Chapters
-
James whimpered, moaned, then turned over. Her head felt like it was about to explode—the worst headache of her life. That probably didn’t mean much considering how old she was.She opened one eye. James was on the ground in the brig. There were thick bars in front of her, though the openings were wide enough that she could see through them easily. There was noise coming from the other side of the room, but it took her a minute to wake up enough to understand it.“Error—no implant detected,“ said…-
515.2 K •
-
-
But as it turned out, they couldn’t. Olivia didn’t respond to her suggestion that a team should be sent, except to say that “There won’t be one ready for six months. I’ll put a pin in your suggestion until then.”Her clone was even less helpful. “We’re too busy building to go anywhere. This isn’t why I signed up.”The rest of their search that day turned up nothing useful—if there had ever been paint or other exterior writing on the ruins, it had long since worn off. There were no…
-
515.2 K •
-
-
They left the next day.Not the same way they’d gone during their last adventure—they weren’t leaving their home behind for good, carrying all they now owned on their backs. They had no need to abandon all their property this time—only to carry enough to survive during what Lightning Dust insisted would be only one day of flying in each direction. She hadn’t brought her armor—there was no way to fly in that. But she did have her helmet, hanging off her saddlebags on a length of bungie.Lucky…
-
515.2 K •
-
-
It didn’t take Lucky that long to figure out Princess Twilight’s message. She sat on her bed in the back of the room reading it whenever she had a spare moment, strumming her guitar absently.At first, she’d been put off by the dissonance between the words and the princess’s described character. No pony who wrote the way she did was going to send out a letter so full of mistakes. And yet, the last paragraph seemed as though it had been written by someone who knew how to use their own language. Why…
-
515.2 K •
-
-
The more Lucky searched, the more frustrated she got. It wasn’t just that there was little written about the subjects of her interest in the Equestrian books—cultural difference was to be expected from an alien society, even if those differences were immensely frustrating. It was, rather, that it seemed the library had been deliberately scrubbed of information on specific subjects. Astronomy, for instance, was an art to the Equestrians, who studied the stars as a way of appreciating the creations of…
-
515.2 K •
-
-
Lucky Break concentrated on her music.There had been a time, months ago now, when she had the puzzle of Eoch to distract her when she was upset. The Crystal Empire had many libraries for her to visit, many books for her to read, and she could always go out onto the streets to try out unfamiliar words.But gradually that mystery had been solved. She could no longer rely on that puzzle to distract her when she was stressed or worried. It was a good thing she had her guitar.When Lucky Break first received her…
-
515.2 K •
-
-
Lucky Break set down the chalk, spinning around to look proudly up at her teacher. "How's this, Knowing Look?" she asked, shifting a little on her hooves. On the board behind her, Lucky had recreated a poem from Equestrian history, which was written in the unicorn script with the words arranged in the shape of a tree. It had been an ambitious choice for her first final project, far more than anything her fellows were doing, but it was the only task that had felt remotely worthy of Lucky's linguistic…
-
515.2 K •
-
-
Dr. James Irwin was not having a good day. This was, in fact, the worst day of her life.In the strictest sense, it was also the best day of her life, which did not suggest she was going to have a particularly good future.She couldn't even have the satisfaction of vocally complaining about it, because everyone else in the world had things nearly as bad as she did. All four of the others were suffering in the same Biosleeves that James had been dumped into. True, not all of them had quite as much to deal…
-
515.2 K •
-
-
Olivia was in the range, the newest section of the base constructed at her request. The stone here still had that shiny, segmented look, reflecting the recently-printed adhesive of the construction process. The Forerunner had apparently not considered firearms proficiency to be important enough to be worth maintaining—clearly it hadn't been paying much attention to the world they lived on. Equestria was a dangerous place, and it was her responsibility to keep her crew alive. Somehow. God only knows what…
-
515.2 K •
-
-
They didn't ride the same train all the way to their destination. The “Crystal Empire” was apparently half a continent away, and to take too direct a route would make them too easy to follow. They hadn't exited at the end of the route Dust negotiated, but instead slipped off the train while they waited in other cities.James couldn't help but feel paranoid and a little shy as they walked through a few other small towns, even though each one was as different from Dodge Junction as Dodge Junction had been…
-
515.2 K •
-
- Previous 1 … 102 103 104 … 136 Next