Pegasus Project
Rain pattered down the alleyway. The alley was clear from everyone but myself. Where else do I have to go? I had nowhere. When my brother died, the last bit of my hope died too. With hope went humanity. All I had now… was the resistance. Every day we fought back against Celestia, and every day it felt like she got stronger and stronger. Our blows came less frequent, less powerful. We were losing.
I pulled the cigarette from my mouth, blowing out the smoke. Again it took its place in my mouth. There were only ten of us now. With that number, I put us at having only a few months left. The sound of beating rotors filled the sky. One of Celestia’s helicopters tore across the sky. Its searchlight left no secrets to the night.
Years ago I would have hid from the light. Now I no longer cared. I doubt Celestia even cared for us anymore. We weren’t a threat, just a nuisance. She’d made that clear when we found Breeze dead in his own apartment. They’d cut his hand off and made him leave a message. Perhaps that’s what steeled my resolve. Perhaps it was the thought of the end.
I couldn’t fight forever, that I knew. I looked at the opposite side of the ally. Hanging on the wall was a poster, emblazoned on it Celestia’s radiant face. Obey lined the bottom. These lined Equestria. Not that anyone was really willing to fight her. Her reactions were brutal to the offender. We’ve been lucky to evade death for so long.
In our heyday, people looked at us with hope in their eyes. Now, it’s just fear. I remembered why; why our reputation took a nose dive.
We’d been at warehouse looking for guns, anything to supply ourselves. We thought we were getting attacked by Celestia’ forces, but it had been citizens. She made it look like a slaughter. The years after that had been no less kind. No one joined up to fight. We went from a force of hundreds, to just the nine others I’d left in that room. It had been a mistake going into that room.
They thought my plan crazy. They weren’t wrong. My only source left on the inside gave me grave news. Something called the Pegasus Project. There wasn’t much information about it, but it couldn’t be good. Twilight and Rainbow Dash had been pooling billions together. Why would the departments of War and Technology getting together be such a big deal? I didn’t know. Something about it struck me the wrong way. I’d bet my reputation on it. But then again, what did that amount to?
Nothing as far as I could tell. A door in the alley opened. Lightning Bolt was there. He waved me over. I dropped the cigarette on the ground and stamped it out. I followed him through the door. Eight others sat around in a circle. They looked at me, wearily.
“We’ve reached a decision, Gemini,” said Fall. His body was heavily scarred. He’d been captured by Celestia once. We got him out, but not soon enough. It looked like he was waiting for a response, he got none. “Well, we’ve decided that… seeing as you started this whole thing, that you know what you’re talking about. So we decided to follow the plan.”
Fall held a special position. He was second in command, and the only person I could trust with my life. Like me, he’d had a hard life. He’d lost his family when Celestia raided his town looking for refugees. Fall had been forced to watch his family’s murder. He never forgot it.
The youngest member of the group, Leaf, spoke up, “We’re with you.” She had been the last to join. I think she joined because of the infamy. It was never really clear.
“What’s the plan, Gemini? Surely we can’t just walk in.” That was Steel. He was the strongest of any of us, biggest too. Others agreed with him.
“We’re going to need a Unicorn,” I said plainly.
“Are you fucking with us here? Where in Equestria are we going to get one of those?” exclaimed Blast. He knew more about explosives than anyone else, his burnt body told of his trials. He was right to question me. Where could I get a Unicorn usually?
Unicorns were incredibly rare, and only held by Celestia’s army. They had been developed by Twilight’s ministry about a year back. The technology was revolutionary and devastating. One unicorn could destroy an entire city.
Blast was talking again, “we can’t use that. It will kill everyone in the area.”
“Not if we use a miniature one,” I assured him. He rolled his eyes. “We can build one. I know you’ve got an idea how they work.” Everyone was wary. We never used high powered weapons. We had rules.
“Sure I’ve got an idea, but we don’t have the parts.” Blast cradled his head in his hands.
“We can get them.”
“Gemini, I want to get back at Celestia as much as you do,” said Fall, “but perhaps this is a bit extreme.”
“No, this is the last stand. The Pegasus Project can’t be finished,” I told him.
“We need a matrix and not just any matrix either. It’s got to be big and strong. There’s only one place we can get one of those,” Blast explained.
“Where?” asked Spring. Blast sighed heavily.
“The Ministry research compound,” I muttered. Blast nodded.
“It’s not going to be easy. If.” I cut him off.
“Can’t we supply our own? Make it quick and dirty?” I asked.
“Gemini, even I know that would be suicide. You can’t control the bomb without a proper matrix. You’d have to detonate it manually,” said Fall.
“I’ve got a way around that,” I said. He and Blast looked ready to protest, I continued on, “You’ll have to trust me.” I turned to Blast. “What do we need?”
Blast grabbed a scrap of paper and began to scribble down some schematics. He was grumbling and pulled at his hair a few times. Finally he set down the pencil and reviewed the list.
“This is going to be tough,” he said.
“How much?” I asked. He gave me a sideways glance.
“We’ll need housing for the components, something the size of a football perhaps. The rest is bomb components I won’t even try to explain to you.”
“I can get the housing,” said Spring. I looked to the rest of the group, the four that had stayed silent. They were four brothers; their tongues had been cut when they were children.
“Are you four okay with this?” I asked. They nodded. That was all they ever did. I had yet to see them break a calm composure. It was unnerving.
“Okay, Gemini,” Blast began, “I know what we need. I can have it by the end of the week. We’ll have to do it then; otherwise it might destabilize.” I nodded. A week it was.
I visited my brother’s grave. Something I had meant to do for a long time. It was a simple tombstone, all I had been able to afford at the time. The text had long faded to the elements. Only I knew his name now.
“I miss you, brother,” I said. I put a flower on the ground. He had never been one for such things. He had lived in the here-and-now.
“They won’t hurt anyone anymore.” I thought back to the tragic day.
My brother had just gotten an assault rifle from a local gang to protect us. We lived on the streets. We never knew our parents. He was always looking after me, thought himself my big brother even though we were the same age.
One day the police were looking through the streets, rounding up the homeless to be brought to the ‘employment center’. Everyone knew going there was a deathtrap. We were fighting back. I watched my brother prop himself up above the concrete street divider, taking aim at an officer. Before he could even take a single shot from his rifle, a sniper round tore through his shoulder, throwing him back. I remember his body and the rifle hitting the ground.
I rushed to his side, trying to help any way I could. He grabbed my hand.
“One day, I’ll get you out of this,” he promised. He closed his eyes forever. He was ten.
I never went anywhere without that same rifle. It was the only thing to remember him by. I lit a cigarette and took a slow drag. He’d told me never to smoke, that it’d kill me if I did.
“You always were a liar, weren’t you?” I asked him. It started to rain just then. The sound if it hitting the graves sounded like gunfire for just one second.
“I’ll be back here soon. I promise.” I turned away and started to walk. I wondered if he was happy right now. If there was an afterlife. I hoped there was, for him. We were one week from the fifteenth anniversary of his death.
We all knew the plan. We were prepared, but were we ready? I hoped so. The truck we were in rattled as it drove. I held my brother’s rifle strongly. Spring looked nervous as Blast prepared the last of the miniature Unicorn. Its console lit up.
“I guess it works,” he said. He handed it to me. I hung it by a strap across my back. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” The last of the Resistance was here, all ten of us, riding for one more day of glory. The truck stopped. I signaled for silence. We were arriving under the guise of a weapons delivery. I heard the back of the truck slide open revealing a wall of crates that shielded us from sight. There was a long pause as someone prodded the boxes.
Finally, the door shut. The truck rumbled back to life and we drove on. It took five more minutes for the truck to stop, another check point. The door opened again and a box pulled free. Unnatural light flared in. We were inside the compound now. There were sound of cracking nails and wood as the box was opened. The guards started shouted. Steel stood up and kicked over the wall of boxes. They came down on the guards’ heads, knocking them over. He jumped down from the tailgate. A guard was running to an alarm. The room erupted with the sound of his shotgun letting loose. The guard’s body exploded. Steel slid two more shells into the barrels. The rest of us filed out. The truck drove off, it’s mission over. The blueprints to the facility had been unclear. The Pegasus Project was focused in the center, which was all we knew. There was a door going into the facility. We approached it.
No one said anything. No one had to. The door was locked. Blast removed his pack and placed it against the door, slinging his rifle on his back. He reeled some cord away. With a click and a boom the door was gone. It didn’t take long for alarms to start ringing through the facility. I took a step through the smoking remains. There was no going back now.
Spring poker her head around the corner. Her uzi launched a volley of slugs at the soldiers. She hugged the wall tightly as she pulled herself back. The soldiers’ bullets reflected harmlessly on her cover. I gripped my rifle and raised it. I turned and ran across the corridor. Taking well placed shots, two soldiers went down. One went down and grabbed something. I didn’t see what it was; I was on the other side now cowering with Spring. Something small ricocheted off the back wall. It was a grenade. Before anything could be said, Steel lunged at it. His body smothered the grenade.
The explosion masked my scream, “No!” I ran around the corner, firing blindly. It sounded slightly like saws cutting into flesh.
“Steel, get up,” I ordered. The restraints holding him unlocked. His body was bloody; he would die without attention soon. He said nothing. I’d never seen him crack a smile until he saw the three of us walk through the room’s doors. Robotic saws were cutting him, torturing him. A shotgun blast turned them off forever. He had a teary look in his eyes.
Fall carried him over his back. I had had time to look at the file the technicians kept of him. They’d killed his children in front of him. He never said anything.
The last soldier’s body fell backwards. It was riddled with holes. We walked onwards, stepping gingerly over the bodies. The four brothers were supposed to have had this room cleared. A security station up ahead revealed their fate. They had died in each other’s arms when a room they were clearing filled with poison gas.
I hadn’t known them well, only that they were faithful and strong. Twilight’s voice echoed through the P.A. system.
“We know you’re here. Give up now.” That’s all it said. It said that whenever another died. Only Spring, Fall, and myself were left.
“We must be getting close,” said Fall. He glanced at a map on the wall. We were only two junctions away from the central hub. We hastened the pace. The hallways were suspiciously clear.
The door to the hub was closed, but not locked.
“You two get out of here,” I told Spring and Fall.
“No, Gemini. We’re in this together,” said Fall. He grabbed his rifle. Spring cradled her uzi. The door slid open. The room was a slaughterhouse. Bodies with deformities hung from hooks on the ceiling and littered tables. They had been autopsied. Spring retched. All the bodies had similar growths; they were trying to grow wings.
“This is sick, even for Celestia. There must be hundreds,” said Fall. A shot rang out and Spring lurched back. Her shirt stained with blood as it welled up from her chest. She fell down, gasping for breath. Fall lunged to catch her, a scream growing in his throat. A bullet impacted his skull. Everything above the neck disappeared.
“You know she’s too young,” I told Fall. He laughed. Spring dozed next to him. He combed his fingers through her hair affectionately.
“She wants to fight. What can a dad to stop that?” he asked. “She’s older than you were.”
“That’s different,” I snapped. “I don’t want any kids to die for me.”
“I think you’ll be able to protect her.”
I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t protect anyone, not anymore. Officers with rifles trained filed through the door. A woman in an elegant purple dress walked in through the middle.
“Hello, Gemini,” said the ministry head, Twilight. I scowled. “Now don’t look like that, Gemini. I know what can cheer you up. A nice set of wings. Would you like that?”
“Go to hell.” One of the guards shot my leg. I collapsed to my knee, wincing in pain. Blood started to pool below me. Twilight stepped up in front of me.
“Now don’t be like that Gemini,” she told me. I reached behind me for the bomb. She saw it. “Is that a toy, Gemini?”
“It’s revenge.” I pressed the display. The flashing on the display went dead.
“Must be broken. Kill him, boys.” The officers trained the rifles. I felt the Unicorn grow hot.
“I’m coming, brother.”