Chapter 33
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
March 23rd, Gregorian Calendar
Fyrenn decided that sometimes even the heat of combat was less tiring that a particularly stringent debriefing.
As soon as he and Neyla had been rescued, he had first demanded to know about Stan and Skye's condition. He had been sufficiently assured that they were not only awake, and improving, but frantic for news of him and Neyla. Then he had turned to baser needs.
Waving off all attempts at medical examination, treatment, debriefing, or any other heckling, Fyrenn had simply sought out the nearest working shower, and then the nearest available bed.
After a blissful nine more hours of undisturbed rest, he had been ushered onto a transport VTOL by a pair of humorless Military Policemen, and packed off to Seattle.
The entire morning had then been spent in high level debriefings with more five star JRSF and Military generals than he cared to count.
Inasmuch as the point of the hearing was to collect, organize, and distill information from the parties most heavily involved in the defense of Vancouver; Fyrenn managed to work out several interesting pieces of news to satisfy his own curiosity.
Based on other testimony, and the nature of several questions, he discovered that there had been no fatalities on the Council. The HLF had been too focused on containing Celestia to deal with such 'lesser priority targets.'
The Princess herself had been spirited away in the dead of night for a return journey to Canterlot. There had been no official word on her condition, save to note that she was cogent, but dangerously drained.
Fyrenn also learned that the attacks in New York, San Francisco, and Singapore had ultimately been repelled, and routed, albeit at great cost.
Finally, he had managed to come by an initial casualty estimate. An estimated seven, to eleven thousand dead across all four attacked cities, with two thirds of that number belonging to the military.
From a conversation with one brigadier general in particular, Fyrenn guessed that the HLF was about to pay for its failed assault in spades. There were rumors of everything from a complete top-down review of military brass, to martial law across half of North America, and even a return to televised execution by firing squad for anyone found to be complicit in the attack.
Earthgov seemed to be treating the matter less as an act of terrorism, and more as an all out act of undeclared war from an equal aggressor. And rightly so, in Fyrenn's opinion.
He knew for a fact that there was serious talk of re-organizing military command completely, with an emphasis on transferring assets and authority to the JRSF, and expanding the military's power to intervene without Council approval.
The Council itself had been moved to a secure bunker somewhere in Europe for a marathon series of emergency sessions.
New York, Singapore, Vancouver, and San Francisco had been transformed into full on miniature military nation states.
Whatever central command said was the law of the land, and not even local political authorities were being allowed to countermand their directives.
Some parts of the Northamerizone transit network had even been shut down by executive military order.
The populace wanted answers, and reassurances. The media wanted a sensation. The military wanted blood in the streets, up to the necks of the condemned.
Fyrenn simply wanted a few days to breathe.
At some point close to half past ten in the evening, the committee finally ran out of coherent questions to ply him with. Fyrenn found himself abruptly dismissed, and left entirely to his own devices.
He wandered the halls of the building aimlessly for half an hour, doing his best to locate his companions. The facility had originally been designed to host business conventions, but as soon as the relief efforts to Vancouver had begun in earnest, the space had been transformed overnight into a military command center.
There were guards, fully kitted out in heavy suppression gear, wielding full sized tactical RAC-7s, stationed at almost every corridor junction and doorway. The juxtaposition of the kevlar, plastic, titanium with subdued lighting, plush carpet, and faux leather was jarring.
The air of paranoia, and rage, was palpable.
Fyrenn himself felt a strong impetus to empathize. He still technically held an Earthgov military commission, and he had served for many years before Conversion. The attack felt personal to him on a myriad of levels.
At long last, the red Gryphon located two of his friends in the building's cafeteria. Due to the lateness of the hour, the space was almost entirely deserted. Stan and Skye had pulled together two smaller tables in the center of the room, and unloaded what looked like the facility's entire dry-goods consignment for the day onto the surface.
Predictably, Carradan had set apart nearly three quarters of the food for himself, leaving Skye to dig into a more reasonably sized portion.
Fyrenn chuckled as he sidled up, plopping down on his haunches and laying his head to rest on a clear space in the midst of the packages.
"Anything decent in here?"
Carradan snorted, gulping down an enormous muzzle-full of freeze dried vegetable mix.
"No. But food is food, of which I have not had any since yesterday morning."
Skye rolled her eyes, and picked idly at a small pile of haycakes, her tone as flat as the dried pre-packaged plant product.
"Gee. What a shame. However will you go on."
Carradan paused, and glared good naturedly at the Unicorn.
"Hey, listen sunshine, even major general tank commander red-baron fuzzybritches over there will tell you; An army marches on its stomach."
The rotund Pegasus plowed into another packet of MREs, before pausing, and glancing up at Fyrenn suspiciously.
"So. What *exactly* happened to you after you left us to get our ears in order? I heard a rumor you were buried under six hundred tons of real estate insurance nightmares with Neyla... How was that?"
Fyrenn pierced his friend with a nearly-lethal glare.
"Dusty. Cramped. Unpleasant. Finish your vegetables while the grown-ups talk for a little bit."
As Carradan continued to stare suspiciously, Fyrenn turned his gaze to Skye, and smiled, his voice immediately softening.
"So what have you heard so far? Any idea where everyone else is?"
The Unicorn shook her head dolefully.
"No idea short of an educated guess. Probably tied up in an endless snore-fest like you were. Bureaucracy is kind of like science, in that its pretty easy to predict. Main difference being that science is useful."
Fyrenn snorted, and toyed with a synthetic meat strip before ripping off a piece, and swallowing it whole.
"I almost started to feel as if I was on trial for a bit there... They seem to have a talent for asking lots of pointless questions, and answering none of the important ones in return."
Carradan belched, and nodded as he interjected once more.
"Yeah, like 'what happens now?' Are they gonna send us somewhere for more boring jaw jacking? Or can we go home already?"
Fyrenn raised an eyebrow, and shrugged.
"You can go home if you like. I have no intention of following. If the military is going to have its pound of flesh, I want to be at the head of the collections team. I charge heavy interest, and the HLF is long overdue."
Skye chuckled, and raised a hoof in protest.
"Easy there commander bloodyfeathers."
The red Gryphon squinted, and shook his head slowly.
"Nicknames? Again? You two have a serious problem. You should get that checked."
He paused, and stared down at the synthetic food in his right claw. With a sinking sense of nostalgia, mixed with depression, he realized that he was slowly coming to despise it. The ration had once been his favorite snack food in the world, but years of acclimation to Equestrian meat had stilted his taste decidedly in favor of fresh, healthy, natural meat products.
He shook his head again, and sighed.
"I am getting tired of all this. The bureaucracy I mean. And the politics. And the media, because Heaven knows they're probably pumping the public full of lies, half truths, panic, and bloodlust..."
Fyrenn glanced up at Carradan, and smiled wanly, his ears flattening slightly in embarrassment.
"No offense Stan."
Carradan winked.
"None taken buddyo. I admit, I was part of that whole rat race once... And I realize I hated it almost as much then as I do now. You'll get no arguments from this peanut gallery."
Fyrenn nodded, and sighed again, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly.
"I think... That this may be the last time for me."
Skye's magic abruptly cut out, midway to lifting a haycake to her lips. The flat wafer dropped to the floor almost as swiftly as her jaw fell open.
"Hang on... Say *what* now?!"
Fyrenn inclined his head.
"You heard me. I think this is it for me. In terms of visiting this planet. I love a lot of things about Earth. I have friends here, good friends... But... I guess it's just because I've spent so much time as a Knight now... I can't adjust back to being in a command structure that's made up more of red tape when it counts, but has no oversight when it doesn't."
There was a long, uncomfortably somber silence, during which the only noise was the hum of the lights, and the crunch of Stan chewing contemplatively.
The red Gryphon laid his head back down on the table, and closed his eyes, continuing in a softer, exhausted tone.
"I think maybe when this mess is sorted out, I'll suspend my commission with Earthgov. Start looking for a more permanent living situation in the Kingdoms. See what kind of interesting trouble I can get into on behalf of the crown---"
Stan shook his head and flared both wings in distress as he cut his friend off sharply.
"Slow down there. You're just tired and sore is all. Don't make any set decisions until you've had time to think it through, ok?"
Fyrenn nodded silently, his beak rapping comically against the stainless steel surface of the table in the process.
He rose slowly, and stretched, the mannerism evocative of nothing so much as an enormous housecat, or a lion. He flared first his right wing, and then his left, working the joint carefully to undo some of the cramping.
"Alright then. I'm going to go shower. Again. Until the hot water tank is drained. With the water set to two hundred degrees. And then sleep until something interesting comes up. They put me in room two forty five A. Come wake me if you find out where everyone else is."
Skye smiled and nodded.
"Goodnight admiral alacritous avian."
Carradan chuckled, and threw off a sloppy mock salute.
"Sleep well general gobbledeygook."
Fyrenn moaned, and slammed the door.
"Goodnight *children.*"
"Starting from today, there will be a complete restructuring of all departments. All sections. All command staff. Every project, every expenditure, and every communique will be audited. In triplicate."
Mr. Churchill's words produced not only absolute silence in the room, but a level of fear and tension that could practically be seen, hanging under the dull glow of the fluorescent illumination fixtures.
Never in the entire history of the front had a member of the HLF cabinet committed suicide. Mr. Stalin's death, and the subsequent inevitable revelation of his true identity, had sent shockwaves through the entire organization.
A Special committee had been formed simply to attempt to deal with the matter of covering up his death, to prevent Earthgov from discovering the betrayal of one of their top command officers.
Everyone in the room knew that, should the government come to realize how deep their infiltration went, the organization would be effectively finished. Their continued stability was, in Mr. Utah's opinion, balanced on a knife edge.
They had expended over seventy percent of their major functional military assets and fully trained troops, to no avail. If anything, they had succeeded in providing Earthgov with an unprecedented wedge to turn public sentiment away from pro-Human movements and mentality.
The wheels of the news media, greased amply by the scent of blood, had begun to spin quite swiftly. Already there were rumblings amongst the major outlets. Stories would soon be running that would snidely equate any pro-Humanism, or even the slightest anti-Equestrianism, to murder and pillaging and psychotic tendencies.
The public would look for something reachable, quantifiable, convenient, and tangible to blame, as they always did. Mr. Churchill's words mirrored his thoughts almost exactly.
"We are set upon from all sides as a result of this. The media will crucify us. The military will throw absolutely everything they have into finding us. Their internal security will be stepped up to the point that several of us may be unable to communicate with the Front at all after tomorrow, for an extended period."
The man sighed, and began to pace at the head of the immense steel table. Behind him, on the room's main holoscreen, muted news reels played in tiled windows, offering a sobering backdrop that reinforced his every statement.
"We are critically low on useful assets. We are in danger of losing the majority of our general sector public sympathies. We are in grave danger of being discovered in full by the government. I want to know how the *hell* this happened. I want options for a rebound strategy."
The man pinched the bridge of his nose between his right thumb and forefinger, gesturing with his left hand towards the cabinet as a whole.
"As of right now, you are all disavowed and terminated. Each of you will have precisely ten minutes to convince both myself, and the group, as to why you should be reinstated and allowed to live. When that's done, whomever is left will hold a referendum on who will take Mr. Stalin's place, and we will then work on a plan to fill the vacated position in the relevant cabinet."
Mr. Churchill paused, and glanced up.
"If any of you fail to present a good argument on your behalf, there will not be a chance for appeal. So speak quickly, and eloquently. These may be your last words."
"Okay then ladies and germs, eyes front!"
Aston's voice brought a halt to all sound in the room. She glanced out over the workstations, and smiled.
"As of right now, as I'm sure most of you are already aware; This is command central for evacuation, and security in New York! Fort Hamilton is more or less a smoking crater, thanks to a pretty large lizard throwdown, and has been declared a total loss as of today. So. ConSec Headquarters is now officially Joint Command headquarters for the northeast Amerizone, until the end of the month. Congratulations. Now lets make sure everything is running as smoothly as possible by the time Hutch is back in the big office."
Conversation, and work, started up again. First as a dull murmur, then as a controlled roar. The ConSec situation room had originally been designed to host fifty people at most. With some creative restructuring, the capacity had been pushed into the range of one hundred.
With Fort Hamilton gone, and no other suitable command centers close enough to the action, the space had become the defacto home for the military, evacuation coordination, and the JRSF regional command, in addition to its continued duties as a ConSec post.
Aston paused to survey the room's new layout, and familiarize herself with the location of the most important desks and offices.
The room's original central holotable had been removed, replaced by several added wall screens. Nine tenths of the floor space was now given over to waist-high cubicles, each seating three personnel from a specific division.
The inner edge of each cubicle was a wraparound desk serving all three officers, with a miniature holotank in the center.
With a smirk, the Commander watched an unlucky Gryphon attempt to squeeze himself into the space with a minimum of discomfort. Whomever had designed the new layout clearly had very little concern for ergonomics, for any species.
She sighed, and leaned against a support strut. Four years ago the room had been staffed with forty five Humans and five Ponies. Now it was filled with fifty Humans, thirty Ponies, and twenty Gryphons.
Aston shook her head, and murmured to herself as she gathered the necessary energy to return to work.
"The more things change..."
Veritas shook her head slowly as she examined the report before her. The extra large DaTab was filled to the brim with statistics, projections, charts, and useful summation paragraphs heading each section.
Every scrap of data the PER had on the Vancouver incident.
She paused, tossed her navy hued mane, and glanced up at the white, sectional dome of the ceiling. Mulling it over, she decided that the short summation of the computer's contents was, overall, positive.
To most, it would seem as if the HLF's mistakes had played directly into the PER's hooves, by some strange twist of fate, or blind luck.
Veritas knew better. Nothing so well timed ever happened without a governing plan.
Intense public backlash to Humanism would undoubtedly arise. Temporary spikes in Conversion rates from people seeking to escape their fear of Human violence and mortality would bolster the numbers of the faithful.
And a renewed Earthgov focus on the HLF as a primary threat vector, at the expense of resources previously devoted to the PER would free the organization to act more willfully.
To say nothing of the fact that the HLF's attack had, for all intents and purposes, accomplished one of the final primary operational goals in her grand scheme.
The not-quite-Unicorn smiled, and rose from behind her desk. Only one loose end remained to be pruned.
Her office, like every room in the underground complex, was windowless. All she had to do, in order to be alone, was to speak the requisite words.
"Computer; Seal the room."
A sharp clank, a soft whine, and a hiss told her that the door had been magnetically sealed. The nigh-imperceptible hum of the room's security devices abruptly vanished as well, leaving her with only the thrum of the ventilation duct for company.
Veritas sat back on her haunches, closed her eyes, and allowed the world to fall away as the clock struck midnight.
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
March 24th, Gregorian Calendar
Fyrenn hesitated as his right index talon hovered over the DaTab's surface. He knew if he depressed the softly blinking key, that he would cement himself consciously to a trying ordeal that he had been putting off for decades.
After a moment of silence, he realized that if he waited any longer, he might never handle the issue at all. And he knew it needed to be handled if he wanted to make a clean start.
He pressed the key quickly, then switched off the small computer, and slid it across the counter, trying to get it as far away from him as he could.
He groaned, stretched, and let himself quietly out into the hallway.
In spite of the fact that it was six in the morning, the facility was humming with life. As the red Gryphon made his way to the stairwell he counted no fewer than seven high ranking officers, three couriers, and two dozen guard patrols.
Fyrenn cast a swift glance at the bank of lifts adjoining the corridor's far wall, and immediately dismissed the idea of trying to cram his exhausted grumpy self into one with a dozen exhausted, grumpy Humans.
He pushed open the old style swing-door, and took the stairs eight at a time until he had reached the ground floor.
Initially, he made a beeline for the cafeteria, reasoning that he stood the best chance of meeting a familiar face there.
A welcome voice interrupted him halfway across the lobby.
"Fyrenn! Out here."
He skidded sideways several steps, then loped towards the center's main doors. There he found Kephic, poised at the top of the building's stairs.
"We decided to eat breakfast at an established purveyor of *actual* food. For everyone's sanity."
Fyrenn smirked, and nodded, "Lead on. I could certainly stand to stomach some 'actual food.' "
For a moment, the brothers walked in silence, enjoying the simple fact that they were alive, and somewhat rested. Seattle was already beginning to grind to life as the sunrise turned the eastern horizon a lurid shade of bluish green.
Though the pair normally would have flown, they decided to walk instead by some form of unspoken consent. For the sake of an unusual perspective.
The sidewalks were already well on their way to being crammed, and the roads were not far behind. Everywhere the sounds and smells of Human and Pony life inundated the air. Fyrenn found the effect comforting, and judged Kephic's reaction to be similar, based on his small half-smile.
"So. Did they grill you too?"
Kephic nodded and stepped smoothly to the side to allow a mother extra space to push her stroller.
"Incessantly. After midnight, I informed them that I was finished, and that any objectors could feel free to attempt to restrain me at any time, and that the last person to do so only had to remain in the intensive ward for three months."
The speckled Gryphon smirked, and glanced up at the city's shimmering skyline as he finished his thought.
"There were no volunteers."
Fyrenn shook his head slowly, smiling and doing his best to keep a chuckle out of his voice.
"Golly gee. I can't imagine why."
Another long silence followed as the two Gryphons meandered through a crosswalk. Fyrenn realized that the image must have been rather comical for an external observer. Two enormous leoavinids interspersed with smaller Equines and Humans as they all went about very droll, normal, morning activities.
Kephic glanced up once more, and his gaze fixed intently on a distinctive shape in the sky. He tilted his head in confusion, and Fyrenn chuckled, realizing what had gotten his brother's attention.
"It's called the 'Space Needle.' It is the city's oldest standing, and most famous, building. At the time it was built, it was probably the tallest thing within three thousand miles."
Kephic snorted, and tilted his head in the other direction. The older structure was dwarfed by newer skyscrapers. Lit from beneath by a series of newer holo lights, it had a fantastical 'retro' aspect.
"It looks like your fictional 'flying saucers.' I suppose that is why it has garnered so much popularity?"
Fyrenn shrugged his wings, and sighed.
"Who knows? Apparently it used to be a big symbol of the Pacific Northwest. Now it's one of the most famous historical sites on this side of the Northamerizone. But you're right. It does look like a UFO."
The red Gryphon shook his head, and quickened his pace to avoid becoming caught in another crosswalk, as the lights changed.
He glanced at his brother, and raised an eyebrow as he changed the subject.
"So have you given much thought to where we go from here? I am not sticking around to be interrogated again, and I suspect everyone else shares the sentiment."
Kephic held up one talon briefly, and smiled.
"Aaah, but there is no need to give any thought to the matter. Hutch left a message for us with the regional communications division late last night. He wants us to get in touch with him this morning."
Fyrenn smiled widely, and nodded.
"It sounds like he's improving then. I heard it from good authority that he had it pretty rough during the attack."
The two Gryphons rounded a corner, and Fyrenn immediately spotted the rest of the group. The two Ponies were firmly ensconced in chairs on either side of a café table. Neyla and Varan were sitting on their haunches, directly on the surface of the sidewalk.
Not only did their heads still reach above those of the Human patrons seated in nearby chairs, but their added bulk had more or less closed the sidewalk beyond the café.
Fyrenn's smile widened, and he plopped into position beside Varan, licking the edge of his beak in anticipation.
"What's on the menu?"
Neyla returned the smile, and pointed to a chalkboard sign near the door.
"Fresh bacon, made from real Equestrian wild pig."
Varan nodded sagely, sipping gingerly at a carafe of coffee as he furthered the explanation.
"This is the only establishment within reasonable distance that serves fresh meat products."
Fyrenn gratefully snatched up a carafe of his own. Apparently the others had thoughtfully ordered already on his behalf.
He guzzled down a quarter of the container's contents, before nodding and inhaling slowly.
"Good choice. I'm not in the mood for ration packs, and almost everything else I've been eating the last three months has been either raw, or half-cooked."
While raw meat was an accepted and enjoyed part of Gryphic cuisine, Fyrenn had often compared a Gryphon eating nothing but raw meat to a Human eating nothing at all but brown bread. In Kephic's words, 'very tiresome after the third week.'
Neyla grunted, and blinked.
"You can certainly repeat that for emphasis. I still can't begin to fathom how you survived on those 'M R E' bags for years at a time."
Fyrenn chuckled, and took another long draught of his coffee, savoring the dark roast with a sound midway between a grunt, a purr, and a sigh. He jerked a thumb talon first at Kephic, then at Varan.
"Survived? I loved those damn things. It took these guys three years to open my eyes to the truth. I can't believe I was so deluded."
A long moment of silence descended. A Human waiter came, making several trips, and dropped off the party's plates. Heaps of bacon for the Gryphons, hot barley pancakes for the Ponies, and fresh brown bread for all.
At last, Fyrenn noticed that Kephic's beak was hanging open. Carradan appeared to have simply locked up like a malfunctioning computer. Skye was blinking rapidly, though her muzzle was still closed tightly.
Even Varan seemed mildly surprised, though anyone who didn't know him well would have had trouble discerning that fact.
Fyrenn shrugged, and bolted down his first three strips of meat in a single gesture.
"What?"
Skye inclined her head, squinted her eyes, and spoke, having managed to regain her speech faculties the swiftest.
"Please explain to me how I got snatched up out of my bed by aliens and deposited in an alternate universe without my knowledge? Because that's the only explanation I can see."
Carradan scrunched his eyes shut, and then opened them wide. He repeated the gesture several more times, and then shook his head slowly.
"An alternate universe where these two never had a falling out? Yeah I can see that. It sure as buck makes more sense than any of my ideas. Unless..."
The Pegasus narrowed his eyes, and leaned forward, glaring at Fyrenn. In a mock conspiratorial whisper, shielding his words with one wing, Carradan spoke directly to Fyrenn.
"Did you two... *Kiss* while you were--- EEP!"
The words truncated into a distressed squeal as the talons of Neyla's right claw closed firmly around the Pony's neck. The Gryphoness continued to eat casually with her left claw, not even deigning to shift her gaze to her distressed friend.
Carradan rasped a hurried apology.
"Sorry! Sorry! Shutting up now!"
Neyla released her mock death grip, picked up her own carafe, and took a long sip of her coffee. Fyrenn thought he detected a suppressed hint of a smirk on her beak.
Varan cracked a rare smile, and glanced at Carradan ruefully as he provided his own thoughts on the matter.
"Sometimes it is best to simply take gifts without an overabundance of questions, and instead have faith."
Kephic shook his head slowly, and began at last to delve into his own meal as he chimed in.
"Failing that, you could always just keep your own mortality in mind."
Skye snorted, and returned to inhaling and savoring the aroma of her breakfast. The act was, Fyrenn had noticed, a ritual of hers in the mornings.
"Him? Learn to keep his yap shut? That will be the day."
Fyrenn worked his way through the majority of his plate, enjoying the crispy tang of the fresh food as his chewed with his inner beak ridge, mulled the bacon over his tongue, and swallowed in great gulps.
As he approached the end of the fare, and switched to the brown bread, he glanced up at the sky to estimate the time.
"Shouldn't we be giving Hutch a call about now?"
Skye smiled, and her horn hummed to life.
"That can be arranged! Courtesy of your personal party geek."
She lifted the flap of her saddlebag, and removed her personal DaTab, flicking out the kickstand and depositing the object gracefully into the center of the table in one smooth motion.
"I'll send you the data bill by the start of next fiscal quarter."
The Unicorn reached out with one hoof, and tapped a series of keys so swiftly, Fyrenn wondered if she had taken a typing class, or merely developed the skill as she went.
The screen switched abruptly to black, then to a spinning generic loading bauble, before finally resolving into a live image.
Fyrenn winced as he took in the scene. Hutch had propped his DaTab up on a tray. As a result, the group had an excellent view of the two casts, five dermoplast patches, and three IV tubes the General was loaded down with.
The red Gryphon spoke first.
"You look like you've been hit by a tank."
Hutch chuckled, and shook his head.
"Please. Don't make me laugh. And as I understand it from Lantry, who heard it from Sorven, who heard it from Celestia... There is a referendum to ban Gryphons from being within two hundred feet of any functioning armored combat vehicle. Something about a violation of the Geneva conventions on weapons of mass destruction. And then some statistics about the amount of damage you two did."
Fyrenn smiled, and waved a claw absently.
"Stop it. The flattery truly is unnecessary."
Hutch rolled his eyes, and struggled into a slightly more vertical sitting position.
"So I'm being told, in no uncertain terms, that I won't be allowed back to my post for at least a week. I'm also told that no one has passed down any kind of orders, requests, or suggestions to you..."
Varan nodded slowly, interjecting with a single atonal word.
"Correct."
Hutch smiled as widely as he could manage, given his circumstances.
"Good! Then ya'll wouldn't mind making your way here? Things are on the edge of going to pieces with the evacuation, local security, and logistics in general. I've lost nine tenths of my trusted staff in the mess... Laura is trying to hold things down as best she can, but we could certainly use some experienced help."
Fyrenn cast his eyes swiftly across each member of the group. He was met by receptive smiles, and outright nods in some cases.
He smiled himself, and nodded to the screen.
"I think we can arrange that sir."
The General groaned.
"You will never stop doing that will you?"
Fyrenn chuckled, "Sure I will. The day I resign my commission."
Hutch grunted, and prepared to sever the connection.
"Yeah. That'll be a reaaaalllll cold day in hell."
Earth Calendar: 2117
Equestrian Calendar: 15 AC (After Contact)
Fourth Month, Twenty Fifth Day, Celestial Calendar
It was not common knowledge to outside races, but Changelings slept.
Even in their native form, under ideal conditions in the Hive. The mechanisms driving their dreams, and subconscious brain activity were far removed from those of other organisms, but the basic concept of somnolence for cellular health was the same.
The principle applied as much to overqueen Chrysalis, as to the lowliest Drone in the smallest colony.
Chrysalis herself had endured a string of difficult nights, leading to a state of near-perpetual exhaustion. At first, the issue had been the apparent loss of the Razor Spires Hive. Some theorized a natural disaster, others a Gryphon invasion. Chrysalis had only learned the truth a day previously.
Rebellion.
The concept was so unthinkable, that the word itself in the original Changeling language had been all but lost to the sands of time. The Queen was life, and life was law. That was the mantra her mother had taught her, and it was the axiom she would teach her heir one day.
Dissent was always terminated and subsumed with such alacrity that most Drones grew up believing that it was a physical impossibility to defy an order, and live. It helped that this imagery was re-enforced by strict execution rules in the event of usurpation, insubordination, or impertinence.
Chrysalis shifted, and groaned. The thick basaltic slabs her sleeping chamber was crafted from kept all outside noise away, but they did nothing to block out the constant input of the Hive. In spite of the fact that she damped her receptivity to the streams of information, she still maintained something of a loose connection.
She never felt entirely safe unless she could ensure no one was acting without her knowledge, and blessing.
The overqueen shifted once more, and hissed reflexively.
Her dreams had, for some years, been filled with a variety of odd images that she could not accurately source. At first, she had done her best to excise the data, and embarked on a serious effort to stamp out its source.
Her investigation had come to naught, in terms of location the images' origin point. It had, however, led her to a series of memories within the Hive that she had not previously known existed. The memories had in turn led her to find, and seal, a major unforeseen hole in the Hive's defensive fortifications.
From that point on, Chrysalis had begun to treat the images as some sort of manifestation of her subconscious will within the Hive. Invariably, they led her time and again to information she desired, but had previously thought the Hive lacked.
Recently she had held hopes that the trail might offer her some sort of explanation as to the sudden infectious case of rampant rebellion that had overtaken Razor Spires.
Upon taking up her bed, the monarch had abruptly been confronted with the same phantom form that always heralded the beginning of a new series of images and memories.
The figure dashed away into the mists of her mind, and as was her custom, Chrysalis followed as swiftly as her mental avatar could.
First, the phantom led her to an image she was already familiar with. The instigator of the whole affair. A troublesome Drone who had come to call herself 'IJ.'
The Mare's image made Chrysalis livid with rage, but she did her best to suppress the emotion and keep her thoughts fixed on her ephemeral guide.
Next, the sensory ghost led her to another familiar image. The man the Humans insisted on referring to as 'Mr. Utah.' Why the men and women of the HLF insisted on such twisted, ungainly monikers, Chrysalis still couldn't fathom.
There was much she failed to understand about Humanity, but one thing she did grasp with absolute certainty; The Human Liberation Front was a means to an end. They expected her to betray them, and she expected them to betray her.
It was merely a matter of who would gain the upper hoof first, and subsequently strike first. The constant supply of captured Ponies the Front provided was an excellent supplement to dwindling emotional reserves, but it was nothing the Hive necessarily needed to survive as a whole.
Chrysalis had plans in motion to ensure that it would be of no consequence. If the HLF had managed to succeed in killing Celestia and Luna, so much the better. The thought did beg the question; Why had Chrysalis heard no news of the planned attack's results?
As she mulled over the conundrum, the phantom brought her to the next image with almost uncanny timing. As if it were providing an answer to her question.
Chrysalis watched in fascination as a deadly ballet of energies played out in the sky over Canterlot, ultimately culminating in the salvation of the city. She shook herself, and paused to wonder what Drone had been foolish enough to observe such a vital event, but not mark the memory as a major priority.
The memory presented both good tidings, and bad. It certainly seemed to Chrysalis as if the HLF had failed in at least part of its attack. But at the same time, the overqueen knew that the display she had witnessed would have doubtless drained at least one of the Royal sisters to within an inch of death.
A net tactical victory, and a great potential opportunity.
The Phantom presented Chrysalis with a final image. And abruptly, the Changeling monarch understood the point of the night's journey.
The image was, once more, of Mr. Utah. Without having to listen to the sound directly, Chrysalis was able to instantly digest the words that had been spoken.
What truly brought the pieces of the puzzle together was the moment the Drone whose memory she was viewing turned to leave the room. The Changeling in question passed before a reflective surface. A portion of a polished structural support.
And Chrysalis finally understood.
Following the logic, or lack thereof in dreams, the monarch of the Changelings never stopped to question how the Drone maintained her distinctive form on Earth. A place where even Chrysalis could not hold a simple transformative disguise for more than a half second. She never stopped to question how the Drone had managed to travel to, and from, the planet without her knowledge.
Either question would have instantly revealed the image for the falsification it so obviously was.
All Chrysalis knew, or thought she knew, was that IJ had met with Mr. Utah less than a month before she had become the erstwhile leader of the only major rebellion in Changeling history. The facts fit too well in her emotional sensibilities for her more logical concerns to take hold.
The HLF wanted the chitin excretions her kind could provide. They wanted the Changelings' infiltration skills. They wanted military aid from within Equestria.
These were all goals a rogue Hive could accomplish just as well as any other. The difference being that a rogue Hive might conceivably be easier to control for the HLF cabinet.
Chrysalis never stopped to think about the fact that IJ had been cut off from the Hive for three years. That there was no conceivable explanation, no matter how far fetched, for the way in which she had a viewed a memory that by its very nature could never have existed.
And she certainly never stopped to question the smiling purple and navy unicorn apparition as it watched the remainder of her slumbering thoughts intently from afar.
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So who is Veritas? Who looks to be the one manipulating everyone.
5198295
I really like this paragraph.
Funny thing. My character on Furcadia, Kee EnDarven AKA KeeCoyote :) was a Detective once :)
Keepony, please do not punish yourself by going to furcadia.
unless that is your fetishI think you ment Barley unless you you were trying to say they were synth.
I really do adore that Chrysalis is so culturally inoculated by her own systems of ideological control that she cannot even conceive of a rebellion based on anything except the pursuit of power. "Because all changelings are identical, and it's what I would do, so that's what it must be. A power play to replace me."
11693134
The trouble with a homogenous hive-mind...
Love to see Chrissy getting some, hehe, love.