Princess Cadence isn’t busy. Her job, in this invocation, is to act as a powerhouse of sorts; she simply helps keep Princess Luna’s spell matrix stable, and adds power to the mix. She doesn’t understand much of the matrix herself, nor many of the underlying principles. She’s still at the stage of studying intermediate magic, but she understands enough to safely perform this role.
Luna finally finishes building the spell matrix, and announces it ready for power, before both alicorns start feeding it power- and juggling it between the two. It’s a delicate process, and one Luna would have preferred to have done with her equally-skilled sister Celestia, but unfortunately, the Princess of the Sun had Day Court to hold- and Luna wants her ponies back now, not this evening.
The spell matrix begins to wobble as it approaches the activation threshold, still juggling between alicorns. Luna catches the wobble easily, stabilizing it as she juggles it back to Cadence.
Cadence doesn’t. The wobble makes it exponentially harder for her each time- and eventually, it’s too much. The spell is just a quarter second away from the activation threshold when the wobble overwhelms her, and the spell hits her full force… just in time to activate.
Princess Luna blinks, looks left, and looks right. “Cadence?” she asks. “Where’d you go?”
“Captain, there is a matt-- There are two matters requiring your attention.”
Halfway through the statement, though, Skyla was distracted. “What the-?” she utters, staring through solid walls.
Lyra shifts into what looks like a defensive stance. “Something happen?” she asks.
“I- I don’t know. Um… Athena, what is it?”
“First, Space Lord Matthews has requested an exchange of confidential information. Second, interdimensional arrival of one pony has been detected; thaumic containment vessel breach verified.”
“Wait, what? Twilight’s still sending ponies? Or did she come herself this time?” Lyra asks.
Skyla blinks at the unicorn. “Uh, yeah. What’s this new pony look like?”
“Alicorn,” Athena begins. “Pink coat-!”
“Cadence,” Lyra interrupts. “Princess Cadence.”
Skyla looks at her, an eyebrow raised. “You sure?”
“Absolutely,” Lyra states. “There are only four Princesses in Equestria- Celestia is white, Luna is dark blue, Twilight is purple, and Cadence is pink.”
“Ahh- shall we go meet her?” She glances up. “I mean, if she’s awake.”
“Painkillers were manufactured in time for administration in this event,” Athena responds. “As such, sedatives were not necessary. She remains fully aware.”
“Okay, then, yes, we need to meet her. And…” She glances at Lyra. “She can’t speak English, can she?”
Lyra shakes her head. “I don’t think so. But she does speak Equestrian.”
“Roger. Athena? Where is she?”
Five minutes later, she practically screeches to a stop next to the green unicorn.
“What the-?” she begins, looking at the destruction evident in the passage. Then she steps forwards, peering through the gaping hole in the wall at what looks like a massive void, surrounded by the fragments of something very large and smooth. “What- what did this?”
The voice comes from the passage behind her. “Containment vessel failure resulted in minor damage to surrounding spaces.”
“Minor!?” she demands.
“Affirmative. Blast cavity is approximately seven point three percent larger than the containment vessel.”
She then gazes across the shadowy void, at the other side. It’s in the shape of a vertical cylinder, with spherical ends; she estimates it’s about one and a half times as high as it is wide. “How… How many decks?”
“Thirteen.”
“... Oh.”
After a few seconds of silence, a female voice sounds up from the bottom of the darkened void somewhere, but she doesn’t understand it.
“... Oh.” Skyla sounds shocked.
Honestly, as she walks up to the massive hole in the wall, she can see why. The massive space visible through it is… Well, massive. Her own house, back in Ponyville- despite being a mansion- would fit in here at least thrice over!
Then a pained voice floats up from the bottom somewhere, in Equestrian. “Who’s there?”
“Princess Cadence?” she calls back. “Is that you?”
“Y-yes,” the answer comes. “Who are you?”
“Lyra Heartstrings,” she yells. “From Ponyville.” She glances sideways at Skyla, switching to English and dropping the yell. “Any chance we could get some kind of light to shine to her?”
Skyla blinks. “Uh, maybe. Athena? Can we brighten the lights in this passage?”
Cadence’ yell floats back while Skyla speaks. “Wh-Where are you?”
“Negative,” Athena answers Skyla, in English.
“Then dim the lights in everywhere else connected to this crater,” Skyla states.
“Orders confirmed.”
“Uh,” she mutters, before switching to Equestrian to shout back to Cadence. “By the bright lights?”
“The bright lights?” Cadence calls back. Silence holds for a couple seconds, then- “Oh! That’s… high.”
She winces. “Try… Are your wings okay?”
No answer comes- but some ten or fifteen seconds later, a pink blur hits her from outside. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” Cadence yelps, crushing her with her hug. “I thought I’d never see a pony again!”
“Ow-!” she yelps. “Ca-!”
“Um, Cadence?” Skyla asks, in English.
Her head is beginning to swim when she feels Cadence move slightly… then suddenly falls to the floor, gasping for breath.
“Aaaah!” Cadence screams somewhere off to her left, before a meaty thud is heard against the wall.
“Sorry,” Skyla mutters. “Um, Lyra? I think I managed to scare your princess as well.”
She lifts herself off the deck, shaking her head out. “Yeah… But perfect timing, thank you. She was just about crushing me to death.”
“What.”
Chuckle. “I take it you weren’t an earth pony before you ascended?”
“No. Pegasus. And even then, not for long.”
She tilts her head. “Huh…? Whatever. Well, Cadence was a pegasus as well… and the problem is that pegasi tend to be the weakest of the three tribes, being lightweight and built for speed. Earth ponies are at the opposite end of the spectrum, as the sturdiest, strongest tribe… and Alicorns possess the strengths of all three, plus an order of magnitude or so.” Shudder. “Means Cadence has no clue just how strong she is.”
She looks at Cadence, who is flat against the wall, looking scared and more than a little stunned. With a smile, she switches to Equestrian. “Sorry about that,” she states. “This is Skyla. No, she’s not a Princess- she’s from a world where ascension means nothing, apparently- and she’s on our side anyways.”
“Then-!” Cadence begins, eyes flicking between her and Skyla.
“She’s fine, and so is the hug,” she states. “Just… please don’t crush me.”
Cadence blinks a couple times, before hanging her head. “Sorry.” Then Cadence stands up, walking back closer, and bows to Skyla. “Sorry about my behavior, that was… what?”
Skyla had facehooved, and spoken in English. “I’m not a princess,” she’d declared.
“Yeah,” she answers, also in English. “I just told her that, too.” She switches to Equestrian. “She also, um, doesn’t speak Equestrian.”
“Then-! Then-!” More looking between the two.
She hangs her ears. “Translation spell.”
“Oh… And what happened to your horn!?”
She quickly covers the already healing tip; the bone outside hasn’t regenerated any, but the thaumic channel in the middle has knitted itself together again almost completely already. At this rate, it won’t be long before she’s able to at least channel thaumic patterns through it, all that’s really necessary for an assisted cast, even though she won’t be able to actually use magic without injuring herself until after the bone is healed as well. “That was an accident!” she yelps. “Skyla has some machine in here somewhere, making an energy field of some sort- sounds like an area-effect spell to me- that lets things like broken horns heal.”
“What-!? Then-!” Cadence’ hoof rises to her own horn.
She blinks. “Overload burn?”
“Uh… maybe?”
She sighs. “If so, that’s something that’ll heal naturally already… though not without a lot of time. And the description at least sounded like that machine would accelerate such natural healing as well, making it…” She pauses, before switching to English. “Wait. When I appeared on this ship, was I in there too?”
“Affirmative,” the ship answers, drawing a yelp and panicked search from Cadence.
“And the thaumic overload burn in my horn was already healed by the time I woke up?”
“Affirmative.”
“How long did that take?”
“Repairs to your Unicorn Horn, following arrival, took approximately four point six hours. Repairs to Princess Cadence’ Alicorn Horn are expected to complete in three point two hours.”
“Ahh.” She switches back to Equestrian. “Sorry, that was… I don’t know what to call it. Skyla’s assistant, or something- the one that actually controls the healing machine. She says your horn should be completely healthy once again in about three and a quarter hours.”
“Wh-what about yours?”
“Three days, as I recall.” She eyes the tip, lowering her hoof. “And in a few minutes, it’ll be healed enough for me to perform an assisted cast with Skyla.”
Blink. “What-?”
Nod. “Yeah. She ascended recently- and apparently, she has no clue how to use her horn.”
“But… But the pain…”
Her ears droop. “Yeah, I feel ya. Athena said something about the repair process directly stimulating pain receptors and whatnot, then something more about painkillers. Pretty sure only Twilight would understand all of it, but in theory, the pain will fade away with time… and eventually, go away completely.”
“Then… then what happened to… yours?”
She crosses her eyes, eying the tip of her horn. “That’s what happens when a regular unicorn accidentally crosses horns with an alicorn,” she states. “If either side is ready for it, the thaumic surge can be effectively blocked and prevented… But when neither is ready, well… I’m lucky I had a spell matrix on standby.” Shudder. “The surge could’ve killed me if I didn’t.”
“Spell matrix?”
“Yeah… the translation spell.”
“... Oh. Can you teach me… whatever she’s speaking?”
Shake. “Donno how. Once your horn finishes healing up, given her agreement, you can try the translation spell yourself… but by then, in theory, I will have walked her through an assisted cast of the same, and she’ll be speaking Equestrian with us.”
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- computerneek · 36k words · 46 2 · 935 views
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Keep casting without checking first Luna, eventually the whole ship will come back just due to the amount of magic users on board?
9561052
Either that or half of Equestria will be aboard...
and Earth will have magic problems.
Somehow I'm not surprised by that level of encryption. I wonder what kind of backlash the snooper got when they tried to crack it?
I imagine its active countermeasures are just as good...
I wonder if all the alicorns are eventually going to arrive by accident? :P
9595278
That's a good question. And, that assumes there's a snooper. There's a reason she did the security that way, and it stems to how connections work.
With a regular connection, it's encrypted by the sender, and sent on its way, to be decrypted by the receiver. On the way, it can bounce between any number of other computers (routers, really), before it reaches the destination- and the only way the receiver knows it came from the sender is because it says so, and because the encryption matches. If a middle party happens to have the encryption key or, heavens forbid, have convinced the two machines that it is the other side, convincing them to use its encryption... Well, there's really no way for them to tell. The packets always take the same route every time, so the signal is never scrambled.
What Athena did, was to use a laser to contact a base station... penetrate its security, establish a secure connection, check for anything that broke or any snoopers... then use it as a launchpad to perform the same on the next machine in line. Using only hardlines means it can't be intercepted in the same way a wireless signal can; that's what all the encryption is security against. And of course, each machine along the line thinks it's only talking to two machines, and both directly. There is no automatic routing, like with a regular connection- it's all calculated and decided (with finality) by Athena. No doubt the entire network would shut down instantly if any of the probably continuous scans for snoopers came back with something.
And you can bet she'd act to reestablish it on a new route while also going active against the snooper, yes. I mean, she technically did that against each of the stops along the way!
9595316
I kinda figured that out. Good point on the detection of MitM attacks, though -- I didn't catch that effect.
9595330
... Not just detection, but it makes 'em flat-out impossible. I mean, Athena's behind the security fence of every stop along the way.
10377040
Chapter 24, so what you call a transition chapter. Chapters 23 and 25 feel like significantly different stories, and it feels like you skipped past the pay-off to chapters 1 through 23.
It feels like chapters 1 through 23 take place in a few days, then chapter 25 takes place at least a month later, skipping past the most interesting potential "first contact" or "outsider settling into Ponyville" scenes.
10377030
There's a reason "retcon" is short for "retroactive continuity". A good retcon reinterprets existing events without making the reader feel like their time and emotional investment was wasted.
Something like "Actually, the causes behind those events aren't what you think" or "Actually, character X's death was a ruse and they survived" rather than "Actually, entire chapters never really happened".
I'd be happy to read complete stories of both the first and third versions (numbered by the order in which their chapters appear in a read-through), but I think that, on a storytelling level, the first version did best. The third version (the highest-numbered span of chapters) really feels like it's getting impatient about feeding expository information such as the nature of the pony tribes to Skyla.
10377091
So... You didn't like that I knew most of what happened would be the classic "pony is in Ponyville, no big deal", and so timeskipped over the parts where I had literally nothing to add...
10377100
Actually, that was, technically, a retcon- "Actually, all of that was in simulation".
... A very poorly done one. I'm not defending it.
10377115
I know "skipping over when there's nothing to add". I've seen it done very well in some stories. (A certain Harry Potter fic tends to come to mind.) The problem is that you did have things to add. For example:
EDIT: ...and I'm falling asleep in my chair, so I'll have to read your reply in the morning.
10377118
The key word being "technically". My point was that the word "continuity" being in there speaks to the centrality of preserving the reader's psychological attachment to what you're reinterpreting... something a "that actually never happened" retcon fails at royally.
10377137
1. Flight is smart. And, Twilight wasn't there. This would've gone down the same way it always does, so I didn't feel the need to write it.
2. Luna never found out Flight was in Ponyville... so that never happened. It will be fun to write when it does, though.
10377375
So it was a failure in expectation-setting then. Regardless of why, it felt like you "skipped the best parts".
Sooo, despite all these continuity shenanigans, still an enjoyable read. I hope to see it continued some day.
According to Maritiime Doctrin, Scyla is basically the Princess on this ship(Athene).
just wondering, how and why this name was chosen, In-ggame as well as in real life.
(I'm seeing an Apple-Seed Refference based on the computer of the ship and its capabilities)
though I somehow foresee a HAL9000 insident if something was to go wrong as well.
11044880
The name “Athena” was chosen because that’s the name of the Greek goddess of wisdom in battle. A fitting name for a Mary Sue-level battlecruiser that also happens to qualify as an arkship…
Not familiar with HAL9000?
11045330
I guess you could go with the Goddess, here; branding her a deity level, both the ship itself and the AI it came with.
Whoever designed and constructed the ship in the first place. (ass of yet, there is nothing on who this is)
the HAL9000 is from "2001 the Space Oddisy" (it's kind of a Clasic in the genre)