Chapter 30: Clarity of Sense
Faithful Gale flew home, dodging up the stairs of the Stalwart Shield Memorial Building and across the cavern towards Moonrise’s newest housing, the ‘Gate Complex.’ Even without her sense of hearing, she could’ve followed the magic to the place—so much teleportation in so small an area had created a constant thunderstorm over the building, which rumbled and shocked anything that got too close.
She made sure to land well before she got in range, using her fur lifting as a guide. A metal tunnel overhead protected her from the slight atmospheric disruption, and the pattering of rain on its upper surface made her feel at home.
As she landed, ponies ahead of her got out of the way, lowering their heads respectfully. “On your hooves, Gatecrashers,” she said, grinning at them. “Keep at it.”
Through the airlock, and she found a familiar face waiting for her—her secretary Fine Detail, tapping one impatient pen on a clipboard. “You’re eight minutes late, Faithful.”
She shrugged, pulling out the requisition order and showing the Lord Commander’s signature. At least, she assumed that was what he’d written. There were indents on the parchment, though not nearly deep enough for her to read them. She generally had to assume ponies were writing what they said they were.
Fine Detail snatched the sheet away in her magic, walking along beside her past the building’s radiator core. They all had them, tubes of water lined with radiant metal. All their heat came from the same source, ultimately, through the veins that circulated Moonrise’s liquid blood. But the pumps were silent now, suggesting that it was night on the surface. “Stars above you did it. Bloody miracle of miracles.”
Faith spent so little time in the city that she sometimes lost track. “You can thank me later. We get the entire unicorn team, but… only for two days. Put them on double shifts and get every ounce of spellcraft we can out of them.”
“Two days…” Fine repeated. Her hooves hurried along beside Faith, having to take two steps for every one she did as they reached the stairs. They led down into the moon’s heart, not up. Considering the temperature up there, and the vacuum waiting eagerly to kill everypony in the city, nopony wanted to dig towards the surface if they could avoid it. “That’s not even half what my schedule requires.”
She shrugged her wings again. “Maybe we can get some amazing results, and get an extension. But…” She giggled to herself. “I don’t like that as a strategy when we can avoid it. Let’s just… plan to get as much done as we can. How many trips can you get with two lunar days?”
Fine Detail slowed her pace for a moment, quill running over the parchment idly as she muttered to herself. Going over her schedule, probably.
But that was precisely why she kept a pony like Fine Detail around. Faith might be the one with the big ideas, but behind each one were a hundred little things that had to be done. Best delegated to a pony with a mind for details. “I don’t know what effect double shifts will have on productivity calculations. In theory, we still complete the project that way—but theory doesn’t translate well to reality.”
“Let’s plan to,” she said, skipping the last few steps to glide down into the officer’s quarters, before spinning back around and blocking the hallway for Fine Detail. “I’m going to speak to my husband. Arrange the schedules accordingly. If I know the Lord Commander, we’ll have our unicorns first bell tomorrow.”
“Okay, Faithful. I’m still not sure it will be enough, but…”
“We’ll make it work,” she insisted. “Or we’ll be way further than we would’ve been without it. Either way is a win.”
Arclight wasn’t actually at home, though. She wandered briefly through it, squeaking a few times to make sure that he wasn’t hiding under something. But she heard only the reflection of blank stone, and so she turned to head back the way she’d come. Not out of the Gatecrasher building.
Another few levels down, and she reached the place Arclight insisted on calling his “laboratory of alchemy” though it wasn’t half the size of what his father maintained in Moonrise proper. Sure enough she found him there, walking circles around a pony dressed in the thickest clothing that she’d ever known.
Most creatures in the city would’ve been completely baffled by the thick fabric and transparent bubble over the wearer’s head. But Faith recognized it instantly. She twitched once reflexively as she saw it, but dismissed the thought immediately. The one wearing this suit was moving. It hadn’t been taken from the dead. “I don’t want to put it on,” the wearer was saying—a young stallion whose voice she didn’t recognize. “Don’t I need to breathe?”
“There’s air inside it,” Arclight promised. “We need to get it to open, but we can’t get it to open the mechanism unless there’s negative pressure from inside the system. Hold still, Flint.”
She crept forward along the edge of the room, staying on the metal walkway over the lab itself, so she wouldn’t get in the way or disrupt whatever Arclight was doing. In her mind, there was nothing in all of Moonrise as important as this research.
There were a few loud mechanical clicks, then the sound of heavy fabric boots on the stone.
“Don’t panic, don’t panic! Slow breaths. I can cut you out if there’s anything wrong. Just sit still and breathe normally please. Bright, get the screwdriver. The internal mechanism, do you see? Those ridges along the back. I’d like you to get in there and start opening.”
“Of course, Arclight.”
Faith glided down suddenly, cresting over several shelves of salvaged parts and gear from Vanaheimr, and landing on open ground just behind Arclight.
“Your wife is right behind you,” Bright Spark said.
“I knew that.” Arclight spun around, not smelling at all like he’d known she was coming. She reached him in a quick stride, touching briefly against his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be with the Lord Commander?”
“Finished,” she said. “Successfully. The unicorns are on board.”
“That’s great! Our fertilizer project is on. All the nitrogen we can eat.” He embraced her for another second longer, before turning away. “Slowly, Bright! What does that vapor smell like coming out of the suit?”
“Sharp,” she responded. “Chemical. I don’t think it’s water.”
“Then don’t touch it,” he urged. “Let’s… be ready to get our volunteer out of the armor.”
She sat back on her haunches, falling silent as the work on the strange Alicorn clothing resumed. She didn’t need to make much noise to get an idea for what was happening, not with so many ponies as part of the project. Their words were enough for her to imagine the scene, with a volunteer pony wrapped in hard Alicorn clothing and a dozen creatures all around him, several helping to take apart the backpack that was fused with the breastplate.
Eventually they got the pony back out again, and managed to remove the attached portion for further dismantling. Faith waited patiently until the volunteer was leaving, along with most of the lab assistants. “So what are we trying to learn from Alicorn fashion?” she asked, voice as neutral as she could. She’d learned better than to question what Arclight was studying by now. He always had a reason.
“Not fashion. Their clothing was practical. We… didn’t think about it for so long because they were all dead already. But look at this.” He tugged on her with his magic, leading her to a table where the rest of the suit was already waiting, now in pieces. He led her leg with one of his, resting it up against the fabric. “Feel that armor?”
She nodded. “It’s… flexible. Doesn’t seem like very good armor.”
He sounded excited as he answered, like he’d been waiting for that. “Actually, it’s strong enough to stop arrows. We can cut it with magic, but nothing else. But that’s beside the point—I don’t think it was meant to protect them from soldiers. It’s not that kind of armor. I know you, uh… don’t have to see it as often. But their clothing is so sturdy it often keeps the remains of the dead inside. I think that’s because it was to the Alicorns like our air spells are for us.”
He sounded so proud, but the conclusion only confused her. She tilted her head to the side. “Why would the Alicorns be less advanced than us? Needing a weird… mechanical armor set, that can fail and needs to be fixed. One unicorn can make a bubble for as many ponies as can fit inside. Isn’t our way better?”
“No!” He stomped one hoof on the stone floor, the same way he always did when he was frustrated. It wasn’t a lack of self-control, but a signal to her to help with the expressions that she had no way to read. “Faith, bubble spells are a limit on how much we can do. Think about what it would be like if we didn’t need any magic to explore Vanaheimr at all. We could stay as long as we wanted, we could sleep where we wanted and not need to build shelters. Travel for days if we wanted, and not let our explorations be limited by the number of unicorns in our population.”
She nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense. We could have… one-pony Dustwalker teams. Not need unicorns to escort them everywhere. Save their magical talents.”
“Vanaheimr was having an emergency,” Arclight said. “We don’t know what the disaster was like, but I think it’s safe to conclude that there were no invading troops on the ground. Their adversaries shot metal at them from above, that’s it. It’s obvious what they were trying to do: break the ceilings, let the air out, make everypony freeze. The Alicorns had this… air armor, and so it didn’t kill them at first.”
He walked a few steps further, where the backpack was now lying on its own table. Another pony was already setting to work cutting it open, though the specific details of how were too fine for sound to show her. “There’s an alchemical process taking place inside this backpack. Each set of armor has its own, tanks of… chemicals. I don’t know which ones yet, but I’m sure the alchemical ability of Moonrise will discover the secret. Obviously if there isn’t an air bubble, we need air in other ways.”
“So you’re saying that backpack… does what the Icebreakers do? And the Air Corps? There’s water inside that gets split into oxygen? There can’t be room for very much…”
“I don’t think it’s quite the same,” he said. “The specifics are… probably too boring for you. But I think it’s closer to the Air Corps than the Icebreakers. There are three little tanks in each backpack. It’s been… difficult to find one intact. But I think we finally did. One day we might be able to do something like it, and anypony could be walking the surface on their own, not just a unicorn.”
“Noble goal,” she said, snuggling up against him again. She didn’t much care that a few of his assistants were close enough to watch. Everything the Gatecrashers did was hers. Only the princess or the Lord Commander could take that away. “Seems weird that a unicorn is trying to make himself unnecessary.”
He grunted. “You’re not telling me something. You’re almost never so…” He twitched one hoof vaguely. “Are you really that nervous about harvesting fertilizer tomorrow?”
“No,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I’m nervous about being a mom. I didn’t really have one to learn from.”
Her words had the desired effect. Arclight stumbled away from her, suddenly smelling like shock and overwhelmed surprise. “You’re… not joking. You’re actually serious.”
“Of course,” she answered. “And I’m thinking this time…” Her words came slowly, choked away by pain for a moment. “I think we’ve got a good shot this time around. The moon wouldn’t take away another one. We’ve given her enough blood, it’s got to be our turn for something better.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” he said, pulling her close and this time not seeming even a little shy about it. “Faith, we can’t just hope things will be different. Talk to my mother, get in touch with Marine Kelp. She’s been focused on nothing else for almost twenty years now. Let’s… get some help this time. Just to be sure.”
Faith opened her mouth to answer—probably to argue with him, though it was mostly reflexive. Something about how she couldn’t trust a pony who was still loyal to the Sun Tyrant after all they’d suffered at her hooves, probably.
But then she heard the crack. A terrible shattering sound, shaking Moonrise to its foundations. Her uniquely sensitive hearing showed her more than most ponies would probably hear. Instead of just a loud sound, she knew exactly where it had come from. The ice-mine. The sound was mostly ice, though there was plenty of rock breaking mixed in as well.
Then came the roar. Her fur lifted slightly in a sudden breeze, the first time she’d ever felt it pulling down instead of up. Towards the mines.
Stars above.
The bell started to ring, muddling the sounds she’d been using to try and hear what was actually happening. Ponies began to scream, and some ran. One of Arclight’s own assistants said something about making it “to the gate” before it was too late.
Faith wasn’t the Lord Commander. Saving Moonrise wasn’t her job, as it was her father’s. But it didn’t matter. While ponies scattered all around her, running away from the danger, she took off, making for the door.
“What are you doing?” Arclight called after her. “You just told me you had a foal, Faithful! I need to get you to the door!”
She glared down at him. “If Moonrise dies, we go with it. Doesn’t matter if we’re at the Vanaheimr outpost when it happens.”
There was no way Arclight could keep up with her. Stupid, considering the magic he had would probably be more useful actually doing anything than being able to see one of two ponies through a wall, or taste different metals. But it didn’t matter. There was no way she could stand by, or hide in her quarters as the bells demanded.
At least the sky was clear by the time she made it past the lightning shield. Here the wind was stronger, though not as intense as she’d expected. The moment when the city finally lost its air should be more dramatic than this. She imagined ponies screaming as they were ripped out onto the surface, but… this was only mildly more intense than the time the city overheated.
Of course it grew more intense as she got closer. The bells and screaming ponies and terrified hooves were drowned out by a steady roar of air. As she flew, she realized that both ponies she could magically sense had beaten her there, and were standing at the entrance to the ice mines.
When she was young, she remembered being able to see the huge slab of ice protruding into the cavern itself, so large that she could hardly imagine it ever getting smaller. But now that entire slab was gone, and the mine tunneled into the rock. Ponies gathered at that entrance, with a steady roar taking air in past them.
“What’s going on?” she asked, landing near the front of the line and demanding of the nearest pony. She couldn’t get a clear idea of who they were from the sound, not when the wind overpowered all fine detail. Bigger than she was, that was all she could hear for sure.
When they spoke, they sounded like a miner. “Excavation. Thought we were opening a tunnel into the rest of the ice. Looks like… there wasn’t as much there as we thought. Went all the way up.”
“Everypony back!” Penumbra flew past her, though she wasn’t speaking to Faith particularly. She roared, and everypony nearby fell still to listen. “The princess is about to collapse the cavern and seal the city off! Back away now, or die.”
Faith took to the air again, ignoring the crowd of miners as they pressed away, and quickly catching up with her mother. She was perhaps the only pony in the whole city she could follow in such a din. “Mother, are we really out of ice? The miners were saying…”
“You’re here?” The bat slowed in the air, turning to glare at her suspiciously. “Shouldn’t you be gatecrashing?”
“Next trip is tomorrow,” she answered, her tone turning a little defensive. There weren’t many ponies who could expect to get an explanation from her, but Penumbra was one of them. “I’m back to meet with the Lord Commander. What are we going to do without ice?”
The ground rumbled again. Faith felt the magic surge under her hooves, then the ground sunk a good three meters. The roaring wind around them stopped, as suddenly as it had begun. The ice-mine’s entrance collapsed, turning bright orange as it melted over.
A few moments later, the princess herself appeared in the air. She was the first to break the stunned silence. “Ponies of Moonrise—the danger is averted. See that no excavation or mining takes place in this position again. Disturbing the rock could reopen a breach and sacrifice more of our air to the outside.”
Penumbra flew back towards the princess, but Faith didn’t follow her mother. She fell, landing at the back of the crowd.
“What do we do now?” somepony asked, from somewhere in the crowd beside her. “Every year they demand more ice. They can’t expect us to mine it from the surface.”
“None left to mine,” somepony else answered. “Guess we’re bucked.”
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Ah yes, time to rush draconian recycling programs while we source another vein. Good thing they've got some salvaged environmental suits, lots of ponies are going to have to go for some very long walks in the near future.
It just occurred to me: is this story inspired by the game Oxygen Not Included?
At least, that's what Arclight said they did when she showed up.
This sounds so wrong, yet summarizes so much of humanity's great advancements. And brings Oxygen Not Included to mind. Though this colony would love to encounter as much biomass as a horribly infectious swamp.
Oh. Oh, that's not good. This just got quite complicated indeed. We'll have to see where they go from here.
Wait, how long has it been since last chapter? That kinda threw me off at first, since I was still thinking initially they were foals.
Rather interesting, given that she can't have grown up with rain or anything resembling it. Probably means both that a lot of time has passed and that she spends a lot of time in the gate compound.
Seems they're trying to reverse-engineer a space suit? Curious what the three tanks of chemicals are. I'd imagine that there's oxygen and something to remove carbon dioxide, but I'm not sure what the third one would contain. First thing that comes to mind is water for cooling, but I feel like I'm forgetting something else.
Also, can someone remind me of what the Icebreakers/Air Corps are? I'd imagine the Air Corps are the group of ponies that produce oxygen through hydrolysis, but it seems that the Icebreakers have their own method of producing breathable air too?
Oof, seems to be some very unfortunate implications there...
Wonder if it has to do with Faith's lineage, or whether it's something all moon-born suffer. The mention of Marine Kelp seems to imply it's the latter, and if that's the case I'm curious what exactly is going on. I don't know whether there's been much real-life research into the effects of low gravity/space on fertility, so I don't have much to go off of.
Time to figure out how to extract the oxygen from all that carbon dioxide that has been scrubbed out of the air over the years. Plants are the obvious way of doing so, but I'm not sure they have the resources to grow enough plants quickly enough to produce enough oxygen in time. Perhaps there is another way, but I'm not familiar enough with real-world ways of retrieving oxygen from scrubbers.
Either that or just find more ice somewhere. But that would be too easy, and I suspect this incident will spur the development of recycling technologies anyways to avoid the possibility of that happening again.
I'm also curious whether they'll discover nitrogen fixation (assuming their atmosphere has significant amounts of nitrogen at all; they probably started with a bunch when initially banished, but it hasn't been getting replaced the same way the oxygen has).
9956659
I think last chapter had an implied timeskip. Faith appears to have been in a position of power for at least some time, and she mentions continuing Iron Quill's lineage. There's a mention in the comments too.
9956659
The time skip happened at the end of the last chapter. They were probably around effectively 13-16 years old in human terms, so I imagine since they've been together long enough to have had multiple attempts at children (plus with how advanced their project seems to be), it has to have been about 10 years?
9956695
Third tank is probably nitrogen for fire risk reduction.
9956775
Air Corps are ones that fixate CO2.
By description backpack might be a rebreather-type device, one of canisters is meant to be air reserve.
9956775
I didn't think they used nitrogen in suit environments, since space/mass is at much more of a premium and because pure oxygen allows for lower pressures, which helps a lot with mobility, since full atmospheric pressure tends to result in the suit becoming too inflated for easy movement. I want to say that there should be fewer ignition sources, too, since suit electronics don't' need the same voltages/currents as capsule electronics, but I'm not sure about that.
Oh ye of little faith.
Sounds like a good opportunity to invent the railroad. Massive Sterling engine powered behemoths hauling massive slabs of ice sounds cool
They should have some time before running out. There is a sort of water cycle going on and stored water. Ration it while they search for a new source.
How Long till someone goes insane cuz he took in too much oxygen
Oh and is there any CO in here?
"The ice-mine’s entrance collapsed, turning bright orange as it melted over."
Huh. How can she tell what color it is?
So... they’re running out of oxgeon? ...again?
YAY! LETS SEE PONIES PANIC AND TRY TO FIND A WAY TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM WHILE HAVING LUNA ACT ALL CRYPTIC!
It’s like this is a trope now!
Wow. Time skip. A pregnant Faith has to deal with lowering oxygen levels now. Its the beginning chapters all over again
Working on space suits is a great idea.
Ooooo.
Yeah, definitely.
Oh that's not good.
No more water and much less air than they had 20 minutes ago? Yeah, they're boned.
I think Lord Commander is making a mistake by treating Faith's request as taking soldiers away from training. They won't get much experience by repeating the same exercises endlessly in a training hall. He should approach this as a field exercise, a military mission. Demand that not only unicorns are taken, but whole units, securing perimeters, watching out for treats, exercising maneuvers in unknown terrain, training acquisition of resources in the field. Faith's job still gets done while the soldiers gain new experience.
If there's chemical storage in the ruined city, they might have a second potential air supply via whatever they were using for air tanks on those vacuum suits.
9956481
Alot of us said that early-on in the fic. It might not be the original inspiration, but I can definitely draw some paralelles. Too bad they don't have access to geysers. That's solve a number of their problems, depending on the ones they got.
Yeah, theory and reality don't appear to like each other very much.
Sounds convenient!
Great idea!
Oh shit!
Wouldn't be the first time they are bucked... Far from it.
And it (hopefully) won't be the last time, either.