Fallout Equestria: Longtalons

by Telgin

Rating: mature
Tags: Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Death, Alternate Universe, Sad, Original Character, Profanity, Griffons, Violence, Fallout
Length: 224361

Everyone has heard the stories of Fillydelphia, from the Stable Dweller herself down to the lowliest slaves that survived the unspeakable horrors and hardships. Many forget those who weren't slaves or slavers, but they have stories too...

Fillydelphia: a monument in the Equestrian Wasteland standing both as a memory of an age forgotten and a reminder of the darkest depths that pony kind can sink to. As a place of unending sorrow and misery, most sensible ponies stay as far away as they can. Only the foolish or irrationally brave stray near.

That is, except for the griffons of the Equestrian Wasteland.

It's no secret that most of the griffons in Equestria put their natural physical advantages to their best use, becoming mercenaries for the highest bidder. Large, physically powerful and with the ability to fly, they make excellent soldiers and guards. When well equipped, there are no better warriors that can be bought.

The Talons are the best of the best, and when it comes to the security of the largest industrial complex remaining in the world, nothing less would do.

To the slaves of Fillydelphia they were a terror that kept them in line. To the those who would assault the city, they were an unbreakable defense. To the slavers, they were frightening and aloof hired guns that they avoided.

But to the Talons themselves? Some were doing the only thing they thought they could could to get by in an unforgiving world...

Published 2014-03-21 10:40:02 UTC
Last updated 2020-04-29 05:05:54 UTC

Prologue

Prologue

Tonight was shaping up to be one of those nights. Kasimir rolled over in bed and stared up at the cracks running through the plaster ceiling. It was going to be that sort of night where he could lay there as long as he wanted, but no amount of turning over, or kicking off the covers or anything else would help him sleep. He grimaced and wiped his face, but swallowed the little groan he wanted to make. It wasn't even worth it anymore. He'd had so many nights like this that he just took it in stride these days. A life of insomnia would do that to you. When he was younger it wasn't so bad, but these days there was just too much to think about when he laid there. Everything he'd done and regretted over a life so much longer than he deserved would come flooding back to taunt him over and over again. Nothing he could do would let him sleep at that point.

The griffon looked over to the window and confirmed that it was a wonderfully vague early hour in the morning. When he couldn't sleep usually he'd just lay there and fume over it, but sometimes he tried to do something more productive. If he was feeling a bit more alert he might even go outside to stretch his achy wings and go on a pointless patrol. Not tonight. He slipped out of bed and smoothed the covers over. He wasn't planning on returning any time soon anyway. No, tonight, he was going to finally start on something he'd been thinking about for years.

He wound his way down the hallway into his office. Enough moonlight reflected off the walls to navigate by night vision alone, but he'd need more for this. He flicked the switch on the wall, squinting as the gem light in the ceiling flared to life and illuminated the small, worn wooden desk against the side wall. On the far wall a pair of rifles with tarnished metal receivers hung on railroad spikes that had been twisted and screwed into the wall. A single dull black revolver hung staggered with an olive semi-auto pistol with a missing trigger, both sitting neatly between the divisions of the wooden panels. He really hated that pistol... one day he'd probably get around to fixing it.

Today was not that day. He slumped down at the desk and fished a heavy bound book with blank pages from the drawer. Tonight, he was going to start writing down some of the things that kept him awake. He'd never started because there was just so much that he doubted he'd ever finish it, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized it didn't matter. Either he'd get some sleep or make some progress on getting it all out. Maybe writing it down would even help. He sure as hell wasn't ever going to talk about it with anybody. They say talking helped or something. Guess he'd never know.

He stared down at the first empty sheet of paper and twirled a pencil in his claws. Maybe if he got with the times and had a personal terminal he could record it there rather than the old fashioned way. The blasted things had a tendency to die at the least provocation though. Especially around him. He was Cursed Kasimir after all. He allowed himself a tiny smirk and an amused grunt. Maybe if he typed it all out and the terminal dumped it into oblivion when its spell matrices inevitably shorted out he could finally get some peace.

Whatever, he was just wasting time now. The point of the pencil tapped against the page as he thought, leaving little gray blemishes over what was soon going to be his life in written form. Fitting. He decided to leave them as he thought back to the best place to start.

Unsurprisingly, the first thing that came to mind happened just days after he started working in Fillydelphia.

Character Creation

Name: Kasimir Longtalons
Gender: Male
Age: 23

Species / Race: Griffon

6 - Strength
6 - Perception
6 - Endurance
4 - Charisma
7 - Intelligence
7 - Agility
4 - Luck

Tagged Skills: Firearms, Medicine, Survival

Traits

Insomniac – You have a hard time sleeping, but after years of it you're used to it. Make an END check every night to sleep. You wake at the slightest hint of trouble though!

Jinxed – Everyone around you suffers double the chance of critical failure. That includes you!

Author's Note

Since there's been a request for a pronunciation guide on some of these crazy names, I've included a link to one here. I may add other reference materials here if the need arises.

Pronunciation Guide

Chapter 1: We All Start Somewhere

Chapter 1

We All Start Somewhere

The day was turning out to be a bit boring, something I would come to learn soon enough was typical of Fillydelphia. If you weren't out doing something that put you in mortal danger, you were flying patrols over the most uninteresting scraps of dead buildings imaginable. That wasn't exactly what I had pictured, and to say the least my grand visions of doing important things to further the restoration of Equestria were already tempered. That's what the recruitment fliers said anyway. “Secure the future of Equestria! Protect the workforce that will rebuild our nation!” They even had pictures of proud looking griffons soaring through the air, shooting raiders and Hellhounds that were charging at helpless and cowering ponies. It was amazing enough to be printed on fresh paper, for that matter. What young griffon wouldn't fall for that?

As it was, I guess in a sense I was doing just that: flying patrols and making sure the slaves didn't try to run away or start killing each other. That was a little hard to do for the first few days, since Fillydelphia was so different from home that I kept being distracted by the scenery. Dozens of factories had been resurrected from nearly two centuries of death into ramshackle zombies that made most ghouls look healthy, and each one was pumping its own personal flavor of nastiness into the air that we flew through on a daily basis. You tried to avoid touching the thicker clouds if you could, and definitely got out of the rain. Even if it meant flying through the clouds. Getting any of it on you meant stinging rashes if it got on your coat, or nasty corrosion on any unpainted parts of your armor that ensured a thorough chewing out from the quartermaster. The industry and extra thick cloud cover raised the temperature inside the walls to a level that might have been tolerable outside of my armor, but the thick composite plates and ballistic weave between meant I was sweating profusely. I'd get used to it, Sergeant Swiftwing told me.

I'd been learning to adjust to the changes for three days by that point, and I thought I was doing a decent job of it. I didn't have really any prior experience with this sort of thing, but it was patrol day again and that was simple enough. That meant I was gliding over yet another cluster of ancient burnt out low-rises that were probably apartments before the balefire torched them, if the blackened shutters and incinerated husks of shrubbery were any indication. I kept a disinterested eye to the ground, watching for any movement in the deserted streets. This part of Fillydelphia wasn't currently being used for anything, since there were no factories or warehouses or research labs or anything else of real value, and that meant that any ponies around were automatically suspicious.

To my right a snowy colored griffoness, my wingmate Private Ida Whiptail, was riding an air current to save energy as she scanned the alleys and sky chariot lots fenced off by twisted shreds of partially vaporized metal. She didn't look too thrilled to be out here either, but she was several years my senior, literally and in the sense of having served here for a while, and that meant that as the FNG I'd been paired up with her to learn the ropes. She took it in stride at least, and if she resented it she never showed it. 'All part of the job,' she'd said dismissively. It certainly could have been worse. I could have been paired up with that weird griffon who never talked. Isaac I thought his name was. I couldn't imagine what patrolling with him would have been like. She could have had it worse too I suppose. As long as I was getting broken in, our squad wasn't likely to get sent off to get shot at by raiders or worse.

We lazily banked around the gutted skeleton of a taller highrise and continued our patrol deeper into the old city. These bigger and more elaborate buildings got more and more common the deeper into the city you got, and ahead of us the skyline was choked with them. Office buildings, probably. Like the residences, anything of remote value had been salvaged decades before I'd set paw or talon in the city. We weaved around another precarious shell of a tower that looked like it would collapse if we so much as touched it.

No ponies had any reason to be out here, so I kept watching for movement of any sort. Ida told me before we set out that she'd personally only caught two slaves out in this area in four years. Odds were pretty low that I'd see anything, and even if a pony did slip by without me seeing them, what harm could they possibly do out here? I shook my head and fought off a yawn. Patrol hours got shifted around the night before and that meant I was running on around four hours of sleep. The moment we got back to the barracks I was going to try to fix that.

I suppose if I hadn't been so bored and sleepy I'd have missed the mare cowering in the lobby of one of those office buildings. The moment I opened my eyes from the yawn I caught a glimpse of her ragged black coat shifting around through the skylight. I spread my wings and braked to slow down enough to circle back and look again. There was definitely someone moving around in there. A fluttering of nerves settled in my stomach as I looked back for Ida. She was just realizing I'd broken formation and was in the middle of coming back to join me. I didn't wait for her. If the pony did cause trouble somehow, I didn't want to be responsible for her getting away. I might even impress someone higher up with apprehending a runaway in my first week.

The skylight was really more of an opening with little shards of glass still clinging to it than a window now, which left plenty of room for me to fly in and get the literal drop on her. I'd never met a pegasus, and in my experience no ponies really expected things like that, so even if she was armed I didn't expect any trouble. At the last moment I tucked my wings and soared through the former window, which worked better than I expected. There was more than enough room for me to flare my wings again and start a controlled dive down the two floor foyer. I zipped past a crumbling fountain that hadn't worked in centuries, spotted the mare in the corner near a window and landed in the center of the lobby with a satisfying thump that got her attention.

She panicked and scrabbled to her hooves, trailing her grimy and greasy white mane and tail behind her as she fled for the door. “Hold it!” I shouted and leveled my rifle at her. Naturally she paid me no attention, so I fired off a warning shot that struck the door molding and sent splinters of wood spraying through the air.

The mare squealed and skid on all four hooves a short distance before flashing me a wild-eyed and terrified glance. Holding a gun in her direction didn't seem to do much to convince her to surrender, so she bolted for the blackened double doors again despite the new bullet hole adorning them. She threw her weight into them and bounced off when they refused to budge in the least. At that point, she completely lost it. “Help me, anypony!” she cried as she pawed and bucked at the doors.

“Stand where you are!” I leaped into the air to keep my gun ready and flapped toward her. At that point I had all the reason to shoot her that I needed, and probably should have. Instead, as she wound up yet another desperate buck I shouted, “Stop and get on the ground!”

The rotten and worn doors could only resist such abuse for so long, and when her hooves rammed into the jamb the handles flew off in another fountain of sawdust. She half tripped over her own hooves as she doubled around and galloped headlong right through the dislodged doors. Another string of whines and whimpers followed as she crashed through and darted down the street.

Where she thought she was going to go, I had no idea. She couldn't possibly escape, and even though there were plenty of places to hide, she'd never get that far ahead of me. Even then I easily followed her thundering hooves into the alley on the right of the building, where I caught sight of her white tail slipping around another corner. Ponies had to jump over or go around inconveniences like dumpsters and debris, but I just flew right over it all, gaining ground on her to the point that in a few seconds I'd be right on top of her. “Stop now, or I'll shoot!” I warned her again.

She slid around another corner, leaving skids in fresh mud, and kicked up small plumes of it when she bolted again. I braked and rolled to pull through the sharp turn, and raised my rifle again. I was going to have to shoot her. As worked up as she was, even if I pinned her she probably wouldn't stop until I shot her. I looked down the sights to line up a shot, and panicked when I saw the fire escapes looming ahead. At the last possible instant I pulled into a hard climb, avoiding the brunt of the impact but still slapping the rusty metal hard with my wing. The stinging resonated through my entire body as I fought to keep her in my sight, but fortunately she just kept galloping on in a straight line.

Shouting from my right caught my attention for a moment, but I riveted my attention back on the black pony rapidly disappearing down the alley. I snapped a shot off that gouged a brick next to her, which at least succeeded in frightening her into jumping away from the impact and into a pile of waste bins. The thin metal never stood a chance as her wildly kicking hooves pounded them into even worse scrap, but they served as a perfect distraction. Shrill cries mixed with the sound of metal hammering against metal and brick assaulted my ears, but above it I heard more shouting from another alley. I didn't have time to worry over that and dove into the gap between the buildings. She just managed to untangle herself from the pile of garbage before I slammed into her with all of my weight. We tumbled together and rolled over as we plowed up more mud, but by more luck than my own skill we stopped with me on top, holding her down with a hand pressing down on her throat.

I didn't even have a chance to speak before she squeaked, “P-please... I-I'm sorry, I'll go back to work.” She brought her hooves up to shield her face. “J-just don't hurt me!”

“Get up,” I commanded, backing off and bringing up my rifle. “You shouldn't have run, I could have shot you.” She didn't need to know that my miss wasn't another warning shot.

Her eyes searched me for a moment as she hesitated, but finally she lowered her hooves and shakily stood. Now that she wasn't a blur of black darting around corners in dark alleys, I could get a good look at her. I didn't like what I saw. Her limbs were thin and shedding fur near the hooves, and her ribs were protruding ahead of a pinched in stomach. Her straggly mane hung over exhausted red eyes that stared at me hard enough she could have seen my soul. “I-I-I'm sorry! I was s-scared. J-just... can I go back to work? I-I won't be anymore trouble, I p-promise.” Her voice was weak as she rasped and gasped for air. How she could have galloped so hard for so long I had no idea. Even terror and adrenaline had limits.

“What were you doing back here? Where are you assigned?” I asked.

Whatever she was going to say was preempted by three more ponies storming into the alley to our side. A big green earth pony stallion with an assault rifle slung at his side threw a hoof up at her. “There you are! You're in deep trouble this time, Glitter.” He waved a hoof at his cohorts and stomped over.

“You in charge of her?” I asked, making room.

He nodded. “Bitch keeps trying to steal food.”

The pink unicorn mare to his side grabbed Glitter's saddle bag with her magic and flipped it open. Three steel cans wrapped in the yellow haze floated out and up to eye level. One had been utterly crushed in the struggle and was leaking something gray and creamy from a rent in its side. Glitter lowered her head. “I-I'm sorry, but I was s-so hungry... p-ponies keep stealing my food. I d-don't think I can go on m-much longer.”

That explained why she was so emaciated. From the way she looked, I was skeptical that anything short of aggressive treatment in a well stocked hospital would fix the damage that had already been done. The odds of that happening were only about as bad as the pony princesses descending on us at that moment to restore her with a kiss, or whatever it was the ponies believed.

“Too bad, that is coming out of your ration,” he said, pointing another hoof at her. The grimy orange unicorn mare with manacles for a cutie mark stepped forward and floated two pairs of shackles around Glitter's hooves. The stallion snorted and nodded at me. “Good to see the griffons actually helping us out for once.”

I held my tongue, deciding to let the event resolve itself with as little involvement from me as was possible. This was technically outside of my authority anyway. Once I handed her off this was no longer my affair.

He cocked an eyebrow and looked away after I offered no response. “Get her back to the metro, her shift started two hours ago. No food for her today.”

Glitter sniffled and hid her face as she was pulled along by the chains around her legs. When she passed by the stallion, he threw a forehoof out and caught her across the jaw hard enough to knock her from her hooves. “This is the last time, Glitter.” He raised a hoof and threatened to strike her again. “Get up!”

“That's enough,” I growled. I stepped forward and glared at him. “You got her and your oatmeal back.” At least I hoped it was oatmeal...

“What's it to you, feathers?” He turned away from her and glared back. “You do your job and let me do mine.”

I knew better. I really did, but I couldn't be quiet. “And beating a half-starved mare is going to make her work better?”

“It might. If it doesn't then it'll make the others work harder. But you know what? It's not your problem. Piss off.” He snorted one last time and turned away to lead the other slavers and Glitter away.

That was new. I was used to ponies making a wide path for me, even before I joined the Talons. In Fillydelphia I hadn't met many ponies who would even look me straight on, much less one who'd talk back to me. Even among the slavers.

“What was that about?” Ida asked from behind me.

I spun to face her and lowered my gun. “Where have you been?” I had no idea how long she'd been there and watching. How could she be so quiet?

“Catching up to you. Breaking off like that was very dangerous you know. Never go in alone if you can help it.” She shuffled her wings and hopped down from the collapsing fire escape.

“I didn't want to risk her disappearing while I got your attention.”

Ida shrugged. “Don't sweat it, it worked out this time. Just be more careful in the future, okay?”

“Understood.” I fell in beside her on the way back out to the main street.

She smirked. “So, you're a little sweet on the ponies, huh?”

“What?”

“I heard you talking. Told the slaver off after he hit that slave.”

“I'm not 'sweet on the ponies,' that was just unnecessary,” I explained. What was that supposed to mean anyway? She was the one who had her feathers pulled into a pony tail of all things.

She nodded. “Okay, okay. Look, just another word of advice? Try not to get involved. It... just doesn't end well.”

We arrived in the street, which was once again devoid of anything save the muggy heat and threatening cloud cover. A noxious gust of wind blew past and we took to the air. “What's that supposed to mean?” I asked, having to raise my voice to carry it over the wind.

“Slaves and slavers. Just don't get involved,” she repeated, frowning. “Trust me on this one.”

“Right. I'll keep that in mind.” I blew out my breath and flapped after her, ready to get this patrol over with so I could go back to the barracks and get some sleep. This was all out of my hands now anyway.

Thankfully the rest of the patrol was much less interesting, consisting mostly of me trailing Ida through the air, yawning a lot and trying to pretend to pay close attention to the streets below. By the time we were winding down we were back over a more populated section of the city, and there were enough slaves trudging along on legitimate business that I couldn't begin to hope to notice anything amiss. Lines of ponies of every color wound through the streets, heads low as they made their ways to their next shift's location. It must have been just after lunch time then, but I was still reeling from an abrupt awakening halfway through the night to go on patrol so my circadian rhythms weren't really telling me much of use. I wasn't hungry either, but that could well have been because the last thing I saw that was supposed to be food appeared to have a lot more in common with cement that hadn't set yet. The thought that most of the ponies below me had just ingested a meal of it made my stomach turn, so I pushed the thought aside and kept my eyes on Ida's backside, trusting her to lead us wherever we were supposed to be headed. Had I not been so sleepy I might have even enjoyed the view.

“Well, that's it. I can see Isaac and Leigh up ahead headed this way. Let's head back.” Ida flashed a smile back at me and waved off to the west.

That was easily the best thing I'd heard all day. A couple of minutes of flying led to a gradual replacement of 'workers' milling around with increasing numbers of ponies wearing cobbled together armor and with guns slung over their sides. Slavers and guards patrolled along improvised wooden paths atop a rusty fence separating Fillydelphia proper and one of the guard camps, making slow rounds with about as much apathy as I felt right then. In the center of the sprawl of tents was a large congregation of ponies cackling over something I dared not look too closely at, surrounded by at least two dozen more looking after their gear or slurping at bowls of something I hoped wasn't oatmeal. Out of context, a comparatively decent place to be I guess.

The barracks wasn't far past the slaver camp, and as was the case with most things related to the Talons compared to the slavers, far better organized. Two rows of scavenged train boxcars sat nestled in a clearing surrounded by high mounds of soil and miscellaneous railroad junk. If I was to believe what Ida told me the day before, there were mines hidden among the detritus and buried below the surface, but what for I couldn't begin to guess. Nobody would have been stupid enough to attack us in our own base in the middle of Fillydelphia. Nevertheless, I couldn't deny the effectiveness of the defenses. High towers affixed with lights kept the entire perimeter well lit throughout the entire day and there was only a single entrance on foot, which would be an obvious kill zone in the event of an attack.

We swooped over the crumbling remains of a train station and passed a green feathered griffon I didn't know on our approach, following the furrowed soil of an old railway that had been pulled up and recycled many years prior. Our wings kicked up a fine spray of dust as we flew over the fortifications and touched down at our car. Ida flicked the safety on her rifle before slinging it around her middle. “Home sweet home.”

I yawned and nodded without a word, then followed her example and stowed my weapon. 'Home' was being very generous. The boxcars that were being used for our improvised sleeping quarters were exactly that: each block was a group of four cars that had a side knocked out so two could be pushed together to make more room, then stacked on top of each other. How they got them there I had no idea, but each such arrangement was home to two squads, with one on each floor. Six blocks made room for twelve squads, most of which hovered around six members, for a total of about eighty griffons in our platoon. Our little slice of heaven was on the ground floor. I'd have preferred the higher quarters, but once you got inside you couldn't tell a difference anyway since none of them had windows. We headed for the door, passing a giant stenciled black number three atop peeling red paint on the way. At least the inside was mostly clean.

“You look pretty rough, why don't you go ahead and get some shut eye? I'll stow your gear for you.”

“Thanks. Uh, is the patrol schedule the same for tomorrow?”

Ida shrugged and pulled hard on the heavy crossbar mechanism securing the door on the car. “As far as I know? If sarge is here he ought to know if anyone does.” The bar slid open with surprising silence and she shouldered it open. “One day we're going to get that lubed...”

Inside a female chuckled. “Aww, come on Ida, you made that one too easy to even say it.” I hopped inside after Ida and found two of our squad mates sitting at a table made from mostly matching pieces of scrap wood and nails almost devoid of rust. Harsh white gem lights illuminated the tarnished metal interior that stung my eyes until I blinked them to adjust. Carmelita, a lean yellow coated griffoness with red tipped feathers, grinned and set down the magazine she was loading.

Next to her was Sergeant Swiftwing, a taller but similarly thin griffon with a gray coat and feathers with light blue speckles. He glanced up and nodded at us before looking down the iron sights of the rifle he was servicing. “Welcome back. You two have fun?”

I wasn't in much of a mood for jokes, but Ida came to my rescue. She slid her rifle off and propped it in the corner before facing them. “Oh, yeah, actually. Kasimir caught a slave sneaking around in the Stirrup Business Park. Apprehended her without anybody getting hurt.” She cut me a small smile.

“No kidding? I hear ya, new guy!” Carmelita said, giving me a playful punch to the shoulder. She poked the griffon next to her. “Hey, Serge-ent, did you hear that? I can't wait to see Heidi's face when she finds out about it.”

He rolled his eyes. “I told you not to call me that. You'll have Kasimir here doing it too. Anyway...” He set his rifle on the table. “...that's great to hear. I'm glad you're getting the hang of all of this so fast. The lieutenant will be pleased too. She's usually not very fast to warm up to recruits.”

“She's actually a bitch,” Carmelita added, smiling pleasantly.

There was a brief exchange of displeased looks between the two griffons at the table. Sergeant Swiftwing broke the silence with, “Have you met her yet?”

I finished removing my breastplate and set it in the corner next to the growing pile of gear. “Uh, yeah. Briefly two days ago when I was given my assignment here. She seemed alright to me.”

“You must not have talked to her long then.” Carmelita grabbed another magazine and started snapping bullets into it.

Serge grunted. “Either way, you'll get to meet her in a little while. She's coming by in about an hour and a half for inspections. Make sure your gear is prepped and ready and that you're presentable by then.” He gestured to a pair of bowls behind him on a shelf. “Oh, and by the way, you missed lunch but we saved you some.”

Ida's face lit up and she grabbed both bowls before sinking into a seat across from them. “Great, thanks. I'm starving.” She slid one over to an empty seat and slapped the chair for me to join them. “Smells like radigator? Been having that a lot lately. Beats nothing though, that's for sure.”

It took me a minute more to finish stripping out of my armor, and I almost had to peel the undersuit off of my damp feathers and fur. I dropped it atop my pile and plopped into the chair next to Ida, reflecting on what Serge said the day before. I might get used to the heat eventually, but it couldn't come soon enough. “Uh, are inspections out of uniform or what?” I asked, realizing that I might not should have stripped so soon. Then again only Ida was still wearing anything.

Serge retrieved his rifle and worked the action. “Out of uniform. It's kind of informal and mostly a check to make sure we've all got our stuff and that it's being maintained. Isaac and Leigh won't even be here for it.”

“Yeah, what's with that?” Carmelita asked.

He shrugged. “The schedule's been screwed for months now. I don't think things are going to get back in line for a while yet, but Lieutenant Blackfeathers told me there would be some changes coming soon to help with that.”

“Pfft. Like she doesn't change stuff constantly just for the fun of it.”

I left them to their conversation and prodded the bowl of goopy food. It was cold and didn't look too readily identifiable, but I trusted Ida's comment that there was radigator in it somewhere. The impression I was getting wasn't doing a whole lot for my appetite, which was still quite well suppressed by the sight of a mare so starved she looked like she could die any day now, not to mention what passed as 'food' to her, but Ida had reiterated enough times that I should eat and sleep when I could. I cautiously inserted the spoon of stew in my mouth and confirmed it lacked much flavor other than generic meat. Palatable, but just. Speaking of sleep though... “Guess I'll wait until after inspections to take that nap.”

Ida turned up her bowl to down the last drops of 'gravy' and set it down with a satisfied sigh. “You could get an hour or so if you went now. I'll get you up in time to get ready.” She started unclasping her armor and said, “I'll move your gear out of the way.”

“Ohh, when you going to start treating me like that, Ida?” Carmelita asked. The bigger griffoness shrugged it off and went back to removing her armor.

Serge cocked his head toward the open door leading to the cots in the back of the car. “Go on and get what sleep you can if you want. Half an hour to get your gear in order should be plenty.” He glanced at Ida, then back to me. “Just make sure you get it ready in time. The lieutenant is pretty strict and you need to learn that just as much as anything else.”

Message loud and clear, sergeant. “Understood.” I finished my stew with a bit more manners and stifled a yawn. Waking up in an hour was going to suck, but one hour was better than no hours.

“Hey, Kaz, relax. No need to sound so serious. 'Understood.' Just say, 'Got it, serge-ent!'” Carmelita grinned.

“Lita, if you call me that in front of the lieutenant, I swear... you'll be pulling double shifts for a month.”

“Got it, serge-ent.” She beamed at me. “Sleep well!”

“Thanks...” I made my way into the back and slid the door mostly closed behind me, allowing a sliver of light to shine through the crack and pick out enough details that I could find my cot with my night vision. I hadn't done a very good job of making it up that morning when Ida dragged me out of it, but that wouldn't matter in a few moments anyway. My few personal belongings were scattered beneath it: a stack of books I'd thumbed through so many times the corners were frayed and a bag I couldn't even remember what was contained within it anymore. I'd have to get those put away somewhere when I got up, but for the moment all I cared about was flopping down onto the firm mattress. At that point even a cement slab would have felt comfortable.

“Hey Lita, maybe you should lighten up a bit?” Ida's voice echoed faintly into the room.

“Whaaat? I am. Just trying to make the new guy feel at home.”

“I think you're just laying it on a teensy bit thick there is all.”

“Ugh... okay, okay. But after Heidi gets done with him he'll need it.”

I rolled over to face the wall and tried to block it out. Whatever. History had taught me that a couple of people talking in the next room wasn't going to have much impact on whether I could get to sleep or not. Let them talk. Heck, they could talk about my butt for all I cared at that point.

“...besides, have you seen how cute he is? Especially after squeezing out of that armor just now? How could I resist?”

Dammit.

“Kaz! Kaz, get up, you were supposed to be up ten minutes ago!”

I rolled over and blinked to find Ida staring down at me. “What?”

“I woke you up ten minutes ago and you went back to sleep. Come on, the lieutenant will be here in fifteen minutes!”

“Oh. Oh, shit!” I rolled off the cot and nearly onto her claws as she danced back. “Sorry. Uh...” Great. Where to start? Could I possibly get ready by then?

“It's okay, you've still got time. I went ahead and reloaded the shots you spent this morning for you. Just don't tell Serge, okay?”

I nodded and pulled myself up with the help of the metal bed frame. “Right. Thanks. Uh, where is he?”

“Went to get the lieutenant. Come on, no time to dally.” She patted my cot. “Just get this straight and get your gear laid out like we did.”

All of the beds in the room but mine were made up and pristine, but three had sets of armor and weapons laid out at their sides or their feet. Seeing so many components of armor set out like that really put into perspective just how much we lugged around in the air, but more importantly how many pieces I had to wipe down and get into place! “Okay, right. Thanks again.”

“Anytime. If you need me I'll be outside.”

With that she left me to my task. On further inspection, no pun intended, I had more than enough time to get ready. Making my cot took only a few moments, spartan as it was, and I swept my personal junk into my footlocker like everyone else had sensibly done long ago. That just left my armor and gun to wipe down and clean. I'd never have time to tear it down and get it pristine like the sergeant, but this would have to do. Now, where was that rag...

I was done with my armor and was just getting ready to clean the barrel of my rifle when I heard talons clattering against thin metal flooring in the next room. Great, had it been fifteen minutes already? I was so close!

“Everyone fall in and prepare for inspection,” Serge announced. Fall in where? I jumped up and propped my rifle against my cot like the others had and started for the door when I was met by Ida and Carmelita. They stood at attention next to their beds and stared straight ahead with stoic expressions. I immediately did the same, just as Serge stepped inside. “The squad is ready for inspection, ma'am.”

A coal black griffoness strutted in after him. Blackfeathers was certainly an appropriate name. Her everything was black: feathers, fur, beak, legs, claws and even her officer's uniform. Only her piercing yellow eyes weren't sucking in the overbearing white of the gem lights in the upper corners of the room. “Thank you, sergeant.” I snapped my eyes back to the wall ahead of me. That's what I was supposed to do, right?

To my side I could hear her claws scraping against metal as she made her rounds in the room. She brought up something about the two who were missing and had a short exchange with Serge about it, but distressingly quickly I found her standing next to me. A hundred things I could have done better or gone over a second time jumped to mind, but it was too late then. That nap was just getting good and if I'd only woken up when I was supposed to...

“You're the new hire, aren't you? What's your name, soldier?”

She was either very busy or didn't pay attention to details, and I had a pretty good hunch which it was. “Private Kasimir Longtalons, ma'am.” I kept my eyes glued on the wall.

“I hear you captured an errant slave this morning. What happened? Short version, please.”

Oh boy. “Private Whiptail and I were patrolling the Stirrup Business Park. At 0930 hours I spotted a mare hiding in an office building. I broke formation and pursued her before apprehending her in a back alley. Her manager arrived moments later to take her into custody.”

“You should listen to your partner. Keep breaking off like that and you'll be dead. Look at me.” I really didn't want to. I'd had a rough day already, did she really need to chew me out over that after I'd heard the lecture twice? Nevertheless, I complied. She was half a head shorter than me but those emotionless eyes paralyzed me all the same. “Good work anyway. Learn from your mistakes but keep it up.”

“Y-yes ma'am.” Wow, that was a relief! I didn't care about the rest of the inspection at that point. What could go wrong?

She picked up my rifle and stepped back in front of me. Really? Yes, really. She pulled the action back, confirmed it wasn't loaded, then stuck a finger inside. “Clean your weapon completely next time,” she said after rubbing two claws together. How she saw any powder residue on those black hands of hers I'll never know, but I kept silent and looked ahead. She propped the gun back against the bed. “Private Longtalons, you were brought on as platoon medic to replace Private Ripbeak, were you not?”

A medic with the name Ripbeak? Yikes, I had to ask about that later. For now... “Yes ma'am, that's correct.”

She stopped in front of me again, letting her flowing uniform settle. “Why have you not set out your medical kit for inspection?”

“It hasn't been issued to me yet, ma'am.”

“Sergeant, is this true?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She nodded slowly. “Private, it's your responsibility to ensure that you have all of your equipment. Speak with the quartermaster to get this resolved immediately.” Before I could say anything she wheeled on the spot and strode back to the door. Facing us, she said, “At ease. Pending remediation of the deficiencies noted, this inspection is complete. I will follow through with Sergeant Swiftwing to ensure all matters have been resolved. Dismissed.” She turned again and left without another word.

Awkward silence reigned in the barracks as talons scratching metal faded in the adjoining room. A heavy metal door shut and everyone collectively breathed a sigh of relief. That wasn't so bad. I was still shaking a little inside, but that wasn't so bad.

“Ho-lee-shit,” Carmelita blurted out. All eyes settled on her and she grinned at me. “I didn't think I'd ever see it, but I think she likes you, Kaz.”

“Wh-huh?” Seriously? I was the only one she corrected on anything.

“Pshh, yeah. Hey, you all remember that time I lost that grenade? I thought she was going to make me dig through every trash pile in the city to find it. She musta yelled for five minutes straight! I thought she was gonna stroke out right there.” She slapped her hands together and pointed at the floor. “Good thing Nadine was here.”

Serge started picking up his gear. “Lita, that was a grenade. Imagine if one of the slaves found it?”

“Like they'd know how to use it,” she said with a shrug. “Found it under the bed right after she left anyway. No biggie.”

Uh huh. Losing a grenade seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to get angry about. All in all Lieutenant Blackfeathers seemed pretty sensible to me. I'd just have to pay a bit more attention to detail.

Ida chuckled. “Forgetting that incident, yeah, she did seem a bit more lenient today. Guess you caught her in a good mood. I'd keep what she said in mind though, if I were you.”

“Yeah, don't worry. I'd rather not see her angry,” I said, following everyone's example and moving my equipment to my locker.

“You do not,” Carmelita agreed. She slammed her footlocker closed and stretched. “I'm going for a smoke. Anyone want to join me?”

Ida agreed and filed out behind her. Serge kept arranging things in his locker and said, “No thanks. Got some things to attend to.” He fiddled with the latch and gave it a thump, then shut the lid. “Have you spoken with Quartermaster Bladewind before?” he asked me.

“We met briefly for me to get my armor and gun.”

“Alright good. You'll need to see him again to get your medical kit and supplies. You can take care of it in the morning before you head out. If he's not there someone will be, and if they give you crap just threaten them with the lieutenant.”

I propped myself up on my locker and nodded. Oh how bad I wanted to yawn right then, but I managed to keep it inside. “Yes sir. I'll do that first thing when I get up.”

He smirked. “Great. If you smoke I'm sure Lita would like more company. Otherwise, head back to bed. It'll be another early morning.” He moved to leave, but caught himself. “Oh, and Lita's crazy, but she's right about one thing. You can ease back on the formalities when the lieutenant isn't around. Don't call me sir, please. Sergeant or sarge if you must, but really, Serge is fine. Just not Serge-ent, okay?”

“Heh, right. Sorry.”

“No harm done.” He stopped at the exit for yet another moment to speak. “Oh, and by the way, Lita's full of bad advice. Stick close to Ida. She'll keep you straight. Or Leigh. Isaac's pretty straight too but he tends to keep to himself.” And with that, he thumped the wall once, waved and disappeared.

A smoke did sound pretty great right about then, but really I was too sleepy to care. I could smoke any time. I hit the switch on the wall, which killed the lights with a spluttering flicker, then flopped onto my cot. It was a terrible shame I'd just made it up so neat and pretty too.

Starting Level 3 - You've been around the block a time or two, so you can shoot a gun mostly straight and patch up a radroach bite.

Perks

Gun Nut - +5 to Firearms and Mechanics.

Wasteland Surgeon - You can heal crippled limbs without a doctor's bag. You also gain +2% chance to land critical hits against mundane living targets.

Chapter 2: Still Figuring it Out

Chapter 2

Still Figuring it Out

Morning came about 5 minutes later. I was sleeping too hard to bother dreaming, something I only realized because Ida had to actually shake me to rouse me. It took me a few seconds to come to terms that I'd actually fallen soundly asleep twice in a row, but as tired as I still felt I didn't question it much. I rolled over and found Ida looking down at me, bleary eyed. “Come on, you've got to get going early. Have to see Sam, remember?”

Sam? She must have meant the quartermaster. I nodded and blinked the sleepiness away while I waited for her to wander off and do whatever she needed to, but she didn't budge. Guess she wasn't going to take chances on me drifting back to sleep again. She really was looking out for me. “Right. Armory is... it's, uh... where is it again?”

“In the old repair shed at the far end of the rail yard. The only one still standing.” She nodded toward the front room. “Got some coffee brewing if you're interested. Go ahead and get suited up, it should be ready by then.”

“Thanks.” I kicked the covers off, realizing as I did so that it was going to complicate making the bed. Did they really have to have such stringent rules on appearance? In this dump of a city?

After Ida left I set to it anyway. It took just a few moments to get my cot presentable again and moving around helped me wake up some. Only after I was halfway through snapping the clasps closed on my armor did I realize that I wasn't alone. Isaac's orange plumage was just visible at the head of his cot, and above him in the second bunk Leigh's brown and cream peeked from beneath her sheets. Funny that I'd barely even met or spoken with them so far. Or to them in the case of Isaac. He hadn't even said a word back to me, just letting a nod and grunt do the talking for him. Creepy.

I found Ida seated at the table stirring a mug of gently steaming coffee as she tapped a pack of cigarettes. “Coffee's ready. You've got an hour and a half before you have to be back here, which ought to be more than plenty of time.” She pulled two paper tubes out of the pack and twiddled one at me. “Want a smoke before you go?”

That sounded like a fantastic idea. Where'd she get the cigarettes from anyway? I didn't have any so I graciously accepted the one she offered me. “Sure, would love to.”

“Great. Meet me outside when you're ready. The lieutenant gets pissy if she thinks we're smoking in here, and that makes Serge pissy.”

Naturally the coffee I poured was hot enough to power a plasma rifle, so I settled on letting it cool while I smoked. There wasn't any sugar to be found so it would have to be black. Really, I was impressed that there was even coffee at all so I took it without questioning it. As trashy as Fillydelphia was, this was a little nugget of civilized living. I could put up with being scrutinized by Lieutenant Blackfeathers and chasing down the occasional runaway pony for this.

Outside I found Ida sitting against the train car and somehow sipping at her cup despite it possibly being classed as a magical energy weapon. Without a word she flicked out her lighter and started her smoke. After offering the lighter to me, she set her cup down and asked, “So, how do you like things so far? Is it everything you thought it would be?”

“Uh, well... it's not quite what I was expecting, but I'm adjusting. I think.”

She grinned and puffed smoke out of her nostrils. “Just messing with you. Yeah, I know it's not what you were expecting. Everyone says that. Heck, even I thought I'd be off shooting raiders all day every day when I signed on.” She coughed and waved a hand over the camp. “Really though, this is what you're going to see more than anything. Most of the time we're here in Filly keeping an eye on the place. It's not a bad gig.”

“Yeah, it's not too tough. I'm sure it gets bad from time to time though?” Probably shouldn't have asked that. That sort of question never has a good answer.

She nodded. “Yeah, but not much recently at all. The first year I was here we were getting called off to repel raiders every other day. I hear before then the Steel Rangers used to probe the place pretty regularly too but we rarely hear a peep out of them anymore. Which is a-okay by me.”

Me too. I'd never seen a Steel Ranger in person but I didn't need to to know what would likely happen. Powered armor with anti-tank weaponry was not something I was looking forward to ever witnessing. I took a long drag on my cigarette and pondered the situation. “So... I saw Isaac and Leigh were back. I still haven't really met them and it's starting to look like I won't get a chance.”

“Schedules will change up again soon enough and it'll be them you see all of the time instead of Lita and Serge.” She downed the rest of her coffee in a big gulp. “Leigh's a good gal. Great with tech of all kinds. And don't let Isaac scare you too bad, he's a big softie inside.”

Right, so... what was that supposed to mean? “Does he not talk much or is it just me?”

Her eyes widened a bit. “Oh, you haven't heard that yet? Wow, sorry, I didn't even think to tell you.” She ran her talon across her throat. “He got hurt real bad a few years back. Actually... wow, guess that was right after I started here. Anyway, have you ever heard of the Grimscythes?”

The name did sound familiar. “Isn't that a raider band? Disappeared a few years back?”

“Mmhmm, that's the one. They disappeared for a good reason.” She pointed a thumb back to her chest. “I was part of the team that took care of them.”

“Oh, wow. You wiped them out?”

She took another puff of her cigarette. “Not quite. A lot were killed, but some are still slaves in the city here. It was risky, but our orders were to capture as many as we could.”

Risky indeed. Why would they do that? “Aren't there much... easier sources of workers?”

“Sure, but that wasn't the point. It was an experiment of some kind. The Grimscythes were a real nuisance, attacking caravans or even patrols. Red Eye saw an opportunity to get workers and make our lives easier, so we tried capturing them.”

“And it worked I take it?”

“Sort of.” She coughed and frowned. “Part of the experiment was to see how well raiders would work as slaves. A few were eventually 'conditioned' alright, but most didn't work out, you see. We also lost a few good people in that fight. The results overall weren't very good so we never tried it again, as far as I know we won't be in the future.”

Suddenly I was feeling like retracting my sentiments on being a Talon not being so bad, but if they had wiped that raiding band out put them to use rebuilding what they'd helped destroy maybe I could even take a little pride in the organization I was working for. “So, I guess Isaac was wounded in the fight?”

“Yep. Some unicorn with a knife got him. We thought the fight was pretty much over, but some of the craftier raiders hadn't given up yet. Some had spells that let them turn partially invisible, which made it just about impossible to shoot 'em. Never saw it coming.” She crossed her legs and said, “Nadine was right there so he didn't bleed out, but he hasn't said much since then. Hurts to talk I think, and his voice is messed up and all.”

“I could understand that.” Hmm, time to change the subject. “So, Nadine. I've heard that name a few times. Who is she?”

Ida coughed and sighed. “Nadine Ripbeak. She was our platoon medic until about three months ago.”

I could sense that 'was' was a key word there. “What happened?”

“KIA.” Ida pointed a single talon under her chin. “Shot by a raider. We were escorting a supply caravan on the way in. Some drugged up psychos, not the Grimscythes by the way, ambushed the caravan and opened fire. We retaliated. When they realized we were there they started shooting at us instead. Hundreds of shots fired, and the only griffon even hit was her.

“Complete horseshit, really. She was the only medic for thirty kilos, but it didn't matter anyway. Dead before she even hit the ground.” Ida shook her head. “She didn't deserve that. Don't let the name fool you, she was a good griffon. She was nice and cared, made a good doc.” She gave me a sad smile. “Guess that's part of the job description, huh?”

Even someone as socially dense as I was could tell what she was saying. I scratched the back of my head and chuckled nervously. “It helps anyway. Sorry to hear about what happened.”

She finished her cigarette and thumped it off into a small puddle choked with used cigarette butts. “It's tough, but it happens.”

Silence fell as I realized I hadn't even started my coffee yet. I sucked down half of the cup and tried not to dwell on the image of the griffoness who previously held my position having most of her skull blown away by a stray bullet. Okay, maybe this job wasn't worth it for just the coffee. I knew when I signed the papers that this would be dangerous, but that hit a little close to home.

Ida yawned and pulled out another cigarette. “Well, that's probably enough filling your ear holes. You should probably get going before too much longer.”

“Right.” I polished off my coffee and tossed my finished smoke into the same puddle. An hour or so to get my gear and get back should be plenty, but I wasn't going to risk cutting it so close as I did with the inspection.

“Just meet me back here when you're done.”

With a nod and verbal assent, I spread my wings and hopped into the air. Once airborne I stretched my back and legs, then soared off toward the far end of the rail yard. The yellowed glow of lights inside the enormous shed confirmed that there should be someone there to greet me at least.

The armory wasn't much to look at from the outside: a corrugated metal building standing a single story tall and maybe thirty meters to the side. A veritable mountain of collapsed bricks and cinder blocks to its side was probably once a station for storing trains that were damaged or in need of service, but had long ago been scavenged for anything useful. From where I stood, I could see that half of the shed was unlit, and that most of the light inside came from just the front room. There probably weren't a whole lot of people stopping by this time of the morning.

I apparently approached the shed from the wrong side, finding myself on something that looked like a shooting range that thankfully was unoccupied at the time. Propped against the side of the building was a metal sign of an obnoxiously pink pony whose name I had learned a decade ago was Pinkie Pie. She used to be an important pony in the Equestrian government, and I was never quite sure how she got the honors of having her image smeared all over the theme park. Regardless, she was everywhere in that part of the city, and that was clearly where this sign had come from. 'You must be this tall to shoot!' she was saying with that expression of irrational exuberance that she always wore, at least after someone took a spray can and replaced 'ride' with 'shoot.' Two dozen bullet holes clustered around her chest and skull told me all I needed to know about what its purpose now was. I smirked and wound around the corner to the front.

The door was unlocked and swung open with a startlingly deep groan, spilling sickly light onto the ground before me. Idly I wondered if that was ever going to get lubed too, then slipped inside, letting the door clatter shut loudly enough to hopefully alert whoever was on duty that I was there. As I strolled along, I took stock of the contents in the front room. Or the lack, really. A couple of lockers adorned the wall on my right and two lamps hung from the ceiling, but the only thing of note was the glass window ahead of me with what appeared to be a drawer of some kind beneath it. A heavy door with no obvious handle was just to its left. No signs of life. “Hello?”

Muffled scrabbling of talons against concrete came from behind the window, and the white head of a young griffon popped up. He whipped around to face me, and the momentary worry he wore drained away into grogginess. “Uh, hi. Can I help you?”

This was not the quartermaster I remembered. This kid was... a kid. Ten, maybe twelve years old at most. I knew better, but asked anyway. “Err, are you Sergeant Bladewind?”

“No sir, he's asleep. I'm Otto Springbreeze.”

When he said nothing else, I took the hint and got to the point of why I was there. “I'm here to pick up a medical kit that's supposed to be issued to me. Private Kasimir Longtalons.”

His face scrunched up. “Um, okay.” He scratched his cheek. “That's really something he should approve...”

“Can you get him?”

Otto looked back toward a door on the wall behind him. “Um. He really hates to be woken up. Can it wait until morning?”

Sorry kid, but no. I shook my head. “I need it before my patrol. Lieutenant Blackfeathers is going to have my ass if I don't get it now.”

Using her name clearly didn't mean a whole lot to him, but he relented regardless. “Okay... let me go check.” He lowered himself from the desk behind the window and started exploring the maze of shelves behind him. “Longtalons... Longtalons...” he repeated, waving an extended talon over tags hanging from various containers. “Oh, here it is.” He dragged the pack off the shelf and hurried back over, then set it back on the desk only to realize that it was far too large to go through the little drawer that was likely supposed to be used for handguns or ammunition. “Uh, right... over here,” he said, signaling the door to my left. A heavy mechanism of some sort clicked and slid open, letting the door crack. Otto popped out and dangled the pack for me. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” I grabbed the bag and was immediately shocked by its substantial weight. What all could they have stuffed inside this thing to make it so heavy? I almost started digging through it at that moment, but Otto slamming the door dragged me back to the present. “So, do I need to sign anything or anything like that?”

“No, I'll take care of it,” he called through the door.

“Alright, thanks again.” I ran the sling around my middle and attached it to the webbing of my armor. Already I could tell I was going to hate dragging so much more weight around with me everywhere I went, but it was a necessary evil this time. I finished securing the kit and turned to leave, noticing Otto was nowhere to be seen again. It was quite strange that they'd let a kid watch the armory and hand out equipment like that, and I was beginning to question if perhaps this wasn't within regulations. Oh well, not my problem.

The door flung open with the rattle of flimsy tin banging against slightly less flimsy tin. “Hey, is Sam here or is the runt watching the place again?” a female asked.

“Otto? Yeah, he's here. I don't think you're going to get to talk to the quartermaster.” I was too busy poking through the contents of my new property to pay her much heed, which was pretty rude. Satisfied at seeing a few purple vials of health potion nestled in padded pockets and an array of other emergency supplies, I snapped the flap back shut and looked up. If it wasn't attached to me already, I'd have dropped it.

“Kid better not give me shit about getting my gun back,” the tall gray griffoness said in an elevated tone, easily loud enough for him to hear. She stormed in, tail twitching as she went. Her eyes drifted to me briefly, then snapped back again. Her pace slowed to a crawl and she stopped next to me.

“Liese?” After the last couple of days of running around constantly, I'd forgotten she was here.

Her face lit up. “Kaz? Is that you?” She grabbed me by the shoulders and scrutinized my entire body. By the time she was done she had a nauseating grin plastered on her face. “I always knew you'd look great in uniform. So you're a Talon too now?” She cocked a frown. “Papa must finally be dead.”

“No, he's not.” I glanced back toward the window. “Look, can we talk about this somewhere else?”

“What, you think Otto cares?” she scoffed. I persisted, so she groaned, “Fine, whatever. Hey kid! Get my gun ready, Liese Longtalons! I'll be back for it in a minute!” We returned to the early morning gloom outside and rounded the corner leading back to the shooting range. Liese gestured to the spot next to the Pinkie sign and asked, “There, this private enough for you?”

Not really, and one of the light towers was shining annoyingly in my face. But then again she was probably right. Who'd care anyway? “I guess.”

She sat back on her haunches and crossed her arms. “Alright then, spill it. Let's hear the story. You know if papa's not dead you're killing him by being here.”

“He doesn't know,” I stressed.

Her eyes flew open and she raised a hand to her chest. “I think I'm going to faint. You're defying him, and you're here? Did someone slip some dash in my drink last night? Am I imagining this, or did you take a blow to the head?”

“This isn't funny,” I said, crossing my arms now. “He thinks I'm working private security for Crimson's Caravan.”

“Oh wow, so you're just lying to him? What the hell happened in the last three years? Jeez, you two never returned my letters so I thought you'd disowned me or something. Knowing papa that's exactly what happened.”

“No...” To be honest I was feeling a bit guilty right then. I knew she'd sent at least one letter, but papa never mentioned another word of it. How many had she sent? I really should have written her, but things were pretty tense about the whole thing back then. Maybe I'd think up a decent excuse later, and for now I just wanted to talk about something else. “...but it did really hurt him when you left. And before you ask, no, I didn't want to come here. This wasn't exactly my first choice.”

Liese glowered. “Don't take that high and mighty tone with me. Nobody cuffed you and dragged you here, so why are you here, hmm? It obviously wasn't to be with me.”

“I needed the money. Papa's getting sicker and can't work anymore, so he can't afford his medicine now.”

If she felt anything she didn't show it. “Uh huh, so why here? Why aren't you working for Crimson's Caravan? Or heck, whatever happened to that doctor you were working for back in Oatsfield?”

I looked away, anywhere but that smirk. “Crimson's Caravan wasn't hiring. None of the caravans were hiring a griffon with no combat experience, medical training or not. Red Eye was. If I didn't know better I'd say he's desperate, or maybe just has more bits than he knows what to do with. Either way, it's a lot of money.”

She nodded. “Oh, sure. Still, I never thought I'd see the day you were putting holes in ponies rather than sewing them up. Finally get sick of that?”

“No,” I growled. “Dr. High Hopes didn't need me anymore. A unicorn with some medical spells came into town a couple of months ago, and quite frankly I couldn't compete with the ability to wave a horn over someone and regrow a missing rib.” I kept my eyes locked on a set of paw prints at my feet and the brass casings sitting in them. “And... there were a couple of accidents. I was 'better off finding something else to do with my life.'”

“Oh. Shit.”

“Yeah, exactly.” I looked back up at her and tapped the medical kit at my side. “I am a medic here, so I'm still hoping I'll be doing more healing than hurting.”

It started with a snicker that slowly grew into a deep cackle. “Oh, that's good, haha!” She mocked wiping a tear from her eye. “Just keep thinking that. That's what I always loved about you, you're so adorable when you're being optimistic.” I growled again as the feathers on the back of my head stood on end. Yeah, I was beginning to remember why I wasn't in a hurry to run into her. Her grin widened. “Oh, and you're cute when you're mad too.”

I turned and started away. “I don't have time for this. I need to get back to the barracks.”

She cut me off by landing directly in my path. “Hey, hey, I'm sorry, don't run off so fast. I won't give you a rough time anymore, promise. How long have you been here anyway?”

“Four days,” I said, circling around her to keep on my path.

Unfortunately, she fell in right beside me. “Aww, and I'm just now finding out? I wouldn't have wanted to miss my little brother's first day.”

“Didn't know where you were,” I said honestly.

“Hmph. Bet you didn't bother to ask either. I'm in second platoon, fifth squad. You?”

“First platoon, third squad. Liese, I really need to get back.”

She nodded grandly. “Oh, okay. Hey, before you go though, let me leave you with this.” She hopped into the air and drifted close enough to drape an arm around my neck. “That unicorn taking your place is going to be the best thing that ever happened to you. You'll see.” She swept a hand over the rail yard and added, “We've all got our places in life, and this is ours. It's what we're meant for. We can't regrow bones like a unicorn, and we shouldn't try. We do what they can't, and that's being the most badass soldiers in the world.”

With a little twirl she flew ahead and turned to face me. “You'll come to love it. Forget all of that junk about trying to be griffon doctor in a pony town. You're one of us now.” That nauseating grin returned. “The few. The proud. The mercenaries!”

“I'll bear that in mind,” I said flatly.

Liese banked and gained altitude. “Whatever. Look me up when you get a chance. We've got a lot of catching up to do. Hey! The Pit is in a few weeks, that'll give us plenty to chat about.”

“Yeah, sure.” I had no idea what The Pit could be other than a big hole you dumped garbage in, but at the time I was more interested in getting back to Ida and on with my duties. I was sure there would be too much time to converse with my dear sister later already.

When I got back I found the door open and Ida waiting at the table inside, stirring a bowl of something. She looked up and yawned. “There you are. You took longer than I thought so I grabbed breakfast for us from the mess hall.” She slid a bowl across the table to me. “Sam give you trouble?”

“Thanks,” I said, trying to ignore the fact that it was oatmeal. The bowl had a few stains ground into it and the spoon was tarnished, but both looked like they'd been washed pretty thoroughly. Its contents did at least look edible, for the most part. Unless I was seeing things there were even a few specks of dehydrated fruit in it. I hoped that's what they were anyway.

“Don't worry, it's not the same stuff they feed the slaves.” She smirked and shoved some into her beak. “There's like twenty years of this stuff left in a warehouse somewhere, last I heard.”

“Ah, good.” I stirred mine and sampled it, finding it a little watery but surprisingly not terrible. “And no, I, uh... ran into my sister at the armory.”

“Really? Didn't know you had family in the Talons. What's her name?”

I chewed for a bit, using the opportunity to decide how forthcoming I should be. “Liese. Liese Longtalons. She's the only family I have here.”

Ida continued to devour her food with disturbing ease. “Liese... the name sounds familiar but I'd probably have to see her. It's good you've got someone here though, a lot of us don't.”

“I guess so.” Saying it like that was inviting a few questions I'd rather not answer, so before she could pose any I posed one of my own. “You don't have any family here?”

“Nah.” She went back to slurping her bowl. In a moment hers was empty before I'd half finished mine.

There was that momentary question of whether I was supposed to press her for details or accept that since she wasn't volunteering them she didn't want to share. I knew which option was safer, so I changed the subject. “So, Liese mentioned something called The Pit. Seems to think it's something I'd enjoy. I take it that's not just dumping stuff in a hole?”

“You could say that,” she replied, propping her elbows up on the table. “It's this thing Red Eye puts on every so often. The slaves get a day off to watch the show.” She grimaced. “And by show I mean gladiatorial combat to the death.”

Which sounded exactly like something Liese would appreciate me going into blind. Hilarious. I dropped my spoon into my mostly empty bowl. “Joke's on her then. She isn't dragging me to that.”

“She doesn't have to,” Ida said, standing and collecting our utensils. “Our platoon is on city watch this time, and that means we get to do security detail. Serge might know if we're going to be in the stadium itself, but I don't know for sure. Last couple of times it came up we were, so probably not this time.”

I rolled my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”

“I know it sounds bad, but try not to let it get to you too much. The reason Red Eye holds it is to get rid of dangerous slaves, or make them into something useful. Murderers and the like are thrown in, and those that survive the whole thing a few times get a shot at being in his army. Most of the 'untrainable' Grimscythes went into The Pit, and I don't think any came back out.”

Effective maybe... but I could think of better ways to deal with murderers than rewarding them killing more ponies by handing them a gun and hoping they'd shoot at the right people when the time came. “Right. Guess I'll do what I have to anyway.”

Ida grabbed her rifle from beside the table and slung it around her midsection. She pointed to the door with a hand full of bowls and said, “That's all we can do. Let's get going. Need to run these back by the mess hall on our way out.”

Duty called, and for once I was looking forward to going on patrol. There were clearly many worse things I could be doing.

To my relief the patrol started out much less interesting than the patrol from the day before. We passed Serge and Lita on the way out, heading this time not for the Stirrup Business park but for the populated areas of the city. Our route took us over a strip of functional factories and plants this time, something I'd only caught a few glimpses of before. In the premorning light they were a sight to look at. Noxious as the surroundings were, before I came to Fillydelphia I'd never seen anything so... grand. Hundreds of ponies plodded along in the windows, backlit by forge fires, or took turns hauling and dragging carts of scrap and detritus to and fro. The amber hue of the city at this hour was a little unnerving, but seeing it all come together and actually work was simply amazing. People could say what they wanted about Red Eye, and believe me I had said a few things myself not long prior, but he got results.

We wove between the towers of two smaller factories, which must have been condenser towers judging by the cleaner looking fumes spilling from their tops, and continued along past the first batch of factories. All of this was well beyond my knowledge of course. I could recognize pallets of refined metal ingots being loaded up on a cart with two powerfully built stallions at the lead, but pretty much everything else was a mystery. The crates and boxes of finished products were far too distant for me to read, but the heavy presence of barking slavers and guards told me that whatever it was they didn't trust the slaves to handle it on their own. Weapons? Probably not. Those were likely only manufactured by highly trained and trusted slaves somewhere even more secure. In any case, it gave me a bit of an excuse to be lazy. The slaves were all apparently behaving themselves, and with so many other armed personnel standing watch the odds of me having to take action were approaching nothing.

As a result, the hours wore on while we made our rounds. By the time we reached a sprawling field of filthy storage tanks sectioned off by fences topped with razor wire and more patrolling guards, my mind was starting to wander in dark places. There wasn't a whole lot to think about, aside from what I was looking at. In this case that was the slaves dragging themselves around during a shift change. A few fortunate souls were going off duty, being escorted back to their rest areas by their masters, but all too many were just moving on to the next place of back breaking labor. To get my mind off of that I thought back to what Liese and Ida mentioned to me: The Pit. Naturally, that wasn't a much better topic to dwell on. Were any of the ponies below me destined for that? Would Red Eye make a pony with a death sentence like that keep working alongside his or her peers? No. No, I didn't think so. It would be too risky. Letting a known murderer work beside everyone else? Nobody could be so reckless.

I shook my head and tried yet again to find something to distract myself with. The building up ahead was interesting. It was set off from everything around it with a deep and wide ditch surrounding its perimeter. No guards patrolled the defensive embankment that I could see, which left its purpose a bit puzzling. A factory with giant smokestacks billowing black fumes, isolated from the rest of the city and flanked by a farm of storage tanks? Must have been something flammable. In all likelihood I didn't want to know what was being produced inside. We weren't even remotely close to the plumes of smoke, but already my feathers and armor were caked with a thin, grimy film of black soot. I was going to smell like smoke for weeks! Clean water was too scarce to throw away on a shower for something as frivolous as smelling like, well, Fillydelphia.

We banked and swerved to give the exhaust towers a wide berth. From this angle I could just make out warning lights spluttering beneath the haze of ash, but any griffon would have to be blind, unable to smell and completely insane to get close enough to risk flying into the towers. I smirked at the mental image of someone plastered against the metal and rolled in a little flourish of aerobatics to fall in behind Ida.

Now, there was something to distract me. The sun was just peeking over the horizon, or was behind the permanent blanket of clouds anyway, and maybe the fresh light was doing funny things with my night vision, but my eyes kept drifting to her backside weaving through the air just ahead of me. Her long, white tail could have brushed against my beak if I drifted to the right just a little. Her armor might have concealed everything of interest, but I'd seen her out of it and my imagination was starved for things to do. She was a little curvy, but what was wrong with that? Not a thing!

I've done a lot of things in my life. A few of them good, most of them neutral, some bad and some downright stupid. I'm still trying to figure out how I flew through that window. I looked up just in time to see my own startled face, then crash!

The world was lost in a cacophony of glass crumbling and spraying in every direction while I instinctively let go of my gun and threw my claws out ahead of me. That succeeded in catching shards of the discolored and foggy glass in the scales and scutes on my palms, then catapulting me over a rotten desk when my claws caught its top. I sailed through the air for a second before rolling head-over-paws for half of the room, finally ending on my back and staring up at exposed duct work through the collapsed ceiling. Dust rolled and drifted everywhere.

“Oww...” I groaned, flexing every part of my body to make sure I wasn't badly hurt. No stabbing pain, so that was a good sign. I laid there a second more to be sure, then rolled over onto my feet and started picking myself up. Oh, yeah, there it was... everything felt sort of numb. It was going to start hurting in a second...

...there it went. “Oww...” I whined like a griffawn, confident nobody was around to hear it anyway. My back felt tight and a little tingly still, but my knees ached. Worse, there was a distinct burning sensation in my palms. I sat on my haunches with another grunt and looked at the wounds, finding two small pieces of glass had penetrated deeply enough to draw blood. Just a little trickle on each hand. Not even enough to need stitches from what I could see, even after yanking the chunks out. I sighed and raised the flap on my medical kit before digging out a bottle of disinfectant and a small roll of honest-to-pony-goddesses clean bandages.

I'd just finished taping squares of the cloth to the wounds when the beat of wings tipped me off that my wingmate had noticed my absence. Ida swooped through the fresh opening in the wall and pulled her rifle up. “Kaz? Are you alright?” she asked, lowering it again.

“Yeah, fine. Just, uh... had a little 'mishap' there,” I replied, pointing at the sagging window frame.

“Mishap? I'll say.” She drifted further in and touched down on a spot devoid of glass particles. “The hell happened?”

Hmm, be honest or not? 'Your butt was just so enrapturing I didn't notice the gigantic building in front of me.' No, probably not a good idea to say that. I shook my head rapidly to pretend clearing it and lied, “I don't know. Was getting a little sleepy, just wasn't paying attention I guess.”

She didn't look like she was buying that, but I really wasn't paying attention. After glancing back to the crumbling entrance I'd just created, she put her rifle away and recovered mine from the coat rack it was miraculously suspending by the strap from. Good thing it had a strap, else it would have ended up in the street below. “If you say so. You sure you're okay?”

I clasped the medical kit closed and flexed my elbows. “Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just a few little cuts, already taken care of.” She offered my gun back to me. “Thanks.”

Ida's eyes again swept over the astonishing mess I'd made. “Good thing this building wasn't being used for anything. It's a wonder you didn't really get hurt.” She hopped over the desk and stopped at the window. “You've got to be more careful, there's plenty of stuff to fly into in this city you won't just fly back out of.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry.” Those smoke stacks would be a perfect example. “I'm not sleepy now, that's for sure.”

She shrugged. “Place is abandoned, don't worry about it. Come on, let's get this over with and back to the barracks.” She cut me a playful grin. “Maybe you should get another nap?”

“Heh, maybe.” I joined her at the window and tapped at an intact pane of glass. It was pretty surprising that most of these windows were still there anyway. Two hundred years should have-

My hand went through the window. Not in a punched-it-and-it-shattered sort of way, so much as the-window-wasn't-there-anymore way. It took a second for me to realize the glass had fallen out and was currently tumbling down toward the street below. An ominous creaking sound was followed by pane after pane of the grungy brown glass slipping free of their frames and hurtling down toward the broken asphalt. Panic flared in my chest and I leaned out to see if anyone was in the way. I couldn't see any ponies down there...

Crash! The detonating windows echoed resonating shatters through the street all the way up to whatever floor we were on. Anyone within a kilometer would have heard the calamity unfolding and would surely be headed for the hills. Or coming to see what idiot broke something. “Oops...”

“Shit, nobody got hit, did they?” Ida leaped out of the window and spread her wings.

I followed her down, scanning the street for any sign that I'd done anything worse than make sure that this particular road wouldn't be used for anything in the near future. No ponies were visible, no blood was anywhere... I did demolish an old newspaper box though. We hovered just above the razor sharp carpet and looked around, still finding nothing but that twisted heap of metal to call a casualty.

“Just not your lucky day, huh?”

Yeah...

A weak moaning emerged from somewhere to our left. “Oh... oww...”

“Who's there? Are you hurt?” I asked, checking the windows to our left. The ground floor of the tower had a brick facade, which was now decorated with scintillating glass powder. Most of the windows were now just rusty window frames, having recently been annihilated by shrapnel from other windows, and through the remaining fragments I could see shadows shifting inside. This was starting to feel familiar in ways I wasn't happy with. “Come out so I can see you.”

A red earth pony stallion with a tangled black mane popped up, followed by a brown unicorn mare. Their eyes snapped open when they caught sight of us, and they backed away while avoiding our gaze. “We-we weren't hiding!” the stallion said, lowering his head.

“Y-yeah, we're on break!” the mare added.

I found a door that still looked intact and tried the handle. Surprisingly it opened without protest, sparing me the need to climb through broken glass to get to them. The interior was dark, but I could make out more than one blade of glass embedded in the faded wall paper. “Relax, I'm just checking everything out. Are either of you hurt?” Sure sounded like it.

“Uh... um, y-yeah.” The stallion removed a hoof from his shoulder, uncovering a bleeding gash. His coat color had done a good job of disguising it, but now I could see that that blood was running down most of his leg. “Wh-what just happened?”

Ida followed me inside, wielding her gun again but at least not pointing it at either pony. “Some stuff collapsed above,” she said, mercifully not throwing me under the sky chariot as the cause.

“Let me take a look at that,” I told him while slinging my rifle. The wound looked like it was going to need stitches for sure. Someone would have my neck if I used any healing potion for this, but there was also a container of some surgical glue. That couldn't be exactly common either, so that left just the old fashioned way.

“It's... it's not that bad, really,” the stallion said, trying to wipe the blood away while wincing.

“Sorry, but it is.” I produced a pack of sutures from my kit and gestured for him to come closer.

His eyes went wide. “No, no, uh... no need for that. It's okay! I can... I can...”

I took the step instead, not wanting to argue with him. “You probably wouldn't bleed out, but if I don't close that up you're going to get an infection for sure. I don't have any anesthetic so this is going to hurt, but it's this or die in serious pain later, got it?”

“O-okay...” He turned to present the wound and clenched his eyes shut.

A terse whimper came from his mouth as I dabbed disinfectant onto the cut. He really wasn't going to like what came next. Each time I inserted the needle into his flesh he flinched, twisted or scraped a hoof against the floor while whinnying softly. The entire process didn't take but a minute, but twice I had to stop because he almost broke away. When it was finally over and done I taped a strip of bandage over my rushed stitching and backed off. “There you go. I know it might be hard, but try to keep it dry.”

He rubbed a hoof over the cloth as if it was a valued treasure that he'd only heard of in myths. “Y-yeah, okay. Thank you.”

“No problem.” I glanced over to his mare friend, who was seated on a grungy yellow couch with gaudy floral print. “What about you, any cuts?”

She shook her head rapidly. “Oh, no, no, no, I'm fine, thanks.”

“Alright then.” I stowed my gear and looked back to Ida, only to find that she was back in the street and talking to a growing congregation of bewildered ponies. Time to get moving. “What were you two doing in here? Where are you assigned?”

The unicorn mare said, “We were trying to, uh, sleep. We've still got a few hours before our next shift, and it gets so hot out by the incinerators that we can't sleep.”

Red pony nodded. “Yeah, we... we're assigned there.”

“Then head back. You know you're not supposed to be away and if you miss head count it's going to get ugly. Is there another way out of here? You don't want to walk out there right now.”

Fortunately, they assured me that there was indeed another way out. I left them to their devices, since whether they went where they were told or not ultimately wasn't my problem, then joined Ida back in the street. I hovered over the minefield of glass and drifted to a stop next to her. “What's up?”

A lanky green unicorn with a messy orange mane swept a hoof over the mess. “This is what's up. How am I supposed to get shipments from the scrap yards to the foundries through this catastrophe? The other streets go all the way around and would take twice as long!” I should have probably recognized him for a slaver just by his cleaner appearance, tidy jacket and pistols hanging in holsters from his sides, but that removed all doubt. “Who did this? I swear, when I find out who's responsible they'll be shoveling coal for a month straight!”

“I don't know what to tell you,” Ida said, shrugging. “Petition for more workers to help clear it if you want, but the sooner you get to it the sooner it'll get done.”

He kicked a chunk of glass at his hoof. “Sounds easy to you, griffon, but we're the ones who have to actually move it.” With a snort he turned to a small mare at his side and started barking orders about ponies I didn't know.

Ida shrugged again. “Sorry.” She waved a hand upward and floated higher. “Come on Kaz, we need to get moving.” We flew out of the street and past the window I'd flown through, leaving the slaver kicking things and cursing volubly. Ida glanced back to me and said, “I wouldn't mention any of this to anyone, okay?”

I looked down at the small army of slaves choking the road below and felt a pang of guilt at making more work for them. It shouldn't be too hard to get it clear again though, right? “Yeah, I hadn't planned on it.”

“Don't worry about the damage, this sort of thing happens from time to time.” She banked and took us around the cracked corner of a building and added, “Not speaking of this includes what you did for that pony, by the way.”

“These supplies are only for Talons,” I stated, not asking a question. That was the main reason I hadn't used some of the less painful methods for closing the wound.

“Yep, exactly.”

I sighed and tore my eyes off of a small red dot leading a brown dot down a side street toward the incinerators. “I couldn't just leave him like that. Especially when it was my fault...”

She flashed a smile back at me. “Oh, don't worry about it. You did the right thing. Just don't let Lieutenant Blackfeathers hear about it, okay?”

“Got it.” The little knot of queasiness that had settled in my stomach started to ease off. I might have made the lives of a few slaves a little harder just now, and clearly there were a few Talons here who wouldn't have batted an eye that that, but I wasn't one of them. There were at least two griffons in this city that didn't go out of their way to hurt the ponies. Really, all of the griffons in my squad seemed like pretty decent folks.

Maybe working in Fillydelphia wouldn't be such a terrible thing after all. Maybe I could even make a difference in the lives of one or two of the poor souls trapped there.

I was still young and naïve back then.

Gain Experience – You gain 1,500 experience points for following orders and honing your skills.

Chapter 3: Doing Your Job

Chapter 3

Doing Your Job

The next two days went by unremarkably, consisting of more patrols, doing boring things and losing half a night's sleep for yet again no readily apparent reason. I'd already learned that being sleepy while on patrol was a lot less of a big deal than it sounded like it should be, since the security presence was generally strong enough that our presence was a formality. One runaway and an accident that I'd caused were the highlights of half a week's flying around the city and staring at things. Being groggy didn't matter much.

So as it was, I was expecting to just trail after Ida yet again while we flew over another part of the city I knew nothing about while yawning incessantly and lusting after my cot. Much to my surprise, Serge informed me that instead I had duty at the Talon field hospital that morning. The thought hadn't even occurred to me, but it made sense in hindsight that I would be expected to spend some time as, well, a doctor. The Talons didn't appear to share much of anything with the slavers or Fillydelphian army, so of course they would have their own medical facilities. Each platoon had a dedicated medic, and they rotated through spending hours there. From what I gathered there were four platoons in the whole company, so that gave three eight hour shifts with one medic out of the rotation at a time. Except I had to learn the system like everything else, so I was going to be there while someone else was on duty today.

More surprising was the location. Fillydelphia had a number of hospitals before the war, I was told, and one had even been restored into something approaching functional status again. Hearts and Hooves Hospital was supposedly a mess with five times as many patients as it could still support, but it was functional. It seemed natural to have our operation located on the same campus at the very least, but someone decided that didn't make sense and instead had cleaned up some smaller clinic halfway across the city.

That put it just two streets away from second platoon's base of operations, an old high school campus, which did make a tiny bit of sense at least. I glided over the sprawl of repurposed class rooms on my final approach to the clinic, watching a squad of griffons performing target practice in what looked like was originally a sports field of some kind. I didn't have long to wonder if Liese was among them as I dipped under a power line and landed in the street in front of the clinic. Two griffons with long rifles circled overhead, glancing my way once each before returning to their patrol. Pretty minimal security, but being so close to a whole platoon warranted little more.

The clinic itself was a bit more to look at on the ground than its aerial appearance implied. I passed an empty lot for parking sky chariots or carts, the lines almost too faded to see now, and made my way up to the glass double doors at the front. The walls of the building were as dingy as anything else in the city, but all of its windows were present, in one piece and clean. From what I could see through the doors, the front lobby was almost spotless too. That was encouraging. After experiencing inspections I could only imagine what the cleanliness standards of the field hospital would be. Which I would now have to help maintain...

I stepped inside, pausing with a start when something jingled loudly. A bell had been installed just above the entrance and rigged to ring whenever the door was opened. Interesting. I moved to the center of the lobby and looked around, finding everything to be immaculate. All four of the gem lights recessed in the ceiling were working and shining a gentle glow throughout the room. White tile floors led to a receptionist's desk set into the far wall, reminiscent of the armory back at our base. Also frustratingly like our armory, nobody was evidently around. “Hello? Anyone here?”

“Coming!” A door in the receptionist's area flew open and spat out a young, lightly colored griffoness. She bounded up to the desk and propped up on it. “Yes, sir? How can I help you?” I was starting to see a trend here, although she appeared to be a few years older than Otto. Mid teens.

“I was told to report here this morning for training? Kasimir Longtalons? I'm first platoon's new medic.”

“Oh, right! Ms. Darkskies just told me about you. Come on back,” she said, pointing to a door to my left.

The back of the clinic turned out to be about what I expected: a dozen rooms for patients and a door clearly marked as being a lab, likely used to do on site blood work or similar tests back when this place was in its prime. The paint was fading from the walls and doors, and it looked like the carpet had been pulled up to leave bare cement, but I was still impressed at the cleanliness. Whoever the staff were, they probably understood the importance of keeping the place sterile too. I continued winding my way through the main hallway, hoping to bump into this Ms. Darkskies, but instead ran into the young griffoness from the front again.

“She was just checking on Mr. Goldcrest, right over here,” she said, leading me to the third door on the right.

We arrived just in time to hear a griffoness scolding someone. “This is the fourth case of alcohol poisoning in two months, Alfred. The next time I see you in here puking your guts up because you drank half a gallon of some shit someone brewed in a radiator, I'm going to turn on that record of 'Smile, Smile, Smile!' at max volume until the hangover wears off. Your liver will thank me for it, and maybe your CO won't have to wring your neck after all.” There was no time to even shift before she came marching out with an exasperated snort. “Zella, would you get his IV started?”

“Yes ma'am,” the girl at my side confirmed before disappearing down the hallway.

The older griffoness didn't even watch her leave before turning her green eyes to me. “You must be Kaz.” She extended a light gray hand. “Yvonne Darkskies, medic of second platoon.”

I returned the shake with reluctance upon getting a better look at her. Her coat had a few suspicious stains on it that looked an awful lot like vomit residue, but I couldn't make any out on her aged and fading red feathers or pink fur. “Private Kasimir Longtalons, medic of first platoon. But you knew that already?”

“Yeah, Heidi sent word yesterday that you would be joining me this morning. And you can drop the private thing. Leave your rank at the door because everyone bleeds like everyone else in here.” Her eyes followed mine to the blotches on her coat, and she said, “Don't mind that, I'm clean. Just dealing with an idiot who doesn't know the difference between liquor and antifreeze.”

A joke I hoped... Did people really try to distill alcohol in radiators? Yuck! “A repeat 'customer'?” I asked.

She snorted, rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “You could say that. Al's in here at least once a month, and all but one time it was related to him drinking too much. Honestly, I have no idea how he's managed to avoid Brigitte or Gunther strangling him to death over it. I can't count how many hours he's wasted in here.”

Gunther sounded familiar. Lieutenant Gunther Strongclaws, over second or third platoon. I thought. Brigitte, I didn't recognize. “His sergeant and lieutenant?”

Yvonne nodded. “Yeah. It's a good thing he's not under Heidi or he'd probably be scrubbing the mess hall for the rest of his life. All of them.” She shrugged down the hall and started that way. “Anyway, Zella will get him started. Let me grab some solution for his drip. Guess you picked a good day. I can show you around and let you get your hands dirty with someone who isn't spraying blood from three places.”

...which sounded awfully prophetic. If this was in one of the many books I'd read someone would be carted in missing two limbs and gushing blood right about then, but fortunately this was reality where things didn't happen to just be dramatic. We made our way through the lab door and into a surprisingly spacious, if dimly lit room. Sinks set into desks lined the near wall, cluttered with familiar looking bottles of colorful liquids. Islands with various instruments set atop them choked the center of the room, but what really caught my eye on the way to the supply closet was a large enclosure occupying the far corner of the room. A gentle warm glow shone from inside, picking out what must have been a dozen eggs nestled in shreds of cloth.

“An incubator?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the unexpected discovery.

Yvonne snatched at the closet door, finally coaxing it loose after putting her whole body into it. Was every door in this city rusty and all but jammed shut? “Yeah. I guess you've seen one before, so no need to go into the talk about where babies come from?” She smirked at me and rifled through the contents of the closet, producing a couple of bags, a breath mask and an oxygen cylinder. “Hold this, would you?” She handed the cylinder and mask over.

“Sure. And, yes, I've seen one or two before. I just hadn't really thought about needing one here.”

She gave a deep “Hah!” and shut the closet. “What, did you think the troops didn't have sex or something?”

Err... wouldn't that be against a regulation of some kind? This job really was turning out to be different than I expected. “Uh, well... more... that I didn't expect... you know, anybody would want to raise a griffawn here...”

“Mmm, well, you got that much right at least. Nobody in their right mind would do that willingly, but people will be people, so they happen,” she said, punctuating the last bit with a thumb stuck out toward the nest of eggs. “I'd poke fun but I've even got one in there.”

Interesting... very... interesting... And she had one at her age? “So, who does watch after them?”

“The older kids, mostly, but we help too.” Fantastic. I signed up to be a guard, not a babysitter! I couldn't do that! Yvonne shrugged. “The drop off is anonymous, so nobody knows whose is whose. I don't even know which one is mine, though when it hatches I'll probably have a pretty good idea. Anyhow, you met Zella. She hatched a year or two before I joined up. When the kids get older they help mind the younger ones and eventually start apprenticing here or there. There's only so much room for support staff, of course, so most end up in the rank and file, but not all.”

Suddenly Otto made a lot more sense, even if I couldn't rationalize how they trusted him with weapons, if they really did. But... wow. The whole process made a grim sort of sense. Griffons might have it easier than ponies when it came to, ahem, post reproductive birth control, but it didn't make sense to just throw the eggs out when you were perpetually short on labor. My heart went out to the poor griffawns who never knew anything different. I couldn't imagine being born into this.

Yvonne led us back toward the patient rooms and said, “I'm just glad they're not mixed in with all of Master Red Eye's foals. I don't know how we'd ever sort them out after that.”

“He has foals? I didn't know that. And, uh, why would he want the hatchlings?”

“What, you didn't know about that? Yeah, there's a hotel about a kilo, kilo and a half, north of here where he keeps them. Last I heard there's like fifty of the rugrats now. Sometimes we bring the hatchlings to see them, but they don't stay there. Captain Stern worked something out where he doesn't get to have them too.”

Suddenly the image of the red stallion reclining on a luxurious plush couch in a room filled with the harem of mares it would take to produce so many foals popped to mind. That wasn't at all the image I'd been forming of him so far. “'Get to have them?' So the foals aren't his then?”

“No, not biologically. Or, not most of them anyway. I don't know. Anyhow, whenever a slave, or more rarely a slaver, gives birth he takes the foal and keeps it there. Claims he's raising them properly or something. I don't know what all he's doing with them honestly, but they seem healthy enough so that's what matters I guess.”

...okay. At first, that sounded awful. Taking a foal away from its mother like that? But really, it only took about three quarters of a second to realize that in a lot of ways he was doing them a favor. A newborn would have no hope whatsoever in this city, even in the care of the more privileged slavers. I wasn't about to claim he was a saint for it, but, well... there really was a side to all of this that the outsiders didn't hear about. It was a bad place, but it could be so much worse.

We reached Alfred's room, where Yvonne took up position near the IV drip and started attaching one of the bags. “Alright, you know the drill. We'll let this run for a bit and check on you then. Zella's going to be keeping an eye on you. Don't give her any trouble or I swear I'll have her sing along with that damn record.”

With the bag changed out and the air mask on, he was set as far as we could help him until his body cleared the alcohol. Yvonne led me off back into the clinic proper in preparation for the real tour.

All things considered, hospital duty looked like it wouldn't be too bad. Until the first inevitable casualty at least, but she assured me those were pretty rare these days...

Fate decided not to reward my challenge by having someone drag a dying soldier in while I was on duty that morning. Aside from Private Goldcrest and his alcohol poisoning, only two others showed up for the entire eight hour shift, complaining of mild stomach cramps and joint pain respectively. Pretty minor stuff we sorted out in short order, which left me pretty bored after the first hour or so of learning where everything was and a few general procedures. Most days were a little more exciting she told me, and since I would be training with her for the next few days I'd probably see something or other soon.

In any case, I was happy for my shift to be over. Even the flight back to our base was more interesting than the last three hours of my time at the clinic. At least moving around helped me wake up some, but I was still ready to get some shut eye at the very earliest opportunity. Lucky me, I couldn't hear anything coming from inside of our box car. Maybe I wouldn't have any distractions while trying to sleep.

I shoved the door open, finding the interior pitch black and just as devoid of sounds. Was everyone asleep? The rear door was open, and as far as I could see with the evening light spilling in the bunks were empty. I hadn't forgotten something important had I? Some thorough searching of my memory made that seem unlikely, so I hopped inside, flicked the lights on and started stripping out of my uniform. At least I didn't have to wear all of my armor while working at the clinic, bringing my breastplate alone. Yvonne wasn't wearing any armor at all, so maybe I wouldn't bother the next day. Something to think about.

Just as I was preparing to slip into my cot, my stomach reminded me that it was pretty late in the day and I hadn't eaten anything but a small radboar sandwich that Zella fetched for us for lunch. Sleeping could be challenging at the best of times, so I decided against exacerbating that with an empty stomach and left for the mess hall.

The mess itself was one of the few structures in the base that wasn't a building originally designed for something completely unrelated to what it was now being used for, having once been what was likely a restaurant for passengers on layovers between trains, and was placed suitably close to the small station that was enclosed within the base's fortifications. Whoever laid out the base put the barracks behind the mess, meaning we always approached it from the wrong side. The rails had been pulled up decades ago so it didn't make much difference, but Ida told me that years ago someone got fed up with it and knocked a hole in the wall one night, forcing them to put a real door on this side of the building. That happened years before Lieutenant Blackfeathers took command, apparently.

I ascended the steps and passively read the hand written sign proclaiming that they had 'The Best Food in Fillydelphia,' complete with a stick figure griffon puking an unreasonable amount of vomit all over the words. It looked like someone had painted over the image only to have it redrawn, perhaps several times before giving up. I wondered if that was also done before the lieutenant took over.

Whatever, the food wasn't something I'd write home to papa about but it probably was better than anything the slaves or slavers got, and it smelled plenty good right now. As usual I couldn't quite place the aroma except for it being meat, which was no different from the smell that choked the camp three times a day every day, but beggars and choosers and all that.

No sooner had I slipped inside than I was flagged down by a yellow griffoness sitting among the rest of my squad, even Isaac and Leigh, in a booth in the far corner. Lita grinned at me. “Over here, Kaz!”

I returned the wave and made a small detour to the counter to retrieve a bowl of something presumably edible, dodging broken and missing tiles on the checkered floor as I went. Being in the clean clinic was already spoiling me. It didn't help that it was cleaner than the place that prepared my food, but I trusted that the kitchen was clean enough and resolved to not think further on it. Just like the armory and clinic, an early or preteen griffawn was manning the counter, though I never got her name before acquiring my meal and heading off to the booth.

“We were taking bets on whether you'd find us here,” Lita said as I plopped down in the only open spot next to her.

Five other empty bowls sat clustered around the center of the ancient laminated wood table, which left me in the unenviable position of having to eat while the rest of them sat around and joked at my expense. I shrugged and swirled the contents of my food bowl. Looked and smelled like more radboar. “So, who won the bet?”

“Ike owes Ida and Serge a smoke. I sat out of this one.” She grinned, then looked up over the back of her seat to shout across the room, “Hey, whoever's at the jukebox, turn Sapphire Shores back on!”

Serge waved a hand at the orange griffon across from me. “Keep it, we'll sort it out later.”

Ida leaned over with a smirk. “I'll be taking mine after we're done here.”

Isaac groaned and nodded before turning his eyes to me. He cocked a small frown, shrugged and gave me a small wave.

“Hi,” I replied, returning the small wave. No offense taken, if that's what that was supposed to mean. I took a sip of stew, finding it to be better than expected. There was even a hint of some kind of herbs in it, but it was probably a bit of a stretch to expect anyone to know which ones exactly.

“Oh, hey Kaz,” Leigh said, finally looking up from the portable terminal she'd been tapping away at the whole time I'd been there. “When'd you get here?”

“Just did.” Well, good to know she could focus when she needed to...

“Maybe you should try putting that thing away for a change? You've barely met Kaz,” Serge said.

She nodded back, still focused intently on her terminal. “Yeah, yeah, almost done here. Just a minute.”

Ida propped up on the table and looked at me. “So, you met Vonny? How do you like her and the hospital? A little different from patrolling, huh?”

“She seems nice enough, and yeah, it's a change. It's clean for one thing, but today was pretty boring. Had someone with alcohol poisoning, but that was about it.”

Lita perked up when the dilapidated jukebox ground to life, filling the room with a slurred rendition of some song I didn't recognize until I heard the mare, presumably Sapphire Shores, singing. “Yeah, that's the one!” She trained her smile on me. “Don't worry, it'll get a lot more interesting once you're doing checkups and physicals for everyone. Man, Nadine used to bitch about some of the stuff she saw.”

I raised a hand to cut the conversation there. No details while I'm eating, please! “Right, right. I'll weather that storm when it gets here.”

The song picked up to its regular pace, a pretty energetic song that I didn't recognize but was growing to like. Why was it all of the ponies back in Oatsfield seemed to prefer Sweetie Belle again? I tried to keep my slurps to a minimum to let the others enjoy it while it lasted, but it was Leigh who broke the silence with an intense giggle fit. She pushed her terminal back and covered her beak to try to contain the lingering chuckles.

Lita leaned over to get a look at its screen. “What, did you teach that thing to tell jokes now?”

“No, no,” Leigh said, regaining her composure. “Hey Ike, look at this, I think you need to revisit the kinetic energy equations again. You must have multiplied instead of dividing somewhere. I took a pony's jacket off and threw it at him. It flew over, broke his ribs, then got embedded in his lung!”

...what? Apparently everybody else was just as baffled as me, responding to that only with confused stares. Aside from Isaac, who broke out into a distorted and deep laugh when he looked the screen over. He nodded and took the terminal to do... something...

Serge grunted. “You're playing that game again? Come on, shut that thing off and socialize with your new squad mate.”

Isaac held up a claw and went to work, fixing those kinetic energy equations I assumed.

“Game?” I asked between spoonfuls of watery stew.

Leigh nodded enthusiastically. “Yep, when we've got free time we work on it. We call it 'Talon Fortress,' where you can build up a camp and protect it from raiders and stuff. Or play as a griffon who goes around and shoots raiders and scavenges for food or whatever. It's pretty fun, and a few others in the platoon play it sometimes.” Huh, I wouldn't mind taking a look at that myself.

“Like you don't get enough of that during the day?” Lita quipped. She rapped her talons on the table and dug a cigarette from somewhere. “Anyway, I'm done here so I'm gonna go smoke. Anyone joining me?”

Ida prodded Isaac to get out of her way. “Sure, I'll come along.”

I finished my food and let Lita up. “I'll probably join you in a second.”

“Huh, a doc who smokes? I figured you'd be telling us how terrible it is for our health or something.”

“Oh, it is. Awful habit. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Smoke for forty years and it'll mess you up bad.” I shrugged and started stacking the bowls. “But when's the last time you heard of someone dying of lung cancer?”

She gave me a playful shove. “I like the way you think. Alright then, we'll be back at the barracks when you're ready.”

It wouldn't take me but a minute to dump everyone's dishes in the collection tray, which was the least I could do since Ida, Serge and Lita had been kind enough to get my food for me a few times by now. I'd just made it to the smelly collection of dirty plates and utensils in a box at the end of the counter when a female said, “There you are! Kaz, do you know how long I've been looking for you?”

Liese? What was she doing here? Well, I guess we could go between bases freely, but shouldn't she be on patrol or training or anything else back at the school yard right now? “I'm... going to guess a while?”

“Yeah, you could say that. Did you think I was joking when I said we had catching up to do?” She propped against the counter and scrunched up her face at the dirty dishware. “What are you doing anyway?”

“Cleaning up. I... uh... was about to go have a smoke with the squad. Why?”

“You kidding? You can smoke with them any time. Come have a smoke with me. Your sister.” She tugged my leg like she used to do when we didn't yet come up to our parents' knees, saying, “Jeez, you'd think that you kept forgetting I exist or something. Good thing Vonny told me where you were.”

Yeah... I sighed and fell in line behind her. “Okay... where are we going?”

She cast a grin back to me. “Oh, I'm going to go show you some of the city that you probably haven't seen yet. No stuffy hospitals for you right now.”

Fabulous.

For the record, if you've never tried it, it's surprisingly hard to smoke while flying. I had to bum one off of Liese since I still didn't know where everyone was getting them, which seemed like fair payment to drag me off on this little errand I didn't sign up for. Wasted payment, as it turned out. I'm still not sure how she did it, but Liese was merrily sucking away at hers while we soared along to destinations unknown. Not wanting to look like a weakling or idiot, I tried the same thing. After about a minute of having smoke blown in my face and eyes and feeling winded from diminished lung function while doing something very taxing on my cardiovascular system, I gave up and thumped the half expended cigarette into a pool of water in an empty street as we passed overhead.

Now that my beak wasn't occupied by that anymore and I could breathe properly, I flew up beside her and asked, “So, where are we going exactly?”

“The crater,” she said, grinning and somehow keeping her smoke in place with her beak alone.

What, did every place in this city have an ominous name? I suppose next someone was going to tell me that I had duty at The Shopping Center, or The Cart Wash or The Dread Gazebo. “Crater? Like the pit?”

“Nah, nothing like that. It's the biggest hole left in the city after a balefire missile hit it. Highly radioactive still.”

“And we're going there why?”

She grinned wider. “Well... I got to thinking. 'Liese, it's awfully mean of you to just let your brother walk into the pit without knowing what he's getting into. That would probably make him mad.' So, I thought I'd show you the worst of Fillydelphia. You know, to get it out of your system so the pit wouldn't be so bad.”

Liese was my sister, and because of that I was contractually bound by the universe to love her or something, but there were times I just wanted to let her know what it felt like to have my claws tighten around her trachea. “Is that so? I think I'll just head back and get some sleep like I intended.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ugh, you take everything so seriously. That was a joke. Nah, the worst part of Fillydelphia is probably the parasprite pits. Oh, hey, did you hear the story about that mare who accidentally ate-”

“Yes!” I interrupted her. If I heard that story from someone one more time I was probably going to shove my fist down their throat.

“Alright, alright. Jeez. Anyway, the crater is just pretty cool. Sometimes you can even see the alicorns flying around near it. They like the radiation or something. But there's also neat tech that the ponies pull up out of the debris sometimes. I heard they found a suit of prototype power armor down there once. Didn't work, but still, can you imagine?”

She lost me at 'alicorns.' I'd forgotten that the monsters were seen around Filly so often, and any doubts I still harbored about those stories were squashed. Unless Liese was just screwing with me again, which was entirely possible. But if she wasn't, I was pretty sure I didn't want to be near them. And for that matter, why would she? She wasn't all there sometimes, but-

Shouting in the streets below caught my ears, and I snapped my head down at the source. In a small opening between two crumbled buildings sat a lot marked up like some kind of old sports field. Two dozen ponies were crammed into the tiny space, huddled in a corner away from a barrel of burning garbage casting orange light on their faces. No, they were huddling away from another pony. The grimy cream colored unicorn screamed something desperate at them while whipping a gun around in his magic. A gun!? “Liese!” I called to my sister, hoping she'd know what to do.

She was already looking at the disturbance. “Damned slaves... where do they keep finding this shit?” Flaring her wings, she rolled over into an approach, and I followed suit. We weren't even armed! This was crazy!

The closer we got, the more I could make out from the crazed stallion's ramblings. “I'm not going to take it anymore! The next one of you that even touches me is getting their fucking head blown off!” His gun tracked from one trembling pony to the next, eliciting whimpers and terrified expressions. “You think you've all got it, huh!? That every time something goes wrong, you'll just tell Snares it was me, and I'll take all the heat!? Not anymore! And you think you can keep poking and kicking me when I'm about to go to sleep so I don't get any!? Not anymore! It's my turn to-”

Whatever he was going to say was lost as Liese landed on him. He squealed in shock and collapsed under the enormous force. My stomach turned a little when a crunch resonated through the alley, but to my relief I realized it was just his gun clattering to the pavement and not half of his bones giving way. “It's your turn to what, big boy?” Liese mocked, pulling him up. She slammed him against a windowsill of the building behind us, drawing a shriek and definite cracking of something. He pulled his hooves up to cover his face, which offered him no protection from her scything claws against his stomach. Blood poured from the deep wounds... “Huh? Can't hear you. Speak up!”

Confident that she had him under control, I snatched up the fallen pistol before any of the other slaves got any ideas. The last thing we needed was for one of them to start shooting at him or someone else. Something was wrong... the gun was way too light. Unloaded? No, even lighter than that. Wait... it was plastic! He'd been threatening all of them with a toy! “Liese, wait!”

“I've got this.” A faint blue glow circled around her hand as she threw a punch, but her next struck him square in the horn, snapping his head to the side and shattering the spell. She grabbed him by the hoof, spun him around into a lock, and snapped his leg as effortlessly as a twig. That sickening grin returned to her face as he screamed. “Shut up, this is your fault, dumb ass!”

“Dammit Liese, that's enough!” I shouted, moving closer to physically drag her off of the thoroughly incapacitated pony if I had to.

She shot me a venomous glare. “What's your problem? I'm just doing my job!”

I shoved the fake gun in her face, from the side of course, not the barrel, and shouted back, “It's a toy! Not even a BB gun!”

She dropped the unicorn. “So? What if it wasn't? Huh?” She grabbed the gun from my hand and inspected it before throwing it at the stricken pony. He whinnied weakly when it bounced off his head, but barely even flinched. “Am I supposed to just calmly ask every idiot who pulls a gun on someone if they're just joking? Wake up, Kaz! This is the real world!”

I held my tongue for a moment while I visually examined him. Blood ran from his mouth and nose, and from a dozen gashes all over his body from talon marks. Both of his forelegs were broken at the knee. At least two teeth were next to my hand, but there were a few unidentifiable bloody smears around his mouth. He winced and whinnied again as tears formed in his clenched eyes. He was alive, but probably not for long if someone didn't treat him soon. Of course, my kit was back at base, if I was even daring enough to try helping him with my psychotic sister here. “Yeah, well, you didn't have to rip him apart! You had him down from the beginning!”

“Why don't you see how you handle it when someone sticks a gun in your face!?”

“He didn't stick a gun in your-”

“What is going on here?” a commanding female voice demanded from behind us. I recognized Lieutenant Blackfeathers before I even turned to face her, and really wished I hadn't. She was glaring hard enough to punch a hole through me as she strode forward. “Private Longtalons, explain.”

Liese stood up, nice and proper, and pointed at the pony behind her. “I was just handling an aggressive slave, ma'am. He pulled a gun on the other slaves, so I stopped him.”

The lieutenant raised an eyebrow at her, clearly expecting me to explain. “What's your name, soldier?”

“Private Liese Longtalons, ma'am.”

I sighed internally, and before she could ask I explained. “My sister.”

Heidi appraised us for a moment before asking in a calm voice, “Now, tell me, why are you two arguing like a couple of griffawns who can't decide who gets the bigger piece of candy, tarnishing the name of our company and setting such an inexcusable example in front of the slaves?”

Liese jumped on the question. “Because Kaz is mad I beat him up too much.” Thump, thump. That was the sound of her tossing me under the cart. Thanks, sis.

Again, before the lieutenant could ask, I pointed at the plastic weapon sitting two meters away from the increasingly terrified ponies in the alley. “It was a toy, ma'am. Nobody was in danger.”

“You didn't know that,” Liese spat.

Heidi held up a hand. “Quiet, both of you.” She gestured a single talon at a yellow mare pressed as far away from the scene as she could get. “You. Yes, you. Come here.” The pony slinked closer, giving the gun a wide berth, and stopped a good meter away from any of us. “Go get your master and tell him or her what's happened. I don't care if they're sleeping, eating, drowning in a puddle of blood or pleasing their favorite concubine.”

“O-o-o-okay,” the mare whimpered. She squeezed up against the far building to continue to give us as much space as was ponily possible, then slipped off into the street and broke into a gallop.

Learning to shut up was something that didn't come as easily to me as it should have. “Ma'am, he's not dead. He's badly hurt, but if someone-”

She raised a hand to me and narrowed her eyes. “He got what he deserved, and will receive no mercy but release from his suffering.” She strolled over to the dying pony, drew her pistol and chambered a round. “We're not monsters.”

The shot thundered through the alley, echoing from a hundred surfaces and sending the remaining ponies into a whimpering huddle. Heidi watched him shudder and twitch his last before holstering her weapon and facing us. “Liese, return to your base. Kasimir, come here.”

Butterflies-no, parasprites-fluttered in my stomach and I inched closer. “Yes, ma'am?”

Her eyes narrowed further. “I don't have time to deal with this. Some idiot started a fire south of here and the imbeciles in charge can't get it under control, so we have to hold their hooves and put it out for them.” She placed a talon against the feathers of my chest. “You will follow this up. Take his body to the incinerators and dispose of it.” She spread her wings. “And in the future, do not leave the base without your weapon. Am I understood?”

A chill ran down my back. If she could make you feel this terrible just talking to you, I dreaded ever seeing her shout like Lita said. “Yes, ma'am.”

Without another word she lifted off and departed back toward the train station, leaving me to do the dirty work she and my sister had dropped in my lap. I sighed heavily and scooped the broken pony up, trying to ignore the hole in his skull or the fact that he was still twitching. Getting blood on my feathers was the last thing that I cared about at that moment.

I lifted off and turned toward where I thought the incinerators were, spying a rising column of smoke on the horizon framing the lieutenant as she flapped away. At least I didn't cause that screw up...

The flight to the incinerators couldn't have been more than half of a kilometer, but with a pony's corpse in my arms it felt like twenty. Giant smokestacks from my destination loomed ahead, sprouting from a huge building in an equally gigantic cleared yard stained with black soot that stank of coal. An ancient powerplant. That's what they used to dispose of everything unwanted and unusable in the city. Everything from moldy old food too far gone for even desperate slaves to eat, all the way to their bodies once they passed. I shuddered and shut my eyes briefly, wondering if any power was actually produced here anymore.

I was met by a crew of hollow-eyed and ash covered slaves at the entrance, who directed me to the furnaces deep inside the facility. No explanation was needed. Once they saw the body they knew why I was there. To my surprise, the furnace I was pointed to was quite small and open to the sky. As rusted out and damaged as the steel beams running overhead were, I couldn't tell if it was intended or if nobody had taken the time to fix it yet. With its size and the lack of an obvious boiler, I doubted it was intended for power production at least. Just for waste disposal.

Below me trash churned in the flames, flaring up and sending little bits of molten plastic airborne to float in the currents. It was 'ready to go,' some pony told me. Honestly, I couldn't even remember who said it at that point. I just wanted to get this over and done with.

The stallion's body tumbled down for two full seconds before landing with a thump barely audible over the crackling. My eyes stung from the heat as I watched his fur melt and ignite, followed by his skin charring and blackening. I propped up on the rail, letting the searing heat flood past me for as long as I could stand it before sitting back on my haunches and watching the ashes rise up through the vacuous ceiling. Goodbye pony, whoever you were. Just another victim whose name would soon be forgotten among those few who likely knew it. Did he really get what he deserved? I wiped my face and yawned, infuriatingly sleepy enough to be disrespectful. No, he probably didn't get what he deserved.

Time dragged on as I listened to his body vaporizing. What had I expected when I signed up for this? I knew this day would come, and this wouldn't be the last time, certainly. Knowing that didn't help in the least. I leaned back against a warm steel beam jutting from the wall and crossed my arms. Another yawn. What was I doing here? This was a mistake. A big one. I shouldn't have signed up here. Anything would have been better. ...except watching papa slowly die because we were broke...

I felt another yawn rising up, but fought it off. A couple of faint flashes of light popped in and out of the corners of my eyes and a faint, echoing voice muttered something incoherent. I snorted, recognizing the hypnagogic hallucinations immediately for what they were. I wasn't that sleepy, but my stupid body did what it wanted regardless. A gust of cool wind shot past, followed by the overbearing heat returning. Just a strange effect of the air currents or me being too sleepy still. I pounded a fist into the metal grating I sat on, ignoring the spike of pain that shot through my arm. “I'm not sleepy right now!”

A pony in the adjacent hallway skittered off, leaving me alone with the flames. For some time I continued to stare into the heat shimmer silently, pondering where I went wrong. There had to have been another way. Something else I could have done. Maybe Friendship City...

...or... some other... town...

“Kaz?”

I jerked up, shaking my head and fighting off the sleepiness that had overtaken me. Dammit, had I fallen asleep? Seriously? “Wh-huh?”

Ida stepped inside, circling the maw of the now cooling furnace. “Serge told me what happened. You never came back, so I was getting worried about you.”

“I'm fine,” I lied, rubbing my eyes. “Just... sleepy.”

She stopped next to me and cocked both an eyebrow and a small frown. “No offense, but this isn't the best place to get a nap.”

I looked away. “Yeah.”

“Kaz, tell me the truth. Are you alright? I heard what happened, and, well, I know how you are...”

Which was supposed to mean what exactly? She knew I didn't like hurting and killing ponies? Glad to know someone noticed, for all the good it would do. I held my tongue.

She sat next to me. Great. This was really headed in a direction I wasn't feeling comfortable with. “I'm sorry, Kaz.”

“For what? You didn't do anything.”

“I'm sorry you've got to put up with all of this.” I cut my eyes to her to see that her frown had grown. “You remind me a lot of Nadine. She hated all of this. She got really depressed sometimes. Sometimes I was worried what she might do.”

...and what was that supposed to mean? Did she think I was going to lose my marbles or something? I was just... annoyed. Irritated. A lot. That's all. “I'm fine.”

She didn't fall for it, of course. Nobody ever did. “You don't have to act tough, Kaz. None of the rest of the squad is here. Hell, you don't have to act tough in front of them either. I'll kick their asses if they give you crap over having a conscience.”

Irritatingly, that drew a little smirk from me, which I quickly hid. “Does anyone in this city have a conscience anymore? Or does it squeeze it out of you in the first week?”

Ida nodded. “I know a lot of people with consciences. You, Serge, Leigh, Lita, Ike...” She placed a hand to her chest. “...and me. None of us like what happens here. Some might hide it better than others, but we all know it's awful.” Heidi's name was notably absent from that list, surely not an accidental omission.

“A lot of good it does,” I said, looking back at the furnace again. The heat shimmer and floating particles were gone completely.

She shook her head. “Don't start that. Believe me, it could be worse than it is. You just saw what happens when we give in to it. If none of us cared, I shudder to think of how bad it could get.” She leaned closer. “Like that pony you stitched up. He'd probably have died if you didn't. Or Glitter? If someone who didn't care found her they'd have shot her dead on the spot.”

Of course, she was still living in Hell, but I understood what Ida was trying to say. I nodded and shut my eyes, letting silence fall for some time. At length, I muttered, “Ida, there's something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?” she asked, sounding sincerely confused.

I locked eyes with her. “For everything. The entire time I've been here, you've been nothing but helpful and supportive.”

She smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, you're welcome. We've all got to stick together, you know? Truth be told I'm really glad you're here. I was worried whoever took over for Nadine would be like that ghoul doctor who swears more than a teenager who just discovered her beak won't rot off if she says 'shit' too many times.”

I nodded, containing the chuckle I felt but showing a little smirk. Fillydelphia had thrown a lot at me already, but even then I knew I would see worse. As bad as that prospect seemed, at least I wasn't alone in this. I was still getting to know Ida and the others, but I trusted that she was being honest. Serge and Lita seemed pleased enough with how I'd handled Glitter, after all. Forget Liese.

The ponies might fear the Talons, and for a lot of good reasons maybe, but there were at least a handful of us who weren't here just to shoot ponies for bits and giggles.

I was going to see to it that I did everything I could to live up to the ideal I signed up for: protecting the ponies of this city, nothing more, nothing less. Even if it killed me.

Level Up - Level 4!

Quest Perk: A True, True Friend – As bad as things seem, don't take your eyes off of the light that shines from your true, true friend. As long as you stay true and keep an eye out for her, Ida will keep an eye out for you!

First in Class - +5 Medicine, +5 Science

Chapter 4: Hating Your Job...

Chapter 4

Hating Your Job...

The next two weeks came and went without too much excitement, consisting mostly of me hanging around the field hospital sitting on my hands and waiting for things to happen. That was broken up once by checkups for everyone in second platoon, and after Lita's warning I guess I should have been prepared for that. Most of the troops were healthy enough, and most of those who had a case of anything were just minor things like irregular molting patterns, but some poor griffoness by the name of Corporal Direwinds had the worst infestation of mites I think I've ever seen in my life. Most of her flight feathers had fallen out to reveal patchy, scaly skin underneath, and she was looking at likely months of reduced or absent ability to fly even after we treated her. The news only got worse for her, since the treatment consisted of a thorough weekly washing with a sulfurous dip that might as well have been brewed by a zebra shaman from the most foul rotten eggs available. Better yet, her squad wasn't going to be happy to learn that they were getting the same malodorous treatment, lest they get the mites too, but it was on her to break that news, not me.

That was pretty minor compared to the one major injury we received two days later. I'd just gotten there that morning when two griffons came barreling through the front door, dripping blood all over the lobby as they went. The victim was Private Stormclouds, a griffon from fifth squad of my platoon who couldn't have been past twenty, and who had been assigned guard duty at the wall of the main gate that morning. Apparently the ponies manning one of the machine gun emplacements were having trouble reassembling their weapon, and he was assisting them when he got the not so bright idea to try to hammer in a mount pin with what was first available at hand: a .50 caliber bullet for that gun. One hit struck the firing pin and set it off like a miniature frag grenade in his hand, all but removing two of his fingers and shredding the ligaments and bones in the rest of his hand. He was damned lucky we were able to save his hand at all, but I shared sentiments with Yvonne that he wasn't likely to recover much use of his fingers. What that would mean for his continued service was up to Lieutenant Blackfeathers after he recovered enough to go back on duty.

So, actually I guess it could have been more boring, and I was thankful to be there rather than back on guard duty in the end. At least that way I wouldn't have to deal with the slaves in any capacity, whether that meant chasing them down, watching my sister beat them to within an inch of their lives or even just watching them toil away in misery. You can imagine my exuberance then, when Serge informed me one morning that my training schedule had been adjusted again and I was back on guard duty for the next few days. The Pit was coming up, and with it often came a rash of increased “misbehavior” of the slaves, supposedly. The Lieutenant wanted more eyes on them for now, so joy, oh joy, that meant I was back to doing just that.

At least they could have assigned me somewhere else. Through some sort of twisted karma, our squad was being broken up to serve as temporary stand-ins throughout the city, and I got the honors of replacing Private Stormclouds at the wall.

Yawning hard, I drifted over the wall and flared my wings to catch a warm updraft and save some energy. The shift in schedules meant I'd been sent straight there after half a day at the clinic, and the day had dragged on and on ever since I arrived. Even with a full night's sleep I'd have been fighting to remain alert, but as usual I'd only managed about five hours tops the night before. I glided over the faint glow of the city's moat, watching the streams of green on the surface churn ominously. A bubble large enough to contain me rose to the surface and burst, spewing a yellow-green mist high into the air and coating the near wall with the vile substance. Shallow ridges covered the patchwork concrete surface where the toxic runoff had begun eating away at it over the years, giving me yet another reason to be glad I wasn't one of the ponies manning the wall itself. Being so close couldn't be good for your health.

No sooner had the thought entered my mind than a plume of noxious air from the bubble engulfed me. I coughed and gagged as I rolled to bank out of the suffocating fumes as fast as I could, sure that the burning in the back of my head was an early indicator that I really didn't want to breathe any more of it. At least it woke me up. Blinking to clear some of the sting from my eyes, I soared back past the wall and over the patch of cracked asphalt that served as the city's 'welcoming' area for caravans.

I'd been struggling to keep lucid ever since I arrived at my station, which was curious and frustrating considering how active the area was. Regular patrols dotted the uneven and dilapidated sheet metal fortifications along the wall itself, broken up by the occasional guard tower or machine gun emplacement. My right hand tingled when my eyes swept over the nearest gun nest. Was that the one Private Stormclouds fell victim to? I didn't plan on getting close enough to find out, and banked again to fly over a search light past the gatehouse itself. My feathers stood erect as I passed through the electrical field surrounding the twisted mesh of razorwire atop the gate itself, and for a moment I feared a bolt of the crackling energy would leap over to me.

Pulling away from that disaster waiting to happen, I ascended and scanned the area again. Really, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Serge just told me to, 'you know, just fly around and keep an eye out,' and I was doing a pretty decent job of the flying around at least. A flapping figure circling over a guard tower in the distance caught my eye. Leigh was supposed to be out here too somewhere, but for the most part I was on my own. Just keeping watch when there were three dozen slavers and three dozen more pony guards visible at all times. What was going to happen? I suppose a slave was going to work his or her way past all of them with a pack full of escape supplies, climb the wall or squeeze through a drainage pipe and somehow make it past the moat of rotting death? Bleh, I was mostly there for show. As long as I didn't try to hammer a pin into place with a tiny explosive, nothing of any interest was going to happen.

Three back-to-back lengthy yawns were followed by an irritated snort. I hated being sleepy like this. No matter how much I knew that I wasn't going to have an opportunity to sleep any time soon, my body frankly didn't care. It's not possible to fall asleep while flying, thankfully, but if you're sleepy enough you can get dangerously close to it. I shook my head to clear it, spying a collection of townhouses circling a brown and dead garden lined with crumbled old stone benches. Those roofs were awfully inviting. I could still keep an eye out from up there, right? And if I microslept, at least I wouldn't likely drop my gun on someone or something. The slightly humorous image of my gun bopping a slaver pony on the head popped into mind, but the realization that I would be the one to treat that concussion made it a lot less funny. Besides, I was getting along with Yvonne too well to mess it up like that.

With my sense of morbid humor satisfied, I turned toward the homes. A heavier blanket of clouds was rolling in from the east, and having a little cover from the inevitable downpour of erosive, stinking rain would be a nice bonus. Without even a moment more of deliberation I found a spot under the awning of the nearest roof, tensing when the ancient wooden roof creaked and groaned under my weight. The gritty shingles wouldn't do my palms any favors either, but that was better than being soaked. After the wood settled beneath me I chanced a glance back out toward the gate. Sure, I could see everything from up here, and maybe a chance to sit down for a minute while I waited for the storm to pass would satisfy the nagging part of my brain that demanded I drop what I was doing and go to sleep.

Yeah, sure. I could dream, right?

“Behold!” a stallion with a curiously mechanical voice bellowed to my right. I snapped my head over to see a brown earth pony with a pristine flannel shirt sitting next to me. He grinned and mumbled something inaudible before raising a hammer up and pulling a nail from his shirt pocket. “With these, we can rebuild the homes, towers and lanes of mass transportation that will bestow freedom and prosperity upon generations to come!”

He started banging the nail into the roof in a spot that seemed an awful lot more arbitrary than practical, then said, “The work is hard, yes, but only through the generous gift of our efforts can our children have a better world!” Why was he shouting at me? Who the heck was this pony anyway, and how'd he get up here?

Casually, he tossed the hammer over his shoulder and threw both hooves into the air. “Workers! Welcome, and thank you for joining me!”

I gasped and lurched away from the wall I was propped against. Pattering rain fell all around me, running off the roof above to merge into little streams that cascaded down to the street below. Son of a- I'd fallen asleep! Of course, why I thought anything else was going to happen was beyond me...

“You are workers!” a deep and commanding female voice shouted from the streets below.

Did I recognize her? Maybe. I crept closer to the corner I was positioned at and peered down at her. My heart skipped a half dozen beats in my chest. Perched atop the porch of another home was none other than Captain Stern herself. Shit! If she'd seen me sleeping up here...

“You work toward the building of a better tomorrow, toward the New Equestria. Your work is your gift to the future. You can either give it willingly, or Master Red Eye will give it for you.”

Finally I tore my eyes off of the black and white griffoness to see who she was addressing. Three rusted through wagons covered in wiring to form crude cages sat in the center of the parking lot. Forty, maybe fifty ponies of all colors and varieties were packed inside, some huddled together, some pressing themselves as far away from the griffon as possible, and others still curled up in the corners and covering their faces. New slaves?

To her right, a robot the size of her head floated up and began blaring a speech. “Every factory that we recover, every mill...” Master Red Eye's voice. The stupid spritebot must have been what I was hearing in my dream.

Crap. I inched away again, blundering into my rifle propped against the wall and catching it an instant before it tumbled down the roof. Double crap. I had to get down and somehow resume my patrol without the captain seeing me. How was I going to do that? If I just took off she'd see me for sure. Anxiety welled up in my stomach as the speech went on and ended.

“I know none of you care about any of that. You're all just caring about your 'freedom.'” Stern leaned forward. “And how do you get that precious freedom? You earn it!”

I plastered myself against the wall and slid down to rest on my haunches. Okay, maybe if I sat still she wouldn't notice. She hadn't seen me yet, right? The rain probably distracted her. It wasn't going to let up in the next minute. I just had to sit still.

The introduction went on for a lot longer than I expected, but if I'm honest I didn't hear another word of it. Between the pounding of my heart and the splattering raindrops around me I couldn't make out anything else she was saying. I just wanted her to get moving so I could resume doing my job, please! For the first time I noticed she was equipped with the most outrageously enormous rifle in existence slung across her back. She pulled it into her grip and rapped her talons on it while making a predatory smile. At long last, she capped the speech off with a grisly ultimatum. “Try anything stupid: rebelling, fighting, running... all of those are fine ways to die horribly. But that is all they are.”

Okay. Okay, speech over, she's about to leave. I peered around the corner again, and sure enough, the ragged slavers strapped to the wagon harnesses pulled for all their worth to drag the new arrivals off to their new life. Fresh creaking and cracking punctuated the rain, but despite my fears of a roof collapsing underneath me, the sounds died out with the departure of the splintering wooden wheels of the wagon train. Whew. In the clear. Captain Stern turned away and spread her wings, surely on her way to take care of something more important than making sure all of us grunts were exactly where we were supposed to be.

She lifted off. All I had to do was get in the air and act like I'd always been there. I snatched up my rifle, adjusted my breastplate, slid over to give my wings room to open fully...

...and lost my footing. My rear left paw hit a puddle of water settled in the depression of a rotting section of the roof and promptly slipped out from beneath me. I yelped an involuntary shrill cry and clawed at the roof with my talons, but it was no use. I slid down the impossibly slick surface, caught a tin gutter and brought it tumbling down with me. My wings spread reflexively, but there was no time to catch any air beneath them before I twisted around and slammed into the pavement with a dozen times the needed force to knock the air from my lungs. Chunks of debris rained down on my back, plinking off of my armor harmlessly until my rifle bounced off it to land next to my face. “Oww...” I whined.

There was no time to whimper like a griffawn who'd skinned his knee this time. Chunks of shingle, wood and twisted tin fell away as I was pulled out of the pile by a foreleg. My 'savior' was a black coated griffoness in Talon armor. She hauled me up to eye level, fixing me with a casual, disinterested look. “Are you hurt?” she asked simply.

This was Captain Stern? I was caught completely off guard by her tone. Everything I'd gathered by reading between the lines told me that she was a griffoness you didn't want to interact with if possible, much less like this. “Uh... I don't think so,” I answered. My body was still a little numb and catching up to the impact, but nothing felt broken or sprained.

“Oh, good.” She released my arm, dropping me on my side. “Now, get up and explain yourself.”

I jumped up and faced her, taking in for the first time just how gigantic she was. Stern towered over me, fully a head taller, and stared back with the tiniest hint of a scowl. “I-I was, the uh, the roof was wet and I slipped.”

“You slipped?” She thrust a talon back to the carts of ponies, who were now staring our way as they were hauled off. “You're making a mockery of my company in front of everyone because you can't stand on your own four feet?”

“N-no ma'am, the-the roof was-”

“Wet? I'm not deaf, private! I don't care if there's a damned hurricane, griffons don't slip on a damp roof!” She leaned in closer. “Where is your station and why are you not at it?”

“I am!” I sort of lied. “I-I'm filling in for Private Stormclouds, patrolling the front gate.”

My stomach lurched as she grabbed me by the breastplate and pulled me close enough to touch beaks. “How can you patrol the front gate if you're sitting on a roof halfway to Friendship City!?”

“I-I could-”

Stern grabbed my beak and twisted my head around to point toward a cluster of buildings to the side of the gate. “Three years ago two guards were killed in that guard shack by an escaping slave.” She forced me to look back to her. “If a slave was slitting someone's throat in there, could you see it from that roof?”

Yes? Wait, maybe not... if I could just look at it again...

“Answer me!”

“No ma'am!”

She pushed me back onto my haunches. “Exactly. I'm going to give you a bit of advice that Heidi might not have told you. I do not tolerate anything short of perfection in my company. My griffons do not make mistakes. They do not slip off of roofs, and they absolutely do not shirk their duty by hiding from the fucking rain on a roof!”

My cheeks were burning with embarrassment. Please, someone, anyone kill me now! Just don't actually kill me, please!

Stern flared her wings. “Count yourself lucky that I have to show this last shipment of dead meat to their cattle chutes. You will not do this again. Now, get back to your post!”

“Yes ma'am!” I scooped up my rifle without bothering to check if it was damaged and leaped into the air. I paid the ache in my wings no mind as I climbed back into the sky, anxious to do anything to put distance between myself and the seething ball of feathers, fur and rage. My heart was pounding!

At least from up there nobody could see how embarrassed I was...

That day couldn't be over fast enough. By the time I was done with my shift I was in no mood to do anything but go directly to bed. Do not pass the mess hall. Do not collect dinner. Just go directly to bed. Not that doing so did much other than get me out of everyone's sight before they had a chance to ask what was wrong. I figured a night's sleep would help me forget Stern's shouting, but really all that happened was I got no sleep at all. Surprise, surprise.

The next morning seemed to take forever to come, but I was thankful when Serge rolled out of his cot and banged on the wall to wake the rest of us up. “Rise and shine ladies and gentlemen. You know what day it is,” he said, switching the lights on.

Carmelita groaned. “Please tell me it's Hearth's Warming Eve and my present is that I get to sleep late.”

If only. No, today was the day I'd finally get to discover what The Pit was all about. Ida had already given me a grisly overview, so I wasn't too enthusiastic. I rolled over and blinked to adjust my eyes to the fresh light. “I thought it was supposed to be this afternoon?”

“It was,” Serge replied, stretching. “The lieutenant told me last night that it got moved up to this morning.”

Lita groaned again and propped up. “I bet she's just doing it to screw with us. She loves that.”

“She doesn't have any control over it,” Leigh chipped in. She yawned and dragged herself out of bed, followed by Isaac.

Ida was next to sit up in her cot. She blinked a couple of times and asked, “Is something else going on this afternoon?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary.” Serge started digging through his locker and said, “The reason it got pushed up is because Master Red Eye is going to be present this time. I guess it's the only time he could make it.”

That drew surprised looks from everyone else in the room. Lita said, “Huh, guess it's a big one then?”

“Yeah, that's right.” He slammed the lid back down, apparently not finding what he was looking for. “So, listen up everyone. Both Master Red Eye and Captain Stern are going to be there watching today. I don't need to tell you what that means.”

Lita sat up proper in her cot. “Don't worry, I'll be on my best behavior daddy!” Err, that was a joke right? They had different last names. Serge Swiftwind and Carmelita Galeforce. Yeah, a joke.

“Don't call me that either,” he grumbled. Looking my way, he continued. “This is mostly for you Kaz. This is your first time, so pay attention. We'll be setting up along the roofs surrounding the Pit itself. We're supposed to watch and make sure that things don't turn violent outside of the ring. It's rare, but it happens. If it does, use whatever force is necessary to stop it.”

“Stern usually shoots them before we have a chance to get involved,” Leigh added.

“Right. Anyway, both she and Red Eye are going to be there, so it's imperative that you keep sharp. Captain Stern is a bit of a perfectionist and she won't like it if she thinks you're slacking off. Keep a close eye on the crowd and you'll do fine.”

Oh, believe me, I knew all too well what she was like already. “Got it. How long does it last?” I had to watch, but maybe it would be over fast.

“A few hours usually. The number of rounds varies. I don't know how many combatants there are this time.” Serge headed for the door and stopped to face us. “I've got to speak with the lieutenant. Everyone get suited up and ready to go. It starts in two hours so we have to be there in forty-five minutes.”

What? How did that add up? Ugh, whatever. I rolled out of bed and yawned. Whatever it took, I had to wake up. I'd be damned before I got sleepy and fell off another roof in front of her. She'd probably shoot me.

“I'll go get some coffee started,” Ida announced.

Oh, bless you. She was a real life saver. Maybe even literally.

Forty-five minutes go fast when you're in a hurry, but as I was coming to realize, more often than not being in a hurry ended with a lot of waiting. We were all prepped and ready within ten minutes and within thirty we were all already perched on our building, overlooking The Pit. I can't even remember what we ate that morning. There was some vague memory of coffee and some kind of bread that Lita claimed was dehydrated toast, but after spending fifteen minutes clearing the veritable fog bank in my head I was pretty sure that was a joke too. Dehydrated toast would be... powder. Or something. I yawned and tried desperately to keep awake.

Once again to my frustration, the activity going on below wasn't enough to really keep me alert. Nevertheless, I tried to rivet my attention on the growing crowd of ponies pouring into what looked to have once been a skating rink of some kind. The cracked surface was marred with innumerable old stains and pits from sources I didn't want to dwell too hard on, and the stands for the spectators looked like they'd probably collapsed several times only to be slapped back together with spare wood planks, the occasional rusty bolt and a lot of praying. There were so many ponies filing in that for a moment I feared it would crumble before my eyes.

A covered VIP box was positioned almost directly across from us, reinforced with much sturdier sheets of barely tarnished metal. That would be where Master Red Eye and Stern would be positioned, Ida told me. I expected an armored glass window too if he was really going to be here, but there wasn't even a mesh screen to protect him if the fighting got too close. Strange.

I shifted my weight to relieve the cramping in my back. Sitting on this roof for the better part of the day was going to kill me, but I sucked it up and tried to pretend to pay attention. I chanced a look down the line of griffons to my right, wondering how the rest of my squad dealt with this in the past. They all looked pretty disinterested at the moment, aside from Ida giving me a nervous smirk. “Remember, just keep your eyes on the crowd.” She pulled out a cigarette and offered one to me.

“No thanks.” If I tried smoking right now I'd probably end up dropping it and setting our strip mall on fire. Or The Pit itself. It would probably be hard to convince Stern to not shoot me at that point, so I took the safe route and went back to observing the churning crowd.

So much seemed wrong with the scene. Seeing the slaves happy for a change shouldn't have put me in such an uneasy mood, but I knew why they were happy. Maybe some were just genuinely happy to have a day off from the backbreaking labor, but too many of them looked eager for this bloodbath to get started. It couldn't possibly be as bad as Ida made it sound. Probably just ponies beating the snot out of each other and the occasional death. Right?

Time blurred in the familiar ominous sensation where I wasn't completely aware of the periods between my eyelids growing heavy. I tried to focus my double vision again and again, but ultimately it was the heavy beating of wings and a blast of wind that snapped me out of my stupor. I looked up in time to see Stern zip past us, circle the stadium once and land in the VIP box. She grabbed something and hopped back out before strolling into the center of the arena.

“Mares and gentlecolts, welcome to The Pit! You've got an honored guest here today, and it's because of him you've got the whole day off and a chance to get drunk at the Free Roamer this afternoon.” She raised a claw to the sky and shouted, “Stomp your hooves for Master Red Eye!”

Sure enough, through the attenuated early morning light I could see Master Red Eye's sky chariot drawing closer, pulled by two griffons. Ida lowered her head and splayed her claws over her chest in the symbol of the Talons, something I immediately copied without verifying that the rest of my squad or any of the other two dozen griffons stationed along the perimeter were doing the same. Probably something else Stern would chew me up and spit me out over if I got it wrong.

When I looked up I was first surprised to see that Lieutenant Blackfeathers was helping to pull the chariot, alongside a powerfully built griffon who I'd learned was lieutenant over second platoon. Gunther Strongclaws. Their presence barely registered when I noticed his other companions: a pair of dark green alicorns! No wonder he didn't have better protection in his booth. Who needed it with those at his side? The two giant ponies strode silently next to him as he dismounted and took the microphone from Stern.

“Workers, thank you for joining me,” he began. His voice was so much smoother when not being rebroadcast over an ancient spritebot. Understated even. “Today is a special day for all of you, a day without toil where you can relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Through your hard work, we have restored the Roamer Bar, and it is now producing enough drink that you can all partake freely today, as much as you wish.” He swept his cloak and exchanged the microphone to another hoof. “First, however, I give you all the opportunity to see who will next join the army that protects you day and night from threats afar. Those of you who survive six rounds in this arena will join my army, where none can question your place and skill.”

He cast a simple smile around. “Now, sit back and witness how even the lowest of us, or the most wayward can be reshaped into somepony who can service us all.”

Stern accepted the microphone and made the symbol of the Talons as Red Eye retreated into his fortified shelter. The alicorns waiting there flashed their horns and eyes, and in an instant a visible barrier of energy coalesced around them.

“And our first round begins! We've got two old friends fighting this time, folks. Rusty Thresher and Viscera, both ex-Grim Scythes! These two have killed a lot of ponies, and are both here today for murdering fellow slaves. Will Rusty win again and come one step closer to ultimate victory?” Stern jumped into the air and perched in an open spot above Red Eye.

The first round began with a mighty cacophony of fanfare and boos alike, followed by the emergence of the two combatants from their gates. Viscera was a truly disgusting looking lime green unicorn mare, who looked like said lime had started shriveling up and molding. She must have been sixty! Would they really put a sixty year old mare in to fight for her life like this? And against that opposition? Her opponent, Rusty Thresher, was half her age at most. The mud-smeared yellow earth pony stepped out of his gate, flicked his long black mane out of his face and scanned the crowd with his eyes.

“Begin!” Stern shouted.

Viscera charged straight for Thresher, and I looked away. I was supposed to focus on the crowd, not the fighters. Not two seconds later the screams started. My eyes flicked over for long enough to see that Thresher had already twisted her into a lock of some kind and broken at least one leg. With determined and frightening precision he snapped two more legs and tossed the mare aside. I looked away again. Just watch the spectators...

“Finish her off!” Stern's voice boomed over the audio system.

“Keep your feathers on, bitch. I'll get her in a second.” Morbid curiosity drew my attention again, and I saw him fiddling with a pressure plate under a barrel. He stomped the plate and jumped back well in time to avoid something that looked dangerously similar to the moat gunk spewing down. He swished his matted tail and looked at the next barrel.

“You've got thirty seconds. Get to it!” Stern insisted.

“Alright, alright. Fine.” He gave up on the barrels and returned to the suffering mare. With one foot upon her neck, he rammed another forehoof down and stomped her horn off. Again I looked away in time to not witness what brought on the horrible crack that ended her screams. “Sweet dreams.”

“Rusty Thresher wins round one everyone! Who didn't see that coming?”

Focus on the crowd... focus on the crowd... she was a murderer too... she earned that...

“Round two! Rusty's next opponent is Glitter Dust from the metro area. Glitter has been sentenced to fight to the death for repeatedly stealing food. Just think, every time you go hungry, it's because of ponies like her making sure there's not enough to go around!” Resonating boos filled The Pit.

Wait a minute... Glitter Dust? Metro? Stealing Food?

To my horror, a gaunt black mare shambled out of her gate. Or, was pushed out, more like it. She took two shaky steps back when the gate closed and pressed her rump against it, trembling the entire way. Her red irises were framed by completely red and puffy eyes, and the light glistened on damp patches on her cheeks. I'm not a superstitious griffon, but I thanked any gods that were listening that I couldn't hear her weeping. Clearly the pony princess-goddesses weren't there to listen.

It... it looked like they'd fed her since the last time I saw her. They'd fed her enough so she could fight for their amusement! I snapped my head over to Ida, who was wearing a sorrowful look. Not surprise... just... a look of defeat. “You said murderers...”

She nodded slowly and shifted. Was this routine?

“Come on Glitter, get your flank over here!” Stern 'encouraged.' “Or I'll start shooting in ten seconds...”

Glitter's face scrunched up into another stream of sobs and she huddled up into a ball. Seconds stretched on, ultimately punctuated by a thunderous boom from Stern's gigantic rifle. All eyes landed on the black knot of shaking pony. The mare jumped up with a scream and started crawling toward the center of the arena.

“The next shot won't be a warning. Now, fight!”

Rusty snorted and shifted the horn in his mouth from one side to the next like a cigar. Wait... he'd taken Viscera's horn as a weapon? My stomach lurched. “C'mon Glidder. Less get dish over wiff,” he slurred around the bony 'weapon.'

She whimpered and stopped short of the center. Oh, please no... I tore my eyes off of her and stared at a random slave in the stands: a surprisingly obese pink mare with white hair. Just focus on the spectators...

“Come on, Glidder.” Rusty growled. “Okay, fine. Juss ssay dere.”

Focus on the-

A crack rang out, followed by something skidding through the dust. My eyes involuntarily found the two fighters, where Rusty was approaching Glitter, who was now two strides away. The mare held one hoof up to her face and wailed as he approached, followed by balling up and holding both hooves up to cover her head. “Please, I-I-I w-w-w-w-as so-so-”

“Shuff up.” He spat the horn out and raised a hoof. “You know what, Glitter? We're all hungry. I don't like being hungry.” He stamped his hoof on her side, drawing a sharp, truncated scream. “I missed dinner a couple of nights ago because of you. Big mistake.”

She retched and writhed, but no more screams. He must have crushed half of her ribs...

“You pushed one of my buttons, Glitter. Ponies that do that don't live long.” He raised his hoof again. I tore my eyes away to stare at a shingle at my feet. Shingles didn't kill people... I... I could look at that until this was over.

Glitter shrieked. I lowered my head. Focus on the shingle... it wasn't hurting anybody. My hands felt numb. My whole body felt... weak. Focus on the shingle...

“Kaz,” Ida whispered my way. “Kaz, you've got to keep your eyes on the crowd. Kaz?”

Reluctantly, I looked up to a slaver guard standing precariously close to the fencing that separated him from the psychopathic pony and his victim. Try as I might, I couldn't help but look up. Glitter was lying motionless in front of Rusty, oozing blood from her mouth and nostrils. A sensation of queasiness settled in my stomach when I realized I was relieved that she was already dead.

Rusty picked the horn up from the ground and appraised her body. “So. You're hungry, huh, Glitter?” He transferred the horn to his mouth. “How about now?” With a single motion he rammed the tip into her stomach and tore downward. Blood spewed onto the ground... and Glitter screamed again. Feeble hoof waves were batted aside effortlessly as Rusty spat the horn back out. “I'm not hearing a 'no.'”

Seeing blood doesn't bother me. Even at this point in my life, I'd seen so many gallons of it over the years that I could probably swim in it without batting an eye. Gore doesn't bother me either. I've had to stitch people back together from some of the most horrible yet survivable injuries imaginable. Yet, nothing I'd seen or had to do in my life prepared me for what I saw next. My jaw went slack as he casually threaded a hoof through his 'incision' and started pulling out whatever he could feel. Blood and intestines spilled out amidst choking spasms from the dying pony.

I turned away completely, wishing again to any gods that I could plug my ears. Rusty kept going on and on in a casual tone about how he was going to find his oatmeal. Queasiness turned to nausea. My hands were actually shaking.

“Kaz! Kaz, you've got to look!” Ida grabbed me by the shoulder and pulled. “If Stern or Heidi sees you-”

“What? They'll yell at me?” Did she think I gave two shits about that at that point? If Stern shot me off of this perch it would have been a blessing.

Really, I don't know what I planned to say after that. My train of thought jumped the rails and sped off a canyon as I turned to face her... and saw the combatants again. Glitter whinnied pitifully one last time before Rusty finished pulling her guts out, wrapped them around her neck and... literally... strangled her to death with them. “Y'know Glitter, I've always talked about doing this, but you're the first I got a chance to try it on.” He huffed and kicked her body away. “Next.”

I threw up. Everywhere. Dropping my rifle, I fell back onto my haunches and stared out at the lifeless, mutilated mare. Slowly, my eyes tracked up to Red Eye in his box, sitting calmly between his alicorn guards. Not a shred of emotion was on his face. He... didn't care in the least. He just watched a mare have her innards torn out, because he didn't feed her enough, and he didn't care. It's a good thing I'd dropped my rifle. My life probably would have been a lot shorter if I hadn't.

“Whoa...” Lita murmured to my right. Everyone was staring at me.

I couldn't look at the arena anymore. I gave absolutely no shits about what Stern or Heidi did to me right then. The only thing I could look at was the vomit sliding down my breastplate and the roof. Bleeding pinfeathers from Hell... what had I gotten myself into...?

Ida turned away. “Sarge, Kaz is sick.” Yeah, sick. Sure.

Serge grumbled something and said, “He can't leave.” He leaned out to get a clear line of sight to me. “Kaz, they usually keep buckets of water near the old concession stand. You can go get washed up if you want, but I can't let you go, sorry. Hurry back.”

A silent nod was all I gave before easing up. Leaving my rifle where it had fallen, I walked off the edge of the roof and flapped weakly to keep aloft. My whole body felt dead and lifeless... just like Glitter.

“And the winner is Rusty Thresher again! Remember kids, crime doesn't pay!”

With no due respect, ma'am, fuck you. Fuck you and your boss.

A day off for the slaves was not a day off for us, and even when The Pit ended the Talons had to stick around to watch from afar to make sure that the slaves didn't get too drunk and start causing trouble. Like potentially stealing a beer from someone and being sentenced to death for it, say. How generous of Master Red Eye to open up the bar or whatever it was. Mercifully, second platoon took over for us at that point, so we didn't have to stick around. I didn't want to be anywhere near any drunk slaves at that point. One of them would probably end up in The Pit next time because he bumped into a guard or something.

Getting drunk myself didn't sound like such a terrible idea at that point, but of course that was one of the things we weren't allowed to do then. It was for the best anyway. Sure as clouds meant acid rain here, Liese was part of the force keeping an eye on the slaves now, and I didn't want to be drunk anywhere near her. Or be sober near her right then, for that matter. She'd probably never shut up about how awesome it was that Rusty Thresher won his fourth round in the Pit...

Instead, we were told to report back to the barracks where we'd get our orders for the rest of the day. I was last in the line of griffons meandering back to base, and by the time I flopped down behind Ida, Serge was already handing out assignments.

“Okay, the lieutenant didn't give me new orders, so we're going to just resume our stand-in patrols. Lita, you're with me at the west wall again. Ike, you're at the crater perimeter with first squad. Ida, you're at the Fun Farm perimeter with fourth. Leigh and Kaz, you're at the main gate again with fifth.” The blue feathered griffon raised an eyebrow at me. “If you're able?”

“I have a choice?” I croaked, honestly surprised.

“We're supplementing existing patrols, which I don't think is strictly necessary under the circumstances. I can send you to the clinic for the afternoon if you'd prefer.”

Leigh shrugged. “Yeah, don't sweat it. We'll be fine at the gate.”

“Uh... yeah. Okay, yeah, I'd rather work there.” At least no slaves would be nearby. I'd be happy to put someone's hand back together again rather than look at any of them right now.

Serge wrenched the barracks door open and said, “Alright then, you've all got your orders. We've got thirty minutes before we have to be where we're assigned.”

Great. What was I supposed to do for thirty minutes? Nothing. I just slumped against the old train car and watched the rest of my squad shuffle inside amidst Lita expressing her astonishment that Heidi didn't have us flying around some pointless part of the city instead of... flying around multiple pointless parts of the city. I could just sit there a minute and try to get my mind off of The Pit. At least I wasn't nauseated anymore, which was good because Yvonne had already complained three times that we barely had a pharmacy. Odds were vanishingly small we had any drugs for nausea.

Ida paused at the door when she noticed I hadn't moved. Oh boy, conversation time. Now wasn't a great time, Ida. She didn't get the hint, of course. “Kaz... I'm sorry.”

“You didn't do anything.”

She turned and drifted my way. “I could have prepared you better. I... didn't realize how bad you'd take it.”

Oh, really? I met eyes with her. “You knew, didn't you? About Glitter Dust?”

“No. It's happened before, but I didn't really think they'd-”

I looked away toward the mined embankment surrounding the base. “It's happened before. That's... that's justice here, isn't it? Just whatever the slavers say, goes. She'd have been better off if I shot her. I-I don't even want to think about it. I'm positive I don't want to know what else has happened...” Some very horrible images of exploitation came to mind. And why wouldn't the slavers run amok? What incentive did they have not to?

Ida circled and sat in front of me. “Then don't think about it. We do what we can, but most of this is beyond our control.” She frowned and added in a soft tone, “You'll drive yourself crazy.”

“Is that how you deal with it?” I asked honestly. “Because I don't think I can do this, Ida. Not anymore.”

She took a deep breath. “Partly. It... gets easier with time, like anything. I know that sounds terrible, but you have to understand that it's not all bad here. You have to focus on what Red Eye's done-”

“Yeah, about that,” I spat, sitting up. “I thought that too for a little while. You know, I thought that maybe there really was such a thing as necessary evil. But you know what? Today I learned that all of this is just a joke.” I waved a hand across the city peeking over the high mounds of dirt. “Red Eye's not doing this to remake Equestria. Did you see him today? That organized bloodbath was there for his sadistic enjoyment! That psychotic son-of-a-”

Ida snatched me by the beak and whipped her head around with wide eyes. Finally, she looked back and whispered to me, “Kaz, you can't say stuff like that! If someone heard you, it could get back to the captain. She could have you shot.”

Okay. First of all... the next person to grab my beak like that was getting bitten. Second...

I don't know, really. I just... sank in on myself when she released me. That was it. Right there. She told me everything she had to. Red Eye had everything under his hoof. The slaves were his play things, to be worked to death to build up an empire for him that nobody could challenge. The slavers were along for a slice of the pie, extorting whatever little bits of fun they could out of those hapless souls before they died in misery. And the Talons? We were just paid to shut up and do what we were told. Anyone who disagreed learned quickly to go along with it or be made an example of. Nobody would ever challenge Red Eye.

Pus-spewing bleeding pinfeathers from Hell... what had I gotten myself into?

Ida fixed me with a sad look. “Kaz... it's... I know it's bad, but you've got to choose your battles. This is one we just can't win.”

“I understand,” I mumbled. I understood all too well. We were slaves of a different color, but still slaves. I just had to play the good little soldier until someone finally pushed me too far, then they'd shoot me and throw my body in a furnace to be forgotten. I understood entirely. Suddenly, I was wishing again we had anti nausea medication somewhere.

“Are you going to be okay?” she asked, because she had to at that point. She knew the answer, and knew I wasn't going to tell the truth.

“Fine.” I grabbed my rifle, because I had to be a good soldier and listen to what Heidi told me before about leaving the base armed, and pulled myself up. “I should go.”

I left without another word or look back. I just had to let it all go. Somehow, impossibly, I just had to do as little bad as I could get away with, and live with that. At least at the clinic I could try to do something, anything, constructive.

...and pray that it wouldn't come back to haunt me weeks later.

Gain Experience – You gain 2,000 experience points for following orders and honing your skills. Even if you aren't happy about it.

Chapter 5: The Turning Point

Chapter 5

The Turning Point

I didn't sleep at all for the next two nights. In fact, I barely remember at all what I did during that time period. With The Pit over, patrols were returning to something approaching normal, as much as there was a concept of normal, and that meant that we would be returning to standard routes over the city again. Fortunately for me, a little negotiating with Serge was able to get me shifts in the clinic those days instead, but I knew it couldn't possibly last for much longer. The clinic was overstaffed with me there at abnormal hours, something that would eventually make its way up the command chain to someone who wouldn't be pleased with it.

Nevertheless, I appreciated the chance to return to my normal element of working somewhere that let me help people. That is, until the boredom began to set in again. As before, the field hospital wasn't under much demand at all with the worst patients we treated for two days being a pair of troops who had a training accident and flew into each other. Just nasty bruises and a sprained wing. Nothing that required two or three trained medics to treat.

You could only turn the eggs or rearrange the laughable medicine stocks or clean the place so many times a day, and that left lots of spare time. Spare time that I didn't put to good use. My infuriating insomnia never let me fall asleep completely at any point, which is just as well since I wasn't allowed to anyway, but at this point I hadn't sleep soundly for many days. Several times while just leaning against a wall I drifted into that annoying state of being half-asleep where I imagined ponies in flannel shirts were fixing roofs, or heard phantom voices calling my name, or thought I saw my papa walking around outside. Or, you know, imagined dying ponies lying in the hospital beds. By about third time that happened, I was no longer happy being in the hospital.

Rather than risk that happening again, I set to pacing around the floor to keep alert. That led to me doing a lot of thinking. Thinking led to dwelling on lots of unpleasant topics, such as a suffocating feeling of hopelessness and being trapped in this Hell. But, one thing did start nagging at the back of my mind. I was making a lot of assumptions there. The contract that I signed was long and full of legalese that I mostly skimmed. Was there a termination clause in there somewhere? Was I trapped? Almost certainly, but there was that tiny glimmer of hope. I'd cling to that over just giving up completely.

I tried bringing it up subtly with Yvonne. “Beats me. I've been here so long I just keep signing the things when they're put in front of me. Never thought I'd actually live to see the first one expire, you know?” That wonderfully fatalistic attitude didn't help at all.

So, that really only left me with one option. I considered asking Ida or Serge about it, but that ran the risk of the rest of my squad finding out I was a quitter. That couldn't possibly have a good effect on my reputation, and after puking in front of them I didn't need any more setbacks. The only option it left scared me a little: asking the lieutenant.

I tried to talk myself out of it for the rest of my shift, but increasingly I became convinced it was the best thing to do. If I didn't ask, I'd run the tiny risk of not getting out of an unmitigated disaster of a situation, or at worst wondering for the rest of my life if I could have. If I did ask, I ran the risk of more embarrassment in front of one griffoness. Who did admittedly have the power to make my life suck... but weighing the options, I finally decided to try it.

For better or worse...

Once my shift was over that afternoon, I took a detour on the way back to the barracks by the train station inside the base. I'd learned long ago this was where the lieutenant's office was located, although the closest I'd ever gotten to it was the mess hall that was situated across the road from it. The station was partially restored, but much of it was still its original wooden construction. The planks of its walls were gray and dried with age but astonishingly looked to still be in good shape aside from the left half of the entrance wall, which had been replaced by sheets of plywood and a single strip of smooth sheet metal. A dim light shone from the remaining window, which dashed my fleeting hopes that maybe nobody would be home and I could just forget this nonsense.

Steeling myself, I ascended the steps with a series of creaks and groans of wood that should have been replaced a hundred and fifty years ago. If anybody was here, they knew they had company now. Maybe that would make this easier. I hesitated at the door, holding a claw up to knock. Should I? Or should I just head inside? Well... I knew which was safer. After gathering my courage a second time, I rapped on the door.

“Come in?” a young male voice asked. Huh? Was this not her office? Or was I supposed to just walk in? Doing just that, I found myself in a poorly lit receptionist area that smelled very strongly of ancient wood, and curiously, a mixture of talon polish and flowers. A young, bespectacled and lavender feathered griffon looked up from the terminal he was typing at and asked, “Yes, sir?” I'd seen him before on base, but had no idea who he was or what he did. He kept people from annoying the lieutenant needlessly, it seemed.

“Uh, hi. Yeah, uh, is Lieutenant Blackfeathers in?”

His eyes scanned me, then the screen in front of him. “Is she expecting you?”

“Uh, no, she's not. I can come back later.” Right. Sorry for bothering you, this was a dumb idea anyway. I'll be on my way...

He nodded. “One second then, let me see if she's busy,” he said, rising from his seat and vanishing down a hallway in the far wall.

Dammit. Maybe I should just go while he was away. I could pretend I heard the sergeant calling for me or something. Or that I just remembered I left something at the hospital. Or...

“You can go on back,” he said, emerging from the hallway.

Even if I convinced myself I really didn't want to? Ugh... “Alright, thank you.” With more than a bit of hesitation I followed the hallway into a string of offices, hitting a couple more squeaky floor boards on the way. From what I could tell most of the offices had been stuffed beyond capacity with boxes upon boxes of who knew what, or had been barred off for one reason or another. A rotted through floor in the first office gave me a pretty good idea of why.

Wiping my face to wake up a little, I stopped at the only office with any light spilling out of it through a narrow crack in its door. She couldn't have just left the door open? I took a deep breath and knocked on the door frame to get her attention.

“Come in.”

Nudging the door open, I was first hit by that powerful aroma of flowers and paint thinner. Was this the air freshener I'd heard was used by ponies way back when? Why in Equestria would anybody willingly fill their home or office with this? Trying to ignore the overbearing smell, I stepped inside and stopped in front of her desk. The office was astonishingly well furnished. Her desk was large and made of some stained wood and decorated with claw or hoof carved trim. Two matching chairs were positioned in front of it on top of a clean and intact black and gold rug. On the wall hung an antique smooth bore gun of some variety, possibly even prewar. Next to it were a set of teeth so large they could have only come from a dragon...

“What is it?” she asked simply, not looking up from the piece of paper sitting on her desk. She rotated a pen in her claws as her eyes scanned the document.

She made no mention of taking a seat, so I didn't. Okay... time to do this. I took another deep breath and stammered, “Uh, sorry for, ah, bothering you ma'am, but... I, uh, wanted to discuss something about my... my contract.” Get it together! She's not going to attack you for asking a question!

Slowly, her eyes tracked up to mine as she raised an eyebrow. “Private Longtalons. How... unexpected.” She went back to reading and asked, “What is it then?”

Okay, foot was in the door. I raked my talons through my feathers. “The, uh... the part about uh, terminating a contract.”

That got her attention. She sat back and cocked her beak. “Did you perhaps bother to read that part of your contract before you signed it?”

...kind of? “Y-yes ma'am, but... that was a while ago, and, uh... it was rather long...”

“So, you signed a very important document, which will be controlling your life for the foreseeable future, without paying attention to it?” Her expression darkened a little. Shit.

“N-no ma'am. I-I just wanted a refresher on the terms.” Surely I didn't need to explain why...

She set her pen down and steepled her fingers. “The terms are the same for everyone. Your initial commitment is for four years. It renews every two years after that.”

“And... I, uh... suppose there's no way to end it sooner than that?”

There really was no positive response that could have elicited. Going into this, I fully expected a verbal assault for even daring to bring it up. I was a little surprised when she asked, “Am I to assume then that you no longer wish to be part of our company?”

...was she seriously going to give me an opportunity to quit? This had to be a trap. “I... I'm starting to think I'm not cut out for this, ma'am.”

She nodded with the slightest hint of a glower. “Perhaps you don't understand how much resources have been committed to you. Do you think that your armor, weapon, ammunition, medical kit and other supplies and equipment are free?” She cocked her head. “Do you think that the time spent training you is free?”

“No ma'am, it's... it's just that I think maybe that would all be better spent on someone else.” Besides, wasn't the money for our gear coming out of our pay? I really should ask Serge about that after this was over. I still had no idea how or when we even got paid.

“We can't get that time back, private.” She frowned and tapped her talons together. “Trained medics are difficult to find. You're worth far too much to simply dismiss because you have no spine.”

Okay, that stung. I was really, really tired, and not thinking clearly, so the signals from my brain to my mouth telling it to stay shut didn't make it in time. “Forgive me if I don't enjoy watching ponies suffer and die.”

“Do you think this is a game? Do you think we do this for fun?” She propped her elbows on her desk and frowned harder. “Don't think that you're the first Talon to have a stroke of conscience. But we have an important job to do here, and you are no different from any of the rest of us.” Her voice took an icy tone as she added, “I don't have to do anything but order you out of my office and back to your duty, whether you like it or not, but despite what Private Galeforce might have you believe I don't get off on needlessly provoking the troops under me. I've met your kind before, and I can appreciate that you could use a bit of encouragement. Private, have you ever been to the homeland?”

What did that have to do with this? My folks were originally from the griffon kingdoms, but Liese and I were both hatched and raised in Equestria. “Uh, no ma'am, I haven't.”

She nodded with a blank expression. “The fact that we're having this conversation could have told me as much. Since you've never been, you can't truly appreciate what's being done here. Allow me to paint a mental image for you.” She sat back in her plush chair and cast her gaze toward the gun on the wall. “The griffon kingdoms didn't die like Equestria. Imagine, if you will, what would happen if a country, whose citizens were widely armed and who were renowned for making the best mercenaries in the world, suddenly had the neighbor it relied on wiped away in the blink of an eye.

“Equestria exported almost all of the food we relied on. After the zebras stopped exporting fossil fuels, we came to rely on Equestria for that too.” She snapped her fingers. “Gone. Not many balefire missiles struck the kingdoms, but those who survived saw little better. Massive starvation followed. Complete and utter failure of every aspect of the economy. Industries collapsed overnight. When food and resources ran out, people got desperate. When bullets were the most plentiful thing in existence, you can probably imagine what happened.”

Her claw clenched into a fist. “If you think that raiders like the Grimscythes are bad, you have no idea. Our homeland is every bit as desolate as Equestria, but nobody tries to do anything about it. There are no cities like Fillydelphia. Everyone is a raider or ganger, and every encounter with a stranger starts with shooting. It hasn't gotten better in two hundred years, and it won't in any of our lifetimes.”

She looked back to me. “All of that because the ponies and zebras got in an international pissing match. Just like that, we all suffer, for two hundred years. The ponies and zebras haven't begun to start paying back the debt they owe to the world for what they've done. Fillydelphia is the first step on the road to restoring Equestria, and eventually, the Griffon Kingdoms. So, the next time you walk outside and see a factory producing new steel or fuel or cloth, think about what Master Red Eye has already done. If this is what it takes to make up for their mistakes, so be it.”

...what could I say to that? Even if I knew it was wrong to punish the ponies today for what their ancestors did, I was smart enough to know to shut up and just stay quiet. This had been a terrible idea.

“So, to answer your question.” She held up a claw and extended all of her talons. “There are four ways you leave the service of the Talons. One, you do your job until your contract expires and you don't renew it. Two, Master Red Eye dismisses you personally. That's never happened to my knowledge, so don't count on it. Three, Captain Stern dismisses you. Unless you have all of your limbs blown off by a Steel Ranger, that's not likely to happen either, and trust me when I say that you don't want to go ask her what you've asked me. She's not as forgiving as I am.” She folded down her last talon. “Lastly, you leave when your soul flies out of your dead body on to whatever personal Hell you've crafted for yourself in this life.” She took a deep breath and grasped her pen again. “Do you understand that, private?”

“Yes ma'am...”

“Good.” She resumed to scanning her oh-so-important piece of paper and waved to the door. “Then you're dismissed. And private, if I might make a suggestion, you should get some rest. You look tired.”

“Yes ma'am...” I shut the door behind me and trudged my way out, past the purple griffon whose name I still didn't know. A lot of good that conversation did me. I wasn't any closer to being free and had probably just given Lieutenant Blackfeathers lots more reasons to scrutinize and dislike me.

At the very least, she'd been professional about it. Carmelita had me scared to even speak with her, but she could have been a lot meaner about it. I just had to do what I was told. No matter what that meant.

How long would I be able to do that?

Being ordered to sleep didn't help. Every time I closed my eyes I kept picturing Glitter or hearing her dying whinnies, which set my mind to racing again looking for any possible way out of this mess. For a moment or two I even considered if it was possible to run. To just fly away and never look back. I crushed that kernel of thought pretty quickly. Fillydelphia might have been built with keeping ground bound ponies inside, but I wasn't dumb enough to think that the Talons would just let me go. They'd come after me and when, not if, they found me, they'd probably make the entire town I was in sorry for my mistake.

Giving up on sleeping for the third night in a row, I decided to try to do something moderately more productive with my time than just lying in bed cursing the situation. Without turning the lights on and possibly waking Ida, I ran my claw into my footlocker and pulled out the first book my talons touched. Judging by the weight I knew it wasn't any of the novels I brought along, which was great. I sure didn't need to read any of that depressing crap right then.

Back out in the break room, I started a pot of coffee and plopped down at the table. It took a few moments of squinting and blinking to adjust my eyes to the harsh light, but I discovered I'd pulled out one of my mom's old medical journals from my stash. Surgical Procedures of the Claws and Paws: Volume II of XVIII. Woo. I guess I'd get to read whether I'd put Private Stormclouds' claw back together right.

Without a real topic in mind, I let the journal fall open to whatever it wanted, which turned out to be something about reattaching severed digital tendons when the tendon had retracted into the arm. Fun times. Not actually relevant to what I'd done for Private Stormclouds, but still a potentially useful procedure to be familiar with. Yawning wide enough to make my jaw ache, I flipped back to the first page of the section and started reading. The coffee couldn't brew fast enough.

I must have been on my second cup of black coffee when the door flew open and banged against the wall loud enough to resonate through my skeleton. “Dang it, Ike, what if someone's trying to sleep? You don't have to attack the door.” An amused grunt followed. Oh, so that was who woke me up last week. From the sounds of it I thought someone dropped a couple of cases of ammunition outside or something.

A brown feathered griffoness hopped inside and froze when she saw me. “Or maybe not. Sorry Kaz,” Leigh offered.

“Don't worry about it, I couldn't sleep anyway.” I glanced back at the door behind me, but didn't hear anything inside. “And I doubt you could wake Ida up that easily.”

Leigh made room for her huge orange feathered friend and gave him a light tap on the side. “Yeah, well, that doesn't make it right. I keep telling him we need to actually fix the door rather than just try to break the rust off of the hinges.”

Isaac shrugged and gave me that little creepy finger-waggling wave he used.

She swished her tail and set their rifles in the corner. “One day you're going to do that when Serge is trying to sleep. That won't be so pretty.” She set to unclasping her armor and added, “In fact, why don't you go see Sam right now and get some grease for that door? That's an order, Private Clawmarks.”

He gave a distorted deep chuckle and rolled his eyes, then disappeared off into the early morning darkness.

“Should have done that a month ago,” she muttered as she dug through a satchel on her side. “I swear I've got too much junk in here. Now, where is-ah, here we go.” She produced her portable terminal and set it on the table. How in the world did she lose that in a bag that size? “...and the battery is still charged. Cool.”

I flipped the page and sucked down the rest of my coffee. “Still working on that game?”

“Uh huh. I like to plug away at it a little each day if I can. It helps me unwind a bit before bed.” She popped the lid up and hit a button. “Guess you like reading before bed? What do you have there?”

“More of something to do when I can't sleep,” I answered, holding the book up so she could see the cover.

“'Surgical Procedures for...' Heh, that isn't exactly light reading. I guess it could put you to sleep if nothing else could.”

I shrugged. “It's worth a try, but believe it or not this is how I relax sometimes.”

Her computer beeped something that sounded annoyed, to which she responded by grumbling and closing and opening the lid a few times. “Hunk of junk...” When she finally convinced the rebellious technology to behave, she fell into a seat and asked, “So, you don't have anything a bit more fun to read? I thought for sure I saw some novels in that pile of yours.”

Had she gone through my stuff? No, probably just seen it when the locker was open. “I've got some, but I'm not really in the mood for any of that.”

She nodded and hammered some keys so fast there's no way she knew what she was typing. “I see. Makes sense. Whatever works for you.”

We both got pretty quiet after that, aside from the occasional tapping and clicking spree from Leigh's claws on the terminal. Other than a groan or sigh here and there she didn't say anything, which was okay with me. Some people could really appreciate the value of just sitting silently and reading or working on whatever suited your fancy, something that was extraordinarily rare in this city. Having a little while to just calmly and quietly do what I wanted for a change was nice, even if I was fighting to sit up straight and really process the words in front of me.

The third cup of coffee finally started helping with that a bit, letting me wake up enough to realize that it was getting a bit chilly. Leigh had left the door open, probably expecting Isaac back soon, but half an hour later it was still open and with no sign of the orange griffon anywhere. Cold nights in Filly were pretty rare compared to hot and muggy nights, but at least it was consistently uncomfortable. Leigh was lost in her own little world of digital griffons and ponies and clearly didn't notice or care, but I was just getting ready to get up and do something about it when someone landed outside.

“Hey, someone's home at least,” Lita said.

“Leigh and Isaac must be back. We're a little late,” Serge replied.

“What did Heidi want with you anyway? You must have been in there fifteen minutes.”

“Don't worry about it. It was standard stuff for the most part. Nothing that pertains to you.”

Carmelita poked her head inside, then jumped in. “Hey, you two waiting on something here? You're letting all of the cold and gross in.”

Leigh didn't look up from her terminal as she replied, “I sent Ike to go badger Sam for some grease for the door.” She raised an eyebrow and stopped typing. “How long ago was that?”

“A while,” I said, unsure of the specifics.

Serge followed Lita in and pulled the door closed behind him. “Really? Leigh, why'd you send him?”

She smirked and went back to typing. “I figured if we annoyed him enough about it he'd finally cough some up.”

“Fourth time's the charm. Maybe.” Serge pulled off his breastplate and collapsed into a seat at the table. “Kaz, shouldn't you be asleep?”

“Mmhmm.” I marked my page and closed the book. “Maybe I should try again now. I couldn't fall asleep. The coffee probably won't help though.”

He ran his talons through his feathers and propped his elbows on the table. “Right, well, this probably won't help then. Might as well tell you since you're awake. Your orders for tomorrow have changed. You've got firing squad duty.”

For the second I was still processing that I thought Lita was going to climb over the table to get to him. “The hell? Is that what you were talking with the lieutenant so long for? What did he do?”

Holy shit, I was getting a firing squad!? For what, asking her if I could quit!? What the flying... oh, wait. Firing squad duty. Still... what?

Serge held up a claw. “Stow it. It's a personal matter and even I don't know why. I'm just passing the news along.” He turned back to me. “Do you know where the prison is?”

“I... uh... I... no.”

“Right. I'll have Ida show you in the morning. You're supposed to show up at six. Bring your normal gear. A weapon will be assigned to you, but right after you're done you'll be joining Ida on patrol unless the lieutenant says otherwise. Got it?”

I stared back at him in mild disbelief. “Uh... yeah. This... is this a punishment?”

“Pssh, yeah. Heidi hands this out when she's really pissed at someone,” Lita said, dropping something heavy in the growing pile of equipment on the floor. “She's a real piece of work. She always watches too. I think she gets off on it.”

“You think she gets off on everything,” Leigh muttered.

“That's enough,” Serge interjected. “Sorry Kaz, but that's all I know, and I don't need to know more. Just do it and get it over with. You can still get a couple of hours of sleep if you go now.”

I groaned and shook my head. “I don't think there's any point now...”

Lita fell into the last chair at the table and grunted. “Yeah, me neither. I'm kinda pissed at Heidi now. I've had to do this a couple of times. She'll assign it over the stupidest stuff.” She crossed her arms and leaned her chair back on two legs. “It sucks, but the prisoners earned it.”

Yeah. Sure. Some did. But what about Glitter Dust?

This just kept getting better and better.

Fuck.

Now I had to be afraid to really talk. Not even about Red Eye, but anything...

The thought of a prison within the veritable prison that was Fillydelphia would have been almost amusing if I wasn't staring at it from up in the air on our approach. There was nothing amusing about the ancient, stained and dark compound ahead of me. Even if it wasn't originally a facility used to house violent and deadly criminals long ago when such a thing had meaning, it just felt... wrong. There was no visible security anywhere outside. The fragmented wooden remains of a spotlight tower sat off in an exercise yard of churned up soil, and it looked like the original fencing had been torn up from around the entire compound to be taken somewhere more useful. From the looks of the bits of cement jutting up from the perimeter, there was a more solid curtain wall that had probably faced a similar fate long ago.

Clearly, Red Eye either kept very few criminals here or thought little of the consequences if they escaped.

To my left, Ida silently matched my bank and dive to line up with the prison. She hadn't said much other than expressing some mild astonishment at the change of plans this morning. I declined to comment on why I'd been sentenced to this, and she hadn't asked. It was for the best. In a lot of ways. I just had to hope this hadn't damaged her opinion of me too much. Serge and the others seemed to take it in stride, so maybe this wasn't so uncommon. Maybe even Ida had dealt with it before. Not that I had any intention to ask.

We landed at what I guessed was the primary entrance to the collapsing jail house, consisting of a heavy metal door that was rusted through in two places set into a slab of concrete with spiderwebs of cracks running through it. A browning spot gave way to a large fissure and a stream of foul smelling water that vanished down the hill behind us. Funny that before the war this would have been considered unacceptable housing for the worst of Equestria's criminals.

Ida paused at the first step, fixating on a dead and brown weed shooting up from the cracks, then turned to face me. “Okay Kaz, just... head on in. Lieutenant Blackfeathers is probably already here.” Her beak opened and shut a couple of times before she said, “When... whenever you're done, just come meet me back at the theme park.”

I nodded wordlessly and waited for her to flare her wings and flap away. At this point I'd lost so much sleep I didn't feel like talking. I didn't feel like walking inside. I sure didn't feel like meeting Heidi and shooting anybody. I just wanted to go back home to Oatsfield, crawl into my bed, and never come back out. My eyes settled on the door ahead... well the double image of it that my tired eyes failed to bring into focus, and I tried to wrestle my legs into taking me that way. It felt so far away, and my eyelids were so heavy... I sighed and wiped my face, cursing the caffeine crash I was experiencing at the worst possible moment. Wasn't I still a bit early? Maybe I could just sit here and wake up a bit for a minute...

The grinding of a door as tired as me snapped me back to reality. “There you are. Come in private, we don't have all day.”

“Yes ma'am.” I shook my head, blinked heavily a few times and ascended the stairs to join Heidi at the door.

“It looks like you didn't take my advice,” she said dryly, looking me square in the eyes. “As a medic I'd expect you to understand the importance of being rested.”

Like she had room to talk. Judging by the bags under her eyes and the timing of Serge's message to me I could only guess that she'd been up all night. Rather than spit that back at her, I simply told her the truth. “I couldn't sleep.”

She frowned and stepped back inside, swishing her tail. “Then I suggest you try again as soon as your shift is over. Follow me, we are on tight a schedule.”

“Yes ma'am...” The door staunchly refused my first attempt to wrestle it back into place, but I had no doubt leaving it cracked would piss her or someone else important off, so I yanked on it until its latch finally clanked shut.

We navigated through a series of ever darkening corridors devoid of functional lighting of any sort. The only illumination came from cracks and holes in the ceiling and the very rare window along the tops of the walls. Even without being claustrophobic I was anxious to get out of the cramped and suffocating complex. Being sentenced to live your last days in here must have been truly awful. For a moment I even questioned if it might have been worse than The Pit. Probably not.

“We have two executions to perform this morning. You'll be joining Private Ashwind. A weapon will be issued to you, then returned to the warden.” She stepped aside unexpectedly, leading me to groggily step in a puddle of that vile water. Shit. Not literally, I hoped. “You will each be assigned a prisoner to execute. You'll form up with him, then await my order to fire. Any questions?”

“No ma'am...”

We stopped at a less heavily worn door still mostly painted red. “Good. Before we begin, I want to make it abundantly clear why you're here right now, and how you can avoid this in the future.” She turned to face me. “You are aware of why you're here, aren't you?”

I blinked wearily. She wanted to hear me say it, huh? Fine. “The sergeant didn't know, but yes, ma'am, I do. Believe me, I won't bother you with anymore stupid questions.”

Heidi's eyes narrowed. “Private, in case you weren't paying attention during that little conversation, I'll remind you that I don't provoke my troops needlessly. I wish more would ask rather than screw something up, so no, that is not why you're here. You're here because you did screw up. Are you perhaps familiar with the phrase 'shit flows down hill?'”

What? I mean... sure, everything flowed down hill. But, what?

She didn't wait long for me to fail to respond. “You demonstrated a significant lapse in judgment and sense of duty by diverting from your assigned post at the city gate, and you chose to do so in front of Captain Stern herself. Private, let me make it clear that she has no tolerance for anything short of perfection. You're fortunate that she left it to me to decide your punishment.” She raised a talon to her chest. “So, let me reiterate: shit flows down hill. She has the ability to make my life very, very difficult. And when she does...” She pointed the talon at me. “...I have the ability to make yours even more difficult. I will not hesitate to pass it along to whoever is responsible for causing trouble. Do you understand?”

How could I have forgotten about that!? I tried to shove the embarrassing memory aside and nodded. “Yes ma'am. Sorry...”

She put her talon away. “Don't be sorry. Don't do it again. Now, come with me. You need to get this done so you can get back to your patrol.”

The first thing that hit me when she opened the door was the unmistakable odor of old blood. We emerged into a cavernous room that I could only guess was once a shower at one point. A large drain was set into the floor, and sure enough, was stained black and crimson. The far wall had the distinct chips and cracks from bullet impacts, aside from more red stains, and a pair of poorly rewired gem lights cast flickering shadows beneath us.

A thick set pink unicorn mare with a ragged black cap and a cigarette hanging from her mouth met us at the center of the room. “You ready?”

“Yes. Go retrieve the prisoners,” Heidi replied. When the mare disappeared through another door, Heidi stepped over to a table and retrieved a shotgun. “Here.”

I hesitated and set a claw on my rifle. “I already brought my weapon, ma'am.”

“We don't waste our ammunition on these fools. There are a hundred thousand shotgun slugs in storage and they ensure a sufficiently fast death.” She held the weapon out for me to take.

At least it wasn't shot, but... she was seriously rationalizing this on the value of bullets? I reluctantly stowed my rifle and took the shotgun. The weapon looked like it had been restored recently, so she was probably right about the abundance of ammo and parts.

“When I give the order to ready, chamber a round. I'll then tell you to aim, and lastly, fire. Shoot once for the center of mass. Don't try for a head shot because I do not want to deal with a panicked prisoner because you missed.”

I turned the gun over in my claws and nodded. “Yes ma'am.”

A minute later the mare returned, who I was assuming was the warden she spoke of, followed by two other ponies and an armed griffon that I barely recognized. That must have been Private Ashwind, and he looked about as unhappy to be there as I was. My heart started beating harder as the warden shackled the two ponies to the ground near the drain and Private Ashwind formed up beside me. Here it came. This was really happening. I was about to execute someone for something I didn't even know they did.

Heidi waved a claw for us to step back and onto lines marked with electrical tape on the ground. The beating in my chest was making my head hurt... “Ready.” I worked the action, finding the shotgun to respond with surprisingly little trouble.

“Do your worst!” the mare in front of Private Ashwind yelled. Both of the ponies looked like gangers. The mare was some weird shade between blue and green with a green spiked mane and holes poked in her ears for rings. The stallion ahead of me had a few scars on his face and twice as many piercings, but was looking much less confident in the face of what was coming.

“Aim.”

We both brought our shotguns up, and I placed the iron sights in the center of the stallion's chest. Whatever he did, I desperately hoped he'd earned this. Maybe he had. Maybe he'd killed someone. My palms were growing sweaty just at the thought of pulling the trigger. How stupid was it that I was hoping he'd done something terrible? The sights wavered from side to side slightly. I had to get it together. If I missed-

“Fire.”

A thunderous boom filled the room and both ponies lurched backward. The mare spasmed and thrashed a time or two on the ground, leaking blood from a huge hole in her chest. The stallion ahead of me squealed and shrieked, covering his head in his hooves and hunkering down.

“Private. Kasimir. Longtalons. Why have you not fired your weapon!?” Heidi yelled.

“I-I-I tried!” I yelled back, twisting the gun over in my claws again to check the chamber. The slug had been a dud! I'd pulled the trigger, but nothing happened! I remembered chambering a round. It wasn't my fault!

She stormed past Private Ashwind and snatched the shotgun away. “Unbelievable. I give you a simple order and you can't even do that.” A frustrated snarl passed her beak as she aimed at the shuddering stallion and pulled the trigger to no effect. She tried pumping the action but only got an ominous clicking sound. “Dammit.” She whipped her head up to the other griffon and pointed at me. “Give him yours.”

I didn't even bother reflecting on almost getting out of killing the pony. With the way she looked right then she might shoot me if I didn't do this. Accepting the weapon, I chambered another slug and looked to her for the order to fire.

“Just do it,” she spat, pointing a talon at the prisoner.

This time the weapon worked. The deafening boom was followed by the hunkering pony screaming and flipping over. Blood sprayed from a hole just under his chest, where my poorly aimed shot had struck the prone pony. He kicked his hooves and flopped around in his restraints, gushing red everywhere and trying to scream but only producing stilted, desperate sounding groans. Slowly, over the next minute or two, his struggling died off to a feeble twitch.

My claws felt numb. I'd killed him.

“Finally.” Heidi growled something to the warden and turned back to us. “Private Ashwind, you're dismissed. Private Longtalons, bring me your weapon.”

I handed it to her, trying not to worry about the scowl she was wearing ever since my first gun malfunctioned. That wasn't my fault! What, did she think I could magically make bullets into duds?

“Let this be a lesson for you, private. I understand how you are, and chose this punishment for you specifically. You still have a lot of learning and growing up to do and I can't hold your claw like your damned mommy. Now, when you walk through those doors, I don't expect to hear any more about you that might make me want to assign you to firing squad duty again. Because I will not hesitate to have you personally execute every last prisoner in this city. Do you understand?”

It didn't take a scholar to realize what she was getting at, so I nodded rapidly. “Yes ma'am, perfectly.”

“Good. Now get back to your post.” She narrowed her eyes once more. “I'll be checking up on you.”

I scurried out of the room and back into the bleak and empty hallway. Apparently Private Ashwind didn't want to talk about what had just happened since he was long gone, which left just me to plod slowly back to the exit. A slight chill ran down my spine at the sound of a water hose spraying the gore off the walls and floor in the room behind me. That was it. Two more ponies just died and their remains were being washed away like spilled grease.

I felt sick. I'd just killed a pony. My first time. That was it. That was how it felt to end someone's life intentionally. The circumstances hadn't been under my control, but it didn't seem to make much difference. It was going to happen again, and again, and every time was going to get easier. You just had to let part of you die and wither away so you could deal with it.

Liese's voice floated up in the back of my mind with, 'You're going to learn to love it here!'

I threw up in a pool of that wretched water and braced myself against a wall to recover what little was left of my strength and dignity. I felt utterly crushed and defeated. That was the turning point. The point at which I'd never be the same again.

You can't take something like that back.

Level Up - Level 5!

Egg Head – It looks like you're going to be up most nights reading again. At least all of that reading won't go to waste, giving you +2 skill points per level.

Chapter 6: Hope or Despair

Chapter 6

Hope or Despair

There wasn't a whole lot of point to the patrol that followed my trip to the prison. That wasn't speaking of the value of having someone fly over... wherever I'd been... while watching for trouble. I'm sure there was a good reason for it.

There just wasn't much point in sending me. Any hope I'd had of fighting through my grogginess and fatigue had been summarily executed with those prisoners. As I just mentioned, by the time we were done I couldn't even remember where we'd been, much less what I'd seen. The slaves could have been parading around a burning effigy of Red Eye for all I knew. I just left my body on autopilot while my mind wandered through every last dark alley there was, getting mugged and beaten in about half of them, and by the time we were drifting back over some little scorched and blasted suburb I hadn't felt more tired in my entire life. Heidi yelling, Stern yelling, that terrified stallion's last moments... it just wouldn't end. What had he done anyway? Did he kill someone? Steal food? Pick his nose in front of Red Eye? Did it even matter?

No. Not really. It didn't matter. It was all just... going to happen. Why didn't matter anymore. That was it. Poof. Gone. Bye bye. See you. Idealism was gone and reality was here so I could stop pretending that any of this had to-

“Hey, Kaz, follow me.”

“Huh?” I slurred, noticing that Ida was banking away and out of earshot by the time my unbelievably exhausted brain realized that she'd said something. She was halfway down to what I at length recognized to be the rotting remains of an old school house when I groaned and coaxed my wings to carry me that way. “Where are we going...? Base is...” I gave up trying to figure out which direction it was in relative to us and just let the sentence hang. It didn't matter either.

She touched down on the roof, dislodging a shingle previously hanging on by a single corner, and poked her head inside of the exposed bell tower. What, were we looking for someone now? I shrugged it off as yet another pointless detail and landed on the roof with a heavy thump that left me propped against the side of the tower. The peeled white paint on the wood flaked off as the boards creaked, prompting me to stop tempting fate and to stand up straight.

“In here,” she called, voice resonating strangely in the enclosure.

Sure. Whatever. I crawled through the opening after her, finding no bell in the bell tower but a surprising amount of space behind it. A wall had partially collapsed, opening up some kind of storage room or attic. I probably could have picked out something interesting inside if I wasn't far more distracted by almost stepping on what I was almost positive was a used condom. Yuck! “What are we doing?”

“Come on in here, I want to show you something,” she said, narrowly squeezing through the opening in the wall.

I skirted the gross trash and followed, fighting my way through the opening with no more grace despite being slimmer than my partner. Every bag and piece of equipment strapped to my armor must have caught something jutting from the wall, and ultimately I just lurched through, snapping a few strips of something free in the process. Heidi would probably shout at me for scratching up my armor or something. Or Sam. Hadn't been chewed out by him recently...

The room beyond was cluttered with decaying cardboard boxes that probably once held books but now only had dust mingling with mold. A single desk crowded an intact corner, upon which was an impressive stack of empty drink bottles filled with used cigarettes. Apparently someone had an awful lot of free time on their claws, since some of the bottles and cigarette butts had been arranged into a little house. Or... something. I kind of stopped paying attention when I saw yet another used condom strategically placed for me to nearly tread upon unexpectedly. “Uh... what... am I looking for?”

Ida plopped down against a wall in a relatively clean spot and patted the floor next to her. “This is it. Come here, I just want to talk for a little bit, okay?” She smirked and tapped the floor again. “Don't worry, this spot's clean.”

With quite a bit of reluctance I joined her in the tiny oasis of relative cleanliness. “What is this place?”

“Used to be a school I think. Nowadays we use this as a little spot to get away from everyone and spend some private time together.” She tilted her head toward the bottles. “Most come here to get a little drunk or have a quick screw or something, but before you ask, no, that's not why we're here. I really just want to talk to you a bit.”

I leaned back, thankful to have something to prop against again. There weren't any times that came to mind where I'd ever been so tired. “...about what?” She probably wanted to know all about what I'd done to get firing squad duty. Whatever. I didn't even care anymore.

A few silent moments ticked by. “About you, I guess.” A cigarette appeared in my face. “Want one?”

Why, yes, I did. I accepted the paper tube and bit down on it. “Thanks...” Except I had no way to actually light it, so... Ida flicked out a lighter and started it for me. “...thanks.”

“Any time.” She started one herself and grabbed a bottle half-filled with butts from the desk. “So, no point preening feathers here. Are you okay?”

I hacked up a puff of smoke and shot her an acidic glance. Gee, Ida, what made you think something might be wrong? At least I was too tired to formulate a sarcastic response. Instead, I was completely honest. “No. Not really.”

She nodded. “Look. Whatever happened, whatever it was the lieutenant got mad about, it's okay. Really. People make mistakes.”

Hey, look at that, it was going to be about that. “I know.”

“Don't beat yourself up over it, okay? It's gone. In the past.”

I stared into the faint glow of my cigarette, watching it slowly burn to ash. “I know. But, it'll just be something else next time...”

“We all messed up when we were new. You'll get the hang of it.” Ida crossed her legs. “Lieutenant Blackfeathers isn't that bad, honest. She's tough, but by and large she's fair.”

“It's not just about her...” I blinked heavily and laid my head back against the wall.

“Is it about Glitter?” I sighed and the room fell into a long silence, punctuated only by Ida blowing out smoke. “...Kaz?”

“It's... it's just so much more than that. It's not just the lieutenant, or Glitter, or that pony I just shot for some surely contrived reason...” I looked her dead on. “I can't do this, Ida. I just can't do this. I-I can't keep... keep killing and hurting ponies who didn't do anything to deserve it. I can't... but I have to. I'm trapped here in this Hell, and now I'm one of the demons!”

“Hey, hey, whoa...” She sat up and faced me. “Slow down. I know it's hard, and it's pretty bad sometimes. I know. But it's really not as bad as it seems.” She held a claw to her chest. “We're not slavers. Don't ever let anyone tell you that. We're security, nothing more and nothing less.”

Did she honestly believe that? “What difference does it make if I can be ordered to blow a pony's brains out for no good reason? Or-or that I'm a big part of keeping all of those slaves inside the walls? They're slaves! I might not be cracking the whip but I'm sure helping!”

“There's a pretty damned big difference in my book.” She crossed her arms. “Do you have any idea how many raiders we've killed or driven off? And don't get me started on the hellhounds. A lot of those slaves would be dead if it wasn't for us. And how do you know that pony wasn't in prison for a good reason? There's enough gangers, raiders, druggies and other lowlifes in here with the softer ponies that frankly a lot of the ponies that end up shot damn well deserved it.”

If that's what let her sleep at night, more power to her. It sure wasn't working for me. “...whatever. It doesn't matter anyway, does it? I can't change a thing about it.”

A look of concern flashed across her face, but vanished as soon as it came. “Kaz, I know it's hard to see it sometimes, maybe even most of the time, but we're not the bad guys here. Fillydelphia is a terrible place, but one day it won't be necessary anymore. One day, maybe not even that long from now, Red Eye will have things built up enough that the slavery won't be needed anymore.”

Hmph. That was just the same shit Heidi threw at me, just worded a bit nicer. I guess if you stayed a Talon long enough you had to just accept that or go crazy. Or be a sociopath maybe. She'd basically said as much before. “...sorry I said anything.”

The worry returned, remaining for a bit longer this time. “Kaz, I'm... just trying to help. You just remind me so much of Nadine, and it's kind of starting to scare me.”

I eyed her suspiciously before I remembered I had a small fire at my finger tips. The cigarette had halfway burnt down by then. I almost didn't even want it anymore, but rather than waste the gift I took another small puff. “...what's that supposed to mean?”

She dropped her smoke into the bottle. “Nadine stayed depressed all of the time. For a month or so before she died I was scared she was going to... hurt herself.”

Oh. That was it. “...I'm not going to shoot myself, Ida.” That was probably against the rules. A pang of guilt immediately shot through me for thinking something humorous like that. Suicide wasn't a thing to joke about. I'd heard someone talking about seeing ponies jump from buildings or kill themselves in other ways, but thankfully I hadn't seen such a thing. Nor had I seriously considered doing something like that myself. You'd be surprised how fast you'll think about other stuff when your mind wanders that way...

A tiny hint of relief might have shown through on her face. “Good... but... look, Kaz, no matter how bad it seems, it's never that bad, okay? We've all got your back. Always.”

For her benefit I offered a small nod before depositing my cigarette in the bottle. “Thanks...” I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “I'm... just... so tired. I always get like this when I'm tired. Always have.” Blaming my depression on insomnia was stretching the truth way past the breaking point, but the conversation as a whole was making me feel intensely uncomfortable, so if I could deflect or end it soon I'd take any chance I got.

“You definitely look it. I don't think I've ever seen someone who looked so exhausted.” Because she probably really hadn't.

I lazily brought my claw up and moved it back and forth. “I haven't slept well since I got here, but the last week... I've barely slept at all. I kind of feel like I'm... swimming... or floating... sometimes. Can't remember shit...”

“We should get back to base then, so you can get to bed.” Ida stretched and stood, shuffling her wings to dislodge something grimy she'd picked up from the wall. Great, it had to be on me too, so I might get yelled at by Sam after all.

“I'll try, but I doubt it'll help...” I mumbled, joining her. Except for dusting myself off. I was just too tired to care. The wind shifted outside, causing the building to creak and groan as something flew overhead and winked out the rays of dim light coming through the boards in the ceiling. Heidi's threat resurfaced in my mind. 'I'll be checking up on you...'

Ida brushed some bottles aside on the floor and noticed I wasn't following. “You okay? Need to clear your head?”

“...does... the lieutenant know about this place?” I asked, already imagining what she might do if I wasn't back at base when I was expected.

“Yeah. I mean, I'm sure she does. She used to be a line trooper too.” She cocked her head. “Why?”

I sighed and moved to leave with her. “Nothing. Just... let's get back.”

The flight back was lost in a haze of grogginess with the longing hope that sleep might genuinely be awaiting me when I got back. Surprisingly, I really felt like I could go to sleep then. My insomnia episodes rarely lasted more than a couple of days, and no matter how bad they got I eventually always got sleepy enough to power through the mental barriers and pass out one night. It had to be about time for that to happen. Maybe I'd really feel better about all of this if I did. It all felt so insurmountable, but being rested always helped put things back into perspective and make them feel manageable again.

The euphoria of dreaming over sweet, glorious sleep began to fade almost as soon as we drew near the fortified perimeter of the base. From our approach I could see a solid black griffon marching away from our squad's barracks, and a wave of concern crashed through my sleepiness. Maybe Heidi really had flown by and noticed Ida and me spending unauthorized time off base. It had only been a few minutes! She wouldn't care about that, would she? But she probably wouldn't have much tolerance for tiny slip ups now. Captain Stern tolerated nothing short of perfection, so why should she?

My heart was racing as we landed. I could already hear Serge telling me to report to the lieutenant's office for unspecified reasons that I already knew. Why me? I didn't want any trouble...

Ida was reaching for the door when something dropped from the sky next to me. I started and whirled around in a drunken spin that almost cost me my balance. Who was-

“Kaz, there you are! Have you got any idea how long I've been waiting for you to get back?”

Oh, it was just Liese... “Uh... no?”

“Forever!” She stepped closer and quirked an eyebrow. “You look rough. You okay?”

Not really. Not really in the mood to talk either. “I'm just tired.”

Ida rejoined me and said, “He's had a long day. You need something?”

Liese sat back and folded her arms. “Settle down, I just want to talk to my little brother, okay? Who're you?”

“Ida Whiptail. His partner. You must be Liese Longtalons.” Wait, had I mentioned her to Ida before? Who knew. I couldn't remember half of what we talked about in the school already.

“Oh, so he's mentioned me, huh?” She gave me a playful shove. “And here I figured you were still ashamed to be my brother.”

I groaned and shook my head. “No. Look... what did you need? I'd kind of like to get to bed.”

She snorted. “Yeah, you look it. Anyway, I had some stuff I wanted to talk about. Come on, this won't take but a few minutes,” she said, waving for me to join her.

“Can't we do it here...?”

“Whoa, and here I thought you of all people would respect a bit of privacy. Seriously, it won't take but a few minutes. We can head over to the other side of the tracks.”

I stared at her with intense apathy, wishing that she'd get the message and come back later. Ida stepped forward and partially interposed herself between us. “Hey, if he doesn't want to talk, he doesn't want to talk.”

Liese cracked a knuckle, scrutinizing her. “You looking to start something?”

I raised a claw and shook my head. “No... no, it's fine. Whatever.”

“You sure?” Liese snorted and smirked at Ida. “I don't want to get beaten up by your girlfriend here.”

I trusted Ida enough to not do just that, but didn't give her a chance. “She's not... never mind. Whatever. Come on. Let's get this over with.” I wiped my face, rolled my eyes and stepped away from Ida.

The bigger griffoness glared daggers at Liese and said, “Hurry back Kaz, and don't go far. You're supposed to be back on base.”

I nodded and lifted into the air after Liese. Believe me, Ida, I wasn't going to test my luck any.

“Yeesh Kaz, couldn't you have picked someone who doesn't get her panties tied in knots over everything?”

I rolled my eyes. “...shut up...”

As she promised, Liese and I ended up just on the other side of the train tracks outside of the base. She was busy sucking down a cigarette as she kicked a few rocks apparently just for the, well, kicks. I wasn't offered a smoke and still didn't have any myself, so I just fought to stay upright while waiting for her to decide it was time to tell me why we had to fly out here rather than talk where we were.

“Alright, so. Here's the deal. I'm going on leave tomorrow so I wanted to discuss some stuff with you.” She tapped her cigarette clean of ash and coughed. “You been paid yet?”

Huh? “No... why?”

“You've been here... what, a month? You should have been paid twice already then.”

How long had it been? It felt like a year in some ways. With difficulty I coaxed my brain into counting back and answered, “It's... been three weeks I think. And if I have been paid I never got it.”

“Definitely should have been. Some retard must have lost your paperwork or something. Or your lieutenant or sergeant are screw ups.” She chuckled. “Heidi's a real hard ass, so I doubt it. Probably just an idiot higher up. You'll have to bitch at someone back at HQ to get that sorted out probably.”

Oh, great. Where was that again? Did I care enough right then to find out? Obviously getting paid hadn't mattered too much yet. “Yeah, yeah... why do you ask?”

She scanned me with her eyes and blew smoke in my direction. “Well, I got to thinking about how you're here to get money for papa, right? I've got three days. Not really enough time to fly off to somewhere like Friendship City but I thought I could, y'know, fly by Oatsfield or something.”

“...you'd really do that?” I really, really wasn't in the mood to go digging my way through bureaucratic procedures to find out where my pay was right then, but if it meant getting it back to papa I could give it a shot.

Liese rolled her eyes. “If the bits would help papa, then... yeah, sure. Jeez, you act like I hate him or something.”

Had me fooled. Okay, that wasn't really fair. She and papa hadn't gotten along in a long time, but she never really acted hostile toward him that I could recall. “...I didn't mean it like that...”

“Sure, sure. Anyway, I don't have any bits to spare, but whatever you want me to give him I'll give him, alright? Just make sure you get it to me by the end of the day. I'm leaving tomorrow at five in the morning. Not a minute later. You remember where my barracks are, right?”

...kind of. “The school near the clinic...?”

She thumped her cigarette butt onto the dirt. “Right. Classroom 217. Don't forget it, okay?”

“I'll try to remember. You know how I get...” I'm sure somebody could point me her way anyway. She kind of stood out.

“Yeah, yeah. Go get your pay and meet me there so you can get to bed.” She spread her wings and lifted off. “I'll see you later Kaz.”

“Later, Liese.” I waved her off and made a lazy half circle to start heading back to base. Well... that was a surprise. In no way did I feel like dealing with this mess, but to my shock Liese came through for me. A couple hundred bits ought to do papa a lot of good. I wished I could give it to him in person, but if Liese was really willing to talk to him now maybe it was for the best that she did it. They could use something to patch up the hole between them. Speaking of which, I should probably make sure Liese didn't tell him the bits came from me. He'd have to wonder when she ran into me and-

I froze as my claw stopped three paces from a distinct depression in the dirt that barely concealed something metal under the surface. Right, minefield. Fly like a sensible griffon.

As I took off I tried to quell my racing heart again. That was too close. I had to get some sleep soon. Already I could picture the lieutenant signing off on a KIA report for me with the cause of death listed as 'complete imbecile stepping on a landmine' or 'idiot flying into a smelter smokestack.'

...but it was just one more little errand... then I could get some desperately needed rest...

Serge helpfully confirmed Liese's observation that I should have been paid, but rather than attribute it to malice or stupidity he pointed out some obscure concept of being paid one period behind. It used to be common before the war or something. You'd work two pay periods before you got paid anything, then you'd get your last one a period after you quit. It was supposed to help retain employees or something... though how the hell that was supposed to work in this case I didn't have any idea and definitely couldn't be bothered to waste the brain power trying to figure it out.

On the other claw, he pointed out that I could try petitioning HQ for it given the circumstances. I really, really, really didn't want to do that, but I had to get my bits then or it would be forever and ever before I had another opportunity to send them to papa. What was the worst that could happen? Somebody might yell and tell me to beat it? Get in line.

HQ, as it turned out, was in some place called the FunBarn halfway across the city. Well before I saw the giant pink structure emblazoned with Pinkie Pies peeking through the city ahead I'd surmised that it was an amusement attraction of some kind in the distant past, but the closer I got the more shocked I became that Captain Stern would willingly set up her personal office and the rest of our upper echelons of command in such a gaudy building. It was certainly large, and through the open side I could see a chaotic mass of activity skittering about in the warm lights inside. Maybe the size had something to do with it? Whatever. I was among the lowest of the peons at the bottom of the decision making tree. Not my decision and not my problem.

I swooped over two giant cracked and pockmarked courtyards separated from the rest of the city by high chain fences and a series of electrified gates, glancing at the swarm of activity below. Dozens of ponies draped in heavy and well maintained barding patrolled the edges of the fences and along catwalks constructed with more than a modicum of care. Spotlights at each corner swept over the city surrounding it and twice as many machine gun nests dotted the fortification all around. Most of the soldiers below were busy watching slaves pull a train of wagons through the gate network and into the open maw of the barn, but more than a few trained their weapons my way briefly. Even tired as I was I made out a sniper rifle extending from a unicorn's magical haze to track me through the air for a few seconds. This wasn't a place to be trifled with...

Initially I'd planned to touch down and follow the wagons inside, but at the last moment I noticed a pair of landing pads jutting from the side of the building on its second floor, clearly constructed more recently judging by the lack of pink paint and splintering wood. Each was guarded by a Talon wielding the largest rifles I'd ever seen, easily as long as they were. Bloody biting mites, what were they designed for, killing dragons?

Both turned their heads to follow me as I slowed, banked and descended onto the nearest pad, and they shifted grips to ready their weapons. Maybe this wasn't the right place... The one on my platform, a white griffon whose armor indicated he was a sergeant, held up a hand. “Hold it. What's your business?”

“Uh... hi. This is HQ, isn't it? Captain Stern's base of operations?” I stayed put right where I was, lest one of those rifles kill me just by pointing my way. This place really wasn't somewhere to be trifled with...

“It is. The captain doesn't see just anybody. Is she expecting you?”

“No, I'm, uh... actually not here to see her. I don't think. My sergeant, uh, Sergeant Swiftwing from first platoon, third squad, said that this is where I should come to ask about some discrepancies in my pay?” Oh, this was going great already.

The two exchanged amused glances. The muddy brown griffoness on the other platform smirked. “That's probably Chief Hookbill's department. I hope you're not here to negotiate a raise.” She chuckled without elaborating further.

“Yeah, go see her. She's through here, downstairs one level and... three doors down. Don't stray and definitely don't bother the captain. You're being watched.” Sergeant whoever stepped aside and shrugged at the door behind him.

I happily scurried on, offering a quick thanks as I went. Time to get this done with. Hey, at least I found out I didn't have to talk to the captain. After my last encounter with her I wasn't in any hurry to do that. Ever. I'd be even happier if she wasn't in the building, but if she was half as busy as she sounded odds were low I'd see her anyway. ...but I was getting distracted. Let's see... Chief Hookbill... Maybe if I was lucky the offices would be labeled.

To my abject shock, they were. I descended the framed metal staircase to find myself in a long hallway of nigh-pristine, if unpainted, wood and metal doors. Metal nameplates composed of interchangeable letters adorned each, and right where it was supposed to be was a door labeled 'CWO Isolde Hookbill, Acquisitions'. That was easy. Hopefully the unending clangs of metal and clacks and clops of hooves from down the hall wouldn't be too distracting. Steeling myself, I knocked at the door. Maybe she wasn't here.

“Come in,” a distant female voice directed.

Okay, she was here. I cracked the door and stepped inside to find... rows and rows of rusty shelves burdened with ragged cardboard boxes overflowing with random bits of things I couldn't identify. No sign of anyone. This was an office? “Uh...”

Shuffling preceded a peach feathered griffoness limping from behind a shelf into the center of the room. Her side was littered with old scars. I couldn't count the bullet scars clustered around her shoulder with a quick glance, or guess what caused her wing to hang at the odd angle, but I absolutely wasn't going to stare to figure it out. “What can I do for you?” she asked before pulling a clipboard from the bag at her side and flipping over a few pages.

“Ah... sorry to bother you... ma'am? But, uh... I was told you might be the one to talk to about my pay?”

She flipped the pages back down and raised an eyebrow at me. “That depends. What about it?”

“Uh, well... you see, I've only been here for three weeks, but something came up and I kind of need an advance on my pay. My sergeant said that we, uh, usually get paid a period behind?”

Chief Hookbill scoffed and went back to reading. “What happened? Did you lose a bet at the bar last night?”

“No ma'am... my sister was, ah... she was about to uh, go on leave, and was going to visit our father. I wanted to send some of my pay back with her to give to him.” Might as well be honest, right?

She nodded slowly. “Alright. I'll authorize it, but I don't have time to deal with it right now.”

Dammit. Please, for once just let my life be simple. Please? “C-can I get it tonight?”

“Sure.” She looked down the rows of shelves and said, “Hey, Musty Tome, get over here. Got something for you to do.”

Hooves clattered excitedly and a dust colored unicorn stallion skittered into view. Even at this distance I could see dozens of long scarred over whip lashes on his back and look of concern on his face. “Yes, ma'am?”

“Go take the private here and give him half of his coming pay. Hurry back, the captain's breathing down my neck about figuring out where that EFS scanner ran off to.”

He hunkered down and slipped past her to join me. “Yes ma'am. I-I think I found some records on it just a moment ago.”

She nodded us off and went back to her business, while this Musty Tome led me out of the room and down the hall. We made our way down another flight of stairs and across a side passage to the main floor where at least a hundred ponies and dozen griffons were falling over each other while pulling supplies off of the wagons that just came in. “R-right this way, sir.” Musty took us down another side passage, past a red-maned black stallion moping back toward the main floor and up to a door guarded by two massive stallions in heavy barding.

The unicorn on the left hefted an assault rifle in his magic and cast a harsh glance at us. “What?” The earth pony on the right didn't bother even checking the quad shotgun battle saddle he wore.

“S-sorry to disturb you, but Ms. Hookbill told me to get this Talon his pay.”

The two exchanged tired glances and the earth pony shouldered the thick steel door open. “Fine, but make it quick. And we're watching you, shrimp.” He eyed me. “That goes for you too. This ain't your cozy barracks. Don't fuck with anything.”

I suddenly understood poor Musty's meekness as I scurried in after him. He hurried up to a row of safes covered in flaking paint and rolls of tickets and started fooling with the dial on the closest. It didn't seem to like his combination, prompting a little whimper. “I-I'm sorry, I'm t-trying, it... it just... m-maybe they changed the code...”

“It's okay, really. Please, take your time...” I said, trying hard to sound nonthreatening. Poor pony... I didn't want to know what happened around here. Had Isolde beaten him? Or someone else? I... I didn't want to know. There was no good answer, but I didn't need to let my opinion of any more of my superiors sink much more.

He didn't respond, but after a another two tries and desperate pulls of the handle he managed to get the safe open with a deep groan. “Phew... s-sorry. Um, w-would you like that in scrips or bits?”

...what? “I'm sorry... scrips?”

“Uh... scrips.” He floated a roll of white tickets labeled 'Admit One' out of the safe. “Oh... oh, s-sorry, sir, I... I forgot you were new. Scrips a-are good for anything in the city, b-but not worth much outside. If... if you want bits then you get only half as many...”

“What?” I stared at the roll of tickets from two hundred years ago in mild disbelief. No, I should have expected this. Dammit. Really? Really!? Really. Nothing was going to be simple. Ever. Graaagh... son of a... what kind of horseshit was-

Musty dropped the tickets and backed away, covering his face. “I-I'm sorry! It-it-it's the rules!”

...huh? I calmed down and shook my head. “No... no, it's fine. I need it in bits, please.” Fuck, whatever. I didn't care anymore.

Musty recomposed himself and slunk back over to the safe. “Y-yes sir. I... I'm sorry, sir, what was your name? And rank?”

“Private Kasimir Longtalons. I've been here for three weeks total.”

“Thank you...” He floated out a small bag and started counting its contents. “That's... three hundred for two weeks. Ms. Hookbill said half... and... in bits...” He set some coins back inside the safe and presented the purse to me. “Seventy-five. Please return the bag to your quartermaster when it's empty.”

Seventy-five? That was it? That... was barely enough to pay papa's rent for half a month. Shit. Still... it was better than nothing. I sighed and took it. “Alright, thank you.”

“You're welcome. Is... is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, that's it.” I stuffed the bag down into my pack and grumbled to myself. A lot of good this was going to do...

Musty locked everything back up and escorted me back out. Just as we stepped out, he bowled over and landed in a whimpering heap. I just managed to catch the earth pony withdrawing a foreleg. “Watch it, shrimp. If you break something in here we'll break you.”

“I-I'm sorry! I'll be more careful!”

“Hah, you better.” Earth pony mocked punching at him, sending the terrified stallion skittering back and into a pipe set into the wall. Without even the slightest bit of resistance, the rusty pipe snapped at its joint in the ceiling, spraying both soldiers with something that smelled amazingly like gray water. “Ugh... fuck! You little shit, you're dead!”

I stepped between them and made my best attempt at an intimidating scowl. “He's an assistant to Talon Chief Warrant Officer Isolde Hookbill, so if you know what's good for you you'll leave him alone. You caused that, and you know it.”

“The fuck do you think you are?” he retorted. He made a sweeping gesture with his hoof. “I swear, you birds keep giving us lip, like you're better than us. Just because you've got those stupid chicken wings and some trumped up history you think you can walk all over us.” He stabbed that titanic, smelly hoof in my face. “Both of you beat it before I beat you.”

Okay, I was honestly pretty frightened, but managed to not show it. I helped Musty up, despite his protests, and shooed him along before this boiled over into something that would get me chewed out or worse by Heidi or the captain.

“We'll be seeing you, shrimp...”

It was all I could do to part with him at that moment. Pinfeathers... he was actually tearing up from fear. His immediate future was probably going to be... bleak...

...not that there was anything I could do for him...

My depressing detour by the FunBarn must have taken close to an hour, flight time included, so by the time I was making it back to the high school where Liese was stationed the day was starting to drag on. Sunsets were hard to really observe from below the perpetual cloud cover, but to a griffon who'd been above the clouds a few times in his life it was possible to pick out the subtle red shift to the clouds. I'd wasted a lot of possible sleeping time, but it would be worth it. Papa needed the bits more than I needed rest, and in all honesty I probably wasn't going to get much anyway. Already I was having to fight to avoid dwelling on Musty on the flight over. That was probably going to persist as I tried to get to sleep. Had he been beaten by Ms. Hookbill? Was that happening right now as I thought about it? Or did those two stallions corner and attack him like they promised? Maybe...

...I needed to stop. I just registered the clinic zipping by beneath me and the guard I nearly flew right into, and immediately flared my wings to brake and lose altitude. Activity at second platoon's base was winding down for the night already, leaving only the perimeter guards at the parking lot gate and circling around the campus. They didn't seem to pay me any attention as I swooped by and plopped down on the cracked asphalt with a total lack of grace. The long rows of gently glowing windows spun and swam around me as I shook the daze out of my head and caught my breath. Bloody pinfeathers... I couldn't ever remember being so tired. I just needed to sit and... collect myself for a moment...

“Trooper, you look lost.” I fought off the daze and spun to face the deep voice, finding a powerfully built white and brown mottled griffon gazing down at me. The bars on his pauldrons indicated he was a lieutenant. Lieutenant Strongclaws? I hoped I wasn't breaking some rule here... “I don't recognize you. Identify yourself.”

I snapped to attention. “Private Kasimir Longtalons, sir. From first platoon.”

He studied me a moment more. “And what's your business here, Private Longtalons?”

“My sister is stationed here. Liese Longtalons. She's going on leave tomorrow and I needed to give her... something to deliver to our father while she was out.”

This griffon had an intensely creepy lack of emotion. “And what would this 'something' be?”

“Money, sir.” Did I need to tell him the exact amount and where I got it from? Please, this wasn't complicated, really!

“Hmm.” He tilted his head to the brick building next to us. “Fifth squad is garrisoned here. If your sister isn't here, Sergeant Swiftwind is.” He turned to leave. “Don't be long. Lieutenant Blackfeathers would likely prefer you were back at your own base.”

“Yes sir, I'll be quick.” Yikes, that was a genuinely concerning thing to hear. Was he about to go radio her that one of her troops was doing something wrong? He'd have to be a complete jerk to do that without telling me. But considering where I was and who I was working for... No, I'd just have to accept what he said at face value and hurry.

Without wasting any more time I hurried over to the metal framed stairs at the end of the building and ascended to the second floor. Liese said she was in classroom 217 right? Or... 271? Either would be on the second floor, and I should be able to quickly narrow down the specific room.

The hallway I emerged into stank to the high heavens of cigarettes and something else I couldn't identify. Clearly the rules were a bit different around here than back at my base. I darted inside and started scanning the room numbers as I went, wishing the lighting was better. Every other light set into the tile roof was burnt out or flickering madly, making it hard to read. Room 271 was dark, so that scratched it as an option. I skipped a branching hallway and kept going to the other end of the hall where the lit rooms were, and to my relief I found room 217 occupied. At least I hoped that was the room number I was reading. Might have been 219. Here went nothing...

My knock was answered by a gloomy looking dark yellow-orange griffon. “Yes?” he asked simply.

Hey... he looked familiar. “Alfred?”

He blinked and cocked his head. “Dr. Longtalons? Err, what can I do for you?”

Oh, it was him! A familiar face. Not someone I really knew, but seeing someone I actually recognized and had interacted with was nice for a change. Maybe he'd be inclined to help me since I helped him not die from drinking brewed alcoholic poison. I made a little wave. “Uh, hi. Is this fifth squad? I'm looking for my sister.”

His eyes flew open. “You're Liese's brother? Longtalons... never put that together before. Yeah, she's here. Hang on a sec.”

Well, what do you know. Something was finally simple. Alfred disappeared behind a pile of crates in the classroom, replaced moments later by my solid gray sister. “Kaz! Hey, you actually came. I thought you might just pass out on the tracks back there.”

“Give me a little credit. I'm pretty used to this now,” I grumbled while trying to look alert.

She grinned and leaned against the door frame. “Just pulling your wing. So, have any trouble finding the place?”

“Not really. Uh, Lieutenant Strongclaws showed me the way.” I shuddered a bit under my skin. “He's... direct.”

“You ain't seen shit. When he gets mad he just looks at you. He's got a stare that could scare a ghoul into shaping up.” She giggled at her own joke. “So, did you get the money?”

The bits had naturally migrated to the very bottom of my bag, but I found them despite their attempt to complicate my life. “Here. They'd only give me seventy-five. It's not much, but it's something.”

She weighed the purse in her claw and untied it to peek inside. “What? That's a ripoff! Jeez, they must be paying new recruits peanuts these days.”

“It was half of my pay in advance, and you know how the scrip to bits thing works.”

“Yeah, still, horseshit.” She tied it back up and locked eyes with me. “So. Anything you want me to tell papa?”

As much as it hurt me to lie to him indirectly, it was for his own good. “...not really. Liese, you can't tell him I sent the bits.”

“Huh? You must be more tired than you look. Don't you want him to know daddy's little boy is looking out for him?”

I groaned and rolled my eyes. Yes, but no. “If you tell him, then he'll know I'm working here or at least ask how you got the bits from me. It's... it's just simpler not to even risk it.”

She cocked her beak and tossed the bits in the air a few times. “Pfft. If you say so. Wouldn't want him to know you'd grown a pair or anything.”

“Liese, this isn't funny. I'm serious here. You know maybe it wouldn't be a terrible thing if he thought you cared about him.”

“Hey!” She poked my breastplate with a talon. “I care. You think I'd be wasting time in Oatsfield if I didn't?”

I gave her a flat expression. “Just pulling your wing.” Not really, but then that's what she'd say.

“Hmph. Sure, okay, funny guy. I'll give him the bits and won't tell him you're working for Red Eye. Deal?”

“Deal.” I'd have to sort out later how I would do this on a regular basis, or how I'd ever write him letters. Liese's letters always came with the caravans. Maybe I could fake the source somehow?

She tapped her talons on the door frame. “Yeah. Okay. Anyway. You should probably head back. Need to get that sleep, right?”

“Right...”

Liese pushed off the door and backed inside. “Right. I'll catch up with you when I get back then. See you around.”

“See you.” I turned away and plodded back toward the exit. Somehow, that hadn't been as uplifting as I'd hoped. Interacting with Liese here in Fillydelphia was quickly proving to be a sure source of depressing news or feelings, but this went beyond even that. Papa was going to have to find out I was here sooner or later, and when he did, it wasn't going to be pretty. Would it actually kill him? No. As a doctor I knew better than that, but... it might as well.

Yeah... sorry papa... but sometimes we have to do dirty things to get by these days.

Please forgive me.

Sleep didn't come.

Perhaps that wasn't honest. I think maybe I slept for an hour or two that night, purely out of my brain completely shutting down, but all that did was give me a taste of the sweet bliss of not feeling like the hollow shell of a griffon shambling around with just the most fleeting awareness of what he was doing anymore.

No, the unending cascade of worrisome and depressing thoughts kept me from ever completely falling into a deep and restful sleep. I hovered on the edge a dozen times maybe, feeling my body slowly numb and calm in anticipation of dreams. Yet, every time I got close, something shattered through the fog to remind me that there was too much to think about to dare sleep. The teasing rapidly wore on my frayed nerves, driving me deeper and deeper into seething anger at the unfairness of it all. I couldn't do my job because of how awful I felt, but that put me so on edge I couldn't relax to sleep! It... it was an unending cycle of pain and misery! Surely it would only finally end terribly for me. I dreaded thinking about what would finally happen during my grogginess that got me sent to the crater or the mines for being a complete, irreparable fuck up. A slave was going to escape... or Captain Stern would see me dozing off because I couldn't help it... or I'd sneeze in front of Master Red Eye... or... or...

“Kaz! Kaz, get up! This is the third time I woke you!”

I started awake and flew out of the bed into a sprawled mass on the floor. “Wh... nghh... sorry...” But... but I'd f-finally managed to fall asleep... it couldn't be time to get up already... it wasn't fair...

Ida pulled me up and helped me fall back on my haunches. “Hangnails from Hell, Kaz, you look terrible.” She started digging through my footlocker for... I... think it was my footlocker. “Are you even able to work today?”

“...I... have a ch...oice?” I couldn't even focus on her. Every time I resolved her into a single Ida my eyes crossed and produced two blurry yet clearly distressed griffonesses in front of me. Everything felt weightless for a moment and I caught myself on the edge of the cot just in time to avoid spilling myself all over her feet.

“Shit...” She looked out into the common area. “Sarge, Kaz doesn't look good.”

Serge popped in. “He's not ready to leave yet? You two were supposed to be gone a minute ago!”

“...sorry. Just... give me a sec...” My head hurt in ways I'd never experienced before. Just thinking about getting ready made me feel nauseated. Please... please, if there's anything good left in this world just let me slip back into that glorious, wonderful cot...

“He's not in any shape to patrol today. Can he work at the clinic or something?”

Serge grimaced. “Looks like you're in even worse shape for that. But, no, not today. Lieutenant Blackfeathers just left for there. She had to find a replacement for someone at the FunBarn or something. Anyway, she won't be happy to see you there when you're scheduled for something else. Unless you're throwing up or broke something I can't send you as a patient. C'mon, get up and moving. You'll feel better if you do.”

Piss off. What do you know about how I feel? I decided to just keep my beak shut and forced myself up. He was right about one thing though. I wasn't going to let Heidi see me slacking. If I had to patrol feeling like I was dying, then so be it. I wanted her to see me working anyway, no matter what. I'd show her. “...I'll be fine...”

Ida didn't look convinced, but she started laying my stuff out anyway. “Hurry up then. We're late already.”

“...yeah...”

Even before we left the barracks I knew I'd made a mistake. I couldn't walk straight. I could barely hold a cup of coffee without my hand shaking so much it went everywhere. The coffee didn't help. I didn't even eat anything, since there was no time and I felt like I'd just vomit up anything I ate anyway. The fact that I could have gotten excused to the clinic had I done that didn't strike me until we were a dozen blocks away and already overlooking... the rest of Fillydelphia. At that point I didn't care. I wasn't going to give in and break. I wasn't going to be a failure. If I fucked up again, Heidi would probably take my leave for the rest of my life. I'd never see papa again. I'd... I'd...

I couldn't remember what I was even thinking about. Every few minutes I'd blink my eyes open and realize I'd followed Ida somewhere new without any memory of how we got there or how I'd avoided slamming into something and killing myself this time. Often times I only returned to lucidity because such a thing came dangerously close to being true. I grunted and corrected my course after my wing slapped into a crane... or something. It should have hurt like hell, but even pain felt distant and unimportant then. I had no idea where we were or where we were going. Maybe ten minutes had passed. Maybe five hours. I just didn't know. All I could do was beg and pray that it would be over soon so I could collapse somewhere and just die if I couldn't sleep. Anything would be preferable to this half-existence of constant confusion and aches...

It wasn't fair. None of this was fair! Even if I hated what I was doing in Fillydelphia, I had been trying, dammit! Dammit to fucking Hell! I didn't talk back to my superiors or shirk my duties! I wanted to do what I was told, but nothing was coming out right! Everything went wrong around me, and always had! Every pony and griffon I'd tried to help in this city was worse off for it! Nothing good could ever happen here. Nothing you did with good intentions could be anything other than heart wrenching awfulness thrown in your face just to show you how fucking insignificantly futile any attempt to make Equestria a better place now was.

Glitter Dust died in unspeakable agony because I'd had the mercy to not shoot her. That pony Liese killed? If I hadn't been here in this city trying to do something to bond with my sister, he might still be alive. Even that pony I had to execute was a hundred times worse off for meeting me. Anybody else would have put him down quickly, but I had to fucking miss like the fuck up I was and scare him to death first. Hell, even that pony I hurt by being a retard and breaking the window panes was probably dead now because of me. If he didn't get an infection in this environment it would have been a blessing from the pony goddesses themselves, but even if he didn't he'd probably been accused of stealing the bandages and shot dead where he stood. Oh, and let's not forget Musty Tome, who was probably rotting in a dumpster right fucking now because I'd wanted to get my meager pay for this hellacious duty. 'A replacement for somebody at the FunBarn.' Couldn't be anybody else. Those two stallions came and probably tortured him to death last night because they scared him into breaking a pipe and giving them what they deserved. So now Heidi had to go get a griffon to replace him, who they wouldn't mess with.

...which all came back to the worst of it. I was stuck here.

I couldn't flee. I couldn't say no to anybody. I couldn't try to mitigate the disasters I was sparking. All I could do was let the pieces of shattered lives slip between my fingers every time I turned a corner. Papa would be disgusted to be related to me.

...and...and why wouldn't he be? Who'd want to be the father of someone like me? Someone who left a fairly peaceful little town as a doctor and started working for slavers to make sure that ponies suffered? He'd probably slam the door in my face if I showed up now. It would be the best possible outcome...

...if it even mattered. I'd never see him again anyway. Serge told me... he... fuck. I couldn't remember what he said about leave. All I remember when I asked is he said it would be a while. Papa was sick. He was going to find out from Liese I was here. She'd think it was funny or good for both of us or something. Fuck her. She'd tell him and he'd die before I ever even had a chance to see him again.

My chest ached and my throat spasmed, but I wasn't going to cry. Heidi was probably watching. Oh, gods help me if I cried in front of her. She'd... probably... she'd think...

I jerked awake at the sensation of something tugging at my talons and looked down to see something... dark... tumbling away. What could it be? Had something broken free of a building? Or a piece of my armor falling off? I'd been so damned sleepy when putting it on...

No.

Please, holy heavens, no.

It was my gun.

I spluttered to a halt in the air and watched helplessly as it spun away toward the street below. There was no way to catch it before it hit the ground, and there was no way it was going to survive the impact. It was going to be destroyed. Heidi would know. I'd have to pay for it in bits and blood, I knew. Involuntarily, my claws raised to the sides of my face. She was going to be watching me. She was going to know! I was dead!

BLAM

The report reached me an instant before the scream. That scream... the scream that even now, decades later, I'll never forget. The scream that still haunts me in my nightmares.

Ida lurched in the air and twisted over halfway, screaming and screeching as she lost altitude. Her limbs flailed as she grabbed at her side and rolled over completely. One wing flapped while the other hung limply in the wind. I stared in horror, stunned. Only my wings could move, flapping irregularly to keep me aloft while she plummeted further and further down, wailing the entire way. Summoning strength and will from depths I didn't think existed, I dove after her, shouting her name and reaching my claws out to catch her.

Books where a griffon dives heroically after another to catch them in the nick of time are horseshit. Complete and utter horseshit. I never had a prayer of reaching her.

I was still at least four stories off the ground when she hit, but at that distance I could vividly hear bones pulverized by the impact. Her screams cut out as she bounced once, spraying a puff of white feathers in her wake and sending her gun and bits of armor and equipment slinging in an arc after her. Her rifle spun end-over-end twice before landing neatly in a dumpster and causing the lid to slam closed.

My heart froze. No, my entire body froze. Ice shot down my spine as I slammed down in the street, but not even the jarring impact could snap me out of the stupor I was in. What I'd just witnessed couldn't have happened. There... there was no way I'd just dropped my gun and shot Ida. It... wasn't possible. I was just hallucinating from lack of sleep.

No. No, it had happened. I'd shot her and was just standing there dumbly.

“Ida... Ida!” I broke into a sprint and tore down the street toward her, kicking or trampling trash and bits of scrap as I went. She'd fallen thirty... forty meters at least. I knew even then what I'd find when I got to her, but it didn't matter. I skidded in a puddle and nearly bowled over on top of her, but caught myself on an adjacent light pole that left me looking over her. Already, I was tearing my medical kit off of my webbing and grabbing for healing potions. It wouldn't heal the bones right, but fuck it! It was her only hope! She'd rather be alive and having bones reset than dead!

There was no way in hell her back wasn't hurt somehow, and fuck me with a rusty pole, I didn't have anything to properly stabilize her neck with! Throwing caution out the window, I hunched over her to administer a potion. By blind luck she'd ended on her back, so I didn't have to manipulate her much to get her into a position to pour the potion down her throat. Dammit, she'd probably aspirate on some of it, but the healing magic mattered more than pneumonia down the road. I popped the top from one vial of purple liquid and poured it straight into her open beak.

It was then that I noticed the blood collected in her beak and running from her nostrils and deep down in the feathers on the sides of her head. Shit! Shit, shit, shit! I'd expected some serious head trauma, but her skull had been fractured, probably in multiple places. She was completely unresponsive. No breathing, and if she had a pulse it was too faint to detect in the frantic two seconds I dared check for it. I panicked and my mind blanked. What was I supposed to do now!? Was there anything that could be done without the world's most talented unicorn doctor sitting right beside me? “Ida! Stay with me!” I pleaded as I uncorked two more vials of healing potion and dumped them down her throat. Nothing happened. The bleeding wouldn't stop. She wouldn't start breathing. She... just laid there, blackened eyes staring lifelessly through me as I squeaked and backed up two steps.

There had never been any chance to save her. The impact had shattered her skull and killed her instantly. Blood leaked from every orifice on her head. Both forelegs and wings had been broken in the fall, laying at obviously wrong angles to her sides. Even with her armor on I could tell her back was broken.

...she... she was dead.

I'd killed her.

I'd killed her.

I involuntarily gasped, clamped my beak shut with my claws and searched around me, whether absently looking to see who had witnessed my ghastly, horrific mistake or just out of pure confusion, I don't know. But whatever the reason there were those looking on. One by one, ponies popped their heads around corners and dumpsters, or peered through windows.

There was just so much shock and adrenaline pumping through my body that I didn't feel anything. I-I couldn't move. My eyes darted from one to the next as I just sat there, waiting for something to happen. They stared back. One pony broke and fled.

With extreme effort, I removed my claws and dared to look back at Ida's body. The numbness vanished in an instant to be replaced by overpowering nausea, but I didn't throw up. I just scrabbled backward into the side of a building and trembled. I'd killed her.

Unidentifiable shouts bounced down an alley. Something yelled above me.

I'd... killed her...

Armed ponies burst into the street, pointing guns every which way.

...she... was dead...

“Goddesses, what happened? Check the alleys!”

...it... it was a mistake...

Something landed hard near me and started shouting.

...why?

The griffon grabbed me by the shoulders and demanded something I didn't process. I didn't even recognize them or that they were speaking to me at first.

“...it-it was a mistake...”

Gain Experience – You gain 2,500 experience points for enduring the hardships of Fillydelphia. You know what they say, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger...

Quest Perk Lost: A True, True Friend – ...but sometimes those around you don't fare so well.

Chapter 7: Consequences

Chapter 7

Consequences

When I left the prison, I knew it wouldn't be long before I returned for some reason. With Heidi's dire warnings about what would happen if I messed up again, I knew I'd be back soon.

What I didn't know was that I'd be inside of a cell this time.

Tightening up on the cot, I stared into cracks of the damp concrete wall next to me. The smell of the place had long come and gone, fading into the background noise of hazy perceptions I was still struggling to make sense of. It must have been the third time that my eyes fluttered open to deposit me back in cold reality that I gave up sleeping. Frustratingly, unbelievably, now I could sleep. After so much time struggling with it only to be so tired and sleepy that I... shot... Ida... somehow my brain decided that enough was enough and drifted off into unconsciousness almost as soon as I collapsed onto the cot. But, now that I could sleep, I didn't want to. Guilt. Confusion. Fear. Horror. All of that mixed together in so many unpleasant ways. The dreadful reality of what I'd done and where I was... somehow it wasn't as bad as what my tired brain conjured in dreams.

Instead of shutting my eyes and letting time slip away while I scraped up a few meager hours of recovery sleep, I rolled over and tried to focus on the barred door and what was beyond. Backlit by dim, flickering bluish light stood my guards. The griffon on the left cast a disinterested glance back my way, then returned to staring at the wall with the pony on the right.

How long had I been there? What time was it? I had no idea. No food had been brought to me since I got there, but whether that meant I'd only been there briefly or that I was getting no food, I had no idea. Not that it mattered. I was far too nauseated to eat anything. I was never going to be able to eat anything ever again...

I draped a forearm over my stinging eyes to shut out the world and the two guards. What was going to happen to me? What did I deserve? The guards probably did something to earn the honors of watching Fillydelphia's newest convict, but after one or two shifts their little infraction would be behind them. That's what little screw ups got you. What did killing someone get you? What if it was an accident?

Murder I had no doubt would result in execution, and probably in a very painful way. But I had not murdered Ida! It was an accident! A mistake! I hadn't been planning to hurt anyone! This... this wasn't all my fault! Serge knew I wasn't fit for duty! He'd made me go anyway. He knew it was dangerous to send me out with Ida, but he did it anyway. Didn't that count for something? I was just following orders and this is what happened. It-it wasn't...

...it didn't matter, did it? This wasn't the frilly world of prewar Equestria where your intentions mattered almost as much as what you did. No, this was Fillydelphia where only results mattered. Ida was dead, and whether or not I meant it, it was because of me. I was going to be executed. Frankly, I wasn't sure why they hadn't done it already. Maybe this was part of the punishment. Heidi probably wanted me to suffer and stew over what I'd done before she had me shot. Probably. That would fit her.

And... you know, maybe that's what I deserved. What else would be fitting for coming to this awful city to help Red Eye build up his slave empire, getting ponies hurt and killed and ultimately killing your partner? When you spelled it out, being shot sounded about right for that.

Coming to accept that didn't have as much impact as I thought it would. Maybe it was because I was still unbearably nauseated, or because I was still unbelievably tired and sleepy, or because maybe deep down I knew it's what I deserved, but whatever the reason... I just accepted it. Poof. That was it. Fuck everything up until your partner's dead, then they'll kill you too and that will be the end of it.

“Stand aside.”

“Yes ma'am.”

I lifted my arm just in time to see a black griffoness approach the bars and bang something to get my attention. “Private, get over here. Now.”

My limbs felt heavy and lifeless, but I complied as fast as I could. The trek from my end of the cell to the door couldn't have been more than three meters, but it felt longer than the length of the old sports fields strewn about the city. My stomach found ways to tighten up into more knots and for an instant I thought I would finally throw up, but I managed to trudge over without collapsing into a heap or descending into any sort of embarrassing lack of self control. At the bars I found two sets of golden eyes glowing in the darkness, one pair behind a set of glasses.

Heidi's eyes narrowed as she tightened her talons around the bars. She stared a hole through me for an eternity before finally saying, “Private... in all of my years here... I have never had someone so difficult as you...” She looked aside and took a deep breath. “...under the circumstances I had to wait before coming. If I had come as soon as I heard what happened, it would have been much more difficult to avoid shooting you where you stand.” She took another deep breath and glanced back to her assistant. “Egon, step back.”

The little lavender griffon did as he was told, standing well away from Heidi and the cell door. From the change in lighting I could see that she was completely unarmed, and Egon was sporting two pistols that glinted in the gloom.

Heidi's talons clenched the bar again and her eyes slowly tracked up to meet mine. With obvious restraint, she said, “I want you to understand, private... that at any point I can put a bullet in your skull and absolutely nobody will care. It is only from morbid curiosity and lingering complete disbelief that I have not yet done that.” She grasped the bars with her other claw and leaned in close, almost close enough to put her beak through. “When Private Galeforce found you, Private Whiptail was already dead. She didn't see what happened. Now... I want to hear... from you... what happened. You will tell me the truth. You will tell me the entire truth. You will tell me nothing but the truth. If you try to lie or deny what you've done, so help me I will see to it that you are fed to the parasprites. Have I made myself clear?”

All of the forced apathy and rehearsed excuses I'd practiced evaporated, replaced by an icy gnawing sensation in my stomach. It... didn't mix well with the nausea. “Y-yes ma'am. Carme-Carmelita? She was the one who... who found us?” How had I missed that? I couldn't even place the face of whoever it was...

She rapped her talons on the bars rhythmically, fixing me with that piercing gaze. “This isn't about her, private. Start talking, now.”

I retreated a step and fought for some way to begin, some way to explain what had happened that didn't make it sound like Ida was dead because of something trivial. “...I... I... dropped my gun.” Shit...

“You... dropped your gun,” she began, loosening her grip. “You dropped your gun. Private Ida Whiptail is dead, because you dropped your gun.”

“...yes ma'am.”

“She's dead because you dropped your gun? Private Ida Whiptail, a veteran of six years of service with a clean record, a competent soldier and your partner, is dead because you dropped your gun!?” Heidi shook the bars with each of the last words, and for a moment I feared she'd actually rip the door free to get to me.

“It was an accident! I-I didn't mean to-”

“You don't fucking say!?” She slammed the door against its frame with all of her weight. “No, I thought you did it on purpose. That maybe you just threw it down for shits and giggles to see what would happen. Oh, and look, guns kill people!”

I doubled back two more steps and raised a claw. “It was an accident!”

“I know it was a fucking accident you idiot!” she screamed. A talon jutted between the bars in my direction. “Oh, believe me, I thought for just a second that maybe you did do it on purpose. I thought maybe you shot her and thought you'd fly away while we were still trying to figure out what happened. But you're not that stupid. You knew that no matter how bad you wanted to get out of this city that wouldn't work, so you didn't do that. You were just fucking stupid enough to drop your gun and kill somebody!” She punched the bars. “How does that happen, private!?”

“I-I was sleepy. I couldn't stay awake. The gun... it... it slipped.”

“What!?” The bars rattled from another slam. “She's dead because you were sleepy!? What in the hell have you been doing when you're off duty? How do you fall asleep while flying!?”

I fell backward into a seated position, holding my claw up defensively. At that point I had no choice but to admit the truth. “I have insomnia!” I pleaded. “Insomnia. I-I've had it most of my life, and-and it gets worse when I'm stressed out.”

Silent rage played across Heidi's face as her claws wrung the bars. “Private... Private Kasimir Longtalons... did you... did you not think that might be a problem serving as a guard in Fillydelphia?”

There was nothing I could say to that. A dry, choking sensation welled up in my throat as I avoided her gaze. No. No, absolutely not. I... couldn't...

“Egon, go pull his file. Find out who his recruitment officer was. Find out and tell them to meet me in my office in ten minutes. We're going to make sure this never happens again.”

With a quiet, “Yes ma'am,” her little assistant vanished into the darkness.

“Private, look at me.” Please no. Not right now. Please, just go way. “Look at me, dammit!” I obeyed, trying to quell the spasms in my chest and throat. “I hope you're proud of yourself. You, the least qualified griffon in this forsaken country, joined the Talons knowing you had a severe handicap that could put yourself and others in danger, and as a result Private Ida Whiptail is dead. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

No. Not a thing. All that I could do was let the dam burst. I shrunk away from her and placed my face in my claws, failing entirely to hide the tears. The ludicrous attempt at an apology was just garbled in the sobs.

“Stop crying! Grown griffons do not cry! Talons do not cry!” No amount of willpower could have allowed me to overcome the emotional catastrophe. I didn't care how much she screamed or called me a baby or anything else. “Stop that this instant and look at me!”

I just wound up tighter and gasped for breath. I just couldn't handle the weight of it all. Ida really was dead because I was stupid. This wasn't Serge's fault. I was the last person in Equestria who should have been here in the first place. Her death was entirely my fault.

“Stop crying!” she screamed once more before pounding the bars. I guess she finally realized that she was only making it worse, and turned to bellow something at the other two guards before storming away.

There was nothing I could do but flop over onto my side and cry it all out. I couldn't care less how much I looked like a child or what my guards thought of me. I just couldn't take anything more. Whatever happened to me, I just did not care anymore.

I think it was the next day when she returned. There was no way to tell the time and the only thing brought to me was some slightly discolored but odorless water, but I figured it had to have been close to a day. Food would have been wasted anyway. I was far too sick feeling to eat anything. Even after I slept off and on for some time, I felt completely awful. My head hurt terribly. My eyes stung. My throat was parched. My stomach hurt.

All of that ceased mattering the instant Heidi appeared and ordered the warden to unlock my cell. I started awake and fell off of the cot in my hasty attempt to scrabble to my feet. She tensed her claw and popped a knuckle, staring me down for some time. At last she said, “Private... come with me.”

My heart leaped into my throat as my mind went to racing, trying to analyze whether this was what I thought it was. The warden was here with her. Was she going to have me executed now? Stalling wouldn't help regardless, so I crept toward her. After all of my bravado accepting it the night before, it was still difficult to face it down.

“Get moving. I don't want to waste much time on this.”

“...yes ma'am...” I croaked. Well, this was it. I was about to be executed in Fillydelphia and papa would never know what happened to me. Maybe Liese would spare him the truth, if she ever even spoke to him again. He'd just think I died trying to protect a merchant caravan from lowlifes. He'd never know what I'd really done. Somehow... that made it worse. I couldn't do that to him. Normally I'd have been afraid to say anything, but knowing I was about to die sort of took the gravity out of having her yell at me. “L...lieutenant? C-can I have a minute to wr-write a letter first?”

She fixed me with a confused glare. “What? If you wanted to write a letter then why the hell didn't you do that while you were in here?” She thrust a talon down the hall. “I said get moving.” Her expression hardened yet more. “Stop staring at me like an idiot and do what I said! Lieutenant Ironclaw is waiting for us and I'm not going to waste a moment more on this than I have to.” She tugged my leg to get my numb body into motion.

I was too broken to voice anything, and just followed her as we wound our way through the labyrinth of a prison. So much for that. Papa really never would know what happened to me. It was for the best...

It also seemed that the half of the building we were entering was kept up in ever so slightly better condition. The walls were all dry and the few holes we encountered had been patched over. There were even tiled bits of carpet in some of the adjoining rooms, and the lighting was good enough for me to make out the faded patterns. Definitely not where you'd be executing someone when you had the landfill we were just leaving. Did the Talons have their own execution chambers?

My heart was thundering in my chest as Heidi led us through a pair of heavy wooden doors that appeared to have survived the centuries shockingly well. I barely made out an embossed carving of a blindfolded pony holding a set of scales before we barged through and emerged in...

...a courtroom. Not an execution chamber, but a courtroom. On the left, some of my former squad members sat at a table. Serge and Carmelita. They both glanced back our way, wearing grim expressions. To the right, Lieutenant Strongclaws and Egon sat at a similar table. Lastly, in the judge's booth dead ahead, sat a crisply groomed, slate gray griffoness that I didn't recognize. Was this Lieutenant Ironclaw?

She blew on a talon and cleared her throat. “Glad you could join us, Mr. Longtalons. Would everyone stand, please? I'd like to get this done as soon as I can because I have a lot of work to do this morning.” She angled a talon toward us. “If you don't mind?” Huh? What was I supposed to do, go stand in the little booth beside her? I had no idea how this stuff worked!

As it turned out, she was talking to Heidi, who pulled me along and directed me to a spot in the center of the room. My palms and armpits were growing sweaty as she left and joined Egon at the right table, leaving me to stare with equal parts of dread and expectation at my judge. Palpable silence smothered the room until Heidi addressed us all, “This courts martial will now commence. First Lieutenant Freija Ironclaw presiding.”

Up close, I couldn't help but notice how much the lieutenant reminded me of Liese, but now wasn't the time to start thinking about that. She lifted up a sheet, studied it briefly and said, “Private Longtalons, you're facing some very serious charges here. You've been charged with involuntary griffonslaughter, criminal negligence in your duties and misuse of Talon equipment.” She set the page down. “How do you plead?”

Heidi's warning flashed through my mind, and I was under no delusions that I could deny any of that happened, if I even wanted to. No, I was doomed anyway, and I owed it to Ida at least to admit fully what I'd done. “Guilty, ma'am. To the griffonslaughter. Not guilty to the negligence and misuse.”

“Very well then. Please have a seat.” She waved a hand toward the open seat next to Serge, which I reluctantly took. I didn't look either in the eye and didn't even dare to check to see if they were looking my way. Just sitting next to them was hard enough. I couldn't possibly interact with them right now... “Lieutenant Blackfeathers, you may begin.”

Heidi pointed toward the little booth I eyed earlier. “Have a seat. You'll be there for a while.” She assumed the position in front of the booth, fixed me with her withering gaze and asked me, “So, you claim that you're not guilty of negligence and misuse of equipment, despite the fact that you admitted to me last night that you killed Private Whiptail because you dropped your weapon. How do you care to explain that?”

“I-I'm not saying I didn't do it... it's... it's just that it was an accident. I didn't murder her! It was an accident!”

“So you said.” She turned halfway to the griffons behind her and asked, “Could you then describe to everyone just what happened?”

Serge looked my way without much of any hint of emotion, but Carmelita looked like a barely contained thunderstorm. I tore my eyes off of them and fixed them on the wooden rail in front of me, which I trusted wouldn't judge me as I spoke. “...it... as I told you earlier...” I went through the whole story again, detailing how I was so sleepy that I dropped the gun. Again I answered her questions on how that happened, and admitted to everyone present that I was a severe insomniac.

“And here we get to the criminal negligence,” Heidi said, mostly to Freija. She cut her eyes back to me. “Whether or not you meant to kill her, by keeping this a secret and trying to perform a job that requires a high level of alertness, you critically endangered everyone in your unit and ended up killing Ida. What do you have to say for yourself?”

That it was mostly true? It wasn't quite so clear cut, and I really didn't want to risk throwing Serge under the cart, but at this point I was speaking mostly by reflex anyway. “It's usually... usually not this bad. Most of the time it's fine. I... I needed the bits for my family and I... well, when I'm not too stressed out I'm fine.”

“Didn't you think that working for Talon Company would be stressful?”

“Yes ma'am, but... again, not every day was so bad. It was only lately... after the Pit... that it got this bad. I'd been managing okay before that... but...” I hung my head. “I knew I wasn't fit for duty. I told Sergeant Swiftwing that I didn't think I could handle it that day. I hoped he'd let me work at the clinic instead, but... he told me I had to go on patrol.” Silence fell again, but I could almost hear Serge's shock. I definitely wasn't going to look.

“...sergeant, is this true?”

“Uh... yes, ma'am, it is. It's standard procedure. He wasn't sick enough to send as a patient, and he wasn't scheduled to work there.”

The two went back and forth on 'procedures' that I knew nothing about and was in no frame of mind to comprehend anyway. I just hung my head further. This wasn't going to change anything about my fate and all I'd done is probably gotten Serge in trouble too. Sorry...

Their conversation was reaching a bit of heat by the time something loud banged. “That's enough. You two can discuss SOPs later, after this is over. Do you have any other questions or testimonies?”

Heidi clenched her claw. “Private Longtalons, have a seat. Private Galeforce, take his place.”

My body went through the motions largely without my input, giving Carmelita a wide berth to sit as far away from Serge as I could. Pony goddesses, why did I drag him into this? What had that accomplished? In a way I almost wished this pointless 'trial' was over so I wouldn't have to dwell on that on top of everything else.

“Now, Private Galeforce, I want you to describe the scene as you found it. Does it match up with Private Longtalons' story?”

Yet again I couldn't meet her eyes. Instead, I settled for staring into the wood grains of the table in front of me. “It might. A lot could have happened. I got there long after they were on the ground. He was busy pouring potions into her mouth when I saw them...” She went into excruciating detail on Ida's state when she got there. How she was clearly dead even from the air, twisted and broken. How I was squealing and pleading for her to stay alive. She mentioned something about my destroyed gun, but the details were lost and muddled in the rest of her testimony.

I could see Ida's face in my head as she spoke. Every last little detail, from the streaks of blood to every feather that was out of place... all of that was forever and permanently hammered into my brain. I'd never forget it as long as I lived, nor would I ever forget the unbridled terror, guilt and disbelief that accompanied it. It was almost impossible to keep it all in...

The interrogations couldn't have lasted ten more minutes. I think I was called back up once again for something, but frankly, what was asked of me and what I said was lost to time. It didn't matter anyway. All that I can remember is sitting at that little table again, next to my former squad mates, when Freija stood from her booth. “I think I've heard enough. Lieutenants Blackfeathers and Strongclaws, join me in the back.” My heart skipped and fluttered. This was it. Now she'd finish the mock trial and come back with the execution order. Why they even bothered discussing it eluded me. Some kind of sham for Red Eye's sake?

The discussion in the back went long. For minutes I stewed and simmered next to Carmelita. A time or two I dared to glance over, finding her and Serge silently staring into the table just like me. She crossed her arms and flicked her tail, but stayed quiet. At the other table, Egon sat alone, fiddling with the feathers on his chest. Fine. Let him preen himself. He didn't have to worry about what was about to come out of the back room. He didn't do anything wrong. He didn't have to worry about sweating so much that he could smell himself. Let him do whatever he wanted...

By the time the old wooden door creaked open, I was shaking. No amount of accepting my fate could quell my body's natural response to its imminent end. Truly, I was beginning to wish they'd hurry up. At least after the execution I wouldn't have to feel like this anymore.

“Private Longtalons, stand,” Freija ordered as she assumed her station at the judge's booth again.

The shaking made it hard, and I had to catch myself on the table, but I obeyed. Everything was blurry from water in my eyes, but I dared not reach up to wipe it away. I just blinked them clear and let it run down my cheeks.

“After hearing the evidence, and in light of... the current circumstances... both city-wide and of your own, I'm sentencing you to three months of hard labor, to be decided by your commanding officer, Lieutenant Heidi Blackfeathers. Furthermore, you will forfeit all pay during that period, and will be removed from your platoon and squad, pending reassignment.” Freija looked down her beak at me. “Lastly, at her option, I'm authorizing up to one hundred lashes, to be distributed at her discretion and with no more than fifteen at a time.” She struck her gavel once again. “Dismissed.”

“Huh...?” I croaked. I... I wasn't being executed? With significant effort, I turned to look at the others present, finding Serge and Lita just as surprised as I was.

Heidi just looked furious. She strode my way and leaned in close. “Don't think this is the end, private,” she whispered. “Freija might be too soft to put a bullet in your head, but this isn't over. You're going to work the crater, and I couldn't care less what happens to you. Maybe you'll trip over an alicorn. Maybe you'll just drop dead from radiation poisoning and get to be one of the little treasures the ponies are picking through the trash for. I don't care.” She sneered. “But before I hand your sorry ass over, you're going to join us at Ida's funeral. Sergeant, take him back to his cell.”

I waited in shameful silence for Serge to come and get me. They might not have shot me, but I'd heard enough about the crater to know that it was a death sentence all the same. I didn't get to go out quickly and with dignity.

I got what I deserved.

It might have been an hour or so before someone came to get me. From the cot I couldn't make out who it was in the dimness, but the awkward silence prompted me to perk up and slowly rise.

“...so... you here for Kaz or...?” one of my guards asked. More peculiar silence. “Uh huh... uh, one second.” They approached and wrestled with the lock before hefting the heavy metal door open. “Someone's here for you.”

There was little question why they were here, so I slipped off the cot and made myself as presentable as was possible. I probably wouldn't be returning to the cell. For better or worse.

To my surprise, it wasn't Heidi or Serge that stepped inside, or even Leigh. Instead, Isaac strode in, wearing an irritated frown. His eyes flicked up and down, scrutinizing me for something I could only guess at, but as usual he remained silent. Did they really send him of all griffons to get me?

“Um... is it...” I began, hoping he'd do anything other than just stare at me.

The big orange griffon rolled his eyes and waved a talon for me to follow him.

“Right... okay.” Without another word I joined him and followed as we wound our way back out of the decaying prison. For the first time in two days I found myself back out in the full glory of Fillydelphia, which wasn't nearly as glamorous in comparison as my memories had painted it. Even the attenuated overcast light stung my eyes, and the acrid smell stung my nostrils even worse, but at least I wasn't a caged bird any longer.

Isaac thrust a talon upward and beat his wings, lifting off and waiting for me to do the same. Taking to the air again was a liberating feeling, although the sensation was short lived indeed. I'd already suspected we were headed to attend the funeral that Heidi mentioned, but the sight of the churning smoke from the power plant confirmed it for sure. No doubt most bodies in Fillydelphia, at least those that were found, were cremated for various reasons, and the Talons were no different. While they seemed to prefer to use their own facilities for almost everything, I guess in the end there weren't a whole lot of convenient options for cremation.

We set down inside the courtyard atop the crumbling pavement, just away from a small gathering of familiar griffons. The other members of my squad, Heidi, Egon and Yvonne were all waiting for us near the entrance. Next to the path was a covered stretcher. An occupied stretcher.

“Good. We're all here,” Heidi said, walking down the steps to meet us halfway. She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment, then said to Isaac, “Help the sergeant carry her inside.”

My eyes fixed on the stretcher throughout the entire process of gently lifting and hauling it through the narrow doorway. Reality had continuously oscillated between feeling like a dream and sickeningly real ever since the... accident... but now was one of those moments that my brain refused to accept as happening. No longer could it half believe that somehow I'd wake up and everything would be okay. This was it. It was about to be over and done.

“Private, are you coming?” Heidi asked.

I snapped to and found just the two of us still outside. She was waiting at the doors, glowering at me. I still hadn't moved. “Yes, sorry...”

Hazy memories of the pony that she and Liese killed drifted back to the surface, and a tight feeling clenched in my chest. Every fiber of my being wanted to be somewhere else, a feeling I was growing very accustomed to, but I owed it to Ida to be respectful. Bleeding pinfeathers... just... bleeding pinfeathers...

The furnace room brought with it even less pleasant memories. One of the few moments that really stood out to me was the time that Ida found me here, dazed and lost after watching the pony go on to be with his goddesses. How could I have imagined that we would both be back there so soon, and for such an unimaginably horrible reason? My throat spasmed and my heart did something strange and unpleasant. I owed it to Ida to be respectful, but I could not stand to be here long... please...

Serge and Ike took up positions at the railing over the incinerator and hefted Ida's stretcher up onto it. Despite my fears that the rickety and rusted out metal piping would collapse under the weight, it all held. Ida's body shifted slightly and I looked away, down through the slats of metal under my feet into the darkness of the power plant's guts. Cold, uncaring machinery that wouldn't judge me.

“Let's begin,” Heidi said. Her voice carried through the small room, cutting through the silence like a bullet. I looked up, finding her standing off to the side of the pit and holding a rolled up sheet of paper. “We're gathered here today to put one of our sisters to rest. Private Ida Whiptail-”

A loud thump, crunch and splat interrupted her and startled everyone present, myself included. We all jumped and scanned the room, and a few even reached for weapons before the source became clear. Dripping from the ceiling vents was the thick slimy goop of a shattered egg. Little bits of shell sloughed off and fell down into the heat shimmer coming from the burners. Wh... what? Somebody tossed an egg into the trash disposal?

Heidi slammed a claw onto the flooring and shot an acidic gaze our way. “Corporal, go find whoever is responsible for this and tell them to meet me in my office in ten minutes. If they don't agree, shoot them. Egon, go with her.”

Leigh and Egon both gave quiet affirmations and vanished through the exit, leaving the rest of us in stunned silence. Who would do something like that? Why?

I didn't have long to contemplate it, as Heidi growled, cleared her throat and resumed the funeral. “Private Ida Whiptail lost her life in the service of Talon Company, performing her duties with the skill, diligence and care that is expected of all its members. With a clean record and six years of faithful service, she was an example to all of us, and will be remembered as one of its finest members.”

My throat started closing up again, and I held a claw up to it as I fought to keep my emotions in check. The conversation we had in this very spot was coming back to me in little bits and pieces. I remembered thanking her for supporting me so much, and for being an example for me if no one else.

“Through no fault of her own, her life was cut short and now we send her mortal remains to go on with her spirit into the rest that she has earned.” Heidi gave a nod to the two at the rails, and with a fluid motion they turned her stretcher up.

Ida's body slid and tumbled off into the abyss, falling for what felt like an eternity before a soft thump sounded. The crackling intensified along with a fresh spray of filamentous embers rising up in the hot fumes. Goodbye Ida. My eyes stung and my chest spasmed again. I wasn't going to be able to keep it in and I was starting to not care. “I-I'm so-orry...” I whispered under my breath. Pus spewing bleeding pinfeathers... who could ever forgive me doing something like this? Would Ida still be so understanding?

“In all of our contracts, there are three clauses for ending service in Talon Company. Serving your tour, dismissal by the captain, or losing your life in its service. By fulfilling her contract, I now absolve Ida of all duties and leave her to rest in peace.” Heidi stretched her hand out, holding the paper in the wispy smoke. The roll dropped and unfurled, floating down into the hole to never be seen again.

And that was it. That was the funeral service. You could give years of hard labor, be shot dead by your partner, and that was what you got. I doubled over and covered my eyes with a forearm, trying and failing miserably to keep my crying to an inaudible level. Now that the speech had ended, my gasps and heaves were the only sounds aside from the tiny crackles of Ida's body burning away. They all had to hear it, and I couldn't care less right then. If Heidi screamed at me again about being a grown griffon I might shove her into that damned incinerator. Maybe then they'd shoot me and this whole affair would finally be nothing but an ugly footnote in someone's file cabinet.

The silence stretched on and I kept crying. I cried until my body hurt. Even in the heat of the burner, I felt cold and hollow. A chill ran down my spine and radiated through my body. From no discernible direction I heard faint whispers. Whether it was my squad talking about me or if I was just losing my mind, I didn't know or care.

I flinched when I felt the light touch of a claw on my back, but I dared not meet eyes with anyone. All I could see through my blurry vision was faded pink feet and red feathers. Yvonne. I guess she had the least attachment to Ida out of anyone present...

Heidi said, “Sergeant, I have to go deal with something. I'm leaving it to you to take Kasimir to the crater. When you've done that, come see me.”

“Yes ma'am.”

One by one, everyone but Yvonne filtered out through the exit. On his way, Serge stopped. “Take your time. I'll wait for you outside.”

When it was just me and Yvonne left, she gave me a little squeeze and whispered, “Stay strong.” Then she was gone too.

It was just me and Ida. I picked myself up and trudged over to the furnace, trying to think of something to say. “I-I'm sorry, Ida. I... I... I...” I had nothing else to say. That was it. You couldn't put it into words.

Another wave of deep cold chilled my body, which I took as a sign that I should go.

I couldn't stand being in there any longer... my body just couldn't take it...

It was time for me to go and meet my end.

Gain Experience – You gain 1,000 experience points for learning another hard lesson.

Chapter 8: Doing Your Time

Chapter 8

Doing Your Time

The crater was every bit as daunting and unwelcome as I pictured it to be.

Even from a kilometer out I could sense the inexplicable wrongness of the barren patch of city ahead of me. Blackened and twisted buildings ringed the point of ground zero, starting with the titanic hole itself, moving on to a sea of rubble, to blasted and mummified stumps of skyscrapers out to the rest of the city. I'm not a superstitious griffon, but I'll admit fully that I felt like I was crossing over some haunted boundary that no living thing ever should. Yet, even from the air I saw that it was teeming with activity. Life. Trespassers in a forbidden land that stood as a testament to the folly of pony and zebra kind and would slowly strangle the life out of anyone who tread upon it.

Including me.

Serge and I crested an artificial hill, composed of debris so worthless that the slaves had pushed it aside rather than waste more time digging through it, and banked to continue around the perimeter rather than fly over the point of impact directly. Like every other high profile work camp in the city, the crater was surrounded by a curtain wall of decaying fencing two layers thick and topped by razor wire. Unlike most areas though, no guards were obvious. Perhaps it was too dangerous to assign anyone there for extended patrols. Perhaps the slaves were all too weak to try to escape. Either way, it clearly did its job.

Our target appeared to be a small guard shack at the sole entrance to the crater on foot: a musty white, wooden building with a metal roof overlooking the majority of the cavernous hole on its little hill. We touched down just inside the fencing, and the moment my claws touched the tainted soil my brain began conjuring phantom sensations of warmth and nausea. I knew I couldn't actually feel the radiation, but that did little to quell the sensations.

We just reached the shack when we were met by an aging white unicorn stallion shouldering the door open. He steadied the door on its creaky springs and adjusted his glasses before taking in a small, sharp breath. “Yes, sirs?”

Serge presented him with a slip of paper. “Are you in charge here?”

The stallion stopped reading and nodded. “I am. Shutter Flash. How... can I help you gentlemen?”

“That should explain everything,” Serge replied, indicating the paper. “In short, Kasimir Longtalons here has been assigned to you for the next three months for penal labor.”

Shutter's mouth did some interesting things as he straightened up. “Penal duty? You mean he's a Talon?”

“Yes, that's right. By orders from First Lieutenant Freija Ironclaw and Lieutenant Heidi Blackfeathers. Until then he is to serve hard labor at your discretion.”

The pony gave the slip of paper an incredulous look. “Yeah... yeah, um... okay. I'll get right on that.”

Serge nodded once. “See that you do. If you have any questions, please direct them to Lieutenant Blackfeathers.” He turned, locked eyes with me for a long, awkward second, beat his wings and lifted upward to leave me alone with Shutter.

He leaned heavily against the door frame he was still parked in, reading the page with undue focus. I had literally nothing to say to anyone at that point, so I sat silently, doing my best to not look out over the work area I was about to be picking through until my body failed. Shutter's eyes flicked from line to line, to me, back to the paper, to me, and again back to the paper. At long last he folded the paper up in his magic and mumbled, “Prancing princesses...”

This was already getting off to a fabulous start. I pictured that this part would be easy. 'Here, go dig in that hole until you die. Don't come out or we'll shoot you.' What was so hard about that?

Instead, Shutter gave a long snort. “Great. Just great.”

“I'm... sorry?”

He eyed me and snorted again. “Yeah, I bet. What'd you do anyway? I've never heard of this happening before. Oh sure, we get lots of slaves with grabby hooves that get caught, or ones who think they've got the guts to live through this but not the Pit. But this... this is new.”

Again, I just wanted to be left alone. Why did any of this have to get dragged out? ...whatever. He was my new boss, right? “There... was an accident. My fault. Some people died.”

Still propped against the frame, he nodded sagely. “Uh huh. And the Talons think there's going to be another fatality here, but I'm not that dumb.”

“...huh?”

He tapped a hoof to the side of his head. “Oh sure, I might have screwed up and got assigned this little stink heap to watch, but I'm not this stupid. No sir.” His hoof turned my way. “See, they send a Talon out here for punishment. Here. Next thing you know, you end up dead from radiation poisoning and who gets the blame? Hmm?”

“...I...I don't know? Liu-”

“Me!” He beat his hoof against his chest. “Yep. I can see it now. 'Old Shutter Flash put him out there digging with the ponies and he died.' You know what would happen to me if I got a Talon killed? They'd probably dip me in the moat and mount my bones on the gatehouse! Yeah, well, they've got another thought coming if they think they're going to fool me into doing that.”

“I don't understand...” What, was he going to just let me walk out? He'd get himself shot along with me.

“It's real simple. You're a Talon. You're trained to guard things right?” He waved a hoof over the crater. “Welcome to your new post, cadet.”

I grimaced and pointed to my naked self. “I don't have any equipment...”

He chuckled. “Oh, heh, no and there's no way I'm giving you a gun either. Yep, after wind gets out about me handing guns to the convicts I'll get flogged for sure. Hold it right here.” He disappeared inside the shack, letting the door slam shut with a loud, hollow clatter, and returned with something I'd only seen once before in my life but still filled my stomach with almost instinctive revulsion. A slaver's explosive collar. “Put this on. I don't want you flying the coop on me either.”

As much as every fiber of my being resented the idea, I had no choice. It hung loosely around my neck and the latches were so rusted I was more worried about getting tetanus from it than anything else, but a slaver's collar it was all the same. Funny though, it looked like all of the plastic explosives had been removed. Along with all of the fusing system.

“Good. You and I will get along just fine. Now, listen. This thing is rigged to explode if it's taken outside the fence, okay? If you try to run out through that gate, or fly over the fence... boom. Got it?”

I must admit that there was a little grim desire to test that little theory. Either I'd be out of my misery in one instant or I'd show him he was an idiot for putting an empty collar on me. Win-win. Of course, in reality I was so apathetic I just nodded.

“Yep, we'll get along just fine. Now, I'm not giving you a gun, a knife or a sharp stick. You've got eight perfectly good knives at the ends of those toes of yours, so that's what you're going to use if you have to. Most of the slaves here are pretty worn out, so they don't get into fights very often and when they do they're usually pretty tame. Still, it wastes time, you understand me? I've got quotas just like everyone else. If they waste time slapping each other then we all get behind and nobody is happy. Understand?”

The pause told me I was supposed to actually respond this time. “I understand.”

“Great. In that case, here's what you're going to do for the next three months. I want you to patrol the perimeter here. If you see a fight break out, break it up. If you think scaring the life out of a few slaves to keep them in line will work, great. Heck, try yelling at them some if you think they'll work harder. Whatever it is you Talons do. Anyway, do try to stay away from the center of it all. That's where the rads are worst, and I don't have enough meds to waste on keeping you breathing. Any questions?”

I cast another tired gaze out over the crater, catching a glimpse of two ponies triggering a tiny landslide of debris. My heart froze until I saw them wearily claw their way out of the heap and get back to work. “I... will I be staying with the slaves?”

“Don't have any choice,” Shutter replied simply. “There's an old shipping container of some kind on the other side of the yard. Made of solid lead they say. That's where all of the slaves sleep and eat. When you hear the siren go off, your shift's over and you can do whatever you want back there. Got it?”

“Yes... sir.” I took a deep breath and forced the emotions out of my mind again. I wasn't going to survive long if I didn't.

“Great. Then get to work.” Shutter shooed me off with both forehooves and vanished back into his little station.

Yeah. Right. How long did I think I was going to live anyway? Outside the crater. Inside the crater. Three solid months of this would kill anything this close.

I got what I deserved.

My first day on the 'job' started out as awkward and uneventful as I could have hoped for. I spent the first few hours just pacing around the perimeter near the fence, taking it as slow as I thought I could get away with. I knew full well that I wouldn't be getting much to eat anymore and wasting the energy would just compound my miseries when I got hungry later. Perhaps even worse than that though was the boredom I was trying to ward off. I'd be here for the rest of my life, but the difference between seeing the same landmarks 300 times and 30,000 times in that period was pretty substantial. I needed something to keep my mind occupied, else it was going to start drifting back to why I was here. Well, more than it was already.

At least I was so tired that my brain wasn't doing much other than guiding my feet as I plodded along. With each step the collar hanging loosely around my neck shook and rattled, almost lost in the constant rustling and scraping that echoed from the crater to my left. Maybe I was lucky that I had feathers instead of fur there, since that would keep the chafing to a minimum. The tetanus might not kill me before the radiation did, but I didn't want to experience it either way.

I could try flying around instead of walking, but frankly I just didn't have the energy or will. Besides, it drew attention. If Shutter Flash didn't see me and freak out over the fact that I might be trying to escape then it would distract some of the slaves if they saw me.

By this point I was past caring about being put on show. Shutter could parade me around the crater like his new prize for all I cared. It couldn't embarrass me anymore. But this place... this wasn't the place for someone to get distracted. I trudged to a stop and glanced out over the rolling hills of debris. Slaves of a uniform color of grime and soot crawled over the mountain, losing their footing on occasion or dodging falling chunks. This... this was not a good place for me to be. Everything went wrong wherever I went.

Turning my focus to the fence, I pressed on. As depressing as the crater itself was, at least there was life there. The ghost of the city surrounding us was almost haunting and filled me with unease just looking at it. As terrible as the rest of Fillydelphia was, this felt wrong in an entirely different way. It was like looking out over a nightmare where you dreamed you woke up one morning and everyone was gone. The black and blasted landscape was silent and still. Dead. I didn't want to look at it anymore, but haunting as it was I couldn't look away. For reasons I'll never be sure of, I drifted closer and just... stopped at the fence. I held up a claw to grasp the rickety wiring and just looked out.

My heart cut out for a second when my eyes settled on a distinctly identifiable pony skull poking up from the ground. It was as black as the rest of the terrain, no doubt burnt and scorched bare before being covered in ash like everything else. By now it was just part of the scenery... something to be overlooked and ignored like a rock.

I couldn't just ignore it. My tired mind went off on one of its little tangents, trying to picture what that pony had been doing when the balefire bomb went off. Again my heart responded poorly when it dawned on me that a skull that small had to be a foal's. It was just a child. A little colt or filly that was trapped in the city during the end of the world that hadn't been lucky enough to get into a stable. What had he or she been doing? Were they huddled up in terror as the sirens blared? Blissfully ignorant of their impending death and taken out too fast to feel any pain? Or... since there was a skull to even see, had they instead been further away and wandered here to die in the coming days from injuries or radiation poisoning?

My eyes blurred and my throat ached as I looked down. My beak rattled against the links in the fence on the way down and I pressed my head against it to hide my face from any who might see me.

I just couldn't handle any more. Again, like in the prison, I let the dam burst and just cried. A grown griffon shouldn't cry, but I didn't care. There was no room left inside me for any emotions. I leaned against the fence and just cried. Was it over that poor little foal who'd been dead for two hundred years? Was it over Ida who'd been dead for two days? Was it over me and my stupidity? I didn't know, and I didn't care. I just cried.

As much as I felt like just sobbing into the stoic and uncaring fence for the rest of my sentence, I managed to pull myself together and resume my new duties. Nobody noticed, cared or had the guts to come approach the big scary griffon that was experiencing a string of emotional malfunctions, so at least I didn't have to worry about anyone pointing it out. Time to get back to work being the big scary griffon that intimidated ponies into working.

Despite the fact that I'd been charged with watching the ponies picking through the crater, I was doing my level best to pay attention to everything but them. The burnt landscape surrounding us wasn't much better, which really left just the encampment's fences as my last resort in a search for something to take my mind off of things. As you can probably appreciate, it didn't offer much relief. By the third or fourth time I'd made my way around the perimeter I finally recognized the sole anomaly bolted to a strip of corrugated tin strapped to the fence: an air raid siren.

I must have been more frazzled than I realized, since I'd seen one almost every day for the past what... ten or fifteen years? Oatsfield had one at its center, which I was told was installed during the war but had never been used. They kept it there to use as a town rallying call, like for raiders or worse. It was never used as long as I'd been there either, thankfully, and I couldn't help but wonder what it sounded like. Was it a piercing, shrill sound? Or a low pulsing-

My strange daydream shattered to pieces as I heard ponies shouting behind me.

“It's mine! I saw it first!” a mare pleaded.

“Let go! I need it more than you!” a stallion shouted in return.

First day on the job, again, and already there was work to be done. I bounded over a fallen pipe too rusty to be reclaimed and skidded around a pile of rubble to find the two responsible: a lemon coated earth pony mare and a sky blue earth pony stallion. He looked like he'd seen quite a few better days in his life, as his fur was missing in patches all over his body.

I flapped my wings hard for show and slid down a little embankment of mud to get their attention. “What's going on here?” I demanded. As much as I tried to sound imposing, it came out as little more than an angry croak.

Both ponies froze and dropped the sparkling piece of... whatever it was. Something with spell matrices in it at least, and undoubtedly worth something. The bigger mare shot an accusing hoof his way and said, “I found this thing and was going to grab it, but he's trying to take it from me!”

“I saw it first,” he whimpered.

“No, I did!”

The stallion coughed and dug his hoof into the soft ground. “I saw it yesterday.”

“So, why didn't you get it then, huh?”

“I-I didn't know it was a spell thingy...”

“Well then, too bad, because now it's-”

I growled and flared my wings, which to my mild surprise shut them up. “Enough. Why are you even arguing over it? One of you just take it and move on.”

The stallion groaned and said, “I've only got a month left before I'm done here. Just one more month... four weeks. I'm getting really sick and the quotas are getting tougher... but I think I can make it. I just need this and my quota for today will be met.”

Lemon mare snorted. “And me? I've been here for a week but what about when I get to your point? I can hide it somewhere for later and I'll be set.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “And I found it.”

Oh, great. Quotas. Of course. I groaned this time and stepped forward to examine the piece of technology. It wasn't anything I recognized, but maybe I could find some way to split it between them. Turning it over and around, I could only tell that it must have had some charge packs in it somewhere to still be glittering like it was, and there were some removable chips of some kind. I yanked the three cards out and fooled with the case for a minute before giving up on removing the charge packs.

“Hey... you can't take it from both of us!” the mare shouted.

“I'm not. Here.” I thrust the cards her way and presented the rest of the spell board to the stallion. “Now you both have a piece.”

The stallion looked down at his new prize with a little grin. “Oh, thank you...”

Miss lemon pouted at her smaller spoils. “But it's not worth as much. We'll have to keep looking for crap... and why does he get the bigger piece?”

“Because I said so. Now, the more time you spend standing around here, the less you get done and the more rads you soak up trying to meet your quotas. Just be happy you have anything at all and get back to work. You'll both be happier in the end.”

She didn't seem overly pleased with my impromptu ruling, but she must not have had the guts to challenge my complete lack of authority. “Fine.” She slid the cards into the ragged pack on her side and turned to leave.

The other pony did the same, albeit with that grin still on his face. Maybe he'd just played me for a fool after all. Whatever. It didn't matter. One thing did though... “Play nice, both of you. Now that I'm here, I don't want to see anymore arguing over stuff like this or stealing from each other. Understood?”

“Yeah... fine...”

“Yes sir, thank you!”

I blew out a deep breath and scaled the slope of mud and crushed concrete to get back up to the perimeter fence. That wasn't going to be the last time I had to break up something like that, and I was certain that there would be many, many more arguments in my near future. At least maybe I helped a little just now. Whether or not that pony was telling me the truth, I still tried to do what I thought was right.

That... was about all I had left to give anymore. I might as well.

The sound of the air raid siren blaring through the dull white noise of ponies picking through trash somehow managed to be everything I expected and nothing like it at all. I nearly jumped out of my feathers when the horn roared to life, carrying a rising and falling pitch so strong I felt it in every bone of my body. I didn't even remember falling over, but I found myself using the fence as a brace to claw my way back up to my feet. Couldn't they find some a bit more subtle to use as a shift alarm? Now that I knew what it was, I recognized it as something I'd heard every night all the way over at the Talon base!

Had it really been that long already? Peering up at the eternal cloud cover, I guessed it had. The clouds were beginning to turn a rusty shade, this time from sunset more than from pollutants since there were no furnaces for kilometers, and the muggy air was beginning to cool slightly. Maybe that would be the only perk of being away from the industry... it wouldn't be too hot to sleep. Yeah, right. Like I planned on actually sleeping.

I was starting to get hungry though. Shutter Flash said the old shipping container was where the slaves ate and slept, so if I cared to do either that's where I needed to go. If it really was made of lead then it would be the only real shelter from the deadly radiation too, which I cared the most about. As it turns out, having a fatalistic attitude and not expecting to survive something tends to not last long when you have a chance to really think about it, and my survival instinct was kicking in pretty strongly.

A procession of ponies preceded my own trek toward the shelter, most of which I didn't recognize. Only lemon mare really stood out in the crowd. That was good. I knew these ponies would be dying often, and the less I knew them the better that would go, as awful as it was. There was simply nothing I could do to help them.

The entrance to the shelter had already formed a long line by the time I got there, and as we slowly worked our way closer I saw Shutter Flash up ahead stopping each slave and taking whatever they'd found. With each plink of metallic scrap in the huge bin, he noted something down on his yellowed notepad and signaled for the next to come forward.

By the time it was my turn I was beginning to worry that he'd expect me to present something as well, but fortunately it seemed he was a pony of his word and just nodded me through. I passed a small radiation hazard sign painted onto the side of the shelter, ignoring the joke if it was one, and tried to find somewhere to just sit down for a minute.

The shelter itself turned out to be, shockingly, everything he promised. Ironically, it appeared to also be an old train car, or cobbled together from a dozen transport trailers, and easily had enough room for all of the slaves to spread out and have a little personal space. Two extra floors of space had been rigged together from stripped pieces of the far wall of the container, exposed to the poisoned air but at least not in direct line of sight of the radiation. None of the living spaces appeared to be personalized at all. Either the slaves really had nothing, or the turnover rate must have been every bit as bad as I feared, since I had little doubt that most of the new slaves came here rather than risk the Pit. All told there couldn't have been more than a hundred slaves there. Far fewer than I expected for a work area this large.

Unfortunately, if you put a hundred tired, unhappy and desperate ponies in a room together, bad things are bound to happen. I had scarcely managed to find a spot to plop down in before I heard shouting coming from the opposite side of the shelter. Ponies were beginning to fan out to make room for what I feared was growing into a full brawl, and I lurched up to try and defuse the situation before it did.

“Please, I'm so hungry... I don't think I can go on without it...”

“That's too bad. Remember the deal? Give me my part or I'm going to take it all the hard way.”

Oh great. Just freaking fantastic. This again. Well, this time I could do something about it. With a clear path leading to the two grimy stallions, I stormed over and demanded, “What's going on here?”

Both flinched in a satisfying manner, but the bigger one, who I assumed was the thug demanding food, rallied quickly. “...none of your business. Who are you anyway?”

“Security. That means this is very much my business.”

The little unicorn holding a bowl of soupy oatmeal in his magic held a hoof up. “H-he's trying to take my food ration. He threatens us and demands we give him some.”

“Shut up.” The bigger earth pony growled at him and appraised me with his eyes. “You're security, huh? Why bother? Not like we're going to escape or something. Where's your gun anyway? Oh, and a bomb collar too, huh? Look, just because you're a griffon doesn't mean you can get away with passing yourself off as a guard and think you can boss us around. You think you're the first griffon slave to come through here?”

No, this couldn't be easy, could it? “It's complicated, but I'm part of Talon Company, first platoon. Back off.”

He stomped a hoof down. “'Complicated?' I'm going to make it complicated. You back off or I'll add you to the list, feathers. This is my turf.” He snorted and swished his tail.

“I won't tell you again,” I warned him. Please, please take the bluff.

“Neither will I.”

I don't remember the punch, but I do remember wondering how I got on the floor. My cheek throbbed and my beak didn't seem to close quite right anymore, but I didn't have time to ponder that. Expecting a followup after hearing a determined grunt from my assailant, I rolled over with the help of a wing to spring up. His hoof tore past my face close enough to feel the wind and a crunch and screaming wave of pain in my wing told me where it landed. With no time to focus on that I let instinct take over and raked with my hind legs, catching him on two legs and sending him toppling to the ground with a startled yelp.

He tried to roll over and get to his hooves, but I was faster and pounced atop him. Evading a poorly aimed kick, I wrapped my talons around his throat and pressed the tips in enough that even a thick skinned idiot could tell that I had him where I wanted him. “I told you to back off. Now, you're going to listen to me or I'm going to show you how sharp griffon talons are.”

The pony glared daggers at me, but wisely stayed quiet.

“Everyone else, listen up. Now that I'm here, I don't want to see this anymore. I mean it. I won't stand for you beating each other up, stealing from each other or even threatening each other.” I tightened my grip ever so slightly and cocked my head at the pony below me. “Understand?”

“Yes...”

I dismounted and stepped aside, giving myself plenty of room to dodge any further attacks, but luckily for both of us he didn't try anything. “Good.” I worked my jaw twice, finding the motion painful and stiff. “Now, everyone eat and rest up.”

As I turned away and started searching for somewhere secluded to see just how hurt I was, I was met with an old, white unicorn stallion in my path. “Well now, that was quite a sight,” Shutter said. “That joker has been messing things up for two weeks now.”

“Glad I could help,” I mumbled, trying not to move my mouth too much.

“Yeah, you saved me a lot of trouble, you did. You're going to do just fine I think.” He grimaced. “Try not to get hurt too bad though. Like I said... not any meds to spare, you understand?”

I groaned and nodded. That was how it worked in Fillydelphia, so no surprises there.

“Right, well. Rest up. You did good, but you've got eighty-nine days of this left. You've got to ration yourself if you're going to make it.” He gave me a pat on the back, on the side of my good wing thankfully, and wandered off to inspect the rest of the crowd.

“No problem...”

Eventually I found a spot behind a pillar and flopped down. My jaw hurt but still worked, so I was pretty sure it wasn't broken or even seriously injured. A week or two from then it would be fine if I was still alive. My wing though...

“Um... sorry, but do you mind if I eat here?” A small, grungy unicorn stallion stood to my side. He glanced around briefly, then back to me expectantly.

“No, go right ahead.”

He sank to the floor next to me. “Thank you. Um... for everything. Railroad Spikes has been hounding me since I got here.”

I nodded and opened my jaw a bit wider, eliciting a crisp pop and jolt of pain. “No problem, just doing my job.”

“Well, I really appreciate it. The name's Rusty Rivet, by the way.”

Not in much of the mood to talk here... “Kasimir Longtalons. And you're welcome.”

He went to sip from his bowl and paused. “Um... say, do you want some? I mean, you saved it for me in the first place...”

“I'll get my own in a minute,” I assured him. “You need it.” Not to mention I was starting to feel a little light headed and dizzy.

He happily slurped up the watery sludge, watching me as I examined my wing. “You're not hurt, are you? Is it broken?”

Oh, probably. It sure as hell hurt like it... but I'd never had a broken bone before to compare it to. “It's fine. Just sprained I think.” I needed to find something to splint it with.

“Ah, good, good. So, um... if you don't mind me asking, if you really are a Talon, how'd you end up here?”

...it was going to be a long night...

Not much of interest happened the next day. I don't think I got any sleep that night, for every reason you can imagine, and the day that followed largely consisted of me groggily patrolling the outer rim of the crater, moaning every time I tried to fold my hurt wing and occasionally picking through the outermost heaps of discarded detritus in search of a suitable splint for it. The pain actually wasn't unbearable so much as just distracting and tiring. Every wrong movement was like someone was rubbing sandpaper against the nerves in my wing, and when I tried to rest and get comfortable it seemed that every move was a wrong move.

It was the second day that I'd had enough of the incessant grating and grinding that I was seriously considering using a strip of irradiated wood or plastic to brace the wing. It came down to whether I wanted to accept a radiation burn or never sleeping or resting again, which wasn't much of a choice. I'd just turned away from staring out to the foal's skull again and was examining what looked like the leg of a chair when a rush of air was followed by a loud thump behind me.

“Holy shit, Kaz... it's true.”

My hands went limp and the chair leg dropped back into a puddle of unidentifiable muck. Slowly, I turned and found a solid gray griffoness standing behind me. “Liese?”

She started my way. “I didn't believe them. I told Alfred he was full of shit, but... holy shit. He was right.” Her voice was unusually low and calm. “Is it true? Did you really-” Her eyes flew open and she flew forward to grasp the collar around my neck. “Who put a fucking bomb collar on you? I'll tear their head off and... and... was it Heidi? If that bitch thinks she can do this to my brother-”

“Liese, stop!” I brushed her leg to get her to release the collar. “It wasn't Heidi. It's not even armed. Look... just... you can't help me, okay? It's bigger than either of us...”

Her usual demeanor returned. “You let me decide that.” She raised a talon to my face. “What happened here?”

“I was dumb enough to try to do my new job and break up a fight here. Some pony was bullying others and I put him in his place.”

She popped a knuckle and scanned the crater. “Okay, tell me who. I'll put him in his place for real.”

I waved a claw. “No, Liese... please, you can't make it any better. I'm here because I deserve it. I don't want you getting mixed up in it and suffering because of what I did. In fact... y-you probably shouldn't even be here. You'll get in trouble too.”

She waved her claw back at me. “Don't worry about that. I don't care if Gunther or Heidi yell at me.” Her eyes tracked over me and settled on my extended wing. “...and looks like it's a good thing I came when I did.”

She wasn't going to stop until she found out who hit me, was she? This wasn't some squabble on an elementary school playground. This could easily escalate way above either of our heads. “It'll be fine. I just need to brace it and let it rest.”

“I've got a better idea.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a smaller, unlabeled sack. “Here. A present from Vonny.”

“Yvonne?” My heart skipped as I checked inside. A faint purple glow shined from a vial of liquid that could only be a healing potion. Next to it was a yellow packet of RadAway and two red capped tablets. Rad-X?

“Yeah. Alfred told her I was your sister last time he was at the clinic, and she sent this for you. Honestly, Kaz, do you tell anyone I'm related to you?” Liese tapped a talon on the tablets. “She said she had a few more of these, but try not to go overboard. There's only so many she can have go missing before people get suspicious.”

I held the bag back up toward her. “I... I can't take this. If Stern finds out, she'll have Yvonne's head, and maybe yours too.”

Liese sighed and shook her head in an exaggerated motion that swept her feathers from side to side. “Kaz, you're my brother and I love you, but sometimes you're just really dumb. Take it, or else I'm going to have to force it down your throat, okay? You aren't going to make it out of here without it.” Her shoulders slumped just visibly. "...I'm not going to watch you... y'know... like ma."

For an extended moment I stared down into the sack and at the glowing medications, trying not to think about the last thing she said. “It won't last three months.”

“Vonny is already working on that. Relax. Just because Heidi sent you out here doesn't mean you're alone. I've got your back.”

I rolled the open bag up and held it tightly in my claws. “Thanks...”

For the first time since she got there, Liese cracked a little smile. “It's what sisters do.” She sat back and crossed her arms before asking, “So... it's true then? You really... y'know? Ida?”

It wasn't like I didn't know this conversation was coming, so I'd been somewhat preparing for it. In the back of my mind I half expected to be dead before Liese turned up though. “I don't know what you heard, but it was an accident. Just... another f-fucking accident. I was so sleepy I fell asleep in the air and dropped my gun. The odds... the odds were one in a billion, but the gun went off and hit her. She was killed instantly when she hit the ground.”

“Oh... shit. Kaz...”

“I know. It's just... fuck me, Liese, when is it going to stop? Or when is it going to be me that gets hurt or killed so I don't have to deal with this anymore?” Dammit, dammit, dammit... I wasn't going to cry in front of her of all people.

“Hey, hey... stop that.” To my complete and utter shock, I found myself in a weak hug. From Liese. “You've had some rotten luck, but you've made it this far, right? Just suck it up and move on.”

...yeah, that was Liese alright. “I'm trying...”

She patted my back and let go. “See? Feel any better?”

Not really, but for her sake and my sanity I nodded. If only papa could see me now. What would he-wait. “How's papa?”

“Uh... he's... fine. That should probably wait for another time though.” She started backing away slowly.

Oh boy, what was she hiding from me? “What's wrong? Is he getting sicker? You didn't tell him I was here, did you?”

“No, and no. Just, later, okay?” Liese jumped into the air and pointed a talon at me. “Be a good boy and take your medicine, and I'll tell you next time, okay?” Without waiting for me to answer, she inverted in the air and flapped her wings hard to propel herself over the fence and away.

“Hey, wait! Liese, what's wrong? Liese!” But, it was too late. She ignored me and sped away, taking with her whatever dire news she had and with it my only glimmer of hope.

Well, that wasn't really true. I unfurled the bag and took stock of my supplies again. If she and Yvonne were so intent on keeping me alive, I guess I owed it to them to try. I also owed it to papa to find out what Liese was hiding, and... to ma I think. I couldn't bear to think of how she'd feel if she knew that I could die of radiation exposure.

But rather than think about all of that, I focused on finding that splint. My wing wouldn't set right from the potion alone.

That... was not going to be fun.

Ever tried to set a bone? Your own? With no anesthesia?

Neither had I...

Gain Experience – You gain 500 experience points for learning from what doesn't kill you.

Chapter 9: Every Good Deed...

Chapter 9

Every Good Deed...

“...and that's how I lost my contractor's license.” Rivet, which I'd come to call him since the name Rusty reminded me way, way too much of the stallion from the pit, chuckled weakly as he stirred his food. “Or failed to get it I guess. Never did make it to Friendship city, but I always make that little joke. I guess it got more laughs before I ended up in this radioactive stink heap.”

“Mmhmm.” I was trying to pay attention, honest, but it was hard. I don't think I'd had a quiet moment to myself since I put Railroad Spikes in his place, and I'm not the kind of person who really thrives in a large social circle. Which I absolutely had attained somehow. I guess being a halfway upstanding person who was true to his word about being a guard actually meant something to the more honest slaves, even if it meant jack all to everyone who mattered.

I immediately felt bad for thinking like that the moment I flicked my eyes up, once again, to the small army of ponies in varying degrees of grunge and disarray bunched up along the walls around me. They mattered. Just... only to me I guess. If they didn't matter I wouldn't have stopped Railroad Spikes from taking whatever he wanted, right? Right.

The pony in question was sitting off in his corner, alone, occasionally glancing my way with what he probably thought was a withering glare. Yeah, whatever buddy. You had a chance to be a nice guy, and for once the bad guy was going to lose. One thing that can be said for impressing three quarters of the healthy ponies around you is that if you get jumped by one pony, he wasn't terribly likely to win.

“Hey, something wrong? Need me to get you something? Want some water?”

One of the younger mares to my right, a golden colored unicorn with a mane striped with white, silver and mud, was looking my way with the eagerness of a pet. If I didn't say something she'd be up and searching high and low for some water that wasn't a shade of yellow in a second or two.

“No, no. I'm fine. Thanks.”

Yeah, there was that.

In a sense, I really had formed my own little army here, whether I meant to or not. The slaves here in the crater had almost literally nothing, and that very much included a lack of stability. Even the tiniest glimmer of hope of being protected was something to latch onto and cling to for dear life. Again, maybe even literally...

While it was all well and good that they liked and trusted me, I was going a bit out of my mind. I almost couldn't scratch myself without fear of some pony offering to get it for me. At this rate I wasn't going to be able to even take a restroom break without someone offering to help in a day or two.

“...right, so, as I was saying, I never made it to Friendship city, obviously. I think my fillyfriend and kids did though. Never seen them here anyway.” Rivet licked cautiously at his oatmeal. “I forget, do you have any kids? Any family?”

“Nope.” Uh, okay, let's try that again. “No kids, I mean. No girlfriend and no wife either. I've never been much of the romancing kind I guess.”

He nodded and made affirming noises mixed with obvious attempts to stomach his food. “I get you. Not a great world to be having kids in, let me tell you. Sometimes... things just happen though. So, what about your parents? Talons too?”

“No.”

Rivet's chewing slowed a bit. “Hey... sorry if I'm bugging you. It's just, you know, boring out here.”

I shrugged and started digging in my bag. “It's okay, I'm not mad. Just tired. No, my parents aren't Talons, but my sister is.”

“Oh, a sister, huh? What I'd give to have two of you out here...”

Yeah, just keep thinking that way. At length I grabbed the slick packet of Rad-Away in my claws and pulled it out. To my surprise, nobody, not even Shutter Flash, seemed to bat an eye at me having the bag. Not worth the trouble of possibly incurring the wrath of a Talon probably. They were a bit more curious about the liquid I'd dribbled into my oatmeal though, and in a flash of desperation I just told them all I'd found a packet of mustard out in the crater. It was yellow at least, but had a consistency of water and the flavor of dusty apples and slightly burnt wagon tires. Yummy, delicious, life saving 'mustard.' Ugh.

Nope. It didn't taste any better this time. Either that or the oatmeal got even worse, which seemed improbable. I tried to think about anything other than what I was eating as I sat and looked over my little cult again. I cared about them, but not enough to give away the Rad-Away. I just couldn't. It wouldn't matter anyway. If I split it up among them all it wouldn't do a thing, and how could I choose one or two to help? This wasn't like triage in a hospital. I couldn't just pick the healthiest and give it to them, hoping they'd make it. Some had family with them that were in much worse shape. Some were criminals that got sentenced here like me. How could I possibly pick...

My wandering mind slowly wandered back to reality when I noticed that everyone around me had either gone silent or were frantically jabbing their friends with free hooves while gesturing frantically at the ceiling above me.

Naturally, that got my attention. I spun around and looked up to see an alicorn perched atop the wall and staring down at us all through a missing maintenance hatch.

The ponies scattered amidst a cacophony of squeals and shrieks, leaving me alone against the wall beneath our newest guest. Liese wasn't kidding. The alicorns really did hang around the crater. What should I do? I eased up onto my feet and backed away... no sudden movements.

The solid blue mare spread her wings and drifted down to the floor. She fixed her eyes on me.

Okay... okay... what now? Liese told me they were here, but nothing else. If she'd gotten close to one and lived they must not be bloodthirsty at least. “Uh...”

She cocked her head and her eyes wandered over me. Once, her wings shuffled. Once, her tail shifted. She said nothing.

“...hi?”

The mare's tail swished again and she tilted her head the other way, but still she said nothing. She stepped forward and circled me at a leisurely pace, and when she was done checking me out, she spread her wings and drifted upward and out of the cargo container. Halfway up she vanished in a crackle of magic.

“Bye...” Okay, I wasn't going to lie. That was very, very, creepy, but she didn't attack me or anything. Why was it that everyone was so scared of them again?

“Holy horse apples... did you all see that? He just stood there! Wasn't scared at all!”

“Yeah! Nothing scares this guy!”

Oh... pinfeathers. My already vastly inflated reputation was now threatening to burst like a balloon. So much for any hopes of having personal space again soon. I'd probably better get ready for help at the restroom after all...

“Three cheers for Longtalons!” Bowls clanked together and ponies went back to eating. I was just confused.

Someone next to me spluttered and stuck his tongue out. Rivet? “Blugh... is the cook peeing in the oatmeal now?” He frowned and stirred some runoff from the ceiling into his-no, my bowl-and tasted it again. “Yuck. When I get out of here I'm filing a formal complaint.”

Ding ding, guess who just won the lottery? If I couldn't make up my mind who to give some Rad-Away to, leave it up to chance to do it for me. Oh well.

I scooped up his bowl and tried to forget that his saliva was mixed into it now. I was hungry enough not to care.

Just had to keep it together until Liese showed up again. That's it. No point in worrying over something that trivial while I still didn't know what was wrong with papa.

It was about two weeks later when I saw Liese again, although without a calendar around it was hard to be entirely certain what day of my sentence I was currently serving. Time really does become amorphous and indeterminate quickly when you're incarcerated. Just like everything else that wasn't tied directly to getting through the day.

On my fourth or fifth trip around the crater's fence line, I decided to stop and once again ponder the fate of the foal whose skull still protruded from the tarry burnt dirt mixed in with last night's light shower of radioactive particulates and rain. I was beginning to wonder if the foal had even died in the balefire blast. Their skull was seemingly alone and, although partially buried, close enough to the surface to be uncovered by the precipitation where no others had. Maybe they'd died in Fillydelphia in the past few years even?

If Red Eye didn't have such a strong policy regarding the ponies' children I might have even been convinced of it. The boredom of wandering around the hole in the ground for weeks had even given me the time I needed to imagine some grand plot where a foal slave escaped captivity long enough to make it this far, only to die of the radiation and magical poisoning. Red Eye then enacted a rule preventing foals from being slaves ever again, because he had a soft enough heart not to let children work themselves to death, but not adults.

None of that really happened of course, but it would make a decent story, maybe. I grumbled and turned away from the fence, making a tiny mental note that maybe if I ever did see the day I left the crater maybe I could even write it in my spare time. Maybe even writing a sad story like that would be therapeutic or something. Yeah. Right.

“Hey Kaz, catch!”

“Huh?” I looked back to see Liese floating in the air, arms pulled back in preparation to throw something. Hey, wait! RadAway bags were fragile! I stumbled and tried to line up with her projected toss, but I wasn't going to make it!

She let out a long string of chuckles and relaxed. “Hah, you didn't really think I was going to throw this, did you? Man, if I dropped and broke it, Vonny would probably make Gunther play that stupid record in our room all night as punishment.”

I relaxed too and sighed. “Nice to see you too...”

“Alright, alright, don't get all grumpy on me.” She floated down and landed next to me. “I'm just trying to lighten the mood a bit. I hear this place is a real dump.” When I refused to acknowledge the real terrible joke, she scoffed and sat. “Anyway, how have you been? Haven't been in any more fights, have you?”

“No. I think the only ones here who want to start something are scared of me now.”

Liese beamed. “Oh yeah? I hear you, Kaz! Put 'em in their place. Hey, you might really get the hang of this job after all!”

At the risk of her thinking I'd beaten someone into submission I considered telling her the truth, but I didn't want to launch into that story and possibly give her an excuse to hit the road before she told me what I wanted to hear. “Yeah. Right. Maybe. Anyway, you said you'd tell me about papa this time, remember?”

“Yeesh, hang on, hang on. I'll get to that. First, here's your medicine.” She slipped me a worn leather bag, which I emptied into my last one. I didn't imagine she'd be able to produce an infinite supply of those too, so I handed it back. “How's your supply holding up?”

“I'm learning how to ration it. I ran out of RadAway four days ago, but I took a quarter of the Rad-X tablet. I know it wasn't enough to last until now, but that much exposure shouldn't be a problem. Are you going to come this regularly?”

She shrugged. “I just come when Yvonne tells me to. That's been hinging on Alfred being an idiot and getting too drunk so far, but yeah, if she doesn't send for me I'll go bug her until she hands it over.”

I let a tiny, relieved smile form. “Good. Thanks again. Now, about papa?”

She held up a claw. “Alright, alright. Listen... promise you won't get mad?”

Ugh. Dammit. Fine. “I promise. What did you do?”

“Right, so, remember how you told me to tell him you were working for Crimson's Caravan? Well, I got to thinking that it would probably be more convincing if I had something from Crimson's Caravan to show for it, you follow?”

“Yes?”

“Right. So, on my way to Oatsfield I stopped in that little shit hole outside of Neighples for the night. You know? Run by that hilariously fat mare with the weird mole?”

“No?”

She raised any eyebrow. “You've never... oh, never mind. There's this little overnight place there. I hit it up on most of my trips to and from Oatsfield. Anyway, I saw that Crimson's Caravan was heading into Neighples so I decided to go peek in on what they had. I bought a few things from them to give to papa. One of those little red mugs, a blanket... uh, let's see, what else...”

I was getting the picture. “So you spent most of the bits. How much did you give to him?”

She grinned nervously. “Heh, so you said you wouldn't get mad, right?”

The answer was starting to sound an awful lot like zero, but, yes I did promise. “Just tell me.”

“Three bits.”

Oh, good, more than I thought. I couldn't help but growl and dig my talons into the dirt all the same. “Liese, a stupid mug and a blanket don't cost a few hundred bits. What else did you do with my money?”

She held up a claw. “Yeah, see... that's the part I wasn't counting on. I, uh, have kind of run up a tab with Butter Buns over the years, and she decided to call it. Now, see, I'd have told her to go screw herself, except she caught me by surprise. With a shotgun. And three buddies. With shotguns.” She cleared her throat. “So, you know, I figured that it was probably best to give papa three bits rather than to just have my body tossed out into the creek behind her shop, you know?”

Fantastic. Just fantastic. “I guess. You know, whatever. What-the-fuck-ever. I guess if I ever leave this city alive I'll just take it to him personally.”

“Kaz, I know you're pissed, but I really didn't mean for that to happen. I was going to give it all to him and you know that!”

I jabbed a talon back toward my chest. “And I didn't mean to kill Ida, but that doesn't make it any better, now does it?”

An unpleasant silence settled, punctuated only by a startled pony slipping somewhere from deep in the crater.

“You want me to say I'm sorry?” She crossed her arms and snorted. “I am, okay?”

“Fine. Whatever.” It wasn't really, but stoking the fire wasn't going to make the situation any less bad. “How is he? Did you at least hang around long enough to ask?”

She glowered. “Yes, I stayed long enough to talk to him. He didn't launch into a spiel about me running out on all of you and disgracing our family by working for Red Eye, so he's obviously getting pretty sick. He barely got out of bed the whole time I was there.”

“...shit.” In all probability he wasn't going to live long enough for me to even get out of the crater, much less long enough for me to see leave. For that matter I might never see leave anyway after what I'd done.

“Yeah, he's sick, but don't worry. I helped.”

There was that gnawing sensation in my stomach again. “What did you do?”

She started examining her talons casually. “Oh, I just had a little conversation with Dr. High Hopes. I told him that it would be a real shame if the father of a Talon mercenary died because he couldn't get his medicine.”

“You didn't...” For all the strife that had come between High Hopes and myself, most of it was my fault and he wasn't a bad pony.

“And you'd rather see papa waste away and die like that?”

“No, but that doesn't mean you can just go threatening people! There had to be some other way.” Like not throwing my damned bits away in a bar!

She started poking through another bag at her side. “Yeah, try putting yourself in that situation and see if you can think of something better. Anyway, I don't think hanging around here is the best idea right now, so I'm just going to give you this and go.” She pulled out a small stack of envelopes.

“What's this?” My name was scrawled on the top of the first envelope, and beneath it was written 'Undeliverable.'

“Letters to you. Papa tried sending some to Crimson's Caravan but they got returned. I didn't try explaining that one, so I'll leave it up to you.” She jumped into the air. “Bye Kaz. See you.”

I was so transfixed on the letters that I didn't even think to respond until she was too far to hear me.

There were three of them, unopened and undated. My heart raced a little at the thought of tearing into them. What would he have had to say to me? Was he still upset about me leaving? Would he tell me how bad off he'd gotten?

I carefully slipped them into my bag behind the fresh packet of RadAway. There wasn't time to read them now, but it was getting late and that blasted air raid siren would be going off soon enough. Then I'd have plenty of time.

...I'm not doing very well, but I'm still hanging on. Twenty years of wandering the wastes plus twenty-five years of machining work is finally catching up with me, but it's made me tough too.

I don't know when you'll get these letters, if you ever do. The first one I sent out got returned. The stallion in charge of the caravan said that sometimes it takes a while before the organization straightens things like that out, so I'll keep writing to you. But whenever you do get these letters, I just want you to know that I'm proud of you son. I know you're doing this to help me, and as much as I don't like to admit I need the help I'm not going to undermine how much I appreciate you doing this for me.

Don't let what happened here discourage you, either. You're a fine doctor and I know one day you'll be helping people every day.

Well, I'm not going to dwell on that. Before I go, I want to ask you to be safe out there. Being a caravaner is dangerous work. At least it's not as dangerous as what your sister is doing. I'd ask you to avoid any caravans headed for Fillydelphia, but if you ever see Liese again, tell her I'm not mad at her. I just want to see her again one day.

Just like I want to see you again soon. I know you'll come home whenever you get the chance.

I'll be waiting on you, and I love you son.
-Jakob

It was hard to put the letter down, even after reading it for the third time. It's even harder to describe the slurry of emotions that I felt. Relief because papa maybe wasn't doing so bad after all? Or because he wasn't upset with me and had really come to terms with me leaving? Or even better, that I'd fulfilled his wish of letting him see Liese again? Definitely, to all of the above. But there was no denying that I felt much more guilty than relieved. In a lot of ways I was doing just about the polar opposite of what he thought I was doing, and if I ever thought I could tell him the truth before I couldn't know. It would crush him...

Trying to set it all aside, I folded the letter up and whispered, “Love you too.” It helped when I literally set the letter aside and into my pack.

“Letter from your fillyfriend back home?” Rivet asked between calculated sips of his 'oatmeal.'

Hadn't we had this conversation before? “No, I'm single. It was from my papa.”

“Ah, right. Must be nice to hear from him while you're here.” He sighed and stirred some runoff into his food. How he hadn't noticed me slipping RadAway into his food again I'll never know, but I guess he learned to not care much about anything anymore. “Must be nice being a griffon in general I guess.”

“What do you mean?” Not automatically being a slave was probably a good enough explanation all on its own, but the crater was boring enough for even me to latch onto any opportunity to converse.

He coughed and chuckled weakly. “Aside from the fact you get to hold the guns and can fly around? I dunno, you tell me.” He sampled his food and grumbled. “I mean, none of us ever get letters.”

“It's complicated.” And I sure didn't feel like explaining that my sister was smuggling drugs in for me.

“I know, just pulling your leg. I know you're a Talon too, so of course you're going to get some privileges we don't.”

Privileges? Boy howdy. Wait... 'boy howdy?' When did I pick up Appleoosan slang? Just being here with the slaves this long was already getting to me. “It's... not really under my control.”

He shrugged. “I know, and I'm not blaming you for it. Just, you know, be thankful. Really, you've got a lot to be thankful for.”

I took in my little accidental cult of little ponies and sighed internally. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“'Guess so?'” He set his bowl aside and crossed his hind legs, leaning against the wall beside me. “I don't think you really understand. I'm talking about the fact that you're actually going to live to walk out of this place. It's three months, you know. I've talked with a lot of ponies here and none of them have seen anypony live that long. Heck, I can already tell that I'm getting sick. I'm... not going to last that long.”

“And you think I am?” I still wasn't convinced, but it was hard to deny I had a massive edge.

He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, big, strong griffons like you can take a lot more of this than we can. Even if you were down in the hole digging up radioactive crap for Master Red Eye, you'd make it. Just look at yourself. You're holding up a lot better than the rest of us.”

Again, I swept my eyes over the ponies clustered with me. I hadn't exactly gotten to know most of them and sure didn't know all of their names, but even so I was pretty sure there was a face or two missing. Some of the others were gravely ill and didn't even eat anything that night.

A tense silence grew as a few of them realized what we were talking about and began to murmur to each other. Crap... were they going to call me out on the RadAway?

“Hey, big guy... mind if I ask you something?”

Dang it, here it came. “...go ahead.”

“I know I'm not going to walk out of here, but you are. I don't have anything to write with so I can't give you a letter, but, uh... if you ever go to Friendship City, do you mind giving a message to my family? I know they made it.”

...oh. Oh.. “Sure, what is it?”

Rivet looked over and locked eyes with me. “Tell them that I love them, and I'm sorry it came to this. Can you do that for me? My fillyfriend's name is Rolling Meadow. She's a beautiful green earthpony with a golden mane, the color of those yellow flowers you see in all the old pictures. Can you tell her that?”

Swallowing an unexpected knot in my throat, I nodded. “Of course. I'd be happy to.”

He smiled and set his hoof on my claw. “Thanks. You know, I almost don't care what happens to me here. Just... just knowing that someone decent like you is going to make it out and maybe do something good? That's good enough for me.” A couple of other ponies nodded or hummed agreement.

There's no way to describe how wrong it feels to have someone tell you that, but I tried to keep the mood from turning as sour as the food. “Uh... thanks. But don't count yourself out yet.”

Rivet laughed and nodded. “And that. You're a real optimist. You don't know how refreshing that is.”

And he didn't know how pessimistic I was, but it was all relative I guess. Either way, I wasn't giving up on him yet, even if he was.

If it was even remotely possible, I was going to see to it that he got to deliver that message in person. If Red Eye tried to go back on his promise of letting slaves go after three months of this hell, then I was going to go back on my contract by putting a bullet in his skull.

Pfft. Right. Maybe I was an optimist after all...

The next morning got off to a great start. I guess my mind was too tired to fight me up until then, since I'd slept shockingly well since I got to the crater, but that night wasn't so kind to me. Every time I thought I was drifting off something would resurface to knock me back to reality. Was Rivet going to survive long enough to see freedom? Would Red Eye give it to him like he was supposed to? If he didn't survive, would I ever see Friendship City myself? How would I ever find his family if I did?

It also didn't help that the shipping container we slept in got pretty sweltering when everyone was inside, much less when two thirds of them were sleeping as close to you as possible. That hadn't gotten in the way of sleeping earlier, so I couldn't blame it too much.

Did it really matter? Hadn't I given up on trying to figure out why I couldn't sleep on any particular night?

Regardless, it was almost a relief when the siren sounded and told me I could stop worrying about it and get on with my life. One day closer to the end of my sentence and all that. I carefully extracted myself from the pony pile that had formed around me the previous night and picked my way out to the relatively clear space beyond.

Moans and whimpers followed behind me, but no movement at first. It wasn't even remotely possible to sleep through the siren, but every morning it took longer and longer for them to hoist themselves up. More needed help this morning than the one before, but at least this time it looked like they all made it through the night. As the biggest and strongest one there, it had generally fallen to me to help move their bodies to the gate for retrieval...

Not today at least, and unlike the days where I was going to go on patrol and have to 'maintain the image of Talon Company,' nobody would care if I stumbled around the crater all day and yawned every fifteen minutes. I'd probably be fine after getting something to eat anyway.

As was becoming common, I was the first up and moving around in the entire 'building,' so I decided to keep up with the charade of trying to maintain peace among the workers by being the first at the food pot. If there was anywhere that arguments tended to break out, it was there. I also hated to be selfish, but if I waited very long to get any food then I usually didn't get much at all. Griffons needed more food than ponies, so it wasn't like I had a lot of choice in the matter. You just did what you had to.

The pony at the pot caught me by surprise. Railroad Spikes wasn't usually very close to me at night, so I must have missed him waking up and ambling over. The once hefty pony was starting to look a bit drawn and weak, but he shot me a glare all the same.

“You're not taking more than your share, are you?” I asked while searching for the least dirty bowl available.

His thinning tail whipped as he snorted. “No. Want to check it yourself, tough guy?”

Oh boy, here we go. I plucked the top bowl from a stack and wiped the rim. “Maybe. What's your problem anyway? Do you think acting like that is going to help you in any way whatsoever?”

He swept his ears back. “Better question is what's your problem. You started it.”

...fair enough. Today maybe. “As I recall you're the one that threw the first punch a while back.”

“Yeah? Well, you didn't give me a lot of choice.” He bit the rim of his bowl and started easing away.

“Funny, that's not how I remember it. I'm pretty sure I gave you a couple of warnings and plenty of chances to not start a fight.”

Railroad Spikes stopped and swished his tail again. “I donf gef you.” He set his bowl down and pulled it close for protection. “I'd think you of all people here would get it.” He pointed a hoof over to the army of ponies limping from 'my' side of the container toward the food. “You sure took it away from me fast enough.”

Huh? “I don't think any of them liked you very much before I got here...”

“They didn't have to like me. They just respected me.” He stamped a hoof and immediately winced. “And you took that, ate it up and shit it all over me.”

I picked a stray hair from the oatmeal in the pot and grunted. “Maybe if you tried being a bit nicer they'd have respected you anyway.”

“...that's easy for you to say.”

Yeah, right. Try working for Talon company for a few months and see how hard it was to be nice to people. “You think so, huh?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He stamped a hoof again, lighter this time. “You get to live.”

The gray oatmeal bespeckled with unidentified black spots was a bit less interesting now. “And how are you so sure I will and you won't?”

He locked eyes with me. “I'm not dumb, okay? You're a Talon. The weirdest, strangest... I don't know what, Talon. They aren't going to let you die in here. I don't know how... but I know you've been getting something to protect you from the rads. You have, but we haven't.” He bumped a hoof against his chest. “We're going to die here, and you aren't. So... yeah. Yeah, it's easy for you to say...”

This was taking a completely different turn than I expected, and sure enough, he had me figured out. I couldn't admit to it though, especially with so many ponies around now.

He nodded. “That's what I thought. You're going to live through this and when you walk out of those gates you're not going to give two shits about any of us, no matter what nice guy act you're pulling here.” He grabbed his bowl and mumbled, “It donf madder to you waf happenf to uf.” With is head low, he turned and shuffled off. “I donf wanna die...”

I released the ladle and let it clank back against the side of the pot. I wasn't hungry anymore.

“What's his problem?” Rivet asked from beside me.

“Having a bad day I guess.” A really, really bad day.

Railroad Spikes' words rattled back and forth in my head for the rest of the day as I moped and stumbled around the fence line. I was tired, sleepy and hungry, but my body and brain were having even more disagreements about how to make me feel about that than usual. Each step felt like I was walking through loose sand, but the sensation was numb and distant. It was almost as if I was too tired to be tired.

Of course, the images of dead and dying ponies flashing before my eyes was the real problem. Every time I pictured Railroad Spikes' body being dumped into the furnace I felt absolutely awful. Of course he'd be scared of what was coming. I couldn't blame him for feeling scared, nor could I blame him for having a frighteningly realistic expectation of his life expectancy. But I also couldn't stop feeling so guilty for keeping the RadAway and Rad-X for myself, minus the little bit I was sneaking to Rusty Rivet. Did he really deserve it more than the other ponies? I couldn't possibly answer that question, but it was just as hard to just leave it all up to chance and justify it that way.

Whether it was the tenth or twentieth lap around I can't remember, but one accusation of his really jumped out at me as the foal's skull caught my eyes again. 'It doesn't matter to you what happens to us.' It wasn't true. I did care, but I couldn't do anything about it. Did he think I could snap my talons when I got out of here and suddenly they'd all be free? Or did he think I could even get them medicine or even more food? Even Red Eye probably couldn't. There probably really wasn't enough.

I stopped at the fence and stared out at the unmoving skull. Its empty eye sockets stared back. 'It doesn't matter what happened to me,' I imagined a little foal saying in my ear.

Yes. Yes, it did, little pony. You mattered. Sometimes people just mess up and they can't fix the things they break, but you mattered.

My claw raised up and brushed against the decaying bomb collar around my neck. It wasn't really a bomb collar anymore so much as an image to keep me in line. Even so, I hadn't had the strength or heart to try my luck by flying anywhere in the crater, but... you know what? That little pony mattered. I don't know who they were or what they'd done, but no foal could have done something to deserve dying like that and having part of their corpse laid bare out on the ground for everyone to walk past and ignore.

I couldn't help Railroad Spikes or the other ponies here, but I could do something. Something.

Before I even realized it, I was up in the air and past the fence. My heart skipped a beat when my brain caught up and realized I'd passed the threshold. The collar didn't explode. Nobody was shooting at me. Heidi wasn't there to scream at me for doing something wrong. Not even Shutter Flash was around to say anything. It was just me and the skull.

“Hold on just a minute more, okay?”

The ground was hard and crusty at the top, flash burnt into a thin sheet of glass by the balefire bomb centuries ago, but nothing I couldn't break through. I dug with both claws, scooping out a deep hole more than enough to contain the little skull. Gingerly I pried it free of its glassy resting place, set it inside, and brushed the dirt and glass particulates back over it.

“Better?”

With a shaky claw I patted the dirt down and examined my handiwork. It wasn't the prettiest grave, but it was better than nothing. That's what I told myself anyway. Between moments of trying to forget that I was just talking to a skull.

Back inside the fence, I looked out at the recently disturbed patch of dirt once more before turning back to resume my patrol-

-and almost walked right into a pony. I started and raised a claw instinctively before my senses returned to me. Crap! Had she seen me go outside? Was she going to tell Shutter Flash? What would happen if she did?

The dingy yellow mare took a half step back and raised a cracked and splitting hoof of her own. “I-I'm sorry, Mr. Longtalons. I didn't mean to disturb you...”

Calming down, I took a deep breath. “It's fine. Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head and sending her straggly mane into a messy set of knots. “I... um, I just wanted to give you something. I found it a few minutes ago.” She reached into a tattered prewar purse at her side and pulled out a little yellow packet of something.

“Huh?” I extended a claw and she dropped it into my palm. Beneath the smeared dirt and grime, I could tell it was some kind of yellow liquid that had almost entirely dried up. The label had faded beyond all recognition.

Her ears flattened out as she explained, “I, uh, I know you like mustard a lot, so I wanted to give that to you. I... I think you can probably mix it with some water and it might even be edible.”

Mustard? But wh... oh. Oh. She really believed that story.

She frowned and backed up another step. “You don't like it? I-I'm sorry. I wish I could have found some that-that was, um... um... b-but...”

I smoothed the little packet out and dropped it into my bag. “No, no... I do. Thank you. You didn't have to do that for me.”

The mare smiled sheepishly and brushed her forehooves together. “You're welcome. I just had to say thank you somehow. You... uh, you've given me some hope that I'll get out of here and see my family again one day. You're such a nice guy... you don't know how much that means to me.”

My heart couldn't take much more of this. I couldn't think about it without risking messing things up, so I just stepped forward and gave her a little hug. Pinfeathers, I must have looked stupid, but she looked like she needed that. ...I guess I did too.

She squirmed and tensed up at first, but eventually returned a weak squeeze. “Thank you...”

“No, thank you,” I repeated, letting her go. “You, uh... you should probably be getting back to work, right?”

She nodded and almost beamed back at me. “Okay, Mr. Longtalons.” And without another word, she was off back into the hole to dig for radioactive things for Red Eye again.

I retrieved the gift and held it in my claw. It wasn't much to look at and I sure wasn't going to try to eat it, but you know what? It was my packet of mustard and Red Eye couldn't have it. Maybe if he was a nicer guy he could have had it, but no, it was mine.

An amused snort passed my nostrils as I reflected on the absurdity of it all and stuck the mustard back into my bag.

But absurd or not, I went back to my patrol with my head just a little higher and my steps just a little surer.

Level Up - Level 6!

Lack of Bucks – You've seen the worst of the worst, and just don't give a buck anymore. You ignore 10% of all skill penalties per level of this perk, and you can lack as many bucks as you care to spend perks on.

Intermission

Intermission

Tonight was shaping up to be another one of those nights. The kind of night where sleep was a fleeting and ironic dream, chased away by memories of a life stained by terrible choices and equally terrible mistakes.

At least it didn't have to be a total waste.

Like he had so many times over the past year, Kasimir found himself leaning against his desk and tapping a pen against a blank sheet of paper, wondering what part of his life he should start recording next. More from the crater? It was the logical step to take, but it was equally hard to think about at times. Aside from the tiny moment of kindness that he received from mustard mare, whose name he either never learned or forgot, there were no happy memories to record. Even if recording the bad memories was the entire point of this journal, it was very, very hard to force himself to put much more of it to paper.

He laid the pen down and blew out a breath. Maybe he could find inspiration from elsewhere?

To his right sat a small lock box, missing the lock ever since he lost the key and had to force it open. The contents were far too precious to leave sealed away forever, and now was one of those moments where he needed them. He reached in and withdrew a clawful of its contents to lay out on the desk: a crusty and hard mustard packet, an empty bullet casing the size of his thumb, a pair of armor buckles...

With a talon he arranged the buckles closer to the paper and stared long and hard. They came from Ida's breastplate. He never saw her armor again after her body had been recovered, but that's what they were from. They had to be. The pony guards didn't use buckles like that in their armor, and he found them in the dumpster right where it happened. They had to be hers. He didn't care what anybody else thought.

He scooped them up and held them in his palm. Was that where he'd pick up next? Maybe. It seemed that no matter how much he wrote or thought about her, it was never enough. You couldn't apologize enough for something like that. If he wrote about how he went looking for something to remember her by maybe then it would finally feel like enough.

His eyes flicked back to the mustard two hundred years past its sell-by date. It didn't seem right to just up and move on, leaving the fates of the ponies from the crater unspoken, but it was hard not to. Not many survived. It was expected. He tried to harden himself for it, but it didn't matter in the end. He couldn't even remember for sure who lived and didn't anymore. You could only take so much before your mind shut it out and refused to accept more pain.

A low moan sounded. “N... no... ooo...”

It didn't surprise him anymore. This happened some nights. Many nights even, so it didn't surprise him anymore. All the same, he clenched his claw to hold the fragments tight as he looked up to the black hallway through the door ahead. Would it be an easy night or a hard one this time?

“...no... no... do something!”

A hard night. “...I can't...”

One-by-one he placed the artifacts from Fillydelphia back in the box and sealed them away for another spell. Maybe it would be a week before he wrote next, or maybe a month.

But in any case, he now knew where to pick up his writing. He hadn't forgotten Ida or any of the ponies from the crater, but he had to focus on something else now.

Chapter 10: The Return

Chapter 10

The Return

Three months came and went, both much faster and much slower than I could have ever expected. Time was already muddy and unsure, but especially by the third month I was getting to the point that I could barely remain cognizant of my surroundings. Was it the monotony? Was it the pain of watching so many ponies waste away and die? Or was it the very real pain I felt now as a constant reminder of where I was? Even with the radiation medicine Liese had smuggled in for me so many times, I was growing weak and listless. Weak, listless... and lost.

That last month was all but lost to me, but I remember the day it ended. I was leaning against the fence in the same spot I always did while waiting for the siren to sound, an insufferable and yet indispensably familiar sound that brought be back to reality and told me I could lay down again. I couldn't really remember why I even picked the spot so long ago. There had been something outside of the fence there before. Something that... struck me somehow. It was gone now, but even so I felt more alert and secure in that spot than anywhere else in the crater.

That day, while waiting for that blaring, head splitting siren to sound, an old white unicorn stallion tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, Longtalons?”

“Huh?”

He tapped my beak to get me to look over. “Somebody's here for you. You get to go ho-err, leave today. C'mon, let's go.”

With effort, I pulled myself up and fought to hide that I was trying to catch my breath from the small motion. “Who?”

Shutter Flash fixed me with a deadpan look. “Some griffon. Didn't give me his name.”

'His name.' Wasn't the lieutenant then. She probably sent the big orange guy who didn't talk. Isaac? Yeah, that was his name. Isaac Clawmarks. I shook my head and started following the pony. It felt like there was something I was forgetting to do. It gnawed at my insides, utterly refusing to let me take any joy in the fact that I was leaving the depths of Hell to return to the upper levels. But what... oh. Oh. “Wait... where's Rusty? Rusty Rivet?”

Shutter looked back and muttered something under his breath about being in deep manure. “Don't you remember? He's gone. Been gone three days. Luckiest pony out of the lot I figure. They had to carry him out, but you threatened to snap somepony's neck if we didn't let him go. Which we were going to and did do.”

I said that? Uh... sure. Maybe? It felt like I hadn't seen him in, well, a month, but he actually got out? That I could scarcely believe. He might have gotten out of the crater but I'd bet cigarettes that he was still in a factory somewhere in this pony-princesses-forsaken city hauling pallets of material as fast as they could whip him to. Maybe I'd find out soon.

To my mild surprise the griffon at the gate was gray and blue speckled, not orange. Serge-ent... Sergeant Serge Swiftwing. That made sense I guess. He was tasked with dumping me off here, so he could be the one to pick me up.

Serge was too far away to really pick out any details when Shutter flash stopped me. “Hang on, let me get this thing off of you.” He reached up, unclasped the joints on the collar and pulled it off. “Right, there you are. Now, no need to tell anypony about that little detail, right? You can just keep that between us.”

Oh no. Oh dear, what would he do if Lieutenant Blackfeathers heard that he'd put a dysfunctional bomb collar on a Talon who was supposed to die here anyway? I bet he'd get to stew in his little shack for all of eternity over why the big bad griffons hadn't come to do something awful to him for mistreating me. Ugh. “Yeah... whatever.”

He grinned nervously. “Right. Okay, let's not keep your friend waiting.”

We continued on, passing the grave pile as we went. I tried not to look, but as always trying not to look at something only made it that much harder. Two ponies laid motionless on the wet cardboard sheet, waiting for the corpse cart to make its rounds. Shutter mumbled something about it not showing up yesterday or the day before, but if the bodies had been there that long it wasn't obvious. Practically every pony here looked two steps away from death now anyway. I thought that maybe I recognized the big stallion, but he was so covered in muck and grime that I couldn't be sure. Something to do with trains... Tinder Car? Double Boiler? Forget it. I could guess train related pony names all day and never remember. The mare wasn't much of a different story. She was kind of yellow looking under her own coat of filth, but so were a fifth of the ponies here. Maybe I knew them, but it was probably for the best that I didn't try to remember.

“Here he is, sir,” Shutter said. “See? Took good care of him.”

Serge scanned me once and did a bad job of hiding a grimace. “Hey, Kaz. I'm glad to see you're alright.”

That was stretching the truth a little. “Me too...”

Shutter sat and clacked his forehooves together a couple of times. “So, uh, he's in your custody now? Not my responsibility?”

“He's returning to duty, so yes, he's out of your hooves.” He waved a claw for me to come closer. “Lieutenant Blackfeathers may follow up with you later, but for now you're done.”

Shutter grinned and hopped up. “A pleasure to help Talon Company. I, uh, I'll be going now.” He backed up two steps, turned and scurried back into his pit of despair.

Again, Serge waved me onward as he started for the path through the rubble back to the main road. “Kaz, I really do mean that I'm glad you're alive.”

“Thanks...”

He stopped at the entrance to an alleyway between two collapsed buildings of indeterminate purpose and shuffled his wings. “We've been... keeping up with you, as much as we could. I know it was hard in there. Whatever anyone else might think, you've more than paid your debts.”

I focused on a pebble on the road, rather than look him in the eye after a comment like that. “You have no idea.”

He sighed and spread his wings. “Sorry, I'll shut up then. Our first stop is the clinic.” He lifted upward and pointed a thumb into the distance. “You'll need a physical before returning to duty.”

If they wanted me to last very long I was going to need an awful lot more than a physical, but the clinic sounded like a very welcoming place right then. I unfolded my wings and tried to join Serge, but my attempts to fly just resulted in a clumsy stagger when I returned to the ground as quickly as I left it.

Serge landed and shook his head. “Can you walk that far?”

It wasn't like I had a whole lot of choice, now did I?

I was convinced that they moved the clinic while I was at the crater. Previously it wasn't more than a kilometer away, but this trip made it feel like a hundred. By the time the little dusty white building appeared through the jungle of shattered glass panes, I was so exhausted that I thought I was genuinely going to have to have Serge carry me. My throat and lungs burned with each breath and my feet were numb, but seeing that little sanctuary gave me the strength to claw my way past the trash and debris.

It seemed that they also replaced the lighting inside while I was away, since the piercing, unnaturally crisp light felt like it was boring holes through my retinas and straight into my frontal lobes. I started to squint and look down while following Serge inside, but the jingling of the door bell surprised me enough to get me to look up.

A young griffoness with pale yellow feathers popped out of the door in the receptionist's office and her eyes flew open. “Dr. Longtalons! I didn't know you... I mean, should I get Dr. Darkskies?”

“Yes, please. She knows why we're here. She's expecting us,” Serge answered for me.

Zella scurried back inside and after a muffled but excited conversation she returned with an older red and pink griffoness. “Kaz! King's feathers, I'm glad to see you!” She stopped just short and asked, “How are you feeling? You look almost as bad as Alfred did last time he dragged his sorry ass in here.”

Time to get ready to answer that question a dozen times. “Terrible.”

Serge gave her some space to look me over and said, “The lieutenant wants you to check him over and send him back to first platoon's HQ when you're done. How long will it take?”

“Three months,” she said with a snort, running her claws through the feathers on my neck.

“This isn't a joke Yvonne...”

She crossed her arms and grumbled. “I don't know. Whatever, tell her he'll be back in three hours.”

The figure seemed to surprise Serge a bit, but he didn't question it. “Alright, thanks. Kaz, I'll be in her office in three hours. She's expecting you so please don't be late.” I didn't need to hear him stress the last sentence to know not to be late. If I screwed up the very first thing Heidi asked me to do after I got out of the crater she'd probably have me permanently demoted to doing laundry or something.

“I'll be there.”

Serge mumbled something about having other things to attend to and excused himself, leaving just the three of us in the lobby. Yvonne pinched and tugged at my back, which would have been far more annoying if she wasn't in the process of confirming what I already knew. “Well, you're pretty dehydrated, so it's no wonder you feel bad. Zella, go get an IV ready.” She patted my back and ushered me toward the door. “You'll feel like a new griffon after that.”

“Thanks.”

We ended up in the back room with 'Alfred's Chair,' and to my mild dismay that's where she deposited me. I was really almost too tired to care about how much vomit I'd seen on that particular seat, but since it had more or less become the official place to put someone suffering from alcohol poisoning or dehydration we kept the needed tools and materials right next to it. Zella even had me hooked up before I realized she'd started.

Vonny turned up a minute later with a pack of liquid sporting a crossed out radiation symbol and a hand held device of some kind that I vaguely recognized as a radiation poisoning gauge. I'd never seen a Stabletec model before. “Zella, when his drip's done give him this.” She passed the intravenous RadAway to her assistant and angled the scanner at me. “Okay, let's get your levels...” She twisted some dials on the side, hit a button, swore, hit it again, shook it once, then dialed it one last time. “Wow. Six-seventy-eight. Not enough to be acutely lethal but you definitely wouldn't want to go much longer without some medicine for it.” She set the scanner on a table and crossed her arms. “Liese tried to get me to give her more for you but it was all I could 'lose' on the inventory sheets without someone getting suspicious. Sorry about that.”

“You already did more than you should have,” I said truthfully. I'd have felt pretty awful if Vonny got in trouble over me. I rubbed my eyes and fought to stay awake. It felt unbelievably comfortable in that chair. “Thanks, by the way.”

She shrugged. “Don't mention it. Seriously.” A smile crept onto her face. “Joking aside, you look exhausted. Go ahead and get some rest. We'll be done here in two hours but I told Serge it would take three, so you've got time to shut your eyes a minute. Are you hungry? Have you eaten anything today?”

Nothing that she'd consider food, I doubted. “Not really.” At that point I'd have been ecstatic to get my claws on anything that wasn't soupy and vaguely made of oats.

“Zella, run and see if you can find something for him, would you? Actually, I think there's some left over stew in the fridge.”

She looked relieved to have a reason to leave. “Yes ma'am.”

“I'd offer you a steak, but I don't have one and you'll need to be careful what you eat for a day or two anyway. Wouldn't want to get sick from eating something too rich,” Yvonne said as she returned to my side to check my neck again. “The heck happened here?”

“It's just rust,” I assured her, taking my mind off of all of the fantastic foods I'd taken for granted in the mess hall. What I'd do for a radigator tail right then...

She snorted and backed off. “Right, Liese told me about that. I was afraid she'd be in the prison for snapping some pony's neck over it.”

I coughed and joked, “I called her off.” Sometimes she really was like an over zealous and overly protective dog. Eager to jump at anything she didn't know or understand and without carefully considering the outcome.

“Heh, good idea. Anyway, I'm going to officially put in for you to go on light duty for a while. If Heidi complains about it, tell her to take it up with me, okay? You're in absolutely no shape to be doing anything strenuous.”

She didn't have to tell me twice, but after this I wasn't going to be telling Heidi to do anything. If she asked me to rearrange the box cars to move the barracks around while singing about how lovely it was to be working for Stern and Red Eye, I was pretty sure I'd be doing it without a peep.

“Kaz?”

I yawned and nodded slowly. I wasn't going to tell Heidi a thing, but I didn't feel like arguing right here regardless.

Vonny patted my shoulder. “Alright. Go ahead and get some sleep if you need it. I'll be back in an hour or two to check up on you. Your wing looks like it might need some attention...”

Already taken care of, but whatever. I just wanted to do exactly what she suggested and shut my eyes. Oh, but the ding of the magic oven in the break room informed me that I'd have some stew to slurp down first. Yes, food first.

Leaving the clinic was one of the hardest things I ever had to force myself to do. It was cool, calm and quiet. There was food. There was water that didn't smell. There was medicine that actually made me feel better. There were griffons who didn't hate me despite what I'd done. It was one of the hardest things I had to force myself to do, but all the same, I had to leave. Serge's polite request to not be late carried more weight than a buffalo, and I wasn't going to anger this buffalo.

With an extra thirty minutes to spare, I'd bid Vonny and Zella goodbye and started on my trip back to the rail yard that served as first platoon's base of operations. Even with the help of the RadAway and fresh food, I wasn't in much state to fly that far. My first attempt lasted only a minute or so before I had to make a clumsy landing in the middle of the parking lot of a bus-chariot service. Subsequent attempts literally never got off the ground. It was a good thing that I'd given myself extra time, because now I was going to need it.

Navigating Fillydelphia on foot was challenging when you were accustomed to seeing it from the air, and I had never had a particularly keen sense of direction, but I knew the general direction and at worst I could watch which way the odd griffon was flying above. Odds were good that they were heading to or from one of the bases. Easy enough.

By luck most of the streets were clear of significant activity, so my initial trek was uneventful. I passed the occasional pony pulling a covered cart headed to or from one of the factories, but right now the work shifts were in full swing so most of the slaves were indoors. The few that I passed paid me no mind. I guess I looked bad enough that they figured I was a slave like them. Like Railroad Spikes said, there had been griffon slaves in Fillydelphia, even if I'd only heard about them. You probably had to mess up big time to end up like that. Or maybe they outright refused to join Talon Company? At this point...

I sighed and lowered my head as I continued along. No, I wasn't going to even joke that being a slave was better than being a Talon. I knew better even before I went to the crater, and I sure as hell knew better now. Personal convictions might make the difference for some, but I wasn't strong enough, mentally, physically or emotionally, to weather the life of being a slave for very long. Been there, proved that. Three months in the crater had thoroughly demonstrated that. An involuntary snort passed my beak. It wasn't like I would even sleep any better at night as a slave, despite what my conscience might think.

My self-pity train came to a stop at reality station when the unusual quiet of a dormant factory to my left caught my attention. Ponies were inside and clearly doing something, but the machines weren't running and there was no frantic hustle of ponies loading or unloading materials at the shed. I could have sworn I even saw one weary stallion casually eating at his work place next to a crate of empty rifle magazines. It was around midday, but slaves didn't get lunch breaks. Did they?

For a long moment I analyzed the scene, trying to understand. Maybe one of the big machines threw a gear or something. Every pony not working on that would have to keep going though. No, it was something else. Who ran this factory? Red Eye would probably have some choice words for them if he knew. I'd heard two dozen names of important slavers but trying to guess whose factory this was would be as accurate as guessing how many bullets were made inside each day. Grindstone? Wicked Slit? Hardly, apparently you could hear her screaming halfway across the city if she got mad. Maybe List Seeker? Ida once told me he was a pretty decent pony, as far as slavers went. That was a tough idea to swallow, but she'd know better than me I guess. Maybe this was his factory and maybe he did give the slaves a short break for lunch. Hey, as long as he didn't get crater time for being nice, have at it.

I resumed trudging down the empty street, squinting from a gush of sticky, hot air and trying not to think about how nice it was back at the clinic. It wasn't filled with trash and crooked lamp poles everywhere, and the floors were clean and not stained with blood...

...wait a second. I stopped and spun in a little circle. That lamp pole was very familiar, and that dumpster...

This was where Ida died.

Revulsion overcame me long enough to send me leaping into the air, but my wings wouldn't hold out and I came back down on the spot. I squeaked and backed up two steps. Just like that day three months ago. There was still traces of her blood on the sidewalk. The rain had washed most of it away, but it was still there. A faint, rusty series of blotches on an already sullied and cracked slab of concrete. Rain couldn't remove that. Time couldn't. Not that fast.

I wanted to leave. Desperately. But, between my exhaustion and the realization of where I was, I couldn't move. My chest hurt and a wave of chills ran through my body, but I felt like if I tried to move I'd just fall over. I leaned over and stabilized myself on the post, fixated on the spot where my partner expired.

How... how could I have not realized I was walking this way? I'd have never gone by here had I known! I never wanted to see this place again so long as I lived! This city was a hundred square kilometers and by chance I'd stumbled across this tiny little patch of it. I didn't believe in fate, and I didn't believe in spirits guiding me around randomly, or anything silly like that, but what were the odds?

Not everything happened for a reason, but... that... that didn't mean I couldn't make there be a point to it, right?

From the bag at my side I produced a little packet of crusty yellow mustard. It was a stupid little thing, but you know what? I remembered that poor, dingy mare that gave it to me. She was probably dead and gone, but I remembered her. She meant something. She mattered. And you know what? Ida sure as hell mattered. I wasn't in any danger of forgetting her, but all the same, I wanted something tangible. Something that I could hold in my claws and remember her by. There probably wasn't anything left, but since I was here, I was going to look.

Slowly but surely the feeling returned to my limbs enough that I could take uneasy steps around the scene. A feather was my first idea, but any feathers would have been blown away hours after the incident at most. No feathers. Maybe I could find a piece of her equipment or something. Surely anything reusable had been taken, but there was enough useless garbage left to clutter the streets that something could have been missed. A scrap of her fatigues... a button... something. But it had to be something I was sure was hers.

I scoured the intersection for a few minutes, wasting worrying amounts of time until I got the idea to check the dumpster. Hadn't something of hers flown into it? I was sure that the Talons had checked that, and if they hadn't any opportunistic slaves would have, but maybe there was something inside.

The heavy steel lid was almost too much to force open in my state and left ghastly stains on my palms from the rust, but with effort I tossed the flap open. A thousand little insects scurried away from the light and into the crevices of plastic bags so old even they had begun to decay, but almost immediately the glint of light on metal caught my eye. I leaned in, balancing on the narrow lip of the enormous garbage can and...

Crunch.

It happened so fast I didn't even register slipping before I was tangled in the centuries old trash. I swore a few times and pulled myself out of the mess, thankful that after so long any organic or other slimy refuse had long decayed to dust. It didn't even smell, which was a particularly good blessing since I still had to stand in front of the lieutenant in a few minutes, and leading off the meeting with her asking why I smelled like a dumpster would probably be bad.

Nevertheless, I shooed a few more bugs away and plucked my prize out of the corner: a pair of relatively clean buckles. Talon buckles. Just like the ones from my armor, and attached to stubs of straps that had been severed clean. Images of someone cutting Ida's armor off before trying to transport her somewhere began to play in my mind, but what really happened was beyond me. I just couldn't get over the fact that there was really something here. And who would put them in the dumpster anyway? The idea that someone would actually throw something away, in a dumpster, in Fillydelphia was almost too absurd to believe.

But after the crater, I'd believe just about anything. I stared down an alicorn after all, so I could believe that someone had a brain fart and dropped them in the dumpster.

Either way, I had what I came for and needed to get back on the road. I dropped the buckles into my bag and started working my way back out. It wasn't much cleaner outside...

Our platoon's base hadn't moved at least, and the trip wasn't quite as much of a slog as I was expecting. It helped that there were increasingly few slaves as I got closer, but it was impossible to deny the apprehension growing inside me as I traversed the train tracks leading up to the earthen fortification surrounding the base. The only griffons I'd seen so far were airborne and on the move, so while I knew they probably barely noticed me I couldn't help but feel like each was a pair of eyes staring holes through me and wondering why I was back.

The guards circling overhead didn't bother to even land to interrogate me, so I wandered up the path, well clear of the minefield, and stopped just inside. To my right were the rows of box cars serving as the barracks, and to the left were the mess hall, and beyond it, the lieutenant's office. I wasted no time in turning left and hugging the inner wall of the base. Maybe that way I'd avoid running into anyone. I really wasn't ready for that yet.

Of course, at this time of day almost everyone was either actively out on patrol or were currently in the mess hall sucking down what they could before they had to get to sleep before another overnight shift out in the city. I was getting worked up over nothing, and didn't even see anyone on the way over.

That didn't stop me from freezing at the door, claw raised to knock. My memories of the last time I was here were fuzzier than a newly hatched griffawn's down, but knocking wasn't required, right? I lowered my claw and tried to rehearse what I was going to say to the lieutenant. Which was what, really? Wasn't she going to be doing all of the talking? Yeah. Yeah, I just had to listen and do whatever she told me. No need to get so worked up.

I think Egon would have preferred that I knocked.

How he failed to hear me ascending the creaky steps remains a mystery, but I caught him mid giggle, leaning perilously close to his terminal and holding two talons to his beak. He started hard enough to send a purple feather drifting over to my side of the room and fell back in his chair. Rallying quickly, he adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. “Oh, Mr-Mr. Longtalons! Ahem, you're uh, you're a bit early.”

Early? Oh, good. I hadn't wasted too much time in the alley after all. “Sorry. Should I come back later?”

“No, no.” He smoothed the feathers on his chest and situated himself. “You can go on back. Lieutenant Blackfeathers said for you to see her as soon as you got here.”

“Thanks...” I plodded around the desk, gazing back in time to see fresh text scrolling up the terminal window. Egon giggled again and went to tapping up a response. Have fun while I get chewed up...

Even from the receptionist area I could hear Serge and Heidi talking, thankfully in a civil tone, and reconsidered if I should wait a moment. It was impossible to decipher the conversation at all and I was already here, so... here went nothing. I skirted a fresh bare patch on the floor with water damage and knocked twice on the door frame. Even from out here the floral air freshener in her office was almost overpowering...

“Come in, private. We were just discussing you.”

Yes ma'am. Heidi and Serge were seated in the only two chairs in the room, so I strolled inside and stood at what I hoped was the least awkward distance from Serge on our side of the desk. Heidi's golden eyes tracked and fixated on me. Did I forget to do something? Uh, was I supposed to-

“It's good to see you're in one piece, private,” she said levelly. “Egon's having Private Darkskies transfer her report on your status in a moment, which I'll review later. You seem well enough.”

Suspiciously so? Please don't ask... “Y-yes ma'am, I managed.”

“So I see.” She folded her talons together. “Before we begin, I would like preface this by saying that it's in the best interest for all of us to attempt to put the past behind us. We have a long future ahead of us and don't need any extra complications. Assuming we've all learned from our mistakes, we need not revisit them.” Those piercing eyes flicked between Serge and myself. “Are we all in accord?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“Y-yes ma'am.”

She nodded. “Good. That's even more important because of the necessities that have arisen in finding somewhere to reassign you, private. In short, I can't reassign you. Ideally you'd be moved to another platoon to minimize the damage to morale but first and second platoon are going to be switching duties in the coming weeks and it's too much hassle to find a place for you there. Not to mention that second platoon already has a medic that I would rather not displace. Nor can I really move you to third platoon because Private Darkskies has been part of it for ten years and that wouldn't be good for morale either.”

Private Darkskies? Yvonne had been a private for ten years? What the heck? But more importantly, they were putting me back in my old squad? Yikes... to be honest I hadn't even considered that I might be put somewhere else, but it made a lot of sense to do that. Now that I thought about it, putting me back with Serge's squad couldn't possibly be welcome for any of them...

“So, sergeant, you're sure that this won't cause undue difficulties?”

Serge considered his response briefly. “Yes ma'am. I've spoken with everyone and I believe we'll manage. Private Galeforce is the one I'm least sure about, but she'll behave.”

“What's new?” Heidi groaned to herself. “If it doesn't work out I'll have to find something else.” She cut her eyes to me. “I'll review your report when Egon finishes getting it, but I'm assuming that you're going to be on light duty for a few days. I'm leaving that to the sergeant's discretion. You'll need to retrieve your equipment from Sergeant Bladewind before you return to duty. When you leave, go by the armory and do that. I've already sent the requests.”

“Yes ma'am.”

She leaned back. “Good. That's all I have for you. Do you have any questions?”

I probably shouldn't have had any, but one thing she said earlier stuck out. “You said that our platoon was switching duties? What's that mean?”

“Second platoon is taking over primary city watch duty. First platoon is going to move to flexible assignments with field duty with third platoon.” No doubt sensing that I had no clue what that meant, she said, “We'll be performing perimeter patrols, escorting caravans, assisting with stable cleanup duty, polishing Master Red Eye's horseshoes or whatever else he or Captain Stern ask. You'll find out more when I do.”

Serge glanced over. “Deployment won't happen for a couple of weeks, probably. We'll get you situated by then.”

Heidi nodded once. “Right. Unless you have anything else, you're dismissed.”

I didn't, so I bowed toward the door. “Yes ma'am.”

As I turned to leave, she spoke up once more. “Oh, and private?”

“Yes ma'am?”

“...welcome back to Talon Company.”

A warning if I ever heard one. “Thank you.” The meeting had been short and consisted of a great deal less shouting than I expected, but I was happy to get moving all the same. I ducked back into the hallway, took a deep breath of the clean smelling air and headed for the entrance. Serge and Heidi went back to talking about something else I could barely make out. Something about enlistment rosters. None of my business.

I emerged in the receptionist area again just in time to catch Egon peering over his glasses at more text scrolling across the screen. “Oh, Zella, you dog...” He straightened up when he noticed me and cleared his throat. “Have a good afternoon.”

“Thanks.” Either Egon was the least perceptive griffon in the world or maybe Heidi should reassign me to sniping or something. Apparently I was awfully good at sneaking up on people.

Heh, right. Probably shouldn't even joke about that. Just needed to get my gear and get on with my life.

The armory was still vaguely where I remembered it being, which was a little surprising since I wasn't sure if I'd even been back to it since I picked up my medical kit and met Otto so many months ago. Even more surprising since I was still too tired to fly and had to approach it on foot, making the path completely different.

Then again, it was easy to follow the rhythmic thump of griffons at the shooting range, which led me straight to the fenced in section at the far end of the rail yard. I passed through the unguarded gate and cast a glance to the squad performing a marksmanship drill of some kind. All familiar faces I still didn't know the names to. To their side was the remains of the Pinkie Target, now so riddled with holes nobody would have known its original purpose. Down the range I saw a few new signs had replaced it: a couple of crudely drawn ponies brandishing knives and wearing improbably spiky manes, and a banner of the pony goddess Celestia with an angry face and beard marked on it in black. I looked back to the metal clad building and hurried along, wondering briefly if Red Eye would approve of that and if he really believed in that goddess nonsense to begin with. Probably not.

The interior of the armory felt much less haunting and claustrophobic during the day, since there was more than enough light to navigate by spilling in from the windows, and by luck it seemed I was the only one there. Maybe this wouldn't take too long.

“Be right there,” a gruff voice yelled from the back. I approached the window just as its source emerged: a graying dark brown griffon with enough scars that he could donate one to each member of the platoon and still be accused of hoarding them. He popped the joints in his stiff wings and sized me up. “A new guy? You here to pick up all of your gear or something?”

This had to be Sergeant Samuel Bladewind. For a moment I feared I just didn't remember him, but he didn't seem to remember me either. Was it possible that I'd been part of the platoon this long and we'd never properly met? “Uh... yeah. Kind of. Kasimir Longtalons. I'm here to pick up my old equipment. The lieutenant should have sent-”

“Hmph. Yeah. Yeah, I remember now. Her little assistant dropped off the request earlier. So you're the one that broke my gun and killed Ida, huh?”

Joy, oh joy, this was going to be fun. “It was an accident...”

He leaned heavily on the shelf on his side of the wall, which groaned under his weight. “Son, do you know how many griffons break the shit I give them and say it was an accident? Or lose it even? Hell, aren't you in the squad with Lita? Can you believe she lost one of my grenades and didn't even say she was sorry?”

My eyes narrowed involuntarily. “No offense, sergeant, but do you really think I murdered her?”

Another groan from the shelf prompted him to ease up. “Hmph. No, but I haven't seen many dumber things done since I've been here. At least Lita didn't kill anybody with that grenade.”

What the hell? Just shut up and give me my stuff already! “Look, if you have a problem I can go get the lieutenant.”

He grumbled and turned away. “Quit your bellyaching. I've got your gear. Meet me at the door.”

By 'having my gear' he evidently meant it was still all sprawled around in the hundred boxes I saw in the back, since it took him a full ten minutes to finally open the door and present the shockingly large bag to me. One thing in particular seemed to be missing though. “Uh, what about my rifle?”

“You broke it, remember? The bolt was ruined. I haven't fixed yet and I'm not too keen on giving you another one to break”

Uh huh... but I'm a guard and guards need guns in this city. “So, what do I do then? I have to have a weapon.”

Sam thrust his claw into the bag and pulled out a pistol in its holster. “You have one.”

“But... just a pistol?”

“You're a medic, right? You don't even need a rifle.”

Was that normal practice here? I needed to ask Vonny next time I was at the clinic. “Our platoon is mobilizing soon though, so won't I need one in the field?”

He shrugged and shut the door. “If it worries you that much, ask Heidi. I'll let her decide when you've earned another big boy gun.”

Well, fuck you too, grumpy old fart. If I got killed by a raider I was coming back to haunt him. Fine. Whatever. I wasn't going to sit here and argue over something I didn't know the rules to anyway. I slung the bag over my back and made for the exit, whispering curses under my breath. I was going to make it a point to come back at night in the future if I ever had to. Otto was so much easier to interact with. My heart went out to him at that moment too. Working for this guy must have been a nightmare. At least Egon seemed to get along well with Heidi.

And no, I wasn't going to ask her about the rifle. Serge could answer that question just fine.

The trek back to the barracks was much shorter than I wished it was. I'd been anxious the entire time since I left the clinic, but it all began coming to a head on that last leg of my journey before I was reunited with the rest of my old squad.

I'd met Serge again and he seemed to have put it all in the past, but what would the others think of me? I knew they'd never forget what I did and probably would never completely forgive me either, but would we even be able to work together again? What if we couldn't? Heidi said there was nowhere else for me to go, so what would happen then? Would they find some menial job for me to do, like shoveling trash to be burnt at one of the power plants? Or would I just get to work at the clinic full time? That wouldn't be so bad...

My pace slowed and I came to a stop beneath the giant number 3 painted on the side of our train car. I... needed a moment before heading inside. The others were probably all out on duty anyway, but even so I had to prepare myself for when they came back.

Isaac would be easy. He mostly ignored me anyway. Kind of like he did for everyone except Leigh. If he got physical then I was royally screwed, but that seemed a remote enough possibility.

Leigh... well, I figured she would be easy enough to work with again. She was second in command of the squad and surely knew how important it was to try to keep morale high and everyone coherent. Besides, she was at Ida's funeral and I don't remember her giving me any particularly nasty looks or even making any commentary. She always seemed pretty nice.

Carmelita was really the one I worried the most about, doubly so since Serge said as much himself. She'd always been jovial and friendly, but she was at my trial and had been deadly serious there. She never made any wayward comments to me either, but Heidi and Freija were there so that might have stopped her. I was pretty sure she cut her eyes to me quite a few times while testifying, but did it mean anything?

Did any of this mean anything? What was I going to do if they were nasty to me anyway? There wasn't a thing I could do. Sitting here and simmering in fear and anxiety wasn't improving anything.

With a heavy sigh, I grabbed the handle to the door and shoved it open with the full weight of my body. The door zipped along its track with startling ease and dropped me hard back on the sand, driving the air from my lungs and sending me into a coughing fit. What the heck? Did someone finally get around to greasing it?

“Sarge? You back already?” ...Lita's voice. I'd halfway picked myself up by the time she poked out, but it was pretty obvious what happened. “...oh. I was wondering what the heck happened.” She hopped down the step and offered a claw, which I accepted. “Is Serge with you?”

I was still trying to catch my breath and coughed. “No, he's... still talking to Heidi.”

“Oh.” She sized me up and frowned a little. “You look rough. Guess you would though.”

Yeah, I would. With effort I pulled my pack of gear off of the ground and asked, “Is it just you here then?”

“You need some help with that?” She indicated the pack, which I graciously offered to her. I was still so unbelievably tired... “Yeah, it's just me. Serge is with Heidi, and Leigh and Ike are off on their morning rounds. Guess they should be back any minute though.” She turned around. “Anyway, come in.”

The barracks hadn't changed much from what I remembered, aside from the coffee pot now having most of its guts sprawled over the table. A little part of me died inside knowing that I was going to have to wake up in the morning without caffeine to help, and I prayed that whoever was working on it fixed it soon.

Lita dumped my bag in the corner where I used to put my gear and pointed a thumb at the table. “Can you believe Ike? Got mad at the thing and smashed the power button. Leigh hasn't had a chance to fix it yet. She mostly fixed him with a stern talking to.” She snorted and fell into a chair. “If I was corporal I'd do more than talk to him, but ugh, whatever.”

Right, so, what would you do to me then? This didn't feel quite right. This wasn't the Carmelita I remembered, and I knew full well why. Best to keep skirting that issue. I eased into a chair two seats away from her and sighed. “I'm sure she'll get it fixed.”

“She ought to fix it with parts from his terminal if you ask me. That'll teach him to break shit like a three year old.” She switched to a terrible mock male voice and said, “Isaac hate coffee maker, Isaac smash.”

Uh huh. I nodded and leaned back. It was cool and relatively calm here. I could just shut my eyes for a second and try to relax before someone gave me orders to go do something... “Yeah...”

I woke up to the sound of someone snapping their talons in my face. “Wh...” The fog in my vision took its sweet time parting and returning me to the world of the unwillfully awake. “Huh?”

Serge, now suited up, pointed to the back room. “Get some sleep. Lita and I are about to head out for the day. I'll talk with you when we get back about your assignments for the week.”

“Right... okay.” I almost fell over Leigh as I got up, who I was not expecting to be sitting next to me with some bit of electronics in her claws. How long had I been out? “Oops, sorry.”

She caught the little switch just as it left the table and made space for me to move past. “It's okay.” Without looking up, she added, “Oh, and welcome back, Kaz.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Lita chimed in from the door.

Isaac grunted from across the table and went back to sorting screws by size.

“Thanks.” I wound my way around the now very crowded room and pushed my way into the sleeping area, where I discovered that my cot hadn't magically vanished and was even made up for me. That was an unexpected and completely unnecessary surprise. I was about to make it very unmade soon anyway.

As I plopped down onto the sheets, talking resumed in the other room. Maybe Serge thought I couldn't hear him, or maybe he thought I needed to hear what he had to say regardless, but his low voice carried easily inside. “Remember what I said, everyone. Kaz has been through a lot. He's back, he's going to do his job, and you're all going to do yours. I don't want to hear anything untoward said to him.”

“Ugh, why don't you say it a tenth time...” Lita groaned.

“I will if I have to. Anyway, can the commentary and let's go.”

Silence returned and I rolled over to face the comparatively friendlier wall. It could have gone worse, I guess, and Serge if nobody else was making an honest effort to put everything in the past, but this was going to be an uphill journey for sure. An uphill battle maybe? I could still hope not.

At least now I could sleep, it seemed, which I was going to take advantage of. Maybe I could forget everything soon.

Like Ida's empty cot...

Mild Radiation Sickness – You feel pretty bad, but it's nothing some magical medicine and time won't fix. You suffer -1 END until it's cured.

Chapter 11: Role Reversal

Chapter 11

Role Reversal

For once, some news I received was good, and I'd been given a full week of light duty at the clinic. A few days there had also done absolute wonders for my mind and body. It would take time for me to fully regain my strength. Nothing, not even a healing potion, could instantly undo three months of not eating enough, but the other physical ailments were easy to fix. RadAway truly was a marvel of the times it was invented in. A few doses of it had erased the radiation exposure I'd endured, and while I might get cancer thirty years down the line, it made me feel so much better in the present. Besides, the cigarettes would probably give me cancer by then regardless. If I could get my claws on a steady stream of them anyway.

The last day of my light duties was a bit of a downer though, so I decided to save the one cigarette I'd scavenged from a drawer in the supply cabinet at the clinic until then. I couldn't really imagine that cigarettes were part of the standard inventory anyway, so it was just house cleaning. Nobody would miss it. Smoking in the clinic wouldn't set a good example for the patients anyway.

I still hadn't mastered, or really practiced, the art of breathing properly while flying and smoking, or keeping one lit while flying, so I saved my little indulgence until I landed on the outskirts of the base. With a lit cigarette in my beak and a little nicotine telling my brain that everything would continue to be nice and calm, I strolled toward the barracks. What would my next assignment be? If we were about to go on flexible field assignments, that meant there wouldn't be patrols for a while, right? Maybe a few days or a week of it before though. There had to be some preparatory time we'd go through, but for all I knew that would consist of Heidi showing up and telling us to fly off into the wild gray yonder. We'd see, I guessed.

Imagine my surprise then when I discovered the door to the barracks open and a female voice I didn't recognize coming from inside. “Oh, my partner isn't here?”

Lita answered with, “Nah, not yet. He should be here soon though. You might have heard of him though. Kaz? Kasimir? Longtalons?”

Uh huh, probably heard of me alright. What a way to introduce someone!

“I... do remember that name from somewhere. I don't think I've met him before though. Is he one of the Talons that received a commendation for driving back the Steel Ranger probe last week?”

“Commendation? Heh, no, he's-”

“-right here,” I interrupted, hopping up inside. Yeah, let's not introduce me to someone by telling them I just got out of the crater for killing someone, okay?

In addition to Carmelita and Serge, the room indeed contained a new and unfamiliar griffoness, who was completely obscured by her suit of armor. She spun to face me, showing the only part of her, other than her muted gray-brown tail and wings, that wasn't obscured by ballistic mesh fibers or steel plates: her, well, face. White feathers, red eyes and a gray-brown beak that was twisted into a tiny smile. “Kasimir Longtalons?”

“That's me.” I extended a claw. “You must be my new partner...?”

“Amalia Silverwing.” She returned the shake with a heavy, gauntlet covered claw. I... wasn't sure I'd ever even seen a pair of gauntlets on a Talon before. They looked like they would make it a little hard to use a gun with a normal sized trigger guard, and they had to get hot out in the field. And where did she get her helmet? The goggles kind of reminded me of the extra big radroach I saw that one time in the morgue back in Oatsfield. “It's nice to meet you.”

“Likewise.”

Lita sat back and crossed her legs. “Hey, new girl, you can shed the tank you're wearing there. There's nobody shooting in here.”

“Uh... but wouldn't I be out of uniform?”

Serge smiled and shook his head, gesturing toward a seat at the table. “You're not on duty, so it doesn't matter. Really though, as long as you wear your breastplate nobody is going to bother you about it, and it does get really hot in the city.”

She hesitated, then unclasped the strap under her beak and removed her helmet. Short feathers, except for a few long ones at the front. At this rate I might have a good idea of what she looked like by next week.

“Heh, yeah. We haven't had a heatstroke case since I got here, but I'd rather you not be the first,” I said as I started removing my own gear.

Amalia snapped her talons, as best she could with the gauntlets on. “That's where I've heard of you. You're one of the medics, right?”

Well, that beat my other reputation, so I nodded and offered a modest smile. “Yeah, first platoon's medic.”

“See? You're in good claws with us,” Serge said.

Lita grinned and tapped the chair again. “Mmhmm. Come on, take a load off. So, 'Amalia.' You have a shorter version of that? Mind if I call you Amy?”

Amalia eased into the seat. “Uh, well, some do call me that, but I prefer Amalia for professional use.”

“Hah, professional? I like that.” Lita grinned. “C'mon, we're all family here, right Kaz? Serge-ent? They just call me Lita too. See, nicknames all around.”

Serge rolled his eyes. “Please, don't call me that. I tell her not to but she doesn't care. If you want to go by Amalia, then that's what we'll do.”

“Thanks. Yeah, I think I'd prefer that.”

Lita shrugged. “We'll wear you down soon enough. You'll see.”

“Right. Anyway.” Serge held a claw up to me. “Kaz, I'm glad you're here since I've got your new assignments. Our platoon is going to be heading out next week, but for the next eight days we're going to still be in the city. We've got to audit everyone's equipment, run a few exercises and so on before deployment. But, since we're still in the city we have to continue our posting as city watch. That means that you'll be resuming your patrols tonight, and since Amalia is here now you'll be taking her with you.” He glanced toward the door to the sleeping area. “I hope you're both rested up. If not you'd probably best get some sleep while you can.”

For the first time that I could remember since I got to Fillydelphia, I actually was pretty well rested. I'd even caught a brief and unintentional nap at the clinic earlier that day. I'd also learned that Zella apparently wasn't a tattler, but I still didn't intend to make that a habit. “I'll probably lie down in a minute.”

“I probably should too,” Amalia agreed. “I've been up since six this morning.”

“Good, Kaz can show you your bunk then. You'll be heading off at around midnight, so you've got plenty of time to get settled in.”

Lita crossed her arms. “You'll get to meet Leigh and the Jolly Orange Giant then. That's when their shift is over.”

“Uh... okay?”

Serge filled in the gaping holes with, “Corporal Leigh Dawnshower and Private Isaac Clawmarks. The other to members of our squad.” He pointed a talon at Lita. “As you've probably started guessing, we tend to pair off the same way for our shifts. Carmelita and myself, Leigh and Isaac, and now you and Kasimir.”

Amalia nodded and flicked her eyes between us. “So, uh, was it just five of you before? The lieutenant said that she had some staffing issues to work out.”

A heavy silence fell across the room. The kind of silence that tapped me on the shoulder and whispered into my ear that I had some explaining to do, and that if I didn't someone else would and possibly in a less forgiving light. “It's... it's kind of a long story. I'll fill you in later, okay?”

Well, that couldn't have been too reassuring, and it showed. Amalia nodded slowly and glanced over to the other griffons at the table. “Oh... okay.”

The awkwardness crept back into the room, which was broken this time by Carmelita changing the subject. “So, new girl, you smoke?”

She bobbed her head a little in an unsure manner. “I've been trying to quit.”

“Good idea,” I chimed in. Hey, I had to at least pay beak service to my job as looking out for everyone's health.

Lita chuckled. “Heh, look who's talking. When's the last time you smoked, Kaz?”

“Uh... five minutes ago.” But mostly because I didn't have many opportunities before then.

Lita pointed a thumb my way. “Just picking. Anyway, if you need smokes you can get them from Sam, but just make sure you do it outside, okay? Heidi gets really bent out of shape if she catches anyone smoking in the barracks, and you don't want to see her bent out of shape.”

Whoa, what? That's where everyone was getting cigarettes from? All this time and nobody ever told me? Ugh... whatever. It was probably for the best anyway. Sam was a nice deterrent to me smoking so maybe I could quit myself. Although maybe Otto could issue them too?

Amalia smirked nervously and nodded. “I've... kind of heard a little about her, yeah.”

“Don't let Lita spook you. Lieutenant Blackfeathers isn't hard to get along with if you do what she asks, and she's just doing her job.

“I understand. Everyone said the same about Sergeant Tornfeathers in basic.”

Lita chuckled again. “Right. You ought to fit right in here.”

Basic? Basic training? I didn't remember anything like that during my orientation. Things may have changed since then, but that wasn't that long ago.

Serge clapped a claw on the table and stood. “Speaking of the lieutenant though, I need to go talk with her. You've all got your orders, so do what you need to do.”

As he left, Lita said to Amalia, “You'll get used to him being gone most of the time. If I didn't know better I'd say he and the lieutenant were having an affair or something.” An annoyed groan trickled back through the door.

“Uh huh...”

Carmelita waved a claw and laughed. “C'mon, I'm trying to lighten the mood here but you're not giving me much to work with. You just have to relax a little. You can't take this whole job too seriously or you'll snap.” That didn't get a laugh out of Amalia either, so Lita got up and stretched. “Okay then, how about this? Either of you two eaten yet? Why don't we go get some dinner and hit the cot?”

Sounded good to me, and Amalia got up too.

“Oh, but first, you've really gotta take all of that armor off. If you wear that in the mess hall you'll never hear the end of it!” Probably from her, no less.

Amalia sighed and started fiddling with the clasps. “If you say so.”

“There you go. We'll get you in shape in no time!”

Midnight rolled around fast, as it always did, but just like the day preceding it I found myself remarkably well refreshed and ready to get up and on with my assignment for the night. Amalia had beaten me by at least five full minutes though, and by the time I wandered into the lounge to coax the coffee pot into giving me some caffeine she was already suited up and getting acquainted with Leigh and Isaac.

“Ah, so... you don't talk much?”

Isaac grunted and nodded toward Leigh, who explained, “Not at all, actually. Got hurt a while back.”

Amalia pulled back a hair as he parted the feathers on his neck to show the ragged scar. “Oh, I see. Sorry to hear about that.”

Leigh nudged her partner. “He looks tough, but don't worry. He's a big teddy bear most of the time.”

“Unless you're a coffee machine,” I mumbled. Tiny droplets of brewing coffee formed around a crack in the pot and streamed down the side. Apparently that particular piece was rare enough that we wouldn't be receiving a replacement 'for the foreseeable future.'

Leigh eased into her usual seat at the table and unfolded her portable terminal. “He already said he was sorry Kaz. We can't do anything about it.”

“I know. Just... this is my life here, you know? I need it.” I held a mug up toward Amalia and asked, “You want any?”

“Thanks, but I'm fine. We're kind of running behind here as it is...”

Fair enough. “Yeah, I'll take mine with me.” I unscrewed the lid, blithely ignored the warning against filling my canteen with anything but pure water and poured as much in as it would hold. That was probably just to encourage us not to pour beer or worse into it anyway. Heidi wasn't going to care if I had coffee out with me. “Okay, let's go.”

I grabbed my bags and slung them over my armor, which forced me to adjust my pistol holster for the dozenth time since I attached it. Isaac snickered as he did the last eleven times, and I hurried out into the dark and muggy night.

As we lifted off and circled to gain altitude over the base, I asked, “This is your first time out?”

Amalia pulled her goggles down and nodded. “That's right. Lead the way.”

I felt like I should really be tutoring her on this whole thing, but I wasn't sure what to say really. It hadn't been but a few months, but I couldn't remember for sure if Ida had gone over any details with me on my first time out. Nothing was coming to mind, so I hoped that meant there wasn't anything in the first place. I mean, really, even after I'd done it that long I wasn't entirely sure if there was more to it than just flying our routes and responding if we saw obvious commotion that wasn't already being handled. Even the densest griffon would understand that much, and I didn't expect that the Talons would hire anyone that deficient.

For her part, Amalia was doing a much better job of it than I did on my first outing. She kept pace with me, just behind and to my right, and each time I glanced back to make sure she was still there I saw her carefully scanning the roads and buildings below for activity. This might have been her first patrol in Fillydelphia, but it was clear that she knew what she was doing. Maybe she worked for the caravans before or did private contracting somewhere? She didn't mention it over dinner, but maybe I could convince her to tell me a little if I told her my story. I'd promised to do that anyway.

The first couple of hours went by uneventfully. We circled the ammo foundries, ducked out of a particularly acrid smelling cloud that we flew into, and came out near the petroleum refinery or whatever it was that kept vomiting those sticky black clouds into the air. It was probably responsible for the mess we just flew through, come to think of it, and for a moment I was coveting Amalia's goggles.

She drifted further ahead and wiped at the lenses before turning her attention back to the streets. Something caught her eye, and she banked a little to get closer. She flared her wings to come to a halt in the air and rapidly gestured for me to come get a look. Oh boy. “What do you make of this?”

We were flying right over one of the larger metro terminals in the city, which had been converted over to some kind of mine judging by the carts of rock and rubble littering the plaza it sat in. At first I had no idea what she was even going on about, but a moment later I saw a slate gray pony poke his head out of a shattered window, look up and down the street a few times, then clamber his way out and onto the platform.

Okay, I had to admit that it looked a little unusual. This wasn't anywhere that slaves slept or lived, and if it was a working zone he really shouldn't have been alone. A sinking feeling in my stomach accompanied our descent toward the platform. Please don't let this be a pony stealing food again... please...

I'm reasonably sure the stallion wasn't expecting us. He squealed and launched a full half meter into the air as I fell onto the platform a few paces away. Without a word, Amalia had circled around and landed on his opposite side, cutting him off and giving him nowhere to run. She had her rifle in claw, but wasn't pointing it at him. Yet at least. “H-holy... goddesses, don't shoot!” He plastered himself against the wall, which creaked under his weight. If he tried much harder he probably could have made an escape right through it.

I still hadn't gotten used to having only a pistol and no rifle in my claws at all times, so when I realized I was unarmed I just held a claw up. “Hold on, just calm down. We just want to know what you're doing out here by yourself. Who are you? Who's your manager?”

He inched away from Amalia and her gun and locked eyes with me. “Uh... S-Silver Rush. That's me, that is. M-my master is Lodestone.”

“Right, so tell us, Silver Rush. What are you doing out here by yourself?”

He swallowed and glanced at Amalia's gun again. “I-I... nothing. I just needed some fresh air.” He coughed a couple of times. “The air's getting really bad down in the mine. We had a cave in a few days ago and the, uh, the ventilation is shot. Boss says he can't spare ponies to go clear it, and we're all dying down there. Uh, figuratively. Right now anyway. I was about to pass out... dang miner's lung is getting worse.” He grinned sheepishly and coughed hard again. “Better to take a minute to catch my breath than to pass out and not work at all, right?”

He was positively covered in soot, and I swore I saw particulates floating around in each cough, but unless his boss told him to come out here he just couldn't take a break.

“Kasimir, do you want me to go find Lodestone?” Amalia asked.

I was about to decline the waste of time when Silver cocked an eyebrow at me and coughed and hacked out, “Kaz-Kasimir?” He cleared his throat and wiped the soot off of a hoof. “That's an interesting name I haven't heard in a while. I don't, uh, suppose you've ever been in a little town called Oatsfield? Princesses... it's a long way from here. I'm just running my mouth.”

That was too much of a coincidence to just brush off. “That's where I lived for a long time, yes. Have we met?”

“Is your mom Elise Longtalons? A doctor?”

Okay, not a coincidence anymore. “Yes...?”

He hacked out a little chuckle. “You probably don't remember me. You were just a little squirt back then, but your mom fixed me up once years and years ago. I had a bad accident on the road on the way past Oatsfield. Broke both legs on my right side when our cart threw a wheel and landed on me. Thing weighed a ton. Literally.” He pointed a hoof my way. “Oh, but I remember you. You kept poking around the place when I was waiting for my legs to heal up enough to leave. Your name stuck with me for some reason. Guess griffon names just stand out to ponies.”

Oh, wow. He knew my ma and me from that long ago? This pony could be a treasure trove of information, but there was no time to prod him about it. “I... I guess so. I had no idea you knew my ma.”

“Yep, she's a good griffon.” A nervous grin crept back onto his face. “No offense, but, uh, mercs like the Talons kind of make most ponies scared of griffons. Not her though. You know, I'm actually surprised you're here instead of doctoring like her, as much as you stayed in that doctor's office. Guess there was only so much demand for a doc in a little place like that.”

“Yeah, you could say that.” I didn't plan on going into details though. Neither the place, nor the time.

Silver wheezed and thumped a hoof against his chest. “Probably shouldn't be talking so much, and I'm holding you two up. So, uh, let me get back down to the mine and I'll get out of your manes. Err, feathers.”

“Hang on.” I rifled through my medical kit and pulled out a healing potion. Both Silver's and Amalia's eyes widened at the sight. I unscrewed my canteen, poured a little lukewarm coffee into the cap and added a couple of drops of potion to it. “Here, take this. It'll help a little.”

He hesitated, but held out a hoof to accept it. His eyes flew open altogether as he sucked it down like a shot of cider. “Whew, that felt great. Coffee? Do you know how long it's been since I've had coffee? Months. Thanks a million. If I strike any gold down there I'll save you some.”

I chuckled and returned the cap to my canteen. “Thanks, but that's not necessary. You do need to get back to work though. We've all wasted too much time as it is.”

He sighed and picked himself up. “Yeah, I reckon so. Sorry about that, but you really helped me out here. Tell your mom I said hello next time you see here, okay?”

“I will.” Even if it would be a very, very long time, barring a catastrophe that killed me in the short term. Not too unlikely I guess.

As he squeezed back through the broken window, Amalia slipped over. She watched him canter off back down into the depths of a nonfunctional escalator and cut her eyes to my first aid kit.

“Something wrong?” I asked while slinging it back over my side.

“Yeah. I, well... I... guess I just wasn't expecting things to be quite like this.” She turned back to looking through the window.

What did she expect? A mountain of slave corpses at every corner and Talons gleefully shooting any that didn't walk in perfect single file lines from one workstation to the next? She hadn't struck me as the psychopathic sort. “How so?”

“I guess you really take Master Red Eye's broadcasts pretty seriously in the city, don't you?”

Whoa, whoa now, those were potential fighting words. Red Eye was about the absolute opposite of me, as far as I was concerned. “I don't understand...”

She shrugged, not taking her eyes off of the empty room beyond the window. “They told us in basic that things would be different here than anywhere else Talons were deployed. That Master Red Eye ran a tight operation and we'd have to set an example.” She finally looked back and nodded toward the bag at my side. “He says that all of the slaves are valuable workers. I figured that nobody paid any attention to that, but you do, don't you? I didn't know we were even allowed to give stuff like that to the slaves.”

“Uh... well... we're really not. But a couple of drops won't be missed and if it made him think he felt better, then he really will. Everyone wins, you know?” Yikes, here I was potentially poisoning a new recruit's vision of how the rules worked in this city. If I wasn't careful she was going to run afoul of the lieutenant. “But, yeah. I've been told a time or two that I'm 'soft on the ponies.' It's... not my job or place to make calls like that I guess, but... I'm just trying to keep things going smoothly.”

Amalia nodded slowly and fixed me with her piercing red eyes. “You're an outsider, aren't you?”

Boy, was today Blow Kaz's Mind day? What did that mean? “Uh, outsider?”

“Yeah, you know. Hired from outside of the Talons?”

“Weren't you?”

She shook her head. “No. No, I was hatched and raised as a Talon from the beginning. Fillydelphia is the first place I've been that wasn't only a Talon base.”

“Oh...” Wow, she was one of the griffawns that Vonny told me about. It felt like a lifetime ago now, but I saw the eggs every time I was at the clinic and remembered what she told me they were for. So, the Talons had been running that program for what, twenty five years or more, judging by her age? And I was meeting one of these Talon youths? How twisted could her viewpoint of the world be if she'd been raised by griffons like Sam or Heidi? A lifetime of discipline and training and no childhood? Shit, she was probably going to rat me out to the lieutenant after this. Better start thinking of an excuse.

As much as the air felt heavy and uneasy enough that I was starting to feel a little nauseated, I just didn't know what to say at that point. Should I ask her not to tell any of the officers about what I'd just done? Beg her? Tell her? I had more seniority but didn't outrank her, so I really couldn't order her. Dammit...

Amalia kept uneasily looking between the broken window and me, clearly as at a loss for words. “We should get back on patrol.”

So she wanted to drop it? Just like that? Uh, okay. Sure. That was probably for the best. I could think up some excuses while we finished our rounds. Maybe I could pull her aside that night some time and, uh, explain things a little better. I had to hope that she was somewhat receptive to my way of doing things, or this was going to be a very challenging partnership.

I thought about taking her to the abandoned schoolhouse that Ida took me to that time. I promised to tell her my story, and she could tell me hers. It could be a nice, long, private chat. There was so much I wanted to know about what it was like to grow up as a Talon, and surely she would be interested in knowing what it was like to be an 'outsider,' as she called me.

Trouble was, we'd wasted time already so I didn't think we could pull it off without someone missing us, and that would get ugly fast. Maybe one day when we were on the evening shift. With some luck we'd get rotated to that before deployment, and I could talk with her some.

Too bad that meant she could still tattle on me that afternoon if she wanted to.

The afternoon arrived faster than expected, as it oftentimes did. We'd returned from our patrol around lunchtime, quickly ate and hit the cot without so much as breathing a word of our encounter with Silver Rush. That was good.

Having Serge wake me up about four hours later and explain that our squad was being called up for field exercises for the rest of the day was decidedly less good. Unlike earlier, I had to drag myself out of bed and do my level best to not look completely groggy and useless. Amalia looked a little dull herself, but didn't complain once.

We were joined by the rest of our squad and ushered to the armory, where Serge said we'd be performing some marksmanship drills and examinations until dinner. It made sense to do that before we were all thrown outside and put up against things that would be shooting back, and up until then I'd always wondered who used the shooting range and when. There were probably periodic drills even for the platoons on city watch, but the timing just meant that I hadn't seen any.

Well, I was seeing one now. The lot sectioned off for the armory wasn't exactly packed, but there were at least three other squads there in various stages of firing down the range, cleaning their equipment or being inspected by Sam. Heidi was positioned behind the line of griffons at the range, watching as they rattled off shots at the gaudy makeshift targets. The goddess Celestia picture was notably absent and had been replaced by the image of a pony in powered armor with several points marked on the joints in red. Weak spots I guessed?

By the time we formed up in a presentable line behind her, I was desperately wishing I had some ear muffs or plugs. By the fifth volley from the squad ahead, I was hearing little more than ringing and bangs. A sign stenciled into the armory wall warned that hearing protection had to be worn at all times while using the range, but was frustratingly unhelpful in pointing out where to locate any. Once more I was coveting Amalia's gear, since her helmet had to provide some relief from the pressure waves assaulting her eardrums. A certain lavender griffon next to Heidi seemed to be fortunate enough to have acquired some, judging by the string attached to the sides of his head. If anyone would be lucky enough to get them, he would.

At long last, the firing ahead came to a merciful end and the squad removed the magazines from their weapons before turning to face the lieutenant. Some words were exchanged that I could no longer make out, and Heidi and Egon swept the line of targets. Eventually their sergeant, something Blackbeak I think, gestured for them all to go join the groups stripping their weapons at the far side of the yard. Heidi waved us all closer.

Before they left, each trooper pulled out a set of earplugs and passed them on to us. With a hint of trepidation I accepted them from the blue griffon ahead of me. Used earplugs? Uh... kind of gross, but better than going deaf at least. Nobody put theirs in yet, so I didn't either.

“Fall in,” Serge directed our way. We all lined up neatly in front of the lieutenant and stood tall. Amalia put her claw up in a salute, which was actually the first time I'd seen anyone do that. I guess she really had learned things differently in her fancy basic training. Well, if nobody else in the squad did it, I wasn't going to. Serge pulled out to the side and said, “The squad is ready, ma'am.”

That was stretching things a bit since we basically had to jump into our armor and hope that our weapons were in working order so that we'd make it on time. I'm sure the lieutenant would understand...

She scrutinized us each briefly, and of course, her eyes locked with mine for an awkward time. “Private Longtalons, where is your weapon?”

Huh? I placed a claw on the holster at my side. “Here, ma'am.”

She didn't look surprised or satisfied. “Of course.”

I guess she just felt the need to knock me down another peg in front of the squad. Oh, look, Kaz still doesn't get a big boy gun. Let's see how his little pistol compares to the rifles everyone else is using. Whatever. It wasn't under my control and I assumed this wasn't some kind of competition.

“Very well. Sergeant, when you're ready?”

Serge waved us all closer to the range and paired us off with a target each before taking one for himself. “Everyone, discharge one magazine at your target. You're being judged on accuracy and form. Aim for the center of mass. Fire on my command.”

We all put in our plugs, drew our weapons, readied them, and waited for the order. I grasped the pistol with both claws, hoping that Sam hadn't given me a complete piece of trash. I was rusty enough with shooting that I didn't need anything else working against me here. What was going to happen if we failed anyway? Were we going to-

“Aim.”

Oh, right. Pay attention. I held the pistol up and pointed it at the Steel Ranger ahead of me. Great, why'd I get the hard one? Was I supposed to shoot at the red marks or the center of mass like Serge said? Damn. Uh, just doing what he said then. Right at the body.

“Fire.”

My shot was a hair later than everyone else, but to my mild surprise the bullet went mostly straight and dug neatly into the wooden target ahead. Everyone else kept firing, so I braced and pulled the trigger again. Click. Wait, what? I know I loaded the entire maga-bang! Holy sh... That shot came two seconds after the trigger pull and landed half a meter off target, dead in the center of the visor of the Steel Ranger. Okay. Sure, that was intentional. But what was with the delay? What kind of major malfunction did this pistol have?

The next three shots went off without a hitch, thankfully. Of course, there should have been four more bullets in the magazine, so again I had this sinking feeling in my gut that Sam had given me a hunk of garbage he found in a sewer drain somewhere. Great. Since I had only a fraction of the ammo that the others did, I flicked the safety back on and waited for the others to finish. I could probably just check the chamber and see if I had a stoppage or something.

The shooting came to a stop, and I probably should have been paying attention to what everyone else was doing, but I was too curious to wait for the order to go and strip the weapon down. I pulled the slide back, and sure enough, there was the bullet halfway in the chamber. Great. I was going to be fighting this thing every minute we were out in the field. Was I going to be able to-

blam!

I threw the gun down and fell backward as something shot past hard enough for the wind in its wake to slap against my beak. What the fuck!?

Serge yelped and copied my ungraceful dive to the ground, clutching at his neck. Oh no, what happened? Had he been hit?!

We all dropped our weapons, snatched out our earplugs and crowded around him. “What happened, were you hit? Where?” I asked, already digging for my medical kit.

“I don't know!” He pulled his claw back and checked it over, but there wasn't any blood. I didn't see any on his neck either, or anywhere for that matter. The feathers on his neck had definitely been mangled by something though. He pressed the claw to his neck a few times and checked it, but no blood. “I think it just grazed me.”

“Who fired that shot?” the lieutenant demanded. She locked eyes with me again. “Was it you? I saw you drop your weapon.”

I held both claws up and shook my head. “No! No ma'am, it wasn't me. My pistol had a stoppage, but it didn't discharge.”

She didn't seem convinced. She stormed over to retrieve it, but just before she grabbed it an unexpected voice said, “It was me, ma'am.” Leigh held her head down and a claw up.

“What?” Heidi snapped her head around.

Leigh held her rifle up and showed that the chamber was empty and no magazine was loaded. “I had a stoppage too. When I went to check it, it went off.” She pointed at a gouge on the pony image ahead of her. “The bullet ricocheted off and went back that way.”

It felt pretty weird to be relieved that someone else had an accident instead of me, but I swear I was so relieved that it wasn't me that I was almost lightheaded. I could practically smell crater duty again...

Heidi scratched a talon along the dark gouge that used to be the painted raider pony's tooth, giving her a goofy grin. “Corporal, take your weapon to Sergeant Bladewind and have him check it. You too, private.” She pointed to my pistol lying in the dirt. “The rest of you, go join sixth squad in stripping your weapons for inspection. If you're able, sergeant?”

Serge was back on his feet and rubbing the side of his neck. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Good. Get to it.”

Leigh sighed and clicked the safety on her rifle. “Sorry, Serge. It really was an accident.”

Carmelita whistled. “Damn, Leigh. I didn't know you were that desperate to make sergeant.”

“It's not funny,” the smaller griffoness muttered. Behind her, Isaac growled at Lita.

Lita shrugged. “I'm not laughing.”

Serge directed Amalia over to the spot marked for us to dismantle our weapons and said, “Neither am I. Just drop it and do what the lieutenant said.” He rubbed his neck again.

It took me a few seconds to calm down enough to comply, and even as I grabbed and unloaded my pistol my heart kept fluttering. It wasn't me this time, but wow... Serge could have been killed right in front of us by accident. Just like that. I didn't have to look at Leigh to know how she felt right then. She'd never given me any trouble or snide comments about my own experience with this, but maybe now the others would kind of understand how these things just happened sometimes...

From behind us, someone I didn't recognize said, “Heh, I can't help but notice the lieutenant's little boy toy doesn't have to prove he can shoot like us.”

We all paused in place and took a moment to observe who just made that mistake. An orange griffon in another squad was leaned over and talking to a white griffoness to his side, clearly thinking he was using a conspiratorial tone. Maybe being partially deafened by a hundred gunshots threw him off, but he said it loud enough that Red Eye could probably have heard it on the other side of the city.

Carmelita grimaced. “Oh, shit. He must be new. Heidi's going to break him in like a new mule.”

Indeed, Heidi completely ignored Lita's comment and strolled toward him. He noticed her approach just in time to snap up straight and make the same expression someone would right after biting into an apple that went bad two weeks ago. I couldn't look, and averted my eyes to Egon, who was likewise doing everything he could to not watch.

“Excuse me, Private Updraft, but did I hear some doubts about my training and evaluation criteria?”

“Uh, uh, n-no ma'am. No doubts here.”

“Well, that's funny, because I could have sworn I heard some comment about Egon not living up to standards.”

“No ma'am, I-I'm sure he-”

“What Egon does is none of your concern, private. Worry about your own self and leave the rest to me.”

I still couldn't look. Boy, oh boy, this patch of dirt sure was interesting. Yeah, I should keep focusing on that.

Heidi went on. “In fact, if you're so worried about what a 'boy toy' of mine would do, why don't we find out? Go to my office. Now. Right now. I'll be there shortly.”

I glanced up in time to see the poor griffon take off and flap toward the station that her office was situated in. Wow, twice in the span of two minutes I couldn't express how glad I was that it was someone else this time.

Lita waved. “We'll miss you new guy.”

Heidi looked around, and immediately everyone stopped staring and went back to what they were doing. She stomped off toward Sam, saying, “Sergeant! You're taking over until I get back. Check Corporal Dawnshower's and Private Longtalons' weapons and direct the exercises until I get back. I have to correct a training error...”

Well, at least she gave him a direct order to fix my pistol. Maybe he'd actually do it this time? One could hope. What was I supposed to do after handing it over though? I guess I'd just have to sit around until Serge gave the order to do something else, and judging by the way he looked right then it didn't look like we'd be doing a whole lot else.

Once again, I hated to admit that I felt relieved, but... at least it wasn't me this time.

Level Up - Level 7!

Quick Recovery - It only costs 10 AP for you to stand up when you fall down.

Chapter 12: Mobilization

Chapter 12

Mobilization

We were told that for the remaining week before deployment that we'd continue going through some exercises, so while our patrol routes hadn't been shortened to compensate, Serge gave Amalia and myself an unsubtle hint that we should try to get done a little early if we could. That was absolutely fine with me, since I'd spent the majority of the time since my encounter with Silver Rush wanting to get her to the schoolhouse so we could have an open heart-to-heart on the situation here. Unofficial orders from Serge to finish the patrol early was a great opportunity for that.

At the end of our patrol the next day, I pulled her over in the air and told her to follow me as we diverted away from the flight path back to base. Her dusty goggles made it hard to read if she was questioning my directions, but she didn't offer any verbal disagreement.

The little dilapidated building was closer than I remembered, situated at the end of a looping neighborhood of collapsing but unburnt homes. That was good. By my figuring we had maybe half an hour to spare here, so if the building wasn't, well, occupied, that gave us plenty of time to chat.

We both touched down on the roof near the bell tower, eliciting a deep and worrisome groan from the tired old structure. Amalia kept her wings flared for an emergency liftoff. “Uh, Kasimir, what are we doing here?”

I held up a talon and poked my head into the tower. I couldn't spy anyone through the fallen wall in the back and didn't hear anything other than the occasional pop from settling boards. All clear. “Come in, I'll explain in a moment.”

Without waiting for her, I slipped through the opening, dodged a bit of debris, and confirmed that the two of us were alone. Behind me, Amalia's approach was heralded by rhythmic creaks of the floor, a pause as she discovered the same crusty old condom that nobody had yet mustered the courage to remove, and slightly slower creaks as she eased into the room. “No, really, why are we here?” she stressed.

“I know what it looks like, but that's not it.” I swept a claw over my half of the room. “It's pretty clean over here.”

She didn't budge from the entrance. “Okay, but you still haven't really explained.”

“I just wanted to talk with you for a few minutes in private is all. As you've probably guessed, some of the troopers have other uses for this place, but that's all I've ever used it for.” The one time. “Is that okay?”

Amalia's glower faded. “Talk? Uh... okay. But why here? Shouldn't we be getting back to base? We have a formation drill this afternoon.”

Oh, would you just come over here already? I waved for her and said, “This won't take that long, and, well, it's kind of private. Remember when I told you I'd explain our squad being under strength?”

That got her attention, and she drifted over. “Oh, okay. But doesn't the rest of the squad know already? Why keep that quiet?”

“They do, but there were a few other things I wanted to talk about afterward. Is that okay? I was hoping that if I explained that, you might be willing to tell me a little about yourself and what it was like to grow up among the Talons. Okay?”

She tested the strength of a strip of sheet rock behind her and opted not to lean against it. “...alright. So, what happened?”

“I really hate to tell you this now, but, well, my previous partner, Ida Whiptail, was killed in an accident a few months ago. Specifically, I caused it.” The pause that followed wasn't deliberate or done for emphasis. I really just launched into it without preparing myself very well. “I... suffer from severe insomnia sometimes. I was so sleepy that I dropped my gun on patrol. When it hit the ground it went off and hit her.”

Amalia stared silently. “Wh... at? How?”

I wasn't sure which part she was questioning. “I don't know, but it's what happened. You can ask the others.”

She pulled her rifle closer. “But... every weapon made after the first few years of the war is designed to not discharge when dropped. Don't you perform regular maintenance on them?”

“We do, but I guess five stories is past the tolerances they were tested to.” I scratched my foreleg. “Again, I'm sorry to be telling you now and I wish you had some choice on your assignment, but I thought you should know the truth. I know this isn't very comforting...”

“Just... what are the odds?” she murmured, staring at her rifle. “And, blood feathers... yesterday the corporal's weapon misfired and almost shot the sergeant. Someone higher up needs to know we've got these defective weapons. Even more people are going to die at this rate!”

Whoa, whoa there, this wasn't the direction I intended to take things. “My incident went all the way up to Captain Stern I'm sure, so someone relevant has to know. I don't know what Lieutenant Blackfeathers is going to do about yesterday, if anything, but we've done all we can about it.”

“What if it's not enough?”

Then we were in deep brahmin dung. “There's not much else we can do. Look, sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like this. As far as I know this has never happened before. Just a fluke.” I patted my pistol holster. “I trashed my rifle in the process, so it's gone anyway. I'm sure Sam will get Leigh's fixed.”

“I'm not scared,” she said. “Just... concerned. I can accept that accidents happen, but not that often, and not that disastrously.”

She really wasn't going to like working with me then, but as far as I knew there really wasn't any other choice for her. “Sorry, but I don't know what else to tell you. I wouldn't have brought it up at all, but I didn't want you to not know.”

“Now I do, I guess. Thanks for telling me...” Amalia sighed. “So, insomnia you said? How'd you even get hired with that?”

“I didn't volunteer it. I hoped it wouldn't be an issue, but I guess that was kind of dumb in hindsight. I haven't had any trouble with it for a while though, so try not to worry about it.”

She scanned me with those piercing eyes. “I just don't understand. Did you want to work for Master Red Eye that badly?”

There was that again. I held up a talon and said, “We should probably talk about that for a second first. There are a few griffons, like my crazy sister, who actively wanted to work here, but I'm not one of them. I just really needed the money and didn't have a lot of options.”

Amalia narrowed her eyes a little and cocked her head. “Okay... now I really don't understand. If you don't care about working here, why do you make such a big deal about treating the slaves like real workers instead of the slaves they are? I wasn't sure even Master Red Eye meant anything he said, so why do you believe it?”

Huh? Was it that much of a mystery? “...I... feel bad for them. Really. They've all been snatched out of their lives and forced to work here in terrible conditions, many of them to their deaths. I watched a group of them literally beat each other to death for Red Eye's amusement. So, yeah, I feel really bad for them if I think about it.”

Whatever that meant to her, she just thought silently for ages. I was probably hoping for too much that she'd unconditionally agree with me, but I hoped for a tiny bit more sympathy. This was probably going to be a very rocky working relationship.

“Do you?” I asked without really thinking, mostly to break the silence.

She wrung her claw around the grip of her rifle. “I don't know. None of this is what I expected.”

Well, that made two of us. “So, what were you expecting then?”

“I don't know,” she said simply. “Up until I was deployed here I'd only met a clawful of ponies in my life. I knew it wouldn't be like training, but I didn't know what it would be like. A little more... exciting, I hoped.”

“Not minding slaves all day?”

She looked up and nodded. “Fillydelphia was a competitive deployment. I thought that meant that I'd be given something more important to do.” She flicked her eyes away. “No offense.”

It wasn't like I cared about rank here or anything. “None taken. But, this is a 'competitive deployment?' You had other choices?”

“A few others. Talon Company has subcontractors and bases all over Equestria. Fillydelphia is the big one that everyone aspires to, but not everyone makes it. If you don't make the grade sometimes you get hired out to caravans, or somewhere like Shattered Hoof.” She looked back. “Or if you really don't make it then you get shoved into a support position somewhere. Kind of like the lieutenant's assistant.”

“Oh, really? Was Egon hatched by Talon company?”

Amalia half-shrugged. “I'm guessing he was, but I don't know him personally.”

“Or Otto, maybe.” She didn't seem to recognize the name, so I clarified. “The kid that works in the armory.”

“You let griffawns work in the armory!? No wonder the guns are-”

I caught her there before she jumped track back onto that subject again. “It's okay, he just hands out weapons that have already been issued. Sam does all of the maintenance.” Probably.

She relaxed a hair. “Oh. Good. I swear, this place...”

There wasn't any need to finish that sentence. At least I could take a little solace in the thought that I was working with someone who wasn't enthusiastic about the conditions. “Yeah… but, as I was going to ask: you said that griffons that don't make the grade get put in positions like that, but he's not really even old enough for that I don't think. Is that normal?”

“I figure my surprise is enough of an answer to that,” she said, again wringing a claw around her rifle. “No, it's not. They must do things differently here. My guess is that he was hatched and raised here. They probably never gave him any training and just told him to do it when he was old enough to follow orders.”

And now for the thousand bit question. “Not how it happened for you?”

She stopped strangling her rifle and considered her response. “No.”

“So, what was it like then? Growing up on a Talon base?”

Amalia shrugged. “I don't know. I've only ever grown up once, so I can't say what it's like compared to life out in the wastes. We always had food and water. Everything was clean. We didn't have raiders and psychos shooting at us every day.”

That actually sounded kind of nice, if maybe blown a little out of proportion. “Hey, you make it sound like we were digging through trash for food all of the time,” I joked.

“I… know it wasn't that bad.” Her eyes flicked about a bit. "...right?"

“Nah. Not for us anyway. Maybe some of the less fortunate ponies had to do that sometimes, but we had it pretty nice overall. My ma was a doctor, and my papa is an armorer. Well, he was before he got sick anyway. We traveled a lot. Both of those professions are in high demand I guess, so we had what we needed most of the time.”

She nodded. “Makes sense. It sounds nice too, if you're into traveling like that.”

“Aren't you?”

“Not really. We very rarely left Stonetalon AFB, and I was just fine with that. It was home, and far away from all of the craziness below.” She laid her gun down. “We had a scare once about some pegasi from the Enclave flying kind of low, but other than that it was pretty safe.”

That sounded pretty terrifying to me, frankly. I'd yet to meet a pegasus, but I'd heard enough about them to want to keep it that way. They'd have razed the base and taken anything useful without blinking an eye. “That's good, but it's really not that bad in most places. If you can believe it, before I came to Fillydelphia I'd only seen one shootout and that was caused by a drunk pony getting a little too uppity over a bill.”

That got a tiny little smirk out of her. “They kept telling us that it was all anarchy and raiders out here. I'm glad to hear it's not quite so terrible.”

“It's not. So, do you have any family?” Dang it… if she'd been treated like the hatchlings were here, I knew the answer to that.

“Sure.” Wait, really? “Well, family to me anyway. I guess it's different for you, but we all grew up together so we considered ourselves brothers and sisters. Nobody knew their parents, but we all treated Ms. Stormswallow as our mom, I guess. There were fifteen of us in my class, so a bigger family than even you had.” She smirked again.

“Heh, that's one way of looking at I guess.” It must have made Hearth's Warming a big ordeal though…

Amalia fiddled with the strap on her gun. “Still… we didn't know who our parents were or if any of us even were really related, but I did have a biological sister there. They gave us randomized family names so we wouldn't know, but the two of us, we knew. She was two years older than me, but we look so much alike that there's no question. Maybe you've even met her? Valerie Nightsky?”

Didn't ring any bells. “Sorry. Do you know where she's assigned?”

“Second platoon. That's all I know.”

“Really? Small world. My sister is in second platoon too. Liese Longtalons. I'll have to ask her next time I see her.”

Amalia brightened up. “Would you? I'd really appreciate that. I haven't seen Valerie in more than a year. Ever since she was deployed.”

Now we were getting somewhere. “Of course, I'd be happy to. I'm not sure when I'll see Liese again with the change in assignments, but I'm sure it won't be too long.”

“Thanks.” She picked her gun back up. “So, should we get going now? It's been a little while.”

As much as I hated to admit it, she was probably right. I really wanted to ask her about how the Talons at Stonetalon AFB felt about ponies and a dozen other things, but if we were late getting back to base there was going to be a lot of brahmin dung to dig out of. Probably for the best that we didn't discover just how much.

I agreed, on the condition that we catch up more later, and the two of us headed out.

The final week before deployment went by in a flash. Every day before or after patrol we'd have a drill of some kind, and while we managed to avoid any more life threatening mishaps, I can't say that I learned a whole lot. I was able to hit a target with acceptable accuracy, apparently, so that was good. I could also fly in formation, so long as we went in a mostly straight line. A crash course in tactics would have been nice, but I'd have to live with the very brief mock combat exercise we got on the last day in the city. My head still ached where some pink griffon cocked me with an inactive grenade by mistake. At least that drove home a lesson for me: don't take your helmet off. Ever.

But, as they told us, odds were pretty low that anyone would be dumb enough to shoot at us out in the field. If we got into a serious fight, I was going to do exactly what Amalia did, since she'd spent twenty years learning how to do this. I was going to make an honest effort to not hide behind anyone, but when the bullets started raining around me I had a sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't be entirely in control of such decisions.

Steel Rangers were another matter, but Serge assured us that we wouldn't be going anywhere near them for the foreseeable future. The little group that had parked and set up camp outside of Fillydelphia had been quiet for so long that there were doubts they were even still there, but I figured if that was the case we'd have kicked in the door and taken anything valuable.

Deployment day itself was a new experience though, and for a while I was a little awed at the sight of a couple hundred griffons lined up under the early morning haze at the front gates, standing in tight formations and fully geared up for their coming assignments. City watch was going to be pretty thin if so many were leaving Fillydelphia, but that was neither my decision nor my problem. Liese would be here when I got back.

For our part, our squad had been issued a few new tools and goodies. Everyone, myself included, was weighted down with an extra pack of survival gear and supplies, including enough rations to last us three days each and enough water for one day. It was heavy and inconvenient to haul around with everything else, but at least it wasn't as bad as the bedroll. I guess I was lucky though, since in addition to that I only had to carry one extra pouch of medical supplies, including a few super restoration potions for dire emergencies. Those were worth enough that I kept them strapped on the opposite side to the rest of the junk I had, since breaking one would probably make the lieutenant very unhappy.

I was lucky, because the others had some downright onerous looking pieces of equipment in their care. Isaac was supposed to be our squad's radio operator, but given his disabilities the honor had been shifted to Leigh for the time being. The radio pack looked like it must weigh fifteen kilograms by itself, but so far she'd been stoically ignoring its weight. Carmelita, on the other claw, had some kind of squad support machine gun strapped across her back, plus a box of ammunition for it. I doubted that it was really supposed to be his job, but Serge appeared to have two more boxes of ammo with his pack. The sight of the high caliber weapon reminded me of just what we might be getting ourselves into, and the fact that I still had only my little pistol…

Once again, I recited a promise to myself in my head that if shooting happened, I was going to find the nearest solid chunk of something to hide behind and let the others shoot back. I'd best just hope that we didn't get shot at in the air, since clouds did not count as something solid.

We must have stood in formation for five or ten silent and tense minutes. Everyone was present so far as I was aware, so I'm not sure what the delay was for, but eventually the silence was broken by Captain Stern's amplified voice. “Everyone at attention! We're preparing to mobilize. We have four field bases that you will be reporting to to receive your assignments. You're going to be breaking up by platoon and squad. First platoon, squads one through six are with Lieutenant Heidi Blackfeathers and squads seven through twelve are with Staff Sergeant Olga Redtalons. Third platoon, squads one through eight are with First Lieutenant Freija Ironclaw and squads nine through sixteen are with Staff Sergeant Rolf Hailstone. We're deploying by squad, starting with the first squad of first platoon. When the squad ahead of you is airborne, wait for your flight leader and stay in formation.”

She really stressed the last part, so I was glad that I did surprisingly well at formation flying during our drills. Staying behind and to the left of Serge wasn't hard, so I'd be fine.

As she said, we took to the skies in a very orderly manner. I didn't really know who was leading off or anything of the sort, but it was simple to shuffle into position when everyone else in our squad did. Once Serge lifted off, I gave a little hop and beat my wings to fall into the air in position behind him, followed by Leigh to my right, Amalia behind me and Isaac and Lita behind Leigh.

In just a few seconds we were past the walls and heading out over the moat, bubbling and rancid smelling as ever, and finally past it and over the gravel and sand surrounding the city. An almost peaceful sensation washed over me as we left the accursed place behind, tempered a little by the realization that I was still a Talon and wasn't really leaving. I'd be back soon enough, if something truly awful didn't happen to me out here in the field, but for just a moment I chose to accept the elation.

Who knew? Maybe I'd even like field duty. I wouldn't be watching slaves and if I had to shoot someone it was going to be bandits or raiders. I might even be able to convince myself that I was doing the world some good.

I had to suppress a little amused snort as I banked to follow Serge toward the vast open wastes ahead. Yeah, sure. I could tell myself that.

It's hard to estimate how long we must have flown, but the aching in my wings told me it was about twice as long as I'd have preferred. I was used to flying around Fillydelphia for hours at a time, but the extra weight didn't do my joints and muscles any favors. I'd get used to it in a few days, but today was not a few days from now.

We'd left the city maybe an hour after sunrise, so if I could determine where the sun was overhead I could guess just how far we'd gone. Even someone like me who wasn't accustomed to navigating long stretches in the air like this could assume that we'd flown past midday so the sun was maybe three or four hours past noon. Six or seven hours of continuous flight? We were probably flying at least ten kilometers per hour too, so sixty to seventy kilometers. Wow, no wonder my wings were tired.

And I suppose it wasn't completely fair to say we'd flown continuously since we did stop once so everyone could relieve themselves and eat something quickly, but that didn't give me much time to rest. At least we were gone before I had the chance to voice my concerns that the craggy little valley we'd nestled in didn't look like much of a field base.

The small mountain peak ahead definitely did. Even some distance out it was easy to pick out three pairs of griffons patrolling the skies overhead and some activity on the mountain itself. The closer we got, the more I could tell that the mountain had been modified as little as possible to accommodate our presence. In fact, I was kind of curious where we'd be at all since there wasn't much visible other than several machine gun emplacements carved into the mountainside and a few walkways here and there between openings. Was everything inside?

Our approach kind of confirmed that. We followed the squads ahead by drifting low and close to an outcropping, then circling around and overhead to reveal a vast landing strip for skywagons connected to entrances on the mountainside. Unlike a skywagon, we didn't need a runway or landing strip, and squad-by-squad we settled down near the entrances to wait for further orders. Or for Serge to move and signal where I was supposed to go next.

Chilly mountain wind whipped past and made me squint as I tracked Heidi among the mass of griffons standing around. She broke off, flanked by the ever present lavender griffon shadowing her, and circled around in front of all of us. Funny. I thought Egon would stay back in Fillydelphia. “Everyone inside! You'll be assigned temporary quarters and receive your field assignments shortly!”

Sounded good to me. My wings were killing me, and it was surprisingly cold in the exposed mountain air. If we didn't get deployed for real until tomorrow I might even have time to sleep for a while. Oh, was there hot water for a shower? This really could be a nice change from working in Fillydelphia.

The tormenting gusts ended the instant that I passed the threshold into the base itself. We passed a sign that read “Canyontalon Air Force Base,” stencil painted in white over something sprayed over with black. A reused prewar base? This wasn't the place that Amalia was from, was it? Seemed like she said it was called Stonetalon, but maybe they raised hatchlings here too?

We headed deeper into the mountain, down a long descending staircase lined with faintly humming gemlights. At the bottom, we entered a cavernous staging area that was filling with new arrivals. Three unarmored but uniformed griffons fluttered overhead to unseen errands, clipboards in claw.

Ahead, Heidi stopped next to a stack of crates taller than her and spun to face us again. “Welcome to Canyontalon, for those of you who haven't been here before. We'll finalize your field assignments soon, which you will receive this afternoon. In the meantime, your quarters have all been prepared. You will be operating out of Canyontalon for the next few weeks at least. Some squads may later be dispatched to forward positions in the field. You'll find out in your orders.

“Report to your designated quarters until you're called up for assignment. The barracks are on the level below us, numbered by squad. Dismissed.”

Like an anthill that was stepped on, the nice rank and file fell into disarray and began drifting toward the far side of the hangar or wherever we were. The ceiling was largely bare aside from support struts, but judging from the attachment points for heavy equipment and the gigantic hangar door to our side, this was clearly a prewar base. Griffon? Pony? ...Enclave? If the latter, did they take it, and if so, how?

No, that seemed pretty unlikely. There weren't any obvious markings to indicate its allegiance, so I decided to drop the question for then and followed quietly as we shuffled along with everyone else to our quarters. It was hard to miss the convenient illuminated number 3 on our room, and getting inside and out of the mass of mumbling troopers far past ready to relax was a nearly palpable relief in and of itself.

Serge and Lita quickly picked out bunks nearest the door, followed by Leigh and Isaac, leaving the last bunk open and obviously for me and Amalia. Huh. Which did I get?

“So, you like it on top or bottom, Kaz?” Lita asked without missing a beat as she dumped her pack next to her cot.

“Uh...”

If she couldn't get it out of me, she'd try her next victim. “Okay then, what about you new girl? I bet you like it on top, don't you?”

Amalia gave a bemused smirk. “I'm used to being on top.” She punctuated it by tossing her pack up onto the top bunk and indicating the bottom one for me.

Lita grinned, but instead of running the joke into the ground like I expected, she ambled around to one of the other bunks. “Hey, Ike, look, someone actually stitched up your mattress from last time. I thought you were going to have to hang it on the lieutenant's doorknob to get someone to patch it.”

“You've been here before?” I asked. I guess they'd have been deployed many times before I ever showed up, but to the same room?

“Last time was about nine months ago,” Leigh answered. “They try to keep things as consistent as they can in the field. Learn the job once.”

That made plenty of sense. “Right. So… how long do we have before we're shipped off? Where will we be heading?”

Serge didn't look away from inspecting his cot as he answered, “The lieutenant will have to answer that for us. She'll probably let us know within the hour, so don't get too comfortable. We probably won't get sent out again today, but it happens. Not many merchant caravans come this way, but that's usually what we get sent to handle. A lot of sleeping in the field depending on how far away they are.”

Lita rolled over onto her cot and shuffled her wings. “Do we at least get to sing a campfire song before we have to go?”

“You'll have to ask the lieutenant about that,” Serge said dryly.

“Pfft. She wouldn't have brought the marshmallows anyway.”

Now that was a word I hadn't heard in a long time. It had probably been nearly twenty years since I'd seen a marshmallow, but I still remembered the time my parents, Liese and I toasted some while we were staying in some town whose name I forgot just as long ago. They were so hard that at first I thought they were just charcoal briquettes, but after heating them up they were the best thing I'd ever eaten. So much sugar…

I knew Lita was joking, but at that moment I wondered if maybe I could find some somewhere and maybe send them to papa. Maybe one of the merchants we would be escorting would have some?

Yeah, that would be a nice gift. And next time, I was going to be delivering it to him personally, not Liese.

Despite Serge's warnings to not get too comfy, I stretched out on my cot and tried to get some rest. If I'm honest, I really tried to get some sleep since I was pretty confident I would have a hard time of that for the next few days. Naturally, the uncertainty of how long we had to sit around kept me too wound up enough to do more than just lay there with my eyes shut while trying to ignore the tapping of Leigh and Isaac on their portable terminals.

It's all for the best that I didn't get to sleep anyway, because sure enough, my luck came back to bite me in the ass when our orders arrived.

I bolted upright to look alert when I heard the knocking at the door, but nobody entered. Instead, Serge answered it, received something and sat down to read. After a few tense seconds, he blew out his breath and set the note aside.

“Alright everyone, look alive. We've got a problem.”

Leigh slapped her terminal closed. “What's wrong?”

“Stable 69, that's what's wrong.”

I half expected a joke from Lita on that, but when she kept quiet I felt the tension in my stomach tighten a dozen-fold. Either I misunderstood the jokes around that number, or this was way more serious than I was going to like.

Amalia shifted above me and her sandy tail dangled down from the bunk in front of my face. “Was that a reclamation job? Did something go wrong?”

He nodded. “A team of slaves was dropped off there last night to clean it out. Someone radioed in a call for help early this morning, and we haven't heard anything since.”

I peeked around Amalia's tail. “What did they say?”

Serge pointed at the sheet as if I could read it from where I was. “I don't know, it doesn't say. Patrols in the area haven't indicated anything unusual, so we probably have a revolt on our claws. Or Steel Rangers could have hit the stable while they were there, but I think we'd have noticed.”

Lita snorted. “You'd have heard the explosions from here. Probably just a bunch of idiots thinking they can shoot their way out to freedom. They've gotta know it always ends the same way.”

Serge got up and started grabbing his gear again. “Either way, we're being called up now. We've got support from fifth squad, but they're going to be watching our backs from the outside unless things really go bad. Everyone up and ready. The more time we waste, the worse this gets.”

I rolled off the bed and started grabbing all of my equipment, including my newly issued survival gear. Oh, my wings were so sore already, but my pounding heart told me to ignore that. Whether it was Steel Rangers or slaves with stolen guns, I was about to be heading down into the cramped confines of a stable where I was going to be shot at. I was going to have to shoot back, too. People were probably already dead.

Amalia jumped off of her cot and grabbed at her things too after flashing me a curious look. She didn't seem perturbed at all. I guess this was the excitement she'd been waiting for. “Stay calm. We're going up against untrained rebels. They'll probably surrender as soon as we get there.”

...why did I doubt it was going to be that easy?

“Don't count on it, sister,” Lita said, grabbing for her regular rifle in lieu of the machine gun she'd lugged out here. “They usually send the psychos to do this shit. We'll probably be dragging their bodies to the surface by the time it's said and done.”

Amalia didn't flinch. “If that's what it takes.”

I strapped my medical kit to my side with a shaky claw and checked to make sure the super restoration potions were still intact.

This was it. So much for liking field duty over city watch.

Gain Experience – You gain 1,500 experience points for exploring the gray frontier.

Chapter 13: Dirty Work

Chapter 13

Dirty Work

The flight to the stable only took about an hour or so, thank goodness, but that was flying at the fastest pace we could manage, so by the time we saw the tell-tale maw of the stable's entrance carved into the mountainside, I was beat. Wasn't there another squad available that had already been stationed outside of the city and didn't have an entire day's flight that same day to tire them out? If I didn't know better, I'd say Heidi was living up her promise and was trying to get me killed…

...come to think of it, I didn't know better, so that was entirely possible. Guess she was just betting that the more experienced members of our squad wouldn't bite it at the same time.

In any case, I was stuck with this job unless I really did lose my mind and try to desert, so I followed in rough formation as we came up on the camp outside the entrance. We approached from the side, presumably to not present ourselves to any opportunistic snipers hiding in the cavern leading to the stable, and touched down around the cages that had been modified into shipping containers for slaves. Three of the large carts had been pulled around into a rough half-circle like some antiquated wagon train, surrounding what I guessed was the camp the army troopers had set up.

Our squad was the first down, and we touched down just far enough away we could take some cover behind the rough mountainside on our approach. We could see some movement at the campsite from the air on the way down, but couldn't be sure it was friendly. Two members of fifth squad remained airborne as their comrades joined us, taking up positions on a low lying cloud to keep an eye out.

Ahead of me, Leigh held a claw to her headset and listened. “Looks like two army soldiers are at the campsite, sergeant. No sign of anything else.” Wow, already I was loving this new radio we'd been given.

Serge nodded. He peeked around from his cover and shouted toward the carts, “Talon company is here! Show yourselves!”

I chanced a glance to see if the unknown ponies would cooperate, and saw a white unicorn stallion slowly ease up from behind the cart he was taking cover behind. “Talon company? Thank the goddesses.”

A green unicorn mare popped up next. “It's clear, the slaves are all down in the stable.”

Serge looked back to Leigh. “All clear?”

“Snipers have them covered.”

“Alright, everyone move up. Stay away from line of sight to the stable.”

We all broke cover and practically stalked our way over to the wagons, ready to jump back into cover or take flight in an instant if necessary. My heart was thundering in my chest again at the thought of an armed slave waiting on an outcropping somewhere to take pot shots at us, or for the soldiers to turn out to be slaves that stole their uniforms, or something equally bad.

Nobody shot at anyone on the way over, so momentarily Serge and Sergeant Greypaw of fifth squad were busy interrogating the soldiers on just what went wrong.

“The slaves never came back up to the surface like they were supposed to. We radioed for help, but didn't know when anyone would come so… a few hours after they were overdue the rest of our team went in to look for the slaves. Haven't seen them either...” the stallion explained.

“How long ago was this?” Greypaw asked.

“About four hours.” The pony squirmed and pointed toward the stable. “The place looked deserted already when we got here, so we only gave the slaves some low caliber crap that was up for salvage. Never heard any gunfire, so we just don't know what happened.”

Serge grimaced. “Do you know what this stable's experiment was?”

Huh, so that rumor was true? In my travels with my parents as a griffawn, I'd heard a few ponies talking about the “stable experiments”, but figured it was all just a bunch of superstitious talk. Like, if the computer malfunctioned, everyone assumed Stable-Tec was out to get them or something. Was there really more to it than that?

“No sir,” the mare answered. “Our briefing didn't have any info on it, and we haven't been inside.”

Lita snorted. “Fabulous.”

A beige griffon from fifth squad grumbled something. “If everyone inside was dead or gone when you got here, that's not a good sign either. We might be looking at a death trap.”

Serge rapped his talons on the rocky ground. “Possibly, but we have to investigate anyway. Ilya, your squad's going to be understrength, so why don't you take the lower levels? Less space down there so you won't be tripping over each other at every turn.”

Greypaw shrugged. “Works for me.” He held up a claw and motioned toward the cave. “Form up, people.”

Back with us, Serge explained, “We'll take the upper levels. Living quarters, mess hall, medical, and so on. Lots of open space compared to engineering and storage, so if the slaves are held up somewhere they won't have as much room to hide. If they're in the living quarters a few grenades will convince them to leave.

“Lita and I will lead. Leigh and Isaac are behind us. Kaz, you and Amalia will be behind them. Fifth squad will follow us and split off at the atrium. Let's go.”

Oh boy, here we went. I sidled up with Amalia and tried to quell the anxiety building in my gut. This could go wrong in so many ways…

She flashed me a confident smirk. “Relax. You have to keep a level head. Can't afford to lose your cool now.”

Ironic that I was teaching her things in Fillydelphia just a week ago, and here she was teaching me. But I wasn't about to argue when bullets could fly at me any second. “Right...”

The ten of us huddled up against the mountainside and crept over to the cave. I couldn't see Serge and Lita from where I was, but after a few seconds I heard her announce that it was clear, and we moved further inside. The narrow cave was longer than I expected, twisting its way about twenty meters into the mountain before terminating in a dimly lit and very mundane looking door. I couldn't believe that a simple steel door on a hinge was supposed to protect these things from balefire blasts…

Serge and Lita took up positions opposite each other at the door. She held her rifle up and nodded. Before I even realized what they were doing, Serge slammed the door open with his weight and she snapped around to scan inside with her gun. “Clear.”

Belatedly, I realized I was also the only one still standing. There wasn't exactly room to take cover, but everyone else had the common sense to at least hunker down while they checked the room beyond. I was so going to get killed…

We filed through the door and into yet more cavern, but I had to take a moment to fully appreciate what I saw as I entered. A massive door, ten meters across, emblazoned with the number 69 and shaped like a gear, was pulled away from an equally vast entrance. A flickering gemlight from inside the stable cast harsh shadows from the teeth of the door and railings behind it, filling me with even more foreboding. But, at least the stable had power, right?

In pairs, we took turns with short flights up to the walkway while the others kept watch at both the giant cog ahead of us and the exit behind us. Now I could understand how a stable withstood impacts from balefire missiles… that door was half a meter thick! I could only imagine the strength of the mechanisms required to shove such a thing into its resting place.

Amalia gave me a hard tap and a frustrated nudge toward the hole left by its removal, snapping me out of my daydream and reminding me where I was and why. “Sorry,” I whispered as I scurried inside to join the rest of my squad, who had already fanned out to cover yet more doorways. Great, were we going to run into a room somewhere that had more doors than we had griffons?

As fifth squad followed behind us, Serge pointed toward a terminal attached to the extended walkway leading from the door. “Leigh, see if that thing is operational, and if so, what you can get out of it.” Someone from fifth took up her watch position as she peeled away and fluttered up to the gantry and started fiddling with buttons and knobs.

“How big is this place?” I whispered to Amalia as I tried to peek down a hallway she was covering. I pressed up against the wall across from her and pretended to help keep watch.

“Big enough for a thousand ponies,” she whispered back, not taking her eyes off the silent, but at least illuminated hallway beyond. “Stay focused, don't get distracted.”

Ugh, right. I just nodded and kept my piddly little pistol in claw as I waited for someone to do something else. A minute or so later, that someone turned out to be Leigh as she announced, “The computer systems all seem to be up and working. I can't access much from here because this terminal isn't connected to the core network, but there is something odd.”

“Go ahead,” Serge said.

“I'm looking at the census records. One thousand ponies on the list, like usual. Nine hundred ninety nine mares, and one stallion. Some pony named Leisure Suit.”

“...not usual,” Lita said from her spot across the room. “What the hell?”

“I don't guess that's just by chance?” someone from fifth asked.

Leigh kept tapping away at the terminal. “No, they always have an exact fifty-fifty mix.”

Serge said, “Well, guess we know what the experiment was now. So we shouldn't run into anything unusual deeper inside. We have to assume the security systems are still online. Leigh, can you confirm that?”

More tapping. “Not from here.”

“Right then. The atrium is this way. Move up and secure it. We'll split up there. The overmare's office and mess hall are on the top floor. Third squad will start there and work down. Fifth will head down and sweep the generator, stores and maintenance facilities while working back up. We'll meet in the living quarters and medical.” He nodded toward the door. “Let's move.”

The atrium consisted of a section of modular staircases spiraling around something I'd only heard of in fabled stories from before the war: a functional elevator. I have to admit I was a bit excited at the prospect of seeing one in action, but that was quickly buried under the understanding that there were few worse death traps in this building than a big, noisy elevator to announce our approach to any hostile slaves with guns.

We split off from fifth at the elevator and headed upward, by way of the decidedly mundane but comparatively safe stairs. I expected there to be a few levels between us and the overmare's office, but to my surprise it was all contained with the mess hall, fashioned so that she could look out over the ponies of the stable from her office as they ate and caroused. A bit creepy, I guessed, but effective at maintaining situational awareness.

From the stairwell we emerged directly into the upper level of the mess hall, dining hall, cafeteria or whatever it was the stable residents called it. There was frustratingly little in the way of meaningful cover or concealment, so we perched silently in the door for a full minute, listening for sounds of anyone moving.

Nothing came, so Serge pointed a talon to Lita then indicated a door just visible to our right. He repeated the gesture with Amalia and another door just beyond the first. Both nodded, eased inside and lifted off to approach without having fight to avoid their talons clacking on the metal flooring.

My chest tightened as I watched them drift over and take up position at their doors. Lita glanced out over the recessed dining area and made some anxious waves of her claw toward us. Serge nodded and pointed to Leigh and Isaac, who disappeared down the hallway behind us. There was another doorway on this level back that way. Were there more rooms on the other side we couldn't see? Probably, and those would need to be covered too.

I swallowed and tightened my grip on the pistol in my claw, following Amalia and Lita with my eyes. They watched the far wall for agonizing seconds. Pinfeathers… get this over with before my palm sweated enough for the pistol to slip-

The two visible griffonesses snapped around and pointed their rifles through their doorways. They swept their guns about and vanished inside. Seconds ticked by. I switched claws. More time passed. I recited a few more curses in my head and switched the pistol back to my right claw.

Finally, Amalia peeked out of her room and waved to us. Lita did the same.

All clear?

Serge tapped my shoulder and pointed out into the room. Oh boy. We both scurried out of the hallway and the only source of sturdy cover in sight. I intentionally lagged behind Serge a hair to follow his lead, and we ended up in the room with Lita, who was picking through a cabinet.

“Just stores of some kind. No sign of recent activity,” she whispered.

“Right. We're heading up to the overmare's office. We can try to find some answers there.” He blew out his breath. “Looks like the inhabitants just vanished. No signs of the slaves either. This is usually the first place they'd go.” He peered out through the door. “Let's check the kitchen before we head up. If the slaves have been here then anything worth eating will be gone.”

Leigh and Isaac set up a watch from their side of the room as Serge, Lita, Amalia and I formed up and headed down into the recessed seating space. It was hard not to feel uneasy, even before Serge pointed out how eerily clean everything looked. I'd never seen the guts of a stable before, but it looked just like it was on display for possible patrons. The floors had a few scuffs here and there, but all of the tables were neatly arranged and clean. No chairs were out of place. All of the lights hummed and filled the room with a soft blue glow. If there had been a thousand ponies here, where did they go? I was looking forward to finding out from the overmare's office. Everyone had probably left years and years ago when supplies ran short or something, but… why clean up before leaving?

The kitchen looked clear from where we were, but even still we took no chances. Serge and Lita covered the door and he directed Amalia… and myself… to sweep inside.

...shit…

Amalia went first without hesitation, and I followed with quite a lot of hesitation. She hunkered down and prowled below a counter, keeping her rifle ready in one armored claw while crawling along on the other three with more grace and silence than I thought possible. My pistol at least was easy to keep ready while trying to emulate her, but even without the gauntlets she had I was quite a lot less stealthy. But, nobody was around anyway, so it didn't-

Something exploded behind me in a deafening cacophony, and my heart did its level best to rocket through my throat and out of my mouth. I squealed and jumped, trying to reorient myself to face the deadly danger that had just assailed us from behind! Stabbing pain shot through my claws and I lost my balance as my gun went sliding out into the room we'd just left. Fragments of whatever exploded scattered beneath me as I hit the ground. “Agh… I'm hit!” I yelped, rolling over to examine my claws. Blood trickled from tiny pinpricks in my palms…

“Shit, get down!”

“The fuck was that!?”

“Don't see anything!”

Something snatched me by the tail and heaved hard enough for every joint in my back to pop. I panicked and grabbed at the drawer of spilled silverware in front of me to keep the thing attacking me from dragging me off to my doom.

Wait…

“Dammit!” Amalia thundered up behind me and… silence fell.

“You have got to be shitting me,” Lita grumbled.

Isaac groaned loudly.

“Dammit, Kasimir!” Amalia stressed. “Everyone on this side of the continent knows we're here now.”

My spinning head slowly settled and I began to piece together what just happened. I'd snagged a drawer somehow, spilled silverware everywhere and stepped on a couple of forks. The stinging pain in my claws throbbed with each beat of my heart, and I could feel my cheeks flushing…

Dammit indeed…

Serge grabbed my pistol and snapped his head around to check the dining room. “Amalia's right. They know we're here. We need to get up to the overmare's office right now. That's the most defensible place in the stable. Leigh, can you get fifth on your radio?”

“Their operator is still outside,” she said as she pulled back from cover.

Amalia yanked me back to my feet and pushed past me. “They've been here. There are open boxes in the kitchen.”

“Then we need to be extra careful. They may have laid an ambush for us. There will be at least one robotic turret protecting the entrance, so we have to assume it's been reprogrammed.” He held my pistol out for me. “Let's move, now.”

I wiped the specks of blood from my palms on my sides and took the pistol. “Sorry...”

“Forget it, just hurry.”

So we did. The stairwell leading up to the office was on the opposite side of the room, leading off from where the kitchen entrance was on this side. Serge and Lita went first, followed by Amalia and myself and trailed by Isaac and Leigh. There was only room for two abreast as we scrabbled upward, and the words 'robotic turret' kept repeating in my head. I decided we shouldn't wait for it to start shooting before I asked about it.

“What are we going to do about the defense system?”

Lita rounded a corner after Serge and suggested, “I've got a couple of frag grenades. That ought to handle it.”

“It'll wreck everything in her office and we need her terminal if we can get to it,” Leigh piped up from behind me.

Serge called back, “Wait until we see where it's positioned. If there's no door to block the blast then we can't risk it. It's too cramped in here. I'll take it out with my pistol if I have to.”

A pistol didn't sound like a great option to me, but after screwing up earlier I wasn't going to say anything. I kept mine tightly in my grip as we rounded one last turn and faced up the flight of stairs leading to the door marked 'Overmare Tulip Petals.' I arrived just in time to see a panel set into the ceiling click and slide open. Sparks preceded the arrival of a short barreled turret descending. It rotated to face us and Serge fumbled for his pistol.

Sleep deprivation has robbed me of a lot of memories, but the bad ones seem to stay around no matter what I do, and I'll never forget what happened next. In slow motion I saw the barrel track to boresight my chest. Serge's pistol moved up, but wasn't going to make it in time. Something clicked and I briefly went on autopilot.

“Get down!” I yelled and tried to dive back into the safety of the stairs behind me. Instead of the open space I expected, I landed against hard armor backed by a surprised and much less sturdy griffoness.

Leigh cried out as we tangled together and tumbled down a flight of stairs, but that was immediately drowned out by rhythmic booms of the turret opening fire. My helmet muffled the blast some, thank goodness, but a gun going off in confined quarters like that was just too loud. All sound cut out to a dull ring and I felt the floor and wall shudder under impacts from bullets bouncing down the stairs. Leigh's scream barely cut through the ringing as she convulsed under me…

My wits came back to me and I rolled off of her just in time to see a giant orange griffon barreling down stairs behind us. Isaac grabbed me by my breastplate and hurled me back up the stairs, right into the line of fire!

Without missing a beat I bounced up from where I landed and pressed myself against the wall, expecting a hail of bullets any second to punch through my armor and end my life.

Instead, just a wisp of pink dust rolled past.

I whipped my claw up to point my pistol at the turret, knowing I would be too slow, but discovered that both the turret and my pistol were gone. My gun was probably back down in the dining room by now, but the turret was just a pile of gently glowing powder on the floor.

Serge holstered his laser pistol and pushed me aside to go see what had happened while his back was turned and met Isaac on the way back up. Leigh was slung across his back and clearly in severe pain, but I couldn't hear well enough to tell what she was saying. Isaac wasted no grace or gentleness and plowed past me, followed by Amalia. She shot me a dirty look, but said nothing. Guess she couldn't hear either.

Rather than face any of them right that second, I scurried down the stairs to find my pistol, which mercifully had come to rest two landings down instead of back out in the open of the mess hall. No sign of slaves, so I snatched it up and bounded back up the stairs to the office.

I just managed to set a claw inside when something grabbed my by my armor straps again and hefted me off of my feet. I found myself eye-to-eye with Isaac, who looked very much like he was preparing to do to me what he'd done to the coffee maker back at Fillydelphia. With a sneer he drew back a claw and formed a fist. I didn't even have a chance to raise my arms to cover my face.

By the time I realized where I was, Lita was crawling onto Isaac's back and fighting to hold him back. I heard Serge shout something. Then something else. I scrambled to get to my feet and away from the giant that was quite possibly going to kill me for getting his girlfriend shot before I could even help her, but my paws and claws couldn't get purchase on the slick metal floor.

“Ike, stop!” Leigh shrieked. And he did.

Carmelita let go and backed away from the enraged griffon slowly. Serge exploded into view and hoisted me up. Damn was I getting tired of being on the floor…

Serge jabbed a talon toward Isaac. “You, watch the window. Now. Lita and Amalia, cover the door.” He pulled at my leg and led me around to the other side of the overmare's desk, where Leigh was lying on her back and fighting to remain still. “I don't think it's bad,” he said.

Leigh clenched her fists and groaned. “My leg...” she moaned, just audibly.

I spat out a gob of blood and did my best to ignore the pain in my jaw. I surely wasn't hurting as badly as she was… and… damn did I deserve it instead… she could have been killed!

It only took a few seconds to find where she'd been hit. A bullet had hit the plate on her hip dead on and punched right through it and her thigh. It was bleeding pretty badly and might have even hit a major artery, but if there was anything a healing potion did well it was stop bleeding. I grabbed my medical kit and plucked one of the purple vials from its padded container. A thousand blessings upon whoever thought to pack them securely like this, else every last one would probably have been crushed in my fall earlier.

Leigh greedily drank the little potion and visibly relaxed. Her sharp breaths leveled out and she cautiously tried to flex her leg. She winced a little, but the potion had done the job. “...thank you...” she groaned.

“I'm sorry! I-I didn't know you were right there and-”

“Serge and I had the fucking gun covered from where we were! Why did you barrel out into the open like that?” Lita shouted from the door.

Amalia shot me another dirty look. “Why did you break cover?”

“I-I didn't know we were right there at it!”

Serge held up a claw. “Hey, hey! Shut up, everyone! Keep your eyes on the door!” He stooped down to help Leigh up too. “I know it hurts but we don't have time for that. See if there's anything you can find on the terminal.”

Lita was still glowering at me. “I'll shut up when I want to, sarge. I vote we leave Kaz here until we finish sweeping the stable or he's going to get-”

“Lita, so help me now is not the time!”

I shrank away from the unfolding argument and toward a set of lockers adjacent to a door leading to a back room. Bloodfeathers… if everyone wanted to just kick me out the door and say “never come back” that would be just fine by me! I didn't want to be there anyway!

Lita wound up for another volley when someone male moaned loudly from the back room. She slowly closed her beak and looked my way, followed by everyone else. “What was that?”

My first instinct was to open the door and find out, but after my experiences over the last few minutes... fuck that. I backed away from the controls and glanced at everyone else. They were all fixated on the door and leveling weapons at it. Leigh started working her way around the desk into cover, but Serge eased closer. He waved me over with a finger. Against all common sense, he wanted me to help. “Kaz, get ready. Open the door on my mark.” He held up 3 talons.

With my pistol back in hand, I pressed up against the wall. I'm pretty sure my heart didn't beat at all as he folded each talon in succession, and when the last was down I slapped the controls on the door...

Serge shot inside the instant the door was up. Scratches of talons and claws against metal issued from the opening, but ended abruptly with the distinct crack and flash of his laser pistol discharging. Someone screamed. All of the eyes in the room widened.

“Kaz, get in here!”

There went my heart again. I think I might have actually gotten a little lightheaded since the rest was a blur, but a moment later I found myself behind Serge, standing over a light purple stallion cowering in a corner behind an upturned bed. His horn had been broken off, a long time ago judging by the bad scarring, and the rest of him looked little better. It wasn't until I saw the bloody bullet holes in three of his legs that I recognized that the floors were stained red, and he was clearly in bad shape. At least Serge had the kindness to shoot the wall instead of him. He wasn't in any position to fight back and didn't appear to be armed.

The stallion whinnied weakly and held up his only good hoof. “Please don't kill me! I-I thought Rusty was coming b-back for me... wh-when I saw it was Talons I tried to hide!”

Serge kept his pistol trained on the pony's head. “Who's Rusty and where is he? Where is everyone else?”

“Th-they said they were going to medical... to find some potions...” He cringed and gasped. “...th-they're not coming back for me... are they?”

“They probably ran into our friends, so I doubt it,” Serge said dryly. He waved his pistol. “Can you move?”

Absolutely not! This pony needed serious medical attention and didn't need to be moving anywhere. I held up a claw and unstrapped my medical kit again. If he just had bullet wounds to the extremities then a potion would get him back on his hooves. “Hang on, I can fix this...”

A claw gripped my shoulder. “Kaz, stop. Those are for Talon Company use only.”

...of... course they were. “He can't move like this.” To prove my point, the pony flexed his leg and grit his teeth to avoid crying out.

A heavy silence fell. Serge stared into my eyes for an eternity, then the pony's. “We can't leave him here. He could crawl out to the terminal and blow our position. If he can't come with us then that leaves only one other option...”

Mortal dread washed over the pony's face. “W-w-wait! I can walk!” He tried to stand and instantly collapsed into a shrieking heap. “N-no, please!”

I threw an arm up to block Serge from leveling his pistol at the pony. “Wait! What... what if we do find something in medical?”

“And if we don't? Kaz, listen to me. I know this sucks but none of us have a choice, okay? If you give him a potion then both you and I are going to be in deep if command finds out. And they will, because those potions are inventoried and nobody is going to believe Leigh took two. He can't come with us and we can't leave him. There aren't any other options.”

“Then I'll fucking carry him!” I snapped back.

Serge visibly recoiled, and only then did I realize I'd pinned his pistol claw to the wall under my own. He wrenched free and cut his eyes to me. “Kaz, stop. I mean it. You can't do that-”

“Why not? If I want to take that chance then it's on me.”

He tapped a talon against my beak. “Watch the tone. I'm in command here, so do what I tell you. If you try hauling this pony all the way down to medical then you're putting everyone else at risk.”

No. No, sergeant, I didn't care if this amounted to insubordination or whatever. I wasn't going to just shoot this pony because we were stingy with potions. “Then I'll stay far behind everyone else. If I get picked off by someone then it's just going to make everyone happy anyway. The lieutenant will probably pop a bottle of champagne.”

His talon tapped my beak again. “Can the attitude. Despite what just happened nobody wants to see you dead, but someone could end up dead if you try this little stunt. Maybe someone other than you.”

...he wasn't going to give in, was he? By rights he was doing what he had to, and what made sense from Talon Company's point of view, but... “But it's okay for him to definitely die?”

Serge glowered at me, the pony, then me again. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to say yes, Talons were more important than slaves. I knew everyone else in our forsaken organization believed it. He did too. He believed it, but something kept him from saying it.

He holstered his pistol and said in a deliberate tone, “Kaz... I'm walking out of this room, and I'm giving you a choice. I'm not going to let you put the squad at risk by dragging that pony all through this stable. I'm not compromising on that. But you do whatever you think you have to. I'm not going to see what happens. I'm going to disavow anything, so you're going to be completely on your own if Lieutenant Blackfeathers learns about this. Either both of you walk out of this room, or only you do. Understand?”

The relief was almost enough to make me lightheaded again, and I had to really process it for a second. “Yes, sergeant. I understand. Thank you...”

He took a deep breath. “Don't mention it. I mean it.” He shook his head and slipped back out of the room. “It's alright everyone. Go back to what you were doing...”

I ignored the chatter sparking outside and reached for my medical kit again. One potion would have to do. I really didn't want to risk using two and finding no replacements for them in medical. That would get ugly, fast.

As I fiddled with the vials, faint crying met my ears. The stallion in front of me was curled up and weeping... from fear or relief I didn't know. At least I could make that clear to him now. “Hold still, I can't afford to waste any of this.”

I don't know if he heard me since he didn't let up at all, but he was still enough for me to drip the potion into the wounds on his hindlegs. Drop by drop, I emptied most of the vial into the four ragged and bloody holes. To my indescribable relief, the wounds all closed... and I even had a little left over. I considered dabbing it into the hole on his right foreleg, but instead held it down near his mouth. “Drink this.”

Between the heaves and sniffles it was hard for him to get the lip of the vial in his mouth, but he got it down. There wasn't nearly enough left to heal the remaining wound, but it would stop any more bleeding and hopefully restore some of the blood he'd lost. From the way things looked he'd lost enough that he wouldn't have been able to walk even if his legs weren't busted, but this would give him a fighting chance. “Better?”

He coughed and blinked a few times. His hindlegs tensed and slid under him as he rolled onto and put weight on them. As I feared he was very unsteady as he rose up, and nearly toppled over when he tried to stand on his remaining bad leg, but lo and behold... he was up. He didn't have to die.

“...thank... you...” he said, fixating me with reddened purple eyes.

“You're welcome.” I stowed my supplies again and asked, “What's your name?”

“Twisted Fate,” he wheezed. “It's... kind of funny, but I used to think I had... good luck. Then the... the turret...”

I slung my medical kit back over my side and nodded slowly. “Luck is fickle... believe me. But time is short, so we should go.”

“Wait... what's your name? Kaz?”

If he heard that much then if he blabbed about this anyone that cared could pin it on me anyway. Might as well be polite and answer. “Kasimir Longtalons.”

He nodded and hobbled a bit closer. “Thank you again, Kasimir. I'll... never forget this.”

“Don't mention it. Really.”

I gave him a small, tired smile and headed back into the office. Now that I had time to really process my surroundings, it was clear that the slaves had been there. Two filing cabinets had been overturned and their contents spilled. The locks on the lockers were smashed, and even though they were closed I knew they were empty. I saw the trail of blood from the turret to the door I stood in...

“It looks like everyone is dead, sergeant. The only one who doesn't have a death certificate on file is Tulip Petals herself.”

“Any unusual causes of death?”

Leigh rubbed her leg. “Not that I can see. Most are age related.”

Carmelita glanced my way and her beak fell open. “You've got to be kidding me...”

Everyone else turned their attention to me, including Leigh.

I didn't have an answer for Lita or anyone else, so I just slunk back into the corner farthest away from all of them and tried not to look anyone in the eye. Twisted Fate followed as fast as his crippled leg would let him. He nestled between me and a locker, and kept quiet.

Serge said, “Everyone back to what you were doing. We're heading down to medical as soon as Leigh is done.”

Leigh's analysis of the data in Tulip Petals' terminal painted a grim image of the stable's last years. The stable's experiment was clear enough before she poked through the records, but sure enough, it was a test to see what would happen when a single stallion and nearly a thousand mares were cooped up in an underground bunker for what they planned to be a few decades.

Leisure Suit's coroner left some black humor on the poor stallion's death certificate. He only lived about three months after the door was closed and died of cardiac arrest. The cause of death was listed as “unsurprising given his living conditions” and she left a personal note that he was a “cheating bastard.”

Against all probability, the seven foals he helped conceive in that time period were all fillies. Suddenly, the stable found itself in the unenviable position of having only female occupants, and based on the security reports, tension rose rapidly over the following months.

We didn't have time for Leigh to read every last entry in Tulip Petals' diary, or security reports, death certificates or whatever, so some of the details were hazy, but it seemed like the overmare before her took it upon herself to refocus everyone's anxiety and energy on finding a solution to their problem. Through magic or science or whatever means they could.

Leigh didn't read everything, but she did read the last entry aloud to us, and as we crept back toward the atrium stairwell, I kept replaying it in my head.

”This will be my last entry, I believe.

I'm eighty-seven years old now, and alone. I've been alone for two full weeks as of today, and I'm starting to understand why people lose their minds or die of loneliness. Writing in this little terminal has been only the tiniest glimmer of relief since Meadow Grass passed.

In her final days we talked a lot about whether we should leave the stable. There was nothing left to lose, after all. She was dying, and we knew it. I'm old enough that we knew it wouldn't be long before I joined her, and I didn't want to be alone like this. We never did come to a decision in time for her, and now that she's gone, I just don't have the heart. The radiation levels being unsurvivable don't bother me anymore, but I still don't want to leave.

It's not because this place has been my home for nearly sixty years now. It's home, I suppose, but that's not the reason that I'm choosing to stay.

For the last few days, I've taken it upon myself to spend what little energy I have left in my tired old body to tidy things up. For the last couple of years there has barely been anypony to dirty things up anyway, so it didn't take long. I must say that the stable looks practically like it did the day I stepped into it.

I wanted it to be nice and clean for when Stable-Tec showed up to see what the results were of their little experiment. I'm going to leave this terminal unlocked so they can read everything, although I'm sure they could read it anyway. After all, with an experiment of such grand importance, they wouldn't want to risk not getting every last bit of data out of it that they could.

So, in short, I hope you'll all read everything that I've recorded here, as well as all of the entries from the first overmare, Marble Gardens. Pay extra special attention to the entries after Leisure Suit died, since that's when things get interesting. I'm sure you all knew that, though. He might have died with a grin on his face, but we were left to pick up the pieces. I don't think the mares that were hospitalized in the fights afterward had quite so much to smile about.

But don't let me spoil the surprises for you. Go ahead and read for yourselves.

I'll be waiting on you down in the hospital when you get done. Don't ask me why, but I've been sleeping down there lately. It reminds me a little of Meadow, I guess.

Oh, and please remember to wipe your hooves at the door. I did go through a lot of trouble cleaning the floors.”

It was difficult for me to imagine being trapped in a stable and watching everyone else I knew slowly die of age related causes until only I was left. The mere thought of it formed an icy sensation in my extremities, so as we reached the stairs I tried to think of something happier. Something like Twisted Fate ahead of me. I'd saved him. That alone made this trip kind of worth it, didn't it? I made a difference to him if nobody else.

Yet, as we descended the stairs, I knew this was only the beginning. There was a gaggle of armed slaves scattered around the rest of the stable somewhere, and that meant a great many more opportunities for things to go wrong. What really scared me though, was the fact that there were some of Red Eye's security team down here too. If they hadn't reported back to their comrades on the surface, something clearly had gone terribly wrong.

The lack of gunshots or other telling sounds from the depths only made things so much worse. An idle mind will wander in dark places, and if fifth squad hadn't run into anyone yet, that didn't leave many places for the ponies to be.

We emerged from the stairs and were greeted with both the gentle glow of a sign indicating that we were on the medical floor… and a sharp clang from somewhere deep inside the sprawl of rooms beyond the atrium.

Everyone, including Twisted Fate, tensed and spread out to the walls flanking the door. Lita checked her rifle and whispered, “Guess this is it.”

Unlike the level above, there was only one path for us to take and thus no reason to split up. We were almost certainly heading into imminent combat at this point, so my mind immediately set to trying to think up tactics to save my sorry ass if something went wrong. If we were all together we didn't have to worry about helping another fireteam, but at the same time if we got pinned down nobody was coming to help us. In these narrow halls there was nowhere to get into cover either, and for all we tried there was no way to be completely silent either. Whoever was ahead, they would know we were coming.

We wound our way through to a receptionist area which, in contrast to most of the stable, had been ransacked. Like Tulip Petals' office, filing cabinets had been emptied all over the floor. Drawers had been picked through. A cabinet had been smashed open and empty pill bottles were strewn about the floor, which Twisted Fate set to inspecting while we moved on to more important matters. For pony goddesses only knew what reason, the receptionist's terminal was in approximately one thousand pieces on the floor too.

“This stable has an abnormally large medical area,” Leigh said in a quiet tone as she limped over to pick through the debris of the terminal. “Labs, waiting rooms and the operating theater are just through that door.”

Three heavy clangs and thumps sounded from that way.

Lita kept her gun trained on the door and eased toward it. “The hell is that?” she stressed.

“Fuck's sake, Rib! Open this damned door already!” a stallion yelled.

A mare screamed something from much deeper inside, almost a wail that sounded like, “Please...”

We all exchanged glances and joined Lita near the door. Serge looked to Leigh and whispered, “Did you see the layout ahead? How do we proceed?”

She shifted her weight and shook her head. “You know as well as I do.”

“Great.” He reached into a bag and pulled out a long and narrow grenade. “After this goes off, we storm in. Shoot anyone that isn't down already. Red Eye's troops may be down here too so try not to hit them, but don't take any chances.” He stared directly at me. “Everyone understand?”

“Yes, sergeant,” I muttered, tightening my grip on my pistol. My palm was getting sweaty just thinking about using it…

Serge cut his gaze to Twisted Fate. “You get back in the receptionist area and don't move. If you leave we'll shoot you. End of story.”

After everyone confirmed they were ready, Serge pulled the pin on his grenade and tapped the door control in rapid succession. The door clanked and spluttered to life just long enough to open enough that someone could fit their claw or hoof through, and that's just what he did. Serge rammed the grenade through the gap and let go. The ping of the spoon flying off preceded the door slamming shut again.

The bang was more impressive than I expected for a stun grenade behind a closed door, and everyone shuddered a little. Serge hammered the door controls again and my heart jumped into my throat. Here we go…

The door buzzed and clanked again, but nothing. A red light on the panel lit up.

“The grenade must have jammed it!” Amalia exclaimed.

Isaac shouldered past her and threw his weight into the door with a deep, crackling shout. The light went off and with a groan the door shot up in its track. The giant orange griffon leaped through without a pause, and we all rushed in after him.

The grenade made a righteous mess of the nurse lounge, but I only vaguely noticed the chaotic redecorating we performed as I jumped in behind Amalia and swept my pistol across the room. No movement…

“Dammit, they must be further ahead,” Lita said as she took up position behind a column.

“Move up!” Serge shouted while waving a claw for all of us to follow into the hallway on the right.

“What the fuck was that!?” a mare shouted.

The stallion from before screamed back, “Red Eye's here now, dipshit! We're all dead because of you!”

Yep, definitely right ahead. I gasped for air to keep calm and kept my eyes on Amalia as we glided down the hallway. Any second now…

The walls on both sides of us gave way to half-height windows. At the head of the squad, Serge drifted back to the floor and crouched to stay covered by what metal was left of the walls. We all did the same, but I caught sight of a yellow pony through the glass as I dived for cover.

“Oh, fuck me. They called the chickens on us!” he shouted. Hooves thundered in the room beyond as he scrambled away from us.

“Good, they can send my message!”

“Would you shut it and open this goddess-damned door!? They're going to kill you you stupid bitch!”

I shot a glance to Serge for some indication of what to do, but didn't like the answer. He glared at me and pointed his gun up toward the talking pony. Amalia and I were closest to him, so it was up to us to neutralize him.

Fuuuuck…

Okay, I heard what Serge said earlier, but I wasn't going to just shoot him if he was unarmed. I'd already potentially caused enough trouble, but I still wasn't a murderer!

Amy tapped me hard on the shoulder and moved to stand. “Come on,” she hissed in a whisper.

I grabbed my pistol and jumped up, trying to let instinct take over. If I overthought this I might die. Or Amalia might die. No time to think. Just act!

The yellow pony spun in place as I jumped up. His black mane and tail spun behind him and the flicker of light reflecting off of a pistol in his mouth caught my eye.

I pulled the trigger.

The bang deafened me too much to hear the glass shatter, and for an instant the crumbling sheet became too opaque to see the pony beyond. I pulled the trigger again and again, not wanting to risk missing him if the first shot didn't connect.

Only after Amalia grabbed me by the waist and pulled me back down did I realize I'd been standing up and exposed for ages. I fell into a seated position and gasped and panted for breath. The pistol shook in my claw as I brought it up to to check it over. The slide was jammed back for some reason…

Dead silence fell for a few seconds. Lita eased up from her position and announced, “He's down.”

Serge and his cadre eased around the corner and started down the hallway. Amalia nudged me and started after them.

It took a few seconds longer for me to realize what was wrong with my gun. I ejected the magazine and held it in my left claw. Empty. I'd emptied an entire magazine. That quick.

“The hell are you doing?” Amalia hissed from around the corner. “Get up here!”

“S-sorry.” I fumbled with a fresh magazine and snapped the slide back into place. Shit. I'd just killed a pony. Like… like it was one thing to execute one because I had been ordered to, but I just shot and killed a slave in combat. But he'd have shot me if I didn't shoot him. And Serge had ordered me to, so-so-

“Kasimir, get it together.” Amalia grabbed me by the wrist. “Get it together or someone's going to get killed. Come on.”

Someone did die, dammit. I had to resist the urge to click the safety on the pistol right then and there, but she was right about one thing. I didn't want anyone else to die, and it could be one of us next. “Coming.”

Around the corner, I caught the tail end of Lita's update. “He's dead. I think Kaz got him with the first six bullets, but it's hard to tell.”

Fuck you, Lita. I didn't want to shoot him once, much less that much. Why didn't you do it?

“Let's hurry then. Whoever he was talking to knows we're here, and she'll be waiting on us.” Serge waved us onward, and onward we went.

It took a minute or two of moving forward carefully before we found the Rib that the unlucky stallion I'd wasted was talking to. We emerged from a hallway right in view of another theater sealed off by glass panes. We were also right in view of a black and blue mare behind the panes. A rifle floated up in her magic and she ducked down into concealment behind the half-height metal wall. More unseen ponies scrabbled against the metal flooring

“Glad you're here! Now you can hear my message to Red Eye!” she shouted.

Serge didn't respond. We all fell back into cover and concealment ourselves, and he leaned out. A deafening boom was followed by a mare shouting, but it was hard to make out what she said through the ringing. Not pained screams. More like profane shouts.

“...idiots… Red Eye… technology… demands...”

I covered my ears and Serge fired three more times. A crisp, shrill scream pierced the ringing in my ears.

Rib's rifle floated back into view and opened fire. The glass exploded and bullets ricocheted everywhere in the room beyond, but her aim was thankfully way off. “Stop shooting and listen to me, damn you! I'll kill your friends if you do that again!”

Serge asked, “Anyone have anymore stun grenades?”

“I've got a real grenade,” Lita replied.

Isaac pulled two more of the peculiar grenades from a pouch and held them up. He nodded toward Rib's position.

“Do it,” Serge instructed.

Everyone raised their rifles. I clutched my pistol with both claws, trying to keep the shaking to a minimum. Isaac readied his first grenade and hurled it down the hallway, but I ducked back into cover before I could see if it hit its mark.

“Shit!”

Guess it did.

I huddled up to prepare for the bang, but it did little to keep keep my beak from rattling and my head from spinning. The ventilation ducts coughed puffs of dust and I wafted the clouds away as fast as possible to keep my eyes on the others.

Just in time too. Serge made a grand sweeping gesture toward the fortified position and he and Isaac spilled into the hallway. Lita and Leigh stood upright and held their rifles high enough to cover their approach. Neither had to even take a shot though, since Rib never even got back on her hooves. Isaac threw his weight into the door on the right, drew his rifle up and fired off three shots faster than I could even blink. He waved at us to move up.

Just like that, another pony died.

“Come on!” Amalia stressed, grabbing a strap on my side and tugging it hard once as she bolted down the hallway to join the others.

Another hallway extended deeper into the stable beyond the observation area that we just took, which Serge and Isaac were now positioned to cover. My ears were still ringing too much to hear anything deeper, but based on the clattering of hooves earlier I knew there had to be more. I followed Amalia inside and tried to keep focus on listening for them instead of what Isaac had done to Rib. I know she'd shot at us, but my stomach turned at the sight of her. He'd removed most of her skull and somehow shot one of her legs off at the knee…

I backed into a corner and looked away and into the remains of a potted plant dead for a hundred years. At least its remains were just withered and desiccated instead of mangled and painted all over the floor…

“They're falling back. Let's move!” Serge stressed. He and Isaac started down the hallway in a low position while Leigh and Lita followed up with weapons held high and ready to drive attackers back.

Amalia reached for the strap on my armor again but I beat her to it this time. “Coming, coming...” Following her lead, we took up position at the sides of the door to wait for everyone to make it around the corner. We darted into the hallway as soon as they did so we could hold the corner. Amalia beat me to it by a solid three seconds as my gelatinous limbs refused to get in a hurry.

A peek around the corner revealed what I guessed was a surgical ward, but I had to duck back into cover a second later as I saw flashes of movement beyond. The other four had exited into the room, but I hadn't seen where. What were we supposed to do now?

The answer came in the form of a strong nudge and grunt from my partner. She indicated the floor, fell into a low position and rounded the corner. I took a deep breath, readied my pistol, and followed suit.

We emerged into what indeed was a surgical ward of some kind, but it was apparently greatly expanded into include what appeared to be a chemistry lab. A pharmaceutical lab maybe? I wanted to go look over the tables and tables of colorful vials and supply closets in search of something valuable or to replace the potion I'd spent on Fate earlier, but my attention was much more intently focused on the skeleton lying on one of the tables, and the much more freshly dead stallion lying on another. His armor was emblazoned with a single red eye, and he had a gunshot wound to the throat.

If the missing soldiers were here, then-

A greasy blue pony erupted from a room to our side. My heart stopped when I saw the SMG held in his magic and pointed straight at us. There was no time to dive for cover or even try to get out of the way. I didn't even blink before the shooting started.

I loosed a squeal and dove to the side as the first deafening report from the gun met my ears. Something slammed into my chest like another punch from Isaac.

The unicorn flashed a confused look for an instant before Amalia ventilated his chest cavity twice. His magic spluttered and faded. The gun clattered to the ground, but he stayed upright. My finger finally found the trigger and I shot him again. This time the shot struck him in the mouth, and the pony collapsed with a wheezing gasp as teeth sprayed the wall.

“Get up!” she shrieked over the ringing in my ears, and I felt her grab me by the arm and yank me back to my feet. With another shove she pushed me behind a chemistry table. “Are you hit?”

I fumbled with my free claw, checking my armor and exposed flesh for damage. There was a noticeable dent on my breastplate just below my neck. Little flecks of shattered bullet fell as I brushed it with a claw. “Y-yeah, but I'm fine I think.”

“I think it misfired,” she half-yelled. “Just one shot. Where are-”

Amalia cut off as another pony, this time a pink earth pony mare with a curly black mane, poked her head through a pair of double doors on the other side of the room. The pony spotted us, and with wide eyes tore back through just as half a dozen shots rang out. The spot she'd emerged from vanished in a haze of dust and wood fragments, but the clouds didn't block her screams as the flimsy doors did nothing to keep the bullets from finding their mark.

We'd killed or found five ponies so far. How many more could there be down here!?

As a single mass, Serge, Lita, Leigh and Ike surged from the room they'd occupied and formed up on opposite sides of the swinging double doors. Following Amalia's example, I crawled after them, using the tables as concealment. My sweat-slicked palms slipped and skid on the tile floor as we went. This had to end soon… please, please let this be over soon!

Serge waited for us to join them before he and Lita forced the doors open. Ike and Leigh kept rifles trained on the hallway while the first two ducked back out of the way. All I could see was the pink mare twitching on the floor.

“I… su-surrender...” she moaned. I looked away before someone ended her suffering.

There was another set of double doors at the end of the hallway, which had also been perforated by the assault earlier. It was dark beyond…

“Hold it right there!” yet another mare cried out from behind the doors. “I-I give up! Don't shoot or I-I'll kill Red Eye's guards!”

“Doesn't sound like surrendering to me,” Lita quipped. “Serge?”

He frowned. “Anyone have anymore stun grenades?” Nobody did. “Great. We may have no choice but to storm it.”

The urge to stay quiet was strong, but I couldn't ignore the compulsion to offer the obvious solution. “I-if she surrendered, just let her?”

Everyone shot me an incredulous look. Isaac groaned. Serge stared a hole through the door. “Worth a try. Whoever you are, drop your weapons, strip down and come out!”

Another mare yelled, “She's bluffing! She's unarmed! Help us!” That sounded like the one screaming for help earlier, just before I shot the stallion.

“Shut up!” the first mare screamed in a shrill voice. “I'm coming out, don't shoot!”

I didn't hear any guns dropping or anyone stripping, but the doors eventually creaked open. A gray unicorn mare with a long and straggly black mane peeked out. Everyone kept their rifles trained on her as she fully emerged. “Wh-where's Rib? And Rusty?”

“Dead. Come out and lay down,” Serge instructed. “Is anyone else inside?”

Her face contorted into a grim frown at the news, and she stretched out into a prone position. “H-he told her this was a bad idea… she wouldn't listen...”

“Answer the question,” Serge insisted.

Someone inside the room answered for her, “It's just us, help!”

The unicorn looked away from the dead pony with the SMG and whimpered, “It-it's just Red Eye's guards… you killed everyone else...”

Lita leered over her. “You know you'll be next once you get back to Filly. Maybe you should've shot Ri-”

Serge glared at her. “Can it, Lita.”

I can't say I was surprised to hear that, but until Lita said it I was telling myself that the ponies we brought back were just going to be put back to work. This mare didn't seem like she masterminded this nonsense… nor did Twisted Fate. Didn't matter, did it? You rebel, you die.

Guess standing up to Serge earlier meant nothing, and I guess I didn't make a difference in Fate's life after all.

Serge sighed. “Great. How do we know the ponies inside are really Red Eye's soldiers? Could be a trap.”

“It's not,” gray mare whimpered.

“I'll check.” Everyone again gave me a look. Much more surprised this time. I didn't even realize I'd volunteered myself for a few seconds, but I couldn't back out afterward… Dammit. I was upset, but not suicidal. “...if they're injured I'll need to check them anyway.”

Serge pointed at Lita. “Watch her. Isaac and Amalia, go with him. Leigh, with me.” He took up position at the outside door and Leigh did the same on the other side.

Isaac gestured for me to take the lead. Sure thing…

I didn't really try to be stealthy or pretend I knew what I was doing. I just walked right in. The darkness took a few seconds to adjust to, but sure enough my night vision kicked in and I saw that the mare outside was telling the truth. The room was empty of slaves, but three holding cells set into the walls contained a single pony in armor each.

“Finally!” A mare inside the one directly ahead rushed up to and propped herself against the bars. “Get us out! She was going to try some spell on us! Why didn't you shoot her!?”

Someone flipped the lights on and I held a claw up to shield my eyes. “She surrendered. It's over.”

“She'll be executed,” Amalia added helpfully. “Are you injured?”

Isaac pounded at the controls to the cells and the bars slid away. The mare fell out onto her belly and jumped up. “I'm fine, but the others are unconscious. I don't know what they did to them. Where's Buckshot? They shot him and dragged him out to the operating room.”

I was already on my way to check on the two unresponsive mares and left it to Amalia to answer that question. I didn't want to deal with it. The stricken ponies in front of me needed my attention anyway…

Amalia was to the point. “He's dead.”

“Fuck that bitch! Give me my gun back and I'll kill her now!”

The two disagreed for a bit more while I dragged the unconscious ponies out and started digging through my medical kit. They didn't seem to be hurt, so it must have been a sleep or stun spell. Something I could deal with, hopefully, if I could find my smelling salts…

The trip back to the surface was weighed down with a morose feeling of finality. The stable raid was over. We met back up with fifth squad, who encountered nobody else in the lower levels of the stable. All of the slaves were accounted for. Most were dead. Three of the four guards that had been trapped inside were alive and, more or less, well. The stable was secure and we were all alive. Leigh would be fine.

Mission accomplished, I guessed.

Walking was hard. I wished there was room to fly, but really, I'd have probably been even worse at that if I tried. My entire body felt numb and my stomach flopped. The two ponies I'd killed kept flashing before my eyes. I hadn't had time to really see them or register whatever expressions they wore before I ended their lives, but that didn't stop my mind from conjuring up the worst depictions of terror imaginable.

If I thought I could get away with another screw up, I'd have probably puked on the way back up. Isaac probably would have snapped my neck. My cheek still throbbed if I thought about the punch he landed on me after I fucked up and got Leigh shot. Best not to tempt him…

But, worse than thinking about the ponies that had died, I had to listen to the two that were currently on death row. Twisted Fate, and as I'd come to learn was her name by now, Diskette, had been murmuring to each other almost since the moment they had been reunited.

“I found something in the computers… the inhabitants of the stable figured out some kind of spell to make a mare pregnant without needing a stallion. The stable had nothing but mares in it, I think… they got desperate,” Diskette said.

“So… Rib… what, she thought she could sell that to Red Eye for our freedom?”

“I think so. I… I told her that it wouldn't work.” Diskette sniffled. “When they sent the guards in after us… she captured them. Killed one. Thought she'd use the spell on the rest to see what would happen. If it worked, she thought Red Eye would take it and let her go. Rusty told her she was nuts, so she locked him up with one of the terminals.”

Fate took a while to answer. “After he won in the Pit last time, I thought he'd make it out of this city.”

The mopey darkness swimming around in my head parted as a jolt of lightning filled me. Wait. Rusty. The Pit? Rusty Thresher? I pictured the pony again just before I shot him half a dozen times…

...I'd killed Rusty Thresher. The Grim Scythe raider… the one that slaughtered Glitter Dust like an animal.

Everything felt hollow again. I couldn't decide if I felt vindicated or even worse for killing a pony I sort of knew.

Holy shit…

“...don't know why I thought any of us would get out of the city,” Fate said, defeated.

“...me neither...” Diskette echoed.

When we finally returned to the comparatively blinding light of the surface, our “prisoners” got quiet. The two guards we left outside rushed up to greet us, but shot each other confused glances as the slaves emerged too.

Serge set to explaining what happened. Some of the guards hugged each other. Some swore revenge for the death of Buckshot. I couldn't really pay attention. Everything was so distant and unimportant…

That is, until my squad took to the air and started flapping away, presumably back toward base.

I lifted off too and tried to get into formation with tired and floppy wings.

And the whole way back, I kept imagining I could hear two distinct cracks of rebellious slaves being executed.

Level Up - Level 8!

Living Anatomy - You deal an extra 10% damage to organic, non mutated targets. You can also tell the health of a target with a glance.

Chapter 14: Remember Your Place

Chapter 14

Remember Your Place

By the time we got back to base, I'd stopped thinking about the slaves we left behind and what might have happened to them. I was just too damned tired to care anymore.

I think everyone else must have felt the same way. Nobody really said anything to each other as we touched down and headed inside, except for Serge telling everyone to turn all of their gear in to the quartermaster for inspection and inventory. I didn't recognize anyone in the armory. No Otto or Sam. I guess one of the other platoons' personnel were helping man the base, but it didn't matter who I gave my gun and medical kit to.

After that we all filed back into the barracks and collapsed onto our cots. Leigh probably should have gone to medical to get her gunshot wound looked at, but the potion should have done the job anyway. If it was giving her trouble in the morning I'd take her there and look at it more closely, but just like me she seemed to want to just get some rest.

Sleep didn't come easily, as I should have figured. Like usual when I couldn't sleep, my mind was racing with the events of the day, as if the memories were just waiting for me to try to relax and calm down to come crashing back into the front of my mind. I must have dwelt on Rusty for an hour, trying to imagine what he was thinking or feeling the moment I shot him. I wondered if he suffered at all. Did my first bullet hit him in the head? I doubted it. He definitely felt at least some of it, but probably not for very long. How did I feel about that? I never did figure that out. He probably deserved to die several times over, but in the hour or so it took for me to finally lose consciousness, I certainly didn't decide how I felt about killing him.

It felt like about two, or maybe three, minutes later when someone prodded me awake. Serge said, “Wake up, Kaz. We'll be receiving our assignments after lunch, but you've got something else to do this morning.”

I cracked my eyes and saw scuffed and scratched metal plating of the wall. I didn't bother to roll over to answer him. “I'm in trouble.” Not a question. Guess the lieutenant got the inventory report and wanted to find out where the potions went.

“You will be if you're late. Come on, and let's not start the day with an attitude.”

I rolled onto my back and stared up at Amalia's cot above. “Sorry, sergeant. I don't have an attitude, I'm just very tired and not in a great frame of mind right now.”

“I understand, but we're still on a tight schedule. You've got guard duty this morning, so let's move.”

Guard duty? Everyone else was still asleep from the looks of things and a little stab of resentment boiled up inside me. Heidi knew I had insomnia but insisted that I get up early for guard duty. I guess I should be thankful that that was all she gave me for “wasting” a potion on a slave.

“Before you leave, I want to be absolutely clear on why. Yes, this is because of yesterday.”

“Figures.” I cut my eyes to the big orange griffon still asleep on his cot. My cheek ached just looking at him. “Guess the lieutenant doesn't care about fighting, huh?”

Serge didn't look amused. “Lieutenant Blackfeathers doesn't have anything to do with this. This is from me.”

Wait, what? Didn't he give me unspoken permission to give the slave the potion? Oh, if that was how this was going to be…

“You don't have to like it. You've just got to do it. That is what this is about. Whether the lieutenant finds out about the slave and what she does has nothing to do with this. It's simple. I gave you an order and you disobeyed it. That is entirely unacceptable. That gets people killed. So I'm giving you something to do so maybe you'll remember that next time.”

I groaned under my breath and dragged myself off of the cot. “Fine, I understand.” I should have shut up then, but my mouth kept going. “I also understand that fighting doesn't get people killed, so I'll just forget that part.”

Serge held a claw up and scowled at me. “Listen up, Kaz. I don't want to make this a big deal, but we definitely can if you want to. Isaac isn't getting off free either. This isn't the first time this has happened and he's going to get watch duty outside this morning. You just happened to be the first I talked to.

“This is the last time I'm going to tell you to knock it off with the attitude. If you keep this up there are much worse things you can be doing than guard duty. Now, report to the armory, collect your gear, and then report to the hangar. You'll be stationed at the entrance. You'll watch for any unusual behavior, and you'll do an excellent job. Clear?”

“...yes, sergeant.”

“Good. Get going.” Serge stepped away and toward Isaac's cot. “Ike, wake up.”

I sighed and wiped my face. Best get going before Isaac woke up and we had to deal with that tension...

With as much haste as I could manage, I got cleaned up and tried to make myself presentable before heading down to the armory to get my equipment. Like the night before, it was run by some big brown griffon I didn't know, so Sam and Otto must have stayed back in Fillydelphia while the rest of our platoon was deployed. He handed over my gun and medical kit without any questions, and to my mild surprise both of the missing potions had been replaced. Well, that had to go on a report somewhere that the lieutenant would read, so I resigned myself to just get on with my life while I still had one to get on with.

At that hour of the morning, the hangar was predictably devoid of significant activity. In fact, the cavernous room was completely empty aside from a few shipping containers and one white griffoness standing at the far end near the door leading to the mess hall. She turned her head a hair in my direction as I entered, then went right back to staring into the ceiling.

I stopped and scanned the room, wondering where exactly I was supposed to stand or patrol. Serge didn't explain that bit. Did it matter? Given my track record the odds said that it mattered an awful lot. Great. What now? I glanced back to her and figured it was best to just ask. “Uh, hey, I was supposed to have guard duty here today. Where do I stand?” I shouted over the distance.

“Hell if I know. Just pick somewhere!” she yelled back.

Okay then. Guess it didn't matter. She'd picked over there, so I guess that meant anywhere but there. I opted for the doors leading to the exit up at the landing pad. If Serge wanted me to “watch for any unusual behavior” then that was probably where it would happen if it did.

I slouched against the wall and did my best not to yawn, but had to hold my beak closed with a claw to stop it. Dammit… couldn't Serge have found some other punishment later in the day? Didn't he remember what happened to Ida? I mean, sure, if he wanted to irritate me as much as possible this was the way to do it, but I was operating on very little sleep over the course of several days now, and accidents were going to start happening again. My stomach hurt pretty badly too. How long had it been since I'd eaten? Yesterday at noon? And I'd be missing breakfast too at this rate. Fantastic. At least if I was hungry I probably wouldn't fall asleep, because I was pretty sure Stern would have me shot if she saw that happen again. She probably wasn't here anywhere though, so Heidi would have to do it. Oh dear. Wouldn't want to ruin her day with having to shoot me, so I'd best stay awake.

A few agonizingly long minutes ticked by as I checked my pistol a few times and stared up at the burnt out light hanging on my side of the ceiling. The only sound that pierced the silence was the scrape of talons on concrete as my “partner” adjusted her pose so she could pick at the claws on her back feet. Yeah, some guards we were. And how long were we supposed to stand here anyway? All day? Maybe I'd get out of whatever else was coming my way that afternoon if we did, but that seemed unlikely. Heh, well, Serge told me to stand here, so until he or someone else told me otherwise, that was precisely what I was going to do. Even if it did take all day. Just following orders, sarge.

It was only a few minutes later that I got my first distraction of the day. Heavy plodding down the hall preceded a certain large orange griffon lumbering into the hangar. Isaac immediately turned my way. Ugh, was he going to start something now for me getting him in trouble? What happened to Leigh was an accident, okay? A terrible one that could have gotten her killed, but it was still an accident.

He stopped at the doorway leading to the stairs and cut his eyes to me.

“…what?” I braced for another whack, but this time I had a witness that could say I didn't do anything!

He rolled his eyes, pointed a thumb to his chest and a talon through the doorway.

“Oh… oh, right. Heading out to watch duty?” He nodded, rolling his eyes again. “Fine, go on.”

A gravely and distorted chuckle followed him as he vanished through the door and up the stairs. What was that about? Just trying to be creepy like usual? The griffoness over by the mess hall was too busy preening a wing to have noticed or cared about the exchange, so that's what I'd leave it at. Must have thought it was funny that I was pretending to know what I was doing or something.

Whatever.

To both my relief and dismay, nothing else of note happened for the next few hours. A few griffons came and went to the mess hall, but it wasn't until lunch started that much happened. I guessed it was lunch anyway, since the thin trickle turned into a wave of troopers heading from the stairs down to the barracks over to the mess hall. With that many eyes on me I decided it was time to stand up straight and look like I was paying attention. And just in time.

“Private Longtalons?” I felt a little icepick stab my chest and found Heidi and Egon peeling off from the crowd. “How… unexpected.”

Hoo boy, was I supposed to answer her? She didn't ask a question.

“Why are you stationed here?” Ah, there it was.

“Sergeant's orders, ma'am.”

“I could have guessed that much,” she said without the tiniest glimmer of humor. Judging from the bags under her eyes, she looked like she'd slept even less than I had. I wasn't trying to be a smart ass, but I also didn't want to give away more than Serge did. “Penal duty?”

“Yes ma'am,” I responded with a nod.

She cocked her beak and grumbled. “I was hoping your first day in the field would go more smoothly. But if you're not going to be forthcoming now, I'll just read the after action report. Whatever you did, learn from your mistake and don't do it again.” With that, she turned away and rejoined the thinning crowd pouring into the mess hall, with her faithful purple assistant in pursuit.

Shit. She hadn't read the report yet, so I could still be in deep trouble. Couldn't say I was really-

“Kaz?”

I jumped with a start and found Serge standing off to the side. “Sergeant?”

“You're done. Go get something to eat, because we're heading out again after lunch. I've got to go find Ike.”

Well, that answered that question from earlier. “Uh, yes, sergeant.” I waited for him to depart through the door before stowing my weapon and trudging toward the mess hall. Lunch sounded very nice right then.

The mess hall reminded me far too much of the stable we'd just left. It was probably the cleanest facility in Talon ownership that I'd seen yet, including the clinic back in Fillydelphia. It had an almost sterile feel to it, like the dead stable that had been cleaned up by its last living inhabitant. Not to mention lots of tables like the stable's dining room. And forks for me to step on if I wasn't careful and wanted to look like a dumbass in front of the whole company.

I didn't, so I fell into line to get some food, keeping my eyes on the floor both to avoid eye contact and errant eating utensils.

Whatever was prepared for lunch smelled fantastic at this point, and I was almost certain I smelled freshly baked bread. I hadn't eaten that in probably twenty years. There was some nice pony that my family stayed near when I was young, and she baked bread and shared it with us. I couldn't remember her name, but I remembered that. Come to think of it, I had to wonder where she got the flour from. Wasn't there some way to pulverize bone into something kind of like flour? Maybe I didn't want to know.

The lunch line led back into the kitchen, which I was quite surprised to find was staffed by a few venerable griffons that probably should have retired a decade ago, a few griffawns that looked like they were barely over a decade old, and even a few ponies. They had to be slaves, but if the pink earth pony mare fiddling with the oven was any indication, they had been well treated. All were clean and looked well fed. Maybe this was some kind of cushy position the slaves dreamed of and fought to get appointed to?

Well, whatever, as long as nobody was yelling or hitting them I was- Oh, prancing pony princesses on parade, she pulled a tray of biscuits out of the oven! With practiced grace, she carried the steaming tray over toward the counter and spit out the pot holder, at which point one of the kids started grabbing and portioning them out.

My turn couldn't come quick enough, and I perked up at the counter while trying not to grin like an idiot. The old griffon didn't seem to notice or care, and handed me a tray with one of those glorious mounds of bread. And also some other stuff.

I hurried along to grab a jug of water and back out into the dining room to find somewhere to sit. The rest of my squad wasn't too hard to pick out of the writhing mass of troopers at the tables, but there was only one seat left open across from Leigh and- oh, wait, someone took it. Too bad, I was sure that was Isaac's favorite seat, and I'd probably hear the startled yell of him catapulting this poor guy across the room when he didn't give it to him.

Whatever, I had a fresh biscuit so I found an out of the way and vacant table along the edge of the wall and plopped down to take inventory of what all I'd been given. Aside from the bread, there was a little bowl of some kind of vegetable stew, a suspiciously fresh apple and some kind of meat slinky.

I held the peculiar length of meat up in my claws. Some kind of neck from something, judging by the vertebrae. What, did they butcher some radstorks or radcranes recently? This was a long neck. This was all neck.

Oh, this was a snake.

Well, I hadn't had snake in a while but it wasn't bad. There wasn't any picking the bones out of something like this though. I tested one of the exposed vertebrae to make sure it had been cooked soft and bit a chunk off. Hmm, not bad, although I was hungry enough it could have been a reproductive organ from a radstag for all I cared.

I sampled the biscuit next and took a blissful sigh. They'd even brushed it with lard before baking. This could have been the ambrosia for the gods! The next few seconds were a blur, but I think I might have stuffed the whole thing in my mouth.

As I picked up the apple to scrutinize it, someone else dropped a plate on the table. Oh crap, I wasn't in the way of another squad was I?

“This seat taken?” Serge asked.

Oh.

“Uh… no, sergeant.” Look, I picked this spot to be alone, okay? Why couldn't I have that?

“Things can get a little hectic here, as you can see. We usually don't all get to sit together.” He raised an eyebrow at the chunk of meat on his tray, which was not a snake. “The food here is usually better than what we get back at Fillydelphia. Helps to keep morale up I guess.”

Okay, yeah, I suppose we could pretend disciplinary action hadn't just been issued from you to me. He must have been trying to patch things over with that. A little soon, I thought. “Yeah.”

A minute or so passed as he made a little sandwich out of his biscuit and mystery meat and I confirmed that my apple was not a wax replica. He broke the silence with, “After lunch we'll be heading back out into the field. Something a little simpler this time. There's a caravan coming in from the pass up north and we've just got to escort them here. After that another team will take over escorting them to Fillydelphia.”

Attacking a caravan bound for Fillydelphia sounded like the worst idea a raider could ever have, especially this close to a Talon base. They'd have figured that out ages ago, so it sounded pretty safe. But, wait, wasn't this how Nadine was killed? “Uh, okay. Sounds easy.”

“It should be. We haven't had much trouble with the locals lately. Occasionally we get a druggie or five to charge the caravans at the choke points, but they never make it very far and never think to look up, which is where we'll be.”

“Okay, yeah, that's… good.” I scarfed down my vegetable soup without trying to guess what it contained and wondered if I could find somewhere less awkward to wait until deployment. Like my cot.

He raised another eyebrow. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine.” Please just let's finish eating and get on with things?

I could only imagine what Serge was thinking as he chewed literally and metaphorically. He knew full well what was bothering me, but I guess he decided to keep it unspoken after all. A few tense minutes of silence followed while we finished our meals, ultimately broken by Serge saying, “Don't worry about what's coming up. It's a lot more straightforward than the stable, and should be quiet.”

Well, almost kept it unspoken. “That's good. I'm really tired.”

He nodded. “We all are. After we get back from this you should have some real time to get some rest. We aren't scheduled for anything tomorrow morning.”

Not scheduled yet anyway, and I hadn't screwed up and earned extra duties, but I'd cling to the hope that I'd get a full night's sleep after this stint. And, of course, since he said we weren't likely to get shot at we'd run into an angry Steel Ranger detachment. But, one thing at a time and all of that.

“When you're done, head back to the barracks. We'll assemble there before deployment. Don't take long.” He tapped the table, stood and departed.

“Yes, sergeant.” I got up immediately and went to locate wherever I was supposed to leave my tray. No chance in Hell I'd be late now.

The flight out to the canyon where we were supposed to meet up with the caravan kind of sucked. My wings still ached a lot from all of the flying over the past couple of days, and I was still dead tired. The flight was mercifully short at least, lasting maybe an hour and a half, and I was alert enough that the flying kept me awake. So far, so good.

We arrived at the pass without incident or fanfare, and from where we were it was just possible to make out the wagon train of the caravan winding its way through the valley. They didn't have any aerial escorts from the looks of it, so we must have been the first protection Red Eye sent. It was probably too expensive and impractical to send Talons all the way out to merchant hubs just to protect caravans en route to Fillydelphia, even for Red Eye.

To my surprise, nobody peeled off to go meet up with anyone in the caravan. Instead, Serge led us in a wide, high circle that gave us a complete view of the surrounding terrain while we waited for the caravan to exit the pass and start across the hilly plains that stretched from Canyontalon to the pass.

I felt dangerously exposed since the only cloud cover was a thousand meters overhead, but kept in formation. Serge said that the nutty raiders that attacked this close to the Talon AFB rarely bothered to look up and notice the Talons protecting the caravans, but you'd have to be blind or impossibly clueless to miss half a dozen of us circling around in the open like this.

I hadn't forgotten what Ida told me about Nadine either. If the raiders really knew what they were doing, a dozen snipers with halfway decent rifles could pick us all off in a single salvo. Guess it was good that most raiders weren't that organized or patient, and those that were probably chose easier targets anyway.

As the caravan began to pull out of the valley and stretch across the plains, the squad split up. Serge, Carmelita and Amalia veered off to cover the left side of the caravan, while Leigh and Isaac veered right. Uh, three went one way and two went another, so that must have meant I was supposed to go with them. I flapped hard to catch up and fall into place behind Isaac, but made it a point to not get too close. Wouldn't want to bump into him or anything…

I tried to focus on something else while I kept in formation. Of course, watching the landscape for raiders or hostile wildlife was a given, so I tried to do that for a while. Unfortunately, it turns out that's pretty hard to do for an hour straight, and by my math we were going to be out here for quite a bit more than that. Griffons could fly an awful lot faster than ponies could pull wagons, and even though we weren't exactly breaking our necks to get out here I figured we probably outpaced the caravan by a factor of four or more. That made at least six hours of lazy weaving and circling to keep up with a bunch of slow wagons in the most uninteresting stretch of the wasteland imaginable. That would exhaust even a saint's patience.

In my idle thinking and daydreaming of doing something more interesting, something interesting did catch my eye. I noticed that most of the wagons were a distinct shade of red. And it was hard to read the writing on them this high up, but a little jolt shot through me as I almost certainly saw 'Crimson's Caravan' painted onto the side of one of them.

I could send papa a letter!

Serge said that another squad would take over the escort duties once we got back to base, but maybe they would spend some time camped out nearby instead of just heading on to Fillydelphia. It would still be a day's travel for the caravan and the ponies would be tired, right? Yeah, they'd have to be! And if they stopped overnight I could write a letter and get it out to them to deliver to Oatsfield before they left in the morning.

It didn't do a lot to make me more attentive or careful, but I have to admit that knowing I'd have that opportunity fought back a lot of the fatigue and lethargy.

I never thought I'd say it, but I couldn't wait to get back to base.

My estimates on the return trip's duration were pretty close. I didn't have any accurate time keeping equipment handy, but it was just getting dark when we reached Canyontalon, so about six or seven hours must have passed. Pretty mind numbing overall, but Serge was right: it was straightforward and for a change nothing terrible happened.

I didn't think too much about it as we left the caravan to return to the base entrance, since I was still hyped up trying to rehearse in my head what I was going to write. I had to keep all of that in check while I waited to verify if the caravan would even be remaining at the base long enough for me to get the letter to them, and the very first thing I planned to do after we got down was to ask Serge about it.

He beat me to the talking. “Good job everyone. Head down to the armory to get your gear checked off and we can go get something to eat and get some rest.”

If I did that I probably wouldn't be allowed back outside, so I trotted around in front of Serge and asked, “Wait, sergeant, can I ask you something first?”

“Sure?” Everyone stopped and looked my way. Ugh, this might get awkward.

“Is the caravan staying here overnight? Can I have permission to go visit?”

Clearly not the question he was expecting. “They're probably staying overnight. Why do you need to see them?”

“I, uh, I was hoping I could send a letter with them. I know they're headed to Fillydelphia now but might be able to forward it back home.”

He ruminated on it for a moment. “Don't go by yourself.” He scrutinized everyone else present.

“I'm beat, sarge,” Lita quipped.

Serge rolled his eyes and pointed to Amalia. “Go with him.”

She clicked her beak and slouched. “Yes, sergeant.”

“Good. Be back as soon as you can. You've got half an hour. Get your gear checked afterward and meet us back in the mess hall.”

“Yes, sergeant.” No problem, I could hammer this out in half of that, I was sure. Well, I probably could have done it faster if I was alone, but still, I wasn't going to dally.

I patted myself down and checked my bag only to discover that I didn't have any paper or anything to write with. Great.

“What's wrong?” Amalia asked.

“I, uh, need to run down to the barracks. I'll be right back.”

She grumbled audibly this time and slumped back against the wall, crossing her arms. “Make it fast.”

So, I did. I didn't want to drag this out, even if it didn't mean irritating Amalia that she had to accompany me like I was a kid or something, so I rushed back, grabbed a notebook and pen and rushed back up. I probably should have written the letter then, but didn't want to risk the caravan leaving before I got to them.

As it turned out, Serge was right and the caravan was clearly making camp for the night, so I had plenty of time. Amalia and I found the wagon train pulled up in a neat circle surrounding the beginnings of a fire pit. Dozens of ponies trudged around and between the wagons, checking or moving stuff I couldn't make out from the air. A few armed ponies circled the defensive perimeter, apparently not leaving security detail purely to Talon Company.

I couldn't decide if I should feel insulted that they didn't trust us, or relieved that they were smart enough to realize that Talon Company would give approximately zero shits if they were attacked during the night. Well, maybe that wasn't true. We'd probably get in trouble if the caravan never showed up at Fillydelphia, but it was good that the ponies weren't letting their guard down anyway.

Speaking of said guard ponies, a pair of unicorn stallions with lever action rifles dressed in long coats and dust froze in place as we landed. They exchanged looks but said nothing. I guess any griffons to show up had important business and didn't wait to be asked about it.

“Hey, is your leader available?” I asked.

The pony on the left raised an eyebrow. “Cactus Thorn's probably helping to get the wagons checked, but it can wait. Look for a pony in a red jacket and cowcolt hat.” He stepped aside and raised a hoof toward the nearest opening between wagons.

“Thanks.”

Said pony wasn't difficult to locate, and we found him helping to dig a small firebreak around the pit. I flagged him down, to his clear concern.

“Ah, yessir, is there somethin' wrong? This is where the lady told us to set up for the evenin'.”

He'd be glad to know that no, I was just a griffon wanting to send a letter to his daddy like a good little boy, not here to tell him that he had to move the caravan ten meters further north. “No, no, nothing wrong, I just had some personal business here.”

Cactus Thorn sat and pushed his hat up out of his eyes. “Oh, is that it? Well, we appreciate the business, but I'm afraid we've got everythin' packed up and weren't plannin' to break it out tonight. Sorry, but it'd take all night and nobody'd be here to buy anythin'.”

“No, no, not here to buy or trade. I, well, you carry mail with you when you travel, don't you?”

“Yes sir, that's right. You got somethin' to send somewhere?”

“If you can get it to Oatsfield. Does Crimson's Caravan deliver there?”

He scratched at his cheek. “It won't be in the next month or two, but we make rounds out there. What'd you have to send? A letter?”

“Yeah, just one letter.”

“I reckon we can take a letter. Don't have to unpack for that. Standard postage out that far's five bits.”

...shit. How could I not have seen this coming? I didn't have any bits, and they weren't going to deliver for free!

“Somethin' wrong?”

“Heh, you, uh, you're not going to believe this, but I don't have any on me. Uh...”

Amalia divined my question and crossed her arms. “Don't look at me.” Gee, thanks. Of course, she might not have been paid recently and wouldn't have money on her anyway.

Cactus sucked a little air through his teeth. “Sorry, but that's the rate. We ain't running a charity here, you understand.”

“I know, I know! Dammit… took this job because I needed the money and look what good it's doing...” Everything got really quiet and awkward, so I tried the next best thing to pleading. “Don't you offer credit or anything?”

“If this was a proper trading post we might, and no offense, but I jus' don't see me ever bein' able to collect on that credit.” He scratched some more and pointed at my gear. “Got anythin' you'd be willing to trade for it?”

Yeah, how about five years of indentured servitude to Crimson's Caravan? I'd gladly offer that if it got me out of Talon Company. But, alas. “All Talon Company property,” I said, shaking my head.

He sighed and mirrored with a shake of his own. “Sorry to hear that, but I can't help you then. I want to, but I've got a job to do and my boss would have my hide if I started givin' out freebies, you understand.”

Dammit, dammit, dammit. I wasn't going to come this close and just give up like that. Maybe I could run back to our room again and grab one of ma's old medical textbooks to trade. It was worth ten times the postage but at this point I almost didn't care. Amalia would strangle me if I dragged this out for that though.

...okay. Okay, I was down to my last option: pleading. “Listen. Listen, I understand, but I've got no time to work this out and I might not have another chance like this. I just wanted to send a letter to my papa so he could hear from me one last time. He's really sick and probably won't last until I have a chance to see him in person.”

I held a claw to my forehead. “Look… he thinks I work for Crimson's Caravan. He'd disown me if he knew I was working for Red Eye, okay? And I thought, well, I thought if I could send him a letter through Crimson's Caravan he'd believe I really did work for them. Like, maybe I couldn't get assigned to a caravan heading home, but I wrote him at least, you know? I even applied and tried to get work with your caravan, but they turned me away.”

The hole I was digging couldn't get much deeper, so I kept going. “Talon Company or Red Eye are paying you to do this delivery, right? Can't that count for something? What's five bits compared to that? I'll pay you back double next time, I promise. Just, look, just write my name down or something. I swear I'll pay you back.”

Cactus waved both forehooves to shut me up. “Alright, alright, that's enough. I ain't got time to argue with you so jus' go ahead. Give your letter or whatever you've got to that pretty young lady over there and we'll get it to Oatsfield sometime.” He indicated a strawberry red mare with black freckles that made her look, well, like a strawberry.

“Thank you. Really, thank you. I'll pay you back, honest.”

Cactus nodded me off and followed it up with a “Yeah, yeah” and something about “weirdest griffon he'd ever met.” Or it sounded like that anyway, but it was hard to make it out exactly.

I grinned sheepishly at Amalia. “I've got to write it up now, but I'll make this quick, I promise.”

She gawked. “You haven't written it yet? Ugh, whatever. I'll be waiting over there.” She turned about and smacked my beak with the tip of her tail as she went. “Unbelievable,” she muttered, which I could make out exactly.

Well sorry that I was in such a hurry and didn't magically guess that we'd have a caravan to send letters on before Serge told me about it that morning! I glared after her and snorted, but kept my beak shut. I didn't want to waste more time in an argument.

The letter wasn't going to be long to begin with, and despite the infantile urge to make it longer just to piss Amalia off more, I kept it short. I realized I also didn't have any envelopes, so I capped off my half-cocked plan by just folding the paper up and writing “Jakob Longtalons, Oatsfield” on the outside of it. Good enough.

Just as I prepared to take it over to Ms. Strawberry, another thought hit me. Didn't Rusty Rivet want me to tell his fillyfriend he loved her or something? I probably never would see her, and now that he was free he could do it in person, but…

...yeah, who was I kidding? He was probably tossed in a ditch the moment they got him out of the crater.

Whatever. It was short, but I wrote another letter to Rolling Meadow and folded it up too. I probably wasn't remembering her name right and it was a long shot it would make it to her at all, but I felt better. Over, done, and given to Strawberry mare, who asked no questions and seemed to just be in a hurry to not deal with me.

Fine with me too. I joined Amalia outside the wagon perimeter and lifted off to head back. She didn't join me. “Coming?”

She cut her eyes up to me. “Hang on a second. I want to ask you something.”

I sighed and landed in front of her. “Go ahead.”

Her red eyes cut through the darkness as she asked, “Is this all some kind of joke to you?”

Hey, I hadn't had any drama in about 24 hours, so I guess it was time. “What?”

“This.” She patted her breastplate with a gauntlet-covered claw. “None of this means a thing to you, does it?”

“I told you before that I didn't want this job,” I replied with a little hesitation.

Amalia clicked her beak and nodded. “You did, but I didn't really get it before. But after yesterday?” She swept a claw over the wagons. “After that? Yeah, I get it now. This is all just a big joke for you, and we're the punchline.”

The hell? “What? Hey, look, just because I've got family outside of this organization and want-”

“I'm not talking about that!” she snapped. “Let's back up to yesterday. No, actually, let's back up to when we met. Remember that slave we found out in the streets? Remember what we did to him?”

Who? Slave… she must have meant Silver Rush. What did we do with him again?

“Exactly!” she spat, not giving me a chance to answer. “Nothing. We should have turned him in to his master for evading duty, but instead we just evaded duty right along with him. I should have known right then that something was wrong, but I kept quiet.”

No, really, what the hell was she going on about? “So, what, are you planning on telling Lieutenant Blackfeathers about it now?”

“Maybe I should. Because maybe you need it.”

“What the fuck? You're not making any sense!”

“It's what I said. This is a joke to you! Back when you told me you didn't want this job I thought that was the end of it. You wanted to do something else, but here you were. Okay, fine. But now I can see that not only did you not want the job, you've never had a passing interest in doing it right!”

To be blunt, I wasn't really sure what to say, so I settled on the first thing that came to mind. “That's not true.”

“Isn't it? Don't pretend you didn't just say that back there!” She jabbed a thumb back toward the wagons.

“Say what?”

“That you'd be disowned for working for Red Eye or Talon Company. You're ashamed of what you're doing here, aren't you?” Yet again, I failed to formulate a response in time. “I knew it. All this time, I thought the ignorance and incompetence were just you being new, but you don't want to do better.”

For just a moment I was tempted to grab her by the beak to shut her up. “What the fuck makes you think that?”

“For as long as I've known you, you've been bending or breaking the rules to suit you. You let that slave off back in Fillydelphia. You dragged that other slave all through the stable instead of following orders. I almost had to drag you up to shoot that other slave under the sergeant's orders. You tried time and again to second guess the sergeant or SOP during the stable clearing. And that's not even getting into the breaches in protocol that almost got the corporal killed or gave away our position in the stable!”

Some of the guards around the caravan were starting to take notice now. Or I guessed, since I heard a lot of confused chatter and swearing behind me.

Amalia placed a talon in my face. “And to top it off, you don't care. That is what pisses me off so much. Do you have any idea how hard I worked for this? I spent my entire life training and drilling so that when my deployment came up I'd be sent to Fillydelphia. Fillydelphia was the most competitive and prestigious deployment. And I got it. I got it because I worked so hard. I trained, drilled, followed the rules… and every day I try to improve because I'm proud to be a part of Talon Company.” She tapped my beak with her talon. “And you? You need to grow the hell up before you get someone else killed.”

If she wasn't wearing a gauntlet I'd have bitten her talon. “Amy?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don't call me that.”

“Fine. Amalia?”

“What?”

I brushed her claw aside. “Shut the hell up.” She opened her beak to speak, but it was my turn to interrupt. “You think I think this is a joke? You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I've been trying to get out of this running disaster of a career because I know precisely how much I don't belong here.” I thumped her breastplate. “Yeah, because people like you are the ones that deserve this job and know what the fuck you're doing.

“You think that Ida's death was funny to me? Or insignificant? Or you think that I don't care that Leigh was shot because of me? Or that I don't care that I don't know what I'm doing? You couldn't be more wrong.”

I punched the ground. “I don't think this is a joke. I know this is life and death, okay? I know how much this means to you and everyone else who wants this job. I didn't screw up on purpose. I've been trying to learn and improve so nobody else does die.” I nodded and added, “And yeah, I know that not shooting every slave on sight in that stable was risky. I know, but that's why I wanted to take all of the risk myself. I volunteered to carry the hurt slave and to be on point to accept the others' surrender.”

“But you can't accept all of the risk on yourself! It doesn't work that way!”

“I know!” I backed up and shook my head. “I know. I know. So, what? You want an apology?” She didn't deny it. “Okay, fine. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm awful at this job. I'm sorry that I factor the slaves' lives into risk assessments. I'm sorry that my perspective covers more than just Talon Company.” And that hers didn't, but I didn't say that. “But I'm not sorry that I care. And yes, that includes you and everyone else.”

Amalia looked uncertain how to respond. She was still pissed without a doubt, but arguing more wasn't going to help that and we'd wasted too much time already. So, I took what was arguably the low road and just took off to fly back to base. I looked down just in time to see her wheel on a pony and growl, followed by all of the ponies scampering back to the interior of the wagon train.

She took off too and flapped hard to catch up some, but kept her distance.

The next few days were going to be just lovely.

Gain Experience – You gain 1,500 experience points for learning to keep your beak shut.

Chapter 15: Cut Short

Chapter 15

Cut Short

Indeed, the next few days were tense while we were in the barracks. I don't think Amalia spoke a word to me, and aside from the odd click of her beak or cutting her eyes at me, it was almost like nothing happened. The eerie calm was kind of unsettling, but the lack of lecturing from Serge meant that she probably hadn't told anybody about the argument. That was fine. A renewed bout of insomnia, brought on by the incident and all of its lovely baggage, had me in a less than stellar mood anyway.

On the upside, we didn't receive any new field assignments for a couple of days, during which period we were all working random patrol routes or manning weapon emplacements around the AFB. Carmelita got to handle one of the 20mm machine guns with Serge one day, but the patrols were done without partners so I didn't even have to interact with Amalia. Perfect.

All good things come to an end of course, which happened to be the fourth day after the argument. I was halfway through a shift in the base's hospital when I caught wind of some gossip between third platoon's medic, Corporal Adelaide Clawmarks, no relation to Isaac I was assured, and a pair of techs in charge of maintaining inventory.

I was in the presently deserted nurse station and far from prying eyes, but tried to look busy anyway by flipping through some blank medical charts on the desk while they talked in the storage room behind me. Adelaide asked, “You're sure this is right? We've put in requests for antibiotics, saline, med-x, radiation drugs, potions, you name it, and they send half of what we need and five times the tranquilizers we have storage space for and no need of?”

One tech replied, “You tell me. We just take the shipments from the pad and make sure they get where they're supposed to. You want me to send your concerns up to Lieutenant Ironclaw?”

“Yes, please do. Something probably got written down wrong back in Fillydelphia.”

The other tech said, “You know, now that you mention it, I heard some talk at the FunBarn that they were shipping a bunch of cages and transports out this way. Nobody says why so I don't ask, but I bet you three cigarettes that they're related.”

The blank medical charts were far less interesting now that I'd heard that, and I wasn't really even pretending to read them while I waited for the ominous conversation to end and for the two techs to leave. Adelaide drifted back in shortly thereafter and sat heavily. She stroked her beak thoughtfully and quietly, as I was beginning to gather she did with some frequency.

“Everything check out?” I asked casually, setting the charts down.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, I think so. Just a clerical error to clear up I think.”

“What's missing?”

The butter colored griffoness grabbed a pen and blank sheet of paper. She started scribbling some notes down. “A little bit of everything, unfortunately. And we got enough tranquilizers to kill a dragon.”

“That does sound a little bizarre. Can't begin to imagine what we'd need that for.”

She shrugged. “Me neither, so I'm chalking it up to clerical error like I said. And we might have been shorted on other supplies but we should have plenty to get by for now. Plenty to last until we can get this straightened out at least.”

“That's good. I'm sure it was just a simple mistake,” I lied. I couldn't imagine someone mistakenly packed that much tranquilizer in a box to ship off here and nobody back in Fillydelphia asked questions.

“Yep. I'd joke that things are going smoothly right now so we shouldn't worry about running out of supplies, but that would just be inviting irony to strike.”

Adelaide wandered off at that point, probably to go check up on whoever it was that showed up that morning with food poisoning. I should probably be doing something like that myself, but I got a little too caught up in wondering what was about to happen. Lots of cages and transports were headed this way too? If not for that I might just think that Red Eye was hiring more Talons to strengthen our position here, but it seemed unprompted. Maybe he was planning on expanding Fillydelphia into satellite settlements or something and wanted to try it out near a Talon base first? Sounded almost plausible.

“Hey, Kaz?”

I started a little and grabbed at the nearest thing to look busy, which happened to be tongue depressor. “Huh? Yeah?”

Adelaide pointed a talon back through the door her head was peeking out of. “Someone's here looking for you.”

Oh joy. “Okay, thanks.” I dropped the wooden stick and followed her back out to the spartan, unfinished and entirely undecorated metal walled waiting room.

To my surprise it wasn't Isaac this time, but to my displeasure it was Amalia. “Get your gear and meet us up on the landing pad. We're mobilizing.” She sighed and spun around to leave. “And make it quick.”

Don't worry, I wasn't going to tarnish the good reputation of Talon Company with intentional indifference.

Oh well, at least it had been boring so far in medical, so Adelaide wouldn't miss me.

Serge's quick briefing didn't instill me with much confidence or courage.

The details were scant, but didn't sound good. Another caravan, run by Rawhide Routing, was inbound to Fillydelphia and scheduled to arrive at the AFB two days ago. It was on time to its last checkpoint and had not arrived yet, so something had gone wrong.

“It could be something as simple as a broken axle or wagon tongue,” Leigh suggested.

Carmelita scoffed. “Yeah, it might have started out that way, but if I were out there I'd just leave the busted wagon and get a move on to get here.”

Sensing that she knew something I didn't, I asked, “Is it a particularly dangerous area?”

“You kidding? Everywhere outside of Fillydelphia is a 'particularly dangerous area.'”

I rolled my eyes. “You know what I meant.”

“And I told you, didn't I?” Lita crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair at a seemingly impossible angle. “But yeah, it's a known trading route so anyone with two brain cells to rub together would know to hit it if they were looking for easy targets.”

Serge said, “That's why we're going to investigate it. We're looking for the caravan, or if we find evidence that raiders hit it we're supposed to try to locate them.”

“Ugh, seriously?” Lita asked. “First of all, how come we're getting caravan babysitting duty again? Didn't we just do that like three day ago?”

“Because Lieutenant Blackfeathers said so,” Serge answered.

“Right, anyway, we're supposed to go looking for raiders? I mean, sure, I'll be happy to shoot the little shits if they're at the caravan when we get there, but what's that even mean? We could spend days looking for them!”

Serge held up a claw. “Our orders are to fly no further than six hours out of the base. If we haven't found the caravan by then they'll send a larger force tomorrow that can travel overnight. And as far as the raiders go, the lieutenant is leaving that up to my discretion. We won't be spending all day on it, that much I can guarantee.” He extended a single talon. “And while we're on the subject, our orders are to just locate the raiders and any strongholds they have, if they have one. We're not supposed to attack unless they attack first or if the caravan is actively in danger.”

The air was heavy with the unspoken question of “What the hell?” At least until Lita asked out loud.

“It's not my call and it's not up for discussion. Orders are coming from higher up than even the lieutenant, so we can't screw this up.” Serge stepped over to his bunk to start grabbing his gear. “Everyone finish getting ready. We're lifting off in ten minutes.”

Lita groaned and got up. 'Do I at least get to carry the big gun?”

“You want to haul that thing all the way out there?” Leigh asked.

“Hell yes! If we're not allowed to shoot the raiders at least I scare the shit out of them.”

Serge slammed his footlocker closed. “Take what you want, but do not screw this up, Lita. I'm serious. Captain Stern might be watching the results here.”

“I got it dad, jeeze.”

I pulled the little pistol from my holster and asked, “I don't suppose I was issued anything else?”

Serge shook his head. “Sorry Kaz, that's it for now. We're trying to avoid a confrontation so don't worry about it.”

Amalia got up and swished her tail in my direction. “Don't worry, if a fight breaks out we can handle it.” Isaac made a distorted chuckle.

I'm sure you can, miss little professional soldier and mister berserker griffon. Didn't mean I wasn't going to end up like Nadine. “Guess I don't have much choice,” I grumbled.

“That's about the size of it,” Serge answered simply. “Now cut the chatter and meet me up on the landing pad.”

How reassuring.

Finding the caravan was easier and took less time than I expected. We knew the general direction they should have approached from, so that cut the search time down considerably. I'm not sure that we flew more than two hours before the remains resolved themselves on the horizon. Twenty minutes more and we were close enough to see that, sure enough, something had gone catastrophically wrong.

Overturned and ransacked wagons sat exposed among open plains for many kilometers around. The canyons and mountains were the only place that raiders would likely have set up camp, and this seemed awfully far away for them to risk traveling in plain sight. They'd have had to have known when the caravan was coming too, if they were going to hit it at all, which made the situation seem all the more fishy.

There was clearly a fight, either way. Two dead ponies laid in tangled heaps next to the wagons. The ground was pockmarked with dried and soaked in blood, and the wagons were sprinkled and sprayed with red across the white tarps. More blood than I'd have expected from guns too, so it must have been one of the kookier raider bands that used swords made out of sharpened sky cart bumpers or street signs. Yet, there were craters everywhere, implying that they'd been hit by someone hauling explosives, or used some to defend themselves.

Not much sign of tracks either, but out here the wind was strong enough to cover up most within a day. And yet, some of the smashed crates had been dragged about and the tracks and trails of those were still evident.

“What are you thinking, sergeant?” Leigh asked aloud.

Serge hovered in place, weapon pointed down at the debris. “Hellhounds. No doubt about it.”

Leigh nodded simply. “That's what I was thinking.”

Hellhounds? Really? I drew my pistol and scanned the craters. I'd never seen a live hellhound, and that was just okay by me, but I had heard that they tunneled underground. That would explain a lot.

“So, no raiders. Does that mean we can go home now?” Lita asked. “Or do we have to shoot hellhounds because Captain Stern only said to not shoot raiders?”

Serge started a slow, lazy circle over the site. “I don't know. It looks like they're gone and there's not much we can do about the wagons.”

“Good, because I'm not hauling those back to base,” Lita added. She hefted her weapon up and shifted her grip a little. “Carrying Bitch here is a bitch already.”

“That's why I suggested leaving it at base,” Leigh quipped.

One of the dead ponies stirred.

I gawked involuntarily as the mare stretched a lime green foreleg out and cried softly. As much blood as there was, I couldn't believe she was alive, especially after all this time. She was gravely, maybe mortally, wounded. But she was alive! If I didn't do something she'd die for sure. “Wait, one of the ponies is alive!”

Everyone looked her way. A few raised rifles. Serge drifted a little lower and tilted his head. “You're right. Wait, Kaz, stop!”

I heard the warning, but pretended I didn't. The potions were only for Talon use. I know! I was going to catch shit for it, I know! But they were going to have to stop putting me in these situations if they didn't want me to 'waste' a potion on someone.

“Kaz, stop! Get back up here now!” Serge shouted.

“Wait, it's not safe!” Leigh joined in.

“What are you doing!?” Lita cried.

Isaac grunted something.

Amalia yelled, “Stop!”

Heavy flaps of wings signaled someone diving after me, but I was already on the ground. Everything they shouted started to register just as I landed next to the pony. At this range I could tell something was wrong. Her eyes were fixed ahead and lifeless. It was difficult to tell through fur, but her coloration looked wrong. Her lips were pale and blotched…

All sound was drowned out in a dull roar as she erupted from the ground. I gasped and backed away as something enormous and amorphous rose before me. A primal and deafening roar issued forth and the wind tore at my face as the titanic creature swung and missed by a hair's width.

“Ambush!” Lita shouted.

“Bloodfeathers, get off the ground, Kaz!” Amalia screamed from just above me.

Gunshots blasted through the relative silence. Sprays of dust and chunks of earth jumped ahead of me as bullets punched into the ground. The gray and black giant of a hellhound twisted and snarled amid the thumps of bullets slamming into it.

“Fuck's sake, get out of the way! I can't get a clean shot!” Lita yelled down.

Already trying! I jumped up and tried to flap my wings to take off, but in a panic I only managed to get a little distance before landing again. I drew my pistol, drew aim and squeezed the trigger. Nothing! Fuck, forgot the safety. I flipped it and squeezed again. Blam! Blam! Clunk. Shit!

Something latched onto me from behind and tugged hard. “Are you even listening!?”

Without thinking I wrenched free and tumbled over. Amalia glared daggers down at me for an instant before raising her rifle back toward the hellhound. All sound was again drowned out by ringing as she squeezed off more shots. I felt the shudder of the monster collapsing to the ground.

Again, Amalia grabbed me by my armor and hefted me upward. I'm pretty sure she was shouting something angry, but I was too distracted by the ringing in my ears and the ground shifting beneath me.

Dirt flew upward and into my eyes as another hellhound emerged from underground. This one wasn't content to claw at me and hefted a weapon up that I was sure was too big to normally be portable. Blinding flashes and renewed booms of automatic weapon fire tore through the haze and ringing, and I felt the backwash of supersonic bullets shearing the air around me.

I think I screamed when one drilled into my foreleg, but I couldn't hear it.

Amalia lurched and let go, sending me tumbling back down to the ground. I had only a full second to twist around and land on my claws and paws, and immediately regretted doing so as I tried to stabilize and flexed the muscles in my wounded leg.

Carmelita opened up next and the hellhound shuddered as its weapon jerked about from impacts. Two puffs of smoke and flashes from the chamber later and it stopped firing. The shooting pain in my leg vanished as quickly as it came and I scrabbled away from the enraged canine as it slammed the ruined machine gun down toward me. The gun threw up a cloud of sand and dirt, and a bullet threw a spray of red as a precise shot punched through the hellhound's skull. Carried by momentum of its upswing, it twirled backward and onto one of the wagons, snapping an axle and collapsing what was left of it in a splintering heap.

Was that all of them?

The ground trembled yet again and I flared my wings to get airborne before my luck ran out. Two more sinkholes formed beneath me as I rose into the air, followed by two black hellhounds clawing their way through the earth and leaping upward after me.

A massive and impossibly strong paw wrapped around my hindleg and drew me back down, eliciting a very unflattering squeal. I reflexively pointed the pistol down at it and squeezed the trigger, but of course it was still jammed, so nothing happened. Its face twisted into a rancid grin and it drew back its other paw to swipe at me. I panicked. I threw my pistol and hit it squarely in the face. It didn't give a shit.

I remembered the other one and looked up just in time to see claws as long as my beak scything toward me. A dozen gunshots rang out and the hellhound stumbled. Its claws dug into my armor and cut a deep gouge from my neck all the way down to my belly. For an instant I thought its weight would snap the clasps and tear the breastplate free completely.

The collapsing hellhound fell onto its companion claws first, and it did give a shit that time. Both howled in pain and anger, and finally my captor released its grip.

Dozens of booms and muzzle flashes drowned out all of my senses as I beat my wings with all of my might to gain altitude and distance from the battlefield. Call me a coward or a quitter, I didn't care, but I was completely unarmed now and facing something that took high caliber shots to even faze.

Back at the altitude of my squad, I whirled around and reassessed the situation. The two hellhounds were now dead and leaking blood from more places than I could count at a glance. Four of them. That was it. Just four. It felt like forty, but there were four of the hulking beasts lying in mangled heaps on the ground below.

Amalia was still separated from the rest of us. She flew higher and spun to watch the ground below as she rejoined the squad. The ground was motionless and everything was deathly silent, aside from the persistent ringing in my ears. At this rate I was going to go deaf!

I spied my pistol laying a short distance from the last two dogs, but opted to leave it where it was. Talon Company could bill me! I wasn't going back down there for it!

“Was that all of them? I don't see anything else,” Lita said, sweeping her machine gun over the debris and bodies.

“I think so. Kind of a small band. Maybe if there were more they got the hint,” Serge replied. “Whatever. We found out what happened so let's get out of here before more show up.”

Sounded good to me! I wasn't even going to mention the pistol, lest he change his mind and send me down to get it.

Lita looked my way. “Oh… shit!”

What? I looked around and behind me. Nothing there.

“Kaz is hit!” Leigh yelled, pointing a claw my way.

Oh. Right, I'd completely forgotten. I flexed my leg and held it up to get a better look at the bullet wound. It was bleeding, but not as heavily as I'd expect from an impact from a 20mm machine gun. Guess I got lucky in the ironic sense. “It's fine. I'll be fine, I just need to drink a potion and it'll be fine until we get back to base.” Really, I was surprised at how little it hurt. Kind of like cutting yourself with a knife. There was the instant stab of pain, and only a burning, throbbing afterward.

“Leigh, get on the radio and inform Corporal Clawmarks. Anybody in medical!” Serge exclaimed.

“I don't have it! They were still rewiring it so it wasn't ready!”

Okay, guys, you're making a big deal about this, but it was okay. “Calm down, I'll make it back to base fine!”

Amalia drifted closer and her eyes snapped open. Isaac gurgled something and mimed for me to look down.

I've never been a squeamish person. You really can't be when you're in the profession I was. I wasn't squeamish, but I learned that day that there's a powerful difference between seeing someone lying peacefully on a surgical table, or even seeing someone else eviscerated, than seeing it happen to yourself.

My entire underside was drenched in blood. The hellhound's claws had dug trenches in my breastplate, and when they ran out of breastplate, they dug trenches in my flesh. Ragged meat was plainly visible between the shreds of ballistic mesh. In my shock I might have just imagined it, but I was certain I could see my own intestines. My beak dropped open and I tensed up. Blood spurted from the wound and the visible organs shifted.

All at once, I was overcome with incredible pain and nausea.

The last thing I remember was everything growing distant and dark, and the feeling that I was receding away from the world amid faint shouts.

Gain Experience – You gain 3,500 experience points for crushing your enemies.

Chapter 16: R&R

Chapter 16

R&R

The last thing I remembered before blacking out was shouting, but the first thing I remembered after waking up was that nothing made sense.

Through the fog and haze clouding literally every sense, I managed to gather that I was back at base, but for a long while that was all I knew. I wasn't restrained, yet my limbs felt too heavy to move. All I wanted to do was sleep, and while I knew I had slept more than possibly in total for a week before, my body had reached the limit to which it would permit me momentary lapses from the waking world.

I laid for what felt like hours, but which was probably only been twenty or thirty minutes, of staring at a vacant prefab steel wall and trying to make sense of the world swimming around me before something broke the silence.

“Oh, Kasimir? Kaz, you're awake?”

My eyes drifted with a mind of their own toward the voice, and I saw a griffoness with yellow plumage enter the room through an open doorway. “Guh?” My beak and tongue didn't seem to want to work right either.

She sat next to my bed and held up a claw, which she waved in front of my face a few times. She didn't say to do it, but I tried to keep focused on the moving object.

“Good. Good, good, it looks like you're coming to. It'll probably be a few minutes before you're fully awake. Do you know where you are?”

Kind of. At the base. I knew I knew who she was, but her name and occupation escaped me. “Base?”

She nodded quickly. “That's right. You're in the infirmary. Do you remember what happened?”

“No...”

“Your squad was sent off to locate a caravan. When you got there you were ambushed by a pack of hellhounds. Remember that?”

Yeah, now that was a little familiar now. “One hit me?”

“That's right.” She traced a claw down her abdomen. “You were comparatively lucky, getting hit in the first place notwithstanding. Its claw cut through the abdominal muscle and nicked your small intestine, but wasn't deep enough to really puncture anything else. Came close to your spleen though. If that happened you wouldn't have made it back.”

That's nice. I liked my spleen and wouldn't have been happy if it was punctured. Rapid and fatal exsanguination notwithstanding. “Oh.”

“Your squad mates flew you back here fast enough that I was able to get you patched up. Thankfully one of them knew how to administer a few potions on the flight back or you might have bled out anyway.” She grinned sheepishly. “But, sorry for being so morbid. You should be okay, but you'll be groggy for a little while. Sorry to say it, but I was worried you'd wake up when I wasn't around and pop a stitch, so I administered some of the tranquilizer we had in storage.” She tapped her beak and grinned again. “Guess we found a use for some of it after all.”

“Uh huh.” That explained why I was so tired then. But where was I again, and how did I get here? I was pretty sure the pretty yellow griffoness just explained that to me, but I was having a lot of trouble hanging on to anything she said.

Maybe in a few minutes, after I woke up some more, everything would start making more sense.

She stood and retrieved a clipboard from a side table near my bed before jotting something down. “Well, this is good anyway. You're definitely recovering. I'll be back in a few minutes, and if you've recovered enough voluntary muscle control I can remove your catheter.” She waved and headed out. “Back soon.”

Oh, okay. That sounded like it would be okay.

It wasn't really okay. Somehow, years of performing procedures like that on others hadn't fully prepared me to be on the receiving end. Nevertheless, it was a mercifully short procedure, after which I welcomed her changing the subject to getting something to eat.

Too bad the only option I had available was liquefied meals. Adelaide, whose name I finally remembered, was concerned that after my injury I might not be ready for solid foods again yet, so she presented me with a couple of cans of reconstituted meal replacement shakes. Judging by the impossibly brawny white pegasus stallion on the can of Bicep Bulker, I expected it to have a chalky, gritty flavor of nothingness like any good meathead's protein shake should. Judging by the provocatively posed earth pony mare with an impossibly large rump on the can of ThickFast! I expected it to also simultaneously be cloyingly sweet and fatty.

Surprisingly, when mixed together it wasn't bad at all. The strawberry flavor of the ThickFast got caught up in a pitched battle for my taste buds with the fake chocolately taste of the Bicep Bulker, but the two actually kind of managed to balance out.

Or maybe I was just starving after having apparently eaten nothing in two days of catatonia. Either way, I managed to get about half of the mix down before, true to Adelaide's fears, I started getting nauseated and had to put it away for the moment.

It was about that time that I received my first visitor. Another yellow griffoness, this time with red tipped crest feathers, waltzed in and mimed knocking at a door. “Ding dong. Err, knock knock. Surprise inspection, private Longtalons. Better be ready and presentable.”

My eyes danced over Lita's face while I searched for any sign of a joke, but she looked dead serious. “Huh?”

“Jeez, relax, Kaz. Does Ada have you on some hard meds or something?” She sat next to my bed, just as Serge entered, and grabbed the first thing within reach on the desk next to her. “ThickFast? I thought you had a cute little butt already, don't go changing that.”

Way, way too tired to even groan. “Doctor's orders.”

Serge opted to stay standing near the bed and ignored Lita's little joke. “How do you feel? Ada said you were recovering well.”

Mmhmm, better get ready to answer that question a dozen times. “Like a hellhound gutted me.”

Lita set the can down and held up a talon. “Technically, he didn't gut you. Just cut you pretty bad and made an unholy mess, is all.”

Serge gave her a hard nudge. “Either way, I'm glad to see you're recovering. We got you back here as fast as we possibly could, but it was still close. Isaac and Amalia and I had to trade off carrying you. Leigh gave you a couple of potions on the way back, which Ada says probably made the difference.”

“Hey, hey, I'd have offered to carry him too, but the gun...”

I held up a claw. “Don't worry about it. I'm just glad someone cared enough to drag my worthless ass back here.”

They exchanged looks. Serge told me, “Getting hurt is tough, Kaz, I know, but don't let it get you so down.”

Lita cocked a frown. “Yeah, shit happens. You've just got to get back up and keep going, you know?”

“I know, but it was my fault, wasn't it?” I rested my claw on my abdomen and winced. “I don't remember a lot of the details, but I do remember landing after you told me not to.”

They exchanged looks again. Serge once more answered first with, “They probably would have emerged and started shooting soon anyway. You did fall for the trap though, yes.”

Lita nodded. “Yeah, look, don't feel bad about it. Nadine would have done the same thing, I know it. She was always jumping in the way of trouble if she thought she was saving someone.”

And that's why she was dead, wasn't it? Well, whatever, I wasn't there to start a pity party and it was making them uncomfortable. I decided to jump to the point. “I disobeyed orders again. I'm in trouble, aren't I?”

Serge looked genuinely surprised. “What? No, hardly. It happened so fast I wouldn't blame you for it regardless of what happened. I mean, you should have waited until we assessed the situation and I do hope you'll learn from this, but I also hope you don't think I turned you in for insubordination over it.”

“Heidi's a real hardass but even she'd probably choke at punishing someone who was seriously wounded in combat,” Lita agreed.

“That's something I guess.” I wasn't sure what else to say, really, so an awkward silence arose.

Serge mercifully broke the silence by saying, “The others would have come with us, but they're all on duty at the moment. I, uh, I hate to cut and run so quickly, but we need to relieve Isaac and Leigh in a few minutes.”

“Yeah, gotta go. Try not to beat yourself up so much, Kaz. It kills me when you look so gloomy.”

“I'll try.”

The two turned to leave, but Serge stopped to say, “I'll be back tonight or in the morning to debrief you. Not a lot's changed, but maybe by then I'll have an idea of when you'll return to duty and how.”

“Thanks.” I weakly waved them off and shut my eyes to try to get some more sleep. That probably wasn't going to happen given how much I'd slept already, but there wasn't much else to do but stew in silence. At least I was reasonably hopeful that I'd be on light duty for a while. If radiation poisoning from the crater got me that much, then having a hellhound dig out my intestines probably would too.

As it turned out, I didn't have to wait for Serge before I had another visitor. Time was infuriatingly vague without a clock to watch, but I couldn't imagine more than an hour or two passed before the clack of talons on exposed metal flooring alerted me to someone entering the room. They didn't sound particularly big and heavy, but I expected it was Isaac and Leigh. Or maybe Amalia.

I was quite surprised to see that it was a jet black griffoness and her lavender assistant instead. Oh boy. Serge might not have officially filed insubordination charges, but here was Lieutenant Blackfeathers to grill me on the engagement and decide for herself.

Heidi fixed me with her golden eyes for a few achingly long seconds. She didn't look angry, but all the same I felt like I could read Zebrican better than her at that moment. “Good afternoon, private. How are you feeling?”

Huh? O-oh, the question I'd been preparing to answer a thousand times. “Much better. Than, uh, before. I mean.”

“Good. I'm glad to hear that. After I read Dr. Clawmarks' report I was concerned that you'd be incapacitated for a long time. Or we'd be forced to discharge you.”

As much as the dark little recesses of my mind wanted to, I couldn't really entertain the idea of being injured worse just to be free of Talon Company. For starters, being injured worse would probably have meant death. Or a colostomy bag, which would have been even worse.

“I, uh, I got lucky, ma'am.” If you discounted being attacked, anyway.

“I should say so. It's uncommon for someone to be wounded by hellhounds. Most that are don't survive.” She and Egon sat next to the bed. “But then, it's also rare for them to engage us at all. Stupid as the beasts are, they know that fighting griffons puts them at a grave disadvantage.”

Which made the whole affair all the more unusual. What were they hoping for? “I guess they were expecting more ponies to show up eventually. But as close as we were to base I would think they'd know better.”

“Quite. But, as I said, they are rather stupid, so they likely didn't think much about it in the first place.” She shrugged. “But that is related to why I came to see you. I was hoping you would be able to elaborate a little on what happened. Sergeant Swiftwing was very vague on the details, and I would rather we avoided incidents like this in the future.”

Oh boy. Here we go. I adjusted the collar on my hospital gown and cleared my throat. “I, uh, I'm not sure what else I could say that he didn't. It was-it was over so fast and the details are hazy...”

Heidi fixed me with her eyes and sighed just perceptibly. “Sergeant Swiftwing already told me you landed and that they attacked when you landed. He said you thought one of the ponies was still alive. Is that correct?”

“L-listen, lieutenant, I was just-I mean, yes, I thought the pony was alive and just badly wounded, and if I-if I-”

She pinched the tip of her beak and gave a much more pronounced sigh as she shut her eyes. “Private, relax. I believe I know why you think I'm here, but I'm not. You do remember what I told you before, don't you?”

“Uh...”

She opened her eyes again and let go of her beak. “I'm not here to grill or reprimand you. As much as Private Galeforce might think I get off on punishing the soldiers under me, I don't. I want you all to succeed, and that means...” She trailed off and held up a claw as if dismissing some thought. “Never mind it. Just, please, tell me what you can so we can prepare for ambushes like this in the future.”

O-okay. “Yes ma'am. I, uh, I really don't know what else I can say beyond that. One of the hellhounds was buried directly beneath the mare. He was moving her limbs, and I think-I think he was making moaning sounds. He was trying to lure us down to help her. He waited until I touched down and got close before he sprang up.”

Heidi nodded. “And there were more?”

By now I couldn't even remember how many exactly. “Yes ma'am. Two more I think. They emerged a few seconds later. One had a heavy gun of some kind, but didn't seem to really know how to use it.”

“Typical. They loot the weapons from caravans or other victims, but don't know much about them. I'm surprised they were able to keep a weapon like that functional at all after burrowing underground with it. Was there anything else?”

“Nothing I saw, ma'am. The caravan looked ransacked, but that's all I really saw.”

“Expected. Thank you private, that is useful information. In all likelihood that was merely a particularly bright hellhound, but in the off chance others decide to follow his example I'll inform the other squads to be on the watch for similar traps.”

I smiled nervously. “Glad to be of help.” And not in trouble.

Heidi waved for Egon to step forward and said, “Something else, while I'm here. You haven't been in a position to see and treat any serious combat wounds yet, but you'll find that I always make it a point to visit the wounded and stay up to date on their recoveries. It's also my duty to present those wounded in combat with this.” She took a small box from Egon, popped the lid open, and held out toward me. “The purple feather.”

Whoa, wait. A medal? I seriously earned a medal over a bad idea, snap judgment and having my guts rearranged? And wait, the purple feather? It wasn't Egon's feather was it? I reached into the box and retrieved the medal, which was made of metal, silver and not purple, and definitely not Egon's. This was going to take some explaining at some point.

I held the feather shaped pin in my claw for a few long seconds. “It-it's an honor. Thank you, ma'am.”

For a flicker of a second, I think she actually smiled a little. Then the universe noticed the abnormality and corrected itself. “Those aren't given out for minor injuries, and regardless of the circumstances, we recognize those that have sacrificed for Talon Company. Let it be a reminder to be more cautious next time.”

“I will. I mean, it will.”

She returned the box to Egon and stood. “Very good. Rest up. I'll be seeing you back on duty soon.”

“Yes ma'am, and thank you.”

She nodded one last time and turned to leave. Egon followed suit, but first said, “Get well soon, sir.”

“Thanks, I'll try.”

With the two of them gone, I held the little pin in my claws and replayed the conversation in my head. That went phenomenally better than I expected. I was expecting major trouble and got a medal instead? I mean, it's not like I got something for going above and beyond the call of duty, or for saving someone's life, but it was still something.

I set it on the table next to my still unfinished concoction of protein and weight gain shake and laid back again to follow orders and get some rest. Heh, for a second I considered rubbing the medal in Amalia's face. She was so mad at me “not taking my job seriously” and I got a medal.

No, fun as it was to think about it, I shouldn't antagonize her. From the sounds of things, I probably owed her quite a bit of gratitude for dragging me back here in the first place.

It came as no surprise that I was discharged not long after. Healing potions were literally magic, so another dose had me more or less well enough to get out of bed and move around. And if I could move around, I was well enough to get back to work in some fashion.

Adelaide did issue me a few extra syringes of Med-X on the way out. Both she and I were confident that I'd experience some pain for a while yet, healing potions or not, and since I was a trained medic she trusted me to administer it myself if it was needed. Suited me fine, and I had no intentions of abusing the painkillers. First of all, if I became addicted and started using some that I wasn't supposed to, that would probably mean a firing squad. Well, probably just serving on it instead of facing one, but the point is I had no intention of finding out. The second reason was that I'd seen one particularly strung out stallion that was addicted to Med-X whose tics were so bad he gnawed his forehooves almost down to the bone. Not going there. Ever. I'd writhe in the grip of agony first.

I wasn't extremely sure what to do once Adelaide discharged me though. Serge hadn't returned to collect me yet. She offered to just let me stay in the infirmary until he showed up, but I decided to be a little proactive for once and took the initiative to head back down to the barracks. It would give me a chance to stretch everything, and maybe I'd bump into him or someone else from our squad on the way.

No such luck. I decided on the way down that I probably shouldn't wander through the base where someone might get annoyed, and the path was pretty straight otherwise. I actually made it back without running into anyone, but I was pleased to find that I wouldn't be alone in our room.

Leigh peeked over her terminal as I entered, and Isaac rolled over in his cot with a gruff grunt. “Oh, Kaz? Convenient timing, we were planning to go visit you shortly. If Serge hadn't recovered you first, that is. Is he with you?”

“No, haven't seen him. The doctor let me go a little early. I wasn't sure what to do except come back here.”

She nodded once. “Just as well. As far as I know he intended to bring you straight back here anyway. How are you?”

The question again. “Much better, thank you. Although I don't really remember much of how I felt before I blacked out. I'm sure I'm better, anyway.”

“I'm certain.” She closed her terminal and latched it with a little click. “Not to sound morbid, but I was deeply concerned you wouldn't make it. It looked very bad.”

I eased into a chair across from her at the single table in the room. “You're telling me. I was concerned I wouldn't make it either.” I raked my claws through my feathers and said, “I think I owe everyone an apology for being an idiot, and a thank you for dragging me back here before I expired.”

Leigh smiled a tiny bit. “Don't mention it. You couldn't have known it would happen, and nobody ever leaves anyone behind. We all took turns carrying you back. Isaac did most of the heavy lifting.”

Said griffon grunted and nodded.

“Thanks. So, uh, where's Amy? Amalia, I mean. Is she on duty?”

“Probably. For a few hours yet, if I had to guess. It's only about 3 in the afternoon.”

Guess I'd have to catch up with her later then. “Alright. I feel like there's something else I should be doing. Should I go pick up my equipment or something?” She was the corporal and thus in charge until Serge got back, right?

Leigh puzzled for a moment. “No, don't worry about it. I haven't heard anything from the quartermaster, so they may not have even repaired your armor yet. Really, I'm sure you're still exhausted, so feel free to lay down for the time being, if you want.”

I never would have expected I'd need to turn down that offer, but after sleeping and laying in bed for so long in the infirmary, I genuinely didn't think I could. “Maybe later. But, actually, I do have a question for you. It's kind of random, but hang on a second.” I dug into the small bag Adelaide gave me and pulled out the little medal. “Lieutenant Blackfeathers gave this to me earlier today. I was wondering if you had any idea why it's called the Purple Feather when it's, well, not purple.”

Leigh raised both eyebrows, and Isaac grunted something else. “Oh, congratulations, Kaz. I didn't realize the lieutenant awarded that to you already. Actually, in truth, the possibility had slipped my mind entirely. Medals are normally handed out in ceremonies, but under the circumstances I guess it makes sense.” She took the small metal feather in a claw and said, “To answer your question though, from what I gather back before the war they actually were purple. Enameled, probably. I'm not sure what the significance of the color is, if there is any, but these days it's just too much hassle to enamel them I suppose.”

She handed it back to me and I turned it over in my claws. “Makes as much sense as anything, I guess. I feel kind of like a cheat here though. I mean, I was injured because I was an idiot and jumped into trouble instead of waiting on everyone else.”

The small griffoness shrugged a little. “Don't worry about it. It's company policy to award them for serious wounds, and in our squad both Isaac and I've earned it. Ida and Nadine had both earned it too. Somehow Serge and Lita have been lucky enough to avoid any serious injuries. You don't get it for cuts and scrapes.”

Well, that did make me feel a little better. I didn't need to ask how Isaac earned his given the scar on his throat, but Leigh I was curious about. “How'd you earn it, if you don't mind me asking?”

“I was shot by a turret in a stable.”

...wait. My eyes widened involuntarily. “You mean because of me? Like, that stable?”

Her expression was dead serious. Oh wow, thanks for the punch to the gut there. Like I needed another one! But then, that was my fault, not her-

“Just fooling with you,” she said, cracking a small smile again. “Sorry, Lita must be rubbing off on me. No, it wasn't because of that incident. That's not the first stable job our squad has had to clean up after, and we've run into robotic defense systems before. I don't remember the stable number, but I was trying to disarm a turret and I messed up. The turret disarmed for about thirty seconds, which was long enough for us to get in the room where there wasn't any cover, or warning.” She patted her hip. “It shot me six times in the left thigh. Kind of close to where the other one hit me, come to think of it. Anyway, four got through my armor before Isaac ripped the gun out of the ceiling. Even with potions I was out of action for days, and limped for two months. Still hurts sometimes.”

Isaac growled a little and balled up a fist. Yeah, I didn't doubt he was capable of doing that.

“Water under the bridge now, as the saying goes. You get unlucky sometimes, but you have to get back up and keep going. Just try not to dwell on it, and as I'm sure the lieutenant emphasized, don't let that go to your head.” She pointed at the metal feather.

I deposited it back in my bag. “She didn't, actually, but I understand. It's probably as routine as a medal can get. Guess it'll just have to be a reminder to be more careful. She did say that.”

Leigh nodded and stowed her terminal in a bag. “A good philosophy. I know what I said earlier, but if you're not sleepy I can take you to go check on your equipment, if you'd like.”

Sounded as good to me as anything else. “Sure, lead the way, corporal.”

The armory was a bit livelier than the last time I was there, with a couple of griffons I didn't know ahead of us in line to speak with the quartermaster. He was an older black griffon whose feathers had turned a charcoal shade of gray, but unlike Sam he didn't appear to have lost literally every fight he got in. The only evidence he'd even served was the fact that his lower beak had a slight curve that kept it from conforming correctly, which meant he'd probably broken his jaw a long time ago. Luckily that hadn't happened to me. Even with healing potions it probably meant at least a few days of having his jaw wired shut. Liquid meals for a while either way, I-

“Yes, soldier?”

“Huh?” I snapped out of the daydream and noticed that I was next in line. “Oh, sorry. I was here to pick up my equipment. Kasimir Longtalons?”

“Longtalons? You're the guy that tried to go toe-to-toe with a hellhound?” He backed away from the laminated glass window to look for my gear. “You're kind of like the three legged dog everyone calls Lucky. Can't tell if it's a misnomer or not.”

Didn't need a lecture, just needed my equipment. “It wasn't intentional, trust me.”

He made a raspy chuckle. “I hope not. It didn't help much with your kit, by the way. Want the good news or the bad news?”

I'd had a comparatively good day so far, so why spoil that? “Good news first, I guess.”

“The good news is that we were able to patch up your breastplate. It won't be as good as new, but it's close enough.” He dropped the stack of armor plates on a desk. “The bad news is that that dog's claws ripped the ballistic mesh to hell and back. There wasn't any fixing that, and we don't have any spares in your size. All we've got is some surplus fatigues, so that's what you're getting.”

“It'll have to do,” I grumbled. It wasn't like it helped at all with the hellhound, although I would like to think that ballistic mesh might actually stop a bullet. Or make it less than lethal. I flashed a glance to Leigh, who just frowned and shook her head.

“That's about the size of it.” He started loading the gear into a bin.

“I don't guess I'm being issued a new rifle yet, am I?”

He didn't even look up as he finished packing the box. “Sorry, son. What I got is all you're getting back. If you had a rifle it's still out in the middle of Hellhound Hell, and I can tell you ain't nobody going back to get it now. There was a handgun with your things, which we rebuilt for you. Had a lot of grit in the mechanism.”

I sighed audibly. “It'll have to do.”

Another raspy chuckle. “Spoken like a true Talon.” He placed the box in a secure receptacle on his side of the wall and hit a lever that exchanged it around to our side. As I stooped down to get it, he asked, “Anything for you, corporal?”

Leigh answered, “No, thank you. Just here with Kaz to pick up his things.”

“Alright. You two have a nice day then. Next?”

I heaved the box out of the way of a thin blue griffoness behind us so I could dig everything out. “Can I even get a new rifle?” I asked Leigh.

“I'm sure something's being done about it. Sometimes these things take time,” she answered vaguely.

Which sounded like coded speak for, 'I don't know, but you're probably not getting it back,' so I just dropped it. Heidi probably meant it when she said I wasn't getting another big boy gun. Whatever. I was just happy to get most of my armor back instead of having that taken away too. I held the breastplate up and traced a talon over the rivets on the new strip of metal that had been attached. A quick and dirty repair job, but they probably didn't have all of the facilities here to fully repair it. It'd have to do, wouldn't it?

“Corporal Dawnshower? Kasimir?”

“Hey, Amalia,” Leigh answered first. “We were picking up Kaz's equipment. What are you doing here? Is your shift over yet?”

“Yes ma'am. Change in patrol schedule, so I was relieved early. I went to check up on Kasimir, but Dr. Clawmarks said he'd been released already. Isaac told me you were here.”

Wait, Isaac told her? That must have been quite a trick. “Uh, yeah, she let me go a little early.”

Amy removed her helmet and shook her feathers free. “I'm glad to see you're feeling better. I, uh, I've been busy on patrol so I haven't had time to visit yet. Dr. Clawmarks wouldn't let us see you the first day. Sergeant Swiftwing said you were stable, but I'm still relieved to see you up and walking.”

She actually sounded sincere. Quite a change from the last time we talked. Pinfeathers, how petty must I have been as a person to think she'd still give me the grouchy treatment after watching me be eviscerated? “Thanks, me too.”

An awkward silence fell. Amy scratched her cheek. Leigh glanced over my new breastplate. Guess there wasn't much else to be said at this point.

“Hey, lovebirds,” the quartermaster called. “You're clogging up my armory. Break up the family reunion and get a move on.”

Oh, thank you, griffon whose name I still didn't know. That solved that issue. “Yes sir.”

We packed it up and silently made our way back to the barracks.

To my relief and pleasure, the next few days were uneventful. I didn't get a free pass to lay around in bed, but at least Serge was able to negotiate for me to work in the infirmary instead of having to go out on patrols like everyone else. By the third day I could tell that was starting to wear on Amy's nerves a little, particularly since I really was well enough to fly around the mountain and do nothing important. Nothing ever came close enough to the mountain for the patrols to really be needed, but I guess that was the point.

On the fourth day after my release from the infirmary, things finally changed. Serge called us together that morning to announce new deployment orders, which prompted a series of conflicting feelings on my part. I was starting to get a little stir crazy staying inside of the base all day, but wasn't quite to the point yet where I was craving a reason to leave.

Worse yet, I'd made something of a mistake. Adelaide issued me a number of extra Med-X syringes in case I had lingering pain, which I did. No surprise there. What was a surprise, was the subsequent feeling of intense grogginess and nausea I woke up with. I don't know if I read the dosage wrong or if it was mixed up too strongly, but I'd definitely given myself a stronger dose than intended. I wasn't having trouble breathing at least, so I wasn't worried about overdose, but it did make it awfully hard to concentrate on Serge's briefing.

“That's all of the intel we have. The group is working out of a small outpost they set up in the forest north of here. Numbers are sketchy but we think there's about ten of them.”

Lita held up a claw. “Okay, so, the six of us up against a bunch of trash raiders? Care to tell us what we're looking for when we get there? Did they insult Captain Stern and she wants us to drop a bomb on them? Did they reject her Hearth's Warming Eve invitation?”

“What we're looking for, is the raiders themselves. We're moving ahead of another team Red Eye is deploying. Our job is to disable the raiders so they can be captured.”

I blinked heavily and tried to replay that sentence in my head. Couldn't have been right. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”

“We're going to capture the raiders,” Serge repeated flatly. “We're all being issued tranquilizer rifles for this assignment. The details are left up to my discretion, so I don't have much more for you from command. We're going to take minimal risk. There's a storm system moving their way later today so we're going to use that as cover to hit them by surprise.”

Lita held up both claws. “Whoa, whoa. Just because we're shooting duds at them doesn't mean they're going to play fair. What happens when one of them pulls out a rocket launcher? And of course, I do have to ask what the hell this is about?”

Serge shrugged. “Sorry, I don't know why, just that we have to do it. And yes, you're right about the risk. You'll still bring your LMG for support fire in case the ambush goes poorly.”

She groaned and threw her claws up in the air. “Captain Stern's losing her marbles, but fine, whatever. Don't expect me to do anything but shoot to kill.”

“If it comes to that.” Serge looked over the rest of us. “Any other questions?”

I held up a claw. “Does that mean I'm getting a rifle too?”

Isaac smirked and Amy rubbed her temple amid a tiny sigh. Serge nodded. “Yes, everyone is being issued a rifle.”

I yawned a little. “Okay.” Huh. Something clicked in place. I wondered if this is what they decided to do with all of those extra tranquilizers that were delivered to medical. Guess it was something to do with them.

Nobody else spoke up, so Serge brought it all to a close. “If nobody else has anything, you're free to go. Head off to your assigned duties for the morning. We'll set out after lunch.”

I forced myself up and started getting ready for my last easy day in the infirmary. It looked like I was going to get a little excitement after all. And hey, I wouldn't even have to kill anybody.

Level Up - Level 9!

Flesh Wound - 'Tis only a flesh wound. Whenever an enemy scores a critical hit against you, you gain a bonus to your DT based on the armor you're wearing.

Chapter 17: First, Do No Harm

Chapter 17

First, Do No Harm

To my dismay, the effects of the Med-X didn't go away by the next day. When the pain returned, I administered a little more of the drug to dull it, and with it went the nausea and grogginess. That was exactly what I feared. For this entire assignment, I was going to have to choose between dulled senses or pain and an infuriating combination of nausea and sleepiness. Normally that wouldn't be much of a choice, but I could already imagine the punishment for screwing up in the field while suffering withdrawal effects from painkillers. Having a legitimate reason for using the medication was probably not an excuse.

In any case, I sucked it up the best I could and readied myself to deploy after lunch like Serge said. I didn't feel much like eating, freshly baked biscuits or not, so I was also looking forward to a day of flying in crappy weather on a light meal. Not a good combination, but I'd literally survived much worse.

We lined up on the landing pad just as the sun was trying to break through the ever persistent cloud cover overhead. Sure enough, as Serge told us the day before, a nasty looking thunderstorm was building in the distance to the north. We didn't have to fly in it, thankfully, but even flying near or behind a thunderstorm was unpleasant. The air was uncomfortably humid and heavy, usually cold, there were usually nasty crosswinds and of course, there was the risk of lightning strikes. Someone who's lived their entire life on the ground could be forgiven for not realizing it, but there was always a lot of electrical activity up in the clouds too. I trusted that Serge had done this enough times before to know what distance was safe, but wasn't really looking forward to this either way. Last estimate I heard was that it was a seven hour flight at the pace we'd be going.

Good thing I saved a biscuit from lunch. Maybe by the time we got out and moving I'd feel a little better.

Carmelita hefted her weapon up and groaned as she watched the clouds roiling in the distance. “Guess we won't need to shower when we get back at least.”

Nobody laughed, and Serge raised his wings. “Come on. Let's get going. The sooner we do, the sooner we can get back.”

I lifted off after him and flapped hard to get into formation. As we went, I checked over the rifle I'd been issued and patted my hip to confirm that the spare pouch of tranquilizer darts was where I thought I'd put it. It would be worse than embarrassing if I forgot my ammo, but thankfully even in my addled stupor I hadn't been that brain dead.

I'd never used a rifle like this before, but I was pretty sure this was the kind of thing intended to be used by zoo keepers and game wardens before the war to subdue large animals. They absolutely weren't intended for this kind of thing, and I hoped that command realized that it usually took quite a while for the drugs to knock someone out. They weren't like carefully administered anesthetics. For that matter, I hoped they were prepared for some of these raiders to not survive. Even if they got one of the doctors to measure the dosage, and they didn't ask me, it was pretty likely that anyone we shot was either not going to pass out, or they were going to die from cardiac arrest.

Well, if it happened, it wasn't our faults, and I knew I wouldn't be the only one saying so. And I guess if you had to go, it wouldn't be the worst way to go. Still a far cry from pleasant, but I'd take it over burning to death or something.

A crackle of thunder snapped me back to the real world. Right. Need to focus and not start thinking about things like that.

The flight went without any hiccups for the first few hours, after which Serge directed us over to a relatively calm cloud bank to touch down on for a rest. The bulk of the storm was still a few kilometers ahead and right here at least there weren't any updrafts bringing cold rain or hail stones up to pelt us.

“We've got about four more hours or so to go, but we're taking a ten minute break now. No more breaks before we get there, so if you've got something take care of, do it,” Serge said as the last of us touched down on the cloud. “We're also going to have to pick up the pace a little and catch up to the storm. It's not going to do us any good if it passes before we get to the raider encampment.”

Wait, so we were going to have to fly through the rain clouds? Ugh, was that even safe? I guess he had a point about using it as cover for the attack, but that was going to suck. As if I didn't have a big enough headache as it was.

As Serge and Leigh went off to take a leak or whatever it was they were doing, I fished the biscuit out of my pack and gave it a sniff. It wasn't warm anymore and didn't have that heavenly aroma, but was still perfectly edible. On the other hand, my stomach was still giving me trouble and I was not about to inject some Med-X right now. Way too many questions would come from that.

Carmelita worked her way out of her LMG's sling and lowered it down to the cloud. A second later she snatched it back up. “Ugh, forgot everything but us sinks. Hey! Ike! Big guy, carry this for a while, would you? I'm going to throw my back out at this rate.” She handed it over and added, “Thanks. Hey, don't give me that look. You'll be thanking me when these tranqs don't do shit and we have to shoot the raiders the old fashioned way.”

Meanwhile, Amy had taken notice of the lump of bread in my claws and the fact that I wasn't stuffing it in my beak. “Where'd you get that?”

“I didn't eat much of my lunch. Brought it with me in case I got hungry on the way.” Even if I knew that bread was one of the better things you could eat if you felt nauseated, it just wasn't going to happen. I held it her way. “Still not feeling it. You want it? It probably won't be fit to eat after we fly through the storm.”

She considered the offer for a second and reached out with a gauntlet-covered claw to take it. “Thanks. What's the matter? I'm not going to get sick if I eat this am I?”

I laid out on the cloud and rolled onto my side to take the pressure off of my belly. “No. Just residual effects from being injured,” I lied. “It'll probably take a while to entirely get back to myself.”

“I guess it would,” she said before taking a probing bite. “So, you're the doctor here. How effective do you think these tranquilizers are going to be? Is one shot going to be enough to take our targets down?”

Time to give the bad news. I shrugged. “I wish I knew. They weren't intended to be used this way, I can tell you that much. Don't think this is going to be like a game or book where they just fall down a couple of seconds after you shoot them. It might take several minutes for them to go down, and that's if they're not hyped up on Dash.”

She frowned and downed the rest of her unexpected snack. “Good to know. What if we shoot them a few times?”

“It'll work faster but will probably also kill them.” And that would be against orders.

“Good thing we're using the storm as cover then,” she grumbled. “If their encampment is open then this should still be easy enough. We can take shots from up in the clouds and they won't be able to shoot back.”

That left the obvious question. “And if it's not?”

“Then we have to do it the hard way,” she answered. She glanced over to Lita. “Carmelita, were you issued any stun grenades for this?”

“Huh? Oh, no. I've still got two frags but those are way too lethal for live captures. I'm pretty sure Serge got a few though. I'm sure that'll tickle them enough for us to swoop in and shoot them.”

Amy polished off her snack. “Then we can use those. Standard breaching tactics. There were fewer than ten raiders, so we should be able to take them easily enough, regardless of how their camp is laid out.”

That was easy enough for you, miss-I-got-real-training, but not so much for me. Ah well, I was pretty confident that the storm really would give us the drop on them and let us tag most of them without even facing retaliation. We could save any stragglers for the professionals with the grenades.

There wasn't much else to talk about while we waited for Serge and Leigh to return, and after everyone had a chance to catch their breath and relieve themselves, we set off again.

The second part of the flight was much longer than the first and much less pleasant. It almost stretched believability that they would dispatch griffons from the AFB this far out in the field, but I guess there just wasn't anywhere else to set up forward bases that would be worth maintaining. For that matter, there wouldn't be much point. If I hadn't been told that there was a raider camp out here, I'd have just assumed it was yet more blasted and dead badlands with nothing but hellhounds underground to call it home.

It kind of made me wonder how anyone even got intel that there were raiders out here, but it sounded like the kind of thing you got assigned to do as penal duty, so I wasn't too keen to find out.

In any event, four hours of flying through strong wind gusts, cold updrafts and the occasional patch of hailstones while looking down at the turbulent and angry clouds beneath us was enough to leave me physically and mentally exhausted. If I saw another lightning bolt leap between clouds near me, I was going to lose it.

All the better to use it as concealment, I guess. Nobody would expect attackers to be flying in it because they would have to be crazy.

Thus, I was immensely and indescribably thankful when Serge pulled us aside to one of the cloud banks that looked merely miffed instead of enraged, and set down. “We should be getting close!” he shouted over the wind. “We'll keep setting down every few minutes to check if we're at the target!”

Okay, so, how were we supposed to know if we were there? There were clouds in the way, and it didn't sound like anyone even knew what we were looking for exactly. This was insane!

On cue, Serge held up a claw for us to stay put, then dug his way down through the clouds. A minute or two passed before he resurfaced, only for him to lead us back into the air without a word. Guess we weren't there yet.

We had to repeat that process six more times, setting down after a few minutes of flying for Serge to head below the cloud cover to check for our targets. Finally, on that sixth time, he told us, “Spotted them. It's hard to tell but looks like a scrap built fort in a clearing just off of the road. They've got camo nets set up facing the road so that travelers won't see them.”

Oh boy, go time. I rubbed my aching temple and made sure I was dead last to claw my way down through the clouds far enough that I could poke my head out and see what we were up against.

If I didn't know better I'd have thought Serge had cybernetic eyes or something. The fort was just visible down the road, and then only because of the tiny pricks of light peeking out through the cracks in its makeshift construction. I could see some kind of canvas material attached to trees and flapping in the wind, but even if it wasn't raining I'm not sure I could have discerned that it was camo netting. Maybe he got more briefing than the rest of us and intel figured it out or something.

In any case, we all huddled up in the bottom of the cloud, and with a few dozen kicks and flaps of our wings we cleared out enough to give us a small “beach head” with which we could spy on the raiders below and plan. The storm was still rolling through, so the fort slowly but inexorably approached beneath. We wouldn't pass right over it, but it was going to be very close.

“So, what's the plan, sarge?” Lita asked first.

“We'll know better once we get closer. I'm thinking we'll split up into two fireteams and hit them from opposite sides at the same time. Everybody picks a target and takes a shot. We won't get many before they catch on to what's happening.”

Leigh squinted as she studied the oncoming fort. “It looks like they've got a covered guard tower. We might be able to get one or two there but the rest are probably in shelter right now.”

I knew I would be, given the rain. It wasn't pouring down so much as to be unbearable for anyone on the ground, but it would really suck to stand out in it. “So, what, stun grenades then?” I asked.

“Maybe. Wait for it.”

Wait for what? Were we about to attack now? I gripped my rifle tightly and tried to calm the tremors in my arms. At this point I didn't even think it was the Med-X so much as low blood sugar. Dammit, I really should have eaten that biscuit. I wouldn't be able to draw aim on an Ursa Major in this state!

A minute passed. Then another. Finally, the fort was close enough that I could resolve a fair bit of detail even through the rain, and it looked like Leigh was right. A single guard tower protruded from a crude wall on the side of the fort nearest the road. I couldn't see any ponies moving around from here, but it stood to reason that there wouldn't be but a couple in it. Great. So much for Serge's plan.

Said griffon snorted and waved Lita up. “Keep watch. If this goes bad, you're pulling us out.”

“Like I told you back at base...” she quipped as she leveled her LMG over her arm to support it on the cloud.

He waved for Amy and me to form up beside her. “You two pick targets in the guard tower. The rest of us are heading down. I'll signal for you to take a shot.”

Uh, sarge, my aim is super shitty right now. Can someone else do this? My palms started getting clammy and sweaty. Shit. I really, really should say something about this before I got someone killed. Shiiit. If I waited it would-

“Leigh and Isaac, with me.”

Fuck. Shit. Dammit. Crap. I took a few really deep breaths and blinked repeatedly to clear my head. The adrenaline rush was helping a little to keep me awake at least, but it wasn't doing anything for the tremors. Whatever. Too late to back out now.

I followed Amy's example and stretched out prone on the cloud. It helped a little, but the cloud was infuriatingly insubstantial to the gun, so it still shook slightly as I tried to zero in on the guard tower with its iron sights. What I'd give for a scope right now…

Now that we were getting closer, I could make out three ponies in the tower. Two lanky unicorn stallions of some muddy gray shade sat at opposite corners facing the road, both backed away from the edge far enough that the roof protected them from the falling rain. In the center of the tower was an earth pony mare with a long, heavy rifle that I guessed was too much for the unicorns the control with their magic. Great.

“I got the one on the right,” Amy told me.

“I got 'em all in my sights,” Lita added.

“Then I'll take the one on the left.” I tried to zero him in on the sights, but this was a joke. In all of this wind and rain even a supersonic bullet would be off target. These slow darts were going to be blown wildly off course. Even Amy, with all of her training, couldn't possibly hit anything reliably under these conditions. It didn't even matter if we had gravity and high ground on our side…

There wasn't much time to stew on it and curse my lot in life yet again, as Serge, Leigh and Isaac flew down to start their approach. They all stayed high enough so that the roof of the tower would obscure their descent until they were well behind the tower. The guards must not have expected trouble from inside the fort's perimeter, since none were watching that way.

This really wasn't shaping up like the plan I heard earlier about splitting up into teams, but it wasn't my job to think about tactics. My trigger finger felt like it was going to cramp and my guts tightened into knots as Serge landed ever so gently atop the roof of the guard tower. I had to consciously unclench my jaw as he drew a grenade and held up a claw toward us.

Was that the signal? He never-

A deafening blast of thunder roared and every muscle in my body tensed. Including my trigger finger.

I realized an instant later that Serge was counting down by folding his talons in sequence. Shit, he hadn't given the signal yet! I'd blown our cover! The ponies were going to hear the impact and spot Leigh and Isaac!

The dart plunked off the side of a wooden wall. Nobody flinched. Even Lita and Amy didn't seem to take notice that I had a premature triggering. Thank the gods for small miracles. Still, I had less than an instant to break my gun down and load another shot into it, which I started…

...just in time for Serge to signal for us to fire. Amy's shot went wide, like any sane person would have expected it to, except hers slapped into the wall in the center of the guard tower just above scary mare's head. Naturally, she took an interest in the thumping sound above her, and all three ponies jumped with a start to examine the thing that just tumbled to the floor.

Just in time for me to get my gun back together and line up a hasty shot. I didn't really even aim since I was supposed to fire two seconds ago, but aiming couldn't have helped anyway. By pure luck my dart struck true.

A little too true. I was thankful that I was far enough away that I couldn't hear the stallion screaming as he thrashed around and tried to pull the dart from his ear canal. My toes balled up as I thought about it. I wasn't sure if these darts could penetrate skulls, but either way, he was probably going to go down quickly…

“Damn Kaz,” Lita muttered under her breath.

Shut up…

There really wasn't time to think about it, and I broke my gun down again to reload it. Amy beat me to it and took another shot. This time, her dart struck the other stallion in the neck. He jumped and swatted at the stinging impact and ran around the center of the guard tower to block our shots.

By this point, the mare had completely abandoned any attempts to help her still squealing comrade and was rapidly and awkwardly trying to descend a set of ramshackle stairs circling the tower. I couldn't get a good shot at her, but it didn't end up mattering. The wet and slick steps were more than a match for her, and she slipped at one of the corners, sending her into a tumbling fall toward the ground below. Before she could pick herself up, Leigh peeked over the wall and tagged her in the rump with a single precisely aimed shot. She jerked up onto her hooves and started limping toward a separate shack off to the side of the encampment. I couldn't hear it, but she was clearly shouting something as she went.

Serge raised a palm up toward us. I guess that meant to stay put? This was actually going reasonably well for the moment.

Tense seconds ticked by as Serge let the mare go. The stallion I shot atop the guard tower finally picked himself up and scrabbled around the center of the tower to join his friend. More seconds dragged on. Maybe a minute more passed before some activity finally surfaced. From the shack emerged two surprises.

First came a pony in a crude approximation of a Steel Ranger's power armor. It was clearly cobbled together from scrap, but all the same if the darts couldn't penetrate wood I knew they weren't going to penetrate even aluminum siding, and the rifles in the armor's battle saddles might not be the massive cannons the Steel Rangers employed, but would be deadly all the same. The second surprise was a thin, gray griffoness that reminded me a lot of Liese. She scanned the skies with a rifle large enough that it almost defied belief.

This just got a lot more complicated.

Serge held up a claw again and started counting down again. He primed the grenade, held it for two seconds, and hurled it down into the midst of the two new combatants. Both jumped and tried to scatter, but the grenade went off almost as soon as it hit the ground. A flashbang was less effective outdoors, but given how dark it was the flash had to dazzle both of them. It dazzled me enough, even at this range!

The zip of Amy's dart rifle firing followed soon after, and I tried to blink the glare from my vision. I aimed at the griffoness and adjusted a little for height and drift before pulling the trigger. Amy's shot landed first, and judging by the griffoness's jerk and jump the dart must have hit something. It was hard to make it out, but I was pretty sure my shot landed somewhere in Zebrica.

She wasted no time in retaliating. I felt the cloud ripple first, then heard the boom. The supersonic projectile missed by what I guessed was a wide margin, but I was in no hurry to see how much more accurate she might get with repeated attempts.

Clearly Lita wasn't either. “Okay, fuck this.” The LMG roared to life and puffs of dirt kicked up in the middle of the raider compound below. The griffoness leaped into the air and started a drunken attempt at dodging incoming fire while making a break for the guard tower's rear. I wasn't sure at all what to do next. I doubted I could hit her even if I wanted to, but if I did, she'd probably overdose on the tranquilizers. And if that was the next logical step, Lita might as well just shoot her.

Of course, that was discounting the other target down below, which was the pony in pseudo power armor. He or she angled their weapons up toward the sky and opened fire. At least this time I was quite confident we weren't in much danger. The rifles were assault rifles of some kind, and while the bullets absolutely could reach this high, the rate of fire was fairly low. More importantly, the pony was shooting in the completely wrong direction. Worked for me.

Lita had stopped firing now that her victim wasn't visible anymore, but to my surprise, Serge was next. A searing, blinding bolt of laser light stabbed from his pistol toward the hulking pony. Again, it was so hard to make out what was happening, even without the laser searing my retinas, but it was pretty clear that he hit. Sprays of glowing red dust floated through the air from vaporized armor, and he fired again and again, each time adding a new line in the spiderweb of afterglow clouding my vision.

“He's gonna give away his position,” Lita said.

“The griffon's coming up the side stairs,” Amy added.

Glad she could tell! I pointed my rifle in the direction I expected the stairs to be in and pulled the trigger. I saw a shape shudder and tumble downward. Did I actually hit her?

“Nice shot, Kaz,” Lita added. Huh, guess so. “Now I got her.” Wait, what?

The LMG opened up again, and I saw the shape shudder and convulse under the hail of fire. A knot formed in my stomach at the thought, but she was a raider and almost certainly deserved it. I couldn't help but think that the power armored pony might have been a better target though!

Serge hammered the pony again and again with his laser pistol, but now the pony had figured out where he was and was returning fire. Mists of rainwater spluttered and sprayed from the roof as the bullets impacted the building, and I was pretty sure I saw Serge scramble back around to our side of the tower's roof to get out of the open.

“Hold on, I got 'em,” Lita quipped as she adjusted her aim. Another thunderous roar filled my ears as the high caliber bullets chewed up the ground below. The pony fell backward, but staggered back to his or her hooves. So, Lita opened with another volley. This time the pony immediately collapsed into a heap in the mud.

For a moment, everything grew quiet.

“Sarge is waving us down,” Lita muttered.

I was glad she could tell. Between the laser bolts seared into my vision and the rain, I wasn't sure what I was looking at anymore. Either way, I was glad to put the gun away for the moment, and followed Amy and Lita down toward the fort. As I got closer I could see Isaac perched on the wall, watching the courtyard with his rifle ready.

Serge met us partway and pulled me aside in the air. “Kaz, check the casualties. If they can be stabilized, do what you can, but don't waste much on them. And make it quick, we've got to round up the survivors.”

“Right.” The nearest victim was the griffon that Lita hosed down. I found her right where she fell, sprawled out in the mud on her side. Even with the glowing noise in my eyes and the darkness clouding everything, it was clear from a glance that she wasn't going to survive. Dark blood soaked her coat and the mud beneath her, leaking from at least three profusely bleeding holes punched through her chest. Her beak glistened from yet more of it, and her eyes were fixed ahead and wide as she took shallow gasps.

I pulled out my medical kit and found one of the Med-X injectors. She wasn't going to survive, but that didn't mean there was nothing I could do. She flinched and spluttered more blood as I reached down to find a vein, but she was too weak to resist. Probably already in shock and not even aware what was happening. “...but you still need this more than I do,” I muttered as I injected all of the vial into her. It would take a minute, but her passing would go easier.

At least the haste of the situation didn't leave me much time to reflect on how much she looked like Liese as I packed everything away and hurried around the guard tower toward our other victim.

Just like the griffon, I didn't need to really check him over to know he was dead already. One of Carmelita's bullets struck him in the face, and since this was a literal pile of junk welded together over what I guessed as an authentic power armor frame, the bullet punched right through. There was enough blood leaking out that I didn't have to remove the helmet. After I did remove it, I wished I hadn't. The bullet entered through the stallion's right eye, deflected off the interior of the helmet at least once, and generally left an unholy mess.

“They're both dead,” I announced. A tiny chill rolled through me. So much for not having to kill anyone. I technically even helped with that griffoness.

“Red Eye might want the armor at least,” Leigh said.

Serge sighed just audibly. “Right. Amalia, go with Kaz and check on the two still in the tower. Lita, take up position on the wall and watch for anyone coming up from outside. Leigh and Isaac, with me. We need to round up the mare that ran inside.”

Nobody said anything and instead just went off to do what he ordered. Amy waited, hovering just off of the ground, before joining me in a quick ascent up to the tower.

One pony was laying on his side and facing away from us. The dart was sticking out of his ear and facing up. I swallowed hard as we eased his way. Had the dart actually penetrated his skull? I tried to figure if it could have caused fatal brain damage from that angle. It seemed unlikely. Maybe it was just the trauma and speed of the drug delivery that knocked him out.

I'd just reached him and started marveling at the amount of blood oozing from his wound when creaking floor boards to our side met my ear. The other unicorn whipped around the corner and leveled a rifle at my face. My whole body froze.

A bang rang out. The pony squealed. Another, much louder bang rang out. I squealed.

Both of us jumped up and backward at the same time. I cradled my claw and scrabbled back around the center wall of the tower to obscure his aim, but lost my footing and landed with an unceremonious belly flop on the floor instead. The pony's gun hit the floor at the same time, but he didn't. Instead, the hapless stallion stumbled sideways, stepped off of the edge and fell with a scream that ended abruptly with a thud.

Amy tore around the corner and crouched next to me. “Are you hit?” She glanced at my claw, which had a serious friction burn on one talon, but no other obvious injuries. “Damn are you lucky. You shouldn't have moved up like that! He could have-” She shook her head and lowered her pistol. “Never mind. Never mind! Not going to say it again.”

“Thanks,” I grumbled as I got back up and went to finish checking on the pony I'd shot in the ear, eyeing the hole in the floor where the other stallion took a pot shot at me. This pony was alive and breathing, but might have been in a coma. Ugh. Something to deal with later when someone could give him a better examination under much less stressful situations.

We hurried to check on the pony on the ground below. He was unarmed now and laying on his back screaming bloody murder and writhing around. Judging by the way his right leg was laying, he'd broken his hip, which could be fatal without proper treatment if an artery was severed. Proper treatment was very unlikely to happen, but, again, I did at least have an excess of something I could donate to help. On the upside, it looked like Amy had missed when she shot at him just now, so he wasn't visibly bleeding.

“Wh-what the fuck is that?” the pony blurted out as we landed next to him and I produced another Med-X injector. “What are you psycho chickens doing!?”

“It's something for the pain. Relax,” I said, knowing full well he wouldn't.

He tried to wrench out of my grip, but flexing was guaranteed to twist his hip. He shrieked like a filly again and caught halfway, which gave me just enough time to grab him by the foreleg and inject the drugs. He twisted away again and snapped part of the needle off in his leg, which was really going to suck to retrieve, but maybe he'd calm down some once the pain started to subside. Normally he'd probably need more than that much, but it would probably be enough to at least let the tranquilizer start to take over.

“Y-you're crazy, man. What are you doing? Why?”

I shrugged. “I don't even know.”

That didn't do a lot to calm him down, but he was harmless now. I'd sell my beak and right wing before I'd bet he could climb back up the tower to get his rifle now, and the griffoness's huge gun was on the other side of the tower. Fat chance of getting there either. Actually…

“Amalia, go grab the griffon's rifle. Don't want him getting any ideas.” She nodded and vanished to do just that. I cast the pony a final glance and said, “Try to calm down. It'll kick in faster if you do.”

“Calm down? Calm down? How can-”

I had neither the time nor the inclination to listen to more, and joined Amy in heading back to the center of the courtyard. It at least looked like Serge's team hadn't had any trouble subduing their quarry. The mare was lying naked in the mud, hooves behind her head as Isaac set to tying her up.

Lita shouted down from the wall, “Okay, sarge, want to tell us what the hell the point of all of this was now? We ended up with three prisoners and two dead. If we were going to kill half of them we might as well have just shot them with real guns!”

I pointed a thumb back toward the guard tower. “Might be two prisoners soon. I'm not sure the one I shot will survive the trip back.”

“Can the commentary! I already told you everything I know back at base.” Serge jabbed a talon at the shed. “Someone go check the place out. Leigh, get someone on the radio and inform the lieutenant how the raid went. Kaz, go do whatever you can for the wounded.” He pointed at Isaac. “You and Lita keep a watch on the walls.”

Well, okay. Already told me to do that once, but it was all I knew to do anyway. While everyone broke off to do what the sergeant ordered, I made one more round. The griffoness was one more knock on death's door away from him opening it and letting her through, and was barely even gasping for breath now. The stallion with a broken hip was still very much in pain and still very much filled with profanity.

I left both of them and flew back up to the guard tower to stay with the comatose stallion. He still had a pulse and was still breathing, but just to be safe I found a vial of adrenaline in my medical kit. If he started to crash, that might help.

Meanwhile, I leaned back against the wall and stared out over the barren fields ahead as the last of the rain pattered on the roof. I found that I'd drawn another vial of Med-X from my medical kit too, and turned it over in my claws. I was feeling nauseated again and now that I'd had a chance to sit down, I had a chance to notice the gnawing headache again. The label on the vial shook too much for me to read it. All classic signs of withdrawal symptoms.

I stared at the vial for quite some time. Or, at least its blurry silhouette as my claws refused to cooperate. Funny. I'd always taken myself as the kind who was resistant to addictions of any kind. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a smoke, and that didn't bother me. I never got caffeine headaches when I couldn't get coffee. Nothing seemed to bother me.

But one extra dose of Med-X and this was the result?

“Fuck you,” I murmured to the little vial as I shoved it back into my medical kit.

Not today.

Not ever.

Life was going to suck for a while until that passed, but it would be fine. I'd suffer in pain, nausea and whatever else came before I'd become one of the junkies I'd seen over the years. I just needed to focus on the here and now. It wasn't like I didn't have enough to wonder about, like what was going to happen to the survivors here. Would they end up in the Pit like that pony from the Grim Scythes?

Wait. That was it, wasn't it? Didn't Ida say that they'd captured the Grim Scythes like this to put them to work as slaves in Fillydelphia?

For a brief moment, I considered giving the stallion next to me a lethal injection of Med-X to spare him the misery. But… no. Just no.

I was a doctor first and foremost.

That's what I had to keep telling myself.

I crossed my claws to keep the shaking down to a minimum. I started to recite the pledge I took so many years ago, to an audience of nobody but me and the textbook I found it in.

"I solemnly pledge to dedicate my life to the service of..."

No. No, you know what? I didn't deserve to say that pledge right now. Instead, I just recited the tiny quote everyone thought the pledge started with. The one little bit that wasn't even part of it, and the only part anyone thought they knew.

"First, do no harm..."

And so the quote ended, and so I might as well. There was nothing more to be said anyway.

Gain Experience – You gain 5,000 experience points for crushing your enemies with barely a scratch.

Chapter 18: Homeward Bound

Chapter 18

Homeward Bound

I never did find out what happened to the raiders that we captured. I know that all of the wounded, including the one I shot in the ear canal and the one with the shattered hip, survived long enough for the recovery team to show up and drag them off to Fillydelphia. It would have made a lot more sense to take them back to the air force base first for treatment and to be stabilized, but evidently whoever was in charge decided that Talon resources only extended as far as putting bullets, or in this case tranquilizer darts, in victims and nothing more.

It was probably for the best, since I didn't want to see them again. Whether they lived or died, regardless of where they were sent afterward and in what condition, the answers couldn't have been good ones. I wanted to be done with it, and I was.

With that business behind us, things mercifully settled down a lot for a while. We spent the next month doing little more than flying around the base on patrols, or if we were unlucky, manning the various gun emplacements scattered around. Or, well, Lita said we were lucky to be able to just sit around and watch for trouble that would never come while fondling heavy weaponry, but I much preferred to keep moving. I was much less likely to fall asleep that way, and that's almost all I wanted to do while the Med-X withdrawal symptoms continued to taper off much more slowly than I expected and hoped for. I could have sworn that it took me at least a full month before the oscillations between haze, malaise, weariness and queasiness finally abated entirely. Good riddance, and the next time I had to have surgery, I'd do it without pain killers, thank you very much…

In truth, I'm not sure how long it was before something interesting happened. More than a month, I'm pretty sure, but when you're doing something that monotonous without a calendar to check, the days really blur and smudge together.

But when something interesting did happen, I almost fell out of my chair. Figuratively, since I was laying on my cot and trying to get some sleep between shifts when Serge stepped into the room and cleared his throat for an announcement. “I've got good news, everyone. We're up for leave next week.”

Leigh asked what I was getting ready to, saying, “Wait, really? While we're on field duty?”

“Hey, don't question it!” Lita butted in.

“Yes, it's correct,” Serge assured them. “Higher ups decided it was causing too much scheduling problems to defer it until the platoon traded back to city watch, so we're taking leave when we're actually scheduled for it for a change.”

“Hot damn. Just when I that I was going to literally go insane cooped up in this stupid bird cage,” Lita quipped.

I rolled over and propped up on one arm. “Hey, sergeant, is that for everyone, or...”

He nodded once. “The whole squad goes inactive at the same time. Yes, including you. We go off duty first thing next week. You've got a week to go wherever and do whatever you want, but you've got to be back here before midnight one week from then. Trust me, you do not want to be late.”

Carmelita half-chuckled. “And boy, don't even think about not coming back. Last year, we had a girl go AWOL and a squad had to go out to find her. They found her hiding out in Rivet City, and when they dragged her back Freija had her doing hard labor for months. Lucky her, I'm pretty sure Heidi would have had her shot.”

Serge groaned lightly. “Right, so… not going to say you were thinking it, Kaz, but just don't. Do not. Please.”

“Don't worry,” I assured him. Not going to say I was thinking it, but I kind of was. I didn't need either of them to tell me what I already expected though, so it was just a fleeting moment of hopeful weakness. Still, more than anything I was shocked that I was being given any leave. Did Heidi forget what I did? Or did my time in the crater make up for it? I didn't really care. I just hoped we got to leave before someone came to the conclusion that I shouldn't be gone. The beginning of the week couldn't come soon enough.

Lita clasped her claws together. “Oh, this is great. The two newbies can come on the fishing trip with us! We are still doing that, right? It'll be great, I'm telling you. Last time, Ike got to wrestle with a radigator, and we got to eat radigator tail for days after that. Of course, a mirelurk chewed up my… uh, whatever you call that bit of armor that fits over your hip-”

“Tasset. Or flanchard, depending on if you ask a pony. Or maybe crupper,” Leigh interrupted.

“-right, that bit that fits over your hip. Anyway, never got a replacement, but I boiled that sucker alive and ate his claws in front of his buddies. Damn good eating too. Ida said that we had to be careful about it because of the rads, but I'm fine.”

Amalia sat up from her cot. “Sounds good to me. I didn't have any other plans.”

“What about you, Kaz? You in?”

I tried to do some fast math in my head. It had been long enough that I couldn't remember exactly how long it took me to fly here from Oatsfield, but that was where I wanted to go. I definitely had plans. But I was pretty sure it took two days at most. So, that was four days of travel. Add in a buffer day for inevitable disaster that would keep me from getting back here on time, and that left two days to spend with papa. Or two days minus however much time this little side trip took.

“How far is it? I had some family I wanted to visit, and it won't leave me with a whole lot of time...”

Lita looked genuinely surprised. Everyone did. “Uh, I don't know. Takes the better part of the day to get there from here, I guess. It's to the southwest, a kind of nasty bog near a kind of nasty looking forest that some people call Hollow Shade. I've heard that some of the other squads get together and head down past Baltimare to the Hayseed Swamps, but fuck that. You've barely got any time to stay by the time you get down there.”

“Southwest is good, that's roughly the direction I needed to go anyway.” I shrugged. “Sure, I'll come. I'll need to leave tomorrow though. Or, err, the next day, I mean. After Ike wrestles the local megafauna, anyway.”

The big orange griffon made a scratchy chuckle and grinned.

“It's a plan then!” Lita started prattling on and listing off things we'd need and stuff we could do, but I guessed I'd miss most of it. I'd like to participate in one of these little moments with everyone else so they might not reconsider if I was worth keeping around, but seeing my father again was much more important to me than that. Sorry.

“Oh, hey, Kaz, can you get some wire or stitching or something from the hospital the next time you're there? We kind of left all of our fishing gear back at Fillydelphia and I don't want to have to fly all the way back just for that.”

Yeah, this was going to be really fun…

The beginning of the week came faster than I expected, and per everyone's excitement we left literally the minute we were allowed to. That is, midnight. It was dark, chilly and windy, but the sensation of freedom, even if temporary, was easily enough to ignore all of that.

We lifted off from the landing pad with only the minimum of our Talon gear strapped to our backs and a great excess of random junk that Lita was convinced would serve as serviceable fishing poles and lines. For my part, I only brought my pistol and a single magazine of ammo with me. Serge made it clear that we were responsible for anything lost while we were off duty, and I didn't want to risk losing any of my armor, medical kit or anything of the sort. Losing the pistol would suck pretty badly, but I figured I needed something with me in case I ran into trouble somewhere. Or had to shoot a mirelurk. Or something.

In any case, the flight was as long as Carmelita hinted it would be. It took until the middle of the day for the first hints of the forest to appear at the horizon, and until early that afternoon before we were close enough to pick out the streams fanning out from the river descending from the mountains.

Even from high up, I could tell why it got such an ominous name.

Hollow Shade was filled with trees that hadn't quite died from the balefire bombs or residual radiation. Instead, they were twisted into unnatural shapes, forking multiple times or even twisting around to begin growing sideways or downward. The branches were littered with sparse dark leaves, or sheets of moss that obscured the ground below. What wasn't hidden by the trees was covered in a thin fog that hung close to the ground.

This was a vacation spot? Eh, sure. It beat Fillydelphia in every way imaginable.

We circled around for a bit before Serge pointed out a clearing in what appeared to be one of the less creepy sections of the forest. A little apprehension rose in my throat on the descent, but despite my darkest fears we touched down in a fairly clear and clean spot on the bank of a small natural pond. There were a lot of knobby tree roots protruding from the ground everywhere, but it looked like there would be space to set up some tents.

“What did I tell you? Choice spot, huh?” Lita asked. She stretched and trotted over to the pond. “Nobody else comes here, so we've got the whole place to ourselves.” She indicated a vague spot by the water. “We can set up some lines there and get started on a fire. It'll be just like being part of the Flock, right Serge-ent?”

Serge groaned. “Don't say it.”

“I already did!”

I was pretty sure I'd seen something in some magazines about that. “The Flock? You mean, that prewar thing that griffawns would join to learn about wilderness survival and all of that?”

“Don't say it, Lita.”

She ignored him and said, “Yep, Serge here used to run a flock. Back before he was a big mean Talon.”

“I tried to,” he corrected her. “It was pretty hard to get anyone to join, so the whole idea fizzled out. Might have been easier if we had pegasi to join too. Or, heck any ponies. But, I guess there just weren't enough kids around at all.”

That was kind of sad, really. He could have been doing something really nice like that, and here he was helping a megalomaniac slave driver keep his empire together. Ugh, throwing stones in glass houses, so I opted not to point it out.

“Right, well, let's get camp set up,” he said, switching topics before anyone else could take up the lead. “Leigh and Ike, check the perimeter and make sure there isn't anything particularly big and nasty around. I'd rather not be caught by surprise if a mirelurk or radigator wanders up into camp. Kaz and Amalia, set up the tents. Lita, come with me and we'll get a fire started.”

Everyone set off to their assigned tasks, right as Serge held up a claw. “Oh, and you two?” He pointed at me and Amy. “New guys and girls get first watch. Plus you're leaving tomorrow, right? Don't want you skipping out of here without pulling your shift.”

“Right,” I confirmed. And the sooner, the better. Maybe early in the morning.

“Good enough.” Serge wheeled on the yellow griffoness dipping her claws in the murky water. “And Lita? You're picking up his next shift in addition to yours.”

“What? C'mon, what did I do?”

He led her off toward the nearest pile of fallen branches. “Because I said don't say it and you said it anyway, that's what. Remember that next time.”

I doubted she would, but more power to him for trying. I shrugged to Amy and started laying out the bedrolls that Isaac dumped on the ground. Those bedrolls looked pretty inviting, come to think of it, especially since I was apparently going to be up all night…

Alas, while I had the foresight to try sleeping early, I didn't really have an opportunity. By the time we got our camp set up, Carmelita was chomping at the proverbial bit to get to fishing, and insisted that I join in before I left the next day.

I'd actually never been fishing before in my life, and didn't expect to catch anything as a result, but I was pleasantly surprised when I got a bite. We'd settled down on the edge of the stream feeding the pond and stuck the tree branches we were pretended were suitable fishing poles into the ground, leaving the lures to float on their own in the gently flowing water. Almost as soon as I'd set mine and plopped down, something grabbed the lure and almost pulled the pole into the water before I could grab it.

The results weren't spectacular. It was a small fish, maybe weighing half a kilogram or so, but I have to admit I felt a little proud to have actually caught one, much less the first one of the day.

We spent the next few hours chatting a little, but mostly sipping at a few of the beers that they'd stashed in a crate nearby the last time they were out here. It wasn't enough to get drunk by a long shot, but having a little buzz definitely helped to kill some of the boredom of watching water drift by, punctuated by the occasional excitement of someone getting a nibble on their line. At least no gators or giant mutant crabs turned up to spoil the fun.

That first fish turned out to be the first, last and only one I caught in the end, but that was okay. Serge must have caught five alone, and between the lot of us we had plenty to roast over the campfire that night before it was time to turn in. Knowing that I had to stay up and watch for deadly critters tempered the meal a little, but even still the taste of the freshly roasted and smoked fish was probably the best thing I'd eaten in many months. The meat almost melted in my mouth, and the bones were so soft I just ate them along with it. Which was good, since these fish might as well have been snakes for all the ribs and bones in them.

But, soon enough, night came and everyone hit the sack, save Amy and myself. We found ourselves sitting at the edge of the stream again, watching the water trickle by in the moon light and wishing we had more beer to help the time pass quickly. At least the weather was nice. It was kind of hot and humid that afternoon, but by nightfall it was temperate and surprisingly comfortable.

At some indeterminate point during the night, Amy broke the silence by asking, “So, heading back home in the morning, huh?”

“Yep.”

“You have a lot of family to see?”

Had I ever discussed this with her before? If so, maybe it was long enough ago that we'd both forgotten. I remembered her telling me something about her having a sister named Valerie, anyway. “Just my father. Jakob Longtalons.” Not that the name meant anything to her.

“Oh. Still, must be nice, I guess. How far away does he live?”

“From here? I'm not actually sure. I have to hope I can even find the way back to Oatsfield, since I've never been here before. I think I can make it in a day or so at worst. Which is for the best, since I'd rather not have to take any of this camping gear with me.” It might take two, but I could tolerate sleeping on a cloud one night if I had to.

She cocked her head. “It's not that heavy...”

“No, no, I'd just rather not lose it and be accountable for it. There's a few reasons I left my gear back at base.”

She shrugged. “I doubt a sleeping bag is worth all that much to Talon Company, so I'd take it on the very small chance something happened.” Something splashed in the water, drawing both of our attention for a moment. After she was confident it wasn't dangerous, she asked, “So, you said a few reasons. Why else other than potentially losing it?”

“My armor is covered in Talon Company markings, for one thing. I'd rather not...” Wait a second, we'd had an argument about this before already. Didn't need to do that again.

“You'd rather not what?” she pressed.

Dammit. Okay. “...I'd rather my father didn't see it. He doesn't know I work for Talon Company and I'd rather keep it that way.”

Amy stared me down for a few long seconds. “Right. Yeah, I remember now. Back with the caravan at base.”

“Sorry. I didn't mean to even bring it up.”

She went back to watching the stream. “Forget it. I know we're not going to see eye-to-eye on that. You're a civilian at heart, and I'm not. But, I do think I was wrong before.”

Oh, really? “About what?”

She shrugged again. “You do take this all seriously. After I heard that, I figured you were just in this for the bits and didn't care one way or another what happened on any assignments. Our trip to the stable didn't exactly help with that.” Before I could interject, she raised a single talon. “But, I get it now. You just see everything as a medic or civilian would. Just trying to do as little harm as possible, right? On our last assignment to round up those raiders, you did everything the sergeant asked. You were sloppy on some points, but you did what he said.”

“Thanks. I think...”

“I talked with some of the others about it, and they said all said the same thing. The last medic, Nadine, was the same way. It's not about defying authority or orders. It's just… something you can't not do, I guess. Trying to help people.”

This was taking a weird and somewhat stilted direction in the conversation, but sure, I guess?

Amy shrugged yet again. “I don't know what I'm trying to say here. I guess I just get it now. You've still got to learn to do what the sergeant says, regardless of why, but I guess I can kind of respect putting yourself at risk to help someone.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Silence fell for a little while again. I watched a small hermit crab scuttle along the stream banks and out of sight under a pile of leaves.

“Anyway. Uh, have fun with your family. I'm sure he misses you.”

That caught me a little by surprise, so I just fumbled with my response. “Uh, thanks. And I hope you have fun with the others this week.” Oh, wait a second. “And I hope you get to see Valerie again soon. Maybe when we get switched back to Fillydelphia.”

Now it was her turn to be surprised. Maybe she figured I'd forgotten. “Thanks. Yeah, I hope so.”

The night settled in again, complete with the sounds of frogs croaking in the distance and bugs of some variety or another chirping or clicking in the treetops. But, just as I was afraid I'd die of boredom, something huge shifted beyond the trees ahead. Amy and I both jumped up and reached for our weapons. Whatever it was, I was convinced my pistol would only inform it of my location instead of doing any harm, so I hoped it didn't notice us or care…

Amy traced her rifle along the horizon, but with all of the trees is was pretty impossible to see very far. I caught the glint of metal reflecting moonlight as it moved between trees, but didn't get a good look at what it was. It was too tall to have been anyone in armor, and I didn't think there would be any robots out here of all places.

“Holy… shit...” Amy whispered as it dragged its way out of the thicket of trees and onto the bank of the pond.

There sat a hermit crab so large it had a pony goddess-damned mobile home for a shell. It studied us for a few moments, then turned about and went on its merry way.

I slowly lowered my pistol and thanked our lucky stars it wasn't aggressive. Amy might have been able to stop it before it got too close, but I wasn't keen on finding out. For sure, my pistol would have only been a gentle poke against a shell that thick bolstered by aluminum siding.

“So much for a boring night,” I quipped.

Amy grimaced and settled back down on the bank, but didn't put her gun down.

Yep, this was going to be a long night…

Sure enough, it felt like the entirety of my leave passed before the sun finally began rising over the horizon. In this forsaken bog it looked even more sickly and tired than usual, fighting to shine through the ever present cloud cover overhead as well as the foggy murk that blanketed everything. With it came a gradual rise in the temperature too, which was about the only thing I wasn't looking forward to. It was pretty pleasant that night, but was going to get quite muggy as the day wore on.

In any case, I couldn't be happier when the others started stirring and got out of their tents. Amy and I didn't see any more giant crustaceans through the night, but I heard enough inexplicable noises that I was ready for someone else to be up and watching. Not to mention I was getting to the point of being sleepy enough that I was dizzy, and all I wanted to do was find a vacant spot in a tent and pass out for a while.

It would mean leaving later, but I was not going to try flying back to Oatsfield drunkenly tired like this. I'd probably land somewhere to take a leak and fall asleep, only to get eaten by hellhounds.

So, I didn't. I devoured a small piece of fish leftover from the night before, bid everyone goodnight and slept most of the rest of the day away. When I finally woke back up, covered in sweat from the humidity, I found everyone else, including Amy, lazing around the campfire and sipping at a few more of those warm beers while watching a pot of giant mutant crab limbs boil.

“Mornin', sunshine. Feeling better?” Lita asked as I wandered over.

“Yeah, much. Guess I should be going soon though.”

Leigh set down the pad she was drawing or writing in and asked, “You don't want to stay for the mirelurk bisque?”

“Uh, maybe. How long's it going to take?” I raised a claw and pointed at the pot. “Wait, did you shoot these just now?”

“Yeah, well, they weren't going to climb into the pot themselves,” Lita joked. “I dunno, might take half an hour or so. That won't kill you to wait for.”

Right, if I didn't wake up to someone shooting crabs, I definitely didn't need to fly off that morning. But, she was right, so I opted to wait until I got one last meal before setting off.

I set the crab shell I'd been using for a bowl down onto the mossy ground and let out a satisfied sigh. It was a little overcooked and rubbery, meaning it wasn't as good as the fish, but still well worth waiting for. Good enough I wished I could carry some with me on my trip, but I'd have to settle for the bread I'd stashed away for just this purpose. Bland, but good enough to last me.

“Thanks everyone, but I really should get going now. Try not to have too much fun without me.”

“Don't worry, we'll wait for you to get back before tackling crabzilla,” Lita said.

Amy nodded. “Take care, Kasimir.”

“See you when you get back,” Leigh replied.

“Be safe,” Serge said. “Oh, and remember, do not be late coming back. Please, plucked blood feathers, don't be late.”

No need to say it a hundredth time, sarge. I got up and grabbed my pack of meager supplies. “I know, I know. I'll be back in time, I promise. Don't wait up on me here, since I'll probably just return back to base.”

Everyone said goodbye one more time, and I lifted off into the air to get my bearings. The sticky, humid air felt like it dissipated beneath me abruptly as I passed the tree tops, and not a moment too soon. I spun around in a slow circle to get the lay of the land and cocked a small frown. This had been in the right direction, but only vaguely. I'd probably have to fly much higher to get a feel for the landmarks, and just hope I recognized enough of them to find my way.

The mountain range over past the trees looked familiar… but from this angle what did I know?

I was going to be pissed if I failed to get back in time because I followed everyone else out to this stupid swamp.

Directions were never really my thing, but I had a hazy map of the area in my head and guessed I was heading south. The sun setting to my right confirmed that, and if true, that meant I was going the right way. Oatsfield should have been west of Fillydelphia, and we'd flown northwest to get to Hollow Shade. I had to be going the right way.

It just sucked that there were almost no landmarks to be had between here and there, and that I was flying at night and thus having a bit of trouble making out what was around in the first place. Once I was past the Foal Mountains, the landscape was little more than blasted plains littered with the occasional burnt out ruins of small settlements, and even the barns and small farms here and there had fallen into disrepair or collapsed despite being missed by direct balefire missile impacts.

My spirits rose a little early the next morning when I came across the glint of tarnished metal stretching across the landscape below me. Train tracks! I had no idea what the train route's name was, but I knew that the tracks passed through Oatsfield, and that I could follow them all of the way back.

As groggy as I was, I had to stop and think about which way to go. I was pretty sure I needed to go right, but if I got it wrong I'd waste a day or more of flying around like an idiot and probably run out of time.

For the moment, it didn't matter. I was exhausted, sleepy and hungry, so I had to call it quits. I flew up high enough to penetrate the cloud cover and flopped down on the inviting, pillowy texture it afforded. If I was supremely unlucky an Enclave patrol might fly over, notice me and turn me to dust with a laser rifle, but I was kind of too tired to care and definitely not sleeping on the ground where at best a group of slavers might tie me up and drag me off somewhere. As poetically ironic as that would be, it was more likely a hellhound would pop up and gobble me up for dinner, so forget it. Sleeping on a cloud today.

I did burrow down into it a little to at least give me a little cover from prying eyes above, but not deep enough that I risked falling out of the bottom. I'd be fine.

As much as I expected that line of thought to come back and bite me in the butt, I woke up late the next afternoon, alive and unmolested. I was still a little groggy and sore from the trip, but didn't want to waste any more time than I had to. I scarfed down the last of my trail rations, grabbed my pack and pushed through the clouds to get back on my journey.

Ah, right, train tracks. Which way to go again?

I studied the problem for a few moments before noticing the Foal Mountains far off in the distance. Right, err, left. Left. That was the way I needed to go. I swallowed my apprehension and beat my wings to start back that way, staying close to the bottom of the clouds while following the railroad back home. This high up, nobody should notice me, or be able to do anything about it even if they wanted to.

A few hours later, my heart rose into my throat with a little thrill at the sight of a small town rising over the horizon. I could even pick out the husks of the prewar windmills standing off alone to the east.

I was home!

Despite my worst fears, Oatsfield didn't look like it had changed very much since I left. Even from far off I began making out people moving around the fields surrounding the town that gave it its name. Ponies pulled plows in the sandy soil, dragging long and straight parallel lines that they'd come back to and plant with wheat or corn. Here and there the odd pony, mostly unicorns, stood watch with rifles or shotguns of a dozen varieties. The fields might not produce very much anymore, but it was still enough to be worth the trouble of kicking everyone out if someone had the weapons and manpower to try. The guards made it enough trouble that so far as I'd ever lived there, nobody had ever tried. Raiders didn't have the patience to grow their own food, I guess, and killing half of the farmers in a takeover would defeat the point. Somewhat.

I stopped pondering the academics of conquering a farming town and flew straight over the fields on my descent toward Main Street, which ran alongside the railroad and housed the burnt out and collapsed train station at the center of town.

The streets were unsurprisingly dead at this hour. The sun had all but set, and all but the most determined ponies out in the fields had turned in for the night. That left me standing alone at the crossroads beside the train station, staring off into empty streets and wondering what I did next. I could and probably should go straight home, but now that I was here, I was beginning to second guess it all. If Liese had told papa about Talon Company, or if he'd figured it out some other way, I couldn't face him. It would be crushing to know that, more than likely, this would be the last time I'd see him, and having that be the last thing we talked about. But if I didn't talk to him, it would be even worse.

Right, time to be a grown up and just get on with it.

I turned right and trudged along the cracked and broken asphalt on my way toward Bareback Street, taking in the sights as I went. The general store was still where it should have been, with the lights on and a couple of foals I didn't remember the names of sweeping the front porch. The shop next to it had its lights on too, which I'd never seen before. Someone, a donkey mare from the looks of it, was pulling rotten boards from the walls inside, and it looked like she'd already gotten to the exterior. Renovations or demolitions? I'd have to ask about that.

Bareback Street didn't appear to have changed at all. I passed three houses with their lights on, and a single old stallion sleeping on his porch. Pumpkin Jam, I thought it was, but in the dim afternoon lighting I couldn't be too sure.

Just ahead was my destination: a small wooden home in danger of collapsing ever since we moved into it that had only grown more worn and rickety over the years. The last shutter on the front windows had apparently broken loose during my absence, and another dozen shingles were missing. A real shame. The few bits I'd brought with me after getting paid wouldn't begin to cover any of the repairs this place needed. At best I'd have to hope they could cover papa's medicine for a while longer.

I took a deep breath and ascended the wooden steps up to the porch, each groaning or popping under my weight. Not much was stopping me from just going in, especially since the door's lock didn't work anymore, but I decided to do this the right way, raised my claw to the darkened and splintering wooden door and knocked hard three times.

My heart sank a little when there was no response. Was I too late? Liese said she'd done something to get him more medicine when she was last here, but that had still been many months ago. If she was even telling me the truth. Maybe I was too late, and-

The floor inside cracked and groaned from someone shifting, and the door popped open with a forceful tug. “Yes?” a familiar voice croaked.

We stared at each other for a few, long seconds, neither knowing quite what to say. Papa had looked old for as long as I could remember, but if possible it looked like he'd aged ten years since I was gone. His gray feathers were fraying at the ends and had all but turned white. His eyes looked sunken and weary beyond description. He raised a single black claw, covered in nicked scales and scutes. “Kaz?”

I offered a tiny, nervous smile. “Hi, papa.”

He lit up like foal on Hearth's Warming Eve. “Kaz! Kaz, son, it's really you.” He raised both claws as if to hug me, but transitioned into an awkward wave inside. “Come in, come in. Please. I had no idea you were coming. I was just fixing dinner, and I'll have to get some more for you. You must have been on the road for ages to get here.”

“It wasn't that long,” I lied, following him inside. And food sounded good, but if he was half as destitute as I expected, I wasn't about to take any that he had left. “What were you fixing? I was thinking I could probably go get something for both of us from the store.”

“Escargot,” he answered on his way back to the kitchen. He dodged a new bucket for catching roof leaks and chuckled. “Snail sounds better when you use fancy talk for it.”

Snails? Eh… I guess I was hungry enough for it if he had enough to go around. I could just pick something up for us the next day.

The living room looked like a proverbial bomb had gone off in it. Half a dozen guns, most of them SMGs of some kind, were disassembled and laying in their constituent pieces on shop rags scattered across the floor and the legless coffee table in the center of the room. He must have been able to find some work still if he was fixing someone's guns, so that was a good sign. I dodged the water bucket and trailed after him. “So, how have you been getting along?”

In the kitchen, papa was checking over some eggs in a basket. “Was thinking I could turn these into omelets. Tulip Tips gave me a dozen eggs yesterday, and it'll make things go further. What do you say?”

Adding eggs would only help to disguise the snail flavor, so yes, please. “That sounds good to me, but have a seat. I might not know much about cooking, but I can do that much for you.”

His black beak twisted into a weary smile. “Oh, alright. You know I like my eggs a little runny, right?”

“Yeah, don't worry about it.” I dug a skillet out of the cabinet, after accidentally removing the cabinet door entirely, and set it on the stove. “So, you didn't answer, but how have you been?”

Papa eased into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and popped his back. It took him a while to answer. “Well, Kaz, I'm not going to lie to you. It's been a little rough these past few months. Now, don't start feeling bad about leaving or anything. It's good that you've found some honest work, even if it's out of town, and I've been managing.”

Honest work. Right. While I set to cooking the snail omelets, I asked, “I noticed the guns you had strewn around in the other room. Are you still maintaining them for people?”

“That's right. There's not much of a town guard, but Corn Rows has been trying to get something organized. So, for now anyway, that means a lot of guns that need to be stripped down, oiled and had all of their rusty bits replaced. Should keep me busy, more or less.” He coughed hard a few times and fought to catch his breath. “The medicine's been helping too. I got where I almost couldn't drag my sorry butt around anymore. Had to get a lot of help from the other townsfolk, and they were nice about it, but you can always tell when your welcome's starting to run thin. Things are better now.”

I flipped the first omelet in the pan and frowned at the sight of it being a little too browned. Guess I'd be eating that one. “Yeah, Liese mentioned that she managed to get some more for you. How much do you have left?”

“So, you really have run into her?”

I cocked my head and looked back. Uh… maybe I shouldn't have mentioned her. Great. “...yeah, I have. Why?”

Papa coughed a few times again and sighed. “When she showed up, I wasn't sure what to make of it. She hasn't come home in years, and when she does she's got a few token Crimson's Caravan things and says she got them from you. I don't know, I hate to doubt her, but I wondered if maybe she did that just to get in the door.”

“What, you weren't going to shut her out, were you?”

“Of course not,” he scoffed. “But Liese has always had… an interesting way of looking at things. She knows I don't approve of what she's doing. I wish she'd have just joined a caravan like you did.”

That's right, twist that knife around a few more times. In fact, I was starting to wonder if he knew, or suspected, more and was trying to trick me into admitting it. No, couldn't think that.

I started on the next omelet and said, “Yeah, she's always been… different. But, yeah, the caravan trades with Fillydelphia, so I ran into her there. She told me she was going on leave, so I sent what I could back with her. I wish I could have gotten off before and wish I'd been paid more by now, but the caravan has some strict rules on that.”

“I understand. Don't think I'm dressing you down here, son. I'm honestly glad to see you, and that's the truth. I wish your sister were here too, but that's what it is.” Papa coughed hard again. “You need to get that situation with the letters sorted out though.”

“Huh?”

“What, haven't run into Liese after I sent them back with her? Crimson's Caravan kept returning my letters, said they couldn't find you on the duty rosters but that it happened sometimes.”

“Oh. Oh, that. Yeah, uh, she did tell me about that. I don't know what happened there, but I'll try to find out.” I plated the second omelet, which was a little runny like he asked, and joined him at the table. “Did you get my letter?”

He smiled and nodded. “I did, just a week ago. Was really glad to get it too.” He coughed and took a deep breath again. “But anyway, enough gabbing for now. Let's eat.”

Music to my ears. Less so to my mouth, but at least it tasted mostly like eggs.

I didn't sleep a wink that night.

I'm not sure if it was because it was so unusual to be back home and in my old bed, the draft from the dilapidated walls or maybe the guilt of not being completely honest with papa, but I didn't sleep a bit.

That sucked. I was really hoping to catch up on my sleep some while off duty, but so far it had been even worse than when I was active. Oh well, it was what it was. By the time morning came I found myself lying fully awake on my bed and staring at the old things sitting in my room precisely where I left them. The broken mirror on the dresser at the end of the bed. The cracked popcorn ceiling above. A small shelf of medical books that looked like it might have been caught under a roof leak at some point. That old worn out blanket that had degraded so much when I was a griffawn that I came to calling it a “fuzzy” instead of the blanket it was.

For a long, long time I laid there and considered if maybe I could avoid going back. Serge was dead serious when he told me not to think about it, but I did anyway. In the end I realized it was foolhardy to try, but being home again made it impossible to not consider it at least.

When I finally grew weary of that and trying to go back to sleep, I dragged myself out of bed and wandered downstairs to find papa already up and busying himself with reassembling one of the SMGs.

“Morning, sleepy feathers. Sleep well?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I lied.

He smirked. “Insomnia? You look like hell, son.”

I plopped down next to him. “Yeah. Yeah, you know how it is.”

He made a small affirming sound. “You ever learn to put one of these back together while out on the trail? Might help you take your mind off of things.”

I had learned a little bit, but the quartermasters and their assistants took care of a lot of that in Talon Company, so I didn't really know too much. I could hand him pieces as he asked for them though, and for a couple of hours we cleaned and put guns back together in relative silence. To an outsider it might have looked strange, but it really did make me feel more at home. Despite all the talking we'd done the day before, neither papa nor I were much of conversationalists. Liese was rarely home either. It really felt like the old days. The old days that were what, six months ago? A year? I couldn't even keep it straight anymore.

After he finished one of the guns, papa sat back and took a deep breath. “It's a shame Juana just started renovating that old restaurant. If she were done with it now, I could really go for some posole or something like that right about now.”

“Juana?” I thought back. “Oh, wait, the donkey?”

“That's right. Did you run into her yesterday?”

“Not exactly. I just saw her on the way in tearing the walls out of the place. So, she's setting up a restaurant? Sounds nice.”

Papa got up and cracked his back, which sounded like a pack of firecrackers going off. “I'm hoping she gets it ready in the next month or so, but you've got to head back tomorrow, right? Guess we'll have to settle for getting grub somewhere else. You up for whatever Cream Puff is cooking up today?”

“Sure, sounds good.” Well, guess it was time to go back out into public and answer a bunch of questions to the townsfolk. Or maybe nobody would care that I was back. That was possible too.

Cream Puff's diner, like most things in town, hadn't changed much at all while I was gone. There was a new radio on the counter and a new crack in one of the windows, but other than that it was pretty much the same.

She even remembered what I usually ordered: pumpkin bisque with a fresh biscuit on the side. It was hard to get meat in a town of ponies, but the bisque was really good, and if it were possible, the biscuit was even better than the ones I'd had back at Stonetalon AFB. I took small bites of it to make it last as long as I could.

A few other patrons wandered in while papa and I ate at our little booth in the back corner, but I kept my head down, figuratively, and tried not to attract much attention or pay it any mind.

That all ended when Dr. High Hopes, and his lovely new unicorn assistant Panacea came in for their breakfast.

“Kasimir? Kasimir Longtalons?” the stocky green earth pony called out from the doorway. He waddled over, assistant in tow, and gave me a visual examination that could have passed for a physical. “I'll be, it is you. Didn't think I'd ever see you back in these parts. Get tired of the caravan life already?”

Thanks, doc, but you're the entire reason I was gone in the first place. Actually, that's not fair. And I really couldn't blame Panacea either, as much as she looked like she expected I did. She kept behind High Hopes with her ears flattened and her eyes trained literally everywhere but mine. No, it wasn't really their faults. After I dropped that last super restoration potion, it was a little wonder High Hopes didn't skewer me with a scalpel on the spot.

“Not exactly. Just had some time off and I decided I'd come back to visit while I could.”

Papa huffed at the pony. “After that big fuss you made, I'd figure you'd be happy.”

Gee, thanks dad, I was trying not to make a scene here.

High Hopes swished his tail and scuffed a hoof on the floor. “Yeah, well, look, I was steamed and might have said some things I shouldn't have, but it all worked out, right? You like the work you're doing now, Kaz?”

Hell. Fucking. No. “Yeah, it's alright.” And before papa could interject with another acidic remark, I asked, “How are things here? Not staying too busy, I hope.”

Panacea skipped back a step as High Hopes retreated a little into her. “Ah, well, things are going pretty well. Haven't had too many ponies getting hurt lately, so that's good. Had to fix up Maize's leg just yesterday though.” He mimed stepping into a hole and made a cracking sound. “Snapped her pastern, just like that. Panacea here had her right as rain within the hour though.”

The golden unicorn mare grinned sheepishly and nodded once. “A, uh, freak accident. Nothing too hard to fix.”

“That's right. Worth her weight in gold,” High Hopes repeated. He cleared his throat and said, “Uh, well, anyway, I don't want to hold you two up while you're eating. Swing by the office if you get a chance, you hear?”

“Got it.” But didn't really plan on it.

He mercifully got the hint and headed off to get some breakfast biscuits for himself and Panacea, leaving me and papa alone again.

Papa licked a little of his soup from his beak and smirked. “You took that pretty well.”

I shrugged. “You have to let things go eventually. I don't hold it against them.”

“Good on you, son. You'll get far with that attitude.” He pushed the empty bowl aside and gave a satisfied sigh. “What do you say I show you around town now? Might be a while before you get to meet everyone again.”

I wasn't really in a hurry to go parading around town on a hello-goodbye tour, but didn't have any better ideas. Whatever papa wanted to do was fine with me.

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, the next day came and went in the blink of an eye, and if I was going to be sure that I made it back to base in time I would have to leave around lunchtime the next day.

Papa and I spent the morning like we did the previous day, putting more guns back together, picking out the ones that needed machining work and not really saying too much, but when the time came for me to depart, I did have a little more to say.

We were still sitting around the living room. After digging around in my bags for a minute, I pulled out a bullet as big as my thumb. A fifty caliber bullet that I'd taken from the rifle of that griffoness that died at the raider camp. It wouldn't do me much good, and it wasn't much of a gift, but I held it up for papa to see.

“I know it's not much, but I wanted to leave this with you. I found it out on the trail and thought you might appreciate it for what it is.”

Papa plucked the brass and steel from my clutches and examined it closely. “Haven't seen one of these in years. An anti-materiel rifle bullet. Steel Rangers use them a lot, but no one much else does. Too hard to find parts and even harder finding something you'd want to burn the ammo on. You didn't bump into them at some point, did you?”

“Hardly,” I answered, truthfully for once. Had I bumped into Steel Rangers in my line of duty, they probably would have given me a few new orifices with their opening salvo and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

“Eh, it's probably for the best. It's a shame you didn't find the gun it went to as well, but it's still a pretty lucky find.” He smirked. “I ought to make you keep it then. You can use the luck.”

I actually hadn't had any deadly mishaps since I picked it up, but wasn't about to start putting my faith in trinkets like that. “No, no, if I had something better to leave you, maybe, but it's all I've got.”

Papa gingerly set the bullet on the coffee table. “I'll have to think about what to do with it. If I cared much for jewelry it might make an interesting necklace. The casing might work to put on a key chain or something, but I'd hate to ruin it over just that.” He shrugged. “I'll figure something out. Thanks, Kaz.”

“Don't mention it. I just wish I had something better to give you.”

He coughed hard a few times and just shook his head. “Don't worry about that, son. Having you back here, one more time, was more than I could have asked for. It was good seeing you again.”

It was hard for me to tell if he'd intended it that way, but it sounded like he wasn't expecting us to see each other again. It was even harder for me to admit that he was probably right. He'd dodged the question as much as he could and never would give me a straight answer about his health, but I could tell he'd gotten appreciably worse since the last time I was there. Odds were good that I wouldn't see leave again for at least another year. Odds were not good that papa would live that long.

Lung cancer. I was sure of it. He'd been exposed to the same environments that ma had, and I was surprised it took this long. The coughing was unmistakable. I knew it. I was sure he knew it. The medication that High Hopes formulated for it was for the symptoms, not the disease. Maybe two hundred years ago, some pony doctor had concocted a potion that would fix it, but the formula for it got blown up with everything else when the war ended. Maybe Red Eye would dig up a copy of one some day years from now. Or maybe in a few centuries, when things weren't-

“Are you alright?”

I snapped out of the stupor. “Huh? Oh, uh, yeah, I'm fine. Just, uh, just not looking forward to heading back to work.”

Papa nodded. “I understand, but it's about time for you to go, right? Sounded like you had a pretty hard deadline to make, too.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.”

He sighed heavily and got up. “Well, maybe it'll be easiest to just kind of rip the bandage off quick. No more jawing, okay? I think we've said enough for now. Come on, I'll walk you to the door.”

I don't remember the trip over, but I do remember the awkward silence of us both standing out on the creaky old front porch, with neither being quite ready to rip the proverbial bandage free.

The silence was broken by him raising a claw in an unspoken offer that I accepted. We hadn't hugged in years. Not even on the day I left to “join the caravan.” His feathers were waxy and brittle in my claws, and I could feel that he wasn't even as large as he looked under the ruffled feathers and shedding coat, but I ignored all of that for that moment.

Eventually I had to let go, and papa held up a claw. “I know I said we've said enough for now, but something else just hit me. If you see your sister again, tell her I'm not mad at her. I don't care. None of it matters. Just tell her to come see me again if she gets the time, alright?”

It took a few moments to work up the nerve to reply. “If I head back to Fillydelphia, I'll be sure to find her and let her know.

A short silence fell again, but on a whim we both bid each other farewell. Before I could second guess myself again, I spread my wings and took to the sky. I waved goodbye once, and lifted up higher and higher until I could no longer be sure if he was even standing outside.

I oriented myself along the railroad and started the long and somber journey back to base.

The whole way back, the only thing I could think about was how unfair it was. 'It' in this case being just everything. I knew I wasn't going to see my father alive again, but it didn't matter. The couple of days I had to spend with him were gone in a puff, just like that, and the only thing I could do was just accept it and get back to my obligations. It didn't matter if I didn't want to get back to my obligations or not, because they'd come find me if I didn't.

The resentment burned in the back of my mind and in my heart the whole way back, but I didn't break down or give up.

I even made it back to base with six hours to spare. Six whole hours I could have spent with papa, but now I got to spend working for Master Red Eye.

There was a strong temptation to dick around the mountainside for a while to kill as much time as I could, but I decided against it. As much as I hated it, and the fact that papa didn't know about it, I sucked it up and decided that I would have to just get on with it.

In a way, doing a bad job here almost felt more insulting to papa than not trying to do my best.

As I curled up in my bunk and tried to sleep away the last of my leave, that's what I kept telling myself. Maybe if I really did do what I could to make things better, that would be the best I could do in his memory.

It was the little things like that which helped me pick myself up the next thousand mornings on my misbegotten tour of duty.

Gain Experience – You gain 5,000 experience points for accomplishing your goals.

Intermission 2

Intermission 2

Sleepless nights didn't seem to come as often as they used to over the last few years. A definite blessing in the grand scheme of things, but it meant that Kasimir didn't have as much time to write his thoughts, or if he was feeling particularly pretentious on a given night, he might even refer to them as his memoirs.

Given the choice between sleeping or having an unfinished collection of memories from Fillydelphia cluttering his office, he'd choose sleeping every time.

Still, these nights came around every once in a long while, and today was the third day in another bout of insomnia. He'd spent the last two nights looking back over what he'd written and editing things here and there, but it was hard to decide where to pick up next. To be honest, not a lot of particular interest happened over the next few years. There were a few mishaps and accidents that might have been worth writing about, but it would take so much boring context that he decided against it. At least for now.

He tapped the pen against the desk and considered giving up for the night to go on a pointless patrol around Sunburn, but the scratching of small talons against the wooden floor in the hallway drove the idea away as quickly as it came.

As fast as he could, Kaz closed the book and slid it beneath the stack of mail and assorted junk that had found its way onto the desk. And not a moment too soon.

A small white feathered head peered around the corner. Golden eyes looked around and locked with his.

“Papa? What're you doing?”

He returned an attempt at an innocent smile. “I was just going through the mail. Now, Ida, what are you doing up?”

The little griffon stepped inside and frowned as much as her black beak allowed. “I woke up. Mama's cussin' again.”

Strange, he hadn't heard anything. He didn't doubt it though. “You know she can't help it, and she doesn't mean the things she says.” He pushed back a bit from the desk and patted his leg.

Ida took the offer and climbed up into his lap, propping up on the desk with her claws. She grabbed an empty envelope and studied it, as if trying to read the address. “Papa, what's a motherfucker?”

A tiny sigh passed his beak. “What did I say about repeating the things you heard your mother say when she was asleep?”

The little griffoness shrank away a little. “Don't.”

“That's right. That's an ugly word, so don't go saying it around town, alright?”

She put the envelope down and nodded. “Okay.”

He patted her on the back and blew out a breath. “But to answer your question, that's a very bad person. Someone worse than anyone you'll ever meet.”

“Who was it?”

“I don't know,” he answered honestly. “Your mother and I used to know a lot of very bad people. It could have been any one of them.”

From down the hall, muffled and half-spoken shouts were becoming audible. “Do… do something. Don't… Valerie! H-help her!”

Oh, right. He was the motherfucker this time.

Listening to this never got any easier.

Ida stared through the wall back toward the shouts. “Papa, who is Valerie?”

“Someone who died a long time ago.”

“What happened to her?”

He rested his claw on her back. “I'll tell you when you're older.”

Her wings tensed and rose a little as she snorted. “You said that last time...”

“And I'll probably say it next time too,” he replied. Stories like that weren't something he liked repeating to adults, much less griffawns. He urged her to get down, and once she did, he eased out of the chair. “Come on, let's go get some coffee started for your mother. I'm sure she'll be awake in a minute.”

He could probably use a little himself, and while he doubted he'd have a chance to start on it tonight, he did at least have an idea of where to pick up on his memoirs next.

Four years after where he left off. Fillydelphia only had about a year left in its future at that point, but that year alone had enough material to write ten volumes as long as the one he'd already written.

It was going to be difficult to recount some of the stories coming up, but sometimes he wished he'd started there instead of his first days in Fillydelphia.

That last year… that was what really kept him up most nights these days.

Level Up - Level 11! - You don't even get a training montage, but a few more years in Fillydelphia is worth a couple of levels.

Bloody Mess - All attacks deal an extra 10% damage, and tend to make the worst mess imaginable when they kill someone.

Organizer - You've got a knack for packing away lots of little goodies, so anything weighing less than 1 kg weighs only half as much as it otherwise would.

Chapter 19: Back in the Saddle

Chapter 19

Back in the Saddle

Although it wasn't clear at the time, if I had to pick a single event that signified the beginning of the end of my tour in Fillydelphia, it would be the day my squad won the lottery at our rotation on field duty and was chosen to investigate a potential lead on a robotics facility out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody knew where the lead came from or even what we should expect to find when we got there, but we all knew it was part of the upcoming operation that was too hush-hush for any of the grunts to know anything about. We weren't even supposed to know it existed, but the spreading rumors made it sound like anything from Red Eye announcing that he was going to start turning everyone into alicorns to an attempt at attacking the Enclave to secure their weapons and equipment.

I was too groggy and tired to really take an honest guess at what his motivations were, since I was sure that everyone would be wrong in the end, but whatever it was, it sure felt like it must have been closer to the latter. Our objectives, vague as they were, were to find anything that might have military applications. Failing that, anything of industrial use was our secondary objective.

In any case, it took the better part of a day for us all to fly out to the location from Stonetalon, heading west out over the mountains and flying low to keep our eyes open for what we expected to be an entrance at the ground level on the mountainside.

The weather was cooperating for a change and visibility was good early that morning, so the entrance was comparatively easy to spot once we got close. From high up, it would have been easy to mistake for a garbage dump that had never been used. There was a single broad door set into the mountainside and a section of ground set off by a high chain fence that had been battered and worn into near oblivion by the ravages of time, but aside from the scattered boulders that looked like the result of a rock slide two hundred years ago, there was nothing else to be seen.

We touched down outside of the fence and all took a few moments to catch our breath and form up. Unsurprisingly, there weren't any signs or other indications that we were at the right place, or that it was a robotics facility at all, but I knew we weren't leaving until we got inside somehow.

“Looks like a balefire missile hit this place,” Leigh said, looking for all the world like she wanted to shrug off the radio pack she'd lugged all of the way out here.

It was hard to disagree, given the amount of collapsed rock and stone higher up on the mountainside. Serge stepped forward and squinted as a gust of wind ruffled his feathers. “If a missile hit here, that makes it sound like a military facility alright. Must be what we were looking for.”

I blinked sleep from my eyes and looked over the door set into the face of the rock formation. Maybe the missile just didn't hit dead on, but I was more convinced that the door was half a meter of magically reinforced steel powered by mechanisms that had failed a century ago and would have been protected by some kind of computer system or security talisman even if they were functional. How were we supposed to get past that?

Lita broached that very question on the way up to the door. “Are we supposed to tunnel through the mountain to get inside or something? What if we can't get inside at all?”

“We'll cross that bridge once we get to it. Maybe the door will be damaged enough to let us through.”

Even before we got right up on it, it was clear that something was amiss and that someone had been here recently. A spark battery bank had been set up near the controls, with thick wiring running up to conduits exposed by the partial collapse of the tunnel ceiling. The control terminal glowed with unexpected life when we drew close, and flashed some text in harsh red light.

“Security rerouted to local nexus.”

Serge pointed it out to Leigh, who examined the cables for a few moments. “I'm not sure how, but someone powered up the door and disabled security.” She held a claw over a big green button on the terminal. “Sergeant?”

“Everyone form up. We're probably not going to be alone,” he directed.

Amy, Lita and I took the opposite side to them and stacked up along the periphery of the door. I held my pistol in both claws and blew out a long breath to calm down. There were only two groups I could think of that would have been able to break their way past the security system, and I didn't want to meet either. For a moment I wondered if maybe the rumors about the Enclave were true, and Red Eye had somehow come across some intelligence that they were going to raid this facility soon and so sent us to get there first.

If the Enclave were inside, we weren't going to be coming back out.

I almost dropped my pistol and jumped out of my skin when the door mechanisms ground to life and fought against enough grit to choke a dragon. The gears just behind the wall squealed and crunched for an eternity as the massive metal doors crept open, and continued to grind for an eternity longer even after the doors stopped halfway.

Leigh slinked away from her position with Isaac and Serge to check the control panel. “Must be jammed. I don't think we should try to close it once we're inside.”

“I heard that. I'm not getting trapped in there with whoever beat us to the punch,” Lita grumbled. “Not to mention they and all of their dead ancestors have to know we're here after all of that racket.”

Serge peeked around the corner of the door. “Cut the chatter and move up. Looks all clear up to the elevator ahead.”

One-by-one we filtered through the opening, Lita heading in first with her old rifle and hand held EFS tracker, and with me and Amy at the tail. I blinked a few times to try to adjust my vision to the darkness, but the patch of bright light shining through the door made it hard to focus. There weren't any clear markings to indicate who built the place, or even what it was for. The plain steel hallway reminded me a lot of a stable's interior, and if it weren't for the door being an entirely different design I'd have expected that was precisely what we were inside.

“The elevator has power, but it's locked out by a key card,” Leigh said after we all arrived.

Amy cocked a frown. “Taking it down would alert anyone we were coming anyway.”

“There's no other way, and it's blocking our path,” Serge said. Sure enough, there was nowhere else to go but down, and no exit to any stairs anywhere within the hallway. “Can you bypass it and send it down alone? We can fly down instead.”

“I'll give it a try. Just need to pry the casing off. Ike, can you give me a hand?”

While the two worked at it, Lita turned back to watch the entrance. “Funny, if the elevator's up here, maybe nobody's downstairs. Did someone come by, unlock the door and just leave? What kind of sense does that-”

She was cut off by Isaac growling and snatching something off of the elevator's control panel. He tossed it down the hallway with a grunt and backed away to let Leigh work at whatever she needed to. A few seconds later, after touching a bunch of seemingly random wires together, something clicked and the lift mechanisms squealed to life. The brown griffoness hopped off just as it began to descend into the tunnel below. Dim red-orange light spilled up in its wake as it passed emergency lights.

“Guess there's still some power on the lower levels,” she mumbled.

It felt like a full minute before the squealing of the ancient cables against pulleys finally stopped, whether by it reaching the bottom or giving up on the way, but as soon as it did Serge tapped Lita on the shoulder and started toward the hole. “We'll check ahead. Wait here.”

Several more tense minutes passed while we waited. Leigh busied herself with checking over the panel Isaac trashed, but the rest of us sat still and watched the entrance for unexpected guests. I wanted to say or ask something to break the tension, maybe inquire if this could have been the handiwork of the Enclave, but I'd long since learned that being quiet while in hostile territory was the best thing you could do. That's what Amy was doing, after all, but she didn't say a whole lot anyway. Maybe if-

Heavy beating of wings down the hole interrupted my train of thought, and Serge rose up out of the void. He waved us all closer. “All clear ahead, and nothing on EFS. There are three levels below us but only the next level is open so we're starting there. We're definitely in the right place.”

That was reassuring, and while I'd learned not to completely trust the scanner Lita brought with us, it was usually accurate. Maybe we'd just missed the party and whoever came before us had already looted everything worth having and left ages ago.

I could hope.

The level below us told me two things, one of which I really didn't want to know.

First, this was clearly a RoBronco facility of some kind, judging by labels on the dozens of shipping container sized storage crates lining the room we emerged in. The dim red lighting made it a real challenge to make out much, but my eyes were slowly adjusting.

Second, all of those shipping containers were packed with boxes of robot parts, so clearly whoever was here hadn't finished looting it. And I was under no delusions that it was just a bunch of random raiders that blundered across it, powered up a door and bypassed military grade security just to waltz off without taking anything. Maybe they weren't here and were making repeated trips to loot it all, but that meant they could return at any time.

“What do you make of it all, corporal?” Serge asked as we moved down the room toward the entrance at the far side. Lita had already taken up position at the door and was glued to her EFS tracker like her life depended on it.

“Looks like they were assembling robots here. Probably not manufacturing the parts, since I don't see any raw materials.”

“Anything worth retrieving for Fillydelphia?”

Leigh trotted over to an open container and began rifling through the parts. “Absolutely. These aren't domestic robots. It's hard to be sure what they're for, but I'm not seeing any weapons. Could be for manufacturing or mining, maybe.”

A small surge of hope welled up in my chest. “That's what we came to find, right? Is this all we need in order to report back? It's not like we can haul any of this back ourselves.” Speaking of which, how did the ponies even get these containers down here? Teleport them?

“We should verify that it's safe for any of Red Eye's teams first,” Amy suggested.

Leigh stopped plundering through the box in front of her. “Yeah, and at the moment all of these parts are useless. Unless we can find the data tapes with their programming on it, they won't be any good even if they're assembled.”

I felt like slapping that hopeful little griffon in my head that thought we might be done already. “You sure that's not in here?”

She shrugged. “It could be, but we have to check the rest of the plant first anyway. My guess is that there are programming systems further down. Manufacturing was the level below us, right?”

Lita answered without looking up from her screen. “Yeah, but the door was jammed partway up.”

Serge pointed ahead to the heavy doors at the end of the room. “Then we'll have to look for another way down. Let's move.”

The doors were loose on their hinges, despite the magnetic locking pads at the top of each, so either the base's security system hadn't been tripped, or there wasn't enough power to lock us out. Goody goody.

Amy and I got the honor of being the first through, after one more check by Lita, and just as her EFS scanner predicted, the hallway beyond was empty. It extended off in two directions, each leading to a corner that turned away from us and deeper into the mountain. Without a clear choice, we headed right and formed up at the corner, where we confirmed that the hallway beyond was also clear.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but in the dull red lighting I thought I saw hoof prints in the dust on the floor ahead. Broad trails, just visible and covered by another fine layer. Maybe from a long time ago.

We neared another corner, with Lita and Serge right behind us and Leigh and Isaac behind them. Just as Amy reached the corner, Lita snapped her talons and my heart leaped into my throat. While Amy watched the bend ahead, I crept back to get a look at the tracker screen.

There was probably a science to reading the blasted thing, but all I saw was a single red blob on the screen, with fuzzy edges that flickered and shifted with the static. An indicator showed that the nearest hostile contact was six meters away, but I couldn't tell if that was down the hallway ahead or behind us. Probably ahead.

Whatever the blob was, it didn't appear to be moving. Serge joined us up at the corner and waved us onward. Oh boy.

Amy peeked around the corner, rifle raised, and when nothing shot at her I took that as my cue to shimmy across the hallway and flatten against the far wall. I held my pistol in both claws and pressed forward toward the junction ahead. Whatever the red blob was, it had to be right ahead.

A scratching echoed from the junction ahead, and I froze before looking back. Amy and Serge both shot frustrated glares, so I swallowed my pride and apprehension and inched forward more. The scratching grew louder the closer I got, and the beating of my heart grew even louder in my ears. I lingered at the threshold for an agonizing few seconds, but didn't dare look back for another round of withering glares.

At last, I whipped my pistol around the corner and swept it across…

A stairwell leading downward, but more importantly, at the landing just below was the corpse of a pony.

A fresh corpse too, not a skeleton. More distressing were the laser burns all around the metal wall plates and stair scaffolding, and the pony's body. What the hell happened here? Did ponies come in and have some kind of disagreement before shooting one of their own? He didn't even look like-

The body moved.

I removed my talon from the trigger of the pistol before I had an accidental discharge. The pony was alive somehow, despite the dozen scorch marks on his ragged blue fatigues. Serge would have a cow if-

The pony opened his eyes, and a sickly green glow illuminated the wall ahead. He bared his teeth and lolled his head to the side, where they dragged on the floor, eliciting a ragged scratch that echoed up to me.

It was a zombie. This facility had zombies in it, and someone had already been here and engaged them.

Shit.

My first instinct was to put the thing out of its misery, but the pistol would make enough racket to alert the prowling dead, so I instead doubled back to the rest of the squad. Serge had that questioning look on his face, and I wasted no time in filling him in.

“Really must have been a balefire bomb above,” he whispered as he drew his laser pistol. It would make a lot less noise than a ballistic weapon, so it made sense. “I'll lead, everyone, behind me. Lita, keep on the EFS tracker.”

We all pressed forward, and Serge wasted no time in dispatching the undead stallion on the landing. His pistol only had a crisp crack for a report, and the red beam punched a clean hole through its temple that snuffed the glow from its eyes and the last of its feeble scrabbling.

Serge waved for us all to follow him down, starting with Lita. Worked for me, that was for sure.

As I passed the landing, I took a few moments to scrutinize the laser burns on the walls. They were fresh. Fresh enough for there to still be a lingering odor of roasted rotten pony flesh hanging in the air.

I swallowed hard and thought back to the rumors about what Red Eye was up to. There really might have been Enclave soldiers in here, and if so, we were dead meat.

The stairs went on for longer than I thought possible, descending deep into the mountain. We passed two more zombies on our way down, one of indeterminate sex who was hanging by a hindleg down the center of the stairwell and whose head had been removed by a plasma weapon of some kind, and another dead zombie mare sprawled on her back with empty eye sockets and a smattering of laser burns all over her body.

“At least someone's done the dirty work for us,” Lita whispered as we passed the mare. Talking almost didn't matter at this point, since despite our best efforts it was impossible to remain totally silent while traversing the metal scaffolding.

“Cut the chatter,” Serge hissed anyway as we stopped at a landing with a door. The heavy metal door was devoid of all detail, save a badly worn warning of some kind and text indicating that it lead to manufacturing and assembly. He indicated the control panel and whispered for Leigh to open it.

It must not have been locked, since she only pressed one button before the ancient hydraulics kicked in and the door sank into the floor. I squinted and blinked to adjust my eyes as brighter light poured through the widening opening.

For a moment I thought we'd entered a part of the facility with full power, but it turned out to be coming from a single flashlight laying on the floor. The intense beam reflected off of the smooth metal finish of the far wall and filled the room with harsh shadows in every corner and behind every piece of debris that seemed to litter the floor for as far as I could see.

Someone had been here very recently if its batteries weren't dead.

The room we emerged in appeared to be a staging area where parts were brought down in one of the two cargo elevators set into the walls flanking us on each side. Ahead was a massive partitioned steel door that was stuck halfway open, revealing just enough of the area beyond to discern that it was filled with machining tools.

I sidestepped a toppled crate filled with what I guessed were mechanical hooves and approached the fallen light. It might give away our position if we kept it on, but we might as well take it with us when we went, right? We could turn it off until-

The world spun and I landed on the floor hard, with a resounding crack of composite from my breastplate slamming into concrete. My claw lurched forward and slapped the light, which twirled about and illuminated another dead zombie in the corner, previously obscured by those dark shadows.

Ugh, what did I slip on, anyway? I groaned and picked myself up, not even daring to see how irritated the others were, and saw the robotic hoof I stepped on. Great. Wonderful. Now everyone knew we were here if they were nearby.

“Sergeant, look. Steel Rangers.”

Wait, what? Steel Rangers?

I dragged myself back up to my feet and studied the 'zombie' in the corner, which I could now plainly see was covered in ragged red robes. Actually, more chewed than ragged. The gray unicorn mare's coat was covered in clotted blood from dozens of bites, the worst of which was where something had latched onto her throat and bitten through her trachea.

Amy asked, “How long has she been here? She looks fresh.”

There wasn't any significant odor, so I guessed not long. A quick closer inspection and some prodding with the barrel of my pistol to confirm that she was still suffering from rigor mortis was all I needed.

“At least a day, but no more than two.”

Lita snorted. “We must have won the lottery on the timing. Does she at least have a gun? If we run into someone in power armor we're going to need an energy weapon bigger than Serge's pistol.”

She might have been laying on it if she had something, but in the lighting I couldn't really tell, and I wasn't in a hurry to flip her over to check. “Doesn't look like it.

From further behind me, Leigh added, “She looks like a scribe, so she probably didn't have much. You can bet there were a few knights or paladins with her though, and probably more scribes. If they left her behind it must have been bad in here.”

Now that she mentioned it, there was plenty of other evidence of violence, with more laser and plasma burns on the walls than I could count. There must have been as many Steel Rangers as Leigh guessed, but if we were lucky they just left their comrade here and retreated back up to the surface. Or maybe that would be worse, since they could return at any point and pin us in from behind.

Serge didn't waste much time thinking about it. “Lita, watch the area ahead. Leigh and Isaac, move up and scout the next room.”

Amy and I followed close behind and took up a position behind stacks of boxes to use as concealment, while Leigh and Isaac crawled under the partially shut door. The big orange griffon had some trouble squeezing through, so I really hoped we didn't have to come back this way in a hurry.

“Huh,” Leigh uttered as soon as she was through. “A photonic resonance barrier.”

Serge cocked his head. “A what?”

Lita held up her tracker. “Looks clear ahead.”

With that, Serge ordered us all to move up. As I crawled under the door, the sharp blue glow of the forcefield caught my eye, filtering past and through racks and rows of machinery I couldn't begin to guess the purpose of. Leigh was already fiddling with the controls on the wall next to it while Isaac was scanning the room for any sign of movement.

“Can you disable it?” Serge asked as he joined Leigh at her side.

“Could be keeping the monsters out,” Lita muttered as she took began examining the room.

Leigh popped a panel open and started digging in the wiring. “The Steel Rangers probably turned it back on, but it seems like a bad idea to shut themselves in with the zombies. Maybe something else triggered it.”

By this point I was shining my new flashlight around to get a better view. The machine shop looked like it was in marginally better shape than the delivery room behind us, but there were laser burns pockmarking many of the drills, lathes and hydraulic punches. My light glinted off of a bloody hoof under one table…

“Looks like another casualty,” I announced on the way over. This time I found a blue earthpony stallion in worn out armor curled up beneath the heavy metal slab of a punch press. Like the mare before, he was stiff and recently deceased, but surprisingly he didn't have any obvious bite marks. Instead, there were half a dozen bullet holes in his armor, which had chewed up the Steel Ranger symbol almost to the point of making it unrecognizable.

“A dead knight. Looks like someone shot him.” On a hunch, I turned my light upward, and sure enough, the scrapped remains of a turret dangled from the ceiling by cables and a shredded ammo belt. Its housing looked like it had been partially melted by a plasma bolt.

Amy clicked her beak. “They must have tripped the security systems.”

“Does he have a gun?” Lita asked.

To my surprise, he did. I swallowed my apprehension and grabbed the barrel of the laser rifle. It took a fair bit of pulling to dislodge it from beneath him, and it was covered in sticky, clotted blood, but looked functional. “Yeah. Who wants it?” Not me, thanks…

Serge held up a claw. “Hang on to it for now.”

Dammit.

A crackle sounded through the room and the blue glow from the barrier flickered and faded. “We're through,” Leigh announced unnecessarily.

“Alright, move up. Lita, Kaz and Amalia, you know the drill.”

I was definitely keeping the light on and trained on the ceiling now. The last thing I wanted was to get caught by a turret in the dark. Maybe if we were lucky the Steel Rangers took most of them out.

We passed three more destroyed turrets in as many machining and assembly rooms, and found one more dead scribe amidst a pile of four dead zombies in the last room. Beyond that was a series of offices that we paused to plunder before planning to move on to the stairwell down the hallway, which promised to lead us down further into the ground beneath the mountain and to some testing area.

The offices, as it turned out, were also a small series of labs, the purpose of which I could only guess. Wouldn't labs be for testing? If so, what was the point of a dedicated testing area? Leigh seemed to hope that we'd find the programming tapes for at least one of the robot models, so maybe that was their purpose?

Either way, we finished checking the offices in short order, with nothing to show for it, and by the time we moved on to the labs I was beginning to wonder when we'd find the next dead Steel Ranger. We hadn't seen any evidence of fighting since the last dead scribe, but something shot and killed those zombies, and whatever it was, it wasn't that scribe.

We trickled into one of the labs, which was surprisingly spacious and chock full of dust covered computers, terminals and data tape reels on its walls. As always, the emergency lighting obscured most of the details, but I was sure Leigh could make some sense of it.

At her request, I handed over the light, and tried to find somewhere out of the way to stand while she worked. The floor was kind of covered in debris and… bags and tarps covered in blankets of dust. A programming lab was a strange place for that. Maybe the ponies caught in here after the balefire blast had survival supplies cached here or something? I grabbed a corner of the nearest tarp and lifted it up for a peek.

A puff of dust preceded a ragged groan.

“Contact!” Lita shouted. “Two meters-it's inside the room with us!”

“Zombie!” I shouted in turn, backpedaling and bringing my pistol up to bear.

The slack-jawed mare howled and pushed herself up onto unsteady legs before turning to face me. Her drawn and taut facial features were framed in momentary flashes of light from my pistol's muzzle flash, catching brief still images that lingered in my vision as she shifted and lurched forward.

My ears rang and I couldn't tell what the others were shouting, but my pistol's pitiful flashes were soon drowned out by rifles discharging. The mare staggered and finally went down less than a meter away when someone got a lucky hit that shattered one of those flimsy legs. Even still, she snarled and tried to drag herself forward, but as a much easier and slower target, it wasn't hard for me to line up a clean shot with my pistol that punched most of what remained of her brain out the back of her skull.

She moaned weakly and collapsed into a twitching heap that didn't look like it would stop any time soon.

“Everyone alright? Which way did it come from?” Serge demanded.

“It was under-”

Lita interrupted with frantic waving of a claw. “More contacts, all around! At least… dammit, I don't know, maybe ten!”

Nobody had time to question her. The first zombie rounded the corner and cantered into the lab with us only a moment later, just a moment more before the room exploded into weapon discharges. The rotten pegasus stallion lurched forward and pitched over onto his side with a raspy moan that gave way to the clack of more hooves behind him.

Desperate snarls overtook the clacks as two more zombies fought each other to be the first through the doorway to get at us. Like before, they were met with a wall of bullets that stopped them in their tracks. The unicorn mare screamed something pained and fell forward into the room, while the earthpony mare behind her collapsed and thrashed in the entrance.

“Kill...” the unicorn hissed my way as I lined up my pistol again.

I pulled the trigger. She screamed again and convulsed as the bullet went wide and pierced her side. I pulled it again, and again she shrieked as the shot deflected off of the floor, bounced up and took part of her jaw off.

Dammit, my claw was shaking too much to track her erratic movements. Why couldn't she just give up and-

Another zombie rose from behind her with a snarl and clawed his way over the growing pile in the door way. I raised my pistol-

“More coming up behind! They're going to break the glass!” Carmelita shouted behind me.

“Pinfeathers!” I pointed my pistol at the new zombie ahead and pulled the trigger again and again.

Blam! Clunk.

The first shot struck him in the throat, but he continued on, undaunted as the casing caught in the ejector and jammed the pistol.

“Bloodfeathers!” A deafening cacophony of rifle reports drowned everything out as I dropped the dysfunctional weapon and grabbed the sticky laser rifle slung over my back.

A spray of glass fragments and dust washed into the room from out of my field of view. I couldn't hear the windows shattering behind me, but I felt the thumps as the zombies, alive or dead I didn't dare look back to see, fell into the room.

I pulled the trigger on the laser rifle and nothing happened. The hell? Maybe the battery-no, the safety was-

The mare on the floor howled and struggled closer, forcing me back a step. I blundered into something-no, someone-behind me, but the stallion in a lab coat climbing over his former companions had all of my attention. I flipped the switch that I prayed was the safety and tried the trigger again.

An intense beam of red washed out the previously dim surroundings and struck him in the foreleg. A deep hiss sounded, just audible over the ringing in my ears, and his leg vanished in a spray of red and pink magical dust. His remaining forehoof stumbled and landed squarely on the mare's skull, crushing the softened bone and at least ridding me of one concern.

One of the girls screamed in pain, and whoever was against my back tried to fall back into me. I lost my balance and fell forward onto my belly, in sync with the three legged undead pony in front of me.

“Die,” he snarled, his face contorting into the semblance of a scowl that his decayed muscles still allowed.

I tried to push backward, but had nowhere to go. The zombie growled and glared at me with wide eyes, sunken deep in his grimy orange face. He reached a hoof out and tried to get purchase on a floor tile to drag himself closer…

Another zombie flew overhead and bounced against the far wall before landing atop him. Both squirmed and fought to untangle from the knot, but I wasn't going to give them the chance. I propped up on an elbow and hammered the rifle's trigger repeatedly to send searing beams of red energy into the pile. Hisses filled the air and violet afterimages clouded my vision, but the sprays of magical dust were evident enough to tell me that I'd vaporized both.

By the time I'd scrabbled up to my feet, the activity in the room was dying down. My ears still rang terribly from the gunshots, but I heard the others talking enough that I was confident the zombies must have all been down.

I spun around to see that I'd been pressed up against Amy this whole time, who was now rushing forward to secure another doorway into the lab that was choked with twitching corpses of a variety of formerly colorful ponies. She had to navigate around someone sprawled out on the-

Shit.

Carmelita groaned loudly and repeatedly as she tried to roll over onto her stomach. “Nggg… where the fuck is the medic?”

Isaac shoved a dead unicorn aside so I could get close to her, who skidded to a halt facing me. Fresh blood dripped from the mare's horn, and a few yellow feathers were caught between her teeth. Wait, maybe the blood was from the bullet holes in her temple.

“The patient is over here, feather brain!”

I didn't bother with a reply and tore my attention away from the pony to examine her. Sure enough, she had a serious bite to her right foreleg, and another bite had torn a flap of skin free on her shoulder, which was oozing blood at an alarming rate. Overall, she was lucky. The mare's horn had scratched a nasty gouge out of her side, but the dents and scratches indicated that her armor stopped the pony's horn from penetrating her chest and hitting something much more vital.

If I had more time and a more cooperative patient, I probably would have taken care to apply some potion to some bandages and patches. That would have probably taken care of all of the wounds in a single vial. But, we were possibly about to be swarmed by more undead ponies, so I just did the next best thing and popped a vial open before handing it to her. “Drink, it should take care of the rest.”

The red welts and oozing toothmarks on her leg closed before my eyes, and the bloody gouge on her side sealed moments later. As I feared, it took a second potion, and me applying pressure, to fix the nasty wound on her shoulder, but I was just thankful that's all it took.

Carmelita sighed loudly and finally rolled over. “Am I gonna die? Tell me straight. I got bitten by a zombie.”

“It only works that way in stories,” I assured her, hoping I knew what I was talking about. “If you die, it's going to be because you contracted eleven different kinds of bacterial infections from that thing's mouth.” I finished packing my kit back up. “But some antibiotics later will take care of that.”

Amy snapped her talons, and held up the EFS tracker that she must have snatched from the floor at some point. “Sergeant, I've got more hostile contacts approaching. Can't tell how many, but they're coming from the direction we entered from.”

Serge hopped over another dead zombie and waved for us to follow. “Later is right. Let's get going and try to find another way out.”

Lita coughed and groaned again as she pushed up to her feet. “Right.” Blood that had soaked into her plumage dripped down her leg and pattered against the floor in tiny drops.

The glint of a pistol on the floor caught my eye on the way to follow, and for a moment I considered leaving the cursed thing to rot for jamming so much. But, I never did get another rifle after I ruined mine, so I decided against losing it too. I cleared the stoppage and holstered the bulky laser rifle in favor of it again. If we were going to be on the move, it was probably the best choice in these tight conditions.

It was difficult to believe that there could be this many zombies left in the facility after the Steel Rangers had fought their way inside. We must have killed a dozen just now by ourselves, and had picked our way past another dozen freshly dead ones in our bid to put as much distance between us and the labs as was possible. The offices here could only be so big, but every corner we turned revealed a new hallway, and another one or two corpses.

Amy continued to take the lead with the EFS tracker, while Carmelita was now in the back and watching for anything trying to creep up on us. By now we'd given up on all pretenses of trying to be quiet and were trying to move fast. Amy was confident we were making a big circle and would come back out to the stairs soon, but I was so twisted around I couldn't begin to guess if she was right.

My idle mind stopped trying to piece together where we were going and what we were going to do when the griffon train ahead of me screeched to a halt right after another turn. I half expected more zombies hissing and calling for blood, but instead, I saw Amy, Serge, Isaac and Leigh circling around a long and high caliber rifle of some kind lying in the center of the hall.

“What? What is it?” Lita demanded from behind me.

“An anti-materiel rifle, with a battle saddle mount,” Serge answered. “And a magical ammo feed.”

“So? So what?” she asked, pressing forward and leaving me feeling very isolated at the rear of the group.

I glanced behind us to confirm that the hallway was still empty and guessed “Powered armor? Another Ranger?”

“Right. There must have been a paladin somewhere nearby,” Leigh said. “And they got into some serious trouble.”

Lita shrugged. “Like we didn't? Forget the gun and let's go!”

“Griff-ons...”

I snapped my head around just in time to see the black pegasus lurch up the hallway from behind us. He flared his wings, one of which hung limply at the elbow joint, and howled something primal and furious before breaking into an unsteady gallop.

He pitched forward and rolled head-over-hooves twice after running into a veritable wall of bullets.

“More coming up behind!” Amy stressed.

“Then let's go!” Serge ordered.

I stole one last look back before rushing forward with everyone else, only to nearly run over Isaac as the griffon train came to another abrupt halt.

Ahead, a small mound of groggy zombies lying against a door looked up. One-by-one, they howled, screamed or cursed their dead goddesses as they fought to free themselves of the pile so they could throw themselves at us like all of the others.

“More contacts still behind us!” Amy shouted.

How could there be so many zombies in one facility?!

We opened fire again, but the fusillade of bullets came up short as half of the squad had to reload. I unloaded the power cell in the laser rifle and tried to back away from the mangled undead ponies dragging themselves our way, but stopped when Amy's warning flashed though my head again. We had to move forward, fast!

An orange pegasus mare fell at my feet, smoldering from multiple laser burns to her chest and face. A white unicorn stallion staggered after her and collapsed from a precise shot from Amy that shattered a leg. A green mare of some kind, missing most of her jaw and flesh on her back, gurgled and fell over when another shot shattered her skull. The last, a dingy blue pegasus mare, recoiled back as a thin laser bolt from Serge's pistol drilled through her temple.

The silence that followed didn't last long.

Just as Amy warned, three more undead ponies in lab coats cantered around a corner behind us and broke into a charge. I tried the rifle, but only got an unceremonious beep and flash of LEDs, indicating that its power cell was dead.

Carmelita shouted something that was drowned out in the incessant ringing in my ears from all of the gunshots. Muzzle flashes from her rifle preceded two of the ponies tumbling head-over-hooves, and Leigh nailed the last as she tried to jump the unexpected obstacle in her path.

Silence fell again, and we all took a few long moments to catch our breath and behold the carnage that we'd wrought. Pony blood coated the floor, seeping into the cracks between the metal plates under our feet. At least one of the zombies continued to gurgle and splutter, but none seemed to be willing or able to get up and chase anymore.

“I really wish I had Bitch with me right about now,” Lita quipped as she slowly tracked her rifle between the hallways that met at the corner we stood in.

Serge joined her, keeping his pistol ready. “Amalia, is it clear?”

“Signal's bad, but I think so.”

Lita lowered her gun momentarily and waved for the tracker. “Hey, sweetheart, I'll take that back.” After the two handed it off, she checked it over herself. “Uh, yeah, signal is shit, but I think we're fine.” Amy rolled her eyes.

“Then keep moving. I'll lead. Lita, up here.”

I felt for sure like we must have been headed back toward the central elevators by now, and sure enough, after cutting a few more corners and making a side trip through a small break room with skeletal remains of two unicorns huddled up in a corner, we saw the first sign pointing us back to the “Auxiliary Cargo Lifts.”

We started down one last hallway, but halfway there, Carmelita threw up a claw. “Got something on EFS. Neutral. Wait, it just turned hostile.”

Serge didn't stop. “Must be another zombie waking up. Keep alert.”

Lita held the tracker up in one claw, and her rifle in the other as she and Serge inched forward into the room beyond. “It's not moving. Must be stuck in scaffolding or something.”

We all eased in after them, and to my surprise we found ourselves in an unfamiliar room. This was a pair of two massive cargo elevators set into a cylindrical room that extended up and down for several floors. The emergency lighting was a little better, though still bathed in that same ruddy hue, but I saw a freight elevator paused a floor above us to the right, set into shafts of sparse scaffolding that didn't look strictly safe. Another elevator rested just to our left, but we didn't need that to get up to the top floor.

“I can't get a fix on the contact. Wait, it's moving around this-”

The world exploded.

Everything happened so fast I couldn't even register it all. A puff of blue feathers, a deafening bang, a blinding flash from the floor above, Serge falling back against the wall behind us, a spray of vaporized concrete, it all happened at the same instant.

Everyone else, followed by me, instinctively fell to the ground and tried to scatter for cover. In my stupidity, I followed the nearest moving thing in front of me and chased Carmelita in the opposite direction to Serge to hide behind a concrete pillar. My ears rang so badly I couldn't hear a thing, but I felt my whole body shake with each beat of my heart as reality slowly caught up to me. Lita screamed something I couldn't make out and pointed a talon up to the catwalks above, but I was too distracted by trying to diagnose Serge from ten meters away.

Blood coated the wall not far from the bullet impact. His armor was covered in spiderweb cracks and fractures, so clearly he'd been hit, and hit somewhere in the torso. Despite it all, he tried to push himself upward, and reached for the laser pistol sitting just beside him…

Another boom and flash filled the room, and a concrete pillar on the other side of the room blasted apart in a shower of fragments that made me think twice about the cover we were using. Who was shooting at us? What was shooting at us?

I eased out enough to steal a glance up at our attacker, and saw a massive armored figure shift around in the dim lighting. A Steel Ranger? It had to be. But it also didn't matter! If Serge was hit, I had to get to him immediately.

Without thinking about the probability of being perforated by that hideously loud weapon, I leaped out of cover…

Right as Serge squeezed the trigger on his pistol. Intense red beams speared through the air upward, leaving glowing afterimages in my vision and telling the Steel Ranger right where we were and that he was not dead yet.

I dove forward and felt the air tear past my neck as another bullet sailed by, followed by the boom from the supersonic rifle. Serge fired twice more, but something went wrong. I only caught a glimpse of the crackle of lightning playing across the power cell, but the moment I reached him the weapon detonated in a vibrant flash of red and purple magical sparks that seared my vision all over again. He jumped back in shock, knocking both of us to the ground an instant before another bullet obliterated a chunk of the pillar as large as my head.

The moment I extricated myself from the pile, I rolled over to confirm that the next boom and flash were pointed somewhere else in the room, before ripping my medical kit off and digging for a potion. Serge wasn't fighting to get back up this time, and when I finally took the time to look at him more closely, I saw why. The first shot struck him squarely in the breastplate, which did little to stop the bullet from penetrating his chest and drilling into the wall behind him. Blood ran freely from the wound, and his beak was starting to stain red. He cradled his right claw, but his eyes were unfocused and wandering aimlessly as he moaned lightly.

I ignored his claw for the moment and poured a healing potion into his beak. It wouldn't be enough to heal such a grave injury, but it would keep him alive until I could check more closely, which wasn't going to happen until the shooting stopped! Thankfully, he was at least conscious enough to swallow it by reflex…

The weapon discharges continued, now chewing up parts of the room nowhere close to me, so I crept back to the edge of our not very effective cover to see how much worse things were getting. Leigh and Amy were pouring shots up at the Ranger paladin from opposite sides of the room, taking chances to shoot when the pony's attention was trained on one or the other. I gripped my pistol, checked that I'd cleared the stoppage already, and tried to ignore the sweat soaking my palms. If I flew up now while the pony was distracted, I could get him from behind. I just… I just had to wait for the right moment…

Isaac clearly had the same idea, and launched from the shadows.

He made it halfway up before another bang rang out, and he tumbled downward in a puff of orange feathers. By some miracle he crashed on the other side of the catwalk on our level instead of spiraling down into the depths below, but fucking blood feathers, I didn't have but one super restoration potion, and that was the only thing that was going to keep someone alive if they got shot in half a dozen particularly vital places! For all I knew he was dead already, but I had to get to him to check. Why wouldn't my limbs work!?

Carmelita backed away from her pillar and pointed her rifle up to the ceiling. To my surprise, she opened fire, filling the room with secondary sparks and flashes from her bullets hammering through the catwalk and bouncing off of the pony's powered armor. This was it, she had the pony distracted, so I had to take my chance! I had to-

Her back erupted in blood and she spun around to land on her belly. I felt the bullet blowing through the floor ripple all the way around to me, and stared in mild horror. That was three down with life threatening wounds, and here I was standing like an idiot instead of doing something!

The groaning of the floor above snapped me out of the stupor, and impossibly heavy foot falls boomed overhead as the pony stomped my way. I snatched up my medical kit and spun to flee around the catwalk before one of those massive rounds punched through the ceiling and me. The stomps grew closer and another shot rang out. Then another, and another. The bullets sparked and bounced around me, ricocheting off of the floor and ceiling catwalks.

Ahead of me, another shot rang out. The small bullet rocketed forward and slammed into my breastplate. ...and bounced off. Wait, that was a bolt. From the-

The world was lost in a cacophony of twisting and groaning metal, and a series of massive impacts behind me threw me to the floor. I struggled back to my feet, just in time to see a bewildered Amalia picking herself up too.

Behind me, a feminine voice I didn't recognize groaned, and stressed hydraulics whined. I whirled around and saw the Steel Ranger sprawled out in the midst of tangled steel bars and floor plating. He, no, she, coughed and fought to catch her breath. Her helmet was missing and her blue face was covered in scratches and what looked like bites. Her armor was likewise riddled with dents, dings, scratches, scrapes and more, and one of the cannons on her side, the side facing me, thankfully, had evidently been torn completely free.

She struggled to extract herself from the mangled mess of metal from the collapsed catwalk, but her forelegs were both pinned beneath a collapsed girder. “Gragh, dammit!” Her brown eyes locked with mine, and she gave another heroic heave to free herself, to no avail.

Upon closer inspection, it was clear she was in rough shape, and not even a pony, exactly. Long, droopy ears and a gray muzzle made it clear that she was actually a mule. A mule that looked like she hadn't slept or eaten in days, and who'd been attacked by probably at least as many zombies as we had. I'd seen only a clawful of mules in my whole life, and never imagined I'd see one among the Steel Rangers. How would that even work? Did this chapter accept outsiders or something?

It was too bad I'd never find out. Without hesitation, I crawled over the debris and pressed my pistol against her temple.

For once, the pistol didn't jam.

There was no time to reflect on it. I had three patients to check on, any of which could already be dead. Serge in particular might have just been crushed by the catwalk…

Speaking of which, I had to backtrack around the other way to get to him now. Amy fell in with me, and almost immediately we came across Leigh and Isaac. The big orange griffon was just grabbing his rifle and trying to figure out what was going on when we got there. One of his wings was oozing blood from a fist-sized bullet hole, but he didn't look injured otherwise.

“Ike's hurt, but it can wait. How bad are the others?” Leigh asked.

“Bad,” I answered without stopping. I could feed him a potion later, but I had to get to Lita and Serge right away.

Carmelita was worse than I feared. Blood was everywhere. Soaking her feathers, running down her shattered armor, dripping from the holes in the floor grating and smeared all over one claw. She was still breathing, but her breaths were rapid and shallow. I unclasped her armor and pulled the mangled halves apart, but there was so much blood in her feathers I couldn't tell much more. Based on the entry and exit points of the wounds, as well as the incredible bleeding, I figured she must have been hit in the spleen. There were worse places to be shot, but not very many.

I pulled off my medical kit again and fished out the gently glowing purple potion. I only had one, but only its magic was strong enough to save her under these conditions. Serge had been shot in the lung, and he really needed it too, but Lita had no chance if I didn't give it to her.

A wound like this needed the potion to be administered directly, so I turned her over partway and poured about half of the luminescent liquid onto the glistening wound that dripped blood even as I watched. As I hoped, the hole began to close, but as I feared it didn't fuse completely. I had no choice but to pour the rest of the potion onto the wound, which to my relief, did finish sealing it from the inside out.

I dug three more potions out of the medical kit and handed them to Leigh and Isaac. I directed him to drink one now, and a second if his wing didn't stop bleeding, and told her to give Carmelita the third one if she came to enough to swallow it without choking.

With that, I left her and rushed around to see how bad Serge was. By luck, the catwalk hadn't collapsed this far back, so he was in no worse shape than when I left him, but that was still plenty bad enough. He was still dazed, confused and having trouble breathing, but at least with him I had high hopes that with the three potions I had left, the bleeding would stop and he'd at least remain stable until we got back to base.

Getting back to base was something I hadn't figured out yet, but we'd cross that bridge when we got to it. If more Steel Rangers showed up in the next few minutes, we were all dead.

I poured two potions into the wound, which sent him into a coughing fit that sprayed me and the floor grating with fine droplets of blood, but the coughing did stop, and that was an encouraging sign. He was aware enough to drink the last potion, which I was confident now would keep him alive for at least a day if it came to it.

A closer look at his claw worried me that he might be getting a medical discharge after this mission. He was missing two talons and his thumb, and it was his dominant claw, too.

I sighed heavily and started packing my kit back up. Another bridge to cross when we got to it. Getting back to base was much more urgent than worrying if Leigh was about to become sergeant.

“We don't have any way to radio for medical evac, do we?” I asked after rejoining them.

Leigh pointed upward. “Once we get back to the surface, we should be in range. Too much signal attenuation down here.”

Amy tore her eyes away from Lita. “Are they too bad to transport?”

Probably, but we could if it was urgent. I was more worried that while the four of us were technically capable of ferrying them back home, it was going to be an incredible ordeal, especially since Isaac, who was easily the strongest of us, was injured and could probably barely fly alone, much less with half of another griffon weighing him down.

“I wouldn't if we have other options.” I pointed to Leigh. “You're in charge now, so you'll have to make the call, but they've got a better chance if we can get someone with a sky cart and more medical equipment out here. That would probably arrive before we could get back to base, and if they don't get better treatment, Serge probably won't survive. Lita is iffy.”

She waved Isaac over to grab Serge, and for Amy to help with Carmelita. “Let's go then. We'll fly up the shaft and find our way out. I'll be on point with the EFS. Move fast, everyone.”

With Serge slung over Isaac's back, and Carmelita in Amy's and my claws as we took to the air, we began ascending the central shaft in the room.

Mercifully, we found an entrance to the assembly level at the top, and quickly located a path back to the path we'd already cleared. From there it was just a few agonizingly long minutes back to outside, where we found the entrance and yard beyond to be devoid of any more ponies, power armored or not. We laid the wounded out in the shade of the doorway and took up defensive positions while Leigh radioed back to base.

There was more that I could do, now that we weren't in a zombie infested lab or being shot at by Steel Rangers, but simply put there was no way for me to do the surgery Serge needed under these conditions.

Accordingly, the sound of someone picking up the radio on the other end was the sweetest sound to my ears in years.

Gain Experience – You gain 10,000 experience points for crushing your foes.

Chapter 20: Trouble on the Horizon

Chapter 20

Trouble on the Horizon

The flight back to Stonetalon felt like it lasted until midnight.

After the medical evac arrived and we loaded Serge and Lita up, I spent the whole flight hovering just above the sky cart and watching them for any changes. There was painfully little that I could do while we were still on the ground, and even less now that we were airborne, but I couldn't relax until they were both in the medical ward, or better yet, out of it. Potion drip IVs in the cart were about the best that could be done for now.

I didn't recognize any of the three griffons that had been dispatched, although it was probably too much to ask for Adelaide to have been dispatched with surgical tools. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, but the third, who was serving as armed escort, did mention something about this being all that could be spared. That was always the state of affairs, so that didn't strike me as a comment to dwell on.

That is, until we did get back.

Even before we landed, it was clear that there was an unusual amount of activity around the base. At least two full flights were circling the peaks, and every machine gun emplacement that I could pick out from our altitude looked manned.

A lump of apprehension coalesced in the back of my throat. The robotics facility had been infiltrated by Steel Rangers, not the Enclave, but that could easily have been a coincidence. Maybe there was some truth to the rumors before and Captain Stern was expecting a possible assault from the pegasi. There was no time to ponder what-ifs though, and we rushed through the loading doors into the cargo hangar the instant after we landed.

The cargo hangar was abuzz with twice the activity we passed outside. Troops ferried cartons and crates of materiel into and out of more carts, but more alarmingly, half of them were covered in patchworks of muddy and bloody gauze and field dressings. Maybe the Enclave attack had already begun, and a platoon got caught in the open above the cloud line somewhere?

I caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Blackfeathers and her little purple assistant Egon directing some of the activity, but she looked way too busy for me to bother her in search of answers. Instead, I waited for our escorts to park the cart in the first vacant bay and informed them all that I was going to head down to medical and get Adelaide to prep for surgery.

The news only got worse the closer I got to the infirmary.

Winding my way down was a chore with so many griffons choking the hallways. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought that the entirety of Fillydelphia's Talons had been deployed here, and that wasn't doing my heart any favors. If this wasn't in preparation or response to an Enclave attack, what could it be?

For the moment, it didn't matter. What mattered was that I had no idea how I was going to get stretchers past all of these people and mess to transport the patients down here.

The groans should probably have prepared me for what I was going to find once I made it down to the level with medical, but I almost stepped on someone the moment I left the stairs. A young sky blue griffoness, maybe twenty years old, was stretched out along the hallway's wall and doing her best to get out of my way. One of her hind legs was laying at an odd angle and clearly broken, and the rest of her was marred with dozens of bruises and nicks.

The dozen other patients lined up against the walls looked little better. There must have been thirty gunshot wounds between them all, and enough blood seeping through their bandages to paint the floor. One had crisscrosses of multiple deep lacerations across her throat. Another was stretched out and trying desperately not to breathe any more than he had to, probably from broken ribs. One particularly unlucky griffon was missing one of his wings, and was probably on his way to a medical discharge...

I lingered at the door for a few moments before I tore my eyes off of the wounded, and fought back the anxiety over what I might find inside long enough to turn the handle.

Inside was about what I expected. Another six soldiers were laid out in neat lines in the receptionist area with a yellow griffoness moving between them and checking them over. For a moment I thought that it was Adelaide, but when she looked up I recognized her for who she was.

“Dr. Longtalons! Oh, thank heavens, Dr. Darkskies is going to be so happy to see you.”

“Zella?” I asked, stepping inside enough to shut the door behind me. “What's going on here? Yvonne is here too?”

“Yes, she is. In the back in surgery with someone who was shot I don't know how many times.”

I stepped past the rows and rows of soldiers who were motionless enough that they must have been drugged up or dead already. “Who is in Fillydelphia right now? What's going on?”

“Almost nobody,” she answered. “And I really can't tell you much. All I know is that they shipped us out here to prepare for the aftermath. Dr. Darkskies can probably tell you more, and she could really use some help right now.”

So I figured. Bleeding pinfeathers, I was so tired I was afraid I'd do more harm than good trying to treat anyone right now, but this was my job. I wiped my face and said, “Alright, look, I came back with two more in serious condition. Can you send someone up to the cargo bay with stretchers to get them down here? Needs to be sooner than later.” I was pretty sure they were in worse shape than everyone outside of the infirmary at least, but triage was kind of her job.

After getting an affirmation from her, I made my way into the back, dropped the rest of my equipment in the first vacant spot I found, and followed the trail of blood spatters and streaks to the operating room.

In truth, it wasn't the scene of a slaughterhouse like I imagined. Vonny and Adelaide were both working on different patients, with medical techs assisting with both. Vonny glanced my way, her graying pink feathers spattered in red, and told the tech assisting her to bring in the next patient for me to start on.

“Got a lot of customers waiting, Kaz. Better get prepped, it's going to be a long night.”

The tech interrupted any attempt I had at a quip in response by informing me that the next one being brought in had a severe head injury of some kind and was currently unresponsive. No x-rays or other diagnostics were available, so I was basically left hoping he or she hadn't been shot in the skull and left only with brain stem functionality left.

That kind of sucked the last of the energy out of me. I drifted over to the vacant bed that I knew I'd be parked at for the next ten hours or so, and reached for a pair of gloves…

The soldier with the head injury wasn't as bad as I feared, although his prognosis was iffy. He'd been struck across the side of the head with some kind of blunt object and had a fractured skull and broken mandible. There wasn't a ton I could do for either except try to brace his jaw, reduce the joint and apply healing potion until the bones knit back together in mostly the right shape. The problem was that he didn't regain consciousness afterward, and that was a very bad sign. He probably had significant brain damage, and if he ever woke up he'd probably never be the same.

Of course, I didn't have time to dwell on it, as patient after patient was brought into the OR. In the end, I couldn't keep track of who all I saw, and I was getting so tired and sleepy my eyelids were stinging. There was someone who'd been shot multiple times in the gut, which was at least solvable with careful application of potions instead of needing full surgery. The griffoness shot in the spine was less lucky. Healing potion would repair the bone and damaged nerves, but only after the bullet had been pried free of the shattered and twisted remains of the vertebra it slammed into, which turned into a pony goddess-damned nightmare since the bullet must have been cast out of the shittiest quality scrap iron available, judging by the number of fragments it exploded into on its way into her body.

By this point, I was growing increasingly suspicious that the train of wounded hadn't been engaging Enclave pegasi or Steel Rangers at all. A power armored boot to the face might have caused that skull injury, but neither would shoot bullets made out of garbage. There weren't any laser or plasma burns on anyone I saw either, and if I didn't know better I'd have thought they were ambushed by every raider group on the continent.

Both Serge and Lita ended up being treated by Yvonne instead of me, which made me a little anxious at the time, but the steady stream of patients again didn't leave me time to dwell on it. At least the severity of the injuries finally began to taper off some, as we transitioned to setting bones and applying potions to gunshot wounds on extremities. Our supplies were beginning to run a little thin too, given the amount of potion we had to pump into some of the bleeders, so I had to start rationing it by dabbing bandages with what was left and patching some up the old fashioned way.

I thought things were finally going to calm down enough for me to get some information out of either of the other doctors working with me, but the next surprise through the door kind of short circuited the attempt.

A solid gray griffoness hobbled through the door behind Zella, who ushered her my way. “Dr. Longtalons here will see you.”

It took me a few moments to realize through the mental haze who I was looking at, and my heart didn't so much skip a beat as perform a short ballet. “Liese?”

“Whoa, Kaz? Must be my lucky day for real...” She finished hobbling over and grimaced at the now quite unsanitary bed. “Don't tell me I've got to get in that.”

From a quick inspection of her injuries, no, she wouldn't. “Just hold still a second. What hurts?” She didn't have much in the way of obvious external injuries. Some scrapes dotted her chest, side and wing, and a gash crossed her hip that looked like it had already started healing from a potion. She was holding her left foreleg up and refusing to put weight on it.

“What's it look like? Everything hurts.” She huffed and fixed her vision on the bed.

I brushed a talon along her shoulder, causing her to suck in air and pull back. “Come on, I'm not in a joking mood right now. I don't think it's broken, but it might be dislocated.”

She huffed again. “I just jammed it, it's not broken or dislocated. Some little shit hit me with a stun spell and I crash landed.”

It was my job to be the judge of that, but she was probably right and to be blunt, I didn't feel like wasting time with getting x-rays unless she came back to me later about it not getting better. Another dose of potion would probably fix her up anyway. As I measured that out, I asked, “Yeah, speaking of that, who exactly was that little shit? I have yet to have anyone explain what chewed everyone up and spat them out.”

Liese sucked down the potion I offered her and halfway choked on it. “What? You weren't there?”

I started dabbing potion onto some gauze for her hip and shook my head. “No, my squad got sent off to pick through some robotics plant instead. We came back with three wounded, two seriously.” I pressed the patch onto her hip and muttered, “Looks like we were lucky by comparison. We've had twenty-eight come through here, and I heard another dozen were KIA.”

“No kidding,” she muttered back. “That would explain why I couldn't find you when we were forming up.” She flexed her elbow. “Well, since you were so lucky, the cyclops in charge lost his damned mind is what happened.”

Yvonne stopped stitching the scratched and scuffed up griffon under her care and said, “Careful what you say there.”

“I'll say whatever-the-fuck I want,” Liese spat back. “When I see you in the middle of that much horseshit then you-”

“I was in the middle of that horseshit! Now, I'm not any happier than you are, but you know that can get you shot.”

I held up both claws and shouted, “Enough! Shut up. I don't want to hear that, I just want to know what happened.”

Liese cleared her throat. “Yeah, right, well, the answer is that Master Red Eye decided that he wanted us to capture the raiders, so Captain Stern mobilized the entirety of Fillydelphia's Talon Company to support his army when they went to round them up. Surprise, surprise, the raiders didn't want to come with us, and all holy hell broke loose.”

“Raiders?” I finished with the bandage and asked, “Which raiders?”

“How should I know? It had to be damn near all of them in the area, that's for sure. Hundreds of them. Maybe a thousand. You know The Dragon, right? That big, mean pony that would send a Steel Ranger pissing her armor in fear? Yeah, he was there.”

That had to be a joke. “Wait a second, isn't that the same pony as Brimstone Blitz? Like, the leader of the group of raiders so powerful that it raids other raiders?”

“Yeah. That gigantic bastard.” She grimaced. “We drilled his ass good, but someone said he was still alive and they took him in. If I'd have known that I'd have shot him five more times in the face. Least he deserves for giving me a promotion.”

It took a moment to process that, but only a moment. Promotions were never a happy topic in Talon company, since rank was only ceded when someone moved out of their current rank, and that hadn't happened under pleasant circumstances ever to my knowledge.

We all grew kind of quiet at that point, and I really took that moment to be glad that Serge survived our ordeal.

Liese finally spoke up as she twisted to leave abruptly. “When you're done here, come look me up. You've still got a few out here that need bandages and kisses for their boo-boos.”

After she disappeared through the door, but certainly before she was out of earshot, Yvonne snorted. “She's charming. You two know each other?”

“My sister.”

Adelaide blinked blearily and sighed. “Either way, she's right. Just a few more and we can relax for a minute.”

I evidently had to have a longer chat with Liese after I was done, but for once I was anxious to do so. After that proverbial bomb shell, I was quite distracted with the next two soldiers I had to deal with, and really wanted to know more about this capturing raiders business.

Locating her turned out to be more involved than I expected. The only other member of her squad that I knew on sight was Alfred, given how much time he used to spend in the clinic from drinking too much of things he shouldn't, but I didn't blunder into him on my search. Eventually some maroon colored griffoness pointed me outside, where I found her at the landing pad, perched under an awning and practically inhaling a cigarette.

She offered one as soon as I got close enough, which I declined with a wave of my claw. “No thanks, I quit a couple of years ago.”

Liese snorted. “Finally trying to be a good role model as a doctor?”

Not exactly. “Sure, whatever.” I parked myself upwind of the smoke and asked, “So, what else did you want to talk about? Something else about the operation earlier?”

She bit into her cigarette a little and shook her head. “Nah, not really. Not much else to say, I don't think. We brought in a few hundred raiders as slaves, including Brimstone, a huge minotaur and a partridge in a pear tree. Mission accomplished. I'm sure the pencil pushers think that's a great trade for twelve Talons.”

Guess I was just here for emotional support then, and since I was her brother, I might as well try. “I'm sorry about Brigitte. Err, was she the one that was KIA today?”

Liese nodded. “Yeah. Complete waste of a real soldier too. Remember that little shit with the stun spell? He got her first, and then Brimstone got her. Happened so fast I couldn't even react.”

Well, at least I remembered her sergeant's name, which was something. “I'm sorry. I wish I could have been there to help, but even if I were it wouldn't have mattered for her.”

She bit harder on her cigarette, and for a moment I wondered if she'd bite clean through it. “Yeah, about that. That right there is what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Err, what now?”

“When you weren't at the mustering, I figured that meant you weren't part of Talon Company anymore. I was pretty sure someone would have told me if you were killed, but if your contract expired I didn't put it past you to just fly like an uncaged bird right back home without saying a word to me. Like when you showed up five years ago.

“Now, see, that math right there is what got me thinking. You've been here over five years now, right?”

Time was so vague to me now I honestly had no idea. “That sounds right.”

She nodded, and her half-bitten cigarette wobbled precariously. “Okay, so why are you still here? Unless they really screwed with the contracts after I started, you only signed on for four years, and have to renew every two after that. That means you've renewed at least once. Why? I know how much you hate it here, and even before days like today, I remember the pit and all of that shit. Why in Equestria are you still here?”

A surprisingly poignant question, but the answer came almost by reflex. “I've got nothing else to go back to.”

Liese finally took another puff of her cigarette, held it for a while and blew it out through her nostrils. “So, what, is papa finally gone then?” I nodded. She drew in a long sigh. “How long ago?”

“About three years at this point, I think. He lasted a lot longer than I thought he would.”

“Three years? And you didn't bother to tell me? When were you planning on it?”

“Now, basically. The next time I saw you, I mean. When's the last time we even saw each other?”

She sucked on her cigarette while staring a hole through the ground. “I don't know. Years ago. If I didn't know better I'd say they stick siblings in different platoons to make sure they're scheduled away from each other. You could have sent a message or something.”

Liese wasn't wrong, and I felt bad, but it was kind of too late now. “I know, and I'm sorry. I would say there hasn't been time or what ever, but the truth is that it just got buried in the back of my mind years ago. I forgot.”

“Forget it,” she growled in a tone that implied she certainly wasn't going to, not that I blamed her. “What happened anyway? Did that lousy doctor stop giving him medicine again?”

“Lung cancer.”

She stopped thumping the cigarette in her claws, and after a heavy sigh, tossed it aside. “Could have told me that to begin with...”

“Didn't think it would matter.” After an awkward silence fell, I added, “Kind of bizarre, you know? Nobody ever lives long enough to die from something like that anymore, but he did.” Somehow, that didn't help the awkward silence at all.

She coughed and groaned. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, I should probably go find out what's happening with my squad, and I'm sure you've got a lot to get back to in the infirmary.”

Not before I got some sleep, but it was a good place to end the conversation anyway. “Probably. They may have discharged my sergeant too. Had a laser pistol explode in his claw and take some talons with it. I, uh, I know I'm not in line to get a promotion if so.”

“Good,” was all Liese muttered as she pushed past me back toward the door.

I watched the cigarette lying on the concrete fizzle out and tried to think back to the last conversation I had with our father. It had been over three years ago, so as much as I tried, I really couldn't think of much that he said. The only thing that stood out to me was…

“Hey, Liese!”

She stopped and cast a weary glance back. “What?”

“Papa did want me to tell you something. If I ever saw you again.” I tried to think of exactly how he worded it, but it didn't really matter. Only the contents did. “He said he wasn't mad at you. For, you know… this.” He also said a lot of other things, like he wanted her to come visit if she could, but that was way too many years too late for me to mention it now.

Liese stood silent for a few seconds. “That's something, I guess. Was he mad at you?” Without giving me a chance to answer, she finished heading back inside, leaving me alone to ruminate on her question before having to head back in and face whatever was coming next.

I hoped that would be a cot, but was pretty sure it wouldn't be.

It wasn't.

Well, not for long, anyway. I might have gotten one or two hours of desperately needed sleep before Amy shook me awake and informed me that first and second platoons were being redeployed back to Fillydelphia immediately. I groaned and cursed her out in my head, but it wasn't her fault so I kept it there.

At least I didn't have the luxury of getting into deep sleep, so dragging my sorry carcass out of bed was only dreadful instead of outright unbearable, and it only took a full minute for me to roll over, miss the side of the cot and end up on my back on the floor.

To my surprise, Lita was the first griffon to speak up, saying, “Jeez, Kaz, you look worse than me.”

After focusing my vision enough to get a good look at her, I disagreed. She was covered in bandages and had tufts of feathers missing where the zombies had bitten her, not to mention the big patch of gauze on her chest where the Steel Ranger's cannon shell struck her. Her eyes were sunken and beyond weary. She hobbled a little closer and offered a claw to help me up.

“I'm surprised they released you so soon. How do you feel?”

She rolled her eyes. “Like I got half of my guts blown out and stuffed back in. Guess I should say thanks for saving my sorry hide.”

“Don't mention it. Part of the job,” I assured her as I got back to my feet and recovered my balance.

“Yeah, well, Amy says you also got the ass that shot me.” She held a claw up to her forehead and mimed a pistol's hammer with her thumb. “Plugged her right between the eyes. That takes guts.”

I wiped my eyes and sighed a little. “And a lot of luck, believe me.” Before the conversation could continue down that track, I said, “I'm glad you're alright though. I wasn't sure at first. But, ah, did you hear about Serge? Has he been released too?”

“What? They didn't tell you? If you don't know, I sure as hell don't.”

Leigh stopped packing her gear and said, “He's being returned to Fillydelphia to be treated by a specialist. That's all the lieutenant knew when I asked her.”

A specialist, huh? I was actually pretty experienced with claw surgery, and I doubted anyone else in Talon company really knew more than I did. Who was he going to be treated by there?

“We're all headed back there now. Lieutenants Blackfeathers and Strongclaws are arranging a funerary service in the city for those KIA, and a followup for those who earned medals or promotions. After we attend those, we're immediately going back on city watch. After the raiders captured yesterday are processed, Captain Stern is expecting a not inconsiderable increase in unrest and escape attempts.”

I yawned and rubbed my eyes. “Yeah, I bet...”

We had little time before we had to rendezvous with the rest of the platoon in the hangar, so I shut up at that point and got to packing up my things.

The flight back to Fillydelphia went about as smoothly as it could have, and this was maybe the dozenth time in my years that I'd made the trip. Fifty-three kilometers over the course of about eight hours, with one stop in the middle for everyone to take a leak and eat something. As was normal on a return trip to the city, I didn't have a heavy supply pack to carry, so the trip wasn't bad. Aside from being miserably sleepy, anyway, but what else was new?

Carmelita looked like she could just barely make it, which was probably pretty accurate. Leigh had the foresight to tell Ike to carry her machine gun for her, since the extra weight probably would have made the trip unbearable, but even so she lagged behind near the end of the group for the whole trip. When we stopped to rest, she just flopped over to catch her breath. No jokes or snide comments. Just weariness.

I could only speculate how relieved she was when the city popped up on the horizon. Or, well, when the first terrifying Pinkie Balloon peered back at us through the husks of trees dotting the hills. I'd heard through idle gossip that the balloons had been put into place about a month after we rotated out to field duty last time, and while we never got close enough for me to confirm it visually, word was that Red Eye's army had snipers perched in the baskets. There was always the ever present concern of slaves escaping, but the moat did a good job of keeping them in. No raiders were ever stupid enough to get close to the city either, so everyone guessed the snipers were mostly for show, to send a message to the Steel Rangers who had set up not far from the city. Not that they'd ever gotten close either, to my knowledge, but after surviving the encounter with hat one paladin through pure, blind and stupid luck, I was happy to have some deterrence to keep them away.

Speaking of the moat, I never did get used to the smell of flying over it. Its scent was like the worst combination of a leaking power cell and bile, and after it got in your nostrils it refused to leave for hours. Accordingly, I held my breath on the final approach, but it got all over me anyway and like every day I spent in the forsaken city, I desperately wanted a shower.

No time, of course. Our orders were to drop all of our crap off at our barracks and reassemble near the train station half an hour later for the services that would follow. Leigh promised me that we weren't going to be on active duty right after, so maybe if I was lucky I could get some sleep soon.

I hadn't ever been present at a service like that in the five or so years I'd served up through that point, but then I don't think Talon Company had been part of such a large action before such that we suffered so many losses all at once.

Both platoons, numbering over a hundred griffons, formed up by squads in neat little squares outside of the train station but well away from the minefield that surrounded the main part of the base. Heidi, flanked by Egon as always, and Gunther stood ahead of us all and facing the crowd. Behind them were a grim row of fourteen makeshift caskets, if I was counting right through the haze in my head, made from what I guessed were repurposed ammunition crates. No sign of Captain Stern, surprisingly.

Heidi started the ceremony off, calling us all to attention before saying, “Talons! We are gathered here today to pay our respects to the fallen, who have given their lives in service to Talon Company and thereby paid the ultimate price that none can exceed. In giving their lives, they have proven their courage, which will be forever recorded in our company's history.” She took a deep breath. “And so it may never be forgotten, by paying their lives in service, today we absolve our brothers and sisters in arms of their contractual obligations to Talon Company and Master Red Eye.”

She strode down the line to the first casket and gestured for Egon to follow. “With each name that I call, my assistant will record their history in the company's records.” She began rattling off names and handing rolled up contracts to Egon, which he skimmed and then recorded in a booklet as she said. I recognized most of the names, and one even that I knew from treating his broken toe after dropping a steel bar on it. Rolland Blackbeak. The name echoed in my head as I pictured the look on his face when he hobbled into the infirmary. He'd put it off for two days and barely wanted to admit even then what happened, but he was much happier after we gave him some painkillers and splinted the toe. I wish that's all it would have taken to keep him out of that box…

At some point Heidi handed the roll calling over to Gunther, who rattled off names I did not know. Probably from second platoon. That is, until he said, “Brigitte Swiftwind,” and handed a scroll off to Egon. That was Liese's sergeant. She must have been in the crowd somewhere, but I couldn't see her through everyone surrounding me.

After that sorry business was concluded, Heidi took over again and said something about issuing awards. Sitting still for a few minutes was making everything go distant and fuzzy as my brain wanted to shut down for some involuntary sleep, but I blinked furiously and shook my head to keep awake.

I drifted back to reality just in time for her to call Carmelita up, and the haggard griffoness hobbled up to receive her Purple Feather from, ironically, the very purple Egon. Everything blurred and swam again until Gunther called someone Longtalons up, who I recognized almost too late was Liese. He presented her with her corporal rank patch, which she accepted wordlessly before returning to the crowd.

From what I filtered through the fog, they never called Leigh up, which strongly implied that Serge hadn't been discharged. After losing effective use of his dominant claw, I wasn't sure how that was going to work out, but if he could stay in charge of the squad, I was happy for it. I didn't doubt Leigh's ability to lead, which she'd demonstrated in the field before, but I just didn't want anyone new rotated into our squad. Adjusting to Amy took much too long as it was, and I didn't want a repeat of that.

I wasn't sure how much longer the ceremony went on, but I mostly snapped back to my senses when the sound of people shifting around me grew too loud to ignore. And right as a familiar voice asked, “I hope the ceremony wasn't too boring for you, private?”

Huh? I blinked the sleep from my eyes and focused hard to see Heidi's golden eyes locked with mine. While fighting to gather my wits, I glanced around and noticed patches of interrupted feathers across her left wing. I'd seen enough gunshot scars to recognize it on sight now, and knew they were fresh.

“Uh, no ma'am. Just doing my best on three hours of sleep in three days.”

She didn't challenge my answer and instead said, “I came to tell you two things. First, I hope your sister does well in her new role and that you'll follow her example. Second, I'm tasking medical with ensuring the proper disposal of the bodies. Private Darkskies will be assisting you, and we've already arranged for transport.” She held up a stack of rolled up pages. “See to it that these are burned as well. And don't worry about trying to save the crates. Just incinerate everything.”

Seriously? Ugh, whatever. Maybe I would have a chance to sleep again before I passed out and killed someone else. I accepted the scrolls and answered, “Yes, ma'am.” I wanted to ask her what was going to happen to Serge, but she was gone before I had the chance, and it was just as well anyway. A few seconds saved was a few seconds of sleeping later.

Back at the caskets, Yvonne was waiting on me with an equally weary expression. Much to my surprise, a trio of ponies was present as well, and not even Red Eye army soldiers. These were ordinary looking slaves, but the two earth pony stallions hitched to the cart were clearly the transportation Heidi mentioned. Maybe nobody in Talon Company but Yvonne and I could be spared.

The yellow unicorn mare present with the stallions barked something at them about getting the bodies loaded, and they set to it with disinterest and just enough speed that the slaver mare with them didn't have to get her whip out. Even so, Vonny and I grew weary of waiting and helped to load the last two caskets so we could get this over with.

“Where to?” yellow mare asked.

Oh joy, she was asking us? Hell if I knew. “Uh, the garbage incinerator,” I guessed.

She seemed to think that was a reasonable answer, so we started our agonizingly slow trek that way. My patience was worn all but to its breaking point after just a few minutes of the slow trudge, but out of reverence for the deceased I managed to keep my cool.

Vonny, however, did not. “Hey, can we pick up the pace here? Some of us have places to be,” she growled.

“You heard the lady!” yellow mare shouted. She drew her whip and cracked it once over the back of each of the stallions. Both exchanged looks that implied they'd snap her like a toothpick if they thought they had a chance, and for a few moments I felt bad about the exchange. That evaporated the instant they did indeed pick up the pace, and was replaced by a tiny bit of relief. Faster was good. I was so tired.

The trip must have still taken almost half an hour on the ground, due in no small part to having to wind around blocked off or damaged streets, but mercifully the smokestacks of the burner building finally came into view. We passed the twisted remains of its perimeter fence and pulled the wagon up to where garbage trucks would have once backed in to offload their contents. The team of ponies took care of the rest without orders by backing the wagon around, opening the hatch down into the main incinerator plant, and sliding the coffins in.

Vonny and I watched wordlessly, and when the process was over, the ponies took their leave for Pony Goddesses knew where.

“That's that,” Yvonne muttered under her breath. “No idea why we had to be here for it.”

“Heidi wanted to be sure it was done, I guess.” I held the contracts up in a claw and sighed. “I'd best see to it that these are burnt too, like she asked.”

Yvonne stretched her wings and jumped into the air. “Alright. I'll see you around Kaz. And get some sleep.”

“Thanks, I will.” I waved her off and worked my way around to the entrance I was used to, where we brought Ida after the accident. A couple of pony technicians scurried out of my way without asking any questions, and I paid them no further mind.

Eventually I found my way back to the platform overlooking one of the burners, where I laid my claws over the railing and looked down. It was inactive right now, but the warmth in the room was overbearing all the same. I tried to recall how Heidi's little speech went when we dumped Ida's body in the furnace, but it had been many years and my memory was much too bad. It was similar enough to what she'd said in the ceremony just minutes ago anyway. Besides, it wasn't like I was going to try to perform the ceremony again myself or something.

I unrolled the scrolls, one at a time, and read the names and signing dates on them. Brigitte had been in Talon company for over ten years, and poof, that was it. Poor Rolland had only joined two years ago, but even so, poof, that was it.

It felt disrespectful, but I balled the contracts up and tossed them down into the waiting abyss below. If I left them open, they'd flutter around and probably fly back up and out the next time the furnace was turned on. It wasn't even a question of Heidi finding one and getting mad. I just really hoped they found peace, and I didn't want some stupid little piece of paper to hold that back, as dumb as the thought was.

A cool prickling feeling crept down my back, and I backed away from the edge. That was my cue to go.

“I'm sorry,” I muttered on the way out. To whom? Just myself, if I was the only one listening.

Leigh's promise that we'd get some rest turned out to be surprisingly accurate. After I dragged my tired butt back to our train car, I flopped down on my cot and for once didn't so much drift off to sleep as race off to sleep on a speedboat.

That speedboat crashed into a reef after what felt like only a few seconds later, and I found myself being very rudely prodded by someone's very sharp talon. I resisted the momentary urge to respond in kind with a swipe of my claw, and instead rolled over to see Amy's red eyes focused on me.

“What?” I stressed. As tired as I was, someone had best be dead or doing their best to die.

“You've been asleep for...” She glanced back to a clock just out of sight. “A little over eighteen hours, and something's come up. Corporal Dawnshower told me to get you up.”

...what? There was no way I'd slept almost an entire day. That wasn't possible. I felt so groggy I could have downed an entire pot of coffee and gone right back to sleep. But then, sometimes that's how it was with makeup sleep. I groaned and rolled over. “Alright. What happened?”

“Sergeant Swiftwing is back.”

That got my attention, and I sat up. Sure enough, Serge was sitting at the table at the other end of the car, and the others were all crowding around him. I clawed my way to my feet and headed over, just in time to hear Lita say, “We're going to have to call you The Claw now, sarge.”

Serge groaned and rolled his eyes. “I think I like serge-ant better.” He flashed me a weary smirk and waved. “Morning, Kaz.” His talons glistened under the gem lights set into the ceiling, and clicked with each articulated movement. It took me a few seconds to shake off the sleep haze to really appreciate what I was looking at.

The talons that had been vaporized by his exploding pistol had been replaced by cybernetics. Pinfeathers, they weren't kidding when they said there was a specialist here in Fillydelphia.

“You… your claw,” I stammered.

“Everybody's said it,” Lita said.

He nodded as if I'd asked a question. “Yeah, Master Red Eye has a cybernetics surgeon on his staff they call Doc Slaughter. I guess they thought I was too valuable to dismiss over losing some talons, so he attached some new and better ones.”

“No kidding...”

Lita asked, “So, are you going to tell us anything else about this mysterious griffon, or what?”

“I can't, sorry. He's a pony, I'll say that much, and he's probably the one who installed Master Red Eye's cybernetics too. But I saw a lot of things I'm sworn not to repeat here.” Serge flexed his mechanical digits a few more times and took a deep breath. He looked good, considering what had happened, but like Lita he'd take some time to recover fully. “But… I'll also say this. Master Red Eye has some big things planned soon.”

“You can't just say that and not tell us,” Lita said.

“I shouldn't have even said that much,” he admitted. “But, in any case, it'll be back to business as usual on the next shift, so everyone get what rest you can. We'll be back on city watch in five hours. The big things will have to wait until the lieutenant passes information down.”

Oh boy. I was relieved to have Serge back, but kind of wished he'd kept all of that to himself. It was going to make getting a few more hours of sleep really hard.

It would have been even harder if I knew how it would all end up playing out in the end.

Gain Experience – You gain 2,000 experience points for honing your skills.

Chapter 21: Powderkeg

Chapter 21

Powderkeg

The shift of city watch that Serge promised, along with the next several days' worth, turned out to be surprisingly uneventful. Despite the vague warnings that we were probably going to have to deal with a lot of extra unrest from slaves who were likely to be particularly skilled at sneaking around and killing people, nothing really felt any different. For that matter, despite integrating a massive band of raiders, the city didn't even feel any more crowded than ever. I guess compared to its population before the war, it was never going to feel crowded.

Even so, unruly raiders-turned-involuntarily-productive-citizens or not, the monotony ceased on the fourth day after Serge returned to our squad. Amy and I were patrolling the skies together, and I was doing my best to keep alert in the face of what was proving to be yet another day of nothing but skimming clouds of smog so we could check off a box on Heidi's work roster saying we did. I was still wary of the possibility of a slave revolt, but I'd heard that most of them had been transferred to the collapsing mall on the other side of the city, ostensibly doing restoration work on it in preparation for… something nobody was quite sure of. In any case, with them all bunched up over there and under second platoon's watch, I wasn't too worried.

I gave the petroleum refinery ahead a wide berth as we approached, having learned years ago that there was no way to approach close to its towering smokestacks without getting a fine dusting of soot embedded in my feathers that would last for a week, and dove closer to the street to give the thick black clouds above an equally generous amount of space. I gave a quick glance back to verify that Amy was still keeping pace, and found her diligently scanning the terrain below us, as she always was when I checked.

We drifted lower down one of the main avenues, flanked on both sides by crumbled storefronts, cracked sidewalks and the odd downed light pole that somehow hadn't been hauled off to be melted down for raw materials in the five years since I'd been in Fillydelphia. The path ahead was clear of slaves or any other evident activity, yet, over the din of industry in Fillydelphia, I heard shouting. At least two agitated people were arguing about something, and we were getting closer.

The source turned out to be a small mob of slavers, who tore out into one of the intersections before screeching to a halt and scanning each path. One, a big earthpony stallion with a battlesaddle equipped with rifles of some kind, spotted us up in the air and flagged us down.

Great. I knew this could only lead to bad news.

“We've got a runaway,” he explained the instant we touched down. “One of the Bloodletters. Black unicorn. He killed a couple of guards and fled this way with their guns.”

Yep, bad news.

“You're from the mall? How'd he get past the Talons out there?” I asked, as if the question mattered.

A bubblegum pink mare snorted. “Yeah, we're from the mall. Bastard can turn invisible. That's how he got away.”

Oh, good, even worse news.

So, they were chasing an invisible unicorn while shouting to the high heavens to let him know where they were? Thankfully, Amy salvaged the derail in the conversation by asking, “How do you know he came this way?”

Big stallion answered, “He can't stay invisible forever. We caught a glimpse of him a few minutes back trotting this way. We've had him on the run for half an hour now so he's got to be tired, but he's slippery.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Half an hour? Is anyone else looking for him?”

“We talked two more squads of chick-err, I mean, Talons into helping us search, but they're back checking behind us.”

“Any other slavers?” Amy asked.

“You kidding? As hard as it is to keep the rest of that psycho lot under our hooves?” Big stallion grunted. “Yeah, there's another group checking out down south, but it's all we could spare. Now, are you going to help us or not? Time's wasting here.”

I wasn't sure how we were supposed to find someone who was invisible. I had half a mind to fly back to the barracks to get Lita's EFS sensor, or head to the armory to see if another was available, but that would waste quite a bit of time. If only we had personal radios so we could call in for help like that. Oh well, it was a way to waste the afternoon doing something more interesting than staring at pavement flying by beneath us as we flew around. Odds of spotting the pony were vanishingly small, and it wasn't like he was going to announce his presence by shooting one of us first.

“All right, we'll check around. Shouldn't be hard to catch up to you if we find him.”

We lifted back into the air and started circling the area at a higher altitude. From there we had a better view of the city, but we were still low enough to hopefully pick him out if he was stupid enough to poke his head out of a window or walk down a street while visible. Just to be thorough, I drifted closer to Amy and asked, “Got any ideas?”

“Not much,” she admitted, not taking her eyes off of the buildings below. “I think we'll have to do this the old fashioned way.” She pointed down the street in the direction the slavers were originally headed. “The gate's that way, so he's probably headed there hoping he can get out. Let's move ahead and try to cut him off.”

The pony was going to be sorely disappointed if that was his plan. The gate was over a kilometer away, heavily guarded and even if he could climb the walls somehow he had the caustic moat of unpleasant odors to cross, which I was fairly sure would be lethal within seconds of contact. Still, her reasoning made as much sense as anything, and if I were in the pony's horseshoes I'd probably try the same thing.

Amy took the lead, flapping her wings hard to accelerate but taking a circuitous path around the street instead of flying straight ahead. I guess if the pony was watching us that might trick him into thinking we were headed somewhere else, so I followed suit. We circled far out, but kept the street within our line of sight as we went. I watched as best I could, checking each window, doorway and alley from the long distance, but aside from the odd scrap of paper fluttering in the wind, nothing presented itself.

When our circling finally brought us back around to the street, Amy dove down toward a parking garage situated next to a particularly large pile of debris and ruins that I guessed used to be a hotel or office building. I followed her down and landed on the top level, complete with ominous creaks from the dilapidated old concrete structure only held up by rebar and prayers, and scurried over to the edge where we could watch the street from the relative safety and concealment of the concrete barriers.

“He should come by here if he's still headed this way,” she muttered.

I peered over the edge into the vacant street below, glanced down a few blocks to the slavers working their way over to us and backed up. “I'll watch the other side. Maybe he's not stupid enough to run in a straight line away from them.”

“Good idea.”

With her blessing, I trotted over to the opposite corner on the back side, doing my best to avoid the larger cracks in the cement slab as I went. The back street wasn't any more interesting than the one I just left, which is what I was hoping for. A few upturned dumpsters blocked the street, so there was no chance he'd be coming this way anyway. I could just camp out there for a while, until Amy decided it was time to move on.

Not two minutes passed before the face of one of the dumpsters dipped, just visibly, as if something heavy but unseen had climbed atop it. A moment later, the depression snapped back into place, and the almost inaudible clack of unseen hooves against pavement reached my ears.

Fuck.

I instinctively scanned the street for a few pointless moments, as if I was going to see what was clearly invisible, before starting back to get Amy. I just managed to duck down below the lip of the concrete barrier and turn halfway before the world exploded and I dropped to the ground as my hindlegs went numb. A deep, stabbing pain shot through my side at the same instant that a crisp bang sounded from the street below.

“Kaz!”

Without thinking, I tried to jump back to my feet, but my useless hindlegs probably saved my life from a follow up shot as I just rolled over and made a lot of unflattering squeals from the pain radiating through my side. I could still feel the concrete under my paws, so I wasn't paralyzed, but it was taking my brain a long time to get to that realization amidst the growing feeling of fiery nausea welling up in my stomach.

Despite writhing in the grip of agony, I managed to flail at Amy to get her to drop down before the pony shot her instead. She skidded to a halt next to me and started checking me over. “Where were you hit? I-I don't see anything.”

I arched my back and pointed at my side as I fought for breath. As much pain as I was in there was no point waiting on her diagnosis, so I ripped off my medical kit, dug out a potion and sucked it down. The relief was slower than I hoped for, but took my breath as much as the pain when it finally came. My whole body went slack before the adrenaline returned me to my senses enough to roll back over and scoot away from the wall.

“Looks like the bullet didn't penetrate,” Amy said, following me away from the danger of the edge of the parking garage. “Are you okay?”

“Fi-fine now,” I said, still feeling almost light headed from the relief. I chanced a glance back to my side to see the indentation of a bullet impact on my armor right over my kidney. That explained a lot. “I saw him climbing over some dumpsters and I was about to come get you. He must have spotted me.”

Amy swore under her breath. “He's got us pinned, but he's a real idiot for giving his position away. The ponies will be here to get him in a second.”

“What do we do until then? If we try to go down after him, we'll be in his sights with no way to fight back.” I rubbed my aching side. “Not a great shot, at least.”

“Pinfeathers,” Amy grumbled. She motioned over to the far side of the garage. “Come on, this way. He's not going to sit still now. The slavers are coming and he knows it. If we come down on that side, he won't have a clear shot. We'll have to move fast and try to stay ahead of him.”

The peer pressure to not look like a complete wimp was strong, but this did not sound like a good plan. “We still can't see him. How are we supposed to-”

Another crack from the rifle sounded from below, followed by a sharp scream and a volley of return fire that sounded like it chewed up little more than pavement and brick walls. Amy stood and flared her wings. “Forget it, come on! He's committed now!”

Amy was insane to fly out over an invisible sniper, but if I stayed put I'd never explain it away to Serge or Heidi, much less if Amy died because I couldn't get to her with a potion. With intense reluctance, I jumped into the air after her, drew my pistol and swerved into a high arcing pass over the street. I caught a glimpse of someone flying our way, but didn't have much time to dwell on it. Back toward the slavers, I spotted a lime colored mare sprawled in the intersection, while her cohorts pressed forward and poured fire at the dumpster. Shots pinged off and punched holes through it, but to no useful effect. If the stallion was perched on it earlier, he wasn't now.

Knowing that meant he could be tracking either Amy or me in the air now, I jinked repeatedly as I scanned the street. My ears rang too much from the gunfire to pick out any hooves clopping, but if I was lucky I might spot-

A muzzle flash and bang. I don't know which way the shot was-

A second muzzle flash and crack, this time from a smaller weapon and obviously too far away to be held by the same pony, unicorn or not! He had a helper!

I jerked to the side in the air and pointed my pistol at the first spot before unloading the magazine. Fragments of asphalt flew as the bullets landed roughly everywhere but where I was aiming, but I caught an image of a dark colored pony flickering from dust and rocks impacting him. I grasped for another magazine and fought to do anything but stay in one spot. There was no way I'd reload and-

Rhythmic thumps from Amy's rifle interrupted my train of thought, and three bullets punching holes in his body interrupted the pony's spell. The black stallion, now plainly visible, stumbled backward and collapsed with a drawn out pained whinny as he dropped the lever action rifle previously held in his magic.

“Nice work, Kaz,” Amy said before diving down toward him.

“Wait, there's another one!” I shouted as I gave chase. Amy had just managed to grab the pony's rifle when I landed atop her, grabbed her armor and heaved both of us over toward the nearest side street.

Amy shrugged me off and wheeled on me. “What the hell are you doing?”

“There's another pony! Invisible! I-I saw a second muzzle flash, probably a pistol.”

“What? But the slavers said they were just after one.”

I shrugged. “If they can turn invisible who knows how many have slipped out unnoticed.”

Amy shoved the rifle into my claws. “Well, here. You need something better than that pistol anyway.” She turned a small glower back toward the road. “So… what now...”

About that time, the unidentified flying objects I spotted earlier dropped down into the street. Two other Talons, a green feathered griffon with a chipped beak and a snowy griffoness with light spots, approached the dying pony with their rifles drawn. The griffoness looked our way with a puzzled expression.

“Get out of the open!” I shouted to them. I expected another conveniently and deadly timed shot to go off at any moment and drop one of them right in front of me, but my guts were twisted up in knots for nothing. Both flew over without asking questions, leaving the little corner of the bakery we were positioned at quite crowded.

“What's going on?” the green one asked.

Amy grunted. “Escaped Bloodletters. We got one but there's another on the loose. They're unicorns that can turn… wait, Valerie?”

The white griffoness's eyes widened. “Amy?”

Under other circumstances I might have felt bad for not recognizing Amy's sister, but I'd only seen her one other time to my knowledge, several years prior, and it wasn't like she recognized either of us at first either. Both griffonesses grinned like giddy children but stopped short of giving each other a hug. Whether or not that was because green griffon and I were present, or because of the risk of someone getting shot, I couldn't tell.

I cleared my throat. “Uh… yeah, like she was saying, there's an invisible unicorn nearby. Whoever they are, I saw them take a shot at someone just now.”

Green griffon held up a piece of electronics in his claw and spun in a slow circle. An EFS tracker! “Guess that explains the contact I saw. Just figured it was the pony sprawled out on the ground over there. Looks like he's still kicking, by the way. I don't see anything else hostile on the scanner.”

Amy gave me a dirty look. “Are you sure you saw someone else?”

Well, now she had me doubting myself, but not enough for me to risk getting shot by stepping back out into the street just like that. “Yeah, I'm sure.”

Valerie peered at her partner's scanner and looked up. “Come on, let's make a quick circle. The scanner's range is pretty bad at the street level.” She jumped into the air with her friend. Amy followed.

“Stay close to the rooftops,” I warned as I joined them. I'd been shot enough times for one day, and really didn't count on my luck to hold up to make the next one bounce off of my armor.

“Got it,” green griffon replied as he took the lead, EFS tracker held out in one claw.

We made a quick dash down the street, bouncing from rooftop to rooftop as I suggested, but nothing else appeared on his scanner so we started a circling sweep. Just when I thought I was crazy and imagined the second gunshot, green griffon signaled for all of us to dive after him onto the roof of a dilapidated office tower that creaked ominously under our weight.

“Got something,” he said, holding the scanner up so we could all get a look. Sure enough, a fuzzy red dot was visible beneath us, moving slowly around what I guessed was the perimeter of the building. “So, ideas?” he asked.

Valerie crept over to the edge and glanced down. My stomach knotted up again at the possibility of the pony snapping off a shot into her skull while I watched. The red indicator on the EFS tracker stopped dead in its tracks. My heart thundered in my chest and I eyed her tail. If I snatched her away from the edge it might not be too-

“They went inside,” Valerie muttered as she retreated back from the edge.

“Uh huh,” green griffon said as he watched the screen.

Amy pointed a thumb at the rusted through fire escape on the wall behind us. “Let's head in from up here and take them by surprise.”

Valerie nodded. “Sounds good to me. Klaus, take the lead.”

“Didn't see that coming,” he quipped as he did as instructed.

There was no way to take the fire escape without making noise. Even in its prime, the thin metal construction would clatter under our weight, but especially now the rusted through mess would rattle enough to wake the dead. So we all flew off the roof instead before making a tight circle to loop back around to the first open window we could find. All had shattered centuries ago, but it still took a minute to find one that wasn't encrusted with enough shards of glass to make being shot look preferable, and we didn't want to risk making too much noise bashing out broken glass just to get inside.

Naturally, it became entirely irrelevant as soon as we got inside. The floor creaked under each step, and for a moment I wondered if we'd have been better off just jumping up and down on the roof until the whole thing collapsed on the pony inside. Said pony was probably heading for the hills already. What I'd have given for a second EFS tracker so someone could watch the front door…

Valerie's partner kept us moving forward while he kept glued to his tracker. Everyone knew we'd lost the element of surprise, so we stormed ahead on our descent. We hopped down the stairwell, gliding as far as we could on each hop to reduce the thunder of paws and claws on concrete. At the base of the stairs, Klaus held us up with a claw and signaled the position of the pony on his tracker. Too bad it didn't make a lot of sense with at least one wall in the way.

We slipped out into the hallway, with Klaus and Valerie at the lead, and prowled along, keeping low to the blackened and scorched carpet. The floor continued to creak and groan under our steps, but I did my best to pick out any sounds coming from ahead. The pony had to still be in the building, but he or she was being awfully quiet. I guess if I knew four Talons were out for me I would be too.

After rounding a corner and picking our way over a pile of debris from the floor above blocking the hallway, Klaus led us to a closed and locked office. He held the tracker up for all of us to see the fuzzy red dot inside, and we were all presented with a particularly crappy situation. An interior room with a single entrance, and a pony with nothing to lose the moment we forced the door open. Whoever was first was going to almost certainly take a hit, and retaliating against an invisible target was going to mean probably more than one of us.

I'd have given a lot to have a grenade right then.

Nobody seemed to be eager to volunteer to be first and while I wouldn't mind waiting around all day for the pony to come out, I had the feeling that Captain Stern or Lieutenant Bl-

A muffled crunch sounded from the room. Then another.

“They're breaking through the wall,” Amy stressed. Another crunch and the sound of debris crumbling sounded. “Come on!”

Before anyone could object or offer a better plan, she whirled around and smashed the moldy wooden door near the handle to force it open. She rolled around the jamb, followed immediately by her sister. The first shots were from their rifles, but even over the ringing in my ears I heard something smaller caliber open up after them. Various female voices yelped and shouted.

Klaus was already on his way through, so I worked the action on my new rifle to make sure it had a round chambered and fell in behind him.

Everything went to hell the instant I passed the door frame.

Amy was on the floor, coughing and trying to push herself up. A bullet punched a hole in the wall to my side. Valerie was pouring shots into a desk that was surprisingly pristine aside from the new holes, and was threatening to vault over it until the shadowy mare behind it jumped up and emptied two shots straight into her chest.

My blood froze in my veins as Valerie lost her grip on her rifle and collapsed onto the desk. Klaus and I both raised our weapons. The unicorn's pistol floated up past the desk and pointed at Valerie's head…

Three or four bangs went off almost at once. The pistol jerked to the side as a bullet slammed into it and the magic holding it up collapsed. Another section of drywall next to me exploded. A chunk of the desk disappeared as a bullet smashed into it. The mare coughed and wheezed, and her hooves scraped against the ground.

Klaus and I approached the desk from each side, but as soon as I saw the pony I left it to him to finish the job. She had at least five profusely bleeding holes punched in her body, so I knew she wasn't getting back up or grabbing the pistol again. If it even worked now.

Instead, I pulled Valerie off of the desk and laid her on her back so I could check her wounds. She was still conscious but struggling to breathe. Her eyes were wide and each breath was a sucking, raspy gasp that wasn't doing anything to thaw the ice in my veins. I quickly scanned her breastplate and saw where the first bullet disintegrated against the armor and obliterated the painted Talon claw symbol, but also saw a gouge between the plates that worried me.

Amy spluttered and finished getting to her feet. “Valerie!” She coughed hard. “What happened? Do something!”

“I'm trying,” I insisted, holding a claw up to keep her from crowding me. As much as Valerie was squirming under me I knew she had to be panicked, in serious pain or both, but I managed to undo the clasps on her armor and remove the metal plate.

Valerie coughed and clenched her claws as I pulled it away to reveal a hole in her chest. Blood dampened and darkened her white feathers, but I didn't see any on the back half of her armor as I slid it from beneath her. The bullet must not have penetrated completely.

I had a few options, and par for the course, none of them were great. Unless her aorta had been hit, and the fact she wasn't gushing blood told me it hadn't been, she'd survive us flying her to the clinic for emergency surgery. That would save potions, but be very agitating to everyone present. Instead, I could give her my super restoration potion, which would destroy the foreign object and heal the wound, good as new, but those didn't exactly grow on trees. If I used a regular healing potion, it would probably seal the bullet in her chest cavity, and very likely inside of her lung. She'd be fine, but it might take more than one potion, and again would probably agitate everyone present if it didn't work the first time.

“Stop staring and do something!” Amy shouted.

“Let him work!” Klaus shouted back.

The urge to shoot her a dirty look was intense, but I kept my cool and dug out the faintly glowing purple vial of restoration potion. They didn't grow on trees, but what was the worst that could happen? I'd get discharged for wasting medical supplies? Count me in.

“Try to hold still, this is going to sting,” I instructed my patient as I poured half of the potion into the bullet wound. I offered the rest for her to drink, which she sucked down.

The coughing spasm that followed put the previous fits to shame. For a full minute she hacked up clotted blood, spittle and foamy remains of the potion in her lung as it boiled away into the magical ingredients it was comprised of. Finally, after it all settled, she pushed herself up into a seated position and took a few deep breaths.

“Thanks...” she finally managed, patting my claw.

Amy pushed me out of the way before I could respond and crouched next to her. “Are you okay? Can you breathe? Wait, let me check-”

Valerie coughed one last time and kept her at bay with an extended claw. “I'm fine. I think.”

I packed the empty vial into my medical kit and explained, “Yeah, you should be. I used the strongest potion I had with me. Give it a few minutes and you'll feel better than new.”

The white griffoness groaned and grabbed her armor to strap it back on. “I'll let you know when that happens. Did you get the pony?”

Klaus peered around the desk and held his rifle up. Another bang sounded. “Uh huh.”

“Good. Get her out here. I'm sure the slavers are going to want the body back as proof. Or something.” She winced and reached for her rifle.

Klaus returned, dragging the dead pony by one of her rear hooves. “If we're done here, we should get going. And ladies, if I can make a suggestion? Maybe next time, we shouldn't rush blindly into a fortified position.”

“Sorry,” Amy mumbled. She flicked her eyes toward Valerie. “I didn't want to risk the pony getting away.”

Her sister stretched and tested her joints. No more wincing. “And I didn't want to risk losing you. Klaus is right. We could have picked her up later on EFS, somewhere safer to engage.”

Amy didn't say anything that time, and just nodded quietly.

The whole ordeal was starting to feel very uncomfortable, so I strapped my gear back on and started for the door. “Everyone made it out. That's what matters. Let's get going and get on with our lives.”

“Yeah. Okay,” Amy muttered.

Turning the body over to the slavers was a mercifully short exchange, taking maybe a minute. They informed us, at my questioning, that their comrade from earlier wasn't dead and had been dragged off to the nearest hospital for the slaves and slavers, but she was pretty bad off from a bullet to the throat. I didn't want to get any more attached to the mare's outcome, so I decided not to pursue the questioning or follow up later. With that and a small description of the events in the office building, the slavers took their dead “worker” with them and trundled off back to the mall. They didn't even say thank you.

Valerie and Klaus didn't hang around for much longer either. As she told us, they had a patrol to get back to and would need to debrief their sergeant soon on what happened. Amy didn't seem to be in much of a talking mood at that point, so after she told Valerie goodbye, the white griffoness and her partner took off and vanished among the low hanging clouds of smog.

“Guess we should get going too,” I told my own partner.

Amy nodded weakly. “Yeah. Yeah, just… give me a second, okay?” She rubbed at her chest with her free claw and took a deep breath.

“Oh, right, you were hit too, weren't you? Maybe I should take a look.” The dings in her breast plate were pretty shallow, but I knew from experience just a few minutes earlier that just because a bullet didn't penetrate didn't mean that it couldn't hurt like a righteous bitch.

“No, no. It's fine. Just bruised I think.” She took another deep breath. “I just-just need a minute. Okay?”

In truth, a minute to collect myself wouldn't be unwelcome, but a growing sense of anxiety welled up within me as we stood by the office building's doorway without saying or doing anything. I wasn't really afraid of a third invisible pony lurking nearby. It was more a combination of processing the last few minutes, coupled with a fear that someone important was going to stumble across us appearing to goof off and report it.

A stifling hot breeze rolled by, carrying scattered scraps of burnt and decaying paper. Standing around in Fillydelphia was getting uncomfortable for more than one reason, and I really wanted to get moving. I leaned in again and asked, “You sure you're okay?”

She glowered, but didn't snap like I expected. “Maybe we should wait inside,” she muttered before getting up and taking a few uneasy steps in that direction.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. We'd both been in firefights before, and she'd never let it get to her before, at least in any obvious fashion. Even when Serge and Lita were hammered by that Steel Ranger and by all rights should have died, she never let it get to her. Maybe taking a few hits had her shaken. I was pretty sure as soon as I had time to sit down and think I'd be a little jittery from what happened earlier. My back and side still throbbed, and that wasn't likely to go away in the next few days. Or, maybe...

“Is this about Valerie? Listen, she'll be fine.”

Amy spun around and held a talon up, all but touching the tip of my beak. “You can't tell anyone else about this, okay?”

Whoa, what? I blinked and tilted my head. “Ooookay.”

She set her rifle down and removed her helmet before starting to pace. “I-I've never been in this situation before, okay? Y-you can't tell the others I just rushed that mare like an idiot, or how I'm choking right now. You got it?”

“Wait, wait, slow down. What are you talking about?”

Amy looked off through the wall back toward where we'd cornered the slave. “I-I've never, I-I mean this is the first time I've been put through something like this. It happens. I panicked, and people make mistakes when they panic.”

“Yeah? Amy, you're not making sense. What do you mean about choking?”

She spun around again to face me and made some obscure gesture to the floor. “You're a medic. Have you ever been standing over your sister? Thinking she might be dying but don't know what to do? This is kind of hard to just take in. I-I'm too shaky to fly. But you can't tell the others. They-they'll think I'm... I mean I am kind of losing it here!”

Amy was afraid I'd tell the rest of the squad that she was shaken up by watching her sister take a bullet to the lung? Because they'd think she was what, weak? They'd probably think she was bonkers if she didn't have a profoundly negative reaction to that!

I held up both claws and waved for her to sit still. “Amy, relax! Nobody's going to think anything bad about you for being upset at Valerie being hurt. Would you think I was a bad soldier if I had a bad reaction to something like that? “ Okay, maybe I shouldn't ask that, so I moved on to another example. “Or Serge? Or Lita? Hell, don't you remember Isaac almost strangling me that time I got Leigh hurt with that turret in the stable? That's pretty normal when you're attached to somebody.”

She paused as if honestly considering an alternative. “Y-yeah, well, you can't choke like this in a battle. That's how more people get killed.”

I waved a claw over the dusty, burnt out room we were sitting in. “We're not in a battle right now. Adrenaline counts for a lot, but when you come crashing down off of it anyone can get the shakes. Are you afraid that Valerie would think less of you for being concerned about her or something?”

“No!” She ran her claw through her feathers and went back to pacing. “I-it's just that I really feel like an idiot here. I spent years training for this as a kid. Spent years here in Fillydelphia actually doing it, and it could have all been over-” She snapped a talon. “-like that. Because I was trying not to... not...”

“Trying not to what?” I asked, trying to coax the rest out of her.

She looked aside. “Trying not to look like I didn't know what I was doing. Because for a moment there, I didn't. I trained for perfection, not... not this.”

Never let it be said that I envied anyone for growing up in a Talon base and being conditioned for a life of impossible expectations.

I made a tiny, hopefully disarming smile. “Nobody's perfect. Get on my level here, I've been here for almost six years and I still screw up almost as much as I get things right. Then again, maybe the others talk shit about me when I'm not around, but at least they put up with me.”

Amy glanced up at me. “They don't. Uh, talk shit, I mean. Or don't do it around me anyway.”

For a moment I assumed she was just sparing my feelings, but that seemed less likely than the others honestly not talking about me.

“And do you think they'd think less of you than me?”

Her tail twitched and she stared through the floor. “No. I, uh, I mean I guess you're right.”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Right. Now, if you need a minute to calm down? Please, by all means. I could use one too. And I won't tell anyone if you don't. Okay?”

Amy nodded with a small sigh. “Okay. Thanks.” She cocked a little frown and scratched her armored shoulder. “...for everything. Valerie really could have died if you weren't here.”

“All part of the job,” I assured her. Though really, even the thickest person could hand someone a potion.

She looked like she wanted to say something else, but never quite managed it. Clearly, she'd been through a lot emotionally just now, so I didn't want to press it. Instead, we just sat in silence, save the whipping of wind outside, until both of us were good and ready to head back out.

The rest of the patrol went by without incident, but after I returned to our barracks and debriefed Serge on what transpired, I had one errand left to run. Lita told me it was a waste of time, and even Serge didn't think it was important, but I didn't want to take any chances with keeping the slavers' rifle. None of them knew I had it, but sure enough, if I kept it I was sure that someone would come looking for it, and then I'd have a lot of explaining to do.

So, without further ceremony, I flew off to the armory to drop it off with whoever was there. Once it was out of my claws, it was no longer my problem.

To my surprise, the armory was abuzz with activity visible from the air, with young griffons lugging crates of some kind from a sky cart into the back. At least half a dozen armed Talons patrolled the skies or watched from perches on the roof. Two of them had rifles almost as long as they were in their claws. I was almost afraid to head inside at this point, but figured if I turned around I'd only attract attention for suspicious behavior.

The lobby of the armory was surprisingly empty despite it, containing only a single griffoness with a solid black coat and feathers. Hey, maybe it wasn't too late-

Heidi cast a glance back to me before finishing the conversation she was having with Otto. On her way to the exit she passed near and stopped next to me. “Private Longtalons, what brings you here?”

I held the rifle up toward her. “I, uh, found this weapon earlier and was turning it over to Sergeant Bladewind. I believe it belongs to the slavers from the mall.”

She cocked her head. “And how did you come across it?”

“There was an incident earlier. Two slaves escaped from the mall. A band of slavers tracking them enlisted Amalia and me to help track them down.

“I see. And the rifle?”

I considered how to relate the rest of the story, namely in a way that didn't cover me burning through two healing potions in the process. “We tracked the ponies down and dispatched them. One of them had the rifle.”

Heidi raised an eyebrow and gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “Very good. Turn it in and head back to your quarters when you're finished.”

“Yes ma'am.”

I scurried ahead and managed to catch Otto as the younger griffon was moving between racks of weapons in the back. He was almost as tall as me now, and ran the armory almost full time these days, so I didn't feel bad leaving it with him.

He trotted up to the window with a visibly weary expression. “Yes, sir?”

I showed him the rifle and explained the situation. “Should I give this to you or Sergeant Bladewind?”

Otto cocked a frown and scratched his head. “I don't know… we're super busy right now, so can you bring it back some other time?”

Huh? How hard was it to take a banged up lever action rifle that was halfway empty and stick it on a shelf somewhere? “I, uh, I guess I can, but the lieutenant seemed to think this was what I should do.”

“I'd have to get Sam to figure out what we're supposed to do with scavenged weapons like that, and he's busier than me.” He made a nervous grin. “I'd rather not piss him off right now, okay?”

So this really was going to be that hard? “Uh, okay. So, what should I just keep it for now?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, it'll be fine. Not like we're missing anything and we've never had the slavers come looking for missing equipment. I'm not sure they even can.”

The thought hadn't crossed my mind, but now that he mentioned it, I'd never seen any of them in the base before. The minefield that kept sneaky slaves out worked just as well for them, except they presumably knew it as there.

Otto pointed at the rifle. “We don't have anywhere in inventory for it anyway. What's it take, .357? .44? We probably don't even have the ammo for it. Mostly keep 10x20mm and 7.62x39mm. It would just be taking up space. So, yeah, just keep it.”

Truth be told, having subsisted on a damned pistol for almost six years had really sucked on more than one occasion, so having a proper weapon again would be nice. Too bad about the lack of ammo, but maybe I'd find more the next time I got into a shootout.

As I stowed it, I said, “Okay, taking your word for it. Say, if you don't mind me asking, what's with all of the activity out back?”

Otto scratched the back of his head. “Sorry sir, I'm not really supposed to say. There's going to be some new drills coming up soon. That's all I can tell you.”

Huh, okay. Was Talon Company issuing new equipment of some kind? It would be a little funny if they were handing out new rifles of some kind right as I got this one, but Otto refused to elaborate in any way.

In any case, I did everything I could to give the gun away and he wouldn't take it, so my conscience was clean, right? I headed back to the barracks with my newly looted weapon in tow, wondering what was waiting for us over the next few days.

But first, I probably needed to go pick up replacement potions at the clinic. I might need them...

Level Up - Level 12!

Knight in Shining Armor – Gain +4 DT per rank while wearing heavy armor.

Chapter 22: Crossed Paths

Chapter 22

Crossed Paths

To my surprise, it took almost two weeks for the new drills Otto promised to materialize, which was more than enough time for wild mass guessing to spread among the ranks about what we were going to be given. The rumor mill churned out possibilities ranging from the insane, such as powered armor being issued to veterans, to the somewhat believable, such as MEWs being issued to specialist teams, to the mundane, such as everyone being issued newer and better guns or armor. My bet was on it being something like that.

The drills started out very familiar, with Serge dragging us off to the gun range a few hours after I'd flopped down on my cot to try and get some sleep for what he described as the same marksmanship drills we'd done twice a year since I started in the city. The only thing unusual was how crowded the armory range was.

Even before we landed I might have guessed that half of the city garrison was present, and the abundance of griffons I barely recognized confirmed that a lot of second platoon was there. If one thing was consistent in Fillydelphia's Talon Company, it was bad scheduling, so someone must have mucked things up and the last round of drills hadn't ended yet.

We passed the giant grinning Pinkie Pie sign on our way in, whose front teeth had been shot out by high caliber rounds of some kind, and found an out of the way spot to park ourselves until space opened up for us.

“Hey, get a look at this,” Lita muttered, pointing a thumb over to one of the closer firing ranges.

A single purple griffon stood with a rifle held up in perfect form. He was covered in armor that reminded me a lot of Amy when she first joined our squad, before she got too sick of lugging around the heavier and hotter parts, but by now I'd recognize Egon under any circumstances. He snapped off ten shots that slapped holes in the pony painted onto the board ahead of him, grouped nicely in the chest.

“What do you think that's about? Never seen him hold a gun before today.” Lita yawned and rubbed her eyes. “Maybe times are getting desperate. After that last deployment that wouldn't surprise me.”

Lieutenant Blackfeathers strode forward to examine his work from his side, and nodded approvingly. The smaller purple griffon removed the magazine from the rifle, verified that the chamber was clear, and handed the weapon over to the next griffon in line. As he turned to trot back our way, he failed to contain a giddy little grin.

“Nice shooting, kid,” Lita quipped as he passed by.

“Thank you, Private Galeforce,” he quipped back without stopping.

“Huh, squirt remembers my name.” Not that he was much of a squirt compared to us anymore, coming in at close to her height. “Not sure if I should be flattered or what,” she added as she took her rifle in claw and got in line.

Our squad ended up split into a couple of lines, and I ended up going up to bat at the same time as her. As usual, holding a rifle for the drill felt strange after having just a pistol for most of my time in the city, but at least this time I could take some solace in the thought that the test of my accuracy here might actually have some correlation in the field next time since I had a rifle now. A lever action with different ballistics than the one I'd been given, but closer than a pistol by a long shot.

I did my best to focus on the blue pegasus mare painted on the target board ahead of me, and emptied the magazine I'd been given for the drill. To my mild surprise, despite the weariness in my claws I hit with all ten shots, and with decent grouping too. I didn't expect much from Heidi's assessment.

“Well done, private, although if I may make a suggestion?” she asked when she stopped next to me.

“Uh… course. Of course, I mean.”

“Try for center of mass shots, next time. Real pegasi don't sit still.”

Huh? I glanced back to the target, and sure enough, I'd landed one shot in the fake mare's eye instead of her chest where I should have been aiming. Oops.

“Yes ma'am.”

She left me to go speak with Carmelita, who had evidently done a less than stellar job. Lita had complained to me a few times since the robotics facility that she had chronic chest and back pain, which was very likely related to having a bullet the size of her thumb rammed through her body, but there was little that I could do other than give her consumer grade pain medication. I wanted to linger and see if that was what was wrong here, but Serge was up behind me, so I had to make room and head back to the waiting area, where I found Amy talking to a familiar white griffoness with a black beak and gray spots.

Valerie gave a little wave as I got close. “Hey, Kaz, long time no see.”

Two weeks sometimes felt like ages in this forsaken city. “Oh, hey, Valerie. Yeah, it's been a little while. I kept meaning to follow up with you and make sure everything came out okay.” I did my best to stifle a yawn. “Hasn't really been a free moment.”

She groaned and nodded. “We've been on double patrols ever since the last escapees. Nobody else has gotten out that I know of. Anyway, I feel fine. Not even sore anymore.”

Given the restoration potion I'd used, I'd have been surprised and alarmed at anything else. I neglected to mention that my back still ached every morning when I got up and that I'd peed blood for two days after the hit I'd taken, partly because it was definitely more information than she wanted or needed, and because I realized she didn't even know I'd been hit before she showed up.

“Good, that's what I like to hear.” Her presence did remind me of something though, so I asked, “Is all of second platoon here? I don't guess you've seen my sister?”

She scanned the gun range. “She was here, but I don't-oh, wait, there she is.” She indicated a group of griffons smoking near the armory building, where I picked out a deep yellow griffon that looked an awful lot like Alfred, who I knew was in her squad.

I excused myself so the two could go back to getting caught up, hopefully with a little less chaos and awkwardness than last time. Halfway over to the armory I realized that I probably shouldn't have split off from my squad without permission, but Serge didn't try to stop me, and there was no sign of Heidi so I pressed on.

Alfred was the first to notice me. Surprisingly for someone seemingly consumed by addiction, if his alcohol consumption was any indication, he seemed to be the only member of the squad who wasn't smoking. “Hey, Liese, Dr. Longtalons is here. Must want to talk to you.”

She coughed and thumped her cigarette butt off into the mud somewhere as she turned to face me. “Kaz? I didn't know your platoon was here too.” She sized me up. “What's wrong?”

“Huh? Nothing, I just wanted to check up on you.”

She made a little smirk. “I'm touched, Kaz. Checking up on me? What, are you worried about me?”

Well, a smirk and dismissive humor was a good sign. She definitely sounded more like her old self, but to save face I pointed lamely at the crowd behind me still lining up to fill cardboard ponies full of holes. “I meant just catch up, since we were both here and everything. Never know when that'll happen again. So, uh, how have you been? Sprain doing better?” How long ago had that been now? About three weeks?

She flexed all of her joints. “Fine. Only problem I've got now is being up to smoking a pack a day because of the damn Bloodletters. Between the extra patrol hours and expecting a revolt any day it's all I can do to keep my trigger finger from getting too twitchy. I'm just looking for a reason to put a bullet between Brimstone's eyes. Red Eye or Protege be damned.” She huffed. “You? I hope the rest of the city has been less crazy.”

What, was this all some pet project of Red Eye's protege? I'd have to inquire about that later.

“Mostly, but I actually helped catch those two runaways the other week.” Which was plenty stressful, mind you.

Liese's eyes flew open. “That was you? Damn, why didn't anybody tell me?” She gave me a little punch on the shoulder, but I was lucky enough to be wearing my armor for the drills. “You're really growing up. You'll have to give me your side of the story. All I heard was that a few ponies got shot and the runaways got an express ticket to the dump incinerator.”

I recounted the story, filling her in on the parts before Valerie got there and glossing over Amy's poorly thought out assault on the raider mare. Both because I swore not to and because telling Liese would have had it spread through second platoon within a week.

Liese snorted and crossed her arms. “I didn't hear about Valerie getting wounded like that. Jeez, I wonder if Gunther even knows. She got off easy in the attack on Brimstone but everyone gets it eventually I guess. Also sounds like she got lucky you were there. And I'll tell you something else, it's a good thing we're having these drills now. Sounds like half of the company doesn't know how to do urban combat to save their lives, literally.”

So there was more coming up than just marksmanship drills? “Not going to lie, I wouldn't mind some training on that. I get the feeling that's not the last time I'll be facing a runaway with a gun hemmed up in a room with no easy entry. That, uh, reminds me of something else though. You haven't heard anything about any other unusual training coming up today, have you?”

She shrugged. “You mean about the rumors that have been circulating? Nope, no clue. Guess we'll find out soon though. Might be literally nothing. Who even knows anymore?”

Certainly not me. I chatted with her a minute more before her sergeant pulled her squad away to head on to the rest of the exercises, at which point I returned to my own squad.

I felt like there was a lot more I could or should have said, but it escaped me at the time. At least I felt better knowing that she was kind of back to her old self.

The rest of the drills went by without much fanfare. We flew in formation for a while, practiced breaching doors and clearing rooms in a mock combat environment set up in a mostly intact bank building, and for good measure crawled and flew through an obstacle course that got a lot of questionable muddy material encrusted in my coat and plumage, but everyone came out with satisfactory results.

Well, that is, except for the final drill, where I finally found out what all of the hush-hush from Otto had been about.

Apparently at some point in the last six months, Red Eye had gotten a Ministry of War factory back online that produced shells for grenades and rockets, and after working out the alchemical formula for a suitable filling agent, full scale production had ramped up for them. No rocket launchers for us, but everyone in our squad was being issued two grenades apiece, and we had to be taught to use them.

Everyone else in the squad had been trained or otherwise used them before from old stock issued years ago, but I had not, and I wasn't about to dismiss throwing an explosive apple as so simple that I didn't need to pay attention to what I was doing.

We transferred alongside two other squads to the blasted remains of a prewar ball field some distance from the armory, which was now freshly churned up by what I guessed was the previous platoon going through their exercises, and formed up in one of the dugouts formerly used by sports teams from a long gone era. In a particularly rare sight, the heavily scarred quartermaster Sam was waiting on us.

“Grenade's real simple. You all know how it works. Even those of you who were civvies once know how it works.” He held up a metallic apple, as high as he could with his healed over injuries, and pulled the pin out at the top. “Pull the pin. When you let go of the leaf on the top, you've got four seconds until kaboom. You want the enemy to be sitting on it when that happens. Some of you might think you're fancy and smart and will think about holding it for a second before throwing it so unicorns don't try to throw it back. Let me tell you, from personal experience. Don't.”

Yeesh. Was that where the scars came from?

He put the dud back onto his grenade belt and led my squad up to a cinder block wall out on the field, which looked a little too disheveled for my tastes. “We're gonna start with duds. Pull the pin and toss it over the wall. Otto here will demonstrate. Once we've got this down we'll move on to bombing practice.”

The comparatively pristine griffon to his side took Sam's grenade and demonstrated the proper throwing technique. There was an unspoken command to do it just like him so we didn't throw too far or too short, which I tried to study as best I could.

Practicing with the inactive grenades took much longer than I expected, but passed uneventfully. We tossed them over the wall like Otto, practiced tossing them through windows on fake walls hastily erected on the field, and finally moved on to practicing dropping them on targets from the air in bombing runs. To my surprise, I wasn't half bad at it, and never missed the mark enough for Sam to feel the need to correct me. The rest of the squad did just as well, although Serge seemed to be a little slow on the release with his cybernetic claw.

We moved on to live fire exercises after that, and were each given two grenades. Given the risks of catastrophic mishaps now, we were instructed to throw one live grenade over the barricade, and to drop one on a two meter wide ditch on the far side of the field set aside specifically for that purpose. No throwing through windows since if we messed that up, somebody might end up dead. Everyone but the one practicing was hunkered down in the dugout, safe from any fragmentation or spallation.

As before, my technique was surprisingly good, and my throw over the barricade landed where I guessed it should have. The bang wasn't as loud as I expected, probably because I had my ears covered, but nevertheless I gained an appreciation for the casualty radius when I heard the fragments pinging off of the barricade and kicking dust off of its facade.

The bombing run was altogether more nerve wracking, since I had no barricade to protect me this time if I wasn't high enough or missed my target. I began my approach exactly like we did before and started across the ball field at an angle that kept the roof of the dugout the others were hiding in between me and them, keeping my altitude level at about three stories up. The target ditch was clear enough, and I lined it up in my sights. Per Sam's suggestion, if you kept the target in the center of your vision, you'd subconsciously steer yourself to put the grenade on target. The ditch was right ahead, and I had two seconds before I needed to release the leaf and start the fuse. If the grenade landed in the ditch, by the time it went off I'd be at such an angle that none of the fragments would fly anywhere near me.

I pulled the pin with the expectation of holding the trigger leaf until I released the grenade, but no plan survives first contact with a live fire training exercise.

The leaf sprang loose immediately and shot out of my grip. 'Four seconds until kaboom.'

I realized what had happened. Three seconds until kaboom.

A searing sensation shot through my claw as the fuse burned inside and heated the metallic shell on its way to the alchemical explosive agent. Two seconds until kaboom.

In a flash of panic, I hurled the grenade in the first direction my elbow bent, which sent it sailing backward in a short arc. My heart stopped. One second until kaboom.

The grenade hadn't even reached the ground when it went off. I threw up a claw defensively to protect my face the instant it detonated, and not a moment too soon. A white-hot stabbing sensation shot through my leg as a half dozen more fragments slapped into my breastplate and pelted my wings.

I didn't have time to dwell on how badly I'd been hurt and immediately dove toward the ground to see if my stupidity had gotten anyone else hurt or killed. The grenade was pretty far from the dugout, but up in the air the fragments might have made it inside…

“Who the fuck thought giving Longtalons grenades was a good idea!?” a male voice shouted. Nobody in my squad at least. Sounded like… pinfeathers, I couldn't remember his name. Something Blackclaws I think. Came to the clinic with diarrhea once like a year ago.

Sam crawled out and up to the ground level. “Private Longtalons… I think I'm starting to remember you.”

I chanced a glance over to where the grenade went off, but there was little evidence of anything at this point. All I could do was land and take the whipping that was coming...

“You're the fella that broke his gun by dropping it, right? And didn't I hear something about you tearing up a perfectly good suit of armor landing next to a pack of hellhounds?”

“Yes, sergeant,” I answered meekly as I examined my wings. There was at least one spot where a fragment tore through completely, but it surprisingly only stung a little. My foreleg was oozing blood from a much nastier cut, but it looked like the fragment didn't embed itself there at least.

“What's the matter, son? Barely a scratch.” He furrowed his scarred brow into a glower. “Now listen. You do understand you can't be having screw ups like that with miniature bombs, don't you? Lieutenant wants me to give everybody two, but… no.” He shook his head. “No, no, no, I don't think so. Now, you want grenades? Come back next time and do it right. Until then, nothing for you.”

“I understand, sergeant,” I replied, forcing myself to look him in the eye but wishing to the high heavens I didn't.

“Good. Now, return to your squad.” He turned back to the dugout. “Next! Private Clawmarks, you're up!”

I didn't linger any longer than necessary, and slunk back down to reunite the others, passing Isaac on the way down but not looking him in the eyes. Bloodfeathers, I'd been here for more than five years and I was still doing my level best to kill people by accident.

Carmelita didn't miss a beat. “Kaz, can I ask you something?”

No. “What?”

“Are you… just cursed or something?”

Cursed Kasimir, that sounded about right. I flopped down next to Amy, still keeping my eyes glued to the floor and said, “Sure seems like it sometimes.”

I pulled off my medical kit and started digging through it for some antiseptic and bandages. Like hell I was wasting a potion on a booboo on my leg. I couldn't wait to hear Heidi chew me out over this, and the last thing I needed was for her to also find out I used up a valuable potion on it.

A gray claw stopped just inside my vision, right next to a silver cybernetic one. “Kaz?”

“Yes, sergeant?”

Serge snapped his organic talons. “Look here.” I looked up. He didn't look mad, but also not particularly sympathetic. Tired. Just tired of my bullshit, I guessed. “When you get done patching yourself up, you're free to return to the barracks if you want to get some sleep. If not, Master Red Eye is making the alcohol brewed by the slaves available to Talon company today, so if you're interested, swing by the mess hall first.”

Lita didn't even give me a chance to respond. “Wait, we're getting free booze today? What's the occasion?”

“I don't know, the lieutenant didn't say,” Serge answered. “Probably supposed to help with morale or something.”

Made as much sense as anything, given the general feeling of lethargy and fatalism pervading the platoon since the Bloodletters were captured, but I wasn't really interested. “Thanks for the offer, but I'm going to sleep.”

Lita scoffed. “You sure? I'm not passing up a chance like this.”

Amy grumbled something and said, “Your sister might be there. I'm hoping Valerie is. Barely had a chance to talk today.”

Everyone else made noises of vague affirmation, which at first only increased my conviction that I wanted nothing to do with it, but after a little nagging I caved.

Fine. I'd get a shot of something, then go be antisocial until I was dragged back out to run another pointless patrol. I was not in a talking mood for many reasons.

To nobody's surprise, the promise of free alcohol meant that the mess hall was swarming with griffons by the time we got there. Enough so that it looked like most were hanging around outside now, lazing around the general vicinity of the train station turned military base in pairs and trios while chatting and laughing about things I couldn't make out. There were a lot of griffons present that I was only passingly familiar with, but despite my best efforts I didn't make anyone out that I knew was from second platoon. No sign of Liese or Valerie, and more importantly, no sign of Alfred.

Ugh. I'd probably be busy in the clinic the next day treating a dozen cases of alcohol poisoning. Or if I felt particularly daring, I could get alcohol poisoning myself and end up in the clinic as a patient, but I was pretty sure Yvonne would beat some sense into me if I made her and Adelaide's jobs harder instead of helping.

The sight of Egon fluttering past on his way back to the lieutenant's office with a bottle of something in his claws put even the joke of that idea to bed in a hurry. As usual, the thought of pissing Heidi off was enough to discourage planning any bad behavior. She probably hadn't even gotten the memo about my fuck up from earlier. Maybe I should get drunk in preparation for the tongue lashing to come.

“Jeez, you really do need a drink,” Lita quipped as she shouldered the door open for all of us.

“Probably,” I muttered. What did that mean? I wasn't even sure.

She shrugged. “Come on and let's see what they have. Ten bits says it's all terrible, but terrible booze is better than no booze.”

I was ready to tell her to speak for herself, but the spectacle inside of the mess hall interrupted my train of thought. It was thoroughly packed, as I expected, but five large drums with taps hammered into them covered the serving bar. Two younger griffons scurried back and forth between them, fetching different drinks for the agonizingly long line coiled around the interior wall.

Was it too late to turn back now-yep, someone got in line behind me. Too late to turn around. Ugh.

I still had no idea what to get, if there truly even was any variety available, so I waited until the rest of my squad ordered to get an idea of what was even acceptable. From the sounds of it, the choices were beer and vodka, the latter of which could be mixed with some ancient fruit punch mix dug up from somewhere, if I felt confident in my stomach's ability to digest it.

“Uh… I don't really know...” I told Agatha, the young griffoness who was waiting to serve me when I got to the head of the line. I heard more than a few irritated groans from behind me.

Amy was still standing nearby, sipping at her beer, and came to my rescue. “Hey, you like coffee, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Get some vodka, then mix some coffee from the barracks into it. It's good, trust me. It's called a Hayly's Cream or something like that. No idea where the name comes from.”

“Okay, but I wanted to sleep after this...”

Someone behind me groaned even more audibly. “Come on, Longtalons...”

Agatha handed me a large cup of clear liquid and grinned nervously. “You can get back in line if you don't like it and want something else.”

“Thanks.” I took the cup and got out of loudmouth's way. “Vodka and coffee it is, I guess.” Around the time I got to the exit, I noticed Amy was trailing me. “Don't see Valerie anywhere?”

She peered over a shorter griffon cutting across us and shook her head. “No… don't see anyone from her squad either. Shoot, I hope they didn't tell second platoon they couldn't meet up here.”

“Wouldn't be surprised,” I muttered. One of the few formative memories I had of my early days in Fillydelphia was running into Lieutenant Strongclaws over in second platoon's base, and he made it pretty clear that we weren't supposed to mingle without permission. “But maybe she's outside.”

She wasn't, and by the time we got back to the barracks, Amy was looking almost as sombre as me. “Damn. I was really hoping to talk to her more. Barely had a chance to talk to her at the range.”

“Sorry, guess you're just stuck with me like usual,” I said.

“I guess,” she muttered.

The two of us had the barracks to ourselves, which wasn't that unusual, but the silence was almost smothering this time. I mixed what was left of the coffee into the vodka, which was about half and half of each and didn't look remotely like the right proportions, and plopped into the chair across from her at the table. I wanted to ask if Valerie made any comment on her poor choice of tactics a couple of weeks ago, but as bitter as I felt I really didn't want to make her feel any worse, and settled on something less intrusive. “Sorry, I know you really were looking forward to talking more. Did you at least get caught up earlier?”

“Kind of, I guess. Hard to condense five and a half years of almost no contact into a few minutes, but we hit the highlights. We saw the robotics plant and she saw the Bloodletters. Probably the highlight of her career, you know?”

I took a sip of my drink and through herculean effort managed to keep a straight face. The coffee was good, but I got the distinct feeling that someone who wasn't used to drinking shouldn't be drinking vodka in this proportion. After giving it plenty of time to settle, I asked, “What's wrong? You're not disappointed that you didn't get to join in the assault, are you? It sounds like odds are one or two of us would've died.”

“I know, I know, but… yeah, I guess I am a little irritated about it. It's like I told you a while back. Back during training, they painted this job like we'd be doing amazing things for the future of Equestria.” She shrugged and gulped more beer down. “Equestria itself never mattered much to me. By most accounts the country doesn't exactly exist anymore. Anyway, yeah, I really wanted to be doing amazing things. Even when we go out in the field, we're usually just patrolling trade routes. Especially now that the Bloodletters are gone, odds are good we won't even see raiders harassing them anymore, and we haven't seen hellhounds or anything like them in years.”

“Almost getting killed by a Steel Ranger wasn't exciting enough for you?” I asked, swirling my drink.

“Okay, yeah, that was more intense than I liked. And I'm sure the encounter with the Bloodletters was just as bad. But it was just one time. The first time we've even gone inside ruins like that in years. I'm not sure they're even still doing stable reclamations.” She snorted. “Almost got killed by a damned slave two weeks ago, so it's not like this isn't dangerous work anyway. It's just dangerous on top of… ugh, I don't know.”

I nodded. “It's boring most of the time, won't argue with that. But… you know, I had someone ask me this recently so I'll ask you. If you're not happy here, why did you re-sign your contract?”

She thought for a moment between sips. “I don't know. I thought about trying to do the private merc thing. I'm sure a former Talon could get work somewhere, right? But… I don't know. Valerie's here and I don't have anyone anywhere else. I don't really have anywhere else to go, and if I did, I doubt it would be much more exciting. Maybe if I could have talked to Valerie before and we coordinated it, we could have both left when our contracts expired and did our own thing.”

I sipped my drink again and did a less stellar job of taking it like a man. After a cough, I asked, “So, what is exciting for you? I figured most people would lose a taste for being shot at after they've been in a few fire fights.”

She frowned and narrowed her eyes. “I don't like being shot at, or shooting people, if that's what you're trying to imply.”

Dammit, why did I even try talking to people? I sucked down another gulp and coughed again. “No, no, I'm serious. I'm just wondering what you'd rather be doing that hanging around in this dump.”

Her expression softened a little. “What I just said, probably. Valerie and I could run our own mercenary band. Lots of competition but...” She trailed off with a sigh. “Who am I kidding? I'd be lost outside of Talon Company. You're lucky. You actually know how to live a normal life.” She smirked a little and pointed at my drink. “Although obviously that doesn't include partying hard.”

I did my best to force a chuckle and coughed again, trying to get the faint spray of vodka that I'd aspirated out of my lungs before it choked me to death. “You got me there. Never really had a taste for it. Don't even smoke anymore.”

She smirked a little more. “And here I thought Sergeant Swiftwing was the Flock Scout in our squad.”

Huh? Oh, right, Lita mentioned something years back about him trying to run a Flock once before he joined Talon Company. I chuckled for real and decided to give my drink a little breathing room for the moment. “Yeah, I guess I'd have been perfect for it. But, uh, you know, the next time we're up for leave, I could take you somewhere if you're interested.”

Amy raised both eyebrows. “Kaz, are you asking me out on a date?”

Pony goddesses, I wasn't that drunk. Yet. “No, no, I'm just saying… if you want to see some of the outside world, I don't mind if you come along next time.”

She clicked her beak a few times and polished off her beer. “You know, why not? Yeah, that could be fun.”

Boy, you'd think after five years she'd know how boring I was, but now I had to think of something really interesting to do. I had a few months, if my timing was right. I was sure I could come up with something better than watching cracked paint chip off of walls.

“Well, all right then, I'll keep that in mind for next time.”

“You do that.” She swirled her empty cup. “Anyway, I'm going to go get another beer and see if I can find Valerie again.”

“Okay, I'm going to take a nap.” I waved her off, and once she was gone, made the mistake of downing the rest of my drink. After a suitable convulsion, I tossed the cup, stripped down and prepared to see what coffee and vodka mixed together would do for my sleep.

As caffeine dependent as I was, I doubted it would keep me awake at any rate.

Despite my promise to Amy, I never got the chance I expected to take her out of Fillydelphia on leave. Due to the extensive manpower shortage, all leave in Talon Company had been suspended for the time being, and that left us with an increasingly tense few months that followed with the occasional report of a slave getting out and breaking something or killing someone without any reprieve.

No more Talons had been shot by escapees, although I happened to be in the clinic one day when a griffon was brought in with multiple rib fractures and fragmentation injuries from a close range explosion. From what I gathered, he'd helped respond to an escapee and used one of those new grenades issued to us to flush said slave out of a building. The only problem was that Private Sharpbeak didn't realize that the rotten remains of said building's walls weren't going to hold back much of the grenade's blast. He got the raider, at least.

Every day seemed to bring more stress and tension. Amy and I were worried every day that we'd hear that Valerie or Liese had been killed or caught up in a similar accident. Talon Company also began to receive some new recruits from outside. Our squad was fortunate enough to not have to deal with them, but I overheard enough grumbling in the mess hall to gather that some of the squads who weren't so lucky were starting to have their nerves worn thin. Apparently, one squad even had newbie so bad she “put Longtalons to shame,” which I had to admit was pretty impressive.

In short, the city felt more and more like a grenade ready to go off with every passing day, and needless to say, I didn't get much sleep. The capstone to it all came about six months after the Bloodletters's capture, when Red Eye scheduled another series of tournaments in The Pit.

To literally nobody's surprise, like half a dozen members of the Bloodletters were going to be participating this time, including Brimstone Blitz himself. There was some murmuring of a zebra too, but if there was a zebra in Fillydelphia I was Princess Celestia.

Given the fighters present, security had been stepped up and two squads were stationed at the ice skating rink turned bloodsport field, not counting Captain Stern. I overheard a few of the newbies talking about how much they hoped their squads got picked to watch. More power to them, but given my luck I knew we'd win the lottery and I'd get stuck watching Brimstone squeeze some pony's guts out like a tube of toothpaste. The only consolation I'd have was that none of the ponies there were there because of me this time.

I nearly fell out of my chair that morning when Serge informed us that we had patrols as normal and that eighth and ninth squads were the lucky winners.

We were instead positioned near The Pit, surely to act as a contingency in the somewhat probable event that something went wrong, but I'd take what I could get.

It would be fine. With that many Talons and armed slavers around, even the Bloodletters wouldn't be so crazy as to try to escape. And even if they did, they'd never make it out of the Pit in the first place with that many armed guards around.

As I expected, the patrol turned out to be mind numbing. The routes had all been adjusted and rerouted to keep us near The Pit, which made the hours tick by at an agonizing pace. You could only look at the same crumbled and burnt out buildings, dilapidated and skeletal roller coaster and attached barn so many times before it all blended into the noise of the city.

The only remotely interesting thing happening was the ever growing gaggle of tipsy and drunk slaves collecting in the streets near it all. From what I'd heard, Red Eye gave the whole city the day off to come watch the massacre, and on top of it all gave out free booze to the slaves. A city packed to the brim with anxiety, tension and now alcohol. Who didn't see a disaster brewing there? Not Red Eye, anyway.

A few scuffles and fights broke out in the streets as the crowds grew, but it never escalated to anything Amy or I felt the need to interfere with. Being drunk might make a pony more likely to throw a kick or a punch, but it also made a pony a lot more likely to stay on the ground after one instead of escalating it into a growing brawl or full scale riot.

That all settled down when Captain Stern's voice boomed over the new speaker system that must have been installed at some point during the last year. She called everyone to order, announced what all would be happening and rattled off names I didn't recognize and didn't want to put to faces. She hyped it up and hammed it up as she announced the first round, as if she were watching a prewar sports match.

From this high up and at this angle it was hard to see any of the activity at the Pit anyway, but I turned my attention in the opposite direction. Amy could watch if she wanted, but I was only going to spot trouble if it started outside of the bloodbath preparing to start.

It was strange not reacting to the sounds of gunfire, screams and general chaos below. Someone died and Stern announced another match. Someone else died. Stern announced another match.

Amy and I were circling around the twisted and blackened remains of a radio tower when the first inclination that something was wrong struck me.

That far out we had no hope of understanding anything anyone was saying amongst the shouting, but the unmistakable report of an anti-materiel rifle discharging could only mean one thing: Stern had shot someone. Maybe one of the fighters insulted Red Eye or something. Amy cast a glance back toward the Pit and slowed in the air ahead of me. Stern fired again.

Everything fell apart in remarkably short order.

Whatever discord was unfolding in the Pit grew louder as hundreds of agitated voices shouted variations of rage and fear. Stern's rifle thundered repeatedly amidst lighter caliber weapons. Ponies began to spill out of the stands and clog the streets, headed for the proverbial hills. Slavers from further out tried to force their way back to the Pit, but with the throngs fighting to head the other way, they weren't making any progress.

“Come on!” Amy shouted as she flared her wings and rushed to get closer.

We were still some distance away, so it took an agonizing amount of time to reach it, during which the gunfire only ceased for a moment. By the time we reached the Pit itself, I was expecting every Bloodletter in the city to be in the middle of a blood orgy, but everything inside looked calm. I spotted a few corpses on the ground, but no sign of who or whatever the captain was shooting at. Speaking of which, Stern was busy bounding over the empty stands to race around and reach Red Eye, no doubt to protect him from whatever unholy mess was unfolding.

“Over there!” Amy shouted to me as we circled the open roof of the Pit. She pointed off to the skeletal remains of the roller coaster rising over the other decrepit buildings in the amusement park we were in. On the tracks were a couple of moving shapes, nearing the top where the coaster's old train cars were now perched and probably rusted in place.

Had two slaves seriously broken out of the Pit just now, made it all the way over there and not been shredded into hamburger by every gun in sight?

I swallowed a lump of apprehension and readied my newish rifle. If Stern was shooting at them that much, they had to be Bloodletters that escaped that couldn't be allowed to get away. I didn't much like my odds of hitting them from here with an unfamiliar weapon, even if it couldn't possibly be as bad as my pistol, but I lined up a shot at the coaster's cars, hoping to pin them in place. The bullet punched a ragged hole through the brittle remains, causing the two to pause for a moment.

We rushed to catch up and intercept them, trading off opportunities to snap off another shot to keep them from advancing. One of my shots missed the mark and actually struck one of the slaves, grazing the mare across the back of the neck and eliciting a sharp cry.

At that moment, two realizations struck me.

One, these didn't look much like Bloodletters. They were smaller mares, naked or in the attire I'd expect from an ordinary wastelander. And two...

I guess I had to find a pink tutu somewhere and call myself Princess Kasimir, because the second one, the one I'd hit earlier, was a zebra!

Amy looked just as shocked as we circled closer. Both appeared unarmed, so apprehending them should be fairly straightforward. I raised my rifle at the little gray unicorn mare and prepared to shout-

A haze of vibrant green flashed and tore at my claws. A deafening bang sounded and everything went white.

I woke up on the ground. I thought. It was hard to tell amidst the pain wracking my body. Whatever I was on, it was soft and twisted under me when I tried to roll over.

My back and wings exploded in pain. I opened my beak to scream, but only a choked gurgle came out. I couldn't breathe! I looked down and saw blood everywhere. It coated my breastplate, ran down my foreleg, coated the tarp I was sprawled on…

Panic set in as I gasped for air but only sucked more blood into my lungs. I tried to reach for my medical kit, but my body wouldn't twist around so I could reach it. I'd fallen from who knew how high. My back was probably broken. If I was aspirating blood, I'd been shot, but I couldn't tell where or how bad.

I couldn't think. Panic mixed with pain mixed with a sense of suffocation all on top of a sense of helplessness robbed me of what little coherence I had left.

Reflexively, I tried to cough and clear my throat, but it only made it worse.

Someone shouted something, but they sounded distant, with their voice warbled and distorted like my ears were submerged. They shouted again. Something pressed against the sides of my head and straightened my neck. I tried to scream again, but again nothing came out. I cracked my eyes but everything was dark and swam around me in an unfocused mass of confusion.

“Kaz! Kaz, wake up! Kaz!”

The sound of something exploding above shattered through the haze. Fragments of petrified wood showered down around me and bounced off of my breastplate. I had just enough time to see a pair of red eyes staring down at me before an overwhelming urge to both cough and vomit struck me at the same time.

I rolled over onto my belly and sprayed the pavement an arm's reach below me with bloody vomit. Violet coils of gently glowing potion boiled away in the puddle, tickling my nostrils and sending me into a coughing fit that threatened to make me black out as I hacked up spatter after spatter of more dark red sputum.

“Kaz!” Amy. It was Amy's voice. “Pinfeathers from hell, I thought I was too late.”

“Fo-fo hwhat?” I croaked, still doing my best to figure out what had happened, where I was and why my throat hurt so much.

“You were shot. I thought you were dead when I got here, but I found the glowing potion from your medical kit and it worked. Same-it was the same one you used on Valerie.”

I wheezed and fought to catch my breath. Everything still spun around me, but it was starting to stabilize. I blinked and forced my eyes to focus, where I saw Amy standing over me, perched up on the canvas tarp covering some kind of booth that I'd landed on. My back still hurt, but I could feel everything and flexing and twisting only ached. Had I landed a meter in any other direction I'd have hit the ground and snapped my neck or back for sure.

Amy shook the empty potion vial in front of my eyes, and I saw her raise a wounded wing with a tiny wince. Blood dripped from a ragged hole through the center of her right wing, and she clearly couldn't fold it up like the other.

“You..'ve been hit too.”

“Don't worry about me, can you get up?”

The answer was yes, but only technically. With Amy's help and a lot of care, I stumbled down the collapsed booth next to the one I'd landed on and to the ground below. I slumped against the nearest wall and worked to catch my breath again. My claw ran up to my throat, and I felt the bullet scar just beneath the feathers, healed by the potion in seconds.

I'd been shot in the throat. Wait, that mare took my gun and shot me with it. If she'd aimed a centimeter closer to the center line I'd have died when it severed my spinal cord. Not even the restoration potion would have helped that in time.

Amy hobbled around to look up at the roller coaster for a moment. She carried her right hindleg off of the ground, and even as she sat so she could aim her rifle up at the tracks she refused to put weight on it.

“What happened to you?” I finally managed to ask.

“That bitch shot me too. Hit me in the wing and I caught my leg on the scaffolding on the way down.” She traced her aim along the tracks. “I saw others going after them. One had a missile launcher so they're dead. Picked a bad time to try to break out of the Pit.”

And yet they managed to do it at all. I grabbed an ordinary healing potion for Amy and offered it to her. “We'll have to get your leg x-rayed, but this will help with the wing.”

She sucked it down. “Can you fly? We should hurry up and rejoin the others.”

I drew my pistol, but shook my head. “I'm going to need a minute here.” Besides, it sounded like someone had it under control, and I think the lieutenant would forgive us for taking a minute after both almost being killed.

It wasn't like two equines were going to escape the city on their own, no matter how resourceful they were.

I never did find out exactly what happened to the escapees. The last I heard, they had been apprehended deep inside of the Ministry of Morale building somewhere. Nobody saw what happened, but Private Updraft, the one Amy saw with the missile launcher, had been killed. Several of Red Eye's guards were killed too, and some of the more insane ramblings said that a giant alicorn from the crater showed up and was also killed.

Nobody was that skilled and lucky. Nobody. The escapees weren't even Bloodletters, from what I'd heard.

But it didn't change that Private Updraft was dead, that I'd nearly been killed and that Amy had a dislocated ankle. There was little to be done for that aside from administering pain killers and reducing the joint.

I knew I'd be hearing rumors about it for weeks afterward, but if the escapees had been caught, I was sure they'd been executed. It was rare for me to feel like that was justified, but this time I thought it might be. I couldn't blame any slave for trying to escape, but that many guards had been wounded and killed, and not all of them deserved it.

I felt a little bitter thinking about the unicorn taking my weapon and shooting people with it. The only consolation I had there was that there wasn't much ammo in it to begin with so she could only do so much damage.

But it didn't matter. They'd been captured and executed, and that would have to be the end of it.

As if we didn't have enough problems in the city like it was.

Gain Experience - For surviving another harrowing battle, gain 3,000 experience points.

Chapter 23: Too Late

Chapter 23

Too Late

As usual, it was hard to keep track of time, but things settled down a tiny bit for a few weeks after the disaster at The Pit. Security was already heightened in Talon Company, but after that fiasco, Red Eye had apparently pulled in more resources from his army to add to the routine patrols in an effort to make a show of force to keep the raiders from getting any ideas. After two small mares escaped The Pit by themselves, I wouldn't have been surprised if the raiders thought we were all a bunch of jokes and tried something, so I was glad for it.

That all changed during a routine briefing from Serge one morning. After giving out the usual patrol assignments, Serge was interrupted by Lita asking, “So, I noticed that Red Eye's minions aren't crawling all over the city today. What's up with that?”

Serge cleared his throat. “Thank you for getting ahead of me. As I was going to inform you all, Red Eye recently came across information leading to a stable nearby. Unopened, from what I gather. Since there's already a Steel Ranger presence nearby, intelligence is concerned that they may try to interfere with the reclamation so he's pulled the extra security forces back to protect it. If the Steel Rangers do try to interfere, we're on standby to assist, but until you'll report to the patrol routes I've already assigned.”

Leigh asked, “The reclamation team is already in place?”

“Yes, but I'm not sure when they left. Talon Company is going to be on standby until we're told otherwise. Depending on how functional the stable's tech is, it may take days to strip everything of value.”

I tried to not to think about what was going to happen to the inhabitants if there were any left, and took a little solace in the fact that there had to be exceedingly few stables left that hadn't been opened that also hadn't had some kind of calamity that killed all of their inhabitants. Not that it discounted the possibility of a pitched battle against powered armored ponies with anti-vehicle weapons, which after the Robronco facility, I was not in a hurry to take part in.

“If the reclamation has already started and the Steel Rangers haven't approached the site yet, what are the odds they'll take interest later?” I asked. Given the kind of technology they had, they had to have surveillance that would have told them what was happening by the time the teams got there.

Serge shrugged. “We don't know.”

“Who knows what the Rangers are ever thinking,” Lita quipped.

Amy tapped her talons on the table. “They could be trying to pull in resources from other chapters. If they had the strength to challenge Red Eye directly they'd have done it by now.”

Serge shrugged again. “That's possible. If intelligence expects it, the lieutenant didn't tell me. Anyway, the last order of business should be a pleasant surprise for you all: we're scheduled for leave next week.”

Lita's eyes widened. “Is this a joke? I thought with the staffing issues we'd never see leave again.”

“It's not a joke, but it is subject to change without notice or cancellation if necessary, so don't be surprised if it doesn't happen.”

Leave that soon? I was just as blindsided as everyone else and exchanged a surprised glance with Amy. Maybe she remembered my offer to take her to Oatsfield the next time I went. That was going to be the most boring week of her life, but I didn't really care. A week away from this city was going to be welcome, even if it meant being stuck in that nasty bog the others kept going to for their “fishing trips” instead of going home.

It was going to be hard to really focus on the patrols for the next few days.

I didn't even make it through the first day.

Amy and I were maybe an hour into our evening patrol before we heard the sound of gunfire cracking off in the distance. Both of us slowed to a halt inconveniently close to the vents over one of the refineries, which were spewing searing hot smoke just waiting for the wind to change direction.

Leigh had the radio, so if anyone called in a need for assistance, we wouldn't get it. As such, we were told to use our best judgment on rendering assistance if we thought it was needed, and in a dire emergency the stable team would fire flares to get our attention. Knowing Amy, we were about to render assistance anyway.

A few heavier caliber weapons discharged and the automatic fire intensified. Yeah, we were about-

Searing bright flashes of red rocketed up into the air, rising above the skeletons of the burnt out buildings at the edge of the city. More booms.

Shiiiiiiiit.

“Come on!” Amy shouted as she beat her wings to head that way as fast as they would take her.

I looked around, as if Serge was going to magically materialize and tell us that it was a false alarm and that we didn't have to rush off to face extreme peril.

No such luck.

I drew my pistol and took a deep breath. Amy was pulling well away from me, so I poured on all the speed I could muster to catch up to her.

It was going to take several minutes. A lot could happen in several minutes, right? Maybe the Rangers would meet more resistance than they expected and pull back. Maybe something else had attacked the security forces. But, of course if that was the case, the gunfire was definitely going to attract attention…

We were too late.

Just… absolutely, completely and thoroughly too late.

Even before Amy and I got close to the rocky outcropping that the stable door was set into, the aftermath from the battle that had occurred there was abundantly clear. Two caged wagons, no doubt used to bring the slaves there in the first place, had been blasted to pieces and hurled dozens of meters in every direction. Dozens and dozens of dead ponies laid scattered in various states of disassembly, lying against trees or boulders, partially dissolved into piles of ash, protruding from craters or just sprawled out in states of ruin ranging from a dozen high caliber bullet holes to crushed torsos. Slaves, raiders turned slaves and Red Eye's soldiers were all conjoined in the scene of gore and destruction that made The Pit look like a pony goddess-damned ballet.

If there was any doubt whatsoever that the Steel Rangers had been here, the remains of one laid not far from the stable door with their head entirely missing and still oozing blood. The sounds of explosions and artillery discharging back closer to the city told me that not only had they been here, they weren't done.

For the briefest moment I felt relief at the thought that we were too late and had avoided the massacre, but my eyes picked out the corpses of at least three dead Talons littered about, and relief turned to guilt. My eyes settled on a black griffon hanging motionless from a tree, caught on a branch by the straps in his armor. Would he still be alive if we'd made it earlier? Who was I kidding to think a fucking pistol would have helped drive Rangers off?

Amy hovered uncertainly above the scene of carnage but slowly turned back to the continuing din of combat receding from us. “We need to hurry back. Hurry back and reunite with-wait, where are you going?”

I dove down to the ground and landed next to the closest pony. I wasn't going to be any help in the fighting, but maybe there was someone here who could be saved still. If not a Talon, maybe one of the soldiers, and if not any of them, maybe a slave.

Amy landed with a thump behind me. “Kaz, we don't have much time to waste here. I don't think anybody still alive stuck around.”

Before I could even say anything, a small brown griffoness ahead of me raised a wing weakly. She was laying stretched out with her back to us, but covered in bleeding wounds along her wings. My heart froze. Was it Leigh? I didn't see Isaac, but maybe they got separated. I bounded over a pony covered in mud, blood and fist sized wounds from a weapon I didn't want to think about and rushed around to get a better look at her.

The only good news was that it wasn't Leigh.

Whoever she was, she must have been hit by a flak cannon shell. The profusion of holes in her wings probably came from shell fragments, but her underside had been so ravaged by the impacts that she'd been eviscerated. Entrails spilled from long tears in her abdomen and coated the ground in front of her with more blood than I thought possible, mixed in with bowel contents and other fluids I didn't want to dwell on. Her eyes were distant and unfocused and her breaths were shallow and rapid.

“Shit...” Amy whispered.

Yeah. Deep down, I knew she had basically no chance of surviving, but I wasn't going to give up without trying. I tore off my medical kit and started digging for a potion. Not a restoration potion this time, since even that wouldn't heal this kind of injury, but something to stop the bleeding. If I did that, maybe I could-

“What are you two doing?!” a deep and forceful female voice shouted down at us.

I glanced up in time to see the white plumage and black coat of Captain Stern flash past. She slammed onto the ground on the other side of the dying Talon and bore down on me with an expression of disbelief and barely contained fury.

“Wh-what? Captain, I-”

“Leave her! We don't have time for this!” Stern insisted.

Amy spun around and said, “But captain, she's still alive. Kaz is a med-”

I jumped with a start as Amy hit the ground. “Don't talk back to me!” Stern pulled her claw back and thrust a razor sharp talon at me. “Leave her! Brimstone Blitz escaped and if he's not recovered I will have you both shot for dereliction of duty!” She turned the talon back toward the city. “Get moving!”

Amy was already back on her feet by the time I got my act together and put my medical kit back on. She wiped at the bleeding cuts on her face, but jumped into the air without looking back. Or waiting for me, I might add.

I dared not look back at the captain either and took off after her.

A whole lot of disjointed thoughts raced through my head as Amy and I hurtled back toward Fillydelphia and away from Captain Stern and her anti-materiel rifle.

Chief on that list was why she was hanging around and not joining this wild chase she ordered, but I barely had time to dwell on the scene of the slaughter we'd just witnessed and narrowly avoided being on the receiving end of, since the sounds of combat were growing stronger ahead and I could see the flashes of automatic weapons going off clearly now against the dark alleys of the outskirts of Fillydelphia. Why, of all places, the Steel Rangers had retreated in this direction I had no idea. Maybe they thought they had a better chance of avoiding being overwhelmed and mobbed from the air if they could restrict the lanes of fire by buildings obscuring them, but it took them perilously close to the wall and the full garrison of Red Eye's section of the city.

Wait, we were supposed to be finding Brimstone! How the hell were we supposed to do that?

I rushed forward to tell Amy, “Hey, we're headed toward the Rangers, but what about Brimstone? He might have gone back some other way!”

She looked over briefly, just long enough for me to see the three parallel cuts on her face that ran from her beak to her cheek and the blood still smeared on her face, before she snapped back and cut her eyes to me. “If he's got any sense he headed back for the city. We'd pick him up fifty kilometers away from the air in open terrain.”

Guess that confirmed my theory about what the Rangers were doing, but how were we supposed to find a single pony in these ruins? As the leader of the Bloodletters, Brimstone was no doubt smart enough to not do something blatantly boneheaded. But what would he do?

Fuck it, if there was ever a time for a trained soldier to lead the way, now was it, so I let her drive.

Naturally, her driving took us closer to the sounds of combat.

We dropped closer to the building skyline before we crossed the last street that would put us within the line of fire of the Rangers, and not a moment too soon. One of the snipers in a Pinkie balloon took his chances snapping off a shot at something in the street, but regardless of whether he hit or not, his shot was answered by a fucking missile rocketing back up and striking the balloon right in its sappy smile. The flash barely penetrated the trail of smoke trailing behind it, but the detonation shredded the balloon into thousands of pieces in an instant and sent the basket plummeting to the street.

Amy and I both instinctively ducked back down and landed on the roof just below us, right as fragments from the warhead came scything past. No doubt that's what hit the griffoness we had to abandon earlier, but how many missiles could one pony even carry to waste like this? Did the armor literally conjure them magically?

“What now?” I asked her as I slipped below the lip of the wall.

“Shut up and let me think,” she snapped, doing the same.

Trying to attack the Steel Rangers would end up with us in the same shape, but if Stern caught up to us and saw us cowering up here on the roof she'd shred us herself, so I had no idea what the hell we were going to do.

Another explosion in the street and series of MEW hisses told me the Rangers had found another target to unleash their ire on. We might have a moment to race across the street and snap off a few shots, but they may well just demolish the building we landed on if we tried it…

“Wait, someone's coming,” Amy said, pointing a talon back toward the city. It was getting late and dark, but I clearly saw a squad of griffons flying our way, silhouetted by what light from the setting sun fought through the ever present cloud cover overhead.

We tried to flag them down, but to my surprise, the squad seemed to ignore the miniature reenactment of the Great War going on in the streets below and overshot us entirely. Amy and I exchanged confused glances and jumped into the air to chase them down. Whoever they were, they were in a hurry to get somewhere unrelated to the Steel Rangers, but I sure as hell wanted more numbers on my side before I faced anyone.

Catching up took a moment, but we managed to cut a corner as they banked to the right and intercepted them on the turn.

To my surprise, I immediately recognized two of them: Liese and Alfred.

“Liese! What's going on? Where are you going?”

Everyone in her squad came to a chaotic stop in the air as they realized we were there, some taking short arcing flights to get back into formation next to us.

“Kaz? Perfect timing! We're going after the escapees. Hurry, we don't have much time!”

A blue griffoness with green eyes and a tired expression held up a claw to shut us up as she fiddled with her radio head set. “They've been spotted. Headed toward the cargo rail station. Half a kilometer out. One pony pulling a slave wagon, others inside.”

The squad didn't wait for orders and formed up before shooting off in a seemingly arbitrary direction, leaving just Liese floating in the air with us. She held up a metallic disc that I guessed was a mine and glowered. “I'm going to get Brimstone for good this time. Don't care what Red Eye says. Come on or we'll miss our chance.”

A brief question of what exactly would happen if we did kill Red Eye's prized captive flashed through my mind, but I suspected that he'd prefer Brimstone dead than free.

Liese clearly didn't care, and shot off without us. Amy trailed after her, so I had little choice but to join the chase.

Sure enough, a squad of griffons flying as the crows did let us catch up to the ground bound ponies in short order and well before we got close to the cargo station the radio griffoness mentioned.

Amy and I had fallen slightly behind, but I caught a glimpse of the massive cage on a wagon bed cutting a corner at a perilous speed and angle through one of the clear streets. The occasional crack of gunfire told me that Liese's squad had engaged the escapees, and that they were shooting back. At this range and under these conditions I didn't expect them to make good on many of their shots, but even so I lowered my altitude along with Amy to reduce the firing arcs they might draw to us.

An explosion rocked the street ahead and I heard some pony scream. Liese must have started dropping the mines she had. A followup explosion told me she hadn't gotten them the first time.

We jumped along from building to building to try to get closer and get a better shot at the pony pulling the wagon, but I almost lost my balance when I finally caught sight of him.

Brimstone Blitz was a mountain of a pony, easily half again as large as I was, and I might have mistaken him for a buffalo or a yak if I didn't know who he was. With almost unnatural stamina he continued to gallop with the heavy wagon yoked to him, cutting around corners and dodging chunks of debris and crumbling buildings with an agility I disbelieved.

Inside the wagon were two others. A unicorn with a rifle held in her magic and a small earthpony of some kind. I didn't get a good look before the unicorn swung her rifle our way and snapped off a shot that sent me ducking.

Amy leaped over an alley onto the building ahead of me and raced over to the edge to snap off return fire of her own, but the lack of screams told me she must have mis-

Another explosion went off, rocking the building I was sprinting across. This time, Liese hit her mark: fragments and splinters of wood sailed up from the street and over the roof I stood on. A twisted and mangled metal bar clanged off of the wall below me, and a shrill scream erupted from the street below. I doubted that was Brimstone, so with my heart racing and thundering in my ears I jumped up to the edge of the building and pointed my pistol down at the street.

I couldn't see anything. Smoke from the shoddy mines clouded everything, and what little I could see was just the carnage of what was left from the wagon. The passengers had probably been killed, but I knew Brimstone was still alive. The clanking of him wresting the yoke off told me as much, and given his reputation I was not going to take any chances.

Instead of rushing down into the street to finish him off, I jumped over the alley to rejoin Amy and scanned the skies to find Liese and her squad mates. It seemed they all had the same idea and were perched on buildings across the street, training their rifles on the dispersing clouds of smoke below. Liese herself was slinking across a rooftop further down the street, no doubt planning to cut Brimstone off if he tried to make a run for it that way. I was pretty sure that once the smoke cleared, she was going to shoot him even if he surrendered, and at this point I would hardly-

A metal ping sounded from the street below, and two pink flashes caught my eye.

“Grenade!” someone shouted.

“It's mine!”

“I saw it first!”

Amy shoved me back as she dove down after it. “No, it's mine!”

Hey, wait, I wanted it! I swore and jumped back up. Dammit, everyone had a head start so there was no way I was going to get it from all of them!

Alfred landed on top of it and clutched it to his chest. “I got it, suckers!”

Three other griffons were halfway down to the street, claws outstretched. “You drunk sot, it's mine!”

Dammit, they were going to-

Pain.

My back hurt. My wings hurt. My legs hurt. My head really hurt.

Everything was dull and quiet. Ringing. Like my head was underwater.

Groans and cries. That's all I could really make out.

I cracked my eyes, but all I saw was a swimming sea of dark clouds overhead. I twisted my head to the right and regretted it as a jolt of pain shot down my entire spine. There was a wagon wheel lying in the street. Someone's claw was resting atop it. Light gray.

Someone's severed claw was resting atop it.

I rolled over and jumped onto my feet, but collapsed the next instant. I'm pretty sure I screamed or squealed like a child as my body utterly rejected the notion of standing up, but my ears were ringing so bad I didn't hear much of it.

My head was spinning and I was so nauseated all I could do was push myself up gently into a seated position, doing what I could to ignore the throbbing pain in my elbow. Nothing was making much sense yet. I saw three griffons sprawled out in the street, but what had just happened was completely absent from my memory. We'd been chasing some escaped slaves… Brimstone Blitz was leading them… someone threw a grenade…

The grenade!

Alfred, who had been thrown down the street, was the easiest to identify from where I was. I didn't need to get up to know that he was dead. That was his claw over on the wagon wheel, and blood was pouring from his beak like a tap. His breastplate was entirely missing, his chest had been completely crushed by the pressure wave from the grenade going off and judging by the angle he was lying at, his back was broken.

The griffon ahead of me I was less sure about. She'd been thrown down the street in the same direction and was now sitting motionless, propped up in a corner between a rusty dumpster and the stone block building it was situated against. Her white feathers were stained red in half a dozen places and I couldn't tell if she was breathing.

She wasn't.

I don't know how long it took me to drag myself over to her, but I had a hunch she was dead around the second time I had to stop and let my head and stomach settle again. When I got across the street, I was sure. Fragments from the grenade had struck her in the face, and removed several sizable chunks of her skull on the way out. The dumpster and wall behind her were painted red.

I fell into a seated position again, rubbing my aching elbow as I tried to gather my wits. My leg and claw were swollen and flexing my wrist or any talon ached terribly. I knew that every joint in my body was going to hurt after being caught in the blast, and I might have had a concussion. As a small consolation, it looked like I'd managed to win the lottery and the only fragments that struck me hit my armor. A half dozen fresh scratches and dings covered my breastplate, and it looked like the flak weave on my abdomen had even managed to do its job.

Someone groaned. A weak, feminine voice.

I twisted around as far as I could without standing up again and an involuntary gasp escaped my beak.

Amy was lying on her side halfway up the steps to a building on the far side of the street. Her right foreleg was twisted at an impossible angle behind her, and each breath brought on a shudder and visible cringe.

The pain in my leg no longer mattered. I launched up and leaped over the obstructions in the street to reach her before snatching my medical kit off and digging for potions.

A closer examination showed two fragments had punched through her left rear paw and thigh, which was bleeding but not so badly I was concerned that her femoral artery had been hit. More concerning was her ragged breathing, which could have been from another penetrating fragment injury that I was missing, but could also have been from broken ribs. A slip could puncture her lung or heart…

I brushed that aside for the moment and turned my attention to her leg as I popped the cork from the first potion. Her shoulder was clearly broken, and her lower leg was twisted around enough that I was sure the leg was broken in at least one more place. Her claw was a disaster, having been shredded by fragments. I was not convinced it could be saved.

Amy pushed and fought me as I turned her head to pour the potion down her beak. Fucking burning pinfeathers from hell, what was I doing? If her neck was broken I could have just killed her, and if she-well, if she aspirated the potion she'd be fine, but if she started coughing and she had a broken rib she might puncture a lung, but-but the potion would seal the wound so she'd survive to get to surgery. I dug for a Med-X syringe to administer some painkillers so she'd relax and stop fighting me so much. I-I had to find something to make a stretcher from, but fuck me, I couldn't carry her back by myself even if I wasn't reeling from the grenade too. Where the flying fuck were the others that were here before? Where was Liese? Did they leave us all behind, assuming we were dead? I didn't believe for a moment they were dead themselves.

“Fuck you, Liese, Stern, Red Eye and whoever else is listening,” I croaked as I reached through a broken window to pull a set of ragged curtains off of their rod. “Fuck you all.” Catching Brimstone was all that mattered. Now two more were dead and Amy may join them soon.

“Lieutenant, look! Someone's down there.”

Egon?

I looked up just in time to see a flurry of black and purple feathers descend around me. Egon grimaced and turned away from Alfred's corpse, only to turn away from the sight of his severed claw even faster. Heidi was the first to speak, demanding, “Private, what happened here?”

“Brimstone was here,” I started, doing my best to collect my thoughts. “Someone threw a grenade. I don't… don't know where the others went. There was a squad from second platoon here earlier.” I nodded toward Alfred and his squadmate, and the jolt of pain in my neck made me wish I hadn't. “Those two are dead.”

Egon stepped back and held up a claw to the headset he was wearing. “Lieutenant, there's more fighting going on at the train station. More casualties. Definitely Brimstone and the slaves he had with him.”

She held up a claw to silence him. “What about Private Silverwing?”

“I-I think she'll live, but she needs to be taken back to the clinic immediately.”

“Is she stable?”

Fuck me, I don't know. “I-I think so.”

Heidi turned back to Egon. “Inform the clinic that there are more casualties coming. Get fourth squad on the radio and organize a medical evac. Bring in eighth and ninth squads to circle around to the train station and cut Brimstone off.”

“Yes ma'am.” Egon started relaying orders through his headset, before wincing and toggling something on his radio. “Updates coming in from the army...”

Heidi grimaced. “Go ahead.”

“The Steel Rangers are in a fighting retreat. Currently pulling back along Fetlock Avenue toward Bridle Lane.”

The lieutenant scowled. Her eyes darted from Egon, to me, to Amy, back to Egon and finally back to me. “That's moving away from here. You said Private Silverwing is stable?”

“I think-think so.”

“Egon, ready a signal flare.” As he complied, she raised a claw skyward and pointed off to the water tower rising in the distance that indicated the remains of the train station. “Time is short. We'll move up to reunite with what's left of second platoon's squad so you can attend to the wounded there.”

Wait, we were just leaving Amy? Sure, the flare would tell the other squad where she was, but what if I'd missed something? What if she had a bad reaction to the pain killers, or-

“Time is short,” Heidi reiterated. “You've done what you can for Private Silverwing and if we stay here half a dozen more may die.”

As much as it felt like a lead ingot forming in my stomach, she was right. I spread my wings and fought a cringe that brought on. Pony goddesses that hurt. “Yes ma'am.”

The three of us jumped into the air and started off toward the cargo station, which looked like it was fifty kilometers away now…

I had to trust that Amy would be all right, and that I'd done all that I could in the field. Fourth squad would be here soon and once she was back at the clinic, Yvonne or Adelaide would get to work on her right away.

As much as I desperately wanted to drink a potion from my medical kit to ease the aching that consumed me, I had to save them. I didn't know how many more had been hurt, and if I came up short just to make my life easier I'd never forgive myself as long as I lived.

Lieutenant Blackfeathers led the way to the station, flanked by her assistant as always. Egon continued to relay information to and from her through his radio set, but I never caught any of what they were saying. All I caught were her frustrated glances back in my direction because of how much I was falling behind, but it was everything I could do just to stay in the air.

The flight came to a merciful end just as we passed over a series of trains parked in a rail yard, no doubt rusted in place and so badly degraded even Red Eye didn't want to bother sending teams out to try to reclaim them for scrap. Two ponies dressed in light armor emblazoned with Red Eye's symbol flagged us down from their position between rows of train cars, and Heidi banked to direct us down to meet them.

“Brimstone Blitz came through here,” the yellow mare on the left said the moment we landed. “But that was minutes ago.”

The orange mare with a golden mane to the right nodded. “Last word we got was that he'd been chased to a bank a few blocks over. The slaves he was with haven't been spotted so we were combing the area for them.”

Heidi nodded once. “There were casualties here?”

Yellow Mare sucked a breath through her teeth. “There was some fighting in the cars up ahead. It was over by the time we got here but it doesn't look good. Talons were involved. Two of them.”

“Are there any Talons left in the area?”

“You're the only ones. Whoever was left must have chased after Brimstone.”

Heidi spun around to face me. “Your squad is on the way and will assist fourth with evacuating anyone they can.” She motioned for Egon to join her. “Come with me and inform eighth and ninth to reroute to the bank.” They departed without another word, leaving me alone with Red Eye's soldiers and enough anxiety swelling up inside of me that I was worried I'd vomit it up.

Orange mare banged a hoof on the train car next to us. “The fighting was in there. Just head up a few cars.”

I was pretty sure I heard her whisper something to her companion about leaving while they could, but I ignored it as I grabbed on the railing of the passenger car to pull myself inside. As late as it was, it was hard to make out much detail at first while my vision adjusted to the darkness, but there was no doubt whatsoever that Brimstone had been here. A pony his size would barely fit in the aisle between the seats on each side, and accordingly he'd simply plowed his way through. Benches had been shoved out of the way and even out of a window on one occasion, and the wooden planks of the flooring were splintering and flexing under my weight as I picked my way through the mess. Motes of freshly kicked up dust wafted past my eyes, catching glints of the spotlights in the distance that shined through the windows and threatening to send me into a coughing fit.

The chaos continued for three more passenger cars and what I guessed was a dining car judging by the profusion of silverware flattened and pounded into the decaying flooring, but turned to carnage in the passenger car beyond. My fatigued heart found new lows to sink to when I shoved my way past the smashed doorway, dodged the falling chunks of shattered glass and stepped in pooling blood.

Mixed in among the benches that had been torn from the floor were the griffons the ponies mentioned. One with dark plumage, and the other with white, both motionless with loose feathers that fluttered gently as I rushed ahead to check them over.

I could only guess what had happened exactly, but the black griffon I reached first was dead. Like Alfred, his beak was smeared and coated with blood and his ribcage had been utterly crushed. Bruises and cuts in the shape of horseshoes told me all I needed to know.

His partner was possibly worse, and most of the blood on the floor was probably hers. She was stretched out over another bench on her back, with at least two dozen stab wounds on every part of her body. I knew there was no point, but I checked her for a pulse anyway. She was dead too.

The interior of the train car suddenly felt smothering. I pulled back two steps and took in the bloodbath again. A light sheen caught the spotlights outside, covering the floor where the griffoness bled out. Feathers were everywhere. The damaged flooring creaked under me, punctuating the utter silence.

I was too late. Utterly, thoroughly and completely too late.

Without thinking, I ran a bloody claw through my feathers and retreated to the nearest exit door to get some air. In a matter of minutes, the Steel Rangers and Brimstone Blitz had killed half a dozen Talons. And I couldn't do a damned thing about it.

The stone in my stomach returned and I wrung my aching wrist as I thought about flying back to find Amy. I started down the steps. I had a bad-

I missed the last step as I caught sight of another griffoness lying against a cinder block building. The blood in my veins ran cold as I pushed myself up and got a better look. She was gray from beak to tail, save the crimson dripping from her beak and nostrils.

I tried to scream her name, but only a desperate spluttering noise made it out as I scrabbled to my claws and rushed over.

She wasn't breathing. I tore off my medical kit and promptly dropped it atop the bloody train wheel next to her. My claws locked and spasmed with every motion. I fought with the latch for an eternity before I wrenched it open and sent potion bottles flying. Every curse I knew flew after them.

The glowing violet of the restoration potion disappeared under the train car.

Bleeding pinfeathers from hell, I didn't have time for this!

I tripped over myself in a desperate leap after it, but the car was listing where one of its wheels had been torn free. A tiny desperate whimper forced its way out of my beak as I flopped onto my belly and stretched as far as I could. My claw brushed against rocks, tiny splinters of wood, something liquid…

With a gasp I withdrew my claw, knowing I'd find the glowing purple life saving liquid coating it.

Just muck. The bottle hadn't broken! I just… I just had to get it.

Again, I stuck my claw under the train car and groped for it. Something, anything glass.

My claw brushed against something round and smooth. I grasped it and snatched it out with much less care than it deserved.

I had it. I had it!

With the restoration potion in my claw, I bounded back over and unscrewed the cap. There was no time for finesse, and the intense healing magic in the potion would fix any additional injury I might cause pouring it down her throat.

Her neck wasn't broken. I was almost sure. I pried her beak open further, ignoring the blood dripping from the side and poured the potion in.

There was no reflexive gagging. She didn't fight it at all. But the potion still drained into her body, maybe down her trachea. I reminded myself that she'd be fine if she aspirated on it. The potion would absorb into her body faster that way anyway, and it wouldn't leave anything behind. She wouldn't suffocate on it.

A tingle ran up my right claw, and the throbbing pain began to vanish in a calming warmth.

I looked down and jumped back with a gasp as I saw glowing purple liquid pool around my claw. “Wh-what...”

My voice trailed off, and the truth that my mind had shut out was laid clear before me. Restoration potion ran in beads down the shattered ribs piercing her skin. None of it was being absorbed. Blood… just… so much blood was everywhere beneath her. In an instant, I knew that her heart had been destroyed along with everything else in her chest.

Liese was dead.

Liese was dead, and I was too late.

I couldn't save her.

My claws felt numb, but I backed away.

Driven by something deep, primal and unthinking, I ran.

I didn't make it very far.

Serge found me curled up under the next train car. He thought I'd been injured too, but I was fine. I heard something about radioing the lieutenant about finding me. Someone said something about Adelaide being drawn off to help with all of the wounded from the army, so it was just Yvonne dealing with the wounded from Talon company.

Were there any wounded? I thought they all died.

Wait, Amy was hurt.

Yes, I was fine. I ached and felt wrong, but I was fine. I had to help with the wounded. I'd been too late to help anyone else, but maybe I wouldn't be too late for them.

Was Amy still alive? I had to find out.

I don't remember much from the flight back to the city wall, but I do remember the parade marching Brimstone back inside. Flanked by two dozen ponies armed with guns big enough to scare Steel Rangers, they marched him back along the boulevards toward the gate. He looked like he'd been shot a few times, but it hadn't slowed him down much.

I tried to save a dying griffoness and was told I'd be shot if I did. He murdered half a dozen and they just escorted him back inside. He was Red Eye's prize. He mattered.

I remember stopping right as we got to the wall and watching for him to go through the gate.

Liese's last words to me flashed through my mind. 'I'm going to get Brimstone for good this time. Don't care what Red Eye says.' My claw reached down to my hip and wrapped around the pistol in its holster.

“Kaz?”

That was Serge I think.

Brimstone had survived being shot, but I was a doctor. I knew the best places to shoot someone to make them die. I could shoot him where nobody could get a potion into him fast enough to save him.

I lined the iron sights up on his eye.

“Kaz, stop!”

The pistol went off. Everyone else flying with us screeched to a halt and spun around to face me. The ponies on the ground didn't even flinch. Low caliber gunshots were so common in Fillydelphia nobody batted an eye.

Brimstone didn't flinch either.

I looked down my leg and saw a gray claw with mechanical talons wrapped around mine, where Serge had latched on and knocked it aside. The hiss of something landing in the moat below caught my ears. He pulled his cybernetic thumb off of the magazine release.

“Kaz. Kaz, give me the gun.”

I felt… something. Wrong. Words couldn't describe it. My grip on the pistol loosened and he snatched the useless weapon from my claw.

For a moment I thought my wings would give out and I'd fall into the moat below. One more hiss, and I'd never feel this way again.

Someone from fourth squad muttered something about telling Heidi what just happened. If I could have clawed her eyes out, I would have, but I didn't see who said it.

I don't remember much from the trip past that, but I do remember Serge flying next to me, my claw in his. He took me down to a back alley, not far from the entrance. He said something to me, but I don't remember what.

I just remember crying.

Gain Experience - What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Gain 5,000 experience for honing your skills.

Chapter 24: Disillusion

Chapter 24

Disillusion

The next few hours passed quickly, with very few details sticking in my memory for very long. Nobody hauled me off to Heidi or Stern, so either nobody told them that I tried to shoot Brimstone or they wanted to get a few good hours of work out of me before they returned the favor. Whatever the case, there was nothing I could do about that now, and the clinic was filled with very real injured griffons that I needed to help.

In truth, there weren't very many wounded. Most that had gotten in the crosshairs of the Steel Rangers or sights of Brimstone were dead. Dead like Liese.

I blinked and dragged myself back to the present. The griffon stretched out on the operating table under me had a cauterized hole burnt through his chest, from one side straight through to the other. He'd been lucky enough to be shot by a magical laser from a Steel Ranger instead of meeting the hooves of Brimstone. I'd be digging ribs out of his lungs if he wasn't dead outright. Liese was probably dead before she knew what hit her.

I blinked and dragged myself back to the present again.

Treating this wasn't simple, but I at least knew what had to be done. He'd been lucky enough that the beam hadn't hit his aorta or his spine, since I had to trim the seared flesh away before applying restoration potion to regenerate the tissues. He'd have bled to death for sure if his aorta had been hit, since even cauterizing that wouldn't make much difference. Focus. I had to focus. My claw was shaking so much I was afraid to even bring the scalpel down. I stepped back and double checked that he was hooked up to a potion IV. It would be a terrible irony if he bled to death because I started cutting without even thinking to do that.

The process took ages. I must have dropped the scalpel five times before I was finished, but somehow, eventually, I got it done. He'd need some time on the potion drip to really get back to his old self, so I pushed his bed out of the way and got ready for whatever the next case would turn out to be.

Yvonne looked up from the griffon she was working on. She hadn't said anything up to that point, but she watched me for an uncomfortably long time as I stood there, wondering what the hell I was supposed to be doing. I knew there were two others waiting for treatment, but my claws felt so heavy I couldn't make them move.

“Kaz? You still with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Kaz, if you can't… if you need to go, do it. I'll be fine. Everyone will be fine.”

“I'm fine,” I lied as I finally managed to pull my claw off of the ground to go retrieve the next wounded.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw Amy on the next bed, resting on her side and taking slow breaths. How could I have forgotten her?!

Whoever placed her there had straightened her broken leg out, but had clearly not set the bones or done anything more yet. I wasn't sure that could even be done. At the very least, it looked like the painkillers I'd given her before were still working, since she didn't seem to be in much distress. That was a good sign that she didn't have more serious internal injuries either. The first small miracle of the day.

She was already somewhat out of it, but I put her under as soon as I could and set to work on her claw and leg. By some other small miracle, none of her talons had been amputated and I merely had the task of stitching the mangled mess back together in some fashion that would give her a semblance of normal range of motion. I probably spent twenty minutes just trying to piece together what I was going to do. The blast had torn her claw apart such that the digits were separated down to her wrist, and half of the bones were broken, but the worst part was the severed ligaments and tendons. Restoration potion would regrow them, but I had to be extraordinarily careful about how I held the pieces together, or they'd restitch improperly and she might be unable to flex that talon.

All in all, I spent four hours on her claw alone. Halfway through, Yvonne told me that she'd patched up everyone else and that she was going to go assist the army with their casualties. I knew, deep down, that under the circumstances I should have amputated her claw and called it the best that could be done. There were more wounded that needed attention, and even after the painstaking process of dabbing drops of potion on severed bits of ligament and occasionally cutting them free to try again, there was a very real chance that Amy would never fully regain the use of her claw.

But even so, it was all I could do. It was all I could focus on, for some reason. Was it because I didn't really know any of the others who were hurt? Maybe. Did that make me a bad doctor? Yeah. But it really didn't matter. Even the thought of walking out of the operating room before I'd triple checked her made me so anxious I worried I'd pass out, so there was nothing else I could do.

The feeling persisted even after I finished.

I must have sat next to her bed, staring at the vitals playing across the cracked terminal screen next to me for twenty more minutes. Even with the restoration potion, her claw and leg were covered in scars that she'd carry for the rest of her life. An inferior formulation maybe. Or maybe it was a consequence of the new mass production processes Red Eye had instated to ensure that we had enough supply to meet demand. She'd carry those scars for the rest of her life, and may never regain the use of her leg and claw. But… I'd tried. I did the best I could. Maybe I wasn't too late for her.

The question of whether she'd be discharged crossed my mind as I watched the heart rate and breathing indicators update on the screen. All within normal thresholds. Maybe she could request a discharge, but a case could easily be made that she was still able bodied. As if she'd ever consider leaving Talon Company anyway after being literally born into it.

Especially now that her life had gotten more exciting. She got to go up against Brimstone Blitz, and lived. A little snort tried to exit my beak, but I was too tired to let it.

My claws suddenly felt very clammy and my chest felt tight. I… needed to go… somewhere. Else. Somewhere else. Maybe I'd find Zella and she'd tell me where Yvonne and Adelaide went. I needed to find something else to busy myself with. I didn't want to have time to think.

Zella wasn't far, and I found her in the reception area at her terminal. She jumped with a little start and cleared her throat. “Oh, Dr. Longtalons. Is everything all right?”

I cast a glance through the foggy glass doorway and saw that it was pitch black outside. Maybe I'd been operating on Amy for longer than I realized, but at least it wasn't morning yet. “I don't know,” I answered honestly. “Where are the army casualties being treated?”

“Hearts and Hooves General Hospital,” she said with a little concerned look. “But, uh, actually, are you done with surgery?”

“I think so.” I sensed bad news coming. Good news was a myth.

That little concerned look was still there. “Okay, well, Egon was here maybe an hour ago and he said that Lieutenant Blackfeathers wants to speak with you as soon as you're able.”

Oh, look. Bad news. I guess someone did tell her I tried to shoot Brimstone. Fuck. No, actually, this was fine. I was all but out of shits to give. The few shits I had left would have fit in a thimble. Probably the kind with little holes in it that let the shits seep out over time.

“Doctor?”

I flexed my claws to make sure I was still awake and not dreaming. “Yeah. Okay. Fine. It's fine.” I started toward the door and threw my weight into it.

It didn't matter how much she chewed me out at this point, or whatever she did. I wasn't sorry.

I don't remember seeing or speaking to Egon on my way back to Heidi's office. Given the ungodly hour of the night, he'd probably wandered back off to his cot, and I was frankly surprised that Heidi hadn't done the same. It wasn't like timelines mattered much at this point, since Brimstone was back and safely tucked back in his prison cell. The Steel Rangers had to be long gone by now. All of Talon Company had been tended to. I couldn't wait to find out what was so important that she had stayed up this late just to talk to me about.

There was no aromatic fragrance hanging in the air this time as I worked my way into the back of the former train station, with only the faint light from her office spilling into the hallway. There was, however, an audible shuffling of papers as I knocked.

“Come in.”

“You wanted to see me, lieutenant?” I stepped inside but didn't sit until she pointed at the seat across from her.

Heidi rubbed her weary eyes and wrapped her claw around her beak. She didn't say anything for a long time, and just held that position with her eyes closed. Despite my fears that she'd fallen asleep, she eventually drew a deep breath and said, “Yes, private, I did.” She looked up and blinked a few times. “But first, what is the status of Private Silverwing? And the others?”

“Stable, for now. I'll have to make a full evaluation… soon, but everyone who survived is still alive.” I sighed. “Amy may be crippled. I did the best I could, but until I do the evaluation I won't know for sure.”

Heidi moved her claw to pinch the tip of her beak and whispered, “Just what we needed.” She grabbed a pen and jotted something down. “Keep me informed.”

I waited for her to say something else, but she just blankly looked at the page on her desk. Her claw wavered over a blank spot as she fought back a yawn. I knew the feeling. Being awake so long that your brain started entering a sort of hibernation mode. Your eyes would be open. You knew you were looking at things and hearing them, but none of it made much sense.

Finally, she gave up and set the pen down on the page. “There are several other reasons I wanted to speak with you private. First, I should mention that I heard third hand that a griffon matching your description attempted to execute Brimstone Blitz as he was being brought back into the city. Gray plumage. Dark coat. Using a pistol.”

The righteous indignation I built up on the way over here wasn't standing up well to me actually sitting across from Heidi and weathering her gaze of profound disapproval. I wasn't asked a question, and didn't think up anything fast to respond with anyway, so I let the silence hang.

“Private, do you remember the forty lashes you were given?”

The grogginess clouding the edges of my vision evaporated as adrenaline started circulating in my system. “...no?” Oh, wait. Wait. Shit. Shit. I was supposed to be given forty lashes after I got out of the crater, but that never happened. Was she seriously about to give them to me now?

Heidi evidently saw the surprised recollection on my face and nodded. “I want you to understand, private, that if Master Red Eye or Captain Stern found out about that and decided to press the issue, you could be sentenced to much worse.”

She took up the pen in her claw and scratched something out on the page she'd been trying to analyze since I got there. “But, under the circumstances I'm willing to look past this. For several reasons. In the future, I would suggest exercising more restraint, even if, as I said, under the circumstances I understand that was difficult.”

After blowing out an exhausted breath, she said, “I'm not dissatisfied with your performance today. Everything that happened was a cascade of mistakes, starting from the very top with whoever authorized a stable reclamation with Brimstone Blitz in the team. I have no doubt that was Protege himself, so I know he won't be punished for this, but you and Private Silverwing immediately responded to the Steel Ranger attack as well as pursued Brimstone during his escape attempt. I couldn't have asked for more, and as much as I hate that there were deaths involved I know you are not the damned pony princesses that can blow a kiss and make everything all right again.”

My whole body suddenly felt very heavy and I feared I'd fall out of the chair. “...oh. Uh… sorry, ma'am.”

She blew out another huff. “Forget it. I am entirely too tired to go off in that direction. Now that we have that out of the way, I really wanted to call you here to offer my condolences for what happened. I saw that your sister was among those killed in action last night.”

The heaviness bearing down on me was replaced by a cold, empty feeling. I'd been very distracted with my work at the clinic, and it had managed to briefly slip my mind.

“That's right, ma'am. By Brimstone.”

Heidi blew out yet another breath. “As I heard. I'm sorry, private. She didn't serve under me, but I saw in her records that she served in Talon Company for nine years and participated in Brimstone's initial capture. She'll be sorely missed.”

Somehow, this wasn't making me feel any better. “Thanks...”

She nodded once and said, “The second matter is that we'll be holding a funeral service for those killed in...” She looked over at an antique mechanical clock hanging on the wall and let out a weary sigh. “Two and a half hours. Attendance is optional, though I expect you'll want to attend. Due to the compressed time schedule, the funeral will be held inside of the incinerator.”

Just enough time to get into deep sleep so I'd feel even worse. Beautiful. “Yes, ma'am.”

She held up a claw and extended three talons. “And that leads into the third and final reason I wanted to speak with you. I've already informed your sergeant to pass this along to the others, and I'm sure this will be no surprise given recent events, but I regret to inform you that your squad's leave period has been suspended. We were already critically understaffed due to the last incident involving Brimstone, and after this Lieutenant Ironclaws decided that we can't afford to risk spreading ourselves even more thin. All leave has been suspended until she says otherwise. The best I could do was to declare your squad off duty for the next three days. You are not permitted to leave the city and will be subject to reactivation for any reason, at any time. Is that understood?”

There it was. Damn. It. Like she said, I should have expected that after even more people had been killed or put out of commission, but that didn't make it any easier to hear. Dammit. But, like always, I didn't have the power to disagree, so I was just going to have to accept that for the next few days I might be able to get a little more sleep. Maybe. If something else didn't explode randomly and get us all called up.

I did my best to contain a groan and replied, “I understand.”

Heidi wrote something else down in my personnel file and waved her claw for me to leave. “Good. Try to get some rest, and I'll see you again shortly.”

I muttered an affirmation and climbed out of the chair. The heaviness from before abated enough to let me keep my footing, but a thought struck me on the way to the door. I paused and looked back to ask, “Lieutenant, what's going to happen to Brimstone?”

She met my gaze and said in a tired, matter-of-fact tone, “He'll be sentenced to fight in the Pit again, where he'll no doubt win. I've already spoken and offered to personally execute him, but I know my request will fall on deaf ears. A miscarriage of justice, but it's out of my claws.”

I sighed. “I understand.” All there was to do at that point was to haul my exhausted and worthless butt back outside, where I slumped down onto the splintering wooden planks of the porch of the former train station. There was so much to think about, but I was in no shape to think about any of it.

All I could keep returning to was the thought that Liese was dead.

She was really dead.

The world started to fade to black and I caught myself just before I let my eyes close entirely. This wasn't the place to fall asleep.

With a heavy sigh, I forced myself back to my feet and started a slow march around to the incinerator. I'd get there long before it was time for the funeral, but maybe I could walk around once I got there to keep myself awake.

I don't know why I thought it would be possible for me to stay awake at the incinerator.

All I remembered was wandering up to the side entrance of the grimy old power plant and wondering how long I had before the service started, before jolting awake when an unfamiliar griffon gave me a few not so gentle nudges.

Through the haze of an acrid smelling fog bank that had rolled in at some point during my unintended nap, I saw a small procession of griffons I barely recognized carrying stretchers toward the entrance, followed by the thoroughly exhausted Heidi, Egon, Gunther and… I almost had to do a double take when I saw First Lieutenant Freija Ironclaws following right behind them. She was solid gray just like Liese and for a moment I thought…

I swallowed the thought and waited for them to pass so I could get in line behind the other rank and file troops who, again, I only recognized in passing. Nobody else from my squad was present, nor did I see Yvonne or Adelaide. I guess none of them had any relatives who were killed in the events from the previous day. Or maybe they were still helping the army medics.

We all assembled in a different room than where Ida was put to rest. This one was almost cavernous, consisting of what I guessed was once two separate rooms that had the dividing wall removed after it rusted through so badly there was little choice. Massive pipes ran across the ceiling and beneath the metal mesh platform we stood on, which twisted around and descended into a pit ahead of us that I guessed used to be a boiler for the power plant. Heavy but dry heat washed over us from its direction, and a dull cherry red glow was just visible through the heat shimmer rising from the pit.

The funeral ceremony itself was familiar. Each lieutenant took turns calling out the names of the dead that served under them. Heidi only called out a single name. Private Lucius Greenfeathers. I recognized the name but didn't know him at all, nor did I recall seeing him at the massacre at the stable, but she confirmed a moment later that he'd been killed engaging the Steel Rangers.

Freija's list was equally short, with a single name that never registered itself to memory, but Gunther's was much worse. In the end he named another six killed in action, and the tension in my throat tightened with each until he finally named Liese last.

My eyes settled on the stretcher I assumed was hers, at the far right of the procession. She was covered and sanitized now, but the last image I saw of her flashed by into the forefront of my mind. For an instant, her splintered ribs and face frozen in pain were seared into my vision. My claws balled up, and I wasn't sure I was breathing anymore.

Clangs of metal were followed by soft thumps as each stretcher was turned up, and its passenger dumped into the smoldering pit below. I released the breath I was holding.

Freija took over at this point, holding a set of rolled up papers over the pit.

“In all our contracts, there are three clauses for ending service in Talon Company. Serving your tour, dismissal by the captain, or losing your life in its service. By giving their lives, our brothers and sisters in arms have fulfilled their contracts and are now absolved of all duties.” She released the sealed rolls, which tumbled in the rising heat before landing with a faint hiss.

She said a few things more, but I didn't really register what. When it was all said and done and everyone began to disperse, I lingered. Something kept nagging at the back of my mind as I wandered over to the railing. I grasped the rusted metal rail and peered over the edge, but the details below were too indistinct to make out any of the bodies.

A sharp pain ran through my claw and I released the railing to find rust ground into the scales where I'd clenched so hard. I blew out another breath and slumped to the ground with my back to the furnace.

This felt very familiar. Just like with Ida. Everyone else left me to grieve alone.

The only problem was… I wasn't. Not like with Ida. I remembered crying my eyes out like a little griffawn that pulled a pinfeather for her, but now… nothing. I wasn't even related to Ida, but here, I couldn't even shed a tear for my dead sister.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

Maybe it was because I was so tired. Maybe it was because Ida's death had been my fault. Maybe it was because Liese and I…

I wiped my face with my claw, remembering only afterward that it was covered in rust, and blew out yet another breath. “Sorry, Liese. I feel like I should say something, but I don't know what to say. You used to always do the talking, and now that you can't I guess I just can't fill the gap.

“I… I hope you know I did try to save you. I did. I really did. It was just too late when I got there. Listen, I remember what you did for me at the crater. You took a big risk to save me after I screwed up so bad, and-and I wish I could have repaid the favor.”

I let a silence fall, as if I expected an answer. All I got in response was a slight shift in the air currents that briefly drew the stifling heat of the incinerator away from my back.

Eventually, my beak went on autopilot and I muttered, “You know… you know, I still wonder sometimes why you took that risk for me. You'd have gotten in pretty deep trouble if someone caught you. I was supposed to die there, you know? I mean, if the positions were swapped and I could have helped you, I would have. But, bloodfeathers, this sounds terrible, but you didn't really gain anything from helping me.

“Looking back on it now, maybe I was wrong. I used to think you only cared about yourself. Anything you did was to benefit you. Like-like even when you were standing up for me, I always thought you did it just to save face and look like you were in charge. But not that time.”

I brushed a claw along my chest to remove a fleck of burnt paper that had settled there, only to leave a rusty smear in its place. It didn't really matter.

“So… I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Just… well, if you see papa or ma, I guess they can tell you how they feel. I'll just say thanks for saving my sorry hide when you didn't have to. And… I'm sorry I couldn't help you the one time you needed it. I hope you'll forgive me.”

My claw bunched into a fist and I pressed it against the floor. “But there's one thing I-”

I stopped myself. I wanted to demand an explanation on why killing Brimstone meant so damn much to her that she got herself killed, but I let it go. It didn't matter now. Even if she could answer, this wasn't the time.

The silence returned, punctuated only by the occasional crackle or pop from the incinerator behind me. I wondered for a moment if the bars I was leaning against would give away and send me to the depths with them, but cursed as I was, fate was never so punctual when I wanted it to be.

I pulled myself to my feet and raked my talons along the metal grating. What was I even doing? I didn't want to die. I was upset. I'd just seen a lot of people die, including my sister. I was upset, but it wasn't like Ida.

Which is why I wasn't crying.

What kind of brother was I?

Before I let the whole mess wash over me again, I plodded off. I needed to get back to the clinic and check up on Amy, and then decide what I was going to do with my free time. It wasn't like I'd really be able to relax, but-

“Oh! Uh, sorry,” I muttered as I blundered into a dark blue griffoness in the hallway.

She retreated a step and fixed me with her green eyes. She looked familiar, but so did half of the Talons in the city. After a little wave of her claw she said, “It's fine. I was- Hey, you're Doctor Longtalons, right?”

“That's right.” I let out a weary sigh. “I was just on my way to the clinic if you needed me to look at something.”

“No, no. I was just…” She sat, crossed her arms and rapped her talons rhythmically. “I knew your sister. I was in her squad.” She tapped her chest. “Frida. Frida Farflight.”

That's where I'd seen her! Last night, she was with the others. She was the one with the radio. I never saw her body.

“You must have really cared a lot about your sister.”

After I just mumbled all of that about how I wasn't sure either of us really cared about each other?

Frida extended a single talon to point past me. “You don't have to say it. You didn't see anyone else giving a eulogy in there, did you?”

Not that I really gave anyone else much of a chance since I was hogging the room, but she was just headed that way, so... “Wasn't that what you were planning to do? And, wait, you were listening in?”

Frida grimaced and scratched her cheek. “I was on the way and I heard you, so I stopped to give you a chance to finish. And don't take this the wrong way or anything, and I was going to say something for her and everyone else, but that was the nicest thing I've ever heard anyone say about Liese.”

Prancing pony princesses on parade. I hated to hear what people must have been saying behind her back. Maybe I wasn't such a bad brother after all.

“Yeah. Liese was a good soldier, and I'll miss her.” She sighed. “Miss all of them. Don't know what's going to happen to me now. But I'm just glad someone said something for her is all. You did a better job than I could have.”

That was something, I guess. I gave a little nod and prepared to step around her. I was too tired to really get into this conversation, but something caught the back of my mind. “What actually happened? Back with Brimstone and the grenade, I mean.”

Frida grimaced again. “Uh, sorry about leaving you. I thought everyone else was dead...”

“So, that is what happened? Liese, you, the other two at the train station. You assumed we were dead and gave chase before he escaped?”

“Huh? Oh, I don't know either, sorry.” She rapped her talons again. “They were all gone already when I came to. I saw that sarge was dead. And Alfred. I thought you were too. Everybody else was gone, so I took off before they got too far ahead to find. I was too late though and never figured out which way they went. I only found out later when someone radioed about finding you at the station.”

I hung my head. “Oh.” So much for learning Liese's last words. “Right. Well. I should probably get going. Give you a chance to say whatever you want. Everyone but Liese still needs something.”

“Yeah.” Frida got up. “Yeah, but, hey, one last thing: if I had to guess, Liese thought you were dead too. She hated Brimstone more than any of the rest of us, and when she saw what happened to you, well, I'm sure she couldn't stop herself then. The pony she hated that much killing her brother? Who wouldn't chase him to the ends of Equestria to get revenge?”

It was an angle I hadn't considered. I wasn't sure if it made me feel better or worse, whether she let her hatred get her killed or if she rushed to her death to avenge me. I didn't really want to dwell on it.

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe so.” I stepped aside so she could walk past. “At least she's at peace now.”

Frida lowered her head as she passed me on the way to the incinerator. “Yeah. They all are now.”

I tried to bury it all in the back of my mind as I returned to the comparatively cool and clear air outside. There was nothing I could do now anyway. Nothing but mope, and I knew Liese wouldn't be moping over me.

Or maybe she would. I didn't even know anymore.

I was so sleepy by the time I got to the clinic that I was frankly astonished that I even managed to find my way back. The only reason I made it was because I walked. I didn't fly while that sleepy anymore. Not even if I was unarmed. It was too easy to go on autopilot while flying and who knew where you'd end up or in what shape.

As before, Zella was the only one staffing the clinic, and after taking a moment to confirm nothing had exploded or caught fire during my absence, I slipped into the back to check up on all of the wounded. Each turned out to be as stable as before, but my claws started to feel heavy again as I moved on to the two I treated.

The one with the laser burns was making a recovery, which I was expecting and relieved to see.

Amy though, would be the real test. I lingered outside of her door for a while before working up the nerve to see if she was awake yet. Even if she was, was this the right time to try to evaluate her condition? Heidi would want to hear as soon as possible, but surely it could wait until the next day.

Of course, I wasn't going to be satisfied until I knew something, so I cracked the door and peeked inside.

Amy rested motionless on her bed, save for the occasional rise of her chest as she took a shallow breath. Still sleeping, probably, but that would at least give me a chance to check on her vitals and make sure her IV wasn't running down too fast.

I made it about two steps inside before I heard her mutter, “Kaz?” She shifted a little to get a better look and cringed as she accidentally flexed her elbow.

“Whoa, whoa, hold still,” I directed as I skipped over. “How do you feel?”

"Everything hurts like h-hell."

"Let me give you another shot of painkillers." As I went to find an injector of Med-X I asked the question I expected she couldn't yet answer. "Can you feel all of your talons? Do you know if you can move them?"

If looks could kill, she'd have vaporized me with magical plasma bolts from her bloodshot eyes. "What part of hurts like hell aren't you hearing?"

To be fair, she could be paralyzed in one or two and the rest could still hurt, but I didn't press it. "Sorry, I just wasn't-I don't want to scare you, but I don't know how well you're going to recover use of your leg."

"What happened? I don't remember anything."

I wasn't sure how far to go back, so I recapped everything from rushing out to help at the stable up through the grenade. I wasn't sure who finally explained to me that one of the ponies must have used a spell on the grenade to make us all want to jump on it, but I told her that too. When she demanded to know what happened to Brimstone, I told her that he'd been recaptured and taken back to the mall.

Amy didn't say anything for a long time. She just stared at her bandaged leg, occasionally grunting as a muscle twitched involuntarily.

"I remember now. Parts of it." She locked eyes with me. "Are we alone?"

Nothing good ever followed a question like that. "There are a few other patients. Some are awake. Zella is around somewhere."

She took a deep breath and fell silent for a while longer. "Then we can talk later. When do I return to duty?"

"In three days, if you're able by then." When she gave me a weird look, I explained that Heidi had reworked our leave to be as charitable as she could manage. Or as charitable as she was willing to, anyway. “It sucks that you're wasting recovery time while we're off, but there's nothing we can do about it.”

Her tail swished and thumped against the mattress. “No. No, I suppose there isn't.” She tried to flex her talons and grimaced. “What's next then?”

“You need to rest, first,” I told her before administering the shot of painkillers. “I'll come back tomorrow and check up on you. If you're up to it I can try evaluating your injury. We'll have to go from there. The potion drip should at least heal any other bruising or soreness from the grenade blast by then.”

She blinked blearily and nodded. “All right.”

I understood the feeling and desperately wanted to get some sleep myself. After giving her one last check over, I slipped out of the room to give her a chance to rest, and to find somewhere to get some myself.

I never made it back to the barracks.

For one thing, you had to fly to get in if you wanted to be sure you wouldn't step in the minefield, and as I said I didn't fly while this sleepy anymore. I was also just entirely too tired to walk all the way back to the train yard when there were open beds there in the clinic, so after a few moments of contemplation I just collapsed on the nearest empty mattress.

When I came to, I registered the faint sunlight filtering through the ever present cloud cover outside and dragged my exhausted and worthless hide off of the bed. While this was a rare opportunity to sleep as long as I wanted from an administrative point of view, from a practical point of view I did need to check up on my patients again.

Everyone was still making recoveries as hoped, but I saved Amy for last since I expected to take a while checking her.

She was already awake when I found her, but she didn't look happy about it. She was sitting up on the edge of the bed, holding her injured leg up and rubbing the back of her claw. From the looks of things, she hadn't gotten much sleep.

"How are you feeling?" I asked, more out of reflex than actually expecting a nuanced answer.

Amy grunted and cut her eyes at me, but didn't say anything.

"Dumb question, I know." I stepped over to get a better look, and had to coax her to let me examine it. Somehow, it was worse than I remembered, with dozens of scales and scutes damaged or missing and scabbed over cuts and abrasions in their place. She was clearly trying not to move more than she had to, but every little involuntary twitch rippled along the limb.

"Before you ask, no, I can't walk on it."

"I'm not surprised," I said. I was disappointed and worried though, since I'd hoped the potion would have healed the wounds enough that it wouldn't have been a problem. Maybe there was residual inflammation or irritation from stretching all of the connective tissue. I located some anti inflammatory pills for her and some paper to start my report on her condition, which was not getting off to a good start.

Amy took the medicine and did her best to follow my directions so I could at least get some evaluation of her condition to provide to the lieutenant. The results were pretty grim. Like she said, she could barely put any weight on it, and even rotating her elbow through the full range of motion was clearly painful. Despite my hopes, she wasn't able to close her claw around a narrow rod I found, which she claimed wasn't just from pain so much as she just couldn't. Odds were good she couldn't grip her rifle either.

Shit. So much for all my work stitching it back together. I briefly considered if I could do additional surgery to try to correct the problem, but if that much time wasn't enough, I wasn't sure any amount would be.

She dropped the rod and rubbed at her wrist, groaning lightly under her breath. “I don't guess Master Red Eye volunteered to have his personal surgeon replace my claw like he did for the sergeant.”

“Not that I heard,” I said as I wrote down the rest of my report. I glanced up and grunted. “I guess we're not important enough for something like that.”

Amy stopped massaging her claw and looked aside. “Yeah. I guess not.” She held the pose for a while, jaw tense as she searched for something else to say. She did say something last night about talking later, but the level of privacy here had not really increased since then.

She took the rod in her bad claw again, and again failed to close her talons around it. After giving up, she asked, “What are the odds I'm going to be discharged?”

...not the question I expected, and I hadn't even considered that she'd ask it. “Uh… I… don't know. It's probably a little premature to assume that's going to be necessary. I'm pretty sure I can convince the lieutenant to keep you on active duty.” Besides, had she seen Sam? He was so banged up he was as stiff as a tree, but he hadn't been discharged.

Amy nodded once and grunted again, but didn't say anything more.

...wait. Was I reading this right? Was this what she wanted to talk about?

“Did you want to be discharged?”

She didn't say anything.

Bleeding pinfeathers from Hell. I'd been rattled by the last few days too, but Amy of all people wanting to get out of Talon Company? I'd never even dreamed of it. She'd been born into it. This was all she knew. And it sure wasn't boring right now!

She glanced back toward the door. “Who else is here in the clinic?”

“A few other patients, probably one of the other doctors, but that's it. Why?”

She rubbed her wrist more, jaw tensing again. “I don't care who hears. Doesn't matter now. But, yeah, I've been seriously wondering if I want a discharge. After yesterday? I'd take my chances.”

I had to set my notepad down at the risk of dropping it outright. “A brush with death is a hard thing to shake, I know.”

“It's not even that,” she spat, fixing me with her red eyes for a moment. “I'm talking about Captain Stern.”

The scars on her beak suddenly seemed a dozen times worse. I'd forgotten completely about the episode outside the stable, and having the most senior officer in the company yell at you was not fun. Been there, tried it, wouldn't recommend it. Especially for someone who put duty to the company in such high regard. At one point, at least…

Amy's scowl relaxed a little. “That could have been me, you know? Or Valerie, or-or you.”

Right, the dying griffoness we found…

“Just-just, I don't know. If the captain hadn't been there, I know you would have tried to save her. Maybe you wouldn't have succeeded, but you'd have tried. I know you. People matter to you. Ponies, yeah, but definitely Talons.” Her claw wandered from her wrist up to her throat. “But they clearly don't for Captain Stern. Or Master Red Eye. If that was me lying there, I'd have died because I wasn't as important as his damned pet warlord. She made that really clear.”

I wanted to reassure her that if that had been the case, I'd have shot Stern to save her, but I was kidding myself if I did. Or if I did, it would have been a snap decision instead of any decision born out of righteous indignation. Besides, from a practical point of view, she had as much right to live as Amy and I didn't shoot Stern over her…

Amy curled up a little on herself where she stood. “So-so, yeah, I've been wondering if maybe this isn't all the brass back home made it out to be. I've been here a few years, and I see it for what it is now. When it comes down to it, we're just cannon fodder if we need to be. If Captain Stern didn't believe it herself she sure treats us that way if it gets in the way of what Master Red Eye wants. Even if I cared about rebuilding Equestria, and even if I believed Master Red Eye is really working toward that, I'm not sure how much I want to be part of something that treats me like an expendable number.”

It took me a few long, awkward seconds to formulate a response. “I understand, believe me. It kind of kills me that I didn't get to take you back to Oatsfield now. It wouldn't have been exciting by any stretch of the imagination, but at least you'd have had a chance to see life outside of Talon Company.”

She glowered at the floor. “Yeah, I'm pretty pissed about that too. I'm not ready for a 'normal' life. I don't want a 'normal' life. But I sure don't want this anymore.”

I took the notepad in hand and pondered how I'd write up my recommendation for her dismissal. The irony of the situation was not lost on me. I'd hated every minute of my time in this pony goddesses forsaken place, and even when I was literally gutted by a hellhound, nobody offered me a way out. And here was Amy, born into Talon Company and a faithful adherent until minutes ago, who had a chance for me to get her out and she might even take it.

“...do you want me to recommend your dismissal? I don't-I don't know if the lieutenant would follow through, but I can recommend it.”

Amy continued to stare at the floor. “I don't know. You said we had three days off duty?”

“That's right.”

“Then let me think about it. She might just toss me in some rear echelon position instead, and that sounds even worse. Counting bullets… just let me think about it.”

Fine, I couldn't blame her for that. I set the pad back down and asked, “What do you want to do now then?”

“Am I free to leave?” She waved a claw. “The clinic I mean. I think I've had enough of this room for a lifetime.”

She seemed able to get around all right despite her injuries, so I didn't see why not. “If you feel ready, I think so. We can head back to the barracks if you want.”

I'd already checked up on the others, so it wouldn't hurt for me to leave either. I just had to verify that Adelaide or Yvonne were around, and we could be off. Honestly, I was looking forward to my cot right about then. The hospital beds were a little too soft to sleep on for my tastes, and I could still use another ten or twenty hours of sleep. Might as well get it while I could.

When I last left the barracks I was hoping I wouldn't have to see them again for a week. Those plans evaporated with Brimstone Blitz's escape, so here I was, flying past the minefield with Amy to get back to work. Everything she said earlier was still weighing heavily on my mind, and ever since I'd been wondering how our contract expiration dates would line up. I knew she'd said something about retiring with her sister when she next could, so odds were good she'd rather do that than leave with me, but it was hard not to fantasize about it. After papa died, I hadn't had much reason to leave Talon Company, but the possibility of retiring with someone I knew and had worked with for a few years changed that a lot.

I tried to push it all out of my mind. She'd never even hinted that she wanted to retire with me, and for all the time we'd spent together it wasn't like we were particularly close. Not to mention our expiration dates were likely years apart, if my memory served, so it was a moot point anyway.

We landed not far from the train car turned barracks to make our final approach. Or, I should say, I landed, while Amy kept fluttering to follow me while keeping just off the ground. No doubt she still didn't want to walk any more than she had to.

Talking was audible through the door before I even shoved it open, and as I predicted I found Serge and Carmelita sitting around the table, cleaning guns and having a heated discussion.

Lita dropped her receiver on the table and added a final point to her conversation by saying, “Yeah, well, I'm going fishing somewhere, even if the lieutenant won't let us leave the city. If I fish up a mutant fish from the moat that spits acid I'm going to find out whoever decided to send Brimstone on a reclamation job and feed it to them.” She waved at us. “Hey guys, you're just in time to get in on the bitching.”

“I've had enough for a lifetime, thanks,” I mumbled as I climbed inside.

“Me too,” Amy added as she flew inside. There really wasn't enough space for someone to spread their wings out to fly, so she had no choice but to settle down and retract her injured leg before she accidentally put her weight on it.

Lita sucked in a sharp breath. “You look rough, girl. How are you holding up?”

I explained her injuries and that we'd need a few days to see how she recovered, which Amy neither confirmed nor denied. She just nodded along and rubbed her claw.

“Damn, that sucks. You're going to have to learn to shoot with your left claw, but don't let it get you down. I'm sure you'll pick it up in no time.”

Amy snorted. “We'll see.”

Serge broke his silence by saying, “Yeah, well, I hope you feel better soon, but I've got something here that might help cheer you up a little.” He reached into a pocket and produced a small, metallic feather that I recognized immediately as the same medal the lieutenant awarded me so long ago. He presented it to Amy and said, “The Purple Feather, awarded to those who are wounded in the line of duty. Lieutenant Blackfeathers was occupied today so she asked me to give it to you in her place.”

Amy took the small medal in her good claw and turned it around to view it from a few different angles. “Thanks. It's something at least.”

He nodded grimly. “It doesn't really make up for it, I know, but Talon Company recognizes your dedication and service. Being wounded in the line of duty is a serious sacrifice to make.”

Not that she had much choice, given the spell that pony used, and I could tell from the look on her face that she wasn't really buying it, but she had the presence of mind to just take the token acknowledgment of her injury instead of going into a rant. “Yes, sergeant.”

Carmelita dropped the rag in her other claw and said, “At least you made it out alive. Bloodfeathers, from the sounds of things you won the lottery there. What was it? Three KIA? Four?” She cringed a little. “Actually, Kaz, didn't the grenade kill your sister?”

Oh boy. I didn't want to do this. Not right now. But she opened the can of worms so I had little choice but to answer. “Not the grenade, no, but… yeah, Brimstone killed her.”

Amy's eyes widened and she snapped her head around. “Wait, what? He did?”

Really didn't want to get into this now, please. “Yeah. Yeah, it was after the grenade. She chased him down and… she caught up to him. The funeral was early this morning. All but one of her squad were killed.”

“You didn't say anything about it earlier,” Amy said.

Serge sighed. “Sorry, Kaz. I know it's really hard, but you seem to be holding up well. I would have come to the funeral this morning but nobody even told us until after it was over. Everything was so chaotic.”

I held up both claws. “I know, I know. It's fine. It's… it's fine, okay?” I backed toward the doorway leading to the cots. “I just need some alone time, and some sleep. So, goodnight. Or day. Or whatever.”

Without really giving them much of a chance to say anything more, I backed into the room, dropped my gear at my footlocker and climbed into my cot across from Isaac. It was dark and quiet here, so I had pretty good odds of actually getting that sleep I so desperately wanted.

“I don't know about you two, but that looked like the definition of not fine to me,” Carmelita muttered, still very audibly.

I rolled over to face the wall and pulled the bed sheets up over my ears. She wasn't wrong. I knew everything wasn't fine, but what could I do? Unlike Amy I didn't have a possible way out. I was stuck here despite everything that happened.

It wasn't fair, but nothing in life ever was.

I wasn't fine, but I had no choice but to act like I was.

...besides, I didn't even cry for Liese. I could probably fake being fine for as long as I needed to. Maybe I really was fine. Maybe Liese's death meant nothing to me.

Or maybe nothing meant anything to me anymore.

Gain Experience - Gain 1,000 experience points for honing your skills.

Chapter 25: Useless

Chapter 25

Useless

Our few days of being semi-officially off duty went by too fast to even notice. I spent as much of that time sleeping as physically possible, but as cruel fate would have it, my brain decided it was time for another episode of insomnia. Given the last few days it was hardly a surprise, but that didn't make it any less frustrating.

Not to mention there were about a hundred things I'd rather do than just lay in bed and continue to let every negative memory I had of Liese percolate in the back of my mind. Every time I'd done or said something mean to her kept replaying in my mind. There weren't many times, really, but I remembered the time I tattled on her for smoking to our parents, and the time I did the same thing when she started sneaking off at night to meet some boyfriend. She'd been pretty pissed, and looking back on it now as an adult, I wished I hadn't done it. It wasn't like it changed anything anyway, and just made her mad at me and our parents.

And I couldn't tell her I was sorry now.

As if anyone said they were sorry for anything like that twenty years later anyway, but it was the only thing I could think about for at least a day.

Fortunately, I was given a distraction not long after. Despite the strong dissatisfaction Amy had levied against Talon Company, she never said anything to the others in our squad about trying to get a medical discharge, and instead just told me in private that she was going to take Lita's advice and try to learn to shoot left handed. If that didn't work out, well, it would be up to Serge or Heidi to decide what to do with her. Which in turn would no doubt fall to me as the platoon medic to decide, but that was a rickety bridge I'd cross when my wings were clipped and I was shoved onto it.

Regardless, with little else to do but lay in my cot and stew on unpleasant memories, I volunteered to come with her to the shooting range to observe and maybe get some practice as well. It wasn't difficult for Serge to get ammo dispensed to us for the occasion, and the range wasn't booked for the next few days, so that worked out for a change.

I opted to just let Amy use the ammo they'd dispensed to me for the first day, since I knew she'd need as much practice as she could get, and because I still only had my dinky pistol anyway so I'd have to borrow her rifle to even practice. I guess nobody in the armory remembered the name Longtalons meant a broken rifle so the ammo would be useless to me. Otto and Sam still ran it as far as I knew, and you'd think an episode like that would stick out in their memory, but I counted my blessings and just carried on observing Amy while she practiced.

I'd brought a notebook with me to take notes, but as the exercise went on I wasn't really sure what I was even supposed to be writing, so I ended up just jotting down notes about accuracy while entertaining the idea of trying to sketch her while she was formed up with her rifle. It wasn't hard to put that idea out to pasture though, partly because I wasn't an artist by any stretch of the imagination, but largely because it seemed like the kind of thing she'd take poorly if she discovered it. It admittedly would be a little creepy to find.

As if keenly watching her as she snapped off a couple hundred rounds with the rifle wasn't a little creepy in its own right. She didn't seem to mind, if she noticed, but I did at least try to make it a genuine observation instead of it just being a griffon watching a griffoness as she formed up to empty magazines into crudely painted plywood ponies.

The most obvious observation was that, as expected, her accuracy left a lot to be desired. Despite taking an inordinate amount of time positioning herself at the line, leveling the rifle and trying to zero it in, fully half of her shots missed the cutout completely or slapped holes outside the borders. She gave the wooden mare a new haircut with several shots that came close to snapping off her horn or hitting her skull. Amy likely would have fared a lot better trying to go for center of mass hits, but I sure as hell wasn't going to try to give the trained soldier pointers when I was just a nobody outsider.

After every magazine, she grew visibly more frustrated, letting her tail swish and switch as the scowl on her face hardened. Even the shots that hit the mark didn't do much to improve her mood, so I decided to keep my distance and my beak shut.

There were other little things I tried to focus on instead. She fumbled to load the magazine the first few times too, but got the hang of that quickly enough. The dance she did was also a little funny the first time the gun ejected a hot bullet casing that flew into the neck gap of her breastplate, but by heroic effort I snapped my attention back to my notes instead of letting out a snicker. There had to be a left handed rifle somewhere they could issue her that wouldn't have that problem.

A little more worrying was the just barely perceptible uneasiness as she tried to hold the rifle steady. I could only tell by watching the tip of the barrel, but there was a clear oscillation as it dipped down before she snapped it back up. It could have been from her trying to maintain her balance in an unfamiliar position, or trying to find the best way to grip the gun, but it could also be from some lingering damage to her central nervous system. It was a little farfetched, given she had no other glaring symptoms, but I couldn't rule it out completely after a grenade blast. If her accuracy never improved despite training for weeks or months, that would be a bigger warning sign, and something I wouldn't be able to cover up in any report I presented to the lieutenant.

After she finished off the tenth magazine that had been issued to us, she gathered them up in a bag and gestured for me to come with her to check the target.

“Doesn't look good, does it?” she murmured as she stuck a talon from her good claw through a bullet hole in the pony's forehead.

It really didn't. Maybe a third of the shots she fired hit the mark, and even I had better marksmanship than that with a stationary target and all of the time in the world to aim. “It's your first time trying to shoot like this. It'll take time to get used to it.”

“I guess.” She shoved the target, but it was too firmly secured to the ground to move. “But what's going to happen the next time we're in an engagement? At this point we'd be better off if Carmelita gave me her LMG since I'm not fit to do much more than lay down suppressive fire like this, but I don't think I could even carry it.” She brushed a singed feather on her neck and grumbled something about the rate of fire meaning a billion white hot bullet casings.

“If we're lucky the worst of it is behind us for a long time. I doubt Brimstone will have another chance to escape any time soon, and everyone is going to be on high alert. Not to mention the reduced manpower is likely to mean we won't see any field assignments for a while either.”

She sat and rubbed her bad wrist. “I hope so. I knew this was going to be hard, but it's like starting over completely. Pretty sure I'm left eye dominant too. I'm going to have to relearn everything about shooting.”

“You'll get the hang of it, I'm sure,” I said. It was a hollow gesture, I knew, but the best I could offer.

“I hope so,” she repeated, not sounding very confident. “Anyway, I'm going to go talk to the quartermaster and see if they do have any left handed rifles. If not, I'm going to have to figure something out with the ejection ports. Getting surprised by that in a firefight is going to get someone killed.”

That was a morbid thought I didn't want to dwell on as I got up to follow her back to the armory. I felt bad for her for a few reasons, but the best I could do was stick with her while she tried to work through it.

Aside from offer that medical discharge if she did ask again...

The next day started out much the same, with the two of us heading off to the shooting range so Amy could get in more practice. We spent maybe an hour of me sipping coffee while she snapped off shots from another half dozen magazines, with only a marginal improvement that I could see. Like the day before, most of the shots were scattered high, with only around half actually hitting the plywood pony. In Amy's defense, pretty much any of the shots that did hit would have ended a fight with the pony, but one of the things I'd had drilled into me over the years was that going for head shots was likely just to waste bullets. Real ponies didn't sit still.

As she ejected a magazine and fiddled with the sights on her rifle, I set aside my empty coffee cup and decided to voice my concerns. It wasn't like there was anything I knew about shooting that she wouldn't, but if nothing else it would break up some of the monotony and silence.

“Are the sights aiming too high?” I asked, trying to ease into it.

Amy glanced up for a moment before returning to making adjustments. “Not exactly. I'm just trying to find a way to adjust them so I can hold the gun comfortably. My damn leg keeps cramping up.”

Oh. Well, that would explain a lot. Except that she'd been consistently shooting high for days, and she could have adjusted for that by now. “Yeah, I bet that would make it hard. It just seemed like you weren't going for center of mass, so I thought the sights might have-”

“The sights are fine,” she insisted as she slapped another magazine into the rifle.

I barely had time to cover my ears before she finished unloading ten rounds into the pony, this time getting a little more lucky and drilling the pony in the forehead right below her horn with three of the shots. The others blasted her ear off and punched a hole through her eye.

“Finally,” she blurted out, lowering the rifle.

“So, are you going for head shots?”

Amy tapped her forehead. “Head or horn. After that unicorn and the grenade, I started thinking that I need to be able to disable a unicorn even if I don't kill them.”

Okay… “Well, yeah, that makes sense, but if you're having to learn to shoot again, shouldn't you start with something easier? Shooting a unicorn's horn is going to be almost impossible in live combat.”

She shrugged. “I'm having to learn to shoot all over again so I might as well learn to do this while I'm at it.”

This seemed like a bad idea, but she was already pretty pissed at her performance so I didn't press it. Maybe it was something I could bring up with Serge later and he could have a talk with her from a position of authority. Or maybe that would make her just as mad.

I gave up and backed off to let her continue her practice, but only just made it back to my cup on the ground when I saw a brown griffoness flapping toward us at a clearly urgent pace. A knot started forming in my stomach, and it wasn't just from drinking black coffee without eating anything.

Leigh dropped to the ground in front of me and didn't bother with pleasantries. “Kaz, get Amy and meet us back at the base right away. We've got an emergency.”

Pony. Goddesses. Dammit.

What happened now? Did somebody find an undetonated balefire bomb in the basement of the bumper cart arena? Were Steel Rangers storming the gate? Was Fillydelphia literally on fire? Did Red Eye run out of toilet paper?

“Move it!” Leigh jumped back into the air and left without another word.

I looked back over to find that Amy had caught on that something was wrong, and she was already collecting her spent magazines.

Bloodfeathers. So much for not having any major problems for a while.

The news we got when we rejoined the rest of the squad was both less alarming than I expected, and yet more disturbing at the same time. Apparently, the slaves over at the Fillydelphia mall decided to band together and declare a riot, halting all work and demanding their freedom. How they could have thought that would lead to anything remotely positive was beyond me, as I still vividly recalled Stern's speeches to those who were dragged into the city. Rioting meant death, and as sure as she said it, orders came from her down to round up the majority of the garrison to go stomp the uprising.

A slave riot meant that nobody in Talon Company was likely to be hurt for a change. The slaves might have access to power tools, and might have even managed to break into an armory or two to steal some guns, but they were a bunch of disorganized half-starved ponies with no training and only desperation on their side. They'd probably have wasted a lot of their energy and ammo repelling the initial attempts by the guards to retake the mall too, so a counterattack from Talon Company would be swift and devastating.

And… that was where my stomach started twisting in knots again. I'd killed a few slaves in my years out of necessity. The stable reclamation rebellion came to mind, and aside from my fuck up that got Leigh shot by a robotic turret, the slaves stood no chance. Even if Stern didn't order every slave executed, there were going to be dozens and dozens of casualties, and I wasn't going to be allowed to help them. Captain Stern would be here, and if she knocked Amy senseless over just asking a question I didn't want to know what she'd do to me over “wasting” medical supplies on people with no value.

So, naturally, my anxiety levels were skyrocketing by the time we drew close to the massive mall. All told there were about forty of us, a mixture of first, second and third platoon now that the recent casualties had royally screwed the patrol and organization schedules. A giant flock of griffons that no doubt would have struck terror into any other slaves who saw them soaring overhead, and a show of force that would strongly encourage the next batch of would be rioters to think twice.

The mall itself had clearly seen some fighting. Basically nowhere in Fillydelphia was free from the signs of battle, even discounting the damage the balefire bombs did two centuries ago, but smoke rose from what looked like fresh cracks in the roof. Dozens of bullet holes had punched through the roof not far from where we landed, leading me to think twice about our chosen landing zone, but I had no choice but to stay in formation. Even as we stood there, the rhythmic thump of a high caliber weapon echoed from beneath us, and I balled my talons up reflexively at the thought of one of its bullets emerging beneath me.

Leading us was none other than Stern herself, followed by First Lieutenant Freija Ironclaws, who both strode forward to meet a pony that emerged from a roof access door not far from the landing zone.

“What's the situation?” Stern demanded.

The large and greasy green stallion grunted. “It's a mess, that's the situation. All of those damned raiders Protege brought here are working together to hold the place hostage. They took the offices and a few minutes ago broke past the barricades to take the armory.”

Raiders? Oh, right. This was where all of the Bloodletters had been placed. That explained a lot about how they were able to take the mall, and mean this wasn't going to be so simple.

“How many?” Freija asked.

“I dunno. Maybe three, four dozen all told. A dozen killed in their initial assault, but we lost half as many. We're trying to retake the offices now but the bastards aren't making it easy.”

I hadn't seen Stern smile many times, but whenever she did something bad followed. “Then leave it to us. We'll show them why slaves don't riot.”

My stomach lurched again. Here it came…

Greasy pony scuffed a hoof on the roof, leaving a long trail in the dust that had settled. “Actually, ma'am, Protege sent me here to request that you hold back for now. He wants to try to retake the mall himself first.”

Stern's smirk evaporated into a boiling hot scowl. “What? Why did he even send for us if he's going to do this himself? And clearly your security team is not up to the job or we wouldn't have this problem in the first place!”

The stallion backed up a couple of paces. “Yes, ma'am, I know, but he's worried about the other slaves. We've got dozens more here who aren't involved and he's worried that the loss of labor would be too much to risk yet.”

Stern could yell very loud, and for the next minute she did a lot of that as she, Freija and the pony argued about the situation. Finally, much to my utter shock, she shouted, “Fine! He has an hour. If he's not up here in exactly one hour to personally tell me that the situation is resolved, we're going to solve his problem for him no matter how much collateral damage there is.”

She spun around. “Everyone spread out and take up positions around the mall. Gain what intel you can and prepare to attack on my orders. Go!”

So we went. In a single fluid yet chaotic mass, we lifted off and started circling the mall in search of somewhere to take up sniping positions. Serge led us in a giant, slow arching flight around that took us past an open court covered in smoldering debris, a burnt out bookstore that was probably destroyed in the war, and finally to settle on the roof of an ice cream parlor across the street from the mall. From there we couldn't get much of a view of the fighting going on inside, but it was perfect for catching any raiders who tried to leave from a loading bay on this side of the mall. I was sure that between all of the Talons deployed here, every conceivable exit was covered.

On the roof of the mall across from us, another squad landed and fanned out to cover roof doors and skylights. Among them was a familiar spotted griffoness. Amy's sister Valerie crept over to cover the loading bay from above, but whether she noticed us or not, she didn't let on.

Amy definitely noticed, given the little sharp breath she took. I glanced over, just as Amy glanced back before breaking the unintended stare.

Great. The last thing we needed was for Amy to feel like she had to live up to supergriffon standards because her sister was here. Maybe we'd end up separated if we were called in to attack, though the odds of that seemed low given she was right here with us.

Minutes trickled by at an agonizing pace, like watching syrup dry. Or… paint drip out of a bottle. Or… whatever the fuck slow thing people made quaint little sayings about when they weren't riding on an adrenaline high strong enough to kill a minotaur. I had no clock or watch or any other way to keep up with how long before Stern's ultimatum expired, but Leigh would certainly know over the radio the moment the order came due. That could come any second. Or tens of minutes later.

Time lost all meaning, only punctuated by a distant gunshot or brief flutters of movement I spotted through windows. Those moments that broke the agonizing monotony kept me on edge for minutes longer, but soon enough it was right back to squirming and wiping my sweaty palms on my coat. At this rate it wouldn't take a bullet to kill m-

A bright flare erupted from the roof fifty meters past Valerie's squad, followed by a rush of wind that caught my wings and almost bowled me over, carrying with it dust and little stinging particles of vaporized plaster. I just managed to right myself and wipe the dust from my eyes when I heard Stern shout the order to attack over Leigh's radio. Serge repeated the order unnecessarily, and we all launched into the air.

So much for waiting an hour for them to solve their own problem. At least the anxiety wouldn't kill me now.

Fortunately, we weren't the first squad through the new opening.

Unfortunately, the gunfire started immediately after Valerie's squad dipped inside, so I knew it was going to be hell all the same. At least I spotted a couple more squads flocking our way as we reached the ragged opening left behind by the skylight detonating, so we'd have more support soon.

We emerged into a smoke and dust filled multiple tier food court that had just been rudely reminded it was a war zone. By that point Valerie's squad had already shocked the defenders enough that they were too busy falling back and firing at the Talons now at ground level to bother shooting up at us on our descent, but I weaved in the air after Amy all the same to avoid giving them any obvious targets.

The reprieve was short lived as our descent took us all down to the ground floor after them. We landed in the chaotic aftermath of the raiders' escape, using the upturned tables as makeshift concealment as we took up positions to secure the ground floor behind the vanguard assault. The occasional wayward shot zipped overhead or ricocheted from one of the support columns, but the fighting had already moved on by the time we even got settled in.

Serge waved a claw for us to move up and I cursed under my breath.

We bounded over the tables and started toward a nearby escalator to use it as cover on our way deeper into the mall and the sounds of gunfire. Shadows of more griffons flapping overhead and behind us played across the upturned chairs and tables. We reached the escalator and Lita scanned the room beyond. She signaled that it was clear ahead.

Serge raised his cybernetic claw again for us to advance again, but before he could finish, the growing commotion behind us was replaced by a female shouting, “Hey! That's Longtalons! Hey! Hey! We need a medic up here!”

Wait, what? I hadn't seen anyone in Valerie's squad take a hit and nobody else went in before them. Did one of those stray shots hit someone just now? Did I just miss something on the way down?

Serge nodded to me. “Leigh, go with him. We'll hold this position.”

We darted back into the air and rushed to land on the nearest space on the floor above, instead of risking flying in a straight line back to the balcony and giving a sniper free aim at us.

As soon as we made it around the corner back to the squad that called for me, I realized that we had, indeed, missed something. Quite a lot, from the looks of it.

The raiders had evidently set up some kind of torture room here for the guards and other staff in the mall that they captured. A unicorn stallion was lying in a massive pool of blood with a bullet hole in his head. Several raiders, identified by their garish dyed manes and tattoos, were in much worse shape, with severe crushing injuries or bullet wounds covering their bodies. Chains affixed to the walls indicated where some of these ponies had probably been restrained, but more alarming was the dark coated griffoness stretched out in front of the last set of chains.

“Hurry up, she's hurt bad,” someone from the squad surrounding her stressed as I tried to pick my way past the pools of blood covering the floor.

That was an understatement.

Even a cursory glance made my stomach turn. She was covered with bruises and small cuts, but that was nothing compared to her wings. The demented ponies holding this mall hostage had broken them. Not just once or even a few times, but they had very deliberately shattered almost every bone in both wings. An anvil and hammer nearby told me all I needed to know.

If I found the pony responsible, I was going to give him or her that hammer as an enema.

It took me a moment to calm down enough and forget the flash of searing hot desire for vengeance surging in the back of my mind to do anything. But the worst part was that I didn't even know what to do. She needed to be transported to the clinic immediately, but doing that without aggravating the injuries wasn't going to happen. And fuck me eleven ways, it looked like another ten hour surgery ahead of me, and even with that I knew there was no chance she was ever going to fly again. Even if we managed to get the bones back in place, the ligaments and tendons were going to be so fucked up we'd never get it sorted out where she'd be able to flap them properly again. She'd be better off if we amputated them.

“Leigh, see if you can organize a medical evac here. Find out if anyone is at the clinic. If not I'll need to head back there with her. There's probably going to be more casualties coming in anyway.”

As she set to work doing that, I started digging in my medical kit for pain killers. It was the best I could do for her now, though I wasn't sure how much it was needed. Despite the tears trailing down her cheeks, I could tell she was out of it. Probably delirious from the pain.

Even so, giving her the shot made me feel like I was doing something useful, so I wasted no more time.

“Wait a second, this is Ragini, isn't it?” one of the other squad members said.

The name sounded familiar, but so did literally everyone's name in Talon Company, so I kept examining her. Her wrists were pretty banged up too, but didn't look broken. Probably from the restraints.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think it is. Shit. You think that means Protege is dead?”

“If they caught her like this he must be. She wouldn't have abandoned him.”

Okay, yeah, now that was familiar. The uneasiness returning to my stomach intensified a dozen times over. Both because the situation here was even worse than I realized, and because Ragini was important enough to have been assigned as the personal bodyguard to Red Eye's personal student. If anyone accused me of incompetence, this would be the worst time. Even if they didn't understand I couldn't do field surgery to fix a hundred broken bones the size of their pinky talons!

Leigh tapped me on the shoulder. “Evac is on the way. Three minutes out. Dr. Clawmarks is at the clinic now.”

So much for getting me off the hook by returning there to handle the injuries.

A blue griffon in the squad waved back down to the escalator. “We'll hold here until evac picks her up. You two get going. It's probably going to be messy up ahead and they'll need you.”

Yeah, so much for getting off the hook…

Sure enough, he was right.

Proceeding past the food court and back into the central halls of the mall uncovered a great deal more carnage. Dead or dying ponies of a dozen colors and dispositions littered the halls, benches and dry fountains we passed on our way to reunite with the squads that had moved on ahead of us. The scent of gunpowder and freshly vaporized concrete was ever present. Distant gunfire grew closer as we bounded over obstacles toward the center of the mall, as did the screams of the occasional pony unlucky enough to get caught in the open.

We rounded a corner past an old clothing boutique now outfitted with the bars and chains of a prison cell and emerged in another open foyer spanning three floors. We skirted around a pair of dying raiders that had been to tossed against the counter of some electronics shop and formed up behind a set of massive columns.

Above us, at least two squads were fanning out and trying to take up sniping positions overlooking the ground floor. It seemed that the assault had stalled out here for some reason.

“What's going on?” Lita asked as she pulled back into cover and looked to Leigh.

Leigh adjusted something on her radio and held up a claw. “There's a fortified position ahead. The armory is on the third floor here and the raiders have it locked down. Captain Stern is bringing in heavier firepower to break past it.”

Like, what, a rocket launcher? I looked back over at the twitching and groaning ponies at the counter before trying to find something else to rivet my attention to. The crack on the wall ahead was good. Anything to distract me from all of the injuries I wasn't allowed to treat.

Maybe one of them was the pony responsible for the wanton cruelty inflicted on Ragini. That made it a little easier to ignore their cries for help.

...but only a little.

An explosion shook the floor above, shattering what was left of the windows and shaking another heavy layer of dust from the ceiling above down onto us. Renewed fire followed suit and the squads above began to funnel toward one of the hallways at the top level. We all stared at each other dumbly.

“The raiders are pulling back and Captain Stern is ordering us to push forward,” Leigh explained. “Surveillance is tracking them now and they're trying to circle back around to the west side. Captain thinks they're going to try to escape through the loading docks there.”

“You heard her, let's move,” Serge ordered. He spread his wings and led our advance up to the third floor.

We passed three more dead raiders in the fortified hallway above, shredded by the frag grenade someone tossed past the barricade they'd been manning. They'd all attempted to turn and flee, but didn't make it far before the confined blast crushed them and scything hot fragments shredded what was left. The barricades were in little better shape and didn't even slow our charge.

Beyond the hallway was… not an armory. It was an access hall leading to another overlook above another fountain. This must have been the side leading to the loading docks Leigh-

A chaotic mess of shrill screams, squawks and the deafening roar of a heavy machine gun opening up assailed me all at once. I fell to the ground out of sheer shock, but wasted no time checking myself for wounds before digging my claws into the cracks between floor tiles to drag myself after the rest of my squad as they jumped behind whatever was close and offered concealment.

The machine gun fire returned, this time turning lower to chew up the concrete pillars beneath us that everyone was trying to use for cover. The pattering of fragments spalling off the ceiling just beneath us echoed behind the unending stream of high caliber bullets discharging. Someone else screamed...

Against all better judgment, I peered over the bench I was hiding behind to see two machine gun emplacements on the floor across from us, on either side of the room. Platforms of scrap metal elevated them above the floor and more slabs had been riveted together in thick layers to provide some cover for the ponies manning them. Sparks flew as bullets glanced off the metal facades. It would take a lucky shot or something a lot stronger than our rifles, much less my pistol, to punch through it.

Laser bolts stabbed at the gun emplacement on our side of the room, leaving crisscrossing blue afterimages in my vision. Serge tried to walk the shots into the vision slit, hammering the emplacement half a dozen times, but didn't make it before the weapon swerved our way. The bench exploded and a lot slammed into me all at once, but I again had no time to check for wounds before diving to the ground. Someone else screamed. My wing spasmed as I tried to fold it up again. We scattered and dove for the nearest remaining cover, but there wasn't much left up here! A giant pot containing a dead tree was all I could spot nearby, but it wasn't going to stop a .50 bullet any more than that bench did!

“Valerie!”

I spun around and peeked out of my hiding spot as much as I dared to locate Amy.

She clambered over the counter of another shop, and to my horror, began running back toward the balcony we'd just been forcibly evicted from. Out in the open!

I traced her path ahead to find… Valerie. Sprawled out on the ground. No chance I could tell how badly-

The machine guns turned back toward us, and the floor shook from more impacts. The wall behind Amy erupted in plumes of plaster and concrete. She jumped and weaved, but if she stopped to grab her sister she'd be hit a dozen times before she could blink!

So I jumped too. I leaped out of my cover and snapped off shots at the turret targeting her. The small cartridges did just as little as I expected , but for once I got exactly what I wanted and the gun swiveled to track me as I rose higher in the air. Stabs of pain shot through my left wing with each flap, but the adrenaline I was swimming in let me ignore it in my attempt to draw their fire my way. I felt half a dozen bullets pass so close the wind whipped my feathers. Another glanced off my armor before ricocheting into the ceiling above.

“Kaz, are you nuts!?” Lita screamed.

But I ignored her. I whipped around and fired off the rest of the magazine in my pistol, with the same lack of effect but keeping the heat on me. More lasers and bullets hammered the makeshift armor from around the room. A pony let out a pained whinny. Amy had Valerie and was dragging her back to the shop, so I just had to find some way to-

I wasn't sure how I ended up on the floor, but the throbbing pain in my cheek and shoulder coupled with the fact that I was next to another support column gave me a hint. The machine gun wasn't shooting at me anymore that I could tell, so stopped thinking and jumped up. I had to get my bearings so I could get to Amy and Valerie-

The wall behind me exploded in yet more shots, and I ran. I didn't know where I was going, but for the moment it didn't matter. If I stopped, I died.

Where the fuck was the shop?!

I skidded to a stop behind a low wall next to some kind of empty display and hugged the ground. The wall shuddered as shots punched straight through it as if it weren't there. If I'd been sitting or standing, I'd have taken the shots head on…

What was I supposed to do? If I got up, I'd die. If I stayed here, Valerie would, and probably Amy too. Someone else had to take the heat off of me, or this was hopeless!

“Medic!” Amy screamed over the din. Something in my gut clenched. She could have been hit too. Both she and Valerie could be dying, and I was just sitting there.

I snatched open my medical kit and dug out a potion, which I sucked down. The pain in my wing, shoulder and face faded. If I was going to make it, I had no choice but to get back in the air. I'd be too slow on the ground, and I'd never find my bearings fast enough.

The fire resumed the instant I returned to the air, so I poured on all the speed I could muster. As it turned out, rushing around an enclosed room, even one this large, at maximum speed was very challenging. I weaved past a column and rose to throw off the gunner's aim. I swerved back around and dove, trying to find the shop.

“Kaz, get down!” Lita shouted again.

There! I swung around toward her voice, and saw the dark shop across the room. All of the way.

I made it halfway.

This time when the gunner opened up, my foreleg exploded in pain and my whole body shook from the impact. I lost control and banked over to slam into one of the obnoxiously common pillars in the room before tumbling down to the ground. My foreleg exploded in pain again as I caught myself with my claws and fell into a rolling tumble, but I was so disoriented I took ages getting back to my feet. Everything hurt and I couldn't twist my right claw like I was supposed to. Any second I expected another hail of high caliber bullets to gut me, but I didn't know which way to run!

Something grabbed me by my tail and snatched me off my feet before I'd even fully gotten to them. Before I knew it, I was in a dark alcove of some kind, head still spinning and nausea starting to well up in my stomach.

“Hurry up! She's not breathing!” Amy practically screamed into my ear.

Oh. Shit, I was in the shop now. I'd made it. I took the weight off my wounded leg and spun around. “Where is she?”

Amy grabbed me by the sleeve and yanked me further in, around behind a stack of boxes that some slave probably erected to give themselves a sliver of privacy. What I saw made a ball of concrete form in the pit of my stomach.

She'd switched on a small gem lamp that the former slave installed, which cast a faintly flickering yellow glow down on Valerie. Blood was everywhere. I realized now I was even standing in it, and that the ruined mattress beneath the griffoness was utterly soaked. A single hole in her breastplate the size of my thumb gave me a small chill when I saw it. Fuck if this didn't look familiar, but I knew deep down that it wasn't like last time. Last time, she took the bullet in the lung and was still cognizant. Now, her eyes were glossed over and she was entirely unresponsive. As Amy exclaimed, she wasn't breathing, and a quick check confirmed that she had no pulse.

“Do something!”

“I'm trying!” I shouted back as I snatched the releases on her breastplate and peeled it away to reveal a glistening mess covering the under suit. I had no doubt she'd been hit in the heart or aorta this time. The sudden loss of blood pressure had her out cold, and it was going to be a fight to get her breathing again even after I gave her a potion.

Pain shot up my leg as I tried to reach for my medical kit, and I had to switch to the other one to awkwardly wrestle it free. It was fine. I could just pour the restoration potion into the wound and it would regenerate the damage. Even losing almost all of her blood would be okay. I'd have to relieve the pressure in her chest and give her CPR afterward, which wasn't a sure shot by any stretch, but she had a chance. I just had… just had to…

“What? What's wrong?”

I stared down into my medical kit, which looked worse than Valerie. A multicolored sea of potions mixed and sloshed together in the bottom, boiling away into multicolored vapors as the magic released. Fragments of shattered glass stabbed through the packing material and even the outer canvas covering.

I didn't understand. What could have-

The pillar. Prancing pony princesses on parade, when I hit the pillar I landed on the medical kit and shattered every potion bottle. I didn't have any potion to give her.

Valerie was going to die.

Amy took the medical kit from me. Her eyes widened. “Wh-what? No. No, no, no!” She upended the bag and let what was left of the potion run out onto her palm. She tried to drip the remains into Valerie's chest wound, but if there was any effect it was too small to see.

There was no way I could save Valerie. I couldn't fix a tear in her aorta under battlefield conditions. If this happened in the damned clinic with her on an operating table she'd probably die. I couldn't fix this.

Amy took me by the shoulders. “You're a doctor. You can fix things without potions. Do something. Hurry!”

“I-I can't!”

“What do you mean you can't!? Do something you motherfucker!” She shoved me back a step.

Valerie was going to die. I knew it, and deep down Amy had to know it too. But for her sake, and deep down mine, I tried anyway.

I pushed past her to grab my medical kit and dig out the surgical tools. Valerie was unconscious, so there was no point in trying to keep her comfortable. Whatever I was even going to do. I needed x-rays to even know what the full extent of the injury was, and just slicing her open wasn't likely to improve the situation at all. I had to control the bleeding in case it was somehow less severe than I expected. I grabbed the gauze from my kit and analyzed the situation-

Wait. On a hunch, I rolled her onto her side and confirmed my fears. Her back was soaked with blood too, and while the entry wound might have only been the size of a talon, the exit wound was three times its size. An exposed rib had been pulverized by the bullet's exit, and her lung had been torn badly.

Pony goddeses did my leg hurt, but I pushed past it to do something.

There was so much blood I could barely tell what I was doing, but I clamped the torn arteries I came across. For a moment I had a small glimmer of hope, since it looked like maybe only her lung had been hit like last time.

The hope didn't last long, and vanished when my claw found her aorta. I couldn't see it from all the blood in her chest cavity, but I could feel it. The bullet had torn the artery, and no doubt within seconds she'd bled out enough to lose consciousness and the pressure would have collapsed her lungs. There was just no way to come back from this.

My bloody claws trembled over her, but there was nothing more I could do.

“Kaz. Kaz, don't stop. Don't stop. It's not too-”

“She's dead, Amy.” I didn't even realize what I was saying until I had. “There's nothing else-I-I'm sorry, but-”

“No! It's not too late! The medical evac. That's right, the evac should be here now. I can go get them and they'll have more-”

I stepped back and insisted, “We're pinned down here, and even if they got here right now there's nothing they could do. She's gone.”

Amy's beak hung open as she fought to find some other excuse or way to bring her dead sister back. She just shook her head and started retreating. Retreating back toward the open kill zone.

“No. No, no, no. No, we were going-going to...” She snatched up her rifle from the ground and flicked the fire selector to full auto. “These ponies. These damned ponies are going to-going to pay for this!”

“Amy, wait!” Getting herself killed wasn't going to bring Valerie back!

She leaned out and started unloading the rifle into a target outside of my field of view. I hobbled over and started to reach for her tail to return the favor of dragging her out of certain death's way, but a series of deafening booms beat me to it. Muffled whinnies came as soon as the machine gun fire ceased. Two more booms. Then two more.

I crept around to see a team of two Talons wielding anti-materiel rifles perched on the railing across from us. They each worked the actions of their rifles and discharged another volley into the machine gun nests, but by this point the ponies were either dead or had abandoned their now useless barricades.

The heavy weapons Stern called in. They got here just in time to clean up the mess that she made by ordering a premature assault against a fortified position.

I hobbled past Amy, who was struggling to reload her rifle, and made a break for the hallway we'd entered from. Maybe I could get to the evac team now and get more potions. It was too late for Valerie, but I knew there were others that had been wounded, and they might still have a chance.

My own leg could wait…

The cleanup operation didn't take long after we broke past the gun emplacements, and I had the fortune of tending to the wounded instead of having to participate in it. Given Amy's state, Serge opted for our team to stay behind and keep the foyer secure while I worked and the rest of Talon company swept the mall. I expected to get a thorough bitching from him over breaking cover like I did. Both Amy and myself. I guess that would have to come later, under more sedate circumstances.

I never got a full report on what happened during the rest of the assault, but I heard another explosion a few minutes later. News filtered back our way that someone had found Protege alive too, but that he was in critical condition. Despite my fears that I'd be saddled with treating a dying slaver of high status, he'd been carted off to the slaver hospital for treatment, leaving me with just our own casualties. The arrival of Zella and Yvonne was a great help too.

My anger and contempt at the situation grew with every injured griffon I helped treat, but I had to bury it all when I caught sight of the black and white plumage of Captain Stern fluttering down next to me. I didn't look up from the materials I was repacking into my medical kit.

“Report, private. What's the situation with the wounded?”

A lot worse than it needed to be due to your impatience. That was the situation, ma'am.

Of course, I didn't say that, and just rolled the last of the gauze up enough to stuff into the bag. My leg was feeling much better after I took another potion from the evac team.

“Four casualties. One killed in action. Three have been sent back to the clinic for treatment. Two walking wounded.” Myself exempted.

If she felt anything at learning that someone else was killed, she didn't let it show. She just nodded once. “Carry on.”

Yes ma'am, fucking ma'am.

Fortunately, she flapped off without another word and left me to finish collecting my things. As I put my medical kit back on, the glint of metal caught my eye, resting near the pillar I slammed into just tens of minutes ago. My pistol. I'd forgotten about it completely, and I honestly couldn't believe that I found it. I tried the slide and magazine release. Probably undamaged too.

At least I didn't kill anyone dropping it this time. Even so, I removed the magazine to be safe, tried to eject the chambered round and found it empty, and slid it into its holster.

“What a disaster,” I muttered.

Which was an understatement in many ways. I plodded back over to the shop where Valerie's body still rested, now covered in a black tarp that I'd dragged from an adjacent holding pen. My doomed attempt to save her kept replaying in my head, as did the way I just blurted out to Amy that she was dead. It took several minutes to really die, even with an injury like she'd suffered. Maybe as many as five to ten minutes to reach the point of brain death and no return. If I'd had another restoration potion, maybe I could have still saved her. And it couldn't have been more than two to three minutes between her being shot and me reaching her. While for all practical purposes it had been too late, in a strict sense it wasn't. I told Amy it was, because I was afraid if either of us stepped back outside we'd die too. By all accounts it would have been almost impossible to reach the evac team in time, but not completely impossible.

I stared down at the motionless shape beneath the tarp. It was all academic at this point. No amount of second guessing myself was going to bring her back.

And again, I felt a strange emptiness at the thought of her death. Like Liese there was no real mourning, and instead just guilt. But it really wasn't the same. I barely knew her. We'd talked a few times over the years, but that was nothing compared to how I'd worked with Amy consistently for over five years by this point.

Speaking of whom, I was much more worried about her. The last I saw of her, she'd thrown her rifle off into one corner and was curled up in a different corner, where Serge was trying to talk to her.

It should have been me talking to her, I knew. I was the one who couldn't save her sister.

...but then, maybe it was best for it to be someone else. Serge might not have been the most eloquent griffon in the world, but he couldn't be any worse than me at trying to console someone.

I blew out a sigh and tried to figure out how to tie the tarp around Valerie so we could move her body, and caught sight of Isaac ambling into the shop. He pointed a talon at her, then his thumb back at himself.

“I could use a hand with her if you don't mind.” He nodded. “Thanks.”

I felt terribly guilty for even thinking it, but I was glad I had an excuse to leave. Between moving Valerie and helping with the wounded at the clinic, I couldn't stay here forever. I felt very guilty, but I was glad that someone else was talking to Amy right then.

Maybe later after I had some time to think about it and she'd had some time to come to terms with what happened, it would be easier.

Later came sooner than I expected.

There wasn't much to do at the clinic. By the time I got there, Adelaide and Yvonne had already patched everyone up, so I was mostly giving everyone another check over before signing off on paperwork to release them. They'd all make full recoveries. Nobody knew where Ragini had been taken, but it must have been to the slaver hospital or Red Eye's personal physician. Either way, not our problem.

When I returned to base, Serge told me that Amy had gone off to the incinerator to attend whatever ceremony had been arranged for Valerie. Given that there had been so many funerals lately and that she was the only casualty this time, it didn't surprise me that there hadn't been any large announcement or organization for her.

I was a little surprised at the haste of burning her body, but maybe Stern wanted to bury the whole incident as fast as possible.

In any case, when I arrived at the incinerator, I found a thin stream of smoke wafting from its smokestack and banked to avoid it before settling at the small side entrance that I'd used the last few times I'd been here. Aside from the practical reasons to avoid the smoke, it felt disrespectful to fly through the fumes in the event it was really from Valerie…

It was hard not to reflect on how much I hated this place as I stood at the door. The incinerator, Fillydelphia as a whole, and the specific room I'd been in so many times to watch someone be laid to eternal rest.

Inside, I found an all too familiar sight. A single griffoness pressed into the corner of the dumping room, staring out over the red glow of the burner pit. She didn't acknowledge my arrival, so I stepped inside and cleared my throat. “Hey, Amy.”

“Hey.”

It was a start. I circled around to back against the same wall and face the pit. “If you don't want to talk, I… I can go.”

She didn't look at me, and didn't say anything more. She didn't tell me to leave either though, so…

“I know it doesn't mean much, but I'm sorry. It hurts, I know.”

Still nothing.

“...maybe I don't, really. You and Valerie were closer than Liese and I ever were. As much as it hurt me, I know it must-”

“Kaz?” Her voice was weak, as if she'd worn it out.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

Silence fell as she commanded, broken only by the odd crackle or pop of debris in the incinerator burning. A twisting pain formed in my chest. I wasn't helping, and should have known better than to come. I'd done enough to let her down.

“Wait.”

I paused halfway through standing up. “Huh?”

“I didn't say leave.”

The position I stopped in was awkward and uncomfortable, but I held it for a while regardless, unsure of what to do next. Finally, when my legs started to cramp, I sank back into a seated position. Again, the silence returned.

I didn't know how long we'd be there, and minutes passed with neither of us saying anything. A lot more were likely to follow, but as much as I hated this place… if it's what she needed, I could give her that much.

Level Up - Level 13!

Combat Veteran – All attacks that target you directly have their damage reduced by 1d10 per rank.

Chapter 26: Beginning of the End

Chapter 26

Beginning of the End

The next few days were as tense as one might imagine.

Serge wasn't able to do much more than get Amy put on light duty for a while, but it was better than nothing. He mentioned something about Talon Company getting pulled away to do some bizarre forest clearing work over by the Everfree, which didn't exactly sound like light duty and certainly didn't sound safer, but it was moot anyway. Even if we were crazy enough to want to be assigned to the Everfree, apparently it was more a matter of Captain Stern drawing your name out of a hat than anything, so we got stuck with more conventional and boring work. In her case that meant manning the guard post at the barracks overlooking the sole ground entrance, while I was given time to staff the clinic since I otherwise would be on patrol alone. I was honestly a little surprised they didn't assign me to patrol alone anyway, but maybe the mounting losses over the last few months convinced the higher ups to be a little more cautious in their deployments.

In any case, it was easy work for me for a change. I helped tend to those with lingering injuries from the boneheaded assault on the mall, but with magical healing potions to fix the wounded up there was soon little for me to do other than sit around and count the tongue depressors.

Amy had it little better. Manning the guard post at the barracks might have meant she didn't have to fly around the city, and more importantly wouldn't be a risk for missing some important detail in the field, but it did leave her with a lot of time to think and very little to distract her. Simmering on her sister's death and the circumstances of it all would have worked on even the strongest person, and every afternoon when I returned to the barracks I found her in the same state: on her cot in the dark in the sleeping area.

She didn't want to be bothered, Lita had told me. A sentiment I could readily understand.

That all changed out of necessity three days later when Serge handed out our new rotations on the duty roster. It was back to business as usual, and that meant the two of us were scheduled for a full day of flying around the city and counting the fleas on the ponies toiling endlessly below.

Things didn't get off to a great start. Amy was punctual. Despite everything, I'd never seen her shirk her duty or be late for anything, so she was on time. At least in body.

In mind, I was less sure. Her expression was dead and emotionless. She just nodded when Serge gave us our assignment for the day and followed me out without saying a word to anyone. Well, that part wasn't extremely unusual, but even her motions were lifeless. From a distance, her lethargic steps and slumped posture might even be mistaken for a ghoul's. Come to think of it, I hadn't seen her eat anything since Valerie's death, but if she'd gone that long without drinking something she'd be comatose by now.

There was a definite familiarity here. An eerie similarity to how I probably looked and felt all those years ago after the first Pit match I watched. Right before Ida…

No, I didn't need to go there. This would be fine. Maybe after our patrol I'd have time to pull her aside and talk to her. For real. Maybe I could get something meaningful out of her this time, unlike at the sorry excuse for a funeral that Talon Company gave Valerie.

I'd heard that the old schoolhouse had finally fallen down, so it wasn't an option. Someone had an overzealous love session in the upper lofts, Lita claimed. I was more keen to believe Leigh's explanation of a runaway cart plowing into it. But either way, it was gone and I'd have to find somewhere else. It wasn't like Fillydelphia was once one of the biggest cities in Equestria or anything, with some shortage of secluded, private places to take someone for a chat. I'd have all day to figure it out.

The patrol itself was pretty boring at first. Despite my apprehension about Amy's fitness for duty, she kept pace with me as we made our slow rounds around the outskirts of the city, and when I checked back on her she even appeared to be making an honest effort at watching the streets below for danger. She never dropped her gun and shot me either, so that was already better than my worst fears.

We passed near the gates at one point, fortunately never drifting too close to the chemical moat and the ghastly fumes it cast off, just in time to see a caravan with caged wagons drawing close. Security had been stepped up at some point and I counted over a dozen guard ponies on the walls this time, not to mention the three Pinkie balloons floating nearby with snipers perched in them. After the last few incidents, I guess whoever coordinated the guards among Red Eye's army wasn't taking any unnecessary chances.

I was glad that we didn't have to linger. New slave arrivals would mean that Captain Stern would be there soon to bid them welcome to the city, and neither of us were in much of a mood to see her at this point. Or ever again.

For the second half of the patrol I did my best to pick out a good spot to have a little chat with Amy, but there were so many spots I wasn't sure which to choose. At least half a dozen smashed office buildings lined the streets we passed over, and the top floor of any would be a fine choice. If they hadn't fallen in on themselves in two centuries, odds were good that a couple of griffons plopping down in them wasn't going to set them off.

I made a mental note to just pick the closest one to the barracks, since it would mean less backtracking once we were done with our rounds, and got on with trying to pay attention to my surroundings.

Despite everything that had happened, the industry of the city hadn't slowed a bit, and the mobs of ponies pulling supplies or finished goods back and forth were as populous as ever. Even more populous soon, given the new arrivals, but in the end I guess the massacre at the stable and the next at the mall probably really hadn't done much to thin the ranks of the slaves in the city. I didn't even know how many there were. I'd heard numbers ranging from five hundred to five thousand, and didn't really know which was close to true. Either way, a few dozen dead wouldn't make an appreciable difference.

I banished the morbid thought and banked to start a lazy circle around the smokestack of a refinery, which would take us into the deeper industrial districts that Red Eye had cobbled back together. A couple of plants for machining bullets and casings, the refinery for whatever alchemical gunk was being shipped in to make flamer fuel, a concrete plant and several others I still didn't fully know the use of stretched ahead. Three dozen ponies lined the streets, loading or unloading carts, arguing with each other or generally trying to look busy so the slavers wouldn't yell at them.

We passed another wing of Talons flying in the opposite direction as we rounded another corner at an intersection, where Amy gave me a not very gentle shove to get my attention. I flared my wings to throw on the brakes and whipped around to find her already descending toward a pair of ponies slinking through one of the back alleys.

One of them happened to look back at just the wrong moment, and realized that the jig was up. The white mare took off, much to the surprise of her stallion friend, who started a few seconds late and trailed behind her by half a block as they galloped for their lives down the narrow and obstruction strewn alley.

Whatever they were doing, it couldn't be good.

I swooped low after Amy and flapped hard to catch up to them, which was easy as always. Even laden with gear, it wasn't hard to keep pace with malnourished ponies who had to weave around dumpsters and jump over the twisted remains of fire escapes that collapsed a century ago, and we were nearing the outer wall of the city where the ponies would soon have nowhere to run. Flashbacks of one my first days on the job played in the back of my mind, where I chased that poor mare into that building alone. It was harder to corner someone on your own, and very dangerous if she'd been armed. Thankfully, this time, I knew where my partner was, and Amy's training had already directed her to swoop around and cut them off ahead where they weren't expecting it.

Everything went flawlessly for a change. I was just diving into the alley on the tail of the panting ponies when Amy crashed into the street ahead of them. Both locked their legs and skidded on the slick, cracked pavement, but there was nowhere to turn. Their only route was through either of us, or up the rickety fire escapes that we could ascend twenty times as fast.

The mare tripped and face planted, tossing her saddlebags free to slam against a pile of trash bins with resounding, echoing clangs. Two metal cylinders rolled out of one pack and spun in a little circle before stopping neatly in the center of the alley.

Her stallion companion danced over them at the last moment. He let out a startled gasp and threw his hooves into the air when he saw Amy aiming his way.

I drifted closer, keeping off the ground so I could maintain mobility while I kept my pistol drawn and pointing at the mare on the ground. “On your hooves, then hooves in the air,” I directed her.

She complied without protest, and backed against the wall with her friend. Thin streams of blood ran from her nostrils, caking in her already stained and dirtied coat. The stallion next to her, a blue unicorn, looked ready to faint. I wasn't sure if from exhaustion, terror or both.

“What were you doing?” Amy demanded

Stealing something, but the bottles weren't labeled. Now that Amy had both under control, I stooped down to grab one of the cylinders. I took a prospective sniff of the valve at the end, but got nothing. The bottles were too heavy to be empty, so maybe the seals were just surprisingly good.

“W-we were just taking a shipment to Wicked Slit,” the stallion said.

Fragments of shattered brick stung my cheek and I dropped the bottle. The stallion was on the ground now, eyes rolled back, and through the ringing in my ears I heard Amy shouting something about lying to her.

The mare flattened herself against the wall in an attempt to retreat from the gently smoking barrel Amy had rammed toward her.

Holy shit!

I reached for the rifle before she could kill both slaves, but stopped myself when I realized what I was doing. First, grabbing a hot barrel would be really bad for my claw, and second, that was the worst way to de-escalate this situation. If she panicked she might shoot me.

So, I just held the open claw up toward her. “Amy… step back. Calm down.” I could barely hear myself over the ringing.

She cut her eyes to me for a moment, but kept the gun pointing at the mare's chest. “Answer. My. Question.”

“We were stealing the reagents used to make the flamethrower fuel!” the mare blurted out. Tears were collecting in the corners of her eyes and starting to stream down her cheeks too now.

“Where were you taking it?”

“Th-there was-there's a pony in our group who says he knows how to-says a zebra taught him how to make-how to make healing potions with it! It-it's some kind of alchemical shit! We were taking it back to the Twin Carriages Hotel so he-so he could do that!”

“What's his name?”

The mare stared down at the gun barrel. “Uh...”

“I told you not to lie to me!” Amy's claw visibly tightened around the grip on her rifle. I reconsidered trying to grab the rifle.

“Bubblegum Bray!” the mare blurted out, doing her best impression of a sheet of paper as she pressed harder against the wall. “He knows a-knows a lot about chemistry and alchemy and shit!”

Something stirred at my feet, and over the ringing still plaguing my hearing, I heard a groan. The stallion she'd shot was starting to roll over and get back to his hooves. I didn't see any blood anywhere. Where had he even been hit? Prancing princesses on parade... if I had to waste medical supplies on this slave to save his life I was going to do more than have a friendly conversation with Amy. Heidi would pluck me if she found out.

Amy gestured with her rifle for the mare to move back into the alley. “Take the bottles. Get moving.” She didn't seem surprised that the stallion was getting back up, and the pieces were starting to come together. She hadn't shot him. Just the wall above his head. Either way, she prodded him with the tip of her barrel. “Get up and get moving.”

The trip back to the fuel refinery was tense, but uneventful. The slaver running the factory, some mare with an eye patch and whose coat color was lost beneath a layer of grime and soot thick enough to make her look like a chunk of animated charcoal, was absolutely livid when we got back. She hadn't ever heard of this Bubblegum Bray, but ignored that in lieu of spraying out an unending stream of profanity and colorful threats of torture and agony for these two for the amount of trouble she was going to get in for letting them steal who knew how much fuel.

I didn't want to think about the coming consequences any longer than I had to, and had something more pressing on my mind anyway. As soon as Amy and I exited the acrid smelling factory and returned to the street, I led us back around to the side alley. Somewhere out of sight but close. The two of us needed to have our little conversation now. Not when we were done with patrols for the day.

“Shouldn't we be getting back into the air?” she asked in a tired tone.

“In a minute.” I took us around one more corner, to a little gap between buildings covered above by a sheet of tin roofing that someone probably placed there for a makeshift walkway. As secluded as anywhere in this city.

She stopped just inside the gap, tail still hanging out in the alley. “What?”

“I think you know.”

The tired, disinterested expression on her face melted away to be replaced with a small glower as she cast a glance back toward where we'd captured the thieving slaves. She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I guess I do. What about it?”

“Don't you think you took that a bit far?”

She shrugged and flicked her tail. “I didn't shoot them. Seemed like reasonable force to me. Maybe even a little soft.”

I wasn't completely convinced she missed on purpose. Considering how her aim was after her injuries, she might have tried to shoot him in the forehead for all I knew. Or the horn.

“And what was the point of scaring them shitless by shooting at them after we'd already rounded them up? If they panicked it was only going to make it harder.”

“The slavers are going to shoot them anyway for stealing. Or toss them in the Pit if not. It would have been doing them a favor.”

“Amy, that's not the same-”

“Why?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Because it's not you shooting them? You know, Kaz, there's something I don't understand. Why do you care? After everything the ponies did, why do you even care what happens to them?”

Whoa, what now? That wasn't the direction I expected this to go.

Amy cocked a frown. “Ponies murdered your sister. They murdered my sister. And besides all of that, it's their fault the world is even in the shape it's in. Them and the zebras. So, yeah, forgive me if maybe I think they're only starting to get a taste of what they deserve.”

It took me a few moments to process all of that. “Ponies didn't murder Liese. Brimstone Blitz murdered Liese, and he's one of the most infamous and bloodthirsty creatures to have ever lived.” I wasn't completely convinced he'd really pay for all the suffering he caused, but he'd been recaptured and was suffering here in the city with the others. I had to believe that was good enough. “And much like him, raiders killed Valerie, not ponies. And they're dead now.”

Her glower hardened, red irises catching light from a crack in the walkway above and cutting through the darkness. “It's not that simple. You and Liese might not have been that close but I can't just forget what they did to Valerie.”

“Yeah, and you never will,” I spat back. “But you can't stay mad at an entire species for what one psychopath did. You can't stay mad at the species because of what they did two hundred years ago. You want to blame ponies for everything? You've been in the lieutenant's office. Those antique guns aren't just for show. If the griffon kingdoms only fought in the war because they were paid to do it that still hardly makes them innocent. Do you want to take responsibility for that? For what our ancestors did?” I banged my fist on my breastplate. “Look what we're doing right now. We're helping to herd and work ponies to death like animals. Right now. How many ponies do you think hate us for that?”

“And how much choice do I have about that? I was born into this. Bound by contracts since the day I hatched.” She raised a claw toward me. “But you did. You said you did it for money, and that's it, right? If you really cared about ponies as much as you say you did, you wouldn't be here. So don't preach at me.”

I released my clenched claws. I guess she'd just forgotten the last five years we'd worked together. I guess she'd forgotten about the times I'd risked everything up to and including my life to help everyone, griffon or pony.

“Fine,” I spat again. I pushed forward, and past her. “I won't. Forget I said anything. We'll be late and that would piss off the lieutenant, and I'm not in the mood to hear that right now.”

She grunted again and fell in behind me.

What a waste of time. I don't know why I thought trying to talk to her would be a good idea. When had me talking to anyone ever been a good idea?

And what could I say that I hadn't said before anyway?

I don't really remember what happened for the rest of the patrol. I spent all of my time trying to keep my attention on the roads below, the clouds of noxious fumes ahead or the anemic sunlight fighting through the overcast skies while we went. Just enough to look like I was trying to do my job while not making eye contact with Amy, and hopefully without spotting any more ponies making off with liquid explosives to do pony goddesses knew what.

They weren't going to make healing potions with it. That much I knew. And as much as Amy was right about their fate…

For the dozenth time I snorted and tried to rivet my attention on something else. I hated Fillydelphia. I hated everything about it. I hated the smells. I hated flying past the same smelters, furnaces and factories every day. I hated the people in it, both the distant like Red Eye and Stern, and those I dealt with on a day to day basis. I hated what the city stood for and everything that happened in it. I hated myself for being there and how Amy was right about how in the end I was doing nothing but making people's lives worse.

An eternity passed before we were on our way back to the barracks under the waning evening sunlight that fought through the cloud cover, and by that point I wanted to just go inside, drop my junk in the first open spot I could find and flop down into my cot. Serge might chew me out for not stowing my gear properly, but I was far beyond caring about that. I just wanted to not deal with anything or anyone for a few hours, even if it meant just laying in my cot unable to sleep.

So, naturally, the first thing I spotted on our descent was the rest of our squad strolling through the long shadows of the stacked railroad cars. They came to a chaotic stop when they noticed us, waiting for us to join them.

Dammit. I hated people. Why did I have to interact with someone right now?

Carmelita was the first to talk, as usual. She threw up a little wave. “Hey guys, we were about to get something to eat.” She raised an eyebrow. “Jeez Kaz, who pissed in your soup?”

Oh, everybody. “Nothing.” Shit, that answer didn't make sense.

“Uh huh.” She glanced over to Amy, but didn't badger her. I guess she didn't look any more angry than the last few days. “Well, I smelled radigator so if you want to eat something decent for a change this is your only chance.”

Leigh suggested, “Just bring it back here if you're not in the mood to hang around.”

Fine. I doubted I was going to get much sleep anyway, but I definitely wasn't going to if I was hungry on top of it. I could just grab the food and leave.

The promise of radigator turned out to be mostly accurate. There weren't any neat little skewers of gator tail meat lined up for us like I was hoping for, but one of the new and more enterprising youngsters that had been pulled into kitchen duty had taken it upon herself to experiment with making stew. The gutted remains of a radigator out by the door told me that it was likely that the meat in the stew contained some gator, but there were a few turtle shells and bones from other critters, so it wasn't the only thing.

All academic. As long as some didn't literally piss in my soup I didn't really care what meat was in it. It certainly smelled good either way. Almost good enough to let me forget about earlier, but we spent enough time standing in line for Amy's huffs and irritated sighs behind me to keep reminding me. I tried to focus on anything else, like the conversation I could just barely overhear from a couple in the booth nearby about some giant explosion out north half an hour ago. No boom but something about a mushroom cloud. Weird. Probably just imagining things. It wasn't like someone just found a balefire bomb lying around and set it off for fun, and I didn't see anything like that during our patrol.

My turn was coming up, with the little pink griffoness at the counter gleefully ladling soup into a bowl for another satisfied guest. She must have had a few compliments already. A good sign. Maybe she knew the secret to not cooking the meat to death, or scrounged up some spices somewhere.

I heard someone else mumbling something about seeing an unusual number of alicorns out by the walls earlier, but whatever he was going to say was cut off when static crackled on the radio. Sweetie Belle's song ended in a twisted warble before dying out in the electric noise. Before anyone had a chance to ask what happened, a new voice cut in. A crisp, masculine voice I didn't recognize.

“Greetings, citizens of the Equestrian Wasteland.

“This is the Grand Pegasus Enclave. We have commandeered this broadcast to deliver an important message to all ponies:

“Do not be afraid. We are here to save you!”

The radio cut out again, this time for good. A series of clinks and clanks filled the old diner as everyone dropped their silverware and exchanged nervous looks. Amy gasped behind me. I stopped halfway reaching for my bowl of soup, just as the pink feathered girl cocked her head at the radio.

Serge clambered to dig his way out of the booth he, Carmelita, Leigh and Isaac had stuffed themselves into. He muttered something agitated about needing to speak with the lieutenant, as did two other sergeants I recognized in the diner.

I forgot about the food for a moment and glanced back to Amy, who looked like she'd stuck a talon in a light socket. Her eyes were wide and all of her feathers stood on end. “Fuck...”

I heard a lot of people say that. Pretty sure I said it too.

Even without what Amy had told me, I knew what this meant. Maybe they were telling the truth and planned to “liberate” Fillydelphia, but even if that wasn't their plan, it was probably a territorial land grab. There weren't many places in the Equestrian wasteland worth annexing now, with Fillydelphia and maybe Friendship City being the only two spots worth the trouble.

My stomach twisted into a knot as my heart started doing strange things in my chest. Red Eye had to have expected this would happen at some point. He had to have a plan. Captain Stern had to have a plan.

But how long did we have to prepare?

Not long enough, I was sure.

The first meeting came half an hour later. Serge dragged us all over to the grounds outside the train station that Heidi used as her office, where everyone in our platoon was gathering. Heidi waited on the train platform for everyone to assemble, Egon at her side as always. She paced along the breadth of the platform, occasionally cutting her eyes out over the growing crowd or glancing up to the dark cloudy skies above.

Agitated, sleepy and tired griffons in an array of colors and states of preparedness gathered around our squad. Heidi stopped to say something to Egon, but over the growing chatter and questioning among the crowd I couldn't make it out. Everyone knew something bad was happening. Most just didn't know how bad yet.

Heidi stopped at the center of the platform and flared her wings to get everyone's attention. When the chattering didn't stop, she discharged a pistol into the air, which rapidly shut everyone up.

“Listen up!” Her golden eyes tracked over us. “As some of you are already aware, thirty-six minutes ago, a broadcast claiming to be from the Great Pegasus Enclave was received, with a claimed goal of liberating the Equestrian wasteland. I'm here to bring everyone up to speed and issue standing orders.

“First, we're still working to gather information, but intelligence believes the transmission to be legitimate. Every major radio station appears to have been interrupted by the message, and all we have right now on main channels is radio silence. Local broadcasts were unaffected, so nothing is jamming radio, and that means the radio tower itself must have been compromised. We're working to confirm that now, but assume that a declaration of war was issued.

“Second, scouts have not reported any sightings of Enclave soldiers or aircraft near Fillydelphia or the forward bases near the Everfree. That said, we're operating under the expectation that an attack could arrive at any moment. The city garrison has already begun to deploy to defensive positions, and will begin activating triple-A assets shortly. Some of you will be called on to assist with deployment, but Red Eye's army will man all defensive emplacements.

“Third, we will be issuing additional weapons. Every squad will receive two anti-materiel rifles and twenty rounds of ammunition. Select squads will also be issued RPGs or MEWs as supplies allow. Ammunition for all of these weapons is limited so only use them when and where appropriate.

“Fourth, the city is on high alert and we're expecting Red Eye to halt work and pull slaves out of the streets and factories. We have zero time and energy to waste on them. If you deem something to be a threat, deal with it immediately. Slaves attempting to capitalize on the situation and flee are to be shot on sight. Deserters will also be shot. Do not waste specialist ammunition on slaves.”

She half turned toward the office. “Everyone is ordered to report to the armory immediately. Refer any questions to ranking NCOs in your squads. We don't have a tactical plan prepared but Captain Stern is assembling one now. Until you receive orders to the contrary, all squads are expected to assemble at your designated city defense postings, and should not deviate from your postings under orders from the city guard without approval from me, Lieutenant Ironclaw, Captain Stern or Master Red Eye. Expect updates to follow.

“Now, get moving!”

She vanished through the door to the office, followed by Egon. We all exchanged uneasy glances. A few troopers looked too stunned to do anything.

I honestly had no idea where our “designated city defense posting” was, but assumed Serge knew. For the moment, I consigned myself to just follow him.

And keep my eyes on the skies. Every shifting patch of darkness in the clouds seemed to jump out at me now. Any one of them could be a pegasus or ship preparing to dive on us.

We got lucky with our posting. Or so Serge said.

Three squads, one from each platoon, weren't so lucky. They'd been pulled off for forward scouting duties and sent above the cloud layer to look for Enclave ships and patrols, which was, as Carmelita put it, insanely dangerous. I didn't really know what the Enclave's technology was like, but I knew it was mostly prewar equipment and that had to be better than a bunch of binoculars and similarly low tech equipment that we could give the scouts. EFS was much too short range to pick up on anything beyond normal visible range, but I was betting that Enclave ships had magical radar systems that could pick up a squad of Talons long before they were in range to engage.

Instead of scouting duties, we'd been given the honors of joining the city garrison at the wall near the gate. A hundred pony soldiers of every size, shape and color, armed with an equal variety of large and medium caliber weapons had been stationed here, either manning machine guns on the wall or hunkered down under hastily welded together scrap shields that had been attached to the walls.

It didn't make a lot of sense to me, really. This was an effective defense against someone who had to attack from outside of the walls, but what was keeping the pegasi from just descending onto the center of the city from above the clouds? The emplacements weren't going to help a ton if that happened.

Not that it mattered much for us. We were ordered to maintain watch over the area, and that meant a lot of flying in circles, letting the butterflies accumulate in my stomach until I was sure I'd puke up a bouquet of them, all while expecting bullets, lasers or missiles to start raining down any second.

There were only a few sparing moments that we got any rest, when Serge ordered us down onto the roof of a building to catch our breath and recover for the next dozen passes over the defenses. We dropped down onto a creaking duplex home next to one of the “triple-A” assets that Heidi mentioned, which I'd quickly come to learn meant Anti-Aircraft Artillery when we got to help pull the massive piece into position. Normally it probably would have been hitched up to half a dozen earth ponies to pull, but we had to deal with just two helping us drag the rusted piece of junk out of a shed and over here. I sure hoped it still worked, since a flak cannon shell as big around as my waist gave me a tiny bit of hope that it might scare off any Enclave soldiers that got caught near the explosions. The team of ponies busy dragging wagon loads of ammo to it and other flak cannons along the walls implied that Red Eye had stockpiled plenty of shells to fire at least. Clearly he had been expecting this day.

One of the stallions working below ratcheted open the loading hatch and ran his hoof inside. “Chamber looks like it's clean of rust. This bucket of bolts might actually fire.”

“Let's hope,” his lankier friend muttered as he tested the handles to adjust the cannon's aim. “If we actually have to anyway.”

“You kidding? If the Enclave's going anywhere they're going to come straight here.”

Skinny pony hopped down from the gunner seat. “Sure, but what if they're telling the truth? About saving everypony?”

Bigger pony snorted and bucked the hatch shut. “Don't kid yourself. Even if the Enclave are coming to save anypony, it ain't us. Take a look around. Who in this city do you think needs saving?”

“Point taken. But hey, maybe when shit goes bad we can pretend to be slaves. Won't be too hard, and there's plenty of griffons around to keep up the guard act.”

Guess he thought we couldn't hear them. Carmelita made a quip about shooting him for desertion, but Serge pointed out that Heidi would be mad if she wasted a bullet from her anti-materiel rifle.

Big pony shook his head and started unloading the latest cart load of cannon shells. “Forget it. They're not coming to save the slaves either. I don't know what their angle is, or why they're doing it now, but if they wanted to save the slaves or anypony else they'd have done it twenty years ago. Back when we didn't have hundreds of armed ponies, artillery pieces and a small army of Talons protecting the place.”

His little buddy sighed and helped lug a shell out of the wagon. “Right, right, but the point stands doesn't it? Even conquering the place is way harder now than it would have been a few decades ago, so why now?”

“Don't know. Maybe all of the factories and shit caught their eyes lately. Or whatever it is that Red Eye's doing out in the Everfree. You hear the last rumors crawling their way back here? Somepony said he's building some giant military robot. Probably all bullshit but I sure wouldn't mind if he did have a giant robot waiting to help when the pegasi get here.”

I'd feel a little better about our romp through that Robronco facility a few years ago if Red Eye did learn enough from it to build a robot to save us all, but I knew better than that. Whatever was actually happening at the Cathedral, it-

Something exploded above and I jumped with a start. The world spun and my claws scraped against loose shingles. The roof dropped out from under me and I threw my claws up to catch the ledge at the last moment.

Thunder continued to roll above, and a drop of rain pattered off my forehead. Then another.

Thunder. It was just thunder.

Five pairs of eyes stared down at me from the others still sitting at the top. Amy sighed visibly. She ambled down, grabbed my claw with her good one and hauled me up.

“Thanks...”

She offered only a grunt in response as we returned to our position.

Down below, both ponies fought to rivet their attention on something other than me and the small spectacle I'd just created. The little one pawed at a cannon shell. “We're all gonna die, aren't we?”

Amy nodded once and muttered to herself, “Yeah. Probably.”

The tight feeling in my stomach knotted harder as the rain began to fall and drown out the background sounds of a city preparing for war. Up until today, during my time in Fillydelphia I'd mostly worried about the harm I was perpetuating. The times I was legitimately worried for my life were mercifully few and far between. But now, even Amy was convinced we were dead griffons.

For some time I weighed my odds of trying to escape, while the beating rain gave me a semblance of personal space and isolation. Odds were good that Isaac and Carmelita would hesitate to shoot me with their anti-materiel rifles. I might be able to reach the clouds before they got their act together. If I could make it that far, maybe I could lose them. If Fillydelphia got wasted in the attack, nobody was going to come looking for me.

But the clouds were also where any roaming Enclave scouts might lurk… and they'd have no compunctions about killing me.

I chanced a glance down the line of griffons to my right and dropped the idea. All of them were professionals except me. They'd probably hate themselves for it, but they'd shoot me. I knew it. Amy might not even regret it too much.

Her rifle was shaking. Almost too subtle to see. Maybe it was because of her bad claw. Maybe it was because of the rain. Or maybe her rapid breathing or the continuous shuffling of her wings belied a fear in her every bit as strong as mine. The difference was that she wasn't running away, even as much as she hated Talon Company, and as much as she hated everyone she was working for.

They were all afraid, but they'd fight for each other. I had to do the same, and as much as I hated this place and wanted to run, I knew they were all worth fighting for. As rotten as this city was, they were no more guilty of anything than I was. How could I judge anyone for that?

My thoughts were interrupted when Leigh cleared her throat. “Sergeant, I've got a message coming in from the lieutenant. She wants us back at the train station ASAP.”

“You heard her everyone. Get moving.”

So we did. I knew the news wasn't going to be good.

Heidi met us outside at the station, much like our last briefing, except now that rain was coming down in force it was much harder to read her mood. Five other squads trickled in over the course of a few minutes, but once she judged enough of us were present she shouted over the rain to get our attention and jumped straight into our briefing.

“The Enclave have been spotted. We're still gathering intel but eavesdropping on local radio transmissions has given us high confidence that much of their military force is approaching Friendship City now. One super carrier group of two we believe to be active. We're still trying to locate the second carrier group, but have high confidence that it's not currently approaching Fillydelphia or the Everfree.

“Based on what we know, we believe it would take the Friendship City group over a day to reach us in force if they turned this way immediately. Patrols have confidence that we have at least six hours of warning in the event the other carrier group turns up and is en route here. Accordingly, we're keeping the city on high alert but scaling down active deployments. You are all being taken off active deployment for the next six hours, after which you'll be rotated back in.

“This may be your last opportunity to sleep. I strongly recommend that you take advantage of it. Bear in mind that we are still under high alert and skirmishes could begin at any point. You may be called back up without warning.”

She narrowed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Don't do anything that will compromise your ability to fight. Anyone caught drinking or using recreational drugs will be harshly punished. And as before, you are being watched. If you try to desert, you will be shot.

“Dismissed.”

It was a little difficult to believe that things weren't actively worse. Not that things were really any better either. I had no idea what the Enclave wanted with Friendship City, but if they weren't headed here and I had a chance to get almost enough sleep, I'd worry about it later.

Being sleepy didn't always mean being able to sleep, and for once it wasn't difficult to understand why.

I laid on my cot in the near darkness for an indeterminate amount of time, tossing and rolling over every fifteen minutes or so and hoping it would somehow make a difference. Which, of course, it never did. Every crack of distant thunder I heard outside snatched me back from whatever progress I was making toward sleep, for fear that it was the beginnings of an attack. Somewhere in the darkness of the room, Leigh's radio crackled over the patter of ongoing rain. If the lieutenant had to get in contact with us, it needed to be close. The white noise from the radio's static and the rain hadn't helped me sleep a bit.

Eventually, I decided that I'd had enough and dragged my worthless hide out of the cot and into the sitting room. The lights were off, and until I found the door handle to shut off the bunks from the sitting area I was going to keep it that way. The last thing I wanted to do was wake one of them up and rob them of sleep pointlessly. It could literally mean the difference between life and death.

With the most quiet clank I could manage, I latched the door and flicked the lights on.

“Fuck!”

Amy looked up from the table and blinked. “...did I scare you?”

Yes! “...no. No, I just… what are you doing?” Good thing I hadn't grabbed the pot of cold coffee we left sitting out earlier, or things would have been a lot messier!

She shrugged. “Same as you, I'm guessing. Can't sleep.”

Now that my heart had decided to return to an almost normal pace, I grabbed the coffee pot and a couple of cups on my way over to the table. If she didn't want any, I'd just drink it all.

“I don't know how anyone can right now. I guess I should be thankful that they even gave us the chance, but there wasn't much point. If the others can, good for them.”

Amy nodded and accepted the cup I offered her. She neglected to drink any of its contents and instead merely tapped her talons along the sides. Twice she opened her beak as if to say something, but both times she eventually decided to keep it to herself. Silence continued to hang in the air, only broken by the rain falling outside. What could even be said at this point?

To break the silence, I pointed a talon at the cup. “Want me to heat it up for you?” Maybe I was just too jaded to care anymore, but I could drink lukewarm black coffee all day and it didn't bother me a bit.

“Kaz… there's something I want to say to you. In case I don't get another chance.”

Okay, never mind heating up the coffee. Guess it was time for her to chew me out more. “Yeah?”

She clicked her beak a couple of times and cut her eyes away toward the wall. “I'm sorry. About what I said earlier.”

If I were drinking my own coffee I might have choked on it. “Wha…?”

Her expression hardened into a small scowl. “Don't make this harder than it needs to be. I didn't mean what I said. I know… I know that you've tried to do what you thought was right, and that you've had a lot of experience with ponies that I haven't. So… there. I'm sorry.”

That took a few seconds to process, and thankfully I had a cup in my claw that I could sip from to feign being busy to give myself a moment to think. “It's okay. I probably shouldn't have jumped on you like that either. We've all had a lot of reasons to be in a bad mood for a long time, so just forget it.”

“...there's one more thing,” she said, again tapping her talons on her cup as she avoided looking me in the eye. “Just, thanks.”

“For what?” Yeah, this had to be some kind of weird lucid dreaming experience. The Enclave were coming to raze Fillydelphia and in the midst of that Amy was apologizing and thanking me?

She shrugged again and stretched her wings a little. “For everything. You risked your life to save Valerie. If she could have been saved, I know you would have. And your sister. And you did save Serge and Carmelita... I know being here is the opposite of what you want, but you've stuck by us regardless. A lot of people owe you their lives.” She sighed and set the cup down. “And you know, despite our differences, you've always put up with being my partner. Most outsiders would have probably snapped years ago.”

Sometimes I wondered if I had and just didn't realize it. Not to mention I didn't really have any choice in whose partner I was. “I should probably say thanks for not snapping and strangling me.”

Maybe it was just sleep deprived delirium, but for the briefest moment I thought I saw a little smile form at the corners of her beak. “It's been hard at times. But it's like I told you years ago. I think we were on one of those fishing trips. I get it. We'll never see the world the same, but at least I knew you'd be there.”

Pinfeathers, now I felt extremely guilty for considering flying off to the wild gray yonder to escape this wretched place before the plasma bolts started raining down on it. Maybe she just judged me right for being an idiot who'd die here over some misplaced sense of camaraderie or loyalty to her and the other squad members.

Her smile was replaced by a growing frown. “And I know if one of us is hurt, you'll risk everything to help. So… if it happens tomorrow and I can't say it… thanks.”

If anything could kill the mood, that would. “Let's hope it doesn't come to that.”

Everything went quiet again, with Amy tightening her grip around her cup a little until it buckled.

“...I'm tired of being the bad guy.”

“Huh?”

She released the cup before she spilled coffee everywhere and continued, “I thought I was just tired of Talon Company, but that's really what it is. I'm tired of being the bad guy. Ever since I got here, that's all I've been. That's all the slaves will ever see me as. The slavers would throw us to the hellhounds to save their skins. And now, with the Enclave, that's all we are again. Just someone with a gun between them and what they want. Another bad guy. I'm tired of it.”

The door clicked open and a yellow griffoness strolled into the room with us. “You and me both, sister.” Carmelita rubbed at her bleary eyes and said, “I've been in this thankless outfit for entirely too long. I don't care what I do after this is over, but I didn't sign up to get shot at by the Enclave.”

Amy slid her still full cup of coffee toward her. “Couldn't sleep either?”

“Had to piss. Then I heard you lovebirds talking.” She ambled toward the exit. “Also, yes, couldn't sleep.”

When she returned from her bathroom break, she flopped down at the table with us and asked, “So, what do you think our chances with the Enclave are? How fucked are we?”

“Seriously,” Amy said flatly. “I never saw any up close, but we all knew that their army was comprised of exclusively prewar equipment. Specialized pegasus powered armor and more magical energy weapons in a squad than you've probably seen in your life.”

“Any idea how many of them there are?”

Amy shook her head.

Another feminine voice sounded from the door as Leigh chimed in, “We don't know. Guesses range from three hundred to three thousand soldiers.” She stumbled in and found a seat with the rest of us, followed by Isaac carrying the radio.

“Oh, goody. Anywhere to matching us to beating us ten to one. And with force multipliers on top. We really are boned.” Lita sucked down the cup of coffee in one gulp. “I bet those rusted buckets of bolts they set up don't even work.”

Metallic clicking preceded Serge joining the rest of us in the sitting room. “Lieutenant said that they test fired a few and they worked. It's the best we've got so we've got to trust that they'll do the job.”

Lita crushed the cup and tossed it into the corner of the room, nowhere even remotely close to a trash can. “At least the anti-mat rifles can punch through their armor. Works on Steel Ranger armor so I'm betting anything light enough to fly is easier to shoot through.” She wagged a finger at us. “Let this be a lesson to you: overachieving kills. They gave me and Ike the guns because we're the best shots in the squad. One or two shots and we'll probably be eating laser guided missiles for lunch.”

Serge stood near the door and snapped his organic talons to get our attention. “All right everyone, listen up. I know that the thought of fighting the Enclave is daunting, but everyone needs to can the fatalistic attitude. If you give up now then you don't have a shot when they get here.

“I'm not sure on the specifics, but Master Red Eye has more prepared for them than he's shown so far. Lieutenant Blackfeathers told us that the Cathedral in the Everfree has a number of experimental weapons that are being prepped right now to counter the attack. It's a basic part of military tactics. Feign weakness when you're strong so the enemy will be lured to their defeat.”

Lita leaned on the table with an elbow. “And if they're faking too?”

“They can't. The Enclave can't build more of the prewar equipment they've been keeping fixed up over the centuries, and what they have has been known for decades. Near as we can tell only half of their air force is even operational, and all of it green. They've been living a life of luxury up in the clouds while we've been toughing it out down here with the worst the wasteland has to offer.

“Not to mention we've got the homeland advantage. Fortified positions with AAA and other emplacements. Hundreds of ponies on the ground will be backing us up. Anything we destroy can't be replaced so the Enclave are going to be careful and sparing with what they risk throwing at us. I'm expecting a hard and heavy initial assault with all they have, which falls apart and backs off just as quickly once they realize they can't just roll over us. They'll be afraid to try again.”

I wished I could be so confident. Amy looked like she was about as defeated as ever at the thought of facing them. Lita looked unconvinced, while Leigh and Isaac just looked consigned to their fates.

Serge continued, “The lieutenant also told me that if things continue like they have been we'll have more time to prepare. Red Eye's army is trying to set up MEW emplacements using scavenged Steel Ranger weapons, and a few missile batteries near the Fun Farm since they're expecting direct assaults on the headquarters. She's also going to call squads in as rotations allow to practice air-to-air combat. It's what the pegasi will be used to so we're hoping the ground emplacements will throw them off, but we've got to be ready to fight in the air too.”

“Nothing like a crash course right before the test,” Lita grumbled.

“Take it or leave it,” Serge shot back. He circled around the table to take the last open chair. “The battle will be hard, but when it gets here, there's nobody else I'd rather face it with than all of you.”

A bold faced lie, I knew, since a cross eyed pony with a shovel would be better in a fight than me, but Serge was doing his best to keep morale up so I just accepted it without a word. So did everyone else. Even Carmelita.

“Gee, sarge, you're gonna make me get all teary.” Well, for a moment, anyway.

I pushed my empty coffee cup aside and joked, “Maybe I should land on one of their ships and bring them some bad luck.”

That got a small round of uneasy chuckles. Lita snorted. “Yeah, like that time the spark battery blew out in that skywagon last year right when we flew past them. Made some pretty fireworks but boy did the girls pulling it freak out. Good thing they were close to the city already.”

Another round of light chuckles. “Oh, or that time...”

Time began to fade away as we shared a few memories of our years together in the city. Of the crazy coincidences or strange things we'd seen. Leigh brought up a story I'd never heard about finding some slavers making out in a dumpster, when she thought some pony was getting murdered.

It wasn't much, but a couple of hours of talking about anything but the impending attack was enough to let me forget about the butterfly swarm growing in my stomach again.

I dozed off in my seat at some point, but as always, sleep never lasted long enough. Morning came to a rude awakening by Amy, who informed me that Lieutenant Blackfeathers had summoned us and a few other squads for another debriefing, pending our next rotation onto watch.

It was difficult to tell that it was morning.

The rain stopped at some point overnight, but the clouds still looked dark and ominous. Of course it was just the remnants of the storm system that rolled through the previous day, but in the back of my mind I kept wondering if it was part of an Enclave vanguard force using the thunderstorms as cover for an aerial approach. No ponies or lasers came lancing out of the sky at any point on our way to the train station at least, so I swallowed my apprehension and followed everyone else to the debriefing.

Like the previous day, Heidi was waiting for us on the platform of the old station. Her feathers were disheveled and frayed at the edges, and the bags under her eyes made it look like she hadn't slept in two weeks.

Most everyone present looked little better. I was sure nobody got any sleep the previous night.

Once she'd determined that we were all present, she called us to order and explained, “We've got an update on intel from the forward scouts. I wish I had better news, but it looks like the Enclave are continuing with their planned attacks on other cities with substantial military assets.”

She wiped her eyes. “First, we know that the old city of Canterlot was destroyed by one of their ships. Nobody has been able to pin down why, but to me it's a clear show of force. They're here to reassert what they believe to be order, and began by removing what was left of the old symbols of Equestria.

“Their forces are currently committed to engagements north of here. Early reports have come back that they have begun an assault on Friendship City, which has a significant remnant of old Equestrian Army defenses. At this point we're not sure if the Enclave plan to take the city for those emplacements, or are destroying them to prevent the city from fighting back while they annex it.

“Additionally, scouts have determined that their second supercarrier group is headed toward New Appleloosa. It may be a diversionary effort, or could just be on the way to their true destination, since the city has no known military assets of value.”

She let a dramatic pause follow. Or maybe she was just so tired she needed a moment.

“To be clear, that would put them headed south from their current location. Toward us. We're trying to coordinate with field operatives to verify their heading and plan, but it's possible they're headed for the Everfree and the Cathedral there. If not, it's very likely they're headed toward Fillydelphia. We have the largest industrial and military base left in Equestria, so there's no doubt they will try to take it.

“Captain Stern is drafting up field deployments to help protect the Everfree facilities, so it is very likely that some of you will be pulled away to redeploy there urgently. Until then, you are all on active patrol and high alert. You have your orders.”

She took a long, weary breath and waved a claw at us. “Dismissed.”

The butterflies in my stomach turned into another lump of stone.

This was it. It was now just a matter of hours until the shooting started.

Level 13 - Max level achieved.

Chapter 27: The Battle of Fillydelphia

Chapter 27

The Battle of Fillydelphia

As it turned out, the shooting started in Fillydelphia about thirty hours later.

The news started out good about six hours after Heidi's briefing when we heard that something had destroyed a fleet of Enclave ships. A massive explosion with no evident source, that everyone speculated was caused by one of the ship's ancient generators losing containment after being taxed so much after being left so long to rust and rot without proper maintenance. Other rumors circulated that the Enclave had balefire bombs aboard the ships and one detonated prematurely. Nobody knew for sure, but we were taking it as a boon to have less ships to deal with.

The news only got worse from there. An hour after that, we learned that one of the supercarriers and its escort were absolutely headed for the Everfree forest and the Cathedral within, while another was on a course for us. And two hours after that, news started to trickle in as the engagement began in the Everfree.

We were all manning our defensive position near the wall, sitting atop a flat roof and huddled around Leigh and her radio while trying to glean what we could from the radio chatter. It sounded like the Enclave were taking a slow approach, but even so the attack was brutal and relentless once it began. We didn't gather much detail, since we were only overhearing whatever second hand info was relayed on Talon Company frequencies, but it sounded grim. The army were trying to hold their defensive positions, but the magical energy weapons on the Enclave ships were punching through the bunkers with little difficulty. We caught some excited chatter about hellhounds not long after that, and then the five words that still ring in the back of my mind to this very day came across the radio.

“Master Red Eye is dead!” All of us took collected gasps and exchanged shocked looks. Nobody had any chance to question whoever was on the other end of the radio before he continued, “This is First Sergeant Whitebeak, acting command of second platoon. I repeat, Master Red Eye is dead! Lieutenant Strongclaws is incapacitated and the Cathedral is being overrun! I'm ordering all Talon Company elements to break off and return to Fillydelphia immediately to regroup!”

Captain Stern cut in over the radio, demanding an explanation and tactical update, since she hadn't authorized the retreat, but there was no acknowledgment. Sergeant Whitebeak was probably nowhere near the radio anymore.

Carmelita's beak hung open for a moment before she muttered, “Pluck me bald...”

Amy wrung the barrel of her rifle and stared silently at the radio. All of her nightmares must have been coming true. If the Cathedral hadn't even slowed the Enclave down, what was going to happen when they came here? We had more people here but I wasn't remotely convinced that we were better fortified. The Everfree forest provided a lot of natural cover and protection from aerial attacks, and the Enclave walked right over them. They even killed Red Eye and probably Lieutenant Strongclaws just like that.

Over half a decade of nightmares under Red Eye was starting to crumble. I'd dreamed of leaving this wretched place and his orders for six years, but I didn't expect it to end like this.

The radio went dead not long after, with all of the communications now on our side and reaching nobody at the Cathedral. It had been abandoned or completely destroyed in a matter of hours.

We all exchanged nervous looks once more, but nobody found anything else to say. Not even Serge or Lita had anything left.

All we had left to do was sit and wait for the end to come while the dark clouds above swirled.

The next six hours felt like a year. Exhaustion was creeping up on all of us, but even if Captain Stern allowed us to stand down it would be just like when Heidi offered it. None of us were going to get any sleep. None of us were hungry. It was just an unending purgatory of watching for the impending attack while waiting for any update from the captain or lieutenants.

An update finally came when we spotted a group of something flying our way from up north, ahead of something massive. By the time Leigh radioed it in to Heidi, it was already apparent that we weren't looking at Enclave pegasi and ships though. Massive leathery wings beat to keep the large shape aloft, and the other figures were too lithe to be power armored pegasi. Leigh was the first to say it had to be a dragon, but none of us believed her until it got closer.

I'd never seen a living dragon before, but it was soon clear that she was right. From somewhere, somehow, a full grown dragon was flying ahead of the decimated remains of second platoon on their urgent retreat back to Fillydelphia.

Captain Stern and Heidi both showed up to meet the group as they arrived, which was still past the walls and just close enough for my tastes. The dragon swept high into the air and flew over us, ignoring the puny griffonesses that tried to stall and question the group, before it began a lazy circle near the city perimeter. I didn't get a good look from our position, but I could have sworn that some of its limbs had been replaced by cybernetic prostheses, and a baleful red glow shone from both eyes that reminded me all too much of the wicked stallion that died at the Cathedral.

The rumors of Red Eye's super weapon were true. It wasn't a giant zebra combat robot dredged up from pony-goddesses-knew-where, but it was probably the second best thing we could hope for.

But… the feeling of hope didn't last long, as Carmelita put all of our thoughts to words. “Red Eye's corpse on a bike, if the Enclave scared a dragon away from the Cathedral then we really are fucked eleven ways aren't we?”

Amy nodded silently and twisted her claws around the barrel of her gun again as she watched the colossal dragon circle overhead. Evident laser and plasma burns scarred its side and peppered holes in its wings. An ancient cyber-dragon got in a fight with the Enclave and lost. We were going to get brushed aside like gnats.

Stern and Heidi talked with the second platoon remnants for what could have only been minutes, but again time dragged on like dripping tar. Eventually, the beleaguered platoon resumed their flight into the city to destinations unknown, while Stern cut in over the radio.

“Lieutenant Strongclaws is dead and First Lieutenant Ironclaw is MIA. Second and third platoons now report to Sergeant Whitebeak and Sergeant Tornfeathers until I say otherwise.

“The Enclave are battered from the fight in the Everfree and their fleet was crippled and broke off their attack, but the other fleet is still on its way here. We're expecting twelve hours before they arrive in force but scouts could arrive at any moment. Everyone is ordered to remain dispersed at emergency positions until I order otherwise, but once the Enclave arrive we're going to engage them outside of the city. The army will be backing us up from the ground. Fortifications are ineffective and we can't afford to lose the industrial base here.”

Her voice took on a hissing overtone. “And Freija… you have ten minutes to find me and explain yourself before I declare that you've deserted...”

The pony guards manning the weapon emplacements along the wall were all murmuring among themselves now. They must have heard Stern and the “good news” that they were going to be on the back of the defensive lines now. At least for as long as such a notion as a line of engagement existed. The moment the Enclave pushed past us, and they would, the gunnery crews were going to be sitting ducks. As much as I was terrified at the thought of taking to the air to engage the pegasi, I didn't envy anyone stuck manning a flak cannon or machine gun that was anchored in place.

“She's nuts,” Lita quipped. “If we go toe-to-toe with the Enclave we're going to get fried. There's nowhere to hide in the air, and this armor isn't going to do jack shit against a plasma gun.”

Serge looked skyward at the steadily darkening clouds to the north. “No plan survives contact with the enemy, but orders are orders. We have to trust that she's right. If we stay in the air we can at least avoid the artillery mounted on any of their ships. Anything on the ground is going to get hammered.”

Leigh sighed and nodded. “And if we try to hide inside of a building they'll just level it. Our best bet is to stay on the move.”

Isaac grunted something that sounded like an affirmation.

Lita snorted instead. “If this gets me killed, I'm going to be really pissed at you guys. Just… just keep that in mind.”

Great. Flying after being awake for almost two days straight and with having barely eaten anything? We were thoroughly exhausted. The Enclave were going to be tired too, but they had enough troops to rotate to fresher soldiers. They'd fly circles around us, and it was literally impossible to dodge a laser.

I'd heard that some Talon elements had been pulled away to help staff the old hospital. I didn't doubt Leigh's observation that the Enclave wouldn't hesitate to bomb it, but I still wished Heidi had assigned us there. I was a medic, for fuck's sakes! That's where I should have been! And the others could be stationed with me, where we'd at least be further away from the first shots.

At least the mortal dread would give us enough adrenaline that I wouldn't have to worry about being sleepy while they shot at us.

I was exhausted. But I wasn't sleepy.

It took the Enclave a little longer to arrive than Captain Stern estimated, but they arrived all the same.

The first signs were dark shapes casting shadows above the cloud layer in the distance. A single massive blot flanked by a dozen smaller shapes that flowed and merged into an uncertain number of assaulting Enclave craft. From this distance it was hard to get a fix on how far out they were or when they'd reach us, but the scouts on the radio helpfully called out estimates. Thirty minutes. Twenty. Ten.

Right on schedule, the supercarrier broke through the clouds. A swirling torrent of black thunderclouds descended first, crackling with lightning and sending a deep rumbling hum rolling past us, before the black ship riding them appeared.

It was colossal. Larger than the dragon by an order of magnitude, and defied belief. Only incredibly powerful and sophisticated prewar enchantments could have held something so large aloft on clouds like that.

Amy swore. So did Lita. I think I did too.

The first shots came from us. The flak cannons opened up a moment later with thunderous booms, with an agonizing delay of more than ten seconds before the airbursting shells detonated. The flashes were smaller than I expected, with small but vibrant poofs that didn't even light up the dark hull of the oncoming carrier. Nothing seemed to happen next. Maybe the shells were duds? Or maybe they just had no effect?

Another salvo opened up, with a dozen cannons discharging almost in unison. Another wave of booms sounded ten seconds later, this time a little closer to the Enclave ship. It still seemed unperturbed by the assault.

“Flak isn't going to do anything to that,” Lita muttered. “They're going to have to get direct hits if they want to get anywhere.” She squinted. “Why aren't they shooting back?”

“Magical plasma is short ranged,” Leigh pointed out. “Probably too much atmospheric attenuation at this range. We'll outrange them for a while at this rate.”

That was weird. I watched another salvo of shells detonate to little or no effect in the air. “So… why didn't they descend when they were in range?”

“It's a diversion,” Serge said simply as he scanned around us. “They're trying to draw our attention toward it. Keep your eyes open because there's probably going to be a second assault front coming soon.”

“Should we inform the captain?” I asked with a bit more urgency than I intended.

He continued to watch the clouds to our side. “She's aware of everything we are and more. No point in wasting her time pointing it out, if we could even reach her now.”

I turned my attention back to the Enclave ship. A shell finally landed directly against the hull, lighting it up briefly and sending a small shower of debris raining down. Part of me didn't trust Stern's tactical sense after some of our recent setbacks, but I trusted Serge's enough to not question him. At least I had a little confirmation that the artillery could damage the ship, even if it looked like it would take more ammo than we had to destroy something so massive.

Minutes ticked by and dozens more flak shells rained down on the ship, which continued to close the distance.

I began to wonder if maybe the crew just made a mistake and dropped below the cloud deck too soon, but that idea vanished the moment a series of sharp cracks sounded around us. I snapped my head to the right just as a dozen beams of green incandescent plasma speared through the clouds and smashed into the city. A section of wall larger than me vanished in a cloud of boiling plasma and evaporating concrete and steel. An already collapsing building shuddered, twisted and fell in on itself as a wall was obliterated by the assault. A flak cannon erupted in a plume of green flame, washing my vision out. Through the glowing haze, I barely made out a smaller black shape diving through the clouds, riding on what appeared to be another miniature thunderstorm. It opened fire again, raking the interior of the city with more impacts of magical plasma beams that tossed clouds of dirt and debris high into the air. To our left, more deep cracks and blasts of disintegrating buildings sounded as another ship descended.

Serge was right! Two, four… I didn't know how many of the ships were diving to attack the city all around us!

“Sergeant?” Leigh asked, looking to him expectantly.

“No word from the captain yet,” he responded. Which wasn't how she worded the order, but I sure as hell wasn't going to encourage him to send us flying up to meet the Enclave! He instead gestured to Carmelita and Isaac. “Fire. Conserve your ammo, but try one shot each. Let's see if their hull can stop that.”

Both raised their rifles and drew aim at the nearest ship. I covered my ears just in time for the still deafening bangs, and both griffons shuddered visibly under the recoil.

We weren't close enough to really get a good look, but all the same the impacts on the Enclave ship were evident. Armored plates on the side imploded and fell away. It took a few seconds for the ship to react, but it broke off its attack and began to ascend again.

“At least we know they're not indestructible,” Lita said. “We should probably move.”

“Yeah, they may return fire. Everyone up.”

We lifted off and started to rise away from the building we'd perched on. I had to hope the ship's weapons were more suited for targeting stationary emplacements instead of small aerial targets like us, but we never got to find out.

Before it could do so much as rotate to face us, it was hammered by a dozen more shots of anti-materiel rifles, either from other squads scattered through the city or by the guards in Pinkie balloons floating above. Chunks of debris rained down as sections of armor were blasted off, and even one of its plasma cannons was disabled by the impacts as flames rose from rents in its barrel and the linkages to its hull. The damaged ship began a ponderous retreat, but again was cut off as a massive shadow passed over us.

The cyber-dragon had spotted its prey, and the damaged ship never stood a chance. We all watched in mortified shock as the dragon latched onto it and literally ripped sections of the ship away while it spluttered helplessly in the air.

Another Enclave ship erupted in flame from a flak cannon scoring a direct hit, and both destroyed ships plummeted to the ground in flaming pieces.

I dared to think for a moment that we might actually be winning the battle with the Enclave already losing two of their assaulting ships, but the thought vanished just as fast when three of the Pinkie balloons burst into flame from plasma beams slicing through them like paper. I watched the baskets drop ten stories and land with imagined crunches. The odds of the guards surviving such a fall were vanishingly small, but if we rushed that way maybe I could save one-

A repeating crack sounded above, so rapid it almost sounded like paper tearing. Red energy beams rained down in all directions, vaporizing fragments of stone, asphalt, concrete and anything else unlucky enough to be in the way. At least two ponies on the wall spasmed and pitched backward as the laser bolts stabbed through their bodies. A searing burn ran up my tail where a beam fried the fur and left what felt like a nasty blister

Above us, a dark swarm swirled and broke through the clouds. Dozens, hundreds of black powered armored pegasi dove down at us. More bursts of laser fire crashed down and slew another group of ponies manning a machine gun that was turned outside and useless against the flying attackers.

Serge thrust a talon upward. “In the air now! Try to get above them!”

Over Leigh's radio, Captain stern shouted something similar. A swarm of griffons leaped into the air across the city, and the battle was truly joined.

So much for engaging them outside of the city!

The aerial clash that followed was short, but brutal. Most of the details passed in a blur so fast it barely registered in my mind. I don't think I fired more than one or two shots with the rifle Lita loaned me for the battle. There was no lack of targets, but with the incessant crisscross of lasers tearing through the skies around me, I dared not stop long enough to actually aim at anyone.

We didn't stay airborne for very long. A couple of minutes at most. Sixty to a hundred and twenty full seconds of magical lasers crackling and sizzling past us the entire time with nowhere to hide.

There was no time to pay attention to the shrieks and yelps piercing the blasts and crackles. If I stopped moving, I'd die.

There was a special place in Hell for Stern and her orders to send us up into this carnage, and deep down, I hoped she was sent there.

A laser stabbed through a yellow griffon as he flew past me. He gasped and plummeted a couple of stories before recovering. For a moment, my vision was locked on him as he banked and dropped toward the balcony of a nearby apartment building. If I could get to him, there was someone I could actually help. But he was two blocks awa-

Scattered laser fire rained down around him. He lurched once, and in an intense flash of pink, his body disintegrated into glowing ash that was carried along the swirling winds.

Shit...

By that point it was abundantly clear that we had lost the skies. Other squads were already beginning a fighting retreat to the ground amidst the arrival of supporting fire from the city garrison, and we joined them. A pegasus jerked to the side as light machine gun fire spattered off his black armor, and started an uncontrolled rolling dive when the bullets ripped through his wing. Two more followed a similar fate and slammed into the ground with heavy, cracking thuds that split the pavement. The arrival of the new fire support gave all of us the desperate break we needed to disengage and reevaluate our tactics.

I hoped Stern was dead, and I hoped it hurt. I trusted a hellhound to come up with a better battle plan than just charge a technologically superior foe that outnumbered you!

We all but fell into the street behind the ruins of a convenience store and leaped through the nearest window to get inside. The cracks, sizzles and blasts continued above us, now muffled by the collapsing ceiling that rattled and shook dust free every time something flew past. I threw myself into a corner and watched the nearby window while I held an open claw to my chest and tried to calm myself enough to think about what was happening.

“What now, sarge?” Carmelita asked. She ejected the magazine on her massive rifle and loaded a new one.

Leigh frowned a little and shook her head. “No updates from command. I haven't heard anything from the lieutenant or captain.”

Serge waved a claw for us to get down. “Hold this position for the moment. Engage targets of opportunity but keep a low profile.”

Amy backed away from her window and rotated around to use the nearby wall to conceal her completely. Unless someone got lucky, only the anti-materiel rifles were really powerful enough to punch through the Enclave's armor. No point shooting at someone just to alert them of our position.

Isaac sidled up to another window and raised his rifle while being careful to keep it inside of the building. Carmelita finished reloading and checking her rifle, then joined him.

We sat there for another minute or two while the war raged on outside. The building shook twice more from explosions, and the wall I was nestled up against groaned ominously. I flinched and almost dropped my rifle when Isaac or Carmelita fired at something out of sight, and my hearing was filled with ringing that mercifully drowned out the carnage for a minute more.

That almost got me killed.

I didn't hear her shouts, and only by blind luck did I look up in time to see both her and Isaac retreating from the window and yelling something. Nobody asked questions and we charged toward the exit after her.

Half of the building disappeared in a cataclysmic eruption of dust, splintering wood and shearing rusted steel beams as something titanic landed on it. Despite all senses telling me to run to get out of the open, as soon as I made it to the empty street I spun around to get a better look. I expected to see an Enclave ship that had been shot down, but instead, adrenaline surged through me all over again when the dust settled and I recognized what I beheld.

The cyber-dragon rested in a twisted heap, wings still limply fluttering in the wind. The front right quarter of its body was gone, with the gaping wound ringed with incandescent green from the magical plasma still boiling away. Fountains of blood rained down from open arteries that even such intense heat could never have cauterized. Exposed electronics crackled and arced. Flames flickered and dripped alongside the blood.

There was no time to gawk, and shadows raced overhead. I tore my eyes off of the dying dragon to see a black armored pegasus pull into a hover overhead. She lowered the long barreled lasers toward us.

I was dimly aware of two long barreled rifles rising up beside me. I lunged to the side, but my feet were like lead.

Blinding red beams cut down. Fragments and dust pelted me from disintegrating asphalt. Concussive blasts of air rocketed past me. An intense flash of pink behind me followed. The pegasus jerked visibly and started losing altitude.

“Isaaaaac!”

It was the first thing I heard distinctly since the shots in the store. Leigh's scream. Orange feathers and pink dust wafted past me as I hit the ground from my clumsy attempt to dodge the lasers.

The pegasus's head snapped to the side and part of her helmet flew off, followed by another audible boom and blast of air. The dead pony tumbled out of the air and landed with a muffled crunch.

Carmelita stood at the ready, rifle extended upward and eyes wide.

Serge and Amy stood two steps back, also staring in disbelief.

Leigh was pawing at the blackened scorches on the pavement next to Lita. Half of an anti-materiel rifle rested a step away, but it was all of the evidence that remained that Isaac had ever been there.

He was dead.

Gone.

Leigh screamed something again, but I don't remember what. Her talons scratched at the pavement more in disbelief. She sat back and held her claw up to look at the black cinders now caked on them.

A hot wind rushed past, and the burning remains of a gutted Enclave ship drifted closer. More flitting shadows zigzagged around as dark shapes flew overhead.

Serge grabbed Leigh by the foreleg. “We've got to go. Got to go now!”

The brown griffoness looked up at the soldiers above and clambered back to her feet. She pulled her rifle up and aimed at the dead pegasus in the street, but after another forceful tug from the sergeant she relented. All of us that were left forced past the shock and ran for the nearest alley.

I was dimly aware of something deeper in the city exploding in a fireball that eclipsed the energy beams sizzling through the air, but it didn't matter. Reaching the warehouse at the end of the street was all that mattered. We had to get back in cover.

Carmelita threw herself into the side door, and we all flew through the opening after her.

It was dark inside. Dark, and again, relatively quiet. Maybe now we could regroup and think.

Bloodfeathers. Isaac was dead. I didn't dare make eye contact with Leigh, who I barely registered had retreated up against an empty crate.

I needed something to occupy my mind. Someone else might have been hurt. I didn't see anyone else get hurt, but maybe debris or something. Yeah, I should probably check everyone for-

Static cut through Leigh's radio. I heard her flip a switch and change it to a speaker we could all hear.

“This is Lieutenant Heidi Blackfeathers, to all of Talon Company. Captain Stern is KIA and I'm taking command. Stand by for updates and new orders.”

Everyone exchanged frightened looks all over again, save Leigh who was still staring into the concrete floor.

Shit. I wasn't sad to hear Stern was gone, but it came with the understanding that everything truly was falling apart.

We were all going to die.

We lingered in the warehouse for some time, huddled up against empty wooden crates covered in tarps and dust with labels too faded to read. Fifteen or twenty minutes maybe. We kept hoping to hear an update from Heidi on our new orders, but until then none of us were in a hurry to go back outside and rejoin the battle that we'd clearly lost already.

Leigh was still sitting away from the rest of us, face in her claws and making the odd choking noise. Well, she was trying to sit off on her own, but Serge had taken up a spot next to her. I don't think he'd said anything to her, or her to him, but it was better than any of the rest had managed to do for her. I had no idea what to say. Words weren't going to really help after she'd just seen her best friend vaporized by a laser bolt.

A deep hollow feeling welled up within me as I realized that the only sensation I'd even felt was shock. Isaac and I hadn't really gotten along, but I didn't dislike him. Even after he hit me that time in the stable. If I hadn't fucked up and gotten Leigh shot, he wouldn't have done that then. It was my fault.

He didn't deserve what happened. At least it had been as fast a death as anyone could have hoped for.

I blew out a sigh. That was not helping me feel better.

And worse, there was nothing else to occupy my mind. Nobody else was hurt, so I couldn't even waste a few minutes applying potion or bandages to scrapes or cuts. It was just us all waiting around for something to happen other than for something to explode in the distance or for the odd laser bolt to vaporize a tiny hole in the ceiling to let yet another shaft of light drift in.

Carmelita was positioned near the side entrance we'd come through, pressed up against the wall and watching the street outside through the cracked door. She wasn't bothering with her EFS tracker. I was sure it was nothing but painted red from the hostile contacts outside.

Amy, meanwhile, was pacing along the empty space between rows of crates. Every time something roared overhead and shook the rafters above, she ducked and almost fell into a sprinting stance. But every time, it passed us by.

It was just a matter of time before something did land on the warehouse, whether a crashing Enclave ship or a missile, so we couldn't stay here forever. Or even much longer, but I had to trust that even if Heidi didn't give us orders soon, Serge would know what to do.

Anyone else in this squad would have to know what to do next. They had to...

A few minutes more passed before the reprieve finally came, when Heidi's voice cut in over Leigh's radio. “This is Lieutenant Blackfeathers, to all squads in third platoon. The army garrison has the Enclave disorganized and we're capitalizing on it now. Third platoon, first through third squads are ordered to push past the cloud layer and draw off what infantry elements you can, while fourth through sixth are ordered to take up defensive positions at the Fun Barn.

“First platoon is ordered to pull back to the barracks immediately. I'll send more instructions en route. Squad leaders should take alternate routes back, on the ground."

As she signed off, everyone had already begun to assemble back at the radio. Even Leigh got up without prompt and grabbed the heavy piece of electronics.

Serge trotted for the door and waved for us to follow. “Come on, there's a metro entrance nearby. That will take us most of the way where we won't be exposed to aerial attacks.”

I took a deep breath and fell in with everyone. I knew whatever was coming wasn't going to be good, but I didn't envy third platoon. Even I could see that she was ordering a diversion, but being above the clouds was going to expose them to everything the Enclave had at their disposal...

Serge's decision to head underground kept us safe from the strafing lasers above, but it probably slowed us down a lot.

The metro tunnels had been poorly repaired over the years to only give the most basic ability to transfer materials across the city, leading to dozens of tunnels that were half as narrow as they should have been from all of the bracing that had been erected to keep the crumbling walls in one piece. Each rumble and blast above caused my eyes to dart to the nearest support, before I tore my eyes away instead of watching it shudder and risk collapsing entirely.

Trying to navigate the tunnels was also a chore. Dozens and dozens of armed and armored ponies kept trying to push past us on the way to destinations unknown, barking about reinforcing the wall or getting more fire support to the north side where the big Enclave ship was. The passages were narrow enough in places we had to move in single file, so when we bumped into another squad of ponies it threw everything into chaos. Agitated as they were, they didn't give us the wide berth that slavers and soldiers from the city normally did, and there wasn't room to fly over them. We just wasted a lot of time arguing and back tracking to get out of each others' way.

By the time we reemerged into the overcast day, another fifteen minutes must have passed. We were alive, but probably very late for whatever the Lieutenant wanted us for, so Serge urged us to pick up the pace as we made our final staggered dash from building to building toward the open field separating us from the earthen fortifications surrounding the stacked train cars that made up the barracks.

Nothing to do but run for it. Or fly, as it were, given the minefield.

The trip couldn't have taken more than twenty seconds, but every sizzle that met my ears and flash that caught the corner of my eyes felt like it was dialing in on us. The incessant heavy caliber machine gun fire in the distance kept reminding me that they probably had a lot more on their minds than shooting a bunch of griffons running away from the fight, but rationality was long gone.

I crashed into the dirt embankment and slid down the back side the instant we reached it, as if the two meters of soil was going to obscure me from flying adversaries, but the thought that I had concealment at all was what I craved.

There was no time to sit and catch my breath, and I had to scramble back to my feet to chase after the rest of the squad as they made a break for an open train car ahead. A purple feathered griffon, holding a distinctively large rifle no less, peered around the opening, waving us on. Where Egon was, Heidi would be.

And she wasn't happy when we got there.

“The others have already left,” she spat at us, as if we had context for what she was talking about. “Fourth squad is waiting for you at the armory now.”

Serge stepped further inside to look at some of the maps and papers that Heidi had strewn about two tables that had been hastily shoved together. “What are our orders?”

“You're flying escort for a bombing run,” she said without referencing the maps at all. “Fourth squad will be taking spark bombs and rockets to attack the Enclave thunderhead. Third platoon is flying diversions, but your squad will have to ensure that they make it to the ship to deliver their payloads. The rest of the platoon is already paired up and en route.”

Lita gawked. “We'll never make it! We're already down one and there are still hundreds of-”

“There is no time to argue,” Heidi snapped. “This is our last chance to force the Enclave to retreat. Only a coordinated attack inflicting heavy damage on their flagship has any chance to scare them into pulling back.” She thrust a black claw at the door. “Now, get moving!”

So we got moving...

The flight to the armory was short, but my anxiety was through the roof the entire way since there was no option but to stay out in the open. I expected a torrent of lasers or plasma bolts to crash down around us at any moment, but by this point it seemed that the army defenses had blunted the Enclave's attack just as thoroughly as they had blunted our counter offense. Every which way I looked, there were only scattered formations of dark shapes flitting through the skies, dodging streams of tracer rounds and the odd laser beam. Maybe with the chaos and disarray that the assault had fallen into, we'd actually have a clear shot at their carrier ship.

Or maybe all of the Enclave soldiers had taken the bait from Heidi's diversion earlier and were above the clouds.

Or they'd caught on to what was happening and had started engaging the bombers trying to attack their carrier…

No point thinking about it. We'd been given our orders and I knew I was going to fulfill them or die trying at this point. I just had to not think too hard about the dying part…

In better news, by some small miracle the armory had failed to attract undue attention from the Enclave, and was still right where we expected it to be. The building did look fairly unassuming on its own, but I would have guessed the firing ranges around it would have tipped the attackers off to its purpose. Maybe they just hadn't had time to dedicate any resources to leveling it yet. Either way, we dropped do the ground just inside the fence and made a mad dash for the entrance.

Fourth squad was waiting on us, and judging by the harsh looks they all flashed us, they hadn't been happy about being cooped up in a high value target like this while waiting for us to get there. Two big griffons with black and blue feathers hefted their missile launchers, while the three red, yellow and green girls grabbed the packs of explosives issued to them. The mazes of wires sticking out confirmed what Heidi told us: spark bombs. I'd never seen one bigger than a spark grenade, but the electromagical storm one of those had to give off would cause massive damage to any spell matrices in the Enclave ship if they could get close enough.

Big if. Especially if they were relying on us to get them close enough.

Their sergeant, and comparatively small and wiry griffoness with pale pink feathers, trotted our way. “About time you got here. Sam and Otto have already started moving the supplies underground so we're beating this dump and not coming back. Next round will mean resupplying at the metro station on Twin Saddle Avenue, assuming the Enclave haven't bombed it in return by the time we finish our run.”

“Any word on how the other teams have done?” Serge asked, spinning around to lead us back outside.

“Not much yet. It sounded like they were meeting minimal resistance but you can bet your ass the Enclave know what's up now and we're going to see a lot more heat.”

Leigh fiddled with the dial on her radio and muttered, “Haven't heard anything… but I'm listening...”

Amy and Lita checked their weapons, but both were silent and wore grim expressions. I knew my own had to be little better.

Without further discussion or debate, we all launched into the air, with our squad leading the way.

Only once before then had I ever felt the sense of mortal dread that washed over me at the sight of the Enclave supercarrier and the realization that we were deliberately getting closer to it. That was the time I had been dragged into the courtroom for my court martial over Ida. Facing the Pit and its deadly radiation hadn't frightened me so much. The hellhounds that gutted me and all but killed me hadn't given me a chance to be so afraid. Delving through the stable filled with ghouls hadn't either, nor had facing the Steel Rangers. In all of those cases, it had either been such a distant worry or happened too quickly to let the anxiety build. But now… it was going to take minutes to fly up to the massive battleship. Minutes to think and stew on what we were doing. In the distance, red lasers crisscrossed the skies as they stabbed at targets unseen. Tenuous dark shapes drifted above and below the clouds. Thunderous bangs of anti-material rifles sounded repeatedly above the clouds as the diversion continued.

And closer we drew. And closer. And closer.

We were close enough now that the individual plates of the ship's hull were visible. Massive closed hangar doors lined the ship's sides, clearly large enough to contain the smaller ships that served as the vanguard attacking force. Monstrous cannons rested just above the miniature thunderstorm holding the ship aloft, with barrels gently glowing with incandescent heat. We had little to fear from such ponderous weapons, and surprisingly, I didn't spot any point defense guns mounted on the hull. They must have assumed that the infantry supporting the ship would serve that purpose, but that begged the question of why said infantry would abandon closely defending it…

Two squads of Talons were in the middle of diving back toward the city, trailed by a group of Enclave pegasi. Lita leveled her rifle and took a shot, but none of the ponies reacted so the shot must have gone wide. One of the retreating squads broke off and began to circle around to engage them, which rapidly descended into a chaotic mass of griffons and ponies trying to line up shots without standing still and making themselves obvious targets. I had no doubt that very sequence had played out several times in the preceding minutes, and we were about to be the lucky ones brawling with pegasi while the bombers retreated to rearm...

Fourth squad's sergeant gestured, and I tore my eyes away to see the bigger griffons with rocket launchers bracing in the air and taking aim at the massive carrier ship. There was a lot less flash than I expected, and the rockets themselves were a lot faster than I expected. Despite the distance, it only took seconds for-

Intense cracks and flashes followed, and the rockets vanished in blasts of lightning leaping from the thunderclouds beneath the ship.

Shit. That explained the lack of point defense guns. The clouds were the point defense! They'd be better off shooting the spark rockets at the infantry and hoping their armor malfunctioned than wasting them on the carrier.

Leigh raised her claw to her headset. “They're going to try to drop the spark bombs from above!” she shouted to us over the distance we'd all drifted.

“Move forward and keep watch!” Serge ordered. The marauding squad of Enclave soldiers were still locked in the dogfight with the other squad of Talons, and to my disbelief, the Talons seemed to be winning. One of the black armored pegasi lurched and began a drunken dive into the streets below, while dozens of red beams tore through the skies and failed to find their targets. For now.

We made it about halfway there before Leigh threw on the brakes and held her claw up to flag Serge down again. “Sergeant, the Lieutenant is- Yes, yes ma'am, I- we're currently escorting-but what about-”

We all circled back around and rushed back to rejoin her and get an explanation. She switched something on her radio pack and shook her head. “Lieutenant Blackfeathers is urgently requesting that we meet her back at the train station.” She flashed a worried look to me. “It's a medical emergency.”

“What about fourth squad?” Serge questioned.

“I'll radio them on the way. She said this took priority.”

Yet another rock began to form in my stomach. All eyes were on me now, and we had to make another mad dash across open skies to reach her…

But the train station beat attacking the Enclave's ship up close!

Aside from the odd, random laser beam cutting across the sky to our side, much to my relief it seemed like the Enclave truly were too busy dealing with everything to pay us much attention.

An intense explosion caught my eyes ahead, just as another of the smaller Enclave ships began to pitch downward into a spiral. A flock of black specks scattered from the doomed ship and took to the air, just before another flash and plume of green flames erupted from its hull upon impact. Serge directed us to drop altitude, probably hoping the escaping crew wouldn't spot us, but we stayed airborne in our attempt to reach Heidi as fast as possible.

It was only then that it really began to sink in to me that the Enclave weren't walking over the city quite as easily as they'd hoped. The carrier hadn't been left undefended for no reason – no doubt the attacking forces had been spread to the limit trying to break the defenses of Fillydelphia, and they'd been unable or unwilling to regroup. I didn't see many more of the smaller ships left in the skies, so the Enclave must have taken a bad beating just like us.

But speaking of beatings, the barracks had been… obliterated.

It was impossible to tell if crashing ship had been responsible, but half of the train cars were now in hundreds of pieces, still glowing gently from the plasma blasts that had torn them apart. Flecks of ash and smoldering papers fluttered in the wind, rising on currents of hot air, and untold chunks of burnt and unidentifiable debris were strewn around the blackened splotches of ground.

My limbs felt heavy. Was Heidi dead too now? Had the Enclave decapitated Talon Company completely?

“Down there, at the train station!” Amy shouted, pointing at two black armored heaps lying in the mud. Enclave soldiers.

Oh, wait. She said the train station. The wooden building wasn't in any better shape than it had been since the first time I saw it, but it had been spared the fury of the ship's plasma cannons and still stood largely in one piece.

We dropped to the ground just past the dead soldiers and started up the steps to the station's platform. An alarming amount of blood coated the splintering wooden plans, leaving a visible trail of red spots and splotches leading inside.

Amy stopped to check the nearby window before giving us the all clear sign. Serge was the first inside, shouldering his way past the door and barreling in just ahead of me. He sprinted for three steps before skidding and catching himself against the receptionist desk in the center of the room.

“Lieutenant?”

Heidi was sitting in a hunched position by herself in a corner, with her face in her claws. She blew out a shuddering breath and shook her head as she clenched her claws hard enough to part the feathers on her head.

For a moment I assumed she must have been shot and was in severe pain, but I spotted the shape beneath a Talon Company flag on the other side of the receptionist desk an instant later. Something rigid propped the flag up in ways a body wouldn't…

“You're too late,” she said coldly as I scurried over to get a closer look.

I ignored her and proceeded to pull the flag up…

And we were too late.

A cold, nauseating sensation rolled through my body as the familiarity of the situation sank in. I had never been very close to Liese, and certainly not Egon… but the distant, pained look frozen on his face was just like hers, and is something I will never forget so long as I live. A piece of jagged sheet metal protruded from his side, debris from one of the barracks' box cars, where it had probably cut through his aorta or one of a dozen other major arteries. My claw brushed past two empty potion vials next to him, which had done little to arrest the fatal bleeding.

We were too late to save Egon.

I laid the flag back over his remains and stood with a weary groan. “I'm sorry, Lieu-”

She raised a claw to silence me, uncovering her face enough for me to see shrapnel woods oozing thin streams of blood.

Nobody knew what to say or do. Everyone else who dared peek inside had retreated back outside, leaving just me and Serge in the room with her. I wanted to offer to treat the injuries, but I knew better than to offer. It was all superficial from what I could see anyway.

What were we supposed to do? Go back to escorting fourth squad? I really didn't-

“Lieutenant, the Enclave are pulling back to the thunderhead,” a feminine voice cut in from beneath the flag, stilted and modulated. Egon's radio. “We're only going to get one more pass at this at best, and we haven't made much headway.”

Heidi looked up and blew out another shuddering sigh. She didn't make a move to respond.

“Lieutenant?” A pause. “We'll make one more bombing run but we're breaking off unless I hear otherwise from you. We'll regroup at the school.”

Heidi didn't look any of us in the eye, but finally spoke up. “You have your orders. Go assist fourth squad and follow Sergeant Tornfeathers' lead.” She stared at Egon's remains. “I... shouldn't have wasted your time. Go. It may be too late already.”

Serge bumped me in the shoulder toward the exit. “You heard her.”

I did. I just wish I didn't.

And I wish we'd been a few minutes faster. Egon hadn't ever hurt anyone to my knowledge. Born into Talon Company, and died in its service. He wasn't even a real soldier. It was like if Zella had been killed.

I put the thought to pasture as fast as I could. It wasn't beyond belief that she had been.

If this weren't the third or fourth time we were making this same desperate flight, I'd have been a lot more anxious. As it was, I'd started to grow slightly used to the terror of flying unprotected away from our platoon's former compound while the Enclave swarmed around, especially since last I saw the Enclave were still dispersed and fighting on three dozen fronts against ground forces.

But, as the griffoness on the radio warned, that had started to change.

The massive carrier ship ahead was now all but blanketed by a swarm of darting dark shapes, both Enclave pegasi and Talon griffons locked in a deadly dance of vying for position to aim at their targets while not sitting still. The difficulty of that was plainly visible now, given the incessant array of lasers spearing the sky as dozens or hundreds of pegasi fired at griffons and missed. Only one or two flying combatants tumbled from the sky over the course of the minutes we spent on our approach.

My palms began sweating and I fought to level my breathing. We were heading to join that fight, and there was no way we were going to make the difference. Even if we killed every pegasus we couldn't down the ship! And with those massive cannons it would-

Intense beams of red light tore down past me, coating my vision in glowing afterimages as they impacted the pavement and sent clouds of vaporized asphalt flying up toward us. More and more rained down, one singing the feathers on my wing.

In a panic, I rolled over to face upward, and every joint in my body locked up. Three dark shapes above the clouds plowed through to reveal black armored pegasi diving at us.

The leading stallion grinned.

I raised my rifle and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet impacted his breastplate and exploded uselessly against the advanced war era materials.

Searing pain erupted from my wings and glowing pink dust from incinerated feathers floated above me. My claws spasmed and the rifle fell out of my grip as my back arched involuntarily.

Wind caught my feathers and carried more dust and the scent of burnt flesh up past me as the sensation of free fall set in. The pegasi receded into the distance… and so did Serge, Lita and Leigh. More flashes of lasers filled my vision and several voices yelled and screamed.

Books where time slows to a standstill or your life flashes before your eyes as you fall to your death are horseshit. Complete and utter horseshit. The plummet to the ground went by in the blink of an eye, almost before I knew what was-

“Kaz! Kaz, get up!” Amy's voice…

She shook me and the double vision plaguing my sight began to resolve. I rolled over to get off of her claw and groaned. My back, neck and wings really hurt. I gave up trying to fold the injured extremities and tried to push up to my feet.

I was alive…?

“We're still under fire!” she continued as she helped me up by the armpit.

The daze began to fade and I snapped my attention upward. I didn't see any more of the Enclave soldiers, but I wasn't about to question her. “Where is-”

She grabbed me by the leg and dragged me into an alley. Winged shapes soared overhead and we both ducked as if it would make any difference. I peered out into the skies above the street for any sign of the others, but I didn't-

Serge was sprawled out on his belly on the pavement. He groaned and rolled over, but didn't seem to have the strength to get to his feet. Deafening booms echoed above, but I didn't notice if any of the ponies were hit. I kept scanning to check if my path to reach Serge was clear, but from the alley I couldn't get a good look at the sky! Wherever Leigh, Lita and the Enclave soldiers were, they must have been-

Leigh dropped into the street next to him. She hurled her rifle over her back by its strap and latched onto him. “Come on!” she shrieked as she hefted him toward the alley with us.

Now was my chance. I flinched at another boom above, now attenuated by the ringing in my ears, and launched out to grab his other foreleg. Together, we dragged the wounded griffon into the alley and into a makeshift, grungy shack some slave had erected out of scraps of sheet metal and brittle old wood.

There was barely any space for me and Serge inside, much less Leigh and Amy, but we all squeezed in to get out of the open. I didn't know where Carmelita was, but another blast of her anti-materiel rifle told me she was still alive. It would have to do for now.

Serge squirmed on the grimy towel laid out on the ground, clutching at his side. Blackened fur and feathers from laser burns spread out beneath his claws, but no blood flowed beneath him. Unlike the dead dragon, the burns must have been small enough that the heat cauterized the wounds…

I snatched my medical kit off and started digging out the restoration potion. He'd probably survive for a while even without it, or just a regular healing potion, but this was no time to be stingy. Egon's dead gaze flashed back into my mind. I wasn't about to let that repeat here because I was worried I'd need the potion later.

A heavy thump sounded from the alley. “Guys! We can't stay here, the whole damn block is crawling with pegasi!”

Noted and ignored, Lita! Give me a minute!

Dripping the glowing violet liquid into the wound immediately began to close it. Wisps of purple magic boiled away as the flesh reknit, and flakes of ash were caught up in the growing wind. The purple began to transition to a pale green… then brighter green…

“What… the hell… is...” Carmelita trailed off.

All of us, Serge excluded, eased back into the alley, then the street to look skyward. A sickly, green glow suffused the clouds above, growing in intensity and forming spikes and flashes of green lightning. A point of intense green, like a miniature star, formed in the clouds above the Enclave carrier. It descended closer, and closer, forming a shock wave of swirling green clouds on its way down.

“Everyone get down!” Amy shouted as she retreated to the alley. “It's a balefire bomb!”

We all scrabbled back to the relative safety of the alley and waited agonizing seconds for the boom to follow. Finally, a deep, echoing crack sounded above, followed by a blinding flash of green light that left me dazzled even with my head down. Hurricane force winds blew past the alley on each side and blew chunks of stone and debris from the roof of the adjacent buildings down around us. Deep, worrying groans issued from the foundations… but as fast as the blast came, it was gone. A heavy, but distant rush of wind followed as the air pressure tried to equalize.

I'd never seen a balefire explosion nor even heard accounts of one, but that detonation was far greater than any bomb or missile that I'd ever seen. A hollow feeling settled in my stomach as I realized that all that intensity and fury came from it detonating outside of the city. It was little wonder Equestria had been annihilated if those were dropped by the dozens on every major city during the war!

When I finally pulled myself back to my feet, I had to blink repeatedly to adjust my eyes to the light. Everything was so bright and intense… was it some aftereffect from the bomb? Were we all blanketed in clouds of glowing, necromantic radiation now? Were we doomed even after surviving the explosion?

“The-the sky...” Lita stammered, pointing upward.

The skies were clear. Crystal clear. The inconceivable power of the bomb's detonation had blown the cloud cover away, letting pure, unfiltered sunlight reach down to us.

“What about the ship?” Amy asked. She flared her wings and lifted up enough to get a clear view above the skyline. Her beak hung open.

Carmelita craned her neck. “What?”

“It crashed,” Amy answered. She dove back into the alley and pressed up against the far building. “The Enclave ship was destroyed. There were-I saw a few pegasi flying that way, but the ship's been destroyed.”

“What about the other ships? Weren't there a few of them left?”

She shook her head. “I don't know. Didn't see any of them.”

From next to Serge, Leigh rubbed her head and said, “That doesn't mean the battle's over. We should try to get to the school to reunite with the rest of Talon Company. I'll try to get the Lieutenant on the radio in the meantime.” She rested a hand on Serge's shoulder. “Can we carry him? With-without Ike, I don't… I don't know...”

Lita pushed past me and turned to present her side. “Load him up and let's get going. Kaz is grounded anyway so we'll have to stick to the streets. If we're lucky, the Enclave will be too busy figuring out what the fuck just happened to shoot at us.”

Serge groaned and rolled over. “Save it, I can walk.” With Amy's help, he eased up and checked his side. “Thanks Kaz.”

“Don't mention it,” I muttered quickly while repacking my kit. I contemplated downing the rest of the potion to heal my aching and burning wings, but stowed it away anyway. We might be safer on the ground anyway right now, and I wanted to have it if someone else was mortally wounded.

We had more pressing worries than that, like whether more balefire bombs were coming, or if we could remember the way to the school grounds on foot...

Our luck seemed to be holding out.

First of all, Leigh had taken the lead, and I trusted her judgment on which way to go. She assured us that we could be at the school grounds within twenty minutes, even given the sluggish pace we were managing, but that she also had not yet had any luck reaching the Lieutenant on the radio.

Instead, she said that there was some chatter from another group of mercenaries led by someone named Gawdyna Grimfeathers. They'd evidently joined the battle for some reason and were currently engaging the Enclave, but it took several full minutes before we spotted the first flight of griffons in unusual armor soaring above and taking potshots at the scattered Enclave squads still plying the skies.

A bunch of suicidal gloryhounds, Lita claimed.

I didn't care. If they were taking the heat off of us, that was all that mattered. Dozens of questions continued to swirl in my head, but I knew answers weren't going to come any time soon. Who were Gawd's Talons, and why were they here now? Had Heidi contacted them and paid them to bail us out at the last minute? Where had the balefire bomb come from? Did they bring it with them? How in the hell did they get one anyway? Were the Enclave going to retreat now? Without their carrier they'd have to fly home the hard way, but I'd probably beat it if I knew I'd lost all of my support.

Well, almost. There were still two more of the smaller ships left that I'd seen, but they'd retreated well outside of the range of the remaining AAA weapons and were now circling the city at a healthy distance. That was probably the best sign I'd seen all day – clearly, the Enclave were reevaluating their situation and were no longer blindly committed to razing the city. Maybe all hope wasn't lost.

The reprieve from constant burning death raining down on us also meant a resurgence in foot traffic on the streets. The remains of Red Eye's troops were now operating in the open again, using the moment to move more freely and redeploy what weapons and supplies they had left.

Some slaves had come out of hiding too. We were cut off by a gaggle of dirty ponies covered in torn rags that were stampeding through an intersection, shouting something about the blast knocking a section of the wall out and that they'd heard they could get out that way. How they planned to get past the moat was beyond me, but I really didn't care.

While we waited for our chance to pass, Leigh muttered, “You know, we were supposed to shoot any ponies trying to escape.”

Lita clicked her beak incredulously. “Do you give two shits about that right now?”

She shook her head weakly. “No.”

Amy stepped forward and lowered her rifle. “Let them go. None of this matters anymore.”

Serge had been quiet and unfocused during the entire trek and didn't bother to weigh in. All for the best. Finally, when it truly was plainly obvious that Fillydelphia and Red Eyes' regime had collapsed, they were all willing to let it go. I could only hope that the rest of Talon Company saw it too, or Red Eye's soldiers. The slavers probably wouldn't, but I'd take what I could get.

For what it was worth, the soldiers we saw on our way didn't seem in much of a hurry to wrangle up the slaves scattering in every direction either. Much bigger problems on everyone's minds.

Unfortunately, on top of all of the debris and churned up ground, the chaotic foot traffic did slow us down even further, and it was going to take longer than twenty minutes to run halfway across the city to second platoon's headquarters.

We made it maybe halfway there, crossing Stirrup Circle when another explosion in the distance caught our eyes. Another Enclave ship erupted in flames, speared by a beam of light half its breadth shining down from the skies that left an afterglow of atmospheric plasma that lasted for several full seconds while the ship began an uncontrolled dive to the ground.

“And what the fuck was that?” Carmelita demanded as she slowed to a stop to watch the crash.

“Nothing good,” I muttered in response. I didn't like this. These strange new mercs showed up, brought a balefire bomb and some kind of, what, orbital laser weaponry, and were helping us fight the Enclave? There was no way this could end well. The jury was still out on whether it would end better than the Enclave razing the city, but it wasn't going to end well.

I got my answer a few moments later when another massive laser beam lanced down through the clear skies and obliterated something deeper into the city. A plume of smoke illuminated by rising flames shot above the skyline, tossing sheets of plaster and sheet rock into the air to rain back down slowly amidst the heat induced updrafts.

That probably wasn't an accident. Was this from Gawd's Talons too? How? Why?

“We need to hurry,” Leigh urged.

As we picked up the pace at her insistence, Lita said, “We need to get out of the streets. Whatever that was, we're out in the open.”

“We'd be a bigger target inside of a building,” Amy said in response. “Whatever they're targeting, I don't think infantry are high on the list.”

Lita dropped back a pace to fall in beside Serge. “The chain of command is screwed so you're in charge here now.. Permission to fuck off out of this death trap?”

“Not… not yet,” he answered. “Let's regroup first and we can discuss our options then.”

I just hoped that blast didn't level the school yard. It was vaguely in the direction we were headed.

So many questions… so few answers...

The last of the Enclave ships went down in a spiraling ball of flames only a few minutes later, followed by what I could only guess were more lasers pummeling the remains of their carrier, and for reasons I couldn't even begin to guess at, fortifications and weapon emplacements that remained in the city.

What was the point? Whoever was responsible was trying to beat he Enclave back, but why were they also bombarding us? What did they have to gain by destroying the fighting ability of both sides?

Unless they planned to take the remains for themselves. I had no idea how large Gawdyna's force was, but I'd never even heard of them operating in the area before so they couldn't have compared to Fillydelphia's original garrison. How did they plan to retain control of the city? If Red Eye's remnants didn't play along, they were going to have another massive fight on their hands, and if they kept destroying everything there wasn't going to be anything left to take!

None of it made sense.

By this point, hours had passed since the first artillery shots were fired against the Enclave and I was weary in every sense of the word. That didn't help my understanding, but I somehow doubted I'd put the pieces together even if I were fresh and had a full night's sleep like from back when I was just a griffawn.

The only silver lining to the now cloudless sky was that the Enclave were absolutely too busy dealing with the new forces to bother shooting at us anymore, and so far none of the new griffons had fired at us. I caught sight of squad after squad of the pegasi retreating into the sky as the battle was clearly lost to them.

Our battle wasn't lost, but there was no way I'd call it won either.

Isaac was dead. I could only guess how many others perished with him, like Egon. And how many ponies? How many pegasi even? The dragon? Hundreds of people had to have been killed that day. Fillydelphia burned everywhere around us. Black clouds of soot rose into the sky, hardly replacing the former ever present cloud cover but doing a damn good job of reminding me how things looked just an hour ago. Someone desperate or determined enough might scrape something of value out of the shattered remains of the city, but it didn't seem remotely worth it to me. After all of this. After what, more than a decade of the evil stallion running this place trying to “rebuild equestria”, it was gone. Just like that. A couple of hours of MEWs raining down on the city would do that. All of the slaves that toiled here and died in its serviced had given their lives for nothing.

And what had I done?

Papa died years ago, and maybe the money I earned bought him a few months or a year, but in the end he was gone too. I'd saved a few lives, but how many more had suffered or died because of me? I'd killed slaves and more out of necessity, but even indirectly... the supplies given to Talon Company had to have come from slave labor too. It was entirely possible that I'd brought more suffering than good by my mere presence in this forsaken shit stain of a memory and place.

Somehow, at the time, I didn't even manage to notice that the lasers had stopped falling and that the odds of me dying suddenly had dropped sharply. I... just didn't care much.

Somehow, as much as I hated Red Eye and everything he stood for, I felt terrible at the failure we'd experienced there that day. With his death, the loss of Stern, the rest of Talon Company's leadership, and the ruin of Fillydelphia, it really had all meant nothing.

Somehow... despite looking up into the clear skies from the ground for the first time in my life, I never felt like the world had ever been so bleak.

Equestria would never be rebuilt. The old world was gone, and it would never return. Things had fundamentally changed in the years leading up to the Great War. The unmatched ability to destroy things had exceeded the capacity for kindness and compassion. Even the ponies had been lost to it.

What hope could there possibly be for anyone else? Like us, the warmongering griffons who shot at people who paid us less than their competitors?

Caught up in the misery as I was, it wasn't until we arrived at the blackened and twisted perimeter fence of the school yard that I realized how far we'd gone.

Or what a congregation we'd find when we got there.

All of the remnants of Talon Company must have been present. Dozens, maybe a hundred griffons that I vaguely recognized, were scattered around the rooftop or the cracked asphalt that once made up the parking lots and ball courts of the grounds. Many continued to watch the skies for trouble, but just as many watched the two griffons standing at the center of one of the largest courts.

Heidi. She was alive.

And... someone I didn't recognize. A larger, older griffoness with a nasty scar over her eye and a bit of a limp.

The two were speaking. Calmly, and without much animation. The griffoness I didn't recognize had to have been Gawdyna. Maybe she was discussing her terms of payment for rescuing the last scraps of Fillydelphia. Or maybe she was about to extort us for all we had left to keep the lasers from returning...

It pained me on some level, but we pushed past a row of wounded griffons stretched out on the pavement so we could get close enough to overhear. I'd be back for them in a minute. It looked like they'd been attended to already anyway...

“You want me to surrender all of Fillydelphia to you,” Heidi said plainly. Not a question.

Gawd smirked. “That's right.”

“I didn't agree to that.”

Gawd's smirk faded. “An' you need to understand this wasn't business until just now.” She raised a tan talon toward Heidi's slouching form. “So let's do business. We did you a service an' saved your sorry asses from getting' ground into the dust by the ponies, and you agreed to take our help. Now we want payment.”

Heidi blinked heavily. “It's not mine to give.”

“An' whose is it to give then?” Gawd swept her claw over the city. “I've heard from five ponies and a donkey that Red Eye's taking a dirt nap, an' your Captain Stern joined him not long after. If they're gone who is in charge?”

No response.

“That's what I thought. The only people who are in charge now are the ones who have the strength to be in charge. And you, lieutenant, are the ranking officer left. Now, are you going to make this easy, or hard?”

Heidi looked up. “What I say doesn't matter. You're going to take Fillydelphia regardless.”

Gawd seemed to take no offense to the accusation. “You know how it is. We can do business now. We can sign a contract an' this doesn't have to turn ugly. That's your call, lieutenant.”

Heidi raised a claw to her face. She said nothing for a long time.

Finally, she uttered, “I won't sign your contracts, because I can't. I don't have the authority to-”

“Oh, come off it!” Gawd screamed. “How many times-”

“Because I am not in charge anymore!” Heidi screamed back, cutting her off. She tore off her now ragged uniform and tossed it to the ground. “Because as of right now, I am resigning my commission as lieutenant and commanding officer of the Fillydelphia Talons. I proved today that I am in no position to lead these soldiers anywhere, and I will not sign them or anything else over to you.” She raised a talon. “But first, Egon...”

The flash of anger on her face evaporated in an instant as she looked to her side and realized he wasn't there. She instead thrust that same talon out at some hapless griffon with a radio across from her. “You. Yes, Private Sleekfeathers, you. Come here.”

She took his radio and adjusted the dials on it. Leigh's radio crackled to life and played an amplified copy of her voice over her as she announced, “This is Lieutenant Heidi Blackfeathers, commanding officer of Talon Company. Let this be a formal declaration of the dissolution of Talon Company. We failed in our mission today, and I failed you all. I've never asked any of you to do anything I wasn't willing to do myself, and I stick by my word. With the total loss of Fillydelphia and the deaths of Master Red Eye and Captain Stern, your contracts are now null and void. You have no mission left. I will not ask any of you to do anything I would not, and as of today, I am resigning from Talon Company.

“You... you are all dismissed. Permanently.”

Heidi dropped the radio handset without ceremony and looked up at Gawd again. “Do what you want. You're going to anyway. If you need a permission slip from me, consider that my agreement.”

And with that, she turned away and started a plodding trudge toward the exit gate. Griffons made a wide berth for her, us included. No one dared speak up or question her.

The heavy silence that followed lingered. Even the distant crackle of burning debris and the rush of cross winds drowned out the murmurs of everyone present. That... was it? Heidi just quit? And fired us all?

What? Could she do that?

I drifted a few steps back and cut my eyes to the rows of wounded lying on the pavement. I needed something else to think about. Maybe I could... maybe I should...

Leigh's radio cut in one more time. “Well then, you heard the lady. You're all dismissed.” Gawd's voice. “You're free to go off into the wastes if you want, but I'm taking charge of this dump now, an' I'm makin' an offer. You all know the city. You've been here forever. This is your chance to join Gawd's Talons and keep your jobs.

“It's your choice, but understand that I'm a business lady an' I made the first offer. Join up now, because my offers only get worse from here.”

Fuck. That.

No. Absolutely not.

I kept on my path toward the injured, certain that if nothing else, I didn't want to even consider staying here longer than I had to. Except to do the last I could for those who were hurt.

And it quickly became apparent that I might not have as much to do as I expected. Many of the griffons stretched out on the ground were beyond help. Motionless, covered by Talon flags or whatever other tarps or material was at hand, the bodies of the recently deceased were almost as numerous.

I paused at the nearest. An old griffoness with graying pink feathers...

A gasp passed my beak and I lowered the flag. I shouldn't have looked. Pony-goddesses-dammit... I knew better...

“Dr. Longtalons?” Across the row, a younger, yellow griffoness covered in bloody bandages pushed herself up from her spot among the injured. Her eyes lit up. “It-it is you! I-I thought you... when-when the Enclave hit the hospital...”

Zella didn't need to say anything else. I dredged a potion out of my medical kit and offered it to her, which she refused. “No... no, please, there are so many hurt so much worse than me.” Her eyes drifted down to the motionless bodies beside me. “B-but Dr. Darkskies and Dr. Clawmarks didn't-didn't make... there wasn't... I did everything I... could...”

I took her good claw in mine and held it while the tears began. Hers, and mine.

There wasn't anything for me to say back. I don't know why Heidi didn't assign me to the field hospital that had been set up. Maybe it was a mistake. Instead of dying like the heroes they all were, I'd just been flapping around the city and being useless. Like always.

With a few awkward shrugs, I wiped my own tears and urged her to lie down again. “It's okay. I'm here now, and I'm not leaving until I've done all that I can.”

That was my duty. Nothing more, and nothing less.

At some point I'd lost track of my companions while I checked over everyone who was still alive. It was only after dusk fell, true, natural dusk that the wasteland hadn't seen in centuries, that exhaustion overcame me and I found a vacant spot against the brick facade of the school to collapse against.

A harsh, flickering gem light on a pole across from me cast long shadows from the odd griffon ambling around. They'd all faded into the background hours ago. Gawd was probably still around. Or one of her lieutenants. They were probably trying to pick out who was worth keeping around, and more than once I worried they'd latch onto the notion that a medic was too useful to let leave. They had no idea what they'd be getting their claws on with me, but it was moot. They'd have to shoot me before I joined up, and I meant that sincerely.

So many questions continued to plague my mind. Questions I couldn't have answered if I weren't tired beyond words, and questions I certainly couldn't answer now.

In my claw, I turned over a pair of ragged orange feathers and tried to find something more immediate to focus on. I'd found them trapped in the straps of my armor while changing a bandage on someone. I didn't have proof, but in the back of my mind, I had to accept that I knew whose they were. A weary sigh was all I could muster. Another trinket to add to the little collection I'd started forming, and it was all we had to remember Isaac by. But was it worse than the buckles from Ida's armor?

A question I didn't really want to answer.

I jumped with a start when one of the milling shadows turned my way. A familiar shape, and soon a familiar face. Amy held up a thermos and said, “You've got to be hungry.”

Starving, but too tired to eat. “Thanks, but give it to one of the wounded. They need it more than I do.”

She shoved it into my free claw. “What do you think we've been doing for the last two hours?”

Huh? I glanced over, and sure enough, saw dozens of weary griffons sipping at bowls, cups and thermoses of some kind of unidentifiable broth. Serge offered his last container to a green griffon with long, parallel burns on his side, and gave me a tiny nod of acknowledgment.

“Oh. Sorry. I didn't realize.”

She fell into a seated position next to me. “I noticed. It's fine. I guess even I feel like I'm doing some good today, finally.”

Serge hobbled over to join us, but stayed on his feet. “I think we all do.”

I scanned the area one more time, but didn't see any signs of the other two. “Where are Leigh and Lita?”

“We don't know,” he answered. “Leigh vanished not long after Heidi's announcement. I got worried about her, so I told Lita to try to track her down.”

“I didn't think we were under orders anymore?” I asked.

He studied me with a flat expression. “I asked her. It wasn't an order. And she agreed.” He wrung his bad claw, letting the cybernetics extend and flex fully. “I don't think she wanted to be here anymore. None of us do. But she probably wanted it less than any of us. I'm just hoping Carmelita finds her before...” He blew out a breath. “Never mind. I'm going to go look for her in a minute too. If she left the city it's a distant hope, but I want to see her at least one more time.”

“Me too,” I muttered, before remembering what was in my claws. “Hey, Serge? If you find her, give her this.”

He took the singed feathers with evident surprise. “You don't want to give it to her yourself?”

“You've got a much better chance of finding her than me in this shape.”

Serge studied the remains of his former comrade and closed his mechanical talons around them. “All right. If I catch up to her, I'll let her know where they came from.” He lingered for a moment more. “Hey... guys... in case I don't see you again... let me give you some advice: don't be here tomorrow morning.”

Amy glanced over to the unfamiliar griffons making rounds along the grounds. “I was having the same thoughts.”

“Me too,” I muttered.

Serge nodded once. “I'm sorry your chance didn't come sooner, Kaz, but this may be your only chance. Make the best of it.” With a final wave and nod, he bid us farewell and vanished into the darkness that was settling across the lot.

Amy and I sat together for a while. Long enough for me to suck down the mysterious broth she'd brought for me, anyway. Finally, she asked, “So, what now?”

“I did promise to show you Oatsfield.”

Her eyes widened a little. “Yeah... you did. Can you fly?”

No. Not like I was, but I'd find a way. Holes the size of my fists in each wing wouldn't be enough to keep me in this hell hole for another day.

I'd done all that I could, and now that my duty was finally up....

I was free.

Level 13 - Max level achieved.

Chapter 28: Exodus

Chapter 28

Exodus

Following Serge's advice, we didn't wait very long before we made our escape from Fillydelphia.

Not until sunrise, anyway. We waited for a while for any sign of Serge, Carmelita or Leigh to return, but no sign came. We were both thoroughly exhausted so even if we wanted to leave immediately, another hour or three to catch our breath was all but necessary. But after that wait, when we had no indication that they were ever coming back, we made the difficult decision to get up and leave while we still could.

Injured as I still was, flying was out of the question, so we had to slip out of the school yard on foot. No one tried to stop us, but I felt the stares of the foreign griffons with every step we took. Maybe they thought a couple of banged up ex-Talons weren't worth trying to press into their service.

I didn't want to find out.

Our options for leaving the city were, however, complicated. On foot, we really only had the option of walking out the front gate, which we had reason to believe was now open. The escaping slaves earlier implied that there was another breach in the wall somewhere that we might try to exploit, but I frankly didn't feel like looking for such a precarious opening when Gawd's Talons could stop us there just as easily and there was an elevated risk of falling into the moat if something collapsed.

On top of that, we had no supplies for traveling. On foot, Oatsfield would take days to reach. Maybe a week or more since there was a lot of uneven terrain in the way that we could normally have just flown over. Without food or clean water, that was a non-starter. Water wasn't so hard. The school used to be a Talon barracks and was one of the few places in the city with running water. Food was more complicated.

So, we made the decision to scavenge what we could from the city before making a hasty exit. Given the damage and disarray, we guessed there would have to be a lot that was no longer being accounted for, but every survivor had to have had the same idea.

And yet… the streets were almost abandoned. There were once thousands of people in the city, and while the outer and less important streets of the city might be abandoned like this, here near the school house and former Talon base, there was always foot traffic. Slaves pulling carts of supplies if nothing else, but slavers and soldiers were a common sight too.

But now, there was nothing but a few sheets of burnt paper fluttering down the dark street ahead. The moonlight shining down helped illuminate the asphalt path, but even so, the lack of functioning street lights left it dark and gloomy. We saw a single pony dressed in rags picking over the fallen remains of an Enclave soldier who'd crashed into the crumbling remains of a fountain in front of what was once a bank, but whoever they were, they bolted for the cover of darkness down another street the moment they spotted us in turn.

I considered checking the downed pegasus, but knew they were dead, and there wouldn't be anything left for us to take that we could use.

My first priority was to head to the clinic to try to locate something that would heal the holes in my wings, since flying to Oatsfield would be so much faster and safer than walking there. I wasn't really expecting to find anything there though. Zella told me that most of the Talon medical elements, not including me apparently, had pulled together with the other medical staff in Fillydelphia at the Hearts and Hooves hospital, and I expected that they'd taken most supplies of value with them. And it had been leveled by a plasma cannon, so we weren't headed there. If we didn't find anything at the clinic, we'd just have to move on.

And sure enough, it was a waste of time.

The building was mostly intact, having only suffered some light fire damage that seared the paint on one side of the building and curled up what was left of the plastic covering on the utility box, but the supply room had been raided. Either by the medics, desperate slaves or escaping Talons like us, it didn't matter. No healing potions to be found.

And I really needed to stop referring to myself as a Talon. We weren't anymore.

The next stop was to check first platoon's mess hall for traveling supplies. A quick glance at it from down the street told me there was little hope, since it too had suffered significant fire damage. The former wooden diner had fallen in on itself, with blackened planks and sheet rock splintered and creaking in the warm wind. We spent a while trying to pull away the debris, but the creaks only got worse so we gave up before one of us was killed in the dumbest way possible after surviving the Enclave attack.

We picked our way past more chunks of twisted steel from the obliterated barracks and passed the equally burnt and ruined train station that Heidi once used as he office. I briefly wondered if Egon's remains were still inside, but I knew better. Egon might have been the only person in this forsaken city she cared about. Or maybe she burned the office to cremate him?

I blew out a sigh and crossed the train tracks as we finished our trek toward the armory. I didn't want to think about it. Not him, not her, just… none of it.

To my surprise, the armory still hadn't been flattened. How the Enclave never figured out its purpose was beyond me, but I took the small blessing in stride and crossed the vacant grounds to reach the small rectangular building.

To nobody's surprise, the inside had been ransacked. I spied a few bullets that had rolled into a corner that nobody bothered to grab, but bare racks, upturned boxes and fragments of broken down rifles were all that was left. Another bust. On a whim, I kicked over one of the upturned boxes, and against all odds a few foil wrapped packets flipped out.

MREs. Seven in total. Not enough to keep us fed on the trip to Oatsfield, but it was a lot better than nothing. Whoever looted the place must not have recognized them for what they were, or figured the guns were more important. You can't eat bullets, so I ignored their short sightedness and snapped the packs up without even checking the flavor. They weren't going to taste great regardless, and it really didn't matter.

All that mattered now was getting to the gate, and getting out of this hell hole for the last time.

My situation hadn't changed, which meant we still had to take the main gateway. My stomach twisted in knots at the thought of how we'd never make it out of the city without our new mercenary watchers spotting and apprehending us, but I just couldn't see any other way. It hurt too much to even spread my wings enough to glide from one of the walls over the moat. We just had to hope they were too busy watching for actual trouble than to try to stop us…

The air was muggy and still when we reached the gate. A handful of pony soldiers still sat on the walls, but they appeared to have given up on all pretenses of keeping the order in Fillydelphia. Ahead of us, a group of maybe ten former slaves of a variety of sizes and colors broke from behind an overturned caged wagon and made a mad dash for the open gate and bridge beyond. None of the soldiers even bothered to glance their way, much less point a gun or attempt to stop them. None of the new Talons were immediately visible either. Our path was clear.

I took the first step from cover and watched to make sure Amy was right behind me. I wanted to break into a run too, but I was too damned tired. All I could manage was an exhausted plod, all while the feeling that a dozen eyes were fixed on me and waiting to pass judgment.

Nothing happened.

We reached the rickety wooden planks that formed the drawbridge across the moat, which didn't even creak under our weight. Only the mild thump of our heavy steps broke the silence. No wind in the distance, no distant cries or screams. No gunfire… not even the usual din of the factories and forges running.

By the time we reached the bare ground past the moat, I'd convinced myself that this wasn't real. Some purgatory, where everything was dead and silent, and where we'd find nothing beyond those terrible makeshift walls. Had I actually died when that pony shot me, and I didn't realize it? Was this some personal hell? What was-

Amy ignored my stupor and continued past me into the silent wasteland. She paused, and looked back. “Coming?”

I nodded and pressed on. I'd rather face this hell than the one I was leaving.

The trip outside of Fillydelphia started out equally unremarkable.

First, we didn't have to travel very far before the cloud cover resumed overhead. Without the pegasi actively restoring it, the giant hole formed by the balefire explosion was only very slowly closing on its own, but as large as the gap above looked, even a few kilometers was enough distance to travel in the dry and windswept landscape to return to the dark shadows cast from above. I didn't realize how much I missed even part of a single day in the gentle moonlight until it was gone.

There was also little sign of others who escaped the city ahead of us. No doubt those who could flee had done so at the earliest opportunity, instead of waiting around like we did, and the wasteland was huge. We followed the hoofprints of escaped slaves for a while, more out of coincidence on the direction we were headed than anything, but even the gaggle of ponies that rushed out of the gate ahead of us were nowhere to be seen.

Raiders didn't ever come close to Fillydelphia. The Steel Rangers might blunder into us if we got unlucky, but nobody else was crazy enough to get this close, so we were safe for a while. As long as the Enclave didn't come back for revenge, we probably didn't have much to worry about for a while.

After that… we'd figure out. We had enough water for 3 days, and the food would last as long as it did.

Even if it took a week to make it to Oatsfield, we'd make it.

We'd figure it out.

In hindsight, that was a mistake.

First of all, exhausted as we were, we didn't make it very far on the first day. Factor in how incredibly heavy that much water was, and it was a recipe for getting almost nowhere. We made it as far as a blasted and burnt out housing division maybe five kilometers outside of the city before the first rays of morning sunlight filtered through the clouds overhead and we had to give up for the day.

We located the first halfway intact house to crawl into and drop our sorry carcasses in a corner to rest for a while. Neither of us had really slept in effectively days now, and even I was starting to feel the haze of sleepiness fighting past any insomnia and crawling into the periphery of every thought, but I offered to take the first watch so Amy could get some sleep.

I nodded off not long after she did, but thankfully neither she woke up nor did a rampant zombie stumble across our little hiding spot while we got the desperate rest we needed.

Luckily, I did wake up before Amy, and forced myself to do a bit of scrounging in the ruins to keep myself awake, but to no avail. The place had been picked clean a century ago, and in the end, we lost most of that day just recovering.

The next and first real setback came that night as we set out again on our severely delayed and now anxious journey to Oatsfield, while crossing one of the massive wooden bridges that dotted the countrysides of Equestria.

I guess when the war broke out and the princesses decided to build up the infrastructure of the country to improve productivity and redeployment times, they didn't have time and resources to tear them all down and replace them with more modern concrete or steel bridges. So, they just poured asphalt on the roads leading to them, reinforced what they could, and hoped for the best. Really, it was a testament to what the ponies were able to do considering that the bridges had been built before the height of ingenuity and desperation, and that they were still standing at all, two centuries later without any maintenance.

The thought that the bridges were so worn out never even really crossed my mind. I'd seen them dozens, maybe hundreds of times in my life. They were ageless, there long before me and they'd be there long after.

I didn't even pay the creaks and groans any attention as we pressed on. Old wooden constructions would do that in the open wind. The riverbed it crossed had long dried up, so the wind could get up to pretty impressive speeds. The flexing and torsion would make even steel creak.

I paid attention when the ground vanished beneath me.

One of the old rotten boards, as thick as my torso, snapped under my weight and plummeted into the depths below. I fell and landed hard, both forelegs falling through the new gap.

A cacophony of creaks, cracks and pops sounded around me. Amy screamed my name, and I reached up to claw my way back to the top, but it was too late. Wind caught my feathers and sawdust caught my nostrils as free fall set in.

I learned a few things in that moment.

First, reflexes ignored pain.

Second, I could spread my wings.

Third, I could glide with my wings open.

Fourth, it did still hurt like an absolute son of a bitch.

Fifth, once reflexes were gone, it was hard to override searing, clawing pain that shot through my wings.

I made it about two thirds of the way down before I involuntarily snapped my wings shut to end the burning agony. Free fall set in again and I tried to spread them, but I only arrested the fall a hair with my feeble flailings.

Reflexes didn't really help as I plowed into the ground, claws first. My elbows went numb and I tumbled along the muddy, smelly, pony-goddess forsaken riverbed for a few meters before coming to a stop near the bleached skeletal remains of a two-headed fish.

It was all I could do to flip over and curse the throbbing pain shooting through my joints so I could get a look at whatever the fuck had just happened.

The bridge was still there… but… had I just fallen through the bottom? Where was Amy?

“Kaz!”

There she was.

The blurry tan coated griffoness darted down from the air and landed in the muck next to me. Her wide red eyes scanned me repeatedly. “Shit, shit, shit. How bad are you hurt? Can you get up?”

“I don't think anything is broken...”

With her help, I managed to force myself to my feet. Everything hurt, but for once I didn't lie and understate my injuries. I might have hairline fractures in my radius or ulna bones, but the ground was soft enough it didn't pulverize anything.

Clunk.

I looked down at the flattened jug now sitting in the mud. What was left of the water inside was now freely pouring out into the toxic runoff of the riverbed.

Great.

Amy swore again, and stamped a claw in the mud.

I was too tired and in too much pain to be embarrassed. I just blew out a sigh and muttered an apology. We had to keep going. The riverbed got pretty shallow not far down the way. We just had to make it that far and I could climb back out. Then we'd be on our way again. It was a setback, but I knew there was more water between here and home. We'd have to share a jug, but we'd make it.

Not happening.

I made the mistake of sitting still too long, and by the time we started down the muddy path, my joints had swollen enough that walking was unbearable. We made it back to the rickety bridge before I had to collapse in its shade and wait for the pain to ease off. I didn't mention to Amy that that was not going to be any time soon.

We sat there in that spot for maybe ten minutes, neither saying anything. Somehow, it was beyond belief. We'd survived years in Fillydelphia's Talon Company, literally going up against raiders, zombies and Steel Rangers, and this was going to be what finally got me. I fell through a bridge like an idiot, and now that I'd hurt myself and wasted what was left of my supplies, I'd never make it to Oatsfield. At best I could hope that the pain eased off enough that I could climb back out and crawl my way back to Fillydelphia, but dying of thirst out here might have been preferable.

“I'm sorry, Amy.”

“You didn't do it on purpose,” she muttered back, eying the skies for any potential trouble.

“For all of this, I mean. We're not going to make it like this. I'm not. You should go on ahead. I'll find a way out of here. Maybe make it back to Fillydelphia. Zella's probably still there. I can-”

Amy thrust a palm into my face. “Shut up. Enough. Don't say it. I'm not going without you, and I'm not going back to Fillydelphia.”

“But I can't travel like this.”

“Kaz?”

“What?”

“Be quiet.” She turned to face me fully. “You've spent five years helping everyone you could and never asking for anything in return. Five years that I know of. Probably your whole life.” She slapped her breastplate. “It's my turn. And your turn to be helped.”

“What? But what are y-”

“That's enough. Listen to me.” She pointed at a spot under the bridge, near the embankment. “Park yourself right there. I'm going to get help. Stay right there, and don't move unless zombies are trying to eat you.”

She took two steps back and spread her wings. “I'll be back. If I have to fly to Oatsfield to get help, I will. Follow the train tracks, right? I can make it there and back in a day at most.”

“Amy, wait, you don't know the way. What if-”

Without exchanging another word, she lifted into the air and made a wide, circling ascent out of the riverbed. Once she reached ground level again, she turned to face me, extending a single talon toward the spot I was occupying.

Stay put. I got it.

It wasn't like I had much choice. At least I had Lita's hand-me-down rifle, assuming it hadn't been damaged in the fall too, but it would give anything hostile pause if I so much as pointed it at them.

I just had to hope she knew what she was doing. There was no way she'd find Oatsfield from here. The train tracks were half a day's travel away in the air, and only if you knew which way you were going!

But what could I do? And Amy wasn't stupid. She had a better chance of surviving the trip to civilization than I did, even before now.

She'd be okay, no matter what happened to me. That's what I had to cling to.

The rest of the day wore on at an agonizing pace, with me having nothing to do but hide under the bridge while I scrutinized every creak above for signs that something or someone was approaching.

Amy either forgot that she had all of our water now or otherwise decided to take it with her, so that left me with nothing but a couple of MREs to hold me over until she got back. Given the pain I was in, I wasn't interested in eating anyway, despite knowing full well that my body needed the nutrition now more than ever.

Like getting a sick patient to eat, I guess. Some things are beyond reason.

And sometimes it felt like things were beyond hope. I wasn't hungry, and really wasn't thirsty, but I was exhausted, and the longer I sat there the worse my body ached. My forelimbs were stiff now, and I'd convinced myself that maybe I had fractured something after all. It was good that we hadn't tried to walk out of here. I wouldn't have made it far, and then what? At least I had cover here.

At least nothing ever showed up. No roving Talons came to drag me back to Fillydelphia. No hellhounds erupted from the ground. No zombies. Not even a bloatsprite. It was just me and the silence of the wasteland.

I spent most of that time reflecting on my time in Fillydelphia, and reconsidering every decision I made. Every person I tried to help, and every one I hurt directly or indirectly. I really had tried my best to do as little harm as I could, but was it an excuse after voluntarily joining Talon Company?

Did I deserve to be rescued?

Did I deserve to have lived longer than Liese, Isaac or Egon? What about Yvonne? She'd been a medic too. She deserved better than what she got. I never went with her out in the field at any point that I knew, but she seemed like the kind to treat others with respect and help who she could. Why did I live when she didn't?

I slumped onto the ground, ignoring the mud and muck seeping into my plumage and coat. I probably didn't deserve anything at this point, but it was all outside of my control. Like it always had been, my fate wasn't in my claws.

And thinking about it could drive a person crazy.

The first sounds of activity above came maybe an hour after the sun went down again.

I tried to sit up, but my legs hadn't stopped hurting, so the best I could manage was an awkward slide over to the nearest support beam. I couldn't get a good look, but there were lights. And... the clank of wagons. Not a zombie or other mindless hostile life, but it might be Steel Rangers. Or maybe-

“Kaz?”

Amy!

I tried to sit up again, and this time I managed to prop myself up with considerable effort. One of the lights swept over me. Who was with her?

Hooves thumped on the embankment down the way, and dark shapes slid down the shallow slope to get to the riverbed. Amy swooped down and landed next to me.

“Kaz? Are you okay? I got help.”

“No better than when you left,” I answered truthfully. “Who is it?”

She stepped aside for a small, lanky unicorn stallion wearing a red coat. A scribe? Pony goddesses, she had gotten Steel Rangers to help us. How in the hell had she managed that?

The stallion trotted up to me and flashed a little smile. Something was familiar about him. Where had I seen him? No way it was during one of the Steel Ranger incursions near Fillydelphia. I'd never remember one of their faces. And those weren't Steel Ranger robes. No weird sword and apple.

Wait. Rusty. Rusty Rivet. From the pit? From all those years ago? How…

“Crimson's Caravan, to the rescue,” he said, letting his smile grow into a grin.

I had so many questions, but they could wait. I eyed the faintly glowing violet potions suspended in his magic.

He could ask for my first hatched chick for one of those potions.

It didn't take very long to get the story put together.

Amy found the caravan not long after she took off, but they weren't interested in detouring for some charity case that would delay them from getting 'to anywhere as far from Fillydelphia as possible.' Even her offer to trade our armor and guns didn't change their minds. They tried to leave her behind, but she didn't give up. She spent an hour hounding them, but it wasn't until the caravan stopped to pick up a band of refugees from Fillydelphia that things changed.

One stallion in the group recognized her. An older unicorn with a bad rasping cough named Silver Rush. The name was vaguely familiar, and I remembered something about running into him with Amy once, but we must have left a good impression. He knew who she was talking about when she asked the caravan to detour to help.

When he mentioned my name, Rusty Rivet caught on too.

Rusty, apparently, joined Crimson's Caravan not long after he got out of Fillydelphia. I still couldn't believe it, but Red Eye was true to his word. The stallion survived his tour in the crater, so they gave him the symbol to protect him from ever being enslaved in Fillydelphia again, and they let him go. Apparently, he suffered some permanent brain damage since he agreed to work the caravans nearby, but 'the bits were good' and 'if Red Eye let me go, I guess he won't take me back either, like he promised.' He wasn't the leader of the caravan, but apparently he had enough clout to get the leader to change their mind at that point.

We had to surrender our guns and armor as part of the deal, but it was an easy exchange to make. A much cheaper price than my first hatched chick. They even gave us the supplies we needed for the trip, which we were told would only take a couple of days now. A detour to Oatsfield 'made economic sense,' according to the caravaners. At least we didn't have to offer anything else to secure the destination.

And as we settled into the rear most wagon, where Silver Rush and the other slaves they picked up were positioned, for maybe the first time in six years…

...I felt a stirring of genuine peace.

And a couple of days later when the fluttering remains of the windmills rising above Oatsfield appeared on the horizon, I felt more than that.

Hope.

Level 13 - Max level achieved.

Epilogue

Epilogue

What a day.

Kasimir prodded at the exposed electronics set into the back of the stove top. Like it usually did, something crackled and the frazzled old circuit board flared back to life. Or the heating element did at least.

He grumbled and turned the chunk of searing radigator tail over. Then he grumbled some more when he saw it was all but scorched on the bottom.

Damned thing hadn't ever worked right, as anything cobbled together out of scraps of a dozen unrelated kitchen appliances never would, but it had gotten a lot worse in the last few months. He just couldn't get any temperature control with it! It wasn't like he was much of a cook, but even the finest chefs from Prance couldn't work with this thing.

Clunk. Oh goody. The… what was it Amy called it? The relay. Yeah, the relay flipped again. And the heating element was dead once more.

He reached past a row of empty glass bottles on the counter to rest a claw against a panel of intact wood on the wall, so he could bang on the electronics a little harder this time. Pop. A little stream of white smoke rose from… pony-goddesses-knew-what. Well, that was that. Even he knew that once you let the magic smoke out, electronics were toast.

“What's burning?” Ah, right on cue.

Kaz stepped aside and held up a claw to the dead stove top. “I don't think you can fix it this time.”

Amy groaned and hobbled into the kitchen from the connecting hallway. “Well, you're right about that. Not without replacing parts anyway. What did you even do?”

“Percussive maintenance. It usually works.”

“Until it doesn't,” she replied, backing away from the dead stove. She leaned back against the faintly spluttering refrigerator and rubbed at her foreleg. “I guess it's take out again tonight then?”

He frowned and plopped the chunk of unevenly, but still cooked, meat back into the pan. “Eating take out all of the time is why we can't afford to replace this thing in the first place. It's still edible. Just... have to trim it a little.” He dug through the drawers for a knife and tried to change the subject. “Leg bothering you again? Rough day at work?”

“Twisted it wrong again when tightening a pipe at the plant.” She flexed each talon slowly as she rubbed the leg. “It's been cramping ever since. Just need a hot bath and I'll be fine.”

“Are they still on track to commission it next week?”

“That's what they say. Got the last solar panels fixed a couple of days ago, so we're running conduit for the last of the cables now. The foreman keeps saying we're cutting the time line too much, but they're bringing a... general or someone to speak at the commissioning, so they're commissioning the plant even if we've all got to jump on treadmills to make the needles move.” She snorted. “I'm guessing that's why there are so many troops in town today.”

“Yeah, I guess so. We had two dozen come through the office for physicals. The army's trying to get caught up on that while they can.” He held the knife up and said, “Oh, and it's not a general coming. It's Senator Freija Ironclaw, if you want to believe the gossip from the soldiers.”

Amy's jaw slackened. “You're serious? She won the election?”

“If you can believe it. People must not have believed that she's a deserter.” He hacked the meat into smaller chunks and grimaced. “Or don't care. I'm sure some believe she was in the right for doing it. Uh, on a different subject, maybe we should eat out after all.”

Amy stepped aside and held the refrigerator door open for him to stash his cooking mistake for later. “Yeah... we can figure out what to do with that some other time. Besides, I'm hungry now.” She gently shut the door, checking the cracking weather stripping to make sure it all sealed and kept the cold where it belonged. “I'll go get the girl. Last I saw she was out back doing something.”

“All right, meet me back up front.” Before they went anywhere he had to go count their bits. As much as he guessed Holly Bell would extend some credit after he dug the marble out of her daughter's nose without charging her, he'd rather not be in that position to begin with.

He swerved past the kitchen table, trying to ignore the split forming in one of the legs that he'd been putting off replacing for too long now, and headed through the den back toward his office. How many bits might they have? It had to be at least a few dozen. He'd just paid the property taxes and that was about what he remembered being left. Plenty for dinner if-

Knock knock.

Kaz stopped, one foot off the ground. Great. Someone must be having an emergency of some kind. He plodded over, cursing under his breath. At least it happened before they were actually eating. Hopefully it wouldn't take long…

Behind the door were two griffonesses. The one on the left was short and covered in brown feathers, wearing a necklace adorned with orange feathers, while the one on the right was tall, lean and yellow.

His heart skipped a beat.

Carmelita grinned. “Hey, Kaz. Long time, no see.”

Leigh gave a little wave. “Looks like the soldiers at the gate were right.”

He stepped outside, beak agape and uttering everything but coherent speech. Was anyone else here? He looked past them, but didn't see anyone else. Where had they even come from?

“Wow, speechless.” Carmelita gave Leigh a little nudge. “I didn't think I had that effect on people anymore. Anyway, Kaz, you going to invite us in or do we have to chat out here?”

“Uh… y-yeah, please. Come in!” He doubled back inside and held the door for them. Prancing pony princesses, the house was such a mess! If he'd had any idea they were coming he'd have straightened things up and gotten the table fixed, or his chair reupholstered, and probably found something to put agaomst the far wall instead of the hammock Amy had strung up there in place of a couch…

“Nice place you've got here,” Leigh said, without a trace of sarcasm. She ran a claw over the coffee table in the center of the room, which was covered in magazines of three dozen varieties that Amy had left there instead of stowing them somewhere more reasonable.

“Uh, thanks, it still needs a lot of work, but it's home I guess,” he said as he hurried over to at least straighten the stacks up a bit.

Lita tapped a talon against the cracked mortar of the wall next to her. “Hey, it sure beats a bunk bed like I've got.” She peered around the corner down the hallway toward the office and bedrooms. “So, just you here in this big place?”

Right on cue, the flimsy storm door to the back fluttered open and banged shut. Small footsteps pattered closer. “Papa! Look what I...”

“Pluck me bald, who is that?” Lita asked as a massive grin crept onto her face.

Small claws grasped his hind leg, and something brushed against his tail.

“That,” he said, stepping aside and nudging the little gray and white griffawn to let go and step out to meet them, “Is our daughter Ida. Say hello, now.”

Ida took a pensive step forward, but kept his tail grasped in her left claw. “Um, hello.”

Leigh and Lita exchanged quick looks, and Lita reached out to ruffle Ida's feathers a bit. “Ida, huh? Ain't you just adorable.”

A smile formed on Leigh's face too. “It's a pretty name. I've always liked it.”

The door shuddered and banged once more. “Ida, make sure you get washed… up...” Amy slowed to a stop in the middle of the kitchen. “Pinfeathers… Carmelita? Leigh?”

“Don't look so happy to see us,” Lita quipped.

She trotted around the furniture in the kitchen to join everyone in the now very cramped den. Words left her for a few moments too as she looked around for signs of any others. “I-I, it's just such a surprise. I mean, it's great to see you. Did you just get here? How long have you… how did you even find us?”

Kaz cleared his throat and motioned for everyone to have a seat at the kitchen table. “I'm sure there's a lot to discuss. Let me get everyone something to drink and we can take it from the top.”

Getting everyone settled only took a minute, even if he regretted that they didn't have much to offer them other than purified water and a few chocolate chip cookies left from the mare down the street that Ida had nicknamed the 'Cussin' Cookie Lady' given her language. He wasn't about to offer what was left of the radigator after his attempts to make it presentable.

Leigh began by explaining that they got into town about an hour ago, and after asking a few of the guards they quickly came to be pretty certain they had the right city, but they couldn't find him at the doctor's office so they had to keep asking around until they found their home address. 12 Withers Way, ironically near the entrance gate.

Carmelita swirled the water in her glass and asked, “Of course, that all begs the question of how you ended up here in Sunburn anyway. I remembered you talking about Oatsfield a few times back in Fillydelphia, but it took a while to track you two down here, you know.”

“It's a really long story,” Kaz began, trying to decide how to condense it all. “But… well, okay, maybe it's not so long if we just hit the high points. After Fillydelphia fell and Talon Company was dissolved, we did return to Oatsfield. We stayed there for a while too. Maybe a year or a year and a half, but it wasn't really working out.” He shrugged a little. “The reasons I left to join Talon Company hadn't really changed. They didn't need a doctor, and there wasn't much other work to be had. The town was small and didn't need more people running security, even if they were one of the few places that could still grow some food at the time.”

Lita held up a claw. “Hang on a second, didn't you have family there?”

“Not by that point,” he said simply, letting the implications settle as they would. “And my old house was all but falling in on itself thirty years ago, much less by then. No one had been taking care of it for years, and it was getting to the point where it wasn't much better than living out in the open.”

Amy traced a talon in a little circle on the table. “We were getting by on odd jobs, but really, we left because of Gawdyna. About a year and a half after Fillydelphia fell, she'd gotten all of the leftovers together and started piecing together a new empire. Oatsfield could make food so it was one of the first places she annexed. We heard the rumors a few weeks before they got there and didn't want to be there when that happened.”

Leigh glanced back into the den, where two red sashes adorned with a handful of service badges hung on the wall. “But, wait a second. Aren't those from NCR uniforms?”

Lita looked over too. “Yeah, not going to lie, and no offense Kaz, but I figured you'd jump off a bridge before you joined the NCR after Fillydelphia.”

He clicked his beak and blew out a little sigh. “It wasn't an easy decision, trust me. But… in the end we ironically didn't have a lot of choice. We bounced around for a year or so trying to stay ahead of the fledgling NCR because, yeah, I was expecting it to be just like Fillydelphia all over again, but we were running out of places to run.

“By the time we made it to New Appleoosa, we were starting to hear the stories from people who were living in the NCR and how things sounded surprisingly decent. Stable, anyway, and citizenship wasn't just a fancy term for slavery. And the easiest way to get citizenship was to serve a tour in the army...”

Lita swirled her drink more. “I'm still shocked. I mean, you're a doctor so there had to be plenty of other options. Last I heard Friendship City was still a holdout, and there has to be demand for a doctor there.”

Amy scratched a little scuff in the table. “Maybe, but we were tired of running, and if the NCR was halfway decent it seemed like the best option we had.”

Kaz nodded silently. It helped that by that point the army was getting sophisticated enough that they were offering to train people in useful skills besides just shooting people. He didn't really have any use for it and fell right into place as a medic again, but Amy sorely needed it. He'd never taken her for mechanically minded before, but it was something she seemed to enjoy. It got her a great position at the solar plant fixing pipes and conduit, and farm equipment on the side.

And to say she needed it wasn't an exaggeration. Now wasn't the time to bring it up, but those years they were running from the NCR… were not kind to her. Without any useful skills outside of military life and with no military work to be found, she didn't have anything to do. He still remembered the days he'd come home to find that she hadn't moved from the spot he left her in. Depression was something he wouldn't wish on anyone.

Lita made a thoughtful noise. “And they actually gave you citizenship after that? After what, four years?”

“That's right,” he answered. “Someone true to their word for a change. We might have stayed in longer, but by that point we had an egg to take care of. The timing was pretty convenient, really. We'd already been deployed here to Sunburn, so we just decided not to sign up again. The town was growing so it wasn't hard to find work as a doctor, and Amy joined the force restoring the old solar plant.”

Amy nodded toward their guests. “So, I take you two aren't citizens then. What have you been up to this whole time if not?”

Lita made a derisive chuckle. “Sorry, but NCR life isn't for me. No, after Serge and I tracked down Leigh in some random junk town outside of Fillydelphia, I parted ways and headed down south. Wanted to be anywhere but there, and I came across a bunch of nuts calling themselves the Gun Runners. Learned how to make guns, so now I do that for a living. Sure, it's pretty spartan living sometimes, and we sell guns to the NCR, but I live on my terms. And come on, who wouldn't jump at the chance to machine a brand new twenty millimeter machine gun and get paid for it?”

Leigh smirked and said, “Right, well, as she said I didn't follow and just followed some of the migratory groups leaving Fillydelphia for a while. Tried to stay ahead of the NCR too, because I was and frankly still am suspicious of their motives. I guess it was about a year later that I ran into a small group of the Followers of the Apocalypse and… I wasn't a doctor, but they gave me new purpose, even if I was fixing things or even running security when I had to.”

She crossed her legs on the table. “I was a little disappointed, to be honest. I really expected to find you there, Kaz. It seemed like exactly the kind of organization you'd join. But nobody I talked to had ever heard of you, even from the other expeditions.”

Kaz tapped his talons on the table. “I did think about it once, but the truth is, by the time I'd even learned about them we were already getting ready to sign on the dotted line for the NCR. We weren't prepared to make that big of a jump into the unknown just to avoid what appeared to be an inevitable situation down the line anyway.

“But that does bring up the question of how you two met back up and got here.”

Leigh answered, “The Followers wander everywhere looking for people who need help. It was probably just a matter of time before they sent my group down south like they did, but that's when we ran across the Gun Runners. Lita and I spent a while catching up then, but we eventually had to leave, so we've been writing ever since. A few years after that she got the idea to come looking for everyone else, and took some time off for it. So did I. We met up in Ponyville and started looking for the two of you in Oatsfield. It wasn't too hard to figure out you'd joined the NCR and track you down here, but it did take a few months.”

Lita grinned. “See, that's what living on your own terms gets you. Want to just fuck off for a while? Nobody's going to stop you if you've got the bits to live like that.”

“So, what about Serge?” Kaz asked. He eyed the orange feathers on Leigh's necklace. They weren't Isaac's. Too fresh and pristine. They weren't his, but didn't Lita mention finding her with Serge? “Have you talked to him?”

Both frowned at the same time, and Leigh said, “We haven't been able to find him. I figured if anyone joined the NCR army it would have been him, but no one has heard of him. The few leads we had about blue griffons were all someone else.”

Lita snorted. “We all split up around the same time. I did ask around and heard a rumor that there's a griffon with cybernetic claws at Shattered Hoof who was a former Talon. Definitely sounds like Serge, but we haven't had a chance to follow up on that yet.”

Kaz stopped brushing at the cookie crumbs accumulating on the table. “Wait, Shattered Hoof? Like, a prisoner there? How?”

“No clue,” Lita said with a shrug. “He might be the warden for all we know. I can't imagine he'd do anything to end up a prisoner there, unless he told Gawd to go fuck herself instead of joining the NCR.”

Amy rolled her eyes. “That hasn't actually happened to anyone. That's just what everyone tells people to demonize the NCR if they don't like them.”

Lita shrugged again. “Just saying. We don't know if it's him or how he got there, but it's something I plan to find out.”

A short silence fell as everyone digested the news. It was difficult to believe or accept that Serge might be a prisoner if the rest of them escaped it, but Kaz couldn't let that distract him too much right now. “So, what about the others? Do you know where anyone else ended up?”

“There's another former Talon in the Gun Runners,” Lita said. “Greta Ashbeak. I never knew her so she must have been pretty new when everything exploded. I'd say she just stole the armor she has but she knew some people so she must have been legit.”

The name didn't ring a bell. “Anyone else?”

Leigh raised a talon. “Yes, actually. One of the other groups of the Followers who headed out west a few years ago told me that they ran into Heidi. She joined the Children of the Light, apparently.”

Lita groaned and shook her head. “And I'm telling you whoever told you that got mixed up. They had to mean the Children of the Cathedral. As much as she drank Red Eye's fruit punch it's impossible that she didn't join up with what was left of his forces.”

Kaz had to agree. The Children of the Light? The religious group who fell in love with The Lightbringer, as they called her? Even if the mare really had been the one responsible for the Day of Sunshine and Rainbows, who'd worship a regular pony as a goddess? And how would Heidi of all people end up among them?

Maybe losing the battle of Fillydelphia hurt her more than he realized. She didn't really seem to be as dedicated to the idea of Red Eye's Fillydelphia as Lita thought.

Leigh frowned a little and clicked her beak. “I didn't mishear, but we can follow up on that later too.”

“You're on. Ten bits that she's with Red Eye's wackos, not the other ones.”

“We'll see.”

“Right, well,” Kaz interjected to change the subject, “I know a few dozen of the former Talons have joined the NCR army. I don't know if any are here in Sunburn, but Zella is in the medical corps still last I heard. Working alongside a former Enclave medic, believe it or not.”

Lita grunted. “I do, actually. We've seen enough pegasi around… almost like nothing even happened. Crazy.”

Leigh added, “Whatever people can say about the NCR, it at least looks promising. I hope it lives up to what Gawd envisioned.”

“We all do,” Amy replied. “It'll never be the Equestria of old, but no one remembers what it was like anyway.”

The conversation took a turn toward the philosophical and political for some time, while Kaz and Amy talked about everything they'd seen and helped build, and while Leigh and Lita tried not to sound too dismissive or skeptical. Only as the sun began to set and the orange light outside began to wane did someone come to their rescue.

“Ma?” Ida asked, peeking around the corner. “I thought we were gonna get something to eat.”

“We are, just give us a few more minutes,” Amy answered.

“Food does sound good,” Lita added, running her talon through the crumbs of her long gone cookie. “I mean, I could really use some fried mirelurk right about now.”

A chorus of agreement flowed around the table, ending with Kaz easing up and flexing his stiff wings. “I think that's a good idea. There's a diner a few blocks over and we can talk over dinner. It's pony food so not much in the way of fried seafood, but I'm sure you can find something you'll like.”

“I'll take a deep fried salad then, or whatever it is ponies eat,” Lita said as she hopped up.

Kaz led them all back out front and waited for Ida to climb up onto his back before setting off. She could easily walk that far and keep up, but it was a convenient excuse for him to not have to fly there himself. Nobody liked physical therapy, but one day he'd take his own advice and start flying more to work the soreness and stiffness out. Like half of his patients, one day could come later, except he only had himself to nag about it.

With Ida in tow, Amy at his side and his former squad mates trailing him, he set off down the dusty path back toward the center of Sunburn. Even with the sun setting, the repaired solar panels of the power plant ahead cast an almost blinding glare that forced him to hold his head at a slight angle, but it framed the city in a literal glow that filled him with a sense of pride. He watched a squad of pegasi and griffons drift overhead, while earth ponies and unicorns in uniforms stood at the gate just visible past the hills and low rising buildings to their right. Citizens, equine and griffon alike, strolled the streets.

It might not be the Equestria of old, but it was enough for him. It was stability and society on a level Red Eye dreamed of but would never have reached. It was a hopeful future.

But more than anything else, it was home.

Kaz's family: Kasimir Longtalons, Amalia Silverwing and Ida Silverwing
Fanart by Somber (no relation to Project Horizons)