Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 97: Megalith Agnus Dei

“This should wash some of that taste out of your mouth,” Quattro said, cracking open the ice-cold bottle and pouring vodka into the glass in front of me. The bottle must have been expensive - it was pre-war and still sealed. Sort of a waste since vodka wasn’t the kind of drink a pony sipped.

“You want to get me involved in something shady,” I said. I took the glass and downed it. It was extremely strong. “And you’re trying to get me drunk enough to say yes.”

“Chamomile, I’m proud of you,” Quattro said. “You really have grown up a lot since the last time I saw you!”

She pulled me into a hug, squeezing tight before letting me sink back into the chair. We’d gone back upstairs to the room I was renting. It was a small space and just barely large enough for the bed, a small table, and two uncomfortable chairs.

“How did you find us?” Destiny asked.

“I’ve got friends everywhere,” Quattro said. “Actually I was pretty sure you were dead. I owe somepony twenty bits!” She smiled and refilled my glass. “Truth is, you stick out. All it takes is some airponies complaining in a bar about special forces dragging them on secret missions and… well, that kind of story would get my attention even if you weren’t involved.”

“I’m sure,” I said. “So who are you working for these days? Isn’t that a military uniform?”

She looked down at herself like she needed to confirm it.

“It’s not that hard to get a uniform. You’ve got one.” She smirked. It wasn’t like I was wearing it right now. It took me a moment to remember I’d gotten a uniform last time I’d worked with Polar Orbit, where he’d pushed half-legitimate paperwork through.

I gave Quattro a flat look.

“It’s good to see you, but if you’re going to keep being mysterious…” Destiny trailed off and let that hang in the air along with her floating form.

“I get the message,” Quattro said, raising her hooves in defeat. She sat down and poured herself a drink. “As you might have guessed, I didn’t enlist. This uniform just makes things easier. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things are tense right now.”

I drank some of the very fine vodka and nodded. “I heard a little bit. General Ravioli said Neighvarro and Thunderhead aren’t playing nice with each other.”

“That’s more or less right,” Quattro said. “The details aren’t important right now, but having the wrong uniform on will get you in a lot of trouble. The uniforms you got from Polar Orbit, for example, are part of Thunderhead’s new military dress code.”

“...And this base is controlled by Neighvarro,” I said.

“Every base is controlled by Neighvarro,” Quattro corrected. “Officially, Thunderhead doesn’t even have a navy. What they do have is a monopoly on talisman repairs and technical support.”

“So the different uniforms serve a purpose,” Destiny said. “Like engineering versus combat operations.”

“If you want to think of it that way,” Quattro said. “Right now what those uniforms do is tell ponies which side of this little scuffle you’re on. Ponies wearing those nice dress whites of the Thunderhead uniform? They’re not very popular right now.”

“Okay?” I shrugged. “Is this a warning about what shirt to wear in the morning?”

“Hey, you asked about the uniform,” Quattro said. “Actually want I want to do with you is relive the good old days!”

Destiny turned to me. “You really called it with the shady thing.”

“Cube is in prison,” Quattro said, cutting me off before I could get my own sarcastic remark in. “I want to break her out. I assume you’d like to get her out, too.”

“Who did she murder?” I asked.

“Did you really jump immediately to murder?” Quattro asked. “I just spent all this time explaining that there are politics involved, how different uniforms mean you get treated differently, and you think so little of your own half-sister that you think she must have killed ponies?”

I folded my hooves and glared at Quattro. “That’s a roundabout way of not telling me who she killed.”

“She didn’t kill anypony,” Quattro sighed. “No, that’s not true. I’m sure she’s killed a lot of ponies. What I mean to say is, she isn’t in prison for any of the murders.”

“Then what did she do?” Destiny asked.

“She was spying,” Quattro said. “You might not know this, but she can read minds.”

I nodded. “I know. She complained about not being able to read my mind.”

“Well guess what ponies really don’t like right now? Somepony in the wrong uniform going around and reading their minds and bragging about it.”

“Yeah, that does sound like her,” I sighed.

“She might not have even been actually spying, but they’re treating her like she had a listening device. They threw her in solitary confinement until they can decide what to do with her.”

“Mmph.” I frowned.

“I know you want to get her out because she’s family,” Quattro said, waving a hoof dismissively. “I want to get her out because I want to know if she actually did hear something she wasn’t supposed to know, like maybe an attack plan.”

“And you’d do what with it?” Destiny asked.

“Good question!” Quattro admitted. “I’d want to stop it with as few casualties as possible. A public leak of the plans might be enough to convince ponies not to fight at all. It would at least delay things.”

“Do you at least have a clever plan to get her out?” I asked.

“When don’t I have a clever plan?” Quattro joked. “We’re not going to go in blasting. We’d be outnumbered about a thousand to one and I don’t have an escape plan good enough for that. You’d survive that kind of trouble but I’d get fried.”

“You know all I’m good for is running at enemies screaming,” I pointed out. “I don’t know if I’m the best pony to have around for your clever plan.”

“Maybe.” Quattro shrugged and poured us both glasses, clinking them together in a toast and downing hers. “But I missed working with reliable ponies.”

“I need to discuss this with Chamomile,” Destiny said. “Could you give us some privacy?”

Quattro nodded, putting her glass down and leaving the bottle. “I’ll be down at the bar if you need me.” She gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Even if you say no, it’s good seeing you again.”

She turned and waved over her shoulder as she left the room, shutting the door behind her.

“You realize she’s got some kind of secret agenda, right?” Destiny asked.

“Of course she does,” I agreed. “At best, she knows she can’t break Cube out on her own and she knows I can’t say no to a rescue mission.”

“At worst, she’s got some convoluted plan that’s going to end up with you getting sent to prison too,” Destiny said. “She’s at least partly to blame for a lot of what happened to you.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. I wasn’t sure how much of it was really Quattro’s fault and how much was dumb - and bad - luck.
“I do know if we go along with whatever plan she has, there’s going to be some part of it we won’t like.”

I nodded. “Yeah. So let’s come up with our own plan. There has to be some way to get Cube out of there without…” I trailed off.

“What is it?”

“...No, it couldn’t be that easy, could it?” I mumbled. “I’ve got an idea. Let me run it past you, and you tell me if it’s crazy.”

---

A few minutes later I sat down next to Quattro at the bar.

“I’ll have a Shirley Temple,” I said. The bartender raised an eyebrow. I put a few bits on the counter and he shrugged and started making the drink, filling a glass with ice and pouring in dark red grenadine, a splash of lime-style drink, and topping it off with ginger ale.

“So what’s the answer?” Quattro asked. “Are you in?”

“Yes,” I sighed, taking the cold drink and sipping. It was sweet, with a hit of tartness from the citrus. “You already know I’m in.”

“Good.” Quattro nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a fool-proof plan.”

“I’ve got something I want to try,” I said, cutting her off before she could avoid getting into details about what exactly her plan was. “I need a few hours to get a few things done, then I’ll meet back up with you.”

“Really?” Quattro lowered her sunglasses to give me a look. “You’ve got a plan?”

“Yep.”

“And what is it, exactly? I’m curious.”

I snorted. “Two ponies can play at the mysterious veteran angle. If you’re going to dodge questions, I’m going to take them head-on and just refuse to answer.”

Quattro chuckled. “Fair enough. I can’t exactly complain without being a hypocrite about it. You do whatever you need to do. We can meet up here when you’re done.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I want to see what you come up with,” Quattro said. “Maybe I’ll get to see how you’ve really grown in the last few years.”

---

The brig was an intimidating-looking building. It was also one of the few structures not made of clouds - you couldn’t trust ponies to stay in prison if they could just kick down the walls. From the way it looked, it must have been a repurposed cloudship, stripping out most of the equipment and leaving just enough to keep the lights on and the ship in the air. A prison didn’t need much more than rooms with the locks on the outside of the doors, after all.

I adjusted my uniform, making sure it was fitted correctly. I’d even worn the silly-looking beret that had come along with it, because I knew I needed to present myself as being official and professional today.

“It’s important that we approach this correctly,” Quattro warned quietly. “I know it’s a little late for this, but here’s a quick lesson on infiltration.”

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Step one is to know the place you’re trying to get inside,” she said. “I scouted this place out a little while you were busy with your little errand, and I’ve got a pretty good idea about the number of guards and their patrol routes.”

“Uh-huh,” I nodded.

“I had a few ideas on an approach,” Quattro said. “Literally breaking in wouldn’t be that difficult - I found a few places we can slip past security, but being seen instantly raises an alarm. On the other hoof, if we claim to be part of a surprise inspection--”

“Woah, woah!” I held up a hoof. “What about my plan?”

“Do you actually have a plan?” Quattro asked. “No offense, but if this goes wrong, it’s seriously bad. If you think you can just kick the doors in and walk away…” She shrugged, letting me picture the aftermath.

“Follow my lead,” I said. I walked confidently up to the front doors and pressed the buzzer, alerting the guard at the front desk.

“Purpose of visit?” rumbled the bored pony inside, through the tinny speaker.

“Prisoner transfer,” I said.

“Do you have your PT-30 signed and stamped?” he asked. “I don’t care who ordered it, if we don’t have the paperwork, I can’t release anypony.”

I reached under my wing and produced a manilla folder. “I’ve got the form here.”

“I’m buzzing you in. Follow the yellow line to the desk and present your papers.”

There was a loud buzz, and I pushed the now-unlocked doors open, motioning for Quattro to follow. She walked in behind me, whispering in alarm.

“Chamomile, I appreciate that you’re learning to lie, but--”

“Don’t worry,” I said. The yellow line on the floor proved to be all of ten paces long, going from the threshold of the door to a booth surrounded almost entirely by safety glass. I walked up to the booth and nodded to the older pony inside, a portly pegasus who looked like he hadn’t flown or even gotten out of his seat in a decade.

“Papers, please,” he said, speaking through a shielded grill in the partition. He opened a small door, just wide enough for me to slip the folder through. After I handed the papers off, he looked through them, nodded, and signed on a line item. “Wait here. Don’t leave this room.”

He got up, something I didn’t think he could manage, and shuffled out through the back door to another part of the brig, leaving us alone.

“Is this… working?” Quattro asked. “Those must be some good fakes.”

“They’re not fake,” I said.

“What?”

I looked over my shoulder at Quattro. “I asked General Ravioli for a favor. He’s not happy with me, but he’s a decent pony and he understands the value of family. He filled out the paperwork to have Cube released into my custody.”

“They’re legitimate papers?!” Quattro asked, clearly shocked.

“You never even once considered just asking nicely, did you?” I chided jokingly. “It’s a lot easier to do things the right way.”

“No, I didn’t think about it,” she admitted. “Then again, I can’t just get an audience with a fleet commander within an hour of asking just because I needed a favor. How do you know General Ravioli?”

“Emerald wanted to do things by the book,” I said. “That meant when we went on our own stupid, reckless mission we had to get it approved. General Ravioli met with me privately. I think he wanted to see just what kind of pony had caused so much trouble.”

“I’d be curious too,” Quattro admitted.

“Exactly.” I leaned against the glass wall and waited. It took a few minutes, but eventually the security door slid open, and the portly pegasus walked out along with…

It took me a few minutes to recognize Cube. Emma and Quattro, they were already adults. Three years didn’t make a huge difference in the way a pony looked once they’d grown up. Cube had still had a lot of growing to do, the last time I saw her. She’d just been a little orange filly.

Now she was as tall as Quattro, and the foal chubbiness had been replaced with lean muscle. Her mane was unkempt, but I could see new streaks of color through it, pink and blue joining the dark teal.

“Can you take these hoofcuffs off?” Cube asked, looking back over her shoulder at her jailer. She raised one hoof and jangled the cuff. “If you want, I could just unlock it myself.”

“Don’t,” the pegasus warned, producing keys and unlocking the cuffs. He took a plastic box off his back and shoved it at Cube. “These are your possessions taken into custody at the time of your arrest. Please confirm receipt and sign the paperwork.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cube mumbled, levitating the box off to the side and scribbling a pen against paper. “Thanks for the fun time. Maybe next time you can find me a cell without as many cloud rats.”

“Stay out of trouble,” the pegasus sighed. He tried to take the paper from Cube’s grip, but she tugged it out of his grasp just as he was about to grab it. He shot her a look that could cut through steel and she dropped it on the ground.

“Oops!” Cube gasped. “My bad!”

He snatched it from the floor. “You’re not my problem anymore. Get out of here and don’t come back. That’s life advice and a warning.” He slammed the security door behind him as he stomped out.

Cube chuckled and turned to us. She saw me and lost her grip on her box, dropping the plastic crate and running over to me. Her expression was frantic and shocked. She touched my face and started poking at it, moving it around like it might slip away and be revealed as a mask.

“Chamomile?” she asked in a small voice.

“I’m really hard to kill,” I said, by way of an explanation.

She grabbed me in a tight hug, squeezing as hard as she could, then let go, slapped me, winced and rubbed her sore hoof, and glared at me.

“Where have you been?!” she demanded. “You’ve been gone for- for forever!”

I took a deep breath. “I got sucked into another dimension and then there was a time warp and I was under the ocean and dead for a while and then I was really busy fighting vampires and didn’t have a forwarding address to send you a letter.”

Cube blinked, trying to process all that.

“That’s…” her nose scrunched in concentration. “Dammit! I know the dimension thing is true! The rest is stupid and doesn’t make sense!”

“But you can’t read my mind to know for sure?” I asked.

“Yes, exactly!” she nodded.

“I have paperwork proving the vampire thing,” I offered. “You’ll have to take my word for the part where I was underwater. I was banished after I almost caused their entire society to collapse.”

“That’s totally absurd, which means it’s probably true.” Cube smirked. “Fine. I’ll trust you for now. But I’m still upset! You should have tried harder to find me!”

“Maybe you should have told more ponies how to get in touch,” I countered. “Ornate Orate didn’t know where you were, the Greywings had no idea, Emma hadn’t seen you…”

She scoffed. “What about her?” she pointed to Quattro.

“I only found Chamomile last night,” Quattro explained. “And we came right here to get you.”

Cube looked annoyed at that. “Whatever.” She picked up her box. “I need to figure out where to go. I can’t stay here.”

“I’ve got--” Quattro started. I cleared my throat and cut her off.

“I already made arrangements,” I said. “General Ravioli wants you off the base, and I’m in charge of you, so I get to go along for the ride.”

“So where are we going?” Cube asked. She popped open the plastic crate she was holding and rummaged around in it.

I took out the rest of the paperwork I’d been given and checked through it. “Thunderhead, but not directly. I guess they don’t want ponies to just fly right in.”

“Not wearing one of those uniforms, that’s for use,” Cube nodded to the black uniform I was wearing. “You’d get arrested even faster than I was.”

“We’ll make a stop at Fifth Luna,” I said. “We should be able to transfer from there.”

“Fifth Luna…” Cube’s eyes glazed over for a moment. “Yes. That’ll work. I can send a message to the Juniper to pick us up.”

I frowned a little at the thought. It meant Polar Orbit would be there, but…

“How’s my dad doing?” I asked.

Cube winced. Then she clearly realized what that looked like and shook her head. “He’s fine,” she said. “Look, I don’t think you should worry about your dad.”

“Why?” My frown deepened.

“I spent a long time trying to track you down, you know,” Cube said softly. “I mean, we’re only half-sisters but you’re still family even if you’re a big dumb idiot made out of tank parts instead of brains.”

“Really feeling the love here.”

“He didn’t even try,” Cube mumbled, glaring into the middle distance like she could sense him. “He barely even asked about you! Even my dad cared more about what happened! He said you were more of an enemy than a friend, but he still owed it to you.”

I sighed. “Yeah, that sounds about right for both of them.”

Cube took my hoof and squeezed. “Sorry. Just don’t be surprised if your dad doesn’t care that you’re back. If he’s even still on the ship. It’s not like he was a prisoner or anything, he could be doing anything right now.”

I nodded.

“Anyway, let’s get out of here,” Cube said. “I don’t want to piss off any ponies and end up back in the brig, and I want to hear some details about where the buck you’ve actually been.”

---

Fifth Luna was, I was informed, created as a supply base during the war and named after the Princess. Like all pegasus cities at the time, it had been mobile, a forward base that would linger just outside of the range of enemy artillery and missiles to resupply the front lines. It had been constructed around a massive cloudberg, a naturally occurring wild storm that the architects believed would make it resistant to any magical attempts to disrupt its structure.

After the skies closed up, it remained as an island in the sea of the Enclave’s cloud cover, a dark spot where the clouds refused to mix, providing glimpses through the surf where the two layers met and showing just a little of the ground below.

It was shaped like a rough pyramid, maybe a kilometer wide, with structures carved out of the cloud with landing strips extending into space like shelf fungus on a tree trunk. Our skywagon had come in and landed in one of the middle layers.

Quattro helped me pull our luggage off the skywagon. Cube hadn’t had much luggage, but I had a suit of power armor that was still self-repairing and it would go faster if I wasn’t wearing it, so it was packed away in a shipping crate. I saw her struggling with the weight and just picked the whole thing up myself, balancing it on my back.

It had been a very long trip. It would have felt much shorter if Cube hadn’t told me about every single mistake I’d made since the last time I saw her. If only I’d had the benefit of knowing the results of my actions in advance like Cube did.

“Uh… do I…?” I offered the pony that had pulled the wagon a few bits. He laughed.

“No need, Ma’am,” he said. “Used to taking civilian transport?”

“Sort of.” I shrugged. “Most of the time I’m not the highest-ranking pony on board. And the rest of the time there’s usually an explosion. I’m not used to walking away after a soft landing.”

He laughed again. “I’m glad I was able to give you a pleasant ride. We’re all on the same team, right Ma’am?”

Usually I wouldn’t have thought anything about that statement, but I was painfully aware now that his white uniform meant he was part of Thunderhead’s faction. I’d changed into the uniform I’d gotten from Polar Orbit, so both of us were wearing the same colors. When he said we were part of the same team, he didn’t just mean the Enclave’s general motto that ‘we were all in this together’.

“Right,” I agreed, shaking his hoof. “Be careful out there. The skies can be dangerous.”

He nodded and saluted. I returned it and walked away, having to walk a little slowly with the crate weighing me down.

“So getting back to your story -- the dragon? It just fell down and you didn’t go after it?” Cube asked, when we’d gotten to the cargo elevator. I looked up at her and raised an eyebrow.

“My wing was completely useless,” I reminded her, putting the crate down and hitting a button for another level. I flapped my right wing once as if she’d be able to see the healed injury “I couldn’t fly down to check on her.”

Cube huffed. “Yeah but what about all the other ponies on the ship?”

“You mean the vampires? You wanted me to ask them to go on a field trip at a sudden and unexpected high noon?” I asked.

“I did ask,” Destiny said. “I thought they might have a servant or two that could look, but they weren’t strong enough fliers to catch back up to the Exodus Black if they left. Probably because they were anemic.”

Cube made a face. “You could have checked after you healed. What if she does the whole eclipse ritual again somewhere else and you can’t find her?”

“We destroyed the data, and it’s too complicated for one pony to memorize,” Destiny assured her. “Frankly, I’d like to go after her too, but it’s going to be almost impossible. By triangulation, we believe she fell into one of the largest swamps in the world, so she’s probably buried under several meters of mud. It would be difficult to find her even if we knew almost exactly where she landed.”

“Annoying,” Cube mumbled.

“No kidding,” I said. “Never trust a pony is dead unless you’ve seen the body yourself. I learned that the hard way.”

“And if it’s Chamomile, even having her cold in a morgue isn’t good enough,” Quattro joked. I shivered at the memory. Waking up in a morgue was still featuring in nightmares on bad nights.

“That’s because she’s reliable,” Cube said. She almost sounded proud of me.

The elevator was only surrounded by a cage instead of solid walls, so we got to see the other levels of Fifth Luna as we descended. The old machinery was well-maintained, and the place reminded me of a cloudship turned inside-out, open decks with fuel tanks, exposed pipes and wires, and ponies busy trying to turn ailing ships into healthy ones.

“A lot of these ponies are unhappy,” Cube said, after a silent moment. “They have to beg for spare parts. Thunderhead is only delivering what they need instead of letting them build up a backstock.”

“Thunderhead wants to make sure if they have a monopoly, it’s as absolute as possible,” Quattro said. I couldn’t tell if she was justifying it or accusing them.

“Thunderhead wants ponies to remember how much they do to keep the Enclave running,” Cube countered.

“It reminds me of what my parents were like when they were splitting up,” I said. “They ended up making everything worse because of spite.”

“That might be the most accurate description of Enclave politics I’ve ever heard,” Quattro said. “Two ponies in a really strained marriage.”

I laughed at that, and the elevator came to a stop in what must have been the biggest open space in Fifth Luna.

The Juniper was just as huge as I remembered, bigger than a Raptor-class ship and looming even when it was just hovering in place, the whole ship having a stance like an absolutely massive bird of prey. Cube trotted towards the ship and I trailed after her. What were the chances this was a bad idea?

“It is a bad idea,” Quattro said.

I looked over at her.

“Your little half-sister might be a mind reader but I'm pretty good at reading faces,” she explained. “If things go bad, we’ll watch each other’s backs.”

I nodded. I could more or less trust Quattro with that. “Did you get any of that information you wanted out of Cube?”

“Not really,” Quattro admitted. “I can’t even tell if she knows anything. She’s the type of mare who will pretend to have a secret just to have something to tease you with.”

Destiny made a thoughtful sound. “Maybe you’re a bad influence on her.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I was blinded by the sudden appearance of a spotlight, and a ramp lowered from the bottom of the Juniper, a gangplank leading inside. One pony stood almost on the tip, totally at ease riding the mechanism down and not losing his footing at the motion.

“Welcome back,” Polar Orbit said. Cube ran up to him, and he gave her a quick hug before turning to us. “Chamomile! I never quite gave up hope that you’d come back.” He smiled with what seemed like genuine warmth.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s uh…” I paused. “It’s complicated to see you too.”

Polar Orbit laughed at that. “That’s a good way to put it! How about we split the difference and I thank you for getting my daughter out of the brig?” He offered a hoof to shake. I took it carefully and gave it a quick shake. I was polite about it. I didn’t even squeeze.

“I’m still not happy about what happened to my home town, but maybe we can avoid killing each other,” I offered.

He nodded with only a small smirk. “I suppose you’d like to see your father. He’s still here. I’ve given him one of the ship’s cargo bays. I felt I owed him something, after…” Polar Orbit shrugged. “Well, if I wronged you, I did worse to him.”

“Permission to come aboard?” I asked. I didn’t want to talk about it, so the only thing to do was change the subject.

“Of course. I’ve already arranged a stateroom for you. You can leave your luggage there. We can discuss other arrangements later. I’d like it if we could work together, but I’ll understand if you have other commitments.”

---

“We’ll wait out here,” Quattro said. “I’m sure you’d rather face this on your own.”

She paused and took off her glasses so she could give me a serious look.

“Remember what Cube told us, okay?” Quattro said. “Don’t get your hopes up. We’ll be here if you need us.”

“I know,” I sighed.

Destiny bumped her forehead against mine.

“If all else fails, just use brute force,” she said, trying to make it sound like a joke. “Maybe he’s just not good at expressing how he feels.”

“Maybe,” I said. I was absolutely sure that wasn’t it, but still. I could hope. I hit the door panel and stepped inside.

In the last few years, Dad had gotten a lot more books. He’d turned what had been a cargo bay into something between a library and a museum, with shelves full of boxes, books, and carefully labeled specimens, all of it sorted in some way that only made sense to me.

I followed the sound of rustling pages to a bench on the side of the room, where my dad was standing over a half-dozen open books and looking between them, making notes on scratch paper.

I cleared my throat. “What are you working on?” I asked. I didn’t know what else to even open with.

“I’m re-translating a text from an ancient type of minotauran, and some of the phrases are very difficult to parse, so I’m cross-referencing several other contemporary works.” He flipped a page and we lapsed into uncomfortable silence.

I tapped a hoof, waiting for a reaction.

“So I’m back from my apparent death,” I tried. Maybe he just didn’t recognize my voice.

Dad glanced back at me and gave me one look up and down.

“Worrying about you wouldn’t help in any way,” Dad said. He adjusted his glasses and went back to what he was reading. “I’m happy you’re alive. I’ve also made almost no progress at all in finding the Exodus White, so you can leave.”

“What?” I frowned. “Why?”

“Because I can’t pull answers out of my flank!” Dad snapped. “I’m so happy that after years you decide to annoy me just to see if I have results!”

“What the buck are you talking about?!” I shouted back at him.

He scoffed and stood up, taking off his glasses and using them to point at me accusingly. “I know why you’re here. You’ve been away doing Celestia knows what for years and you pop in just to see if I’m useful for a change!”

I was at a total loss for words. I didn’t even know how to start to respond to that.

“That’s what I thought,” he huffed. “Archaeology is a science. It’s about careful study and building a hypothesis, not going on half-baked adventures. All you’ll find that way is trouble!”

“I found the Exodus White,” I said flatly. “And the Exodus Black. And Seaquestria. I wasn’t even looking for that one, I just ended up there.”

Dad froze in place and I could feel the thoughts working their way through his mind. He was struggling to comprehend what he was being told. He went all the way through confused and into disbelief and then there was a sudden hot flash of all-consuming rage.

He slapped me. His hoof cracked against my cheek, and I don’t just mean it made a sharp sound, I mean it split. He hissed in pain and clutched his hoof close to his chest.

“You’re just like your mother,” he groaned. “This is exactly what she always did. She’d go off and come back with amazing discoveries that had no value at all, because all she cared about was the fame and excitement and not the work!”

“Don’t compare me to her,” I said.

“Why not? I bet you even like Polar Orbit better too, just like--”

I didn’t let him finish that. I punched him in the snout to establish dominance. He reacted the way any pony might when encountering an armored vehicle at high speed. He went flying into one of his bookshelves, a half-dozen boxes and rocks falling down around him. A glass jar with a sample of some clouds smashed over his head. Blood poured from his nose and a cut above his eye.

For the first time, he didn’t look at me with disdain or disappointment. Some tiny part of his brain that wasn’t thinking about ancient languages or cloud strata realized that I was practically twice his size and stronger than his imagination.

I seethed, breathing through teeth that felt like fangs while I glared at a pony who was being consumed by something I belatedly realized was terror.

There were a hundred things I could have said. I could have apologized. I could have helped him clean up. I could have given him a warning, or told him how we could fix things. I could have yelled at him and told him off.

“You’re pathetic,” I hissed. I wasn’t even conscious of deciding to move, I just felt my hooves carry me to the door, and I decided they were making a smarter decision than I could have made on my own. I walked out and slammed the door shut behind me, hard enough that I was sure he’d need help getting it open again.

“...Are you okay?” Destiny asked.

Oh right. They’d been waiting outside.

I put on a fake smile and looked over at Destiny and Quattro. “I’ll be fine,” I said. I sort of believed it. “I don’t think I’ll be visiting again.”

“I’m sorry,” Destiny said quietly.

“It’s not your fault,” I said.

Quattro looked down at her hooves for a moment, then up at me. “There’s a washroom down the hallway if you want to splash some water on your face. We’ll go on ahead.”

“Thanks,” I said, still trying to sound cheerful. “I’ll catch up.”

Quattro nodded and walked down the corridor. I went the other direction, but I didn’t make it to the washroom. My legs went wobbly and I fell against the wall, sliding down the bulkhead to the deck. On my knees, I started crying and I wasn’t even sure why.

Comments

[Thought Prism]

Oof. This went from silly to sad in seconds. There's not a single shred of familial love left in Red's heart, I guess. Even Lemon seems to care for Chamomile more, and I'm pretty sure she tried to kill her.

Still, a space arc? What, is there a second secret installation on the moon we need to worry about?

[star1wars3]

“I’m so happy that after years you decide to annoy me just to see if I have results!”

At first I was confused, it seemed like Chamomile's father really did care about her in the past and while he did have trouble showing it, her not being dead would be big enough to show. Looking back at that conversation though kind of makes me think someone might've lied to him about what exactly happened to Chamomile, to what end I'm not sure.

[Just a tree]

He seems sort of delusional, comparing his daughter, who's been gone for years, with his wife who's been gone even longer. Living in the past, but maybe it's impossible for him to do otherwise, if the only thing he really knows is archeology.

[Reese]

"those uniforms, that’s for use,” Cube nodded"
"those uniforms, that’s for sure,” Cube nodded"?

Aw...

[Ahsoka Tano]

So are we going to arrive at Thunderhead just in time to see Blackjack destroy it? :P