Episode Sixty-Two Desperate Measures
EPISODE SIXTY-TWO
DESPERATE MEASURES
“Right!” The Doctor sprang away from the Console and snatched up his bag. “Ditzy, I need you to dematerialize the TARDIS as soon as we leave. Keep tabs on us with the monitor. You'll know when we need to be picked up! Sunny, you stand by. I hope we shan't need your professional expertise but you never can tell. Starry, put this on!”
He nosed open the bag and extracted one of the Perception Filter bracelets. He flipped one at me and I caught it deftly, looping it over the wrist opposite the balephaser. It was a tight fit, the links expanded to their limits and tweaking at the fur on my wrist.
He slipped his on just in front of his watch and tucked the bag with the Seal into his coat pocket as he galloped for the TARDIS door!
I caught up with him in two strides. As we hit the door I looked back straight into Sunny's shining eyes. I dithered for just a second, trying to find something, anything, assuring to say!
But she was Equestrin Strong, my darling!
“Hurry back, Love. We've got this!” She said without a quaver or a hitch, laying a hoof on the back of the soft gray Pegasus next to her.
Ditzy nodded, a stray blonde lock falling across her mis-sychronized eyes.
“Don't worry about us, Doctor!” She called out. “Just... just come back, OK?”
The Timelord paused with one hoof raised to the handle.
“We'll be back in no time!” He smiled a frankly horsey smile. “I think we've earned a trip back to Ponyville after this, don't you think? ...Wasn't there a wedding or somesuch pending?”
Ditzy's smile faltered and she suddenly seemed to remember something VERY important! She was about to say something when Tyllae, hooked head and shoulders over the edge of my collar, waved a hoof and called out.
“Don't worry! Tyllae will keep all safe! Tyllae promises, yep, yep, yep!” I didn't have to look to see her sketch that 'x' over her little heart!
I tipped Sunny a wink and blew her a kiss as The Doctor worked the latch and stepped through. I turned sideways, ducked low, and crabbed my way out behind him.
It was dark on the other side... and it stank! I could make out the Doctor standing a little ways off, using his Sonic thing like a flashlight to take in our surroundings. I sidled over next to him, bumping into and forcing to one side a table in the process. It scraped and screeched across the floor.
“Sssh!” He whispered.
I was going to make an apologetic gesture but was cut off as the TARDIS wheezed and groaned into action as it faded away!
“You're shushing me?” I hissed back at him. “They must've heard that back on the Klingon Homeworld!”
He shook his head, the green light of the Sonic in his mouth waving in an arc. He moved it to one side like Amber Rose re-positioning his pipe and spoke around it.
“As I said before, the TARDIS has its own Perception Filter. Only the people who need to hear it will pay attention to it.”
“...And the Klingons don't figure they would want to hear something invading their ship?” I demanded.
“Don't underestimate the Old Girl, Starry!” He looked around him curiously, then raised his voice. “I wonder where we are exactly...”
The Doctor had his own light. If he found or ran into something important he'd sing out. I cast my own gaze into the surrounding gloom to check out my own locale. I raised my own voice cautiously.
“You mean you don't know?” I turned slowly, keeping one hoof on the table both to keep it moving any further as well as marking its position, and scanned around.
It was more properly dim as opposed to dark. Pale orange light showed from a light strip high up along the ceiling. We were in a large room littered with tables and chairs all scattered randomly around. Some of the chairs were toppled. They were made minimally, little more than thick wire frames with unpadded seats and low backs. As my eyes grew more accustomed to the light I could see that many of them were bent and sprung.
The air was cold and damp and smelled like the inside of a Recycler hopper, the receiving side! I sniffed distastefully and got a whiff of organic rot of some sort. My eyes took in the plates and utensils on tables. There were lumps of stuff on many of them. Even in the dimness I could see they were furry!
“The Galley.” I said quietly. “We're in their Galley. Where the crew eats...” I moved over and peered a little closer at the impromptu petri dish in from of me. “... Or ate.”
Tyllae had slipped out and was keeping close. Without a word she put up a shining bubble of Celestia-Sun light. The stuff wasn't worth looking at.
“Ah! The Cafeteria then!” The Doctor put away his Sonic in favor of Tyllae's light and came to inspect what we'd found.
“... Well I must say I'm not a fan of Klingon cuisine.”
“Smells like foxy-poop!” Tyllae declared. “Yuck, yuck, yuck!”
“They're carnivores, of course.” He said matter-of-factually, wrinkling his nose as he peered more closely at the stuff.
He stretched out his head... apparently intending to grab the edge of the plate with his mouth... and thought better of it. Instead, he got his forehooves up onto the table and... somehow... picked up a fork and inserted it under the mass and flipped it over like a pancake.
The smell hit my Augmented senses hard enough to make my eyes water! Tyllae flitted back after taking one look.
“Wormies! Klingon no-goods eat wormies lika birds!”
“Gakh... they call it 'Gakh'.” The Doctor corrected her, eyeing the desiccated remains laced with dead maggots “As I recall it's best served alive. Quite the delicacy from their point of view!” He dropped the fork with a clatter and wiped his hoof on his coat, looking around.
“But not the normal bill of fare. The crew eats more simply while their Marines eat what amounts to processed yeast culture. ...This must be the Officers Dining Room.”
“The Mess.” I supplemented, standing up to get my nose farther away. I could feel my mane brush the ceiling but I was more concerned about keeping my picnic goodies back in my stomach where they belonged. “The Klingon Deep Space Fleet has a wet-Navy tradition just like Starfleet. It's called the Officer's Mess.”
“Yes, it certainly is!” He agreed. “But they don't seem particularly keen on cleaning it up.” He didn't see... or patently ignored... my grimace as he continued. “There hasn't been anyone, officer or otherwise in here for quite some time...” He ran a hoof over the table top and displayed a coating of dust.
The Mare In My Head replayed the memories of the Doctor's arrival on the Hermes and gave me a jab as she highlighted the relevant passages.
I cleared my throat and wondered as delicately as I could manage...
“Uh, Doc? When are we now?”
“I know what you're thinking!” He said with a little snap, briefly wagging a hoof at me. “As a matter of fact I've put us down right about the time or your inspired counter-attack. Even as we speak your crew should be casting their spell... Ah!”
What light there was went out. An alarm klaxon, lower frequency than the one on the Hermes, bleated twice before petering out with a defeated groan. After a second or two the lights came up again at half power. Battery back-up emergency lighting, apparently, a bit dimmer than the lights in the mines of Equestris but serviceable enough.
As the light built up to full anemic intensity the Doctor stood beaming smugly.
“So there! I'm normally not one to say 'I told you so!', but...”
“Oh slag it, Doc!” I rolled my eyes. “Even you would have to admit it was a valid question!”
“Well...” He coughed into a hoof. “Be that as it may, now is our window of opportunity. Every Arcane power source and support system of this ship is now permanently out to lunch!”
Even as he said that I had a terrible premonition. I broke my balephaser out and checked the readouts. The balefire LED was dark and only Luna knew the state of the Arcanely-enhanced dilithium chip in the emitter assembly!
I gave the Timelord a rueful look. From the uncomfortable look on his face he knew exactly what I was thinking!
He laid his ears back and shuffled nervously. “Ah! ...Um, it's dead, isn't it?”
“Yes and no.” I said flatly, checking the safety and re-holstering the weapon. “The powercell should be intact, but the enhancement to the dilithium chip is more than likely out. Best case scenario, I'll have more shots since I won't be able to push that much power through it.” I sighed. “Worst case scenario... the damn thing will go up in my hoof. The emitter, anyway. The chip is made smaller since it was enhanced to handle the load. It cuts down on the cost of the weapon. Dilithium is expensive, after all!”
“Quite.” The Doctor murmured. “Well, it can't be helped. We're not here to fight at any rate. We'll just have to be that much more careful, won't we?” He blew out a breath that wasn't quite a sigh and looked around.
“We'd best get rolling along then!”
I scanned the room. There were three doors. Pocket doors like on the Hermes, but the seams that separated the two halves were vertical instead of horizontal. Apparently they opened side-to-side rather than up-and-down Equestrian standard. Well, what else could you expect from aliens?
“Pity we don't have a tricorder.” I said. “Any idea which way?”
He grabbed the Sonic up in his mouth and made an adjustment on it with a hoof before firing it up. As the trilling buzz started I looked to see what Tyllae was doing.
The little Fey was exploring a set of condiment containers on one of the tables. She'd been unscrewing lids and been sniffing the contents, occasionally dipping in a teeny hoof to sample things. She looked up at me.
“Tyllae was hoping for some jelly or jam or sugar but Klingon no-goods don't have any, nope, nope, nope! Lossa salty an hottie-hot-hot stuff but nothing sweet.” She said sadly. “Wha kinna people don't like sweet stuff, Starry?”
“The kind that never had Faeries, kiddo!”
She plopped down on her hindquarters and stuck a tongue out at the collection.
“Tyllae was hoping that there was even one nice thing about Klingon no-goods. Even nasty Goblins have candy!” She grumped.
Before I could say anything I was distracted by a change in the Sonics sound. That weird buzz sputtered and changed pitch before cutting out.
I turned back to the Doctor who was shaking the thing irritably and giving it an occasional whack with a hoof.
“What's up, Doc?”
“... Shouldn't you be chewing a carrot when you ask that?” He muttered. Then, before I could ask him what the Hell he was talking about, he went on.
“I put us down as close as I could to the source of the Arcane Energy on this ship.” He said irritably. “The trouble is that it is Arcane Energy and the Sonic is having difficulty reading it! The best I can do identify the more conventional aspects of this ship and steer us toward the blankest bits as it were!” He took the thing and tapped it repeatedly against the floor, try to activate it again and again. I mentally tsked. Jerry would have a fit if he caught his Engineers using the if-it-doesn't-work-beat-on-it-till-it-does method!
He brought it up to his face and peered closely at it.
“...It's acting as if there's a fault in the mechanism, confound it!” He gave it another, more forceful, whack. The thing buzzed weakly, the green light at the end flickering feebly.
“Imagine that!” I said dryly.
“Don't underestimate Timelord Technology, my dear, provincial Equestrin!” He said just a bit hotly. “It's a very rugged solid-state device with only four moving parts! Even a ham-hoofed Equestrin would be hard put to break the thing!”
“You're the only ham in this room, Doc!” I prodded him pointedly in the Cutie-mark. “Just reboot the damn thing or run a diagnostic. ...It's fully charged, isn't it?”
He snuck a look at whatever relevant readout before he answered!
“Of course it is!” He gave it another shake and tried it again. “...It's acting for all the world as if some key components are dead and its trying to compensate. Come on, you little beauty! You can do it! Work.” Whack. “Work!” Whack. “WORK!”
The Sonic warbled, flickered, and shut itself off with a final noise like an electronic raspberry!
He looked at it as if it had snapped its teeth at him! I do believe he was on the verge of dropping it to the ground and hopping up and down on it when Tyllae, watching the performance, spoke up.
“Let Tyllae hava looky-look! Tyllae can fix all kinna stuff! All Faeries good at mending an fixing, yep, yep, yep!”
“You?” We both said in unison.
“Whatta say that for?” The little Fey looked indignant.
“My dear, little Faery!” The Doctor said, “This isn't as simple as mending a cracked plate or patching a sock...”
“Tyllae!” I smoothly overrode the Timelord. “You don't exactly have a sterling track record when it comes to dealing with technological devices. Remember the replicator in the Rec Room?”
“Fiffle-piffle!” She waved an elfin hoof. “This notta like stoopid talky-machiney, nope, nope, nope!” She shook her head and her antennae jingled. “Sonic issa smart, just like TARDIS! Lossa smarter thanna silly Timelord or 'Questrin lika Starry! Tyllae is not trying to be mean... but sometimes Dokker an Starry shoulda jus hush an lissen to Tyllae!”
With that, her rosy aura sprang into being around the thing and it floated out of the Doctor's grasp and came to hover in front of the little Fey who turned her attention away from us as she carefully examined the device.
“S'okay now!” She cooed to it softly, stroking it with one hoof and nosing it here and there. Her antennae were erect and quivering with concentration.
“Now whassa wrong? ...Hmm?” She cocked a tiny ear to it and listened. She flitted to a point two-thirds of a way toward the end and peered intently from several angles.
“Awww!” She said sympathetically. “Tyllae sees now! Itta gonna be all oakey-dokes now! Starry anna Dokker jus didn't know, is all! Hmm...?” She laid an ear alongside the Sonic.
“Tyllae knows! Big Ponies don't lissen to Tyllae either nope, nope, nope! Tyllae will tell! Trust little Tyllae!” She darted up and gave the dark green crystal at the end a tender kiss and pat before wafting it back to the Doctor's waiting hoof.
“Herea go, Dokker! Be nice to poor, poor, poor hard-working Sonic from now on! Anna clean out pocket more often! … An eata mint oncea while, OK? Sonic is hurt but not in pain, nope, nope, nope! Sonic is smart an turn off hurty bits! Alla Magic parts inside all dark an still. But itta oakey-dokes, jus gotta get back to TARDIS an TARDIS fixa up inna jiffy yep, yep, yep!”
She flitted up to a point just in front of my nose and I had to go cross-eyed to look at her!
“Starry hurt poor, poor, poor Sonic when Starry giva order to cast big spell onna Klingon no-good ship! Sonic forgives, don't worry! But thissa what Tyllae means...”
She turned her gaze to the Doctor and piffed away to reappear just over his head with a pop! She drove her next points home with all four little hooves gathered together in a series of hops on the Timelord's noggin.
“'Bout how Big Ponies...” Boink! “Shouldn' messa round...” Boink! “...Witha Time!” Boink! “Nope, nope, nope!” Boinkboinkboink!
The Doctor simply stared, mouth hanging open with a look of utter and complete disbelief his eyes. If a cream pie had materialized out of nowhere and pasted him in the face he couldn't have looked more shocked! The Mare In My Head hurriedly filed that expression away for future reference as well!
“That... is... preposterous!” He declared, shaking his head emphatically and dislodging the little Fey.
“It's a mnemonic circuit, nothing more and nothing less! Science and Physics! Fantastically intricate and complex by the standards of this day, but a circuit nonetheless!” He sputtered. “With a neutrino microscope I could trace each element precisely! I've had the wretched thing apart time and again! The density of the individual connections is on the order of ten to the seventh power per micron...!”
He appealed to me with his eyes for backup, apparently.
I may not be the brightest gem in the lode but I knew... if only in that moment... that I knew less than I thought I knew. And I was just wise enough to realize it!
“Of course it's impossible to directly observe the effects at the quantum level... Schrodinger's Cat and all that... however there is no reason the density of connections should be any less.” He babbled on for the sake of his dignity. “In fact, they should increase with a commensurate increase in computational power. Toss in the variables inherent in the Uncertainty Effect and you'd have, well...” His face froze, his eyebrows shot up and The Mare In My Head had another photo op!
“... But it's all Probability at that level, isn't it? How much of a nudge would it take to cross that crucial threshold? You want a machine to act like a living mind and...” He brought one hoof up to cover his mouth. “Oh... my... word!”
“Whyfor acta so surprised?” Tyllae plopped onto her haunches there on the Timelord's head and facehoofed! “More thinky-stuff inna head than any Pony all thinking way, way, way faster! Howcome TARDIS can be alive anna not Kay-Kay or Sonic? Pony who came up with stoopid talky-machineies onna Her-mees almost getta right. Maybe soon no longer stoopid. Alla depend on how much stoopid Pony goes inna making, yep, yep, yep!”
She started prancing up and down on the Doctor's head in frustration. With more than a little trepidation I recognized the beginnings of another Faery tantrum! Before I could say anything, though, Tyllae stomped a final hoof!
“Oooo! Thassa it! Tyllae comma long to keep Big Ponies safe but nopony wanna lissen or believe little Tyllae, nope, nope, nope! Tyllae sometimes thinks Big Ponies shouldn't be allowed out 'cept onna leashes to keep from falling all over big, big, big eee-gos!”
“Uh, hey there, Squirt!” I spoke up. “Just for the record I'm behind you on this one!”
“...That's what they used to call 'throwing somepony under the bus', if I'm not mistaken!” The Doctor said accusingly.
“Hush, Doc!” I said quickly. “I'm just trying to head off...”
“No, no, no!” Tyllae shrilled. “Tyllae loves Starry but Starry finds it too easy to think Tyllae justa silly little cutie! Does Starry forget whahoppen with the Gornies? Tyllae is less than Tyllae was but Tyllae issa still a Faery an Tyllae gonna help save silly Big Ponies fromma selves! Yep, yep, YEP!”
With a final stomp to emphasize her point, she leapt off the Doctor's head toward the center of the room. The Mare In My Head jumped out of her Command Chair and ducked behind it as if somepony just tossed a live grenade in there! ...I remember thinking that wasn't such an inaccurate metaphor!
“Oh, crap!” I braced myself for whatever was coming. “Way to piss off the Faery, Doc!”
“I think we're both to blame, unless I miss my guess.” He murmured, rubbing the top of his head.
Tyllae spun in the air, drawing her little wings in tight, picking up speed until she was nothing by a rosy-pink and pale yellow blur. She shrank even more, getting brighter and brighter until...
There was a flash of buttery yellow radiance that should have dazzled my eyes. I blinked purely out of reflex and stood stock-still at what stood before us.
There was no Other Side any more for the Dear Fey, but every scrap of what she had on This One stood on display then, the haunted gloom of the Klingon Officer's Mess only making her that much more beautiful by comparison!
She was still big, big as Celestia in the visions I'd seen, but there were differences. The old version was statuesque, this one was... willowy with almost impossibly slender limbs with tiny ankles atop those shiny, jet-black hooves. Her arching neck would almost be considered too long had not her mane... a huge, curling mass of pink tipped with pale blonde highlights... covered most of it. It rippled and swayed in an unfelt wind that seemed to come from about thirty-five degrees port-forward. Not unlike the manes of Celestia and Luna, come to think of it! ...I wondered if it was her Star-Wind that blew through it.
Her antennae quested about with a flexibility the Andorians wished theirs had as they focused on one thing after another, never still. The glowing orbs on the ends seemed to randomly orbit her brow on slender tethers.
Gone was the blazing nimbus that surrounded her, though. Instead she seemed to stand in a moonbeam from long, long, ago. It teased highlights out of her gauzy, wings with their pink paisley patterns as she folded them regally to her.
Her eyes under their curling pink lashes were still her eyes, crystal-black shot through with tiny stars, and they regarded me warmly as she settled to the deck. One pale gold eyelid slid down in a wink.
This model had a mouth and the voice that came from it was warm and matronly, seeming to fill every corner of the dark room.
“Thou whilst note that there is still no 'pixie-dust' involved, Dear Starry-Eyes.”
“Hey, Tyllae! I … thought we were really in for it there. You took five years off my life just now!”
“We apologize.” The regal head bowed. “We were not truly vexed with thee or the Dear Doctor. But We experience a great deal of frustration trying to communicate complex ideas in Our... less complex form. Because Time presses us all We thought 'twould be more expedient to change Our perspective. Should we win through in the end We will see that Thee gettest thy five years back and more!”
“As long as we're handing out extra lifespans...” The Doctor chimed in. “I could use any old spare decades you have lying about, Your Majesty!” He knelt from the front, one foreleg extended and the other bent over it, his head bowed. He spoiled the effect by waggling his eyebrows up a her!
“We are a Queendom of one, thou silly soul!” She flicked him with one wing-tip as she smiled, though her eyes filled with a solemn sadness as she added. “... As art Thee, though thee hidest thy melancholy behind jest. Thy nobility is not lost upon Us yet there is nothing We might give you.” She shut her eyes slowly. “...Thee art beyond Our ability to grant or deny in any event, O errant child of Gallopfrey. The next turn of thy Destiny approacheth and nothing We can do shalt deter it. Thee must have courage, Dear Doctor... as We must!” When she opened her eyes again they were bright with unshed tears. “The Star-Wind blows where it wilt and none may dictate its course nor say what it will bring upon it!”
I cleared my throat and caught the eyes of the not-so-little Fey.
“... Weren't you the one warning us about Prophecy? And why do you feel you need courage for? I thought you had a handle on the spook over there.”
“Cthulhu hath no power over Our kind, Starry- Eyes.” She conceded patiently. “As far as Prophecy goeth...” She shrugged her wings. “We know what will soon come to pass as surely as thee knowest the consequences of thy next breath! Yet the token the Dear Doctor gaveth thee troubled Us.” Both her fathomless eyes held mine. “... We were not in the image though it hath changed twice. Even now, were thee to gaze upon it, We believe We would still be absent. Knowing Our other Self as thee knowest, dost thee not believe We would be there?”
The thought trouble me plenty, but I refused to believe it.
“Come on! It was probably Baking Day and you were just, ah, quality-checking the latest batch of cookies! Or maybe the flowers were blooming in the gardens, Hell, there could be a thousand reasons you weren't around when Amber Rose picked up the recorder! You're reading too much into it, Tyllae.”
“Oh, Starry-Eyes. We bless thee for thy thoughts! Yet... how can We hope to explain even in this form how Our Vision runs? Consider! Imagine thee art standing in tall grass up to thine ample breasts. With thy greater size thee seest more of the world around thee than thy shorter kin. It is simply thy nature to be able to do this... as it is simply Our nature to see farther by token of what We are. We cannot explain more simply than that, Starry-Eyes. Time presses Us. In nine minutes, three score ten and seven seconds...” She pause just a beat and tapped a forehoof on the deck to mark time. “As thy kind see fit to quantify what they cannot grasp... We all of us must be gone and there is still the Old One to attend to. Come, We will lead thee safely.”
Tyllae began walking away unerringly heading to the door on the long wall to our left.
“Wait! What happened in nine and one-half minutes?”
She pause and looked back at me.
“Our friends on the Hermes will destroy this ship... at thy command. We have little time... dost thee see now what We meant when We said about Time Travel being more trouble than it is worth!” She fetched The Doctor a little bop on his head with a much more substantial hoof as she passed him! “All this moving in Time and yet We must hurry! Truly! Leashes are not the half of it! We sometimes wonder why We love thee and thine so much!” Her eyes positively twinkled as she look back at the Timelord.
The Doctor, for his part, was looking like he was chewing a moldy ration bar. Well, Tyllae's words were no doubt hard for him to digest! The thump to the noggin brought him back to the present.
“Neotany, of course! All creatures tend to react favorably to ones who call to mind the aspects of their own children. ...How much of the Faeries are in Pony stock anyway?”
Tyllae's silken tail swept up and spatted the end of his nose as she stepped onward.
“Tales of Changelings... the original kind and not the corrupted Fey... must wait for later. Blame thyself, Dear Doctor! Had thee planned better We would have more leisure. Truly thy Ditzy hath the right of it! Thee should be more organized!” Smiling to herself, she ducked her head low as the doors parted and she walked into the corridor beyond.
I moved to follow, stopping by the thoughtful Timelord to give him a nudge with my elbow.
“I hope you're taking notes, Doc! That's what it's like for me around you! How does it feel?” I asked sweetly.
“Oh go peel apples with your back hooves!” He ran his forehooves through his mane, putting it back into order. “I'm by no means so patronizing and condescending, so there!” Then he rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.
“I'll admit I'm quite... astounded at the implications of what I've just discovered. Do you realize the ramifications of what this means?” He touched my knee and peered eagerly up at me. “The Timelords, wittingly or not, managed to work Magic! Magic! If we did then how many other species unravel the process? My word! There are a lot of anomalous things I've seen that I'd like to go back to in light of all this! ...Oh, dear! ” He grimaced. “I may even have to apologize to K-9! … He'll never let me live it down, I just know it!”
I didn't have time to respond. At that moment we were both caught up in a rosy telekinetic field and were wafted out into and away down the corridor.
“Quoth a Wise Mare...” Tyllae stood in the middle of a t-intersection ahead, the pips on her antennae glowing. “ 'Time and Tritium wait for nopony! Hubba-hubba one time! Hup one, hup two, hup three!'” She chuckled as she deposited us behind her.
“Alas! Even in this form We go unheeded! Poor Us, aye, aye, aye!”
* * *
If anypony had informed me a year earlier that one day I'd stroll through the bowels of a Klingon warship with complete impunity I'dve told them to go home and sober up!
OK, it wasn't precisely a purely Klingon ship any more... but if that same Pony had said some day I was going to serve an eviction notice to some slavering Eldritch Hobgoblin in the company of a Faery and a time-traveling Alien I would have socked them, bound them up in ten-ought cable, and deposited them at the nearest Psychiatric Facility where they wouldn't be a danger to anypony else!
It was... surreal! The walls of the corridors were a bit narrower than those on the Hermes and canted in somewhat the top, making them trapezoidal rather than rectangular. Medium-Grey with more, larger access panels... I wondered what that said about Klingon Engineering... with a single wide light strip running continuously through the ceiling. The light that came from it was a pale green-yellow and alongside it on either side ran a two foot span of... cables... segmented arteries... tentacles? They seemed to hang limp and I had no doubt that when the Werewolf was in top shape they would have writhed and strained with malevolent Arcane energy provided by The Prism.
The air was cold and damp and more than a little stale as if it was barely circulating. I let The Mare In My Head wonder if this was Klingon environmental standard, for my part I was feeling like a role-player in some Eugenics Wars Post-Apocalyptic simulation game... the kind that Sunny kept trying to drag me into! I sat in on a couple of sessions but was never moved to join in. Now... I had to suppress an urge to stop to scavenge the rooms behind the sealed doors we passed or loot the bodies!
For bodies there were! The Diamond Dogs, in their armor and wearing their sashes like Kyr's crew, roamed the ship. Half a minute after we started traveling a squad of three rounded a corner ahead of us at a dead run and charged with a howl and a flash of their wicked bladed claws. Exactly as if they knew we were there!
My gun came up faster than Tyllae could flit... but they fell and sprawled with a clang and a clatter, skidding bonelessly to a stop almost at our hooves!
Tyllae never paused or even looked, stepping over the bodies and sedately continuing on her way.
The Doctor and I paused, checking for a pulse on wrist and neck. He pulled one eyelid open and regarded the blank, unseeing eye silently. We exchanged looks and hurried to catch up!
“They're dead.” The Doctor said hotly. “You didn't have to kill them!”
“Of course We did, Dear Doctor.” The Fey paced on, not looking at him. “They will all be dead soon enough. Better for them to sleep and have their hearts and brains stop than to burn or gasp for air and freeze in the Void. We are being as merciful as We can be.”
“This hardly 'mercy', Madame!” The Doctor sped up and whirled to a stop in front of the Fey, blocking her path. “Incapacitate them and I can take them back to their homes after we've sorted things out here! Killing them is unnecessary! ...Or do mortal lives mean nothing to you if they become inconvenient?”
Tyllae stopped and considered the Timelord. I found myself holding my breath, remembering Caper's concern after Tyllae dealt with the Klingon on the Bridge of the Hermes. What the Hell was I supposed to do if she decided...?
With a start I realized Tyllae was looking right at me, her ears poking out of her mane and antennae erect, look of hurt in those star-strewn eyes.
“Starry! … We are grieved that thee couldst ever think that We would ever harm thee and thine.” Then her eyes softened and an expression of sheepishness came across that regal face.
“That is Our fault. If We spent more or Our time with thee in discourse with this form thee wouldst know Us better and fear Us never. ...But thy rooms are small enough and We like our warm bed too much to put thee out!” She stretched out and nuzzled my nose with her warm one before returning her gaze to the Timelord.
“Dear Doctor, We know the blood on thine own hooves makes thee treasure each and every life. The Fey have always honored thee for thy compassion! But know thee this! These creatures never trod the soil of distant Equestria. Nay, these are but tools of Discord made by the vile virtue of his hated Prism. Their counterfeit lives little more than blind instinct and the compulsion of the will of their poor, sick master!” She lifted an angelic hoof to stroke the side of The Doctor's neck.
“Verily there are none here for thee to bear home. Hath thee not wondered where all the Klingons are? They are all about us but we will see them not. … But thee hath already suspected as much. Thee hath seen this before. Behold!”
Her telekinesis glowed around a fitting mounted over the next bulkhead, just where somepony would mount a Security Monitor...
The cover came loose and drifted gently to the floor, exposing to the air a naked eyeball in a container of clear gel. Fine green tendrils covered its rear hemisphere and twined together behind it to connect with some unholy network hidden within the walls. As we watched it twitched, jerking around to focus on each of us in turn again and again and again!
I felt sick and The Mare In My Head threw up her hooves and threw in the towel, swiveling her Command Chair resolutely away from her Main Viewer and reaching behind her for a flask of Auld Hornsgleam...
Milky Way said the Klingon life-signs were indistinct, as if they were dispersed throughout the Werewolf. ...Here was the reason why.
I was unable to turn away from the sight so I just shut my eyes. Dear Luna doing backflips...! I just wanted to go home and get away from all this!
I heard Tyllae speak softly and sadly.
“Captain Kyr thought his crew were above being mere soulless hoofsoldiers for even so great a Master who was not, after all, any sort of 'True Warrior'. In his madness and lust for vengeance he though it better for them to become as one with their great ship... for 'The Glory Of The Empire'”. They became his eyes and ears and limbs that he would know all that transpired within these tainted walls.” She paused and though I couldn't see it, I just knew that the light went out of that twisted morsel of what used to be a Klingon soldier.
“Through these and many others he would have been aware of us at once and would have roused the Old One to the danger of those We hold dear. ...We slew him the instant We came here, of course.”
In the silence that followed The Doctor cleared his throat quietly.
“Of course.” He said quietly. When I opened my eyes again he was rubbing his face with one hoof.
“That's twice I've badly underestimated things so far!” He arched a knowing eye at the Fey. “These things happen in threes, don't they? At this rate of progression my next one should be a real, ah, doozy!”
“Speak no words of ill-omen, Dear, Dear Doctor!” She looked at him with real alarm before sidling close to me to hold me with one iridescent wing.
“Starry-Eyes... truly we must be going.” She said softly.
I drew a deep breath and let it out.
“I'm fine. I'm fine!” I assured her. “... I just have to wonder how bad are things going to get before this is all over?”
The Fey blinked and blanched and looked away quickly.
“Truly, We implore thee both three times! Speaks no words of ill-omen! Come!”
She broke away and resumed her pace. The Doctor and I hurried to keep up, keeping our misgivings to our respective selves.
We ran into two more packs of Dogs. The last ones had guns!
They lay in ambush and fired around the corners of a four-way intersection ahead of us. They carried white and silver pistols that made weird ululating sounds as they fired, making the air in front of us quiver and shimmer visibly as they impacted against the shield she summoned. I couldn't make out any ionization trace in the atmosphere... were they sonics? Given their sensitivity to sound that seemed ridiculous!
She had been silent since our last exchange and was looking preoccupied, picking up her pace unconsciously as if something was gnawing at her.
When they fired The Doctor dodged and I threw myself in front of Tyllae instinctively as she just stood there.
“Three times!” She caroled, stomping a hoof. “No more!”
They fell dead, of course. After that we encountered no more living Dogs.
I snagged one of the guns as we hurried by. Looking down I could see, since one of their helmets came off as he fell, that they had hearing protection of some sort jammed in their ears.
It was a little longer than a balephaser, but slimmer with a gleaming white stock upon which were the shiny silver assemblies holding what I assumed were the powercell and the mechanisms that regulated the power flow. Two long, six-sided wave guides flanked the end of the barrel, looking almost too absurdly delicate and fragile to be part of a weapon. There was no magnetomic dihesion plate in evidence so... once I figured out how the safety worked... I stuck it in my pocket. Rocky would appreciate the chance to study Klingon firearms. For I had no doubt it was Klingon, the Dogs were having difficulty holding them in their paws... they just weren't articulated in that way!
Tyllae led on onward, stepping around and over more and more bodies as we progressed. She'd killed them all throughout the entire ship after their third try at killing us. The Faery Rule Of Three...
She was right, I was in the habit of thinking of her as the giggling little cookie-glutton with the penchant for talking with plants and hexing technical things that irritated her. That episode on the Gorn ship was just a one-off aberration and I was dismayed at how quickly I'd put the memory away.
I wondered how much of that attitude was her doing? I looked at her as we went along, but her attention was turned inwards and her antennae never strayed in my direction. If she had picked up on my feelings just then she didn't give any indication. It was nice to know she wasn't completely omniscient!
No... and for the record... I wasn't afraid of her! But the idea that the charming little thing that laughed and played and slept snugly between my breasts at night and the all-powerful Angel of Death with a penchant for Royal Pronouns were one and the same being was... disturbing!
Yet she wasn't infallible! Discord nearly killed... had killed her... with a sliver of steel just longer than one of my eyelashes! She gave that half of her life trying to save us back on Cestus-III. That three of us walked away wounded in our various ways didn't detract from the fact that she couldn't save Stimbolt. I take the responsibility for the Ponies on my ship by virtue of my being in Command... but hers was a more ancient responsibility. In her eyes I didn't fail to save Stimbolt's life, Dazzle's sanity, or Sunny's heartbreak. She failed us, and the traditions of Starfleet and Military Protocol be damned!
How could you not love... and pity... a Faith and Devotion like that?
“We love thee as well!” The Fey murmured only to me as she stopped. OK, she really was paying attention. I gave her shoulder a pat as I came to a halt.
The corridor she was following was the vertical leg of a 'T' and let out upon a double-wide corridor. We could see a double-wide door, massively armored and set in an equally massive-looking bulkhead. Engineering, I assumed. The wide corridors led, maybe, to airlocks set in the hull to accommodate the moving of large pieces of equipment and components. Old Starfleet ships had the same set-up, at least until Transporter technology and Arcane Teleportation made them unnecessary. Starfleet Intelligence suggests the Klingons make extensive use of slave labor. Maybe they just had gangs of slaves do the heavy work. Mental visions of dozens of ragged souls dragging antimatter core components with ropes under the whips of sadistic taskmasters fell away as my brain caught up with what I was seeing!
The Dogs certainly hadn't been idle! Maybe the teams sent after us were designed to slow us down just so their brethren could do this!
No fewer than thirty of them sprawled in front of the door to Engineering, piled so close together they could only have just barely been able to move. A few had just their clawed cesti, many had the Klingon pistols, more had rifle-sized versions of the same thing. There was even something in black and bronze set up on a tripod sporting a blackened two-inch muzzle! An honest-to-Luna ballistic gun?! But the kicker lay beside it, a roughly cylindrical casing of dull red that trailed the components that once linked it to its propulsion mechanism...
There's an old cliche that talks about having ones mane stand up on end... in that instant I would have sworn it was perfectly true!
“Ho-lee Luna playing marbles with asteroids!” I gaped and pointed at the thing. “... A photon torpedo? They were gonna stop us with a motherf...?”
“Antimatter bomb?” The Doctor leaned around the Fey to look at the weapon with an irritating aplomb. “Well, it certainly speaks volumes about their fighting spirit, doesn't it?” He said dryly, then added. “ ...And mind your language, My Dear!”
“Give me a ….” I shot the Timelord a glance. “Flipping break! A photon torpedo!? What in the name of Faust did they think they were going to do with a photon torpedo warhead? I thought the Roamulans were nuts but these clowns must've been as loopy as...”
Tyllae spread her wings in alarm, her antenna questing about with rapid flicks as she braced all four feet!
“No, no, no!” She moaned. “Conjure him not by his name!”
All in an instant, the Diamond Dogs shimmered and dissolved away into a vapor that was pulled straight through the sealed door behind them! I used a word that would get me a paddling even at my age and drew both my guns, savagely twisting the force setting on the balephaser to its maximum setting!
The Doctor seemed to take it all in stride.
“This is it, then.” He said calmly.
Then he roared out, rearing onto his hindlegs. The little stallion could really put out the decibels when he wanted to!
“Well, bring it on, Big Boy! I brush my teeth with tougher things than your sorry lot! There are a LOT of dead Cyberponies and Daleks who thought they could take me! D'you think YOU can, you spineless, maggot-mouthed, freakshow!”
This was the Doctor in his element! The frenetic, reckless daredevil aspect of his persona possessed him completely as he stood there jeering in the face of impossible odds. The terrible concentration in his eyes alone betrayed the act as his mind worked at Warp Speed, combing centuries of unfathomable experience for the solution that would Save The Day. This was The Doctor at his most brilliant and dangerous!
… Would it be enough against the Prism and the mad thing that wielded it?
He dropped back onto all fours, his body singing with adrenaline!
“There! See what I mean? You don't have to lapse in vulgarity to get your point across. It's all in the...” He struck a pose. “Delivery!”
The doors to Engineering unlocked with an echoing clang! They slid apart slowly, first the left then the right. Absolute blackness showed beyond them and absolute silence seemed to flow out of them.
When nothing happened, The Doctor called out.
“Oi! Afraid to come out, you great, steaming...?”
What happened next is... hard to describe!
The gaping doors seemed to rush up at us in an instant, growing huger and huger until the blackness in their frame completely engulfed us!
Then, just like that! The lights were on again!
We were standing in what I assumed was, originally, the Klingon Engineering Bay. Pale yellow light shone down upon up from light panels on the ceiling high above us. For a starship it was a cavernous space, a little more than two decks high... not unlike Main Engineering on the Hermes. I scanned the room, taking in the sight of the Klingon analogue of Impulse Drive mechanisms, vast Engineering computer banks, and the stairs that led up to the upper level where their Warp Core lay back in the days then this was only a Starship.
Now most of the lower deck was dominated by something that looked like an old-style acceleration couch, or maybe Doctor Frankenpony's idea of a bio-support bed, forty feet long if it was an inch! There was barely room for the three of us with it there.
It was contoured, form-fitted for its occupant. Empty now, I could make out indentations accommodating grotesque limbs and an oddly-curved spine. The headrest was particularly large and was made for something truly weird! I was glad to tear my eyes away from it.
More of those strange cable/tentacles ran from it in all directions, really big ones that inserted themselves into walls and instrument banks. One of them blocked the right-hoof stair to the upper level on its course to where it lay jammed into the one time Warp Core.
Above the bed, jammed up against the wall, sat the carved wooden throne of Discord with its gems and the Lord of Chaos lounging upon it! He was worse for the wear of recent events. His mane, never neat, was decidedly scraggly looking and there were creases on his formerly smooth and untroubled face. His huge eyes with their yellow sclera were bloodshot and he seemed to squirm with nervous energy even as he appeared to sprawl at ease upon his seat.
“How's that for 'Relative Dimensions'! What? You were expecting 'Mighty Cthulhu'? He's in here where he belongs!” He cackled at the Timelord, whacking the Prism in his talon against his lion's paw for just a moment, then his mad, mad eyes flicked to the rest of us!
The Prism in his talon stabbed at Tyllae!
“Didn't I kill you already? You really should have the good sense to stay dead, you know! But since when could Faeries be accused of having good sense? Sooo flighty and caught up in whatever catches their fancy for the moment... like YOU!”
The glittering thing centered dead on me, I felt like I was in the metaphorical cross-hairs of the Hermes' main balephaser banks!
“A sex-change operation...?” His bushy eyebrows gathered together in a frown. Don't ask me how, but I could just feel him examining me down to the cellular level. It was... unpleasant! “No...” He muttered to himself a moment later. “It's more than that isn't it?”
He whipped the Prism across his eyes and peered at me through one of its gleaming facets.
“So...” He slowly lowered the thing and regarded me with dilithium-hard eyes. “ The 'Princess of the Night' found a way to come snooping into your dreams, eh? I'll give her something to look at! I'll make her sit and watch the nightmares of a trillion lives as I add them to my Prism! I'll suck the whole of their precious Equestria-Among-The-Stars up and her precious Sister...!” He stopped suddenly and glared at the Prism.
“No, not Celestia!” He said firmly. “ We leave her alone! Powerless... but alone... got me?” He shook it like The Doctor trying to cudgel his Sonic back into working order.
“It is as We told thee, Discord.” Tyllae said softly. “Renounce the work of thy madness whilst thou yet hath dominion over it. Verily, thou hast wronged Celestia and the kin of Fluttershy but thou mayest yet redeem thyself. Only the hoof that wields thy Prism may undo its vile work! Which is the stronger, the Prism or the claw of Discord?”
At the mention of Fluttershy's name one eye blazed yet, somehow, the opposite one softened. On Ditzy that would have been a cute performance, but this was Discord ...and the Prism was held by the arm on the side of the blazing eye!
He leaped up in his throne and gripped the thing like a javelin, holding it over his shoulder as his body tensed to pin the Fey to the deck like a butterfly in a collection!
“Right! Now that we've got your attention...” The Doctor trotted off to one side, seeming to be unruffled as the Prism followed his progress. He stopped and adjusted his bow tie and cleared his throat into one hoof before suddenly hooking the Lord of Chaos with a stern gaze.
“As a representative of the Federation of Pastures and in accordance with the Articles of the Shadow Proclamation, as well as for the sake of trillions of lives on countless un-aligned worlds who otherwise have no stake in your self-proclaimed vendetta, I am hereby ordering you to stop your wanton Temporal Activities! You're mucking about in Time, my friend, and that's MY domain!” “... If I were you, I'd just...” He gave a little shrug. “Run!” A shadow of that devil-may-care bravado accented the terrible menace in his eyes!
I swallowed hard and put away my weapons... what good would they have been anyway... and moved off away from Tyllae. If The Doctor thought it was a good idea to keep his attention off the Fey who was I to argue?
I summoned up every last erg of willpower at my disposal to keep my voice steady and loud enough as I put my two credits worth in.
“Look, my credentials may not be so nearly impressive...” I began. “But I'll speak on the Federations' behalf.” I spared The Doctor a firm glance. He acquiesced with a nod as I continued.
“Your quarrel is ultimately with us after all, isn't it? Why drag everthing and everybody else along into it? I know who I'm talking to, but I have to ask. What's the logic to it? Even you have to have some rationale behind your motives! What's the point of turning the whole Universe into Chaos? You can do that to any locale you set up shop in and even you can only be in one place at any given instant. How are you any further ahead by doing this? Even a God has to make sense for his worshipers praise to mean anything!”
I wet my lips and forced my hooves behind my back like I was addressing a review board.
Discord must have picked up on the vibe because, with a flash of light, he was in his Admiral Quicksilver guise sitting behind his desk again. He'd materialized the thing right in front of me, his elbows were propped up on it and the Prism made a bridge between his hooves. He rested his chin upon it as he regarded me with cool, only marginally-interested eyes. This time, though, the little figurine on the desktop was different. It was kneeling beneath a new banner. This one, instead of displaying the device of the Federation, bore an image of the Prism itself on a radial field of rainbow colors. He seemed oblivious to it, but it gave me an idea! The concepts whirling around my brain crystallized in that instant.I took a page from The Doctor's book and just winged it! What did I have to lose, anyway?
I took a step forward, unfolded my arms and leaned on the corners of the desk, my muzzle just inches from his. His breath stank and I concentrated on breathing through my mouth.
“Tyllae is right, you know.” I said confidentially. “The Prism isn't just a tool any more... if it ever was in the first place! Oh, I'll concede that you nabbed something out of that Primal Fire of yours, but you weren't making it. I think you were actually feeding it all those lives, but you didn't notice. Now its grown strong but do you know what I think? I think that whatever gratitude it once had is getting strained. Its powerful and I think its wanting to express itself. Billions of sentient minds have been added to it and you know how it is with sentience, its organized! Simple thoughts and emotions... chaotic thoughts and emotions...naturally become more codified. Simple systems give way to more complex ones. Whole populations stop shouting and whacking each other on the head to act together to promote their common good. It's just the nature of things. Energy gives way to matter and Chaos gives way to Entropy!”
“You've been a Hell of a guide for it... at first. But from where I'm standing, as a purely objective bystander, I think you're just holding it back now. ...And it knows it!” I casually flicked the banner with a forefinger, drawing his attention to it.
“Just between you and me, Pal!” I said quietly. “I think it needs somepony with a more … rational point of view to show it what it could really become.” I put all my credits into the pot and turned my gaze to the gleaming Prism.
“Isn't that right?”
Well, desperate times call for desperate measures and all that! I had no clue what, if anything, would come of it... but as I watched the Prism seemed to twitch in his grasp. One of the facets oriented in my direction and I had no doubt in that one bone-chilling instant that something was returning my gaze! Something that brooded upon me with speculation and... interest!
Admiral Quicksilver disappeared at once, never again to return! Discords' shaggy eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened. He sat up straight, towering over me!
“Oh no you don't!” He snarled, then thundered! “How dare you! You miserable plodding, pedestrian PONY! IT'S MINE!”
He clutched at the Prism, but paw and talon passed through it as if he were trying to grasp a sunbeam! The Prism hung there in empty air as solid as a fact and waited. ...I only had to reach out a hoof and take it.
Damn me, but I hesitated an instant too long! Look, given a choice between leaving it in his hands and taking it into mine, the decision seemed obvious! I still shudder at the prospect of what could have happened! Still...even Trottenheimer must have has some doubts when he oversaw the making the first Atomic Bomb. And Starbubble himself must have had some qualms when he climbed into the cockpit of the Phoenix and set Ponies on the road to the Stars.
What would I have done with the Prism in my grasp? ...But how could I justify not taking the chance? I'm not the best my People, nor even in the top ten million of the Citizens of the Federation, but this was A Job I Had To Do. … And I blew my chance. My gamble had failed spectacularly and I wondered how long I would live to regret it!
Discord grappled the Prism and strained against it like he was trying to key-wind Celestia's own gigantic cuckoo clock! It moved only slightly in his grip, reluctant perhaps. He kicked the desk straight at me as I belatedly made a grab for it!
I slammed against the bulkhead hard enough to see stars but I grabbed the thing up bodily and flung it straight back at him, charging in right behind it with bloody murder blazing in my eyes!
Did he reassert his dominance over his creation or did it let him take it up? Who knows? But in that instant he snatched it up and swung it at me like a baseball bat and brought it down right on top of my head!
Ouch! I had no doubt that he fully intended to kill me but I'm convinced that the Prism itself lessened the blow. I'd done that much, at least!
Still, it felt as if I'd been hit by a runaway Starship! I hit the deck with my chin and only my Augmentation kept me from blacking out. I could feel the blood wetting my mane as I forcibly focused my eyes and watched him grab the thing up like a spear to deliver the finishing blow while I frantically willed my body to get up and move!
Something like a discus rocketed in edge-on and smacked him on an ear! The Eldar Seal rang like a bell... or maybe it was Discords' head that made that sound... and it rebounded back the way it came while the Lord of Chaos screwed up his eyes and screamed in pain!
If The Doctor had a follow-up for that he never got a chance to use it for at that moment Tyllae cut loose with the Big Faery Guns!
A ravening bolt of blazing golden light as thick as my body blazed from behind me not a yard above my head and Discord was hammered into the back wall straight through that ghastly support couch.
The clever Fey aimed not at the Prism, catching Discord with a low blow below the belt! There are no rules in a fight to the death, after all...
I had a brief, almost comical, impression of the Lord of Chaos' eyes bugging out and his cheeks distended with a scream that just couldn't come out as he disappeared into the smoking hole his body ploughed out of the Klingon Engineering Bay!
There was no antimatter back there any more, or else we all would have been goners! Still, coolant and smoke billowed out, lurid maroon and gray billows lit by brief flashes as battery-powered systems shorted out! The lights stayed on by a miracle or perhaps the Klingons had their own version of permanent light panels.
Whatever the case, I sprang up when I saw paw, talon, and Prism grip the edges of the horizontal crater as he pulled himself out.
I spoiled Tyllaes' next shot but I didn't care. This was personal and he had it coming!
He came out with his head thrust far forward and I hit him with a no-finesse right cross delivered at Warp Speed!
The last time I hit him he was the proverbial Immovable Object but now the Prism wasn't lending itself to the fight. The results were both gratifying... and disturbing!
I didn't break my hoof this time, though I did scrape my knuckles raw as his head smacked back into the jagged edge of the hole he pulled himself out of. He hit so hard that his stag horn broke off... and both his eyes popped out of his head!
They bounced like balls, spinning rapidly and glared up at me from two different vantage points on the deck as the rest of him fell backwards. I was in no mood to be charitable or repulsed by the display. Instead, I lashed out with a hoof and did my best to stomp them flatter than day-old cider!
But they were nimble little things! The heavier-than-air coolant vapors didn't help my aim as they bobbed and bounced, dodging my best efforts.
The coolant was toxic and looked very similar to the stuff the Federation uses to keep the balephaser coils from turning themselves into plasma during use. I was trying to breathe in shallow gasps but I was stirring up clouds of the stuff while more kept billowing out that damn hole. I was coughing, Augmentation or no Augmentation, by they time they zig-zagged their way back Home!
I was mad as Hell, but I wasn't stupid enough to charge in there to slug it out with that maniac in close, poisoned quarters! I sprang away, trying to find some higher ground to take refuge on.
But Tyllae was still with us! A faintly rosy globe occurred around me and cool, clean air flowed in from Luna-knows where! I took a cleansing breath and spat out maroon-colored phlegm!
I looked about quickly and saw Tyllae blazing in all her Elfin Glory and gave her a grateful look. I spotted The Doctor on the other side of the room perched upon what, in the Hermes, would be one of the Intermix Control Assemblies.
He, too, stood in a rosy bubble of clean air with the Eldar Seal leaning up against one foreleg.
“That was soo good!” He enthused. “That was brilliant! Couldn't have done better, myself! Let's hope we live to capitalize on this! Help's on the way! Listen!”
After what Tyllae did, in a rational Universe, I should have been deafened! But I caught the faint sounds of the screeching wheeze of the TARDIS building in intensity and I began to hope that we would get out of this after all!
“That ...HURT!” Discord bellowed as he hauled himself into the open... peeking first to the left and right of the hole before fully emerging!
Tyllae pasted him again with a tighter, more coherent argent beam! Although it staggered him, he leaned into it as if he were facing a driving wind and held the Prism before him. The blazing radiance washed across an otherwise invisible sphere, enlarging the mouth of the hole he stood in and gouging the deck but leaving him unscathed. The Prism was protecting itself and Discord was benefiting from it indirectly.
The Fey furrowed her angelic brow and she reared as she poured everything she had left into it, desperately buying us time for the TARDIS to arrive. But there were limits to what she could do, marooned on This Side as she was! She almost did it, but fell back to all fours exhausted. ...And the TARDIS still wasn't there yet!
I swore and got ready to leap down and go to her aid as he advanced, holding the Prism like a dagger to deliver a gutting blow. But he stopped dead, looking shocked as he finally picked up on the sound!
“Not this time you don't!” He said fiercely, hoisting the Prism onto his shoulder like a rocket launcher and whirling to cover all the corners of the room.
The Eldar Seal arced in and impacted at a perfect ninety-degree angle!
...You know, I really think it was his head making that gonging sound!
“Oi, Stumpy!” The Timelord called out. “What's that behind you, then?”
Discord stopped clutching his head and whirled to face the hole in the Engineering Bay... and the TARDIS flicked into being directly above him and pounded him flat into the deck in a swirl of smoke and coolant!
The same instant it landed the door flew open and my beautiful, beautiful Sunny leaned out the door.
“Move yer butts! Th' bloody cavalry's arrived!”
We piled in, Tyllae first, instantaneously assuming her tiny form 'sooper-suit' and all! I was a fast second, with The Doctor almost trampling my tail as he crowded behind!
“Go, go, GO!” He called out as soon as he shut the door!
But Ditzy didn't need and prompting! She threw the switch at the second syllable and the TARDIS wheezed to life.
Sunny threw her arms around me and kissed me!
“Ye were bloody marvelous! Knocked his bloody lights out his bloody head! Och, Ah wish Ah could o' got a picture!”
“Hay! Tyllae helped! Tyllae gets kisses, too!”
Sunny gathered her up with one arm in a three-way hug and lavished the giggling little tyke with kisses!
The Doctor couldn't, I suppose, help sounding smug.“ I got a couple of good licks in myself... though I'll settle for an 'atta-buck', eh?” It was a wonder that he could even work the controls the way he did with Ditzy hugging him so tight!
I found myself grinning like a maniac in dawning realization. We'd actually made it! Not only that, we'd found a way to drive a wedge between Discord and the Prism! We could fight back!
I crushed Sunny to me and gave her such a kiss!
Then... the TARDIS lurched! The wheezing groan it made shuddered and stuttered. From somewhere came the tolling of a deep bell pealing with an echoing b-o-n-g-g-g-g!
A gleaming nine-faceted spear, three inches wide and yards long sheared through the deck between myself and The Doctor!
It withdrew and I dumped Sunny unceremoniously as I steadied myself . Ditzy was flung away and The Doctor flung himself at the controls, shouting!
“No! No, no, nooo!” He threw switches, punched buttons, and yanked levers like the self-proclaimed Madpony he was!
The Prism stabbed up again, penetrating the deck at a thirty-degree angle not a yard from the Timelord! The Doctor hung on, desperately trying to save the TARDIS and all the rest of us.
“Tyllae!” I shouted. “Change back and blast the damn thing! We have to keep it off us to give us enough time to get out!”
“Tyllae can't!” The Fey wailed. “Too much metal, too much Magic! Tyllae will kill poor TARDIS an Tyllae if do!”
I swore with enough savagery to blister bitanium! Discord had control of it again! Enough, at least, that he was able to persuade it to this much. However the Prism thought of me, he'd convinced it that The Doctor was a mutual threat. And it was zeroing in on him!
There wasn't anything else for it, I made a grab for the thing. If I could get my hands on it I should... I hoped... be able to get its attention. Maybe I could get it to lay off us... it wasn't as if there was a viable plan 'B'!
But it withdrew again as I threw myself toward it! I scrambled back to my hooves.
“Move it, Doc! It's coming for you!”
“I can't leave the controls! I'm not leaving her!” The Doctor cried back. “Ditzy! I need you at the Dimensional Controls! Emergency micro-jump back to the Hermes! Re-materialize, then give it all we've got! I'll hold her together in the meantime!” He yanked a flurry of levers and pounded buttons as he danced around the Console! He couldn't spare me a glance but he spoke as he worked.
“Full power take-off from a standing start!” He said in a hurry as Ditzy pounced on her panel. “Enough power to cross half of Time put into a thousand yard jump! Very bad for the local Spacetime! They'd revoke my license on dear old Gallopfrey... if I'd every bothered to get one!” The Console spat sparks and smoke!
“Hang in there, Sexy!” He waved the smoke out of his face and batted down a small fire. “Ditzy!”
“All set, Doctor!” The soft gray Pegasus literally hovered over her board keeping the controls in easy reach. A stray lock of blonde mane fell across her eyes as she determinedly kept both eyes focused!
B-o-o-n-n-n-g-g-g-g-g!
Small explosions happened somewhere nearby. In the walls, I think. A hoof-full of the roundels burst open, spewing smoke at the whole place juddered like the Hermes sprinting through the Warp Five threshold!
The scraping moan of the TARDIS became unsteady, sounding eerily like a drawn-out scream. No mere mechanism would have put up with so much. Safeties would have shut anything else down long ago.
… But the TARDIS really loved The Doctor! She powered on, letting him do what she didn't have the strength for!
“Hang in there, Old Girl!” He half encouraged, half pleaded. “You're going to get such a round of maintenance after this! We'll jettison half these old decks so you don't have to lug so much stuff about! We'll even get rid of the swimming pool, I know how much you hate it! Ditzy! Re-materialize... now! With any luck we'll squash him flat again! Right! Jump in three... two...on-”
His voice cut off in a straining gasp as the Prism erupted from the deck by his left rear hoof and passed through his body to exit high on the right side of his neck, six inches of gleaming crystal shining with deadly brightness!
He blinked in almost comical surprise then shuddered and convulsed, his body trying to curl itself around the thing that impaled it. His hoof spasmed at the controls as he forced his jaws open to silently mouth “Go!”
Ditzy screamed and threw the switch. Tyllae wailed and I froze in place. My first impulse was to haul him straight up and off and hand him to Sunny... but he'd bleed out in an instant if I did that! I thought about trying to break the damn Prism off at the deck but that would have done even more damage to him! I cudgeled my brain for something to do!
The Prism saved me the decision and withdrew so quickly I barely saw it move. The Doctor, rigid in his dying agony, fell against the Console and toppled to the floor.
The engines of the TARDIS screamed and strained, jerking us all around so badly that I missed catching the Timelord. I sprawled on my side and scrambled to regain my footing!
From outside the TARDIS came a clap of thunder that red-shifted almost instantly to a dull rumble. The whole place gave an almighty leap that made all of us not airborne bounce off the deck. ...And then everything leveled out!
The TARDIS still sounded... sick... but we were free and clear!
I made it to all fours and made for The Doctor. Sunny was already there. She didn't bother with her medkit and had fired up her horn. Her back was to me, but I could tell by her body language that something was wrong!
I crabbed around her, reaching out to hold him down so she could get to work. I stopped dead, staring!
Blood. There should have been blood, lots of it! The damn thing should have sheared through half a dozen major blood vessels and assorted organs. Hell, it had to hit his heart! At that angle it just had to!
But not a drop showed. Instead, bright golden smoke drifted from his wounds! He coughed a bright cloud of it as he lay there, his convulsing winding down to the final rictus of death.
“What...th'...bloody...Hell?” Sunny wondered. “Ma spell wilna touch him!” Panic edged into her voice.
“His glow isna fadin'. 'Tis growin' by leaps n' bounds! If Ah didna know better Ah'd say th' laddie's goin' up like a bloody bomb! ...How is that even possible?” Her tear-stained face turned to me.
I spread my hooves silently, only then feeling the tears running down my face.
Tyllae zoomed up, pushing at Sunny's shoulder urgently.
“Dokker all gone now, Sunny! Gotta go now! Not safe to stay, nope, nope, nope! Pleeeze, Sunny! Pleeeze, Starry! Lissen to Tyllae! Gotta go, go, go!”
I learned my lesson about heeding the tiny Fey! I took her by the arm and urged her up, looking around in a daze.
Smoke drifted lazily in the Control Room. The explosions had stopped, though some of the controls still fizzled and sparked. In between the tolling of that bell, beyond the noise of the ailing TARDIS, the only sound was a quiet whimpering punctuated with sniffles and the muted sounds of controls confirming their activation.
Ditzy was still at her post, her face a hellish mask of mingled fierce concentration and heartbroken grief. She operated her controls at arms length lest the tears that ran off her face would fall onto it adding to the chaos.
“She's right!” She sniffled and dashed a hoof across her eyes before continuing. “You've got to get out of here. I'm... I'm taking you back to your ship but you have to leave as soon as you get there. You have to be off the TARDIS before... before... before he dieeees!” Her voice frayed away in a sob that wracked her where she hovered.
She sounded like a five year old foal, even more wretched than Tyllae on that first night in our cabin.
We moved toward her but she held up a hoof!
“No...!” She choked. “The longer you stay the more it's hurting him! I have to take us away until it's over... one way or another.”
She threw a final lever and the TARDIS groaned to a stop with that pervasive boom! The doors, both of them, opened silently.
“Go!” Ditzy whimpered. “Hurry and just go...please!”
Sunny wanted to go to her but I pulled her gently away. Tyllae didn't recognize my authority just then and flung herself against Ditzy's neck to deliver a last elfin hug before making a beeline for the door.
I paused in the doorway and took one last look within. The Doctor's body was flaring with golden light. I could hardly make him out any more. Beyond him, almost lost in the glare, Ditzy whimpered and sobbed.
I stepped out backwards, whacking my head on the door-frame, and stood with Sunny as she cried silently in the gloom of Cargo Bay Two.
The doors to the TARDIS closed one last time. The light atop it started to blink and that tortured, wheezing groan shuddered into being. The TARDIS faded, came back, and faded again. Before it went away completely, a blaze of golden glory pulsed from its windowpanes that washed all the shadows from the room for long seconds. ...Then sound and light and sight were gone as if it had never been there.
Sunny buried her face against me and sobbed while Tyllae regarded the empty space solemnly.
It would have been nice to be alone for just a little bit, if only to be able to order my thoughts enough to pay a tribute to that gay, sad, enigmatic little eccentric stallion.
But it wasn't to be. Kirk's voice rang out from the ships Public Address System!
“Captain Starry-Eyes, respond! There's a huge energy build-up on the Werewolf! Captain, respond!” Who knows how long he'd been paging me? From his tone he was on the verge of giving his own orders. Well, I would have done the same in his place!
I reached out and pounded the wall intercom button, breaking the faceplate and not giving a prospector's damn!
My own voice, ragged with emotion, boomed throughout the Hermes.
“Kirk! Energize transporters. Bomb that damn ship! Helm, get us out of here. Emergency Acceleration!”
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6881807 I wasn't originally... for precisely the reason you outlined! But I did some digging around to see if anypony had done anything similar and found a slew or Dr. Hooves comix... and sorta fell in love with the whole Doctor & Ditzy concept. (The only two FIM figurines I own are Doc & Ditz!) I especially was very taken by the Doctor Hooves & Assistant animated short... which sort of sealed the deal as far as I was concerned!
6881582 What the heck! If yer gonna trounce on sompony elses copyrights, you might as well trounce on 'em all! *sings* "You gotta care! You gotta care...!
*listens to chirping crickets* ... I know you're out there, I can hear you breathing!
6878505 Hey, do YOU want to dispute Luna? Me, I take her word for it!
The rule of three, three times, in what turns out to end up a fixed point for the generalised temporal matrix?
Will this be the method by which the regeneration limit isnt just bypassed, but broken absolutely?
Hope Derpy is ok.
After Ditzy's gone through all this, getting the wrong date on some edding invitations seems more than understandable.
I've always liked the Doctor & Ditzy too, though my favorite Dr. Whooves adventures on YouTube has him gallivanting around with Trixie of all ponies.
6886243 But she's conscientious enough to feel bad for making a mistake
Also... Trixie??
Hmm, just a small point, I'm not sure if phasers ran on dilithium. I mean they might, haven't really looked into it, but I thought they used some undefined power cell. Also, why did the others have to leave the TARDIS and not Ditzy?
Bloody great chapter though.
6887444 Now wait a minute! I would bet my brothers cat that, back in the days of the original Technical Manual, there is a tiny dilithium crystal in the emitter right at the end of the 'barrel' of the phaser. ... Or maybe it was the Next Generation Manuel. .
*Sigh* All those words and I manage to still not put my point across
Ditzy loves the Doctor and wouldn't voluntarily leave him if there was even the barest quanta of a chance he was going to Come Back. Besides, the TARDIS just had the Mother of Double Whammies! Damage from the Prism as well as the whole established symbiotic-relationship-to-the-state-of-The-Doctor syndrome going on. When the Doctor Regenerates so does the TARDIS. And when the Doctor dies...
Well, Ditzy just had to get away from the Hermes at whatever cost.
Still... who's gonna fix that pesky crack in the wall of Cargo Bay Two?
6887767
There was a dilithium power cell, but I don't remember the TOS phasers having dilithium at the emitter. I'll check later if you'd like, but since ST: Equestria is set before TOS and has magic, the technology would be different anyway.
Trixie is Doctor Whooves the Great is The Great and Apologetic Trixie, which, to me, makes for a nice comparison with Doctor "I'm sorry." Also, she has a temper, which reminds me of my favorite of the new Who companions, Donna Noble.
My go-to companion for Doctor Whooves, though, is still Ditzy. Her fanon enthusiasm just works so well as just what the Doctor ordered.
6887767 Okay, like I said, I wasn't sure about the phaser thing. I would have thought that putting something made from anti-matter in a handheld device would be a bad idea, what do I know?
Anyway, the TARDIS isn't going to explode when he dies. Apparently it will just die too, and then slowly get bigger.
This wrapped up the arc nicely.
6888961 'Tain't no antimatter in a hand phaser. There's a sarium krellide power cell... a Vulcan invention, as I seem to recall... with a bit of dilithium in the emitter that does the same thing it does in the warp core. Namely, channeling the energies involved without being destroyed in the process. That's my story and I'm a-stickin' with it!
Now waitaminnet! I remember that episode... but what made the TARDIS explode, dooming the Universe, in the days of the Pandorica?
6888404 I looked for and listened to a couple of the Doctor Hooves and The Great And Apologetic Trixie. Gotta admit, they're nice stories but... like yourself... I like the idea of Ditzy as a Compainion. It's so RIGHT
I seem to have come across a few references to Princess Luna being a Companion! Now THAT would be a series! Seems the Doc ran across her during her exile on the Moon. (I'm a big Lunaphile, I'm afraid!
)
I wish I could find my old copy of the Starfleet Technical Manual. I wonder if it exists on the Web somewhere? Gotta have a go at tracking it down...
6888985 Yep, yep, yep! Now back to business! Mwhahahahaha-a-a-a-a!!!
6885967 How very perceptive of you! I'll say no more on the subject but this... The Fey and the Gallopreyans are both fantastically old species. Polar opposites, as befits the needs of Dualism, eh? Both of them achieved Immortality after their respective fashions. Imagine what they could come up with if they put their collective heads together...
6890669 I always thought dilithium was the antimatter in a warp core? And I honestly don't remember what was making the TARDIS explode over and over again in that episode. I've completely forgotten, damn my memory.
6891911 (Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert!) Dilithium was the 'magic' substance that made warp drive possible. It's unique structure kept it from falling apart even in the presence of a matter/antimatter reaction. It was a key component in a warp reactor, being used to concentrate and focus the high energy plasma.
...I was gonna say that there was something I damn a lot... but I can't remember what it was!
6890679
Found mine, but I don't have a scanner. The phaser 2s have a "dilithium crystal cell" just forward of the handle. It doesn't say it was for energy (I misremembered earlier), but doesn't say what it is for. Since that puts it fairly near the emitter, and that it looks like it's designed to be removed and replaced, I'd easily believe it was used as part of the beam generation.
6897315 ...
The original form of this story was non-FIM and the character we all know and love as Sunny used to be called Alice, Alicia Alicorne. *Give you the gold-pressed latinum -plated Stimbolt Award for spotting a blooper*
A tribute to my encroaching senility!
6897745 Mine's in my rusty old noggin! Your description is close enough for me to claim 'Artistic License', so I'll take it! *Makes note to contact his shady Orion lawyer*
6899856 On THIS side of the Prism that's true, but in the Equestriverse....
Yep! Fallout 1,2,&3! Gotta get me an X-bow to play 4, though....