I’ve never been one for assigning intellect or personality to things that don’t have those qualities. Such things are simple lies to make the unknown seem less misunderstood. Similarly, “fate” is a simple way of pretending that all things happen for a reason; that there is no such thing as misfortune or chance, merely actors living out a play.

I’ve always found that level of self-deception to be incredibly unhealthy in the long-run, but I knew enough of psychology to understand its reasoning. People like order. They like things to happen for a reason, preferably an intelligently driven reason. While in reality an event might be an extremely long chain of independent events all contributing to a single outcome, to the point where it can be incredibly hard or impossible to declare one single action to have been the one responsible for the ultimate outcome, it can be much more comfortable to decide some complex event happens because of a single entity or force of nature deciding it will happen.

This becomes even more tempting when there are plainly existent entities who are actually capable of doing such things. The princesses Luna and Celestia were vastly powerful beings. Now they are revered as goddesses, and their influence is perceived--almost certainly incorrectly--in a great number of events. Ponies offer up pleas and prayers to these princesses-turned-goddesses, and expect events to be altered in their favor. There are even a number of spirits out there who exert various degrees of influence over the world. It is quite true that events could be influenced by these entities.

The problem comes when individuals start seeing all events as being under their influence. It’s a self-centered conceit, where individuals perceive themselves as somehow more important than the individual beside them, and therefore, what happens to them must also be more important. Realistically speaking, almost everything that happens is a natural result of the course of events, with no outside intelligence steering the results.

There is no such thing as fate.

But for a brief moment, I entertained the idea that some malevolent entity had set its intentions upon me.

It was just too much for me. I’d seen so many horrible things in such a brief span of time. My queen, a decayed and empty husk. The remains of my sisters, some still floating in the murk of their own decay. The vileness of raiders, mutilating, raping, and killing ponies that should have been their kin. Another pony, one who should be a benevolent leader, instead selling out the ponies he was responsible for to those same raiders, all for a few pieces of metal.

The whole way to my hive, I had tried to prepare myself for the worst. I had expected to either find a glowing crater where my hive had been, or a cold tomb for those who had died centuries ago.

I’d even learned of ghouls. I’d seen a pony ghoul just two days before. And yet, I had refused to consider the possibility that such a thing could happen to my own kind. I must have pushed it away, as a possibility too painful to consider. I allowed emotion to blind me to a threat, and left myself vulnerable as a result.

Then I had encountered them, face-to-face and impossible to deny. It was too much, so in my desperation and horror, I imagined that some foul intellect had decided I hadn’t suffered enough already. I imagined that it had animated the dead of my hive, all so I would have to face down the corpses of my own sisters as they tried to kill me.

All that was missing was a spoken accusation. “Why you?”

But it was all a lie.

There was no malevolent force determined to make me miserable. The world didn’t have it out for me. It wasn’t even unfair. It simply was. Complaining about my misfortune, or trying to seek out some imagined enemy, was pointless. I had to deal with the situation I found myself in, rather than imagine some completely different problem.

I’ll admit, all of this is considerably more clear-minded than I was at the time. I was on the verge of breaking down. Maybe I did. I’m not entirely clear on what happened. I remember being pushed back, and gunfire. The next clear memory was being held in Starlight’s forelegs, my face buried in the soft fuzz of her neck, her coat damp with my tears.

I pulled back, wiping at my eyes. Starlight stayed there, a hoof resting on my shoulder as I struggled to recover. I caught sight of Dusty and Sickle at the open blast door, though my gaze immediately dropped back to my own hooves. I couldn’t meet their eyes.

Starlight remained silent and supporting. In the background, I heard Dusty and Sickle exchange a few words. Sickle was spitting and griping about something, but I didn’t catch what. The first words I clearly remember were Dusty’s. “We should leave.”

“No,” I croaked, quickly wiping at my eyes again. “N-no. We came this far. We can’t… I can’t just leave now.”

Starlight wore an expression of concern, but she helped me stand. I wobbled, but managed to keep my hooves. If I had been a bit more clear-minded, I might have worried over how weak I felt, even with the supportive emotions flowing from Starlight.

The entrance to my hive was a scene of carnage. The choke-point formed by the blast door was perfectly tailored for Sickle’s abilities. She stood there, heaving deep breaths, over the shattered remains of a terrible number of long-dead changelings. They were piled three or four deep around the entrance, crushed and mangled by her hooves and blades, and blending into a single gray, jagged mass in the monotone light. The broken shells leaked murky fluids, which filled the air with a powerful stench of rot and decay. The smell dug up horrible memories of my first day in the Wasteland; a slight tremble passed through my legs before I could stop myself.

Sickle was practically drenched in the fluids, dripping from her muzzle and chest. She grimaced and spit again, though strangely, she went still and quiet when she saw me looking at her.

I approached the scene with trepidation, stepping past the scattered shell casings from Dusty’s rifle. He stepped in front of me, looking as concerned as Starlight did. “Whisper… there’s probably going to be more.”

I nodded, almost stumbling as I did so. I had to stop and steady myself, taking a deep breath; it met with mixed results, given the nauseating scent in the air. “...I know.”

“And if we go in there,” he continued, “we could get surrounded. If we’re attacked from multiple directions, we’ll need every gun.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said, though I’m sure it wasn’t a terribly convincing statement. “...It was a shock. Unexpected. Surprises are… more psychologically impacting. Now I… have time to mentally process and prepare.” I swallowed. “I’ll be fine.”

He frowned at me for several seconds before speaking again, and my ears drooped. “You’re not fine,” he said. “I get that this is important to you, so I’m willing to go in there, but you’re not in good shape. If I decide we’re leaving, then we leave, no arguing. We can always come back later. Got it?”

I nodded again. “Of course.”

“We’re also on limited supplies,” he said. “I spent a lot of ammo keeping the ferals--” I winced “--from piling onto Sickle and weighing her down with their numbers. I know it’s going to be hard, but we need you contributing to the fight.”

Sickle grunted quietly, but said nothing.

“I will,” I said. He continued to stare at me for a moment before nodding, though I could tell it was with a great deal of reluctance.

We entered the hive. I flew up and over the short wall of bodies, holding my breath as I went. I refused to watch as the others made their way across; their grunts and the crunching of broken exoskeletons was more than enough for me. I shuddered at the sound.

The bodies trailed off rapidly past the entrance, the few who had been gunned down before piling into the melee. There was plenty of room to walk around them in the wide hallway.

I tried to ignore the bodies and instead focus on the hive itself. Apart from a few new bullet holes, it seemed this part of it was in good condition. The concrete walls were cracked in a few places, leaving a bit of dust and debris scattered on the floor, but the damage was minor. The maintenance panels spaced regularly along the floor were still in place, and the lights built into the ceiling, while dark, were intact. Even the paint, a cool gray, was almost entirely intact, with only a little chipping and peeling.

Seeing the place lit only by the green light of the PipBuck screen gave it an eerie appearance. The subtle difference made the familiar space seem alien and sinister. It was wrong.

I shook off the feeling of unease, refocused on the task at hoof, and led us into the hive.

The hallway split, leading to different places. I took the hall that led deeper into the hive, which immediately led into a wide atrium extending two stories both above and below our entrance. The open center stretched well outside of the PipBuck’s light, dark and cavernous. Balconies overlooked the open space, and above, massive arches of reinforced concrete crossed over the vaulted ceiling, the nearest two just barely within the light’s glow.

Beside me, Starlight let out a low whistle. “Wow. Except for being pitch black, this is a lot nicer than what I had pictured.”

I walked over to the edge of the balcony, hoofsteps echoing weakly across the empty space. “What were you expecting?”

In the corner of my vision, I could see her ears droop low. “I just… well, you know, the whole ‘bug’ thing, and you’re calling it a hive, so, I dunno, was thinking like bees or ants or...” She trailed off, scuffing a hoof against the floor. “Shit. Sorry.”

I looked down from the balcony. Below, the courtyard was cloaked in shadows. Green light glinted softly off the water below the still fountains. Once, it had been a common area, dotted with changelings relaxing and socializing. Now, the only signs of this were a few misshapen lumps lying scattered among the benches, tables, and open spaces, barely visible in the gloom.

I sighed. Then I blinked as Starlight’s words finally connected. “Huh? Oh, no. Some hives were like that.”

“Oh?” It’s surprising how desperately hopeful a single word could sound.

“Yes,” I said, looking back to her. “The Chrysalis hive was ancient, and many of the new hives kept that aesthetic. Tradition.” I gestured my muzzle out to the open space. “We were quite happy to distance ourselves from tradition. I suppose it was a mostly symbolic gesture, but… I guess sometimes that can be useful in itself.”

Dusty and Starlight walked up to the edge of the balcony, to look out over the courtyard. The PipBuck’s light spilled over the ground as she reached the edge, removing any uncertainty as to what the scattered shapes were.

On my other side, Sickle spat a couple more times, stopping when I looked her way.

It caught Dusty’s attention, too. “Is something wrong over there?”

Sickle snorted. “I had my mouth open when I squashed one of those fuckers. Now I can’t get the taste off my tongue.” She spat again, grimacing. “I hate fighting fucking ferals.”

Starlight muttered. “Gee, how horrible this must be for you.”

“Oh, get fucked, you little bitch,” Sickle said, baring her teeth before looking away from us.

I turned away from the edge to follow the balcony around the atrium, and after a moment, the others followed. It was an awkward silence that followed.

To my surprise, it was Sickle who spoke up first. “You know, you changelings are tougher than I thought. Couple of those ferals took blows that would have crushed a pony’s skull, and they just shook it off.”

Dusty and Starlight both groaned. “Sickle…”

“What?” she shot back. “I was giving a compliment!”

“You’re shit at giving compliments,” Dusty said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, well, I don’t do it very fucking often, now do I? Ass.”

The heavy mechanical door we needed to use was shut, forcing us to spend a minute as I opened the emergency access panel beside it, engaged the manual override, and cranked the door open.

As it started to open, another rattling cry echoed from the hallway beyond. I ignored it, focusing the entirety of my attention on the crank. I remained focused even as a scramble of hooves struck the door, flailing through the small gap that had opened. Moments later the door was open enough for the dead changeling to squirm its way through the gap, only to be met by the carapace-shattering stomp of Sickle’s hooves. Something cold, wet, and sticky splashed against my hind leg.

I kept cranking until the door stood open enough for us to easily pass through, and we continued on. I avoided looking down as I stepped over the shape on the floor.

The hallway led directly to the central hub, a series of high-vaulted chambers where the various residential areas met. On each floor, the connecting hallways opened into broad walkways that circled and crossed over the central open space, while huge support columns and arches reinforced the structure.

Most changelings in the hive would pass through the space each day, so it was designed to be as pleasant as possible. The entire space in the center was a multi-level park, combining a natural-stone underground aesthetic with a variety of surface plants. Water flowed from artificial springs, trickling and pouring down rock faces and along small streams to form crystal-clear pools. A soft, cool light filled the space, like an eternal twilight, perfectly balanced for a changeling’s natural eyes. Above, the roof of the chamber sloped steadily upward to a peak high above. And then there were the other changelings; always other changelings, coming and going, flying and walking, attending to business or relaxing on their time off.

Now that pleasant space lay dark, silent, and dead.

As the most heavily traveled place in the hive, it would have been foolish of me to expect it to be unoccupied. A changeling ghoul stood only thirty feet from us as we entered, and with an angry cry, threw itself at us.

Sickle caught its charge in her forehooves and smashed it to the ground with a sickening crunch. As more cries echoed through the grand chamber, we drew back to the connecting hallway; it reduced the angles we could be attacked from, but only just. It was a major path of traffic, and that meant it was built wide. Sickle stood in the middle, and we quickly arrayed on her flanks. Shadows danced as Starlight moved, casting the area into a confusing contrast of light and dark.

The first ghoul came hurtling at us through the air, flying on tattered wings that shouldn’t have supported it. An eye-searing flash of red tore out and half of the ghoul vaporized in a cloud of embers, while the other half crashed to the ground. I quickly looked away as it tumbled to a stop, fairly certain I had seen parts thrown about from the motion. Several seconds later, two more ghouls came running down the walkway, rasping and hissing. Another flash of red sent one to the ground.

“That’s fucking bright!” Sickle snarled as she stopped the other ghoul with a double-hoof buck that sent the limp form flying into a supporting column.

I stood to the side, floating my rifle before me as I tried to control my trembling. The trickle of dead grew quickly, scrambling and stumbling over each other. By then, a dozen or more were coming down the walkway. The faces of my sisters twisted into grotesque snarls of rage as they bore down on me, fangs bared and eyes full of hatred. They lunged, and I squeezed the trigger.

My assault rifle chattered angrily, rattling in the grip of my magic as it spewed out bullets at a terrifying rate. The air filled with the head-pounding sound of gunfire in the tight space, the scene lit by the strobe of the muzzle flash.

I don’t know how much effect I had on the horde bearing down on us. I know the one I was looking at fell. Then the magazine ran empty. I got only a moment of horrified realization before one of the ghouls, one of my fallen sisters, plowed into me.

I staggered and almost fell from the jarring impact, my rifle clattering to the ground. A hoof slammed into my side, and suddenly I had a face-full of angry changeling, her dead eyes staring into mine as her mouth opened, broken fangs lunging at my face. Something tugged at the inside of me.

I might have screamed. I don’t know. I know for sure that I pushed a surge of magic into my horn and blasted it into her face. I was free. Flashes of blue tore through the air, and another ghoul I hadn’t seen fell beside me.

I stepped back, my rifle floating up in front of me. There were still ghouls everywhere. Sickle was roaring out, and nearby I saw Starlight firing away. I didn’t know where Dusty was, somewhere on the other side of Sickle. I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. All I knew for sure was that none of the ghouls were attacking me at that precise moment. I focused, running step-by-step through the procedure Dusty had drilled me on just days earlier.

Magazine release. Remove magazine. Retrieve magazine. Insert firmly. Pull. Release. Aim. Squeeze.

My rifle roared again, and I swept the muzzle across the line of bodies trying to get at us. One lunged at me; I swung the rifle around, still firing, and put the last of the magazine into it. Another of my sisters fell at my hooves, dead for good.

I reloaded and fired again. There was no grace or control to my fire; I simply pointed in the direction of the crowd and held down the trigger until the magazine ran empty.

And then, I finished reloading and aimed to find there was nothing left to aim at.

It was only with the sudden stillness that I realized how fast my heart was pounding, or how hard I was panting. Starlight was panting as well, turning to give me a very concerned look, which turned to relief when I gave her a weary nod in reply. My head felt slightly funny when I moved it, as if a fog had descended on my thoughts.

A deep crunch made me wince as Sickle stomped down on a still-squirming ghoul. Then she looked back to me with a broad grin and a chuckle. Even past the buzzing in my ears, I could hear her rumbling voice clearly. “Hell yeah, Whisper. That’s how you do it. Fuck ‘em up.”

I winced and looked away.

Sickle let out a laugh. “Shit, maybe we should have brought that minigun. Just turn you loose on all of ‘em.”

I could barely hear Starlight’s reply between my own impaired hearing and her hushed tone. “Sickle, come on, lay off. This is her family.”

“No it ain’t,” Sickle shot back with a snort. “Her family died a long time ago.” She jammed a leg-blade into a corpse, cracking right through the shell. “These fuckers just look like them, that’s all. Ain’t like things are all what they look like when you bugs get involved, is it?”

The last part was said directly to me. I glanced her way, saw her smug smile behind that gore-drenched muzzle, and looked away again.

Starlight stepped up to my side, and I’m sure she cast Sickle a dirty look before speaking to me. “Whisper?”

I sighed, then shook my head. My voice came out a little shaky and off-tune in my ears. “Yeah. Changelings are well aware that... what something looks like and what something is are two very different things.” I cast a glance back to the scattered corpses. A shudder passed through me, but it faded away.

The closest corpse was contorted where she had fallen, her eyes relaxed and expressionless, her limbs twisted at awkward angles. Of all the signs of injury scattered across her ancient body, the only one that drew my attention was the jagged opening behind her shoulder, where a bullet had exited, tearing out a large hole from her carapace. I lifted a hoof, and tenderly placed it atop her head, brushing gently beside her horn. “...But we also know that a physical change doesn’t change who someone is inside.”

Starlight’s hoof rested gently on my shoulder, comforting. Everyone was quiet, save for a rattle of metal as Sickle shrugged.

When I finally moved, it was sudden enough to make Starlight jerk in surprise. I simply crouched down, hooked a foreleg under my dead sister, and hefted her up. “Help me gather them,” I said as I dragged her toward the center of the loose cluster of bodies.

While Sickle went to work without a question, Starlight hesitated a moment before her horn lit up to carry another body over. She cast a concerned look my way, which I pretended not to notice. Instead, I spoke as if unprompted. “The magical radiation killed my sisters and transformed their bodies into something monstrous. I won’t leave them like this.”

It took only a couple minutes to gather the bodies. We remained undisturbed; no more ghouls appeared.

When it was complete, everyone stood back from the mound. Starlight was just starting to say something, likely asking what was next, when my horn lit up. I pushed a good amount of magic out, and fire burst out around the bottom of the heap so abruptly that she jumped back. Green fire quickly crawled up over the bodies, turning them into a raging pyre.

Dusty and Starlight edged back, especially as the scent of burning meat and shell filled the air. Sickle remained sitting right next to me, staring silently into the flames.

“I’ll have to do this for the others,” I said, my voice quiet against the crackle of the flames.

“How many were there, in this hive?” Dusty asked, and I shook my head.

“Not all of them,” I said. “I’ll come back, when the future of my hive is certain, and make sure that all of my fallen sisters receive their final transformation. For now… I’ll at least give that freedom to those I come across.”

There were nods all around, even from Sickle.

The flames worked swiftly, light dancing across the chamber. Soon, the flames faded, guttered, and died away, leaving only a thick scattering of ash in their wake. The light of Starlight’s PipBuck seemed even weaker in the flame’s wake.

I stood. “We should move on.”

They followed me as we continued on, following the walkway the length of the central hub. Three times we paused by the still husk of a dead changeling who had died without being reanimated by the balefire’s magic. Each time, I bowed my head, lowering my horn close to them as I conjured more flames.

As we were walking away from the third, Starlight moved in close beside me. “How’s your magic doing? Do you have enough to keep that up?”

“I’ll manage,” I said, and gave her a weak smile that quickly faded away again. “Don’t worry. I have an important mission for the hive. I won’t endanger that.”

She nodded, though judging by her frown, she wasn’t entirely comforted by the answer.

The multiple levels of walkways closed in, arcing down to merge into a single path that entered a wide tunnel. Every now and then, another small group of ghouls came running at us, two or three at a time. Sickle and Starlight dispatched them with ease, letting Dusty and myself conserve our ammunition. The largest group came near the end of the tunnel, as the echoes of Starlight’s Lancer brought the attention of the ghouls gathered beyond. Again, the small trickle turned into a sudden flood of dead changelings. As the body of the group close in, I once again fired off a magazine in one long burst, reloaded, and fired again. The powerful crack of Dusty’s rifle and the brilliant red and blue flashes of Starlight’s weapons filled the air as we formed a killing line. It was as if it had become routine already as the horde melted before us, especially once Sickle met the charge. I’m not sure how many I accounted for. Only a few were still standing after my second magazine, and Sickle easily dispatched them.

I finished reloading, and as I placed the empty magazine back into my pouch, I took inventory. The results were less than ideal. “I’m almost out of ammunition.”

“No shit, with how you’ve been shooting,” Dusty said, frowning across the carnage at me. “How many mags you got left?”

I glanced down to my pouch, then back to him. My ears were already hanging low. “One.”

He stared at me for an uncomfortable couple of seconds before speaking again. “I do hope you mean one spare magazine, in addition to the one in your weapon.”

“Oh! Yes.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay. You know how your rifle’s selector switch has a semi-automatic position?”

I nodded.

“Use it.”

Rather than replying, I twisted the small switch, letting the soft click answer for me.

Sickle snorted, already gathering the bodies up. “Shit, and here I was liking the whole changeling-berserker thing. Whisper’s more fun on full-auto.”

“Well Whisper is almost out of ammo. If she wants to do the whole full-auto thing, she needs to start carrying a lot more ammo.” He cast a glance my way. “Or better yet, learn to spend the ammo you do have better.”

“I’m not a good shot,” I meekly replied, occupying myself with the task of gathering the dead together.

“Volume of fire is a poor substitute for accuracy of aim,” Dusty said. “It’s certainly got its uses, but you need to learn control first. I can teach you how to shoot when we’re done here. Maybe even teach you a bit about being a proper soldier.”

“I…” I don’t need that, is what I intended to say. I was an Infiltrator. My tools were guile, deception, and stealth. I wasn’t a combatant.

But the last few weeks had put the lie to that idea. How many firefights had I gotten in? The same tools that had served me before were still my greatest strength, but things had changed. Appropriately, I had to change with them.

“...I think I’ll have to take you up on that.”

He nodded, satisfied.

With another pyre quickly burning down behind us, we stepped out into the next chamber. It towered as high as the previous chamber, but it wasn’t the wide-open space that one had been. A massive structure stood before us. In the dim light, we could only just make out the closest parts of it, including a couple of the great supporting arches that crossed above us between it and the outer wall. To either side of us, a plaza stretched out into the darkness, just a couple of feet lower than the walkway and dotted with more benches and pools. The broad walkway itself continued straight on, to a set of great doors, standing wide open.

“Wow,” Starlight murmured. Then, a little more clearly, she added, “Your hive keeps getting more and more impressive.”

“This is the Spire,” I said. “This is where the queen lives and rules, and below it are where the changelings who help run the hive work. Down there is where we’ll find the servers.”

The Spire loomed above us as we approached and entered through the main doors. Just inside, I started to turn to a side door, one which led into the back ways through the structure, but I halted myself. Instead, I turned back to the second set of main doors.

I was about to open the doors when my ears were assaulted with the near-simultaneous sound of Starlight’s yelp, a rattling hiss, and the near-deafening crack of the Lancer firing in an enclosed space, nearly blinding me with the red flash. I jerked to the side just as a black form crashed to the ground, and several more flashes of blue lit the chamber like a strobe light, ending when the dead changeling lit up blue, burning away under the Repeaters assault.

Starlight was already staggering back, her Repeater sweeping drunkenly through the air above her as she babbled loudly. “Holy shit! What the shitting fuck shit? I-it was crawling down the wall. The fucking wall!” She panted hard as she spun, sweeping her Repeater around again.

“Oh,” I said, trying to calm my own breathing. “Yeah.”

“What do you mean, ‘yeah?’” she snapped, stumbling around as she spun around again, searching the ceiling above us; the space was high enough that the rapidly bouncing light of her PipBuck left many dancing shadows above us as the blue embers died off. “It was just crawling down the wall at us! That was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Calm down,” Dusty said, while Sickle snorted something more derisive.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Changelings can do that.”

“What?” She glanced my way several times, torn between searching the darkness above and looking at me. “What do you mean changelings can do that? You don’t. Why don’t you?”

My cloak shifted back as I spread my wings, giving them a single flick. “Because I can fly?”

Her gaze stopped on me, blinking. “...Oh.” She looked back up, then slowly lowered her Repeater. Finally, she let out a shaky sigh before turning to me. “You think you could have shared that little bit of information before now? You know, before I nearly pissed myself because some creepy wall-crawling bug-zombie is trying to nibble on my ears?”

She immediately stopped, placing a hoof over the bridge of her nose as she groaned, her ears laid back. “Sorry,” she said; I assume I had made some obvious reaction to her description of my deceased hive-mate. “Sorry, just… that scared the shit out of me.”

“Pussy,” Sickle muttered.

Starlight responded by lashing out with a forehoof, connecting solidly with Sickle’s shoulder in a loud clop of hoof on metal. The armored mare barely budged with the blow, and followed it up with a quiet huff of amusement.

“It’s okay,” I said, swallowing uncomfortably. “And I didn’t mention it because, honestly, it just didn’t seem important.”

“Not… not important?” She let the question linger a moment before adding. “You didn’t think it might be important, like, tactically or whatever, that these things can walk on walls?”

“...They can fly.”

After a couple sputtered attempts to come up with a reply, Starlight finally sighed and sagged, a hoof returning to her face. “Fuck. My head hurts now.”

Dusty stepped in. “It still could have been useful information, but there’s no point in dwelling on it now. Let’s move on. And Whisper, if you can think of anything else unusual about you guys, let us know, okay?”

“I can’t think of anything,” I said. “But yeah, we should move on.”

I pushed on the door, and it opened a couple of inches before thumping against something and stopping. I pushed a bit more, but it refused to budge. I placed both forehooves against it and shoved, feeling it shift another inch before stopping again.

Defeated, I stepped away and looked back to Sickle. She was staring down at me, with her head inclined slightly to the side as if to say, “Really?”

I gave an awkward smile. “Do you think you could get it open?”

She responded with a short huff, then stepped past me. A crash of metal-on-metal filled the chamber as she slammed her shoulder against the door, jarring it a couple feet further open, then pushed. Her spiked shoes scraped against the floor in a way that sent a shiver through my shell, but the sounds of clattering and grinding from the far side of the door soon rose over it as she forced the doors open.

One final shove threw the door most of the way open. Most of the room beyond was in shadow, with Sickle blocking most of the light, but I could already see dozens of bodies lying just past the doors, as well as the broken remains of a couple of benches. A good number of both had been set against the doors to keep them shut.

Sickle stepped in, and I quickly followed. The room was mostly dark until Starlight passed the doors as well, her light spilling out across the room. I saw the dozens of desiccated corpses lying around us, some still clad in armor, but my attention was immediately drawn by a flash of green. I jerked, then froze, my eyes wide.

The flash of light had been the PipBuck’s light reflecting off a facet of a giant crystal at the center of the room, standing taller than even Sickle. One face of it was badly cracked, with a few shards scattered around the floor. The floor itself was cracked and crushed in where it had fallen, forming a small and shallow crater.

A rasping, clicking cry made me jerk back; one of the bodies near that crystal was a “living” ghoul, but my sudden sense of panic faded immediately. Her body ended with the crushed remains of what had been her hips. One foreleg lay twisted and shattered, the hoof missing entirely, while the other scraped at the floor, dragging her towards us a few inches at a time. Her face, lined with cracks, was twisted into an expression of rage, but I could only feel pity for her, crippled and trapped in this place for centuries.

Sickle crushed her head under hoof, the good leg spasming and scraping against the floor a few more times before going still.

I shuddered, turning my attention back to the giant crystal. While Sickle started gathering up the bodies, I simply stared.

I jerked when Starlight brushed up against me, then let out another deep sigh as I slowly relaxed again. She spoke quietly, though still clearly audible in the quiet room. “What is it?”

“A love crystal,” I said, voice almost choking. “We called it the Heart. As in, the Heart of the Hive. It hung here in the throne room, and… and it was always kept full of love, glowing with the energy inside it. It… it’s never been dark.”

She nodded silently. It was a few seconds before she asked, “Throne room?”

I lifted my snout, gesturing behind the crystal. She leaned to the side, shifting her PipBuck to light up the simple throne at the back of the room. The giant tapestries that hung behind it on either side remained surprisingly intact after all this time.

I turned away, moving to help gather the bodies of my fallen hive-mates.

They were dry, empty husks, rather than the crude semblance of living that the ghouls had been. As I bent over the first one, clad in the armor of a soldier, I saw the injury that had killed them; a single neat hole, almost hidden below the front edge of the helm, and right between the eyes. A pistol lay on the ground before her.

I slowly reached up, tenderly running a hoof along the side of her helm. Sickle grunted as she tossed a pair of husks onto the growing pile, and I could see both of them bore similar injuries. So did the others whose faces I could see. I turned back to the body I stood over. “They killed themselves.”

Dusty paused in dragging a body over. “The radiation would have been deadly, if it was strong enough to be turning them into ghouls.”

“Radiation poisoning is a nasty way to go,” Starlight said. “This way… well, at least it would be quick and painless.”

I slowly nodded. I could appreciate the reasoning, at least. I drew my hoof back, ready to drag the dead soldier to join the others, but I hesitated. Slowly, my hoof returned to the side of her head. I sat, another hoof joining the first, and as gently as I could, I lifted her head and slid off the helm.

Sitting back, I held the helmet before me, staring at its midnight-blue surface.

Starlight was watching me, curiously. “Whisper?”

I huffed out a slow breath, turned the helm around, and slid it on. My horn and ears slid neatly through the gaps designed for them, and the helm came to rest flush against my carapace, as if it had been made just for me.

I removed the rest of her armor, then shed my cloak and bags to don them myself. I slipped each piece on, slipping my wings through the gaps intended for them, and carefully tightened the straps until the segmented assembly fit snug and secure. Once it was all in place, it covered my body from chest to flank, leaving only the underside of my belly unprotected. A set of hoof-boots completed the set, covering the sides of my hooves while leaving the bottom exposed for grip.

With the last piece in place, I stood. The armor was surprisingly lightweight, and even more surprisingly, it didn’t restrict my movements. I wasn’t sure how much protection it might offer, given the light weight, but it had to be better than nothing.

Starlight was nodding when I had finished turning around to test the flexibility. “It looks good on you.”

“Thanks,” I said, though my feelings were a bit more mixed. I have to admit, the contrast of the dark blue on black was aesthetically pleasing. It was the significance of what it symbolized that concerned me. An Infiltrator shouldn’t need armor.

A hollow thump interrupted my thoughts, followed a moment later by Sickle’s voice. “That’s the last of ‘em.”

I looked down to the dead soldier at my hooves. Sighing, I hooked a hoof under her chest, dragging it to join the dozens of others nearby. I leaned her back against the heap, as if she were sitting. Then I stepped back, calling up my magic. Green flames erupted from the pile, rapidly consuming the dry husks.

I stared into the flames for several seconds before a loud crash of metal suddenly grabbed my full attention. The cold shock of adrenaline surged through my body as I bared my teeth and spun around, shouting in a loud snarl. “Get off of that!”

Sickle was sprawled out across the throne in her typically lewd fashion, her head held at an odd angle as she looked back at me in what I assume was surprise.

I took a step forward, wings flicking in agitation as I growled at her. “Get off! That is not yours! It was Ephema’s, and I’m not going to allow anyone but the next queen to sit there! Get off!”

As I huffed and growled, heart pounding, Sickle stared back at me. She gave an amused huff, the corners of her mouth starting to rise, but her expression froze, and slowly, they lowered again. After a couple of seconds, she nodded. “‘Kay.”

With that, she casually slid off and walked away.

A deep shudder passed through me as I fell back to my haunches, heaving deep breaths to calm myself. My legs trembled. To my side, I caught Starlight’s wide-eyed expression, as she silently mouthed, “Wow.”

I lowered my head to my hooves, eyes closed as I calmed down, letting the adrenaline burn away.

The pyre was almost burnt out by the time I stood again. Starlight was sitting nearby, looking awkward. Dusty was picking through the abandoned weapons, a couple of magical energy rifles poking out from under the flap of his saddlebags. Across the room, Sickle stood in the shadows, leaning against a wall.

I took my time recovering my equipment, strapping on bags, slinging my rifle, and donning my cloak once more. By the time I had finished, the last of the jitteriness had passed.

“Okay,” I said, drawing everypony’s attention. “Time to move on.”

I started to move to the back of the room and the doors there, but hesitated at the giant crystal. I stared at the Heart, dark and empty. Only a moment of consideration passed before I lowered my head, touching the tip of my horn to the crystal, and called up my magic. It was only a tiny amount, but it was enough to bring out a gentle glow from the depths of the crystal.

I caught Starlight’s questioning look when I stepped back. “I couldn’t just leave it dark like that.”

She gave a little nod.

I led us to one of the doors in the back of the throne room. Like the main doors, most of them were barricaded with the remains of chairs and benches. Dusty’s attention was immediately drawn to the center door, which did not.

“Why did they barricade these, but not that one?”

“That leads to the queen’s chambers,” I said, as I helped Starlight carry away one of the benches. “There’s no other entrance.”

“So they were keeping it safe?”

“I assume so.”

He nodded. “Did you want to check it out?”

I froze, almost dropping my end of the bench. Yes. “No.”

We finished removing the crude barricade and passed through, entering an access hall that led into the depths of the hive’s administration center.

As we walked down the hall, Sickle stepped up beside me. I resisted the urge to shrink away, especially when her head turned to stare at me. “So. Armor, huh?”

“Yes,” I said in a perfectly neutral tone.

She nodded. Then her hoof lifted and struck my side, giving a powerful shove. I slammed into the wall, my head cracking against the stone. The impact knocked my breath out, and I staggered for a couple steps before regaining my balance.

Starlight shouted, but Sickle ignored her. She continued to stare at me, her expression impossible to read behind that helmet of hers. “It any good?”

I glared up at her. “Yes,” I said, with a clear edge to my voice. Despite getting the wind knocked out of me, my unexpected encounter with the wall hadn’t actually hurt.

Sickle bared her teeth in a grin. “Good,” she said, and turned to look ahead of her again. I continued to glare for several seconds as we continued on.

You’d think being able to feel certain emotions might make it easier to understand ponies, but the fact that she had held some small level of positive feeling for me throughout the encounter just made things more confusing.

Fortunately, there were no more unexpected armor-checks along the way. We made it to the main stairway and headed down. We encountered only a single ghoul along the way, apparently trapped in the stairway.

Five levels down, I led us out. The halls there were much less impressive than the large public spaces from before, but they were still of comfortable size and cleanly cut into the rock. It had also apparently been abandoned. There were no bodies, reanimated or not.

Finally, we reached the doorway I was looking for. I stopped before it, huffing out a short sigh, and whispered quietly to myself. “Please, let things be simple, just this once.”

Dusty shot me a questioning look, but I just shook my head, pushed open the door, and stepped through.

As Starlight’s light flowed over the room, my ears and wings drooped at my side.

Past the technician stations, a broad window looked in on the server room, and the mangled lumps of metal and gemstones within.

Dusty muttered a curse under his breath, while Starlight trotted up to the window, lifting her PipBuck as she peered around the server room. “It’s all trashed. What happened? Ferals don’t normally care about property damage.”

“Security protocols,” I said, sitting down heavily to lean back against one of the technician’s desks. “The servers’ databanks get wiped, matrix disruption grenades are used to wipe any remaining information and collapse the spell matrices, and thermite charges destroy the hardware. Information security, in case the hive is lost. I’d hoped they hadn’t decided to do this.”

Dusty cursed again. “So we get nothing.”

“Not here,” I said, leaning my head back to thump against the desk. I repeated that a few times before grunting and forcing myself back to my hooves. “But not all information is digital, or stored on the servers. We should go to the command center.”

“Where’s that?” he asked.

“Four levels up,” I replied. “But first…”

I turned to the technician’s stations and started searching around. The results were swift and bountiful. Within a couple minutes, I had acquired an extensive toolkit for computer and electronic work, a smaller, more portable kit, various cables, six datastores, including one labeled “software toolkit”, and a pair of portable terminals that put my much larger one to shame. In the process of gathering them up, I also noticed that the “emergency destructive devices” locker still had contents, and we gathered them up, as well; four matrix disruption grenades and a pair of thermite charges. I had no idea if they’d ever be useful, but I took them all the same.

Once those were all tucked away, we headed up.

The command center occupied the entire level it was on. The two stairwells connected to the ends of a single hallway, and in the middle of that hallway was the entrance to the command center, flanked by fortified security positions. As expected, the door was locked.

This posed a problem, as there was no way Sickle was bucking that door down. It was a heavy blast door, a foot thick. On top of that, the locks were electronically powered, and required a constant supply of power to remain unlocked.

As soon as she heard that, Starlight went to work. After knocking around on the frame of the door, she brought out her cutter. We all retreated around the corner, waiting in the darkness as the sharp, powerful light flashed and danced.

Her first, exploratory cut opened just enough of the doorframe to peer inside the machinery and wiring there, and gave her a better idea where to cut. The second cut, lasting for a couple minutes, opened a foot-tall hole. Then it was a matter of digging at the internals and trying to get them to work.

It was a good half hour of work before she hooked up a spark battery to a couple of cables, and with a muffled buzz, the machinery spun to life.

“Come on, come on,” she muttered to herself, eying up inside the hole she had made. I could just make out the edge of some cylinder drawing away from the door. Then, with a loud thump, the cylinder stopped, and the door lurched. “Yes! Open it!”

Sickle stepped forward and shoved. Some mechanism squealed and ground in protest as the foot-thick door slowly swung open. Starlight removed the spark battery, the machinery producing a final thump as the buzz ceased, and repacked her tools.

The door thumped heavily against its stops, and with a sudden shriek, an armored ghoul dropped onto Sickle’s back.

Both Starlight and Dusty’s weapons snapped up, but neither fired as Sickle spun around. The ghoul flailed and bit uselessly at her armored back, until one spin sent it off-balance and it lost its grip. Sickle lashed out with both hind legs, smashing the ghoul against the open door with a sickening crunch.

More ghouls came, and Sickle charged forward to meet them. We followed behind her, stepping through the doorway and into the entry gallery. Blue lines cut through the air, taking down one of the three ghouls rushing towards us, while Sickle met their charge with her own, smashing both of them against the low wall of the gallery. Their struggles ended moments later.

We scanned around, weapons sweeping over the room. The entry gallery overlooked the central operations room, a large space with dozens of desks with terminals, all facing the trio of large projector screens. To the sides, hallways on both the main room’s level and our own led out to specialized offices, with chipped and faded lines of color leading the way to different sections. While I could see several bodies, there were no more ghouls.

Sickle took a step, wobbled, and toppled over on her side.

There was an assortment of startled replies as we rushed over to her side, but she was already getting back on her hooves.

Dusty was the closest to her head, though he gave the sharp horn a wide berth. “You okay, there?”

“I’m fine,” she muttered. “I just tripped.”

“Uh-huh,” Dusty replied, frowning.

“Fuck off,” she replied, a little louder. “I got ghoul gunk everywhere. It’s slippery. Ass.”

Dusty frowned, but didn’t press the matter.

With that more or less settled for the moment, I turned to the emergency supply cabinet beside the door. To my surprise, it was open and empty, except for some filter cases and spare batteries.

I turned back to the first changeling ghoul, clad in the same kind of armor I had just acquired. Sure enough, she wore a respirator mask, one of the supplies missing from the cabinet. She also wore a bandolier of pouches, carrying replacement spark packs for a magical energy weapon that was nowhere to be seen. Hanging from that bandolier was the item I had originally hoped to find in the cabinet: a flashlight.

I unclipped it, then turned and held it out to Dusty. “There’s a blue line on the wall in the hallway to our right. You and Sickle follow it. It’ll lead you to the computer security department, and the backup server. I expect they’ll have destroyed it as well, but it’s worth a check.”

Dusty accepted the flashlight with a nod.

“Starlight and I will be down in the pit,” I said, inclining my head toward the main chamber.

We parted ways, and I headed down the ramp to the main floor of the room. I headed straight to the rear-most desk, elevated to look over the stations in front of it. I figured, if there was important information to be found, Ops Lead was the place to start.

All the desks were covered with various folders and papers, as well as a thick layer of dust. Another body lay behind the desk. A respirator mask was strapped to her face, connected by a short hose to a bottle hung around her neck. Even past the centuries of decay, I could recognize Vigilance. This was--had been--her domain.

I tore my view away from her, throat tightening a bit. We hadn’t been close, or even spoken much, but this was a face I recognized. Instead, I turned to her desk. I pressed the power button on her terminal, just in case, and when it produced no result, looked to the papers lying on the desk.

“You need that on?” Starlight asked, already prying at the back panel of the terminal with a hoof.

“It would help,” I said. “Can you do that?”

She chuckled, floating out her compact electronics kit. “Oh yeah. I’ve done this a lot. It’s surprising how much stuff is tucked away behind terminal-operated locks. Powering stuff up is a useful skill for scavengers.” The back panel came off with a soft pop, and she got to work. “And you guys even use the same Stable-Tec terminals everyone else uses.”

She retrieved a spark battery from her bags, and after half a minute of tweaking and rewiring, leaned over the computer and stabbed a hoof at the power button. The terminal hummed and chirped as it sprang to life, the screen flickering awake with a soft green glow.

A few seconds later, it finished booting up, and the screen displayed a login prompt.

It was my turn to get to work. I retrieved one of the new, smaller portable terminals and turned it on. It sprang to life without complaint. To my satisfaction, I found that it had all the software tools I would need, and quite a few my older terminal had lacked. A few moments of digging produced the right debug cable from my bags. I plugged it into the exposed port inside the open back panel and rebooted Vigilance’s terminal.

This time, text representations of all the spell processes scrolled down the screen of the portable terminal. It was trivially easy to halt the spell matrix at the right point and convince it that, yes, I had entered a correct login.

There was very limited information stored locally. I started skimming through entries, which were mostly scheduling, along with a few back-and-forth messages about a game night. Starlight sat next to me, reading the messages that popped up.

Then I found a message log. It only held fifteen messages, but from the header, I could see they were all priority messages sent from the Ops Lead to Queen Ephema and her assistants during the final day of the hive’s life.

We read the entries together.

0832 -- INFOP reports asset Manehattan 3138 has gone off-task for a priority investigation of Four Stars central offices. Multiple work teams dispatched without announced work orders. Site on elevated security, with activation of lethal measures. Zebra contacts in Four Stars may be higher placed than initially believed. Asset Manehattan 1284 reports elevated MoM traffic and arrival of Steel Ranger detachment; believes MoM is preparing a major raid. INFOP prioritizing infiltration of Four Stars to investigate possible mid- to high-level threat.

0955 -- NIGHTFALL -- INFOP reports asset Canterlot 6916 has discovered a Four Stars work skywagon parked near the castle. Presence in Canterlot is unexplained. Vehicle abandoned, no occupants or cargo. Possible Zebra ties concerning. Asset Canterlot 6916 tasked with immediate investigation--BROKEN MASK. INFOP declaring all further Four Stars traffic as NIGHTFALL.

“What does any of that mean?” Starlight asked. “The, um… ‘INFOP’ and the like.”

“INFOP is Infiltration Operations,” I said. “Basically, my boss’s boss. They’re in charge of all espionage operations. ‘Broken Mask’ means that task is top priority, and is to be pursued as aggressively as possible, even if that means the Infiltrator has to burn an alias or expose themselves. And ‘Nightfall’... that’s bad. It’s one of the reporting keywords to indicate the severity of the message contents.”

I glanced at the next entry, and hesitated before adding, “In fact, there’s only one keyword that’s more severe.”

1101 -- ECLIPSE -- SIGINT reports abrupt increase in communications traffic in Zebra strategic defense network; decryption pending. Possibility of lead-up to large-scale offensive actions.
ECLIPSE--ECLIPSE--ECLIPSE

1113 -- ECLIPSE -- SIGINT reports traffic indicating full activation of Zebra strategic assets. OPLEAD suggests enacting COCOON protocol.

1116 -- ECLIPSE -- INFOP reports inability to contact Zebra assets. No contacts made in past four hours. All assets presumed lost or ineffective. Assume large-scale strategic/megaspell attack imminent. Requests permission to declare BREAKOUT for all assets globally.

“And what does--”

“‘Breakout’ was the command I got on the day the megaspells hit,” I said, suppressing a shiver. “Drop everything and run away as fast as you can. It usually means the MoM is about to bust down your door, not...”

Starlight slowly nodded. “And ‘cocoon?’”

“That one’s new to me.”

1118 -- ECLIPSE -- Staging begun for COCOON protocol. Recommend Queen departs immediately for COCOON site 4. BREAKOUT command issued to all Infiltrators. Further instructions added when possible to comply with COCOON.

1122 -- ECLIPSE -- OPLEAD acknowledges, wishes best speed to Queen. Command is remaining in-place to continue operations. Will continue to update on situation.

1135 -- ECLIPSE -- All section leads reporting large-scale conventional missile attack on Canterlot. City-wide shield is holding against attack. Local Army mobilized to evacuate nearby civilian population.

1200 -- ECLIPSE -- Unconfirmed report of megaspell detonation, vicinity Cloudsdale.

1202 -- ECLIPSE -- SIGINT intercepted Equestrian PINNACLE - SPELLFLASH traffic confirming megaspell detonation in Cloudsdale.

1213 -- ECLIPSE -- Further megaspell detonations confirmed in Manehattan, Fillydelphia, and Maripony. More unconfirmed reports coming in. SIGINT reports zebra strategic communications are significantly degraded, but indicate retaliatory megaspell strikes.

1215 -- ECLIPSE -- Unknown megaspell event reported inside Canterlot shield. Shield holding.

1221 -- ECLIPSE -- Current count, eighty three megaspell detonations confirmed, more underway. SIGINT reports complete breakdown of both Equestrian and Zebra strategic communications.

1225 -- ECLIPSE -- Hive under attack. Megaspell detonation in close proximity. Hive intact. Damage assessment underway.

1238 -- ECLIPSE -- Balefire ingested by ventilation systems. Radiation levels rising to rapidly lethal levels throughout the hive. Oxygen levels critical. Declaring the hive lost. Enacting information security protocols and lockdown. Evacuation underway. Command remaining in-place to coordinate while secondary air supplies hold out. To anyling receiving this message: the hive lives on in you. Good luck.

I didn’t realize I was trembling until Starlight’s foreleg closed around my shoulders. I gave a weak, shuddering sigh, leaned my head gently against hers, and closed my eyes.

Hoofsteps drew closer, echoing strangely in the irregular room before halting a short distance away. “You found something,” Dusty said. It wasn’t a question.

I took a deep breath, slowly sitting more upright as I opened my eyes, looking to him. He stood a short distance away, the flashlight in his mouth pointed at the ground. Behind him, Sickle was already moving to gather the bodies.

“Messages,” I said, and weakly motioned a hoof at the terminal. “Sent while the hive was dying.”

“And that ‘cocoon’ stuff,” Starlight said, giving me a gentle squeeze. “That could be good. If that place you woke up was the fourth cocoon site, that means there’s at least three more places where some changelings might have survived. Maybe more.”

“Maybe less,” I said, looking down at my hooves. “It was common practice with sensitive data to start numbering at something other than one.”

“Anyway,” Dusty said, “you were right. We found the server you told us about, but it’s toast. What else should we look for?”

I looked up again, eyes glancing over the various desks. “...Anything referencing something called the ‘cocoon protocol.’ It seems likely that’s the name for what the hive was doing with C.L.T..”

He went to one of the desks and started leafing through the papers. Starlight looked to me, worry in her eyes, but giving a soft smile. I managed to return it, and after giving me another squeeze, she moved to another desk to do the same. I remained sitting there for a couple more seconds before forcing myself to stand. Another flashlight lay beside Vigilance. I retrieved it, suppressing another tremble, and set into another desk worth of papers.

Sickle grunted as she dropped another couple of bodies in the growing pile. She was panting just a little as she turned my way. “Shit. You’ve got one huge fucking family, you know that?”

Off to my side, Starlight was glaring daggers at her. As for myself, I wavered on exactly how to reply to that. Eventually, I sighed, and quietly murmured, “It’s a lot smaller, now.”

Sickle gave a single chuckle before going silent again. After a moment, she turned and resumed gathering bodies.

I wasn’t surprised when our search turned up no more references to Cocoon. Information security was a serious concern, even in the hive itself.

The dead were all gathered by the time we had finished, with Sickle sitting back against the wall beside the pile. My throat tightened as I looked over them. There must have been forty or fifty changelings there. Vigilance lay along the side of the heap, her body twisted at an unnatural angle.

Dusty finished removing another respirator mask from one of the dead, adding it to the three he had already acquired. Another flashlight was given to Sickle, who dismissively tossed it into her bags. Then it was time for me to do my thing.

I focused my magic, and soon another funeral pyre was roaring, the green flames burning away the dead.

I silently led the way out, my pace lethargic. We were leaving the command center when Starlight spoke up. Her voice was quiet and surprisingly timid. “Whisper?”

I looked back over my shoulder. Her ears hung low as she tried to speak, starting and stopping several times before quietly asking, “What did you say the symptoms of, um… over-feeding were?”

My gaze fell to the floor again. “Fatigue. Headaches, dizziness, or disorientation. Magical exhaustion. Emotional suppression.”

“Yeah,” she said, slowly nodding. “Um… I think you might need to, you know… go easy on the magic.”

I nodded dully.

Then Dusty added, “I’m kind of feeling it, too.”

“Sorry,” I said. A moment later, his words fully processed. My head came up, turning to him. “Wait, you too? I wasn’t--”

I hesitated again. There was a small amount of affection--or perhaps compassion?--coming from him. “...I mean, I don’t think I was feeding on you, unless I did it without realizing it.”

“This place is fucking with our heads,” Sickle growled from my other side, and I looked over to see her flicking her tail in agitation. “Like the place ain’t right.” She glanced my way. “‘Cause yeah, I’m feeling it, too.”

I slowly nodded. “I’ll be careful. We’re pretty much done.”

Dusty nodded. “Where else are we going?”

Emotions warred inside me, but I spoke evenly. “Queen Ephema’s chambers. It’s the last place I can think of that’s likely to have any relevant information for us.”

Nopony said anything in reply, and we continued on. I led us silently back to the throne room, and then to the unbarricaded set of double doors. Broad stairs led us up to a wide landing, with another set of ornate double doors at the end.

The lock broke with a loud crack as Sickle bucked the doors open. We moved in, PipBuck light and flashlights illuminating the rooms as we went. The whole area had a sense of grandness to it; it was built to the scale of a changeling queen, and the hive had ensured that she had the most comfortable of living arrangements.

There was the grand entry chamber, ringed by a balcony above. A large office served as a workspace for both Queen Ephema and her assistants. Another huge room, larger even than her entry chamber, had numerous cushions and couches, with a few low tables. It was an ideal place to hold relaxed meetings. There was also a dining area, with a large table that could seat a few dozen changelings.

And then there were the more personal chambers, such as the sizable bathroom and, of course, her bedroom chamber. I had seen the more public portion of her chambers, but I had never been in these private areas. I had to force myself to continue walking. I felt like an intruder, a trespasser. It was a feeling both intimately familiar and alarmingly discomforting. I was able to take some small comfort that Ephema would surely not object to my intrusion. I was, after all, here to fulfill the mission she had entrusted in me.

I led the way through the rooms, my pace slow as I looked around. I could feel the tears slowly running down my cheeks, but I continued on, pretending they weren’t there.

The bedroom was the hardest part. There were several displays to hold the small number of necklaces and other jewelry she owned, mostly gifts from changelings returning from missions in other lands. The shelves set on the back wall contained an assortment of artistic works that had been given to her. But mostly, my eyes lingered on the huge bed, long-vacant and lightly coated in dust.

I swallowed a few times as we moved back to the offices, and felt confident enough to speak by the time we got there. As we neared the largest desk, I raised a hoof to gesture. “Starlight?”

She moved forward quickly, stepping up behind the terminal atop the desk. It took less than a minute, which I spent in a fruitless search through the desk’s single drawer, before the terminal flickered and whirred to life.

With the servers down, there was practically nothing to find. The local cache contained only a single file, a local copy of the last message the terminal had sent.

Thank you for your concern, Solace, but I must fly on my own power. My children are already sacrificing so much for their sisters and myself. We are being forced to leave far too many behind. It breaks my heart to know that, should the worst come to pass, I will never again see the many who remain here. Yet I am filled with pride for the bravery and resolve of all of my children, as they offer their own lives, with heads held high, to ensure a future for us.

I should do no less. I understand that the flight will be exhausting, but it is a small price to ask me compared to the sacrifices others have made. More importantly, the skywagons can carry a dozen eggs in the space I would occupy. I will not leave a single one behind, even if I have to carry them myself. They deserve to see the future that their sisters’ sacrifice has brought them.

Please, load the skywagons, and send them on their way the moment the eggs are secure. Tell them I shall depart shortly, and don’t let them wait for me. Have them fly without delay, and take the eggs to safety as swiftly as they can.

I will be speaking to the hive in a few moments, to those who are remaining behind. Vigilance is worried about the security issues if this turns out to be a false alarm, but I can’t leave without saying goodbye, expressing my shame in leaving, and offering my thanks for everything you have all given. Whatever the future of our hive may be, I hope we can live up to your example.

Thank you, Solace, for all you have done. Goodbye.

I shakily raised a hoof, pressing the terminal’s power switch. The screen flickered and died, the soft hum from within slowly winding down. I sniffled, blinking tears from my eyes. Starlight was beside me again, squeezing gently with a foreleg, her eyes watering up. It was several seconds before I was able to speak past the lump in my throat, my voice barely above a whisper. “...That’s it, then.”

“Sorry,” Starlight quietly murmured beside me, and I gave a deep, shuddering sigh. I leaned against her.

“At least we know there were other sites,” Dusty said. When I looked up at him, blinking away tears, he added, “There weren’t any eggs.”

I slowly nodded. “Yeah. There weren’t.”

Starlight gave another squeeze and a cautious smile, despite the thin trail of tears that had run down her cheeks..

Dusty stepped over, sitting on my other side. “So, hey, I know it isn’t quite as neat and simple as if we had a map telling us right where to go, but… well, I’ll be glad to help you look for them.”

“Me too,” Starlight said, full of determination.

Sickle merely grunted.

“Thanks,” I murmured, then raised a hoof to wipe at my eyes. A few second later, I spoke again, a little more surely. “Though… I can at least make sure we don’t leave empty-hooved.”

I looked up to Dusty’s questioning expression, and blinked away the last of the tears.

“I know where the armory is.”

We stepped out through the giant blast door, the last funeral pyre rapidly burning down behind us. My head throbbed, and my magic reserves were nearly depleted. My body felt exhausted. I knew I shouldn’t have felt so drained, but it didn’t matter. Love starvation was no longer a concern with three ponies keeping me fed.

Then again, those three ponies looked as weary as I felt. The trip through the hive had been more draining than any of us had expected.

As I walked over to the control panel, Starlight walked beside me, her bags bulging. The muzzles of several weapons, both kinetic and magical, protruded from under the flaps. “You’re sure about us taking all of this stuff?” she asked. She’d been hovering close to my side the whole time, watching me in concern. “I mean, I know that’s a little stupid coming from the experienced scavenger, but… well, it’s your hive.”

I have to admit, it did feel a little wrong, like digging up a grave just to rob it of some trinkets. Despite that, I nodded. “Any changeling would give everything they had to help the hive. I think they’d be happy to know these went to finding their sisters, instead of just lying there, unused.”

She slowly smiled and nodded. “That’s a really nice way of looking at it,” she said.

I nodded a little, my mind slowly unwinding as I reached the door panel. She stepped up beside me. It was around then that I noticed her limp.

Starlight must have noticed my glance toward her leg. Given my downcast expression at the time, I suppose my concern must have been obvious. “It’s just a little sore again,” she said, giving a casual shrug for emphasis. “I’m more concerned about you, to be honest. How are you holding up?”

I stood silently for several seconds. The only response I could come up with was to shrug. Finally, I reached out, pressing the big red button.

A thump sounded from behind us, followed by a short screech as the giant door started to move once more. I looked over my shoulder, watching as the multi-ton slab of steel slowly rolled into place. The flickering green glow emanating from beyond steadily narrowed and faded.

I drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long, soft sigh. Then I spoke, my voice quiet and almost lost behind the grind of machinery. “The hive lives on in me.”

The blast door shut with a deep thud, the muffled sounds of machinery winding down. I turned back to Starlight. Her expression was concerned again, until I smiled. It was a small, weak smile, as if it struggled against everything I had just experienced, but it held.

As she smiled back, I gave a little nod. I turned again, looking ahead as we started to walk.

“I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.”