I didn’t dare say a cross word, breathe wrong, or even blink while Representative Matthews looked over the progress reports about the Equestrian. I knew that treating one of them would certainly get the upper brass’ attention, but I had no idea that the General of Medicine was paying this close of attention to it. Representative Matthews seemed interested in the report and then he placed it on the desk.

“So, the Equestrian has made nearly a full recovery?”

I nodded, “Yes, she’s mostly recovered, and she has given us what some of us believe to be valuable intel about her home country.”

Representative Matthews looked at the paper again, “Yes, I noticed. So, she comes from a country of, primarily Earth Ponies, and they had the same system of Government as Nazi Germany did. It’s interesting intel, but I don’t know if it would be considered valuable,” he took a seat in my chair, “After all, she stated that her country was overthrown by the UEC’s leaders.”

I swallowed my nervousness, “Sir, that’s true, but having a potential ally could possibly be worth exploring.”

He glanced up at me and I suddenly wished that
I kept my mouth shut.

“Yes, having a potential ally would be worth exploring, but tell me Doctor, how many men and women would you send to their deaths to reach those allies?”

I looked at him, never dropping my gaze. This could be potentially career suicide, but surely he saw the reasoning behind it, “Sir, didn’t we send a very large group of our soldiers to a colonized planet that had a distress beacon we weren’t completely certain about?”

I watched as his mouth turned up in a slight grin. He stood, walked toward the wall, and then faced me, “Yes, we did.”

He neared me, “We did because it was a human colony, not because it was a bunch of ground pounding equines that might want to be our friends.”

He took a small strip, a simple jump strip for storing several terabytes of data, and inserted it into the slot on my desk. I watched the strip ejected and he glanced at me.

“I’ll mention the possible alliance to the General; however, I wouldn’t hold my breath about anything coming from it if I were you.”

MOTH Fallon

Powering down my HydroRepuls I finally manage to sneak passed Charlotte’s quarters and narrowly passed most of the others. And finally crawl into my quarters and into my bunk. My roommate Miiora sits on her bed studying with some piece of alien equipment with her tail swaying lazily.

With a tired sigh I store my battle armor in locker, and throw my space bag under my bed. Then throw my knife onto my bed, kiss Miiora on the head and shambling into the shower.

Finally, some time off.

So with a heavy sigh I let my eyes close. The sweet kiss of sleep seemed to slinking toward me, and I feel the embrace of it. Part of me is more than ready for it. After all, it had been a hell of a day already.

Nightmares of sirens, Lankys, and Wendigo meet me like before. A red haze fills my vision as I slice and cut at them with my power armors L-blade. Sometimes they kill me, other times they kill Charlotte as she flies her fighter. The European Gunginr disintegrating in space sometimes and in atmosphere in others.

But the worst ones are when they kill Miiora. She hisses and screams as she is dragged down kicking, biting, and swiping with her claws and tail.

In other nightmares I can't stop myself, and I am forced to watch as I slaughter those closest to me. The haze is thicker, and the L-blade pulses and glows an early familiar blood red. I have to watch as I tear my friends apart with my power armors powerful strength, tearing off limbs, punching and kicking, crushing ribcages, and breaking bones.

I see myself tearing the skin from Trombley. Grasping Charlotte’s head and crushing her skull in my powered gauntlet. With each kill the haze gets more intense, and then comes the keening. Loud and unsilenceable, a ringing like the after effects of a concussion, sometimes subtle, other times loud but always there.

The keening builds to a fever pitch as one of my MOTH brothers and I helps he tear Durge apart. The sirens do not attack, they wait, watch. And With my armor covered in the crimson, white, and green of my friends blood. Finally I plunge my L-blade into Miiora’s chest, her magenta pink blood covering the blade as it exits her back.

With a gasp I sit up in my bed. Movement catches my eye and I grasp the monofilament knife in its sheath under my pillow. With a sigh I release the blade and slide it back under, it was just Miiora shifting in her sleep in her bed the tip of her tail hanging out from under the sheets.

It's just a dream.

And with that knowledge, knowing that my girlfriend and my friends are still alive I lie back down. As I feel the sleep taking me a final pleasant thought comes to me.

I wonder what Tymerians dream about?

As I lie back down and begin to fall back asleep it returns. There just behind my perception, the ringing, the keening.

Obstacle Course

The course had changed through my trip through it. I watched as a ship flew overhead, and from it a large shape appeared. The shape began to fall, and I could hear disembodied voices screaming about the bomb. There were flashes, of light behind me, and I looked ahead to see what looked like a stout building. I ran toward it, chittering excitedly and followed the voices down to a large gear like door.

I could tell from the smell that the door was hardened, most likely able to withstand all kinds of blasts. Slowly I walked into it, and the door closed shut. The grinding sound was enough to set my senses on edge and then I watched as the lights flickered. For a moment there was nothing out of sorts, and then I could hear the sound of an alarm.

I moved, finding what looked like a more simplistic terminal than I had seen my human friends use. I pushed a button and the screen blinked to life showing blackness filled with green letters. I looked at them, studying the words.

‘Critical failure in Fusion Generator. Vault must be purged:

Alert, there are no radiation or environmental suits available:

Alert, residents and technicians on the lower levels have received fatal doses of radiation poisoning.

Alert, Necroreactive Virus mutated due to radiation leak.

Alert, unknown life forms now occupy lower levels.

Alert, Purging Vault will open lower levels, do you wish to continue?

Y/N’

Glancing at it I see a test I didn’t even realize to be possible. I press the Y button and sounds of horrifying moans fill the air. I ready my rifle, and I walk toward the sounds, ready to see where this leads me.

Liaison Miiora (3rd person)

Amongst the tides time was fluid. It flowed as easily as the burning waves Miiora swam against. Untied from reality, slipping free of temporal concerns was all too simple in the dream realm, the tides were aligned to the etheric plane. A place not so easily bent to mortal chronology and geology, time here flowed differently. Diurnal and nocturnal these notions had no bearing in such an uncertain realm.

Life, matter, existence could be altered in course by the pervasive nature of the dream. The fire tides of Tymer were the dream realm and the dream realm the tides. As the daughter of a shaman Miiora knew of the relationship that existed between the two sides of the vail. The real and the unreal, and the metaphysical implications of that knowledge.

Timing matters, geography and context matters, what to the uninitiated and ignorant might appear random. Was an ocean of almost incomprehensible intricacy, to those with enough knowledge to discern it. To behold the entire fire ocean was impossible, and to attempt to, was to invite insanity and disillusionment.

But to preserve a strand a drop or two of the ocean? That came as close to anything not born with the gift could do, to navigating the vagaries of the tides.

Miiora sought such a drop and swam in pursuit of it. While she had not been born with the innate ability to connect to the tides as her mother had. She had learned techniques to aid in her pursuit. A narrow aperture through which she could perceive past, present and sometimes future, colliding together. It is the latter that she sought this night. A future having to do with one Avery Fallon.

Life, death, rebirth over and over again as is the belief of all hatchlings of Tymer. She knew that in attempting to locate what she had seen before on the Manitoba she risked great danger. Only a shaman of considerable ability and confidence both of which she lacked, would ever swim this incorporeal sea.

Looking had a habit of finding, except not always the thing you wanted. Not only life but the soul was also at stake to those untrained, and unprepared. Things, creatures with old names and hunger that was older still, hunted eagerly for the warmth of dreamers.

Amongst the tides these creatures were the white hunters. As Miiora swam her body tucked into her bed inside of the barracks. She felt the predators looming at the edge of perception.

For a time there was not but the usual cascade of voices. The chronology of the dream realm laid out for her to listen to and observe. Faces materialised from the depths but were not the one Miiora was seeking.

Still the line of what she had seen before illuded her. She went deeper and the black predators began to converge. Taking the form of the Sirens she had nightmares frequently. In some they would tear her part, in others her family and friends, and in perhaps the worst they killed her dear one. His screams defiant and full of agony even as he fought and stabbed at them.

The predators sensed her mental reserves straining and closed in. Strong currents tugged at her body as she went further and further. The predators choose their moment as she saw fought against a particularly strong current. Striking fast and sinking claws into Miiora’s scales and flesh. She screamed pain stabbed into her skull as the claws dragged her down.

Kicking out with her legs she managed to dislodge one of the Sirens, she kicked again and managed to get away from her two assailants. Seeming to slither through the water, breath going in and out of her lungs. The tides heaved and pounded at her bones, Miiora was nearly at the end of her resilience but she managed to fight on.

Powerful currents pulled at her limbs and she realised the maelstrom could be her escape. She let the currents take her, surrendering to their will. As she was flung past her pursuers she saw a face appear in the fiery ocean.

It's skin was dark and a portion of its body was metallic. Here was the drop Miiora wanted so desperately fleeing from her grasp as she was pulled away by fate and her own weary mind.

“No”

Pulled under Miiora saw the reflection, felt the bite of the predators once more and as she turned in the ocean’s undersea spiral the face dissolved. And was replaced with the insistent drumming of her heart, and the sleeping form of Fallon in the bed across the room.

Cold from the air circulation unit had chilled her blood. Her reptilian brain half tired, and delirious from her experience began scanning the room for a source of warmth and found it promptly. Snaking from her cold bed Miiora crawled into her suiter’s bed and curled up beside him taking his warmth, his scent. Before contentedly going to sleep.

It is strange, to see these humans, watch how they live their lives similar to how Earth Ponies live. They developed technology to help them, they don’t need magic to make things easier, and they constantly prove just how much they would fit into my homeland.

I felt a twinge of pain in my hip, but the Ärzte over seeing my progress has informed me that I’ve nearly healed from what should have been a fatal attack. I felt a slight tremble in my hooves, and I knew that it was the very ground on which I stood. All Earth Ponies have a connection with the ground. We can tell where every dip, every rock, every single tunnel below us is.

In several ways we’re far better at war than the other tribes. But the ground was telling me a different story. It told me that there are machines, wondrous and huge, under me that span for miles. It told me of how the humans have transformed it into what it is, and the very planet is at odds with itself.

Part of it seemed to desire rest, and the other wanting to see how long it could keep life going. As I walk I look behind me to see that the grass is growing, new flowers are blooming, and I see a few limp and nearly lifeless trees begin to bloom again.