Chapter One: When there's a Will, there's a way

It had taken quite a bit of work, but The Lower Elements was finally back on its feet. New Arc Reactors had been put online to replace the backup geothermal plants, buildings were repaired and put back into service, and life underground could resume as close to normal a city some ten kilometres below ground could be. The loss of Koboi's equipment had been a great blow, but the factories were already rolling out replacements at such a high rate that soon there would be no holes in the Fairy's capabilities at all. Much of the effort put to this recovery came from one centaur: Foaly. He and his technologies had prevented or minimalized a large amount of damage, finally earning him the well-deserved commendation from the Council that he had been awaiting for the last ten years. Now, his beloved Ops Booth had been fully repaired, with new screens, scanners, comms arrays, and much more. It felt like home again, if said home was a rather cramped technological vault of a room. At this point in time Foaly was loading a new program into the system, the final part of an improved communications network that was unaffected by magma flares in the chutes. A sharp rapping on the reinforced door, followed by the distinctive twang of Captain Brownik's voice over the speakers, interrupted his staring at the progress bar.

"Hey, Foaly, a letter just came in. Direct from the surface, and written on paper, if you'll believe that. It's safe, as the scanners haven't found anything off about it. Nothing wrong in the chemical makeup, no electronics, nothing. Just good ol' paper and ink. You want it?"

Foaly was rather confused. Who, possibly, would send him a letter? What was wrong with a nice e-mail? And from the surface too, which would mean either a Fairy topside or… a Fowl. But Artemis was dead, his clone currently growing in Foaly's old Section 8 lair. Butler had withdrawn a fair bit, no way he sent it either. Intriguing…

"Alright," Foaly said, unlocking the door, "come in. Let's see just what this here is."

In stepped Brownik, envelope in hand. He was still in full armour, which was rather scratched up and had a decent sized scorch mark right in the centre of the breastplate. Foaly raised an eyebrow.

"Tried to break up a fight between a few Demons and Goblins," he explained. "Turns out that someone on one of the sides ended up mistaking someone else's eggs for her own, but I couldn't work out who actually started it before things got messy. That's the interrogator's job, I guess. I tried to deescalate the mess, shot the first guy to throw a fireball, took one myself, then got tackled by a Demon and thrown across the street. I had to stun the lot. Going to need some armour resurfacing at any rate, because this scorch is still a little smoky… So anyway, I headed back to Central to finish my shift only to find this here letter at the front desk. One of the staffers handed it to me and said to bring it down to you."

Foaly took the envelope and turned it over in his hands. It was basically unmarked, save for a "Provide to Foaly" label written on the front. Strange. Well, may as well see what's inside. He pulled open the flap and shook out the letter, which was folded with almost machine-like precision. A quick unfold revealed the neat, cursive writing of… Artemis Fowl. You know, the one who was dead. Dead men couldn't write letters.

"Huh. That there's from the boy genius? The dead one? Yeah, that's weird. Well, if you need me, I'll be in the armory for the next fifteen minutes. After that, call me on mobile," said Brownik, as he spun and stepped out the door. Foaly made a slight nod towards him, eyes still fixated on the on the paper in his hands. He realized that he hadn't even started reading the damn thing yet. Firstly, though, he had to work out just how this letter was a thing right now. He fed it into a scanner, which soon showed that the ink had been bonded to the paper about four months ago, which was consistent with that one fateful night. So, mystery solved. Artemis wrote this before his death. Now, to see what it actually said…

This is The Last Will and Testament of Artemis Fowl the Second, being the wishes of Artemis Fowl in the event of his death at the hands of the Pixie Opal Koboi. Should he remain alive for forty-eight hours after the writing, this will become null and void and shall have no legal weight in any court, Human or Fairy.

I, Artemis Fowl the Second, of exceedingly sound mind and reasonably sound body, bequeath a portion of my estate and advice to my three Fairy friends as follows:

To the centaur Foaly, I leave the blueprints to an interstellar craft so advanced; it makes his spacecraft look like hot air balloons. I have hidden the designs in his own system where he would never think to look for them.

Foaly's curiosity was piqued and his ego stoked. Oh really? Was Artemis using his own will to make fun of him?

To find them, he must open his own security file on me, blink eight times, and say the words "Artemis Fowl is smarter than I am". If this does not work, then at least I will smile in the afterlife.

Oh, now he'd done it. Foaly's eye twitched violently. That… little… ooooh, if Artemis hadn't been dead already he would have had to deal with the wrath of a pissed off centaur. Was he really using his own death as yet another opportunity to stamp on Foaly's ego? There were two other segments to the will, addressed to Holly and Mulch. That could wait until tomorrow, when they were both in the area. He placed the letter back in its envelope and put it on his desk. There was no way that he was going to say… that. No. Way.

One week later

"Artemis Fowl is smarter than I am."

These words had been under lock and key in Foaly's brain, but eventually his curiosity had broken them out of vocabulary prison and given them control of his tongue. Was there actually a hidden file? Or was Artemis just pulling his leg? Well, something was happening on his computer. A file icon had appeared right in the middle of the screen, and Foaly didn't even have time to click it when it opened itself. A video player came up. It was Artemis. The time stamp suggested that this was about shortly before his final confrontation, and he was sitting in his admittedly quite nice office. He spoke.

"Ah, Foaly, so you did follow my instructions. Well, that's good, because this is not a trick. The passphrase was simply a test of faith, if you will. If anything, I consider you to be an equal to me, and because of that I shall entrust to you an interesting project that I've been working on."

A picture appeared next to the video, depicting a… what was that exactly? Wait, that shape…. It was a starship. And it was a monster, as the scale had it at three kilometres in length! The video continued.

"I am confident that Fairy technology can construct such a vessel, although its size would render it impossible to hide. I have designed it to be able to fulfill many roles, including colonization, transport, exploration, and if necessary it can be fitted out as a warship. There are billions of stars out there Foaly, and it would stand to reason that at least one of those hosts something that wouldn't take kindly to us."

Foaly stared at the screen in slack jawed amazement. How the hell did Artemis come up with all this?

"However, this ship would be next to useless without a faster than light drive. I have mostly handled this particular issue as well. It involves entering a dimension above ours and using its different laws of physics to travel at much higher speeds than usually possible, and then dropping back into our dimension at the correct time. I have not actually finished this, so you will have to contact Minerva to access her dimensional research, which is the most important part of this project, and then build on that for the final stages. If this works, it will be the greatest advancement made by the peoples of Earth for many centuries, on par with the development of the steam engine or gunpowder. With it we can finally go beyond this planet. This is the by far the single most useful section of my project. Even if the ship isn't built, we can still make smaller models using the FTL drive. This will be my legacy, Foaly. It will serve as ample compensation for any of my crimes against anyone, human or fairy."

Foaly was now beyond amazement. As the schematics came up one by one, his pupils grew wider and wider in a fashion similar to those of a cat which had just smelled a freshly opened tin of tuna. An FTL drive… those were meant to be impossible without some seriously large mass effect fields beyond the Fairy ability to create by any means.

"Foaly, one last thing. The ship is so large that it would require a very large amount of resources. To get these, we need the Fairies to expose themselves to humanity by their own accord. It sounds insane, true, but I know that my people are mostly far gone from the barbarian tribes and infant civilizations of ten thousand years ago. We are ready. If the chrysalis plan fails, then you will have to make it happen. I'm sure that the lure of the surface will be too much for many people, but you will have to keep it under control and try to prevent any mishaps. If the chrysalis does work, then I shall work alongside you in this endeavor. I can give your people the surface, Foaly. Do not disappoint me now. Ah, and the ship's name…"

Foaly had collapsed in his custom centaur chair.

"I have designated the first one of its class as the Spirit of Fire."

With that, the video player closed, exposing a message: All files now available for viewing. Would you like to view them? Yes/no

He shakily clicked yes. This opened what appeared to be a whole new program, with various tabs on the borders of the screen, labeled such things as Power Generation, Internal manufacturing, and Orbital Shipyard. In the centre was a slowly revolving 3D model of the Spirit itself. Anyone who could have seen Foaly at that moment would have sworn that they could see tears in his eyes.

Holly had made sure to grab a fresh box of carrots before heading back to Police Plaza, and in doing so got many strange looks as she went through the supermarket, as someone in a highly advanced set of LEP armour doing such casual things would. Having arrived back at base, she made straight for Foaly's room. She knew she was there when she was confronted with a very advanced looking door, even by LEP standards. Punching in her personal code, removing her helmet for the retinal scan, and then a glove for the hand reader, she made her way inside.

"Foaly, I got you some carrots," Holly said, tossing the plastic box onto his desk. "Best brand I could get, thought that you needed the… Foaly, you hearing me? What're you lookin' at..."

Foaly moved the whole program to the holo table. The action revealed the immaculately detailed model of the ship, silently revolving over the table, while the tabs appeared on the edges.

"This," he said, "is the Spirit of Fire. It is what Artemis left to me."

Holly was now staring in much the same way that Foaly had been.

"And to think I only got half a ton of gold…" she muttered, setting her helmet on a nearby worktop. Not that she had used that gold, as it had originated from the LEP's reserve vault and so she had returned it. Apparently this action had been worthy of some compensation, and so she had gotten a pretty nice pay rise in return, along with Internal Affairs finally getting off her backside. She gave a low whistle.

"Man, that's a big ship. Three kilometres… how are you going to build that thing?"

"Oh, there's plans for that. Anyways, I've got a thing organized with Caballine after I check the clone, want to come?" Foaly said, turning off the hologram and grabbing his saddlebag.

"Yeah, I'm with you," Holly replied, "Right after I get out of this armour. Paperwork can always wait till tomorrow, when I'm not on patrol shift, right?"

Meanwhile, in a certain London warehouse
"Damn, Mud Boy, you sure know how to get some real chicken!"

Please Note: The events of The Last Guardian went down slightly better than the book implies. Less explosions, Humans aren't hit too hard. Seriously, I doubt that Koboi would have been able to get that much penetration into the surface market in, what, ten years?