A Routine Checkup [PM for invite]

[Pony_Sage]

‘Finally, at least one of them is seeing some form of reason.’ The seasoned military mare thought to herself. The bedraggled changeling returned her hoof shake, a good sign. She crooked her fetlock joint around his and sternly shook it up and down two or three times before returning to her regular standing position. While she was speaking to Figment as he said his name was, the other much more annoying changeling was trying to rebuke her statements. However now he was showing a more amiable side which Veracity found to be rather suspect. She raised one of her eyebrows in obvious disbelief of how the bureaucrat was acting. Turning her attention back towards Figment she began to answer his request.

“Unfortunately I can not do that for you. As I said, you both will be returned to your home hive unharmed, but you both do need to be processed through the judicial system and your activities reported. the vast majority of ponies still see you as criminals, which is reasonable. However if you make a gesture of good faith and turn yourselves in, can assure you that no harm will befall you.” She spoke with authority but this time there was more concern than ire in her voice.

The next thing that the bureaucrat said piqued her interest even more. ‘A plan to harvest sustenance from us, Hrm. This might have been a more valuable catch than I had initially thought.’ The mare surmised. However again, this changeling wanted to slip through the cracks. He thought he was being crafty, however, Veracity by virtue of being older than most others thought, had worked with slippery delinquents before.

“Now, I didn’t catch your name. However in response to your suggestion I can not do this either. If you do have a plan for this, it would be much more prudent to speak of this with the authorities here first, don’t you think Figment? I mean it’s not worth telling your Queen about if it wouldn’t work out in the first place, that would just make you look like a bad agent. At least that’s what I would think, how about you Figment?” She gently smiled as she tried her hoof at playing the two changeling s off of one another. She had an inkling that Figment would be much easier to sway to her point of view than the other would be.

“So, down to business. I am going to call my ship shortly. I would recommend not making any sudden movements around my crew, along with not speaking unless you are spoken to. You will be sharing a vacant crewman’s cabin together, and there will be a guard at the door. I am not sure about your dietary needs however. Would regular pony food suffice? Or would you need something different? Arrangements can be made if that is needed. The judicial system here may be different from your own, but I assure you that above all else it is fair. Along with that I will make sure that you receive the most fitting legal counsel that can be found.” As she spoke she pulled out a small crystal from her uniform pocket and placed it on the ground. With one swift stomp she crushed the pale pink crystal into smithereens.

“By my guess it will take about fifteen minutes or so for the Moral Constraints to get here. Do you have any questions about the procedures or formalities that you are about to encounter? I’m not a lawyer but I can answer some of the more simple questions.” Veracity faintly smiled. She had lied about the time frame, the ship would arrive most likely in under ten minutes. She would much rather the two be kept on their toes than them getting the upperhoof on her.

[Tiktaalik]

Figment really should have been used to Snively's lack of any tact whatsoever, but his continuous aggressive words continued to irritated him. He was still most likely just making this worse! Not...that he could blame Snively entirely. This pony had made several verbal jabs at him--unnecessarily, in his mind. It wasn't as if they needed any help being turned against each other...which Figment couldn't help but feel a bit bad for. Surely, Queen Chrysalis wouldn't approve of all this squabbling...even considering how unreasonable Snively was behaving.

Of course, his tone reversed almost completely when he made his offer to the pegasus that involved him going free. Witnessing him bumble around with lies and bluffs and threats this way was...frustrating. Snively was decent at talking, but he wasn't focusing on any one thing--his conniving was too obvious. He could have done good, otherwise! At least, Figment thought so. He liked to think he was an expert on this sort of thing. However...what was done was done, and this pony wasn't going to let Snively go, it seemed.

His thoughts raced for a moment. Figment was running out of ways to salvage this, though. He was confident he could survive being captured, but...he had no idea how Snively might react to being given no other choice--aside from 'negatively'. Frowning in concern for what might happen, he spoke up again. "Well...I don't think I have to tell you that my friend here isn't going to like this arrangement. I doubt either of us are going to change his mind, either...", he said, now considerably less nervous towards Veracity; maybe even slightly 'chummy'. If she was indeed being sincere in her warmness towards him, he intended to exploit that as fully as possible. His survival might depend on it...

And then they began talking about his plan, which he did not really appreciate. He made a sulky expression at Veracity. "Well, it would ruin the effect if you all knew about it. It was 'working out' just fine so far. A few ponies here and there just might feel a bit tired, is all...", he explained, hoping this tiny bit of truth might gain him some good faith. As she went on explaining the details of what would be done with him, he seemed...resigned to it, at least. "If you all really are fair...I'll be surprised. And someone is going to have to be fed on. If you don't want me to expire, anyhow." Figment bet that he could last until he either escaped, or arrived at home...but, he'd rather not wait so long.

Figment gave an odd look when she pulled a crystal out and smashed it. He was still unfamiliar with the majority of pony magic...but, judging from the situation, he figured it must have been some sort of signal. Or something. The prospect of backup made him feel a bit anxious again, but there wasn't anything to be done about it. He pondered on her offer to answer some questions...but wasn't really sure what to ask. "Is any of that going to involve blowing my cover even further..?", he asked flatly. He could cook up another identity, but...he was used to Honey Smiles--it'd be like stripping an entire second nature from him. It would certainly be inconvenient

He then glanced back to Snively. "Sir, I don't have the energy to follow any attack order, or even cover your retreat...so, you're going to have to choose something here eventually. I'd suggest coming though this with me...but...maybe your faster than I think...", he said, not-so-subtly hinting that he should probably run away soon if that's what he had in mind. This seemed like a strong pegasus, though--she was probably faster than the both of them. Then again, Snively seemed like he might just be slimy enough to slip away from her.

[Bellosh]

Buzzz! WRONG answers. Snively only accepted one answer; that he’d get to leave immediately without consequence. Why in the world should he have to honor their quaint legal system if ponies would never respect the laws of the Hive? Such hypocrites! The short drone first gave out a twisted laugh when Capt. Veracity said she’d call for backup, not believing that a mere pegasus could call for help without a unicorn spell, but his mockery turned to outright rage when it turned out all the Enemy had to do was break a crystal.

Once the uniformed mare explained that it’d take fifteen minutes for her fellow fleabags to arrive (a blatant lie it surely had to be), Snively’s curved horned almost instantly crackled into action with a greenish aura. “You’ll wish you haven’t done that,” growled the drone, now juiced up with more than enough love from Figment to administer punishment on this insolent mare. Snively knew very little spells save those essential to his work or those that he labeled more as casual amusements… and this spell he was prepared to use was the latter. Typically, the changeling didn’t have much practical use for hurling around bolts of electricity, an ability with such short effective range that it was deemed impractical for real combat except as a very last resort... but in in rare fitting moments such as this, Snively found the ability quite useful.

Not taking too much heed of Figment, Snively gave to the uniformed mare his demands. “Go up to that wall over there and put your hooves above your head,” the angered changeling pointed to the sidewall furthest away from the doorway; “You reach for that sword, you’re toast. Try lunging at me or my colleague, you’re toast. You speak another word, you’re toast. Don’t comply with my instructions in five seconds, you’re toast!” Snively’s livid glare should have let the mare know that he was deadly serious; the moment Veracity disobeyed any of her instructions, the bureaucrat would automatically fire off an arc of painful electricity at the uniformed mare. At point-blank range like this, Snively was not very likely to miss… and thanks to the earlier love exchange, his spell was set to be even more powerful than usual.....

[Pony_Sage]

Veracity was starting to understand Figment’s personality a little more so than she had initially. He was not nearly as cruel as most other changelings that she had heard reports of, this one seemed rather industrious. She listened to his concerns, both about feeding and blowing his cover. Although she had no experience with an undercover operation, she surmised that it was a heap of work to come up with an entirely new identity. She thought about his questions for a brief moment, counting in her head.

‘Two twenty five, two twenty six, two twenty seven ...’ Her mind ticked with the precision of a pocket watch.

Aboard the Moral Constraints alarm bells had sounded; about two and a half minutes ago. The signalstallion of the watch had first seen the distress signal and sounded the alarms. Apparently the Captain was in trouble and it was their job to rescue her. As the crystal on Veracity’s end broke, the receiver aboard the ship sprung to life, pinpointing her location down to a margin of error of only a few meters. This new distress beacon was truly a work of art which had been the last piece of new technology installed in the old frame while it was laid up for retrofitting. This system had come directly from some of Canterlot’s brightest minds. Apparently it worked on the principle of Aetheric Quantum Entanglement, something that one of those eggheads in that Gifted Unicorn school surely thought up. However, it did have its practical uses. Basically one a set of crystals were paired with a main crystal that was aboard the Moral Constraints; integrated well within the system. These paired crystals would have an influence upon the ship’s crystal through interactions within the aetheric plane. When the sending crystal was moved, the receiving crystal would move accordingly, albeit in a drastically reduced manner. It was on this idea that the tracking system came about. Through a series of very complicated mechanical systems, that reduced movement was transferred to a pointer that would move over a map of the local area. This allows for constant monitoring of the sender’s location. The eggheads even thought up an emergency protocol. If the sender was in danger, all they had to do was smash the crystal. This would cause a rather vigorous reaction to the ship’s crystal and set off an integrated alarm system, along with locking the position where it was smashed onto the map. From that point forward it would be the crew’s job to get the ship where it needed to go.

As a matter of course, the Captain’s distress signal was treated with the utmost importance. Whether it was a drill or an actual emergency did not matter, the crew was ready to do what they had to so that the ship would arrive within the seven minutes that the Navigator said that they would. The navigators, engineers, helmsstallions, and all the other departments of the ship were feeding information to the Captain of the Watch. Hopefully he was up for the job. As the information flooded in, the mooring lines were cast off and the ship rocked slightly as the ARG tank was charged. The Moral Constraints was underway. The ship slowly rose out of the frigid water, ice clinging to its bow. The Halo engines quickly revved up to peak efficiency as the props began to spin up. The Captain of the watch reached over the helms-stallions shoulder and pushed the engine order telegraph past Ahead Full to Flank speed. While flank speed was a tad risky, owing to overheating and fuel consumption, the extra boost in velocity would be well worth it.

The flank speed order rang in the engine room and the engineers went to their stations, double timed. As the fires were stoked, and the boilers began to build up pressure, the Chief Engineer opened the giant butterfly valve that would divert the steam into the superheater. By doing this they could achieve a higher pressure and thus greater speeds could be coaxed out of the engines. The Halo engines began to sing in pleasure as the extra pressure was fed into them. Efficiency was down twenty percent, but RPMs were up thirty. Seemed like a fair trade if the Captain was in danger. Another engineer rotated some valves that would allow for the port and starboard fan nacelles to rotate over their prescribed limits, thus increasing both maneuverability and speed.

The crew was working like they should. A well oiled machine designed for one purpose, to fly airships. As orders were given and information received, the Moral constraints was steadily rising to cruising altitude and quickly gaining speed.

“Seventy! Eighty! Ninety!” The helms-stallion was calling out the ship’s calculated ground speed.

“One ten! One twenty! One thirty!” The numbers steadily rose until they were slightly above the ship’s true maximum speed.

While they sped towards Veracity’s location, the detachment of the ISU-143 “Molot” was being prepped for takeoff. These stallions weren’t nicknamed the “Sledgehammers” or “Molot” for no reason. They were the tough of the tough. A special crack team organized for fast boarding actions against pirate vessels. They donned their armour and steeled their nerves, unsure of what awaited them once they reached their destination. Every precaution was being taken for this encounter, even the loading of the main weapons.

The twin forward mounted cannons had their shells diligently loaded into them by the gunners. The sights were aligned, mechanicals checked and rechecked, articulation tested, and rounds counted. These beasts were the very, very last resort for the crew. None of the ponies on board were very fond of the idea of having them be featured so prominently on the bow of the ship, but they resigned themselves to the fact that they would be very useful as deterrents. The Empress may protect, but a loaded cannon never hurt. These two cannons were rather special. They had been cast especially for the Moral Constraints, nothing like them was in common use at the moment. With a sustainable rate of fire around two hundred and sixty rounds per minute and firing one hundred and eighty degrees out of phase, this afforded for a rate of fire somewhere near five hundred and twenty round per minute. The effective range of four kilometers and a muzzle velocity of seven hundred eighty meters per second also didn’t hurt. If the crew never had to use these monsters it would be far too soon, but as the old adage goes, “Walk softly but carry a big stick.” And these were the biggest sticks around.

Veracity smiled before answering the diminutive changeling. “Well, the legal process is mroe of a formality, I would assume. They will most likely declare a sentence of banishment and just have you shipped back to the hive. Your cover will be blown, to an extent. I would guess, especially with your new plan being discussed, that only the higher ranking officers and officials in Stalliongrad would know about who you pretend to be. I doubt that they would post wanted pictures all over just for one or two measly changelings that had already been deported.” All the while Veracity kept a cheerful tone and counted in her head. ‘Three ten, three eleven, three twelve.’ Somehow she had to keep them busy for at least seven more minutes.

“As for your feedings, I honestly don’t know how they work or what specifics behind them are, but I would gladly offer you a small ration of whatever you would need to take from me to survive. Although I might not be the best candidate. From what I hear, you guys feed on love and the like. I’m afraid that my days of love and romance are far behind me, and I am not the most … motherly of mares.” She allowed for a slight chuckle at this thought. ‘Three forty four, three forty five, three forty six.’

The Moral Constraints was fast approaching the Kuznitza District where the beacon had last been active. The problem was, if they wanted to stop in time, they would have to start slowing down before they got anywhere near the district. The inherent problem with airships was that they took a very long time to slow down, unless one was to do something dangerous or rather stupid. The second problem would be finding which exact warehouse or building Captain Veracity was hold up in. This would be the part that took the most time. The standard operating procedure would be to blanket the area with recon teams and do a grid search until they found the signs of the captain and then piece things together from there. However with the advent of the crystals, their search was much more narrow. As the eggheads had kindly reminded the crew, the crystals were accurate to within 500 meters. That was still a lot of ground to cover, but it was less than the old method. The Moral Constraints was slowing down now, they would arrive at their destination on the far side of the Kuznitza District, bordering on the Veya district, within four minutes. The detachment of the Molot was ready to go and the recon teams were on deck in formation awaiting orders. They were working like a well oiled machine.

Veracity patiently listened to Figment speak to the bureaucrat, talking about how he would be too weak to cover a retreat or attack. Then the little changeling made an all too obvious allusion to running, Veracity couldn't help but internally chuckle at how blatant he was. Before she could ask any further questions or make any more offers the ever increasingly annoying finally made his move. He ordered the mare to stand down and move away in a manner that would allow for his escape.Veracity’s mind was awash with alternate scenarios on how this was going to play out. From her combat days all the tactics came back for avoiding magic spells. ‘Four thirty, four thirty one, four thirty two.’ Her mind kept ticking like a watch.

The first order of business was to identify the source of the spell. ‘Check.’ Then one would identify the type of spell being cast. This could be tricky if the spell wasn’t cast yet, however there were some old methods that might work. The colour wasn’t all that helpful but the smell is what tipped her off. Being a pegasus as soon as she smelled the ozone that the spell was giving off she knew that electricity would be involved in some manner. The courses of action changed in the mare’s head. There were two ways to play this. She could either quickly drive her sword into the floor, providing an easy path to ground for the energy, and then throw her hat at the changeling which would most likely disorient him. She would then use this advantage to shoulder check the annoying changeling into the nearby wall. Or, she could just play along. She could look scared, play the damsel in distress. She would keep letting the superbly annoying changeling think he has the upperhand. She had been doing this from the start, allowing him to think that he was somehow in control. ‘Four fifty nine, Five, five one, five two, five three.’ His timing couldn’t have been any better. If she played this slowly enough, the ship would arrive with time to spare. Even if he did manage to escape the building, the scouts that would be scouring the area would find him more than easily and take him into custody. That was if the ISU didn’t catch him first, which would then lead to the changeling most likely getting a rather hardy introduction to the finer points of combat.

The Moral Constraints was almost at a full stop now, she had been slowing down for the past two minutes, and they were only about a minute away from deployment. The Officer of the Watch started a countdown timer at T- 00h:02m:30s. The tension was palpable as the crew readied for combat maneuvers. The ISU detachment was standing on the gunwales with their rappelling ropes at the ready. The recon teams were warming up their wings and doing final checks of their gear and feathers. At T- 00h:02m:00s a bell sounded and a voice came over the loudspeaker informing the crew to be at their battle stations. The flight squads took off and began to form up around the Moral Constraints scanning the ground below for obvious signs of trouble and waiting for their mark. Everypony on board was beyond tense as the clock slowly ticked down.

Veracity put on her best intimidated face, not something that she was accustomed to doing, as she eyed the changeling for a few moments. ‘Five ten, five eleven, five twelve.’ Four more minutes, give or take. She hoped that the crystal as intended but she didn’t need to hope that her crew knew what to do. She trusted those stallions and mares with her life, and they with hers. She knew that they were prepared for any eventuality and would be there promptly to bail her out of any jam. She just hoped that the egghead unicorns had made the crystals work properly. The mare complied with the changeling’s requests, albeit very slowly. She was waiting out the clock and it was working. ‘Five twenty nine, five thirty, five thirty one.’ Little did she know that the ship was only about two minutes out from her position, way ahead of schedule, and the flight recon teams were chomping at the bit to deploy as she thought five thirty. If that slimy changeling were to run, he would most likely be caught. Even if he managed to change into pony form, the crew would detain anypony in the area, not releasing them until the captain was found, or they were satisfied that the pony in question wasn't the culprit.

As Veracity placed her hooves on the wall she allowed herself a small smirk. This changeling didn’t know what he had gotten himself into.