Aristocrats, Bureaucrats and Other Criminals

by Phosphor

Child of the Omnissiah

The sun was at its height as the group made their way into the dense forest. Twilight was grateful to get out of the open, with the canopy providing a comforting barrier against the cloudless sky. Progress was slow, the undergrowth was thick, and Twilight’s frail body struggled to keep up with the group’s pace over the rough terrain. Thankfully they had found a rough path that cut through the worst of the underbrush, and to Twilight’s relief still provided shelter from the open sky.

Twilight watched as Rainbow hacked her way through the underbrush with a large knife held in her augmented foreleg. “Those are some impressive augments, where did you get them?”

“What, these?” Rainbow tapped her right forehoof. “Yeah, they’re pretty useful. Part of what I got for signing up. Helps me use the dials and stuff.”

“It looked like a lot of the ponies on your ship were augmented too. Is it common practice on your station?

Rainbow seemed confused that that this could even be a question. “I mean, yeah. Have you seen a station where it isn’t? I couldn’t give you a number, but I bet at least half of everypony has at least something, as long as they can afford it, or the place they work for pays for it.”

“That seems awfully generous.”

“Eh…” Rainbow shrugged. “Might be easy to forget when you can just use your weird magic for everything, but you need to be able to hold stuff, and you can’t exactly use your hooves.” Rainbow attempted to pick a stone off the ground with her natural forehoof, which unsurprisingly didn’t move. “I’m not complaining or anything. Just makes you wonder why the tech-priests made everything so fiddly to use.”

“It’s a fascinating thought!” Twilight said through exhausted breaths. “They said that ponies are one of the few creatures of the galaxy that evolved without some form of natural grabbing limb.”

“And that means?” Rainbow suddenly realised that she had invited a history lesson. Unfortunately, she realised too late to stop Twilight, who was ready to take full advantage of an opportunity to talk about her favourite subject.

“It’s considered one of the major proofs of the Empress’ divinity! If all the xenos we found have some form of grabbing limb, then it must be evidence of our inherent superiority. Now a common follow up question is whether the Empress created us in Her own image of perfection. Or, instead, that She found a primitive community of ponies and was so impressed by our inherent superiority, decided to guide us into the stars.”

“What’s with the lecture… Look I’m glad that She uplifted us from eating dirt or whatever we did before She arrived, but I don’t really care about the specifics, especially not right now.”

Rainbow stopped suddenly causing Twilight to bump into her.

Rarity lowered her voice. “What is it, is there something there?”

“I don’t know. What do you think made this?” Rainbow pointed to a trail of flattened and broken plants a few meters ahead of them.

“Definitely something big, you can see it’s trampled most of the bushes. Some of these trees seemed damaged too.” Twilight shook her head again in a vain attempt to stop another insect landing on it.

Rarity pulled out her pistol and loaded it. “Well that is a reassuring thought.”

Twilight felt something at the edge of her senses. “I can feel the ground moving.”

Both Rainbow and Rarity swivelled their ears. Eventually Rarity spoke up, “I am afraid I cannot hear a thing.”

“No not hear, feel.”

“I see. Can you tell if this mysterious creature is going to be a danger of us?”

Twilight tried to move her perception “I can only sense it’s movement. At a guess it is quite big.”

Rarity crouched down and moved towards cover. “I’ll take your word for it. Rainbow, keep an eye out behind us. We do not want to be surrounded.”

Rainbow saluted and flew behind a bush. Twilight awkwardly crouched near to Rarity.

The sound of stomping slowly grew stronger to the point Rarity could hear it. A bush in the distance was trampled down as a sentinel walker burst from the underbrush. The quadrupedal machine stopped abruptly and turned to face the group.

“What the…” Before Rainbow had a chance to finish, the machine crouched down and charged towards the group.

“Shoot the driver,” Rarity yelled out, before quickly ducking back into cover.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but there isn’t any driver in there” Rainbow retorted.

Rarity gawped at the sight. “What foul sorcery is this?”

Rainbow circled the sentinel, trying to fire a few rounds into its exposed cockpit, but the bullets bounced harmlessly of its hull. The sentinel did not move to track Rainbow, seemingly only conducting the most basic combat manoeuvres. Attempting to take advantage of this Rainbow paused to aim a shot. Unfortunately she underestimated how close she was, and was caught out when the power claw lunged for her. She flapped her wings a moment too late as the claw caught the edge of her armour, trapping it in its vice-like grip.

Twilight panicked, she had never been trained how to use her abilities in combat. She focused. The rest of the world faded from her vision until she could only see her target. Arcs of unstable lightning erupted from her staff, striking the flank of the walker, causing the hydraulics to freeze. It tried to turn to face this new threat but one of its legs collapsed causing the machine to fall to the ground.

Rainbow took the opportunity to pull herself free from the power claw, quickly picking up her fallen autogun. “Thanks for the save there. That was close.”

“It’s not destroyed yet” Rarity cried out. The sentinel was shakily standing back up, lightning still sparking across its hull “Rainbow, look out!” But to Twilight’s horror it was charging straight towards her.

The force of the blow knocked her to the ground. She felt an explosion of pain spread across her barrel as she crashed into the ground. She tried to get to her hooves, but she could barely see. One of the feet of the sentinel slowly lifted above her head. She could hear shouting from the others, but a new voice cried out.

“Angel! Stop!" the sentinel immediately stopped in position, its foot still uncomfortably hovering over Twilight. The voice sounded feminine, but was quite clearly coming from an artificial speaker. Twilight limply rolled herself towards the sound to see a red-cloaked tech-priest galloping towards her.

“I’m so sorry. Please tell me Angel didn’t injure you. He can get defensive, and I didn't expect him to run off so far.” Apparently this was normal behaviour.

The mare pulled back her hood. One natural and six, smaller, synthetic eyes stared at Twilight. Much of her face was covered by a rebreather, but her yellow coat could still be seen in places, and her pink mane was clearly synthetic. A pair of tendril-like mechadendrite prosthetics emerged from a hole in the cloak on her back, alongside a shoulder mounted servo-arm, creating a very intimidating presence. A presence that was entirely ruined by the mare’s non-stop apologies.

“Is anything broken? I don’t have any medical equipment but I might have something to replace it,” her voice was a highly synthesised, muffled tone. One of the mechadendrites, with what could charitably be called medical equipment attached to it, hovered threateningly close to Twilight’s slightly bleeding foreleg.

Twilight quickly pulled it back. “I’m fine, thank you. Just, uh… let me catch my breath.”

Startled by Twilight’s sudden movement, the tech-priest made a startled “eep” and fell back on her haunches.

“Umm… are you ok?” Twilight wasn’t sure who was more scared, the tech-priest or her. She carefully held out a hoof, though still kept clear of the mechadendrites, which were now hovering defensively around the mare.

“Oh! thank you.” The mare took Twilights hoof and stood back up. There was a strange crackling sound, almost like a cough. “Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve had to use my voice box. There isn’t anypony other than the bandits out here.” It was quite unnerving hearing somepony’s voice come from somewhere other than their mouth.

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow exclaimed as she galloped towards them.

“Rainbow? Wha-” Fluttershy was even more surprised to see the captain’s consort approaching her. “Duchess Rarity. What a pleasure to meet you… uh, out here.” She dropped into a deep bow and gestured for Angel to do the same, which he begrudgingly did.

Rarity looked at the mare and Sentinel Powerlifter bowing before her. “Right. Thank you. While I am glad for this little reunion,” Rarity said, her voice somewhere between sarcasm and genuine sincerity, “I do not want to wait around for something more dangerous to find us. We are still stuck on this ghastly planet with no vox.”

“Oh! I have something that might help with that, but we’ll need to walk back to my camp, if that’s ok with you. It’s not far.” Fluttershy suddenly noticed the stitching on Rainbow’s barrel. “Oh no! Were you hurt when you crash landed?

“Oh that? Yeah,” Rainbow eyed Fluttershy’s mechadendrites with some suspicion. “I don’t need any more field treatment, right?”

“No, the stitches are holding well. They look very good quality.”

Rarity gave Rainbow a smug look. Rainbow stuck her tongue out and made a mocking voice under her breath.

“Sergeant, how do you know this pony?” Rarity tried to move conversation on.

“Yeah, when I was in pilot training back on Cloudsdale Station, she was part of the cog-fillies who looked after the planes and stuff. We came over with a couple of friends to the Volpone flotilla a few years back.” Rainbow shot a confused glance at Angel. “Wait how come he didn’t recognise me?”

Angel pretended not to hear and slowly backed away.

“Angel Bunny… you must be more careful. Somepony could get really hurt.” Fluttershy gave him a hard look.

“Bunny?” Rarity stared up at the Sentinel in confusion. She didn’t know what a ‘bunny’ was supposed to look like, but she had imagined them to be, well, smaller. She shook her head and re-joined the conversation, “Regardless of your enthusiastic guard, I see little reason to distrust you. Would you kindly lead the way, time is of the essence.”

“I can also contact my enclave, as I am still attuned to their frequency. I could tell Captain Blueblood about your situation through them, if you want?”

“I think it would be best if this stayed an ‘unofficial’ matter.” Rarity quickly replied. “Not to discredit your offer, but the more ponies hear of this, the more paperwork and other such ghastly things find their way into my life. I am sure you can understand.”

Fluttershy didn’t look like she did at all. “Umm… ok.”

“I don’t think I caught your name, Ms…?”

“Fluttershy, Reclaimator Adept of the Genator order.”

“I am afraid I am not familiar with the Orders of the Mechanicus.”

“It means she does maintenance and tries to fix old stuff,” Rainbow cut in.

Twilight’s ears pricked up at the mention. She checked Spike was still secure and made a note to talk to Fluttershy as soon as she could.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Rarity offered a hoof. “I see you already know Sergeant Dash,” she continued after Fluttershy shook it, “and this is Lady Twilight. She is our esteemed guest at the moment.”

Fluttershy’s face paled slightly. She turned to face the sentinel. “Angel, while I appreciate you trying to protect me, you can’t go running off on your own. You can apologise to Lady Twilight by helping her get back to our campsite.”

The sentinel reluctantly lowered itself and Twilight gingerly stepped into the cabin.